Hacker News: theferalrobot

New comment by theferalrobot in "TikTok goes dark in the US"

theferalrobot — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 09:42:19 +0000

Israel is the only Jewish state globally, and its efforts to counter Iran-backed proxy groups have contributed to broader regional and global security. While there are some Jewish groups that dissent, they represent a minority. The majority of Americans, Israelis, and Jewish communities support Israel's actions against Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Iranian proxies.

New comment by theferalrobot in "US will ban cancer-linked Red Dye No. 3 in cereal and other foods"

theferalrobot — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 18:24:11 +0000

> doesn’t mean people won’t be killed by it. It doesn’t mean people wont get cancer from it in 30-40 years. Killing 1% of the people that eat something would be a perfectly acceptable evolutionary loss

But it would be an evolutionary loss, unlike a synthetic compound that has been equally as well studied scientifically - this odds on would make the natural compound safer to consume… not sure why this is so complicated to understand

New comment by theferalrobot in "TikTok preparing for U.S. shut-off on Sunday"

theferalrobot — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 09:10:30 +0000

This isn't a 'great firewall' solution. It just prevents google/apple from hosting it in their app stores. If tiktok wanted to they could still host it from outside the USA and let people access it via the web (or sideload the apk on android). Having said that tiktok has announced if the ban does occur they will shut down service on Sunday.

New comment by theferalrobot in "US will ban cancer-linked Red Dye No. 3 in cereal and other foods"

theferalrobot — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 22:16:20 +0000

> appeal to nature fallacy

Appeal to nature isn't a fallacy, it is a rhetorical device and can be a completely logical razor.

The appeal is to have a diet more in line with our evolutionary past. If we want a yellow food dye should we:

A) derive it from something humans have been eating for hundreds of thousands of years and that a couple studies have confirmed is probably safe...

B) derive it from petroleum (as current US yellow food dye is) that a couple studies say is probably safe.

Who the hell would take B? Unless we believe that our studies are infallible, all encompassing and perfectly established and executed the first will always be a better option. Time and time again we see that things previously thought safe are not but I would argue it is far far rarer to see that on the more naturally derived side of food.

New comment by theferalrobot in "Things we learned about LLMs in 2024"

theferalrobot — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 20:18:15 +0000

Which models perform better than 4o or o1 for your use cases?

In my limited tests (primarily code) nothing from llama or Gemini have come close, Claude I’m not so sure about.

New comment by theferalrobot in "Lenticular Clock"

theferalrobot — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 01:06:38 +0000

Those are amazing! Are you hand aligning those lenses on the print or is there some sort of tooling/hardware/service that is capable of it?

New comment by theferalrobot in "Scientists discover a cause of lupus, possible way to reverse it"

theferalrobot — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 07:25:25 +0000

Wouldn't then the cure just be to eat organic food, rather than meat of animals that were fed way worse crap than the average person? The whole premise makes no sense...

New comment by theferalrobot in "Study found corporate recruiters have a bias against ex-entrepreneurs"

theferalrobot — Mon, 13 May 2024 16:21:59 +0000

Founder or owner I think are the best. President is fine if you have a a couple employees, CEO I'd even be totally fine with for a small company, it just approaches cringy in my book when its founders using a corporate title that usually implies a larger organizational structure and it is really just them (a single person/no employee company).

New comment by theferalrobot in "Study found corporate recruiters have a bias against ex-entrepreneurs"

theferalrobot — Sun, 12 May 2024 22:23:59 +0000

Maybe that's it but whenever I've been in hiring rounds for dev roles and seen someone operating solo the story I see on their resume tends to look like they are solo because they were fired or otherwise couldn't make it in the corporate world so they tried to go solo, failed again and are trying to go back to the corporate world. That doesn't bode well.

If I see someone got a real company going with a real developed product or service and a couple employees and that failed that is an entirely different story, that is hire material. I understand most companies won't make it but the number of 'CEO' titles I've seen on resumes running a single owner LLC just makes me chuckle to myself.

New comment by theferalrobot in "I spoke with a Google worker fired for protesting $1.2B Israel contract"

theferalrobot — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 06:34:39 +0000

As I said, there certainly isn't a better 'alliance structure' to appeal to. To suggest otherwise is to suggest conspiracy and I'll have none of that

New comment by theferalrobot in "House votes to ban TikTok in the U.S. if it's not sold"

theferalrobot — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 03:19:12 +0000

Do recall that the EU has imposed quite a bit of regulation on US tech companies, remember all the requirements that EU citizen data be located in the EU? An outright ban however is unlikely between allied democratic nations, but it is certainly within their right

New comment by theferalrobot in "House votes to ban TikTok in the U.S. if it's not sold"

theferalrobot — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 03:13:06 +0000

The government has always held a high degree of power over international commerce, especially wrt adversarial nations. I get that this seems different because of the scale of tiktok but in principle it really seems to me to be extremely typical. There is no 'right' to participate in the international market.

We banned Huawei from communications infrastructure. Cuban and Iranian companies are basically not allowed to participate in the US economy, this is business as usual for any country.

New comment by theferalrobot in "I spoke with a Google worker fired for protesting $1.2B Israel contract"

theferalrobot — Sat, 20 Apr 2024 08:30:33 +0000

I'm not appealing to authority, I'm stating a fact. But even if I were, there certainly isn't a better 'alliance structure' to appeal to. In any case, it's a good thing your opinion on the matter is essentially meaningless (as is mine) which was the only point I was really making.

New comment by theferalrobot in "I spoke with a Google worker fired for protesting $1.2B Israel contract"

theferalrobot — Sat, 20 Apr 2024 05:03:46 +0000

Certainly... it's just that anyone with any real knowledge/power knows that isn't happening (see the leaders of basically every consequential democracy from Germany to USA, even Ukraine).

New comment by theferalrobot in "House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app"

theferalrobot — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 22:06:16 +0000

Well for one, it could force the sale to a non adversarial nation. Two, if it doesn't it undercuts the companies ability to deliver it on American app platforms, both of which are a positive from the viewpoint of the US government.

New comment by theferalrobot in "House passes bill to force TikTok sale from Chinese owner or ban the app"

theferalrobot — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 19:57:24 +0000

What rights is it taking away? TikTok will still exist, you will still be able to get to it on the internet. All this bill does is force a sale OR prevent American companies from platforming technology from adversarial nations (something every government does all the time... see the US and Huawei or limiting Nvidia exports to china etc).

You'll still be able to download the app from the internet (just not an App Store) or browse it on your phone on the internet. We aren't putting up a 'great firewall' or anything

New comment by theferalrobot in "Show HN: I made a free animator. Think Adobe Illustrator but for animation"

theferalrobot — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 17:11:47 +0000

I love this, I drew a triangle, clicked somewhere else on the timeline moved the triangle and it worked. So intuitive, just how it should be.

New comment by theferalrobot in "Home Screen Advantage"

theferalrobot — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 21:57:49 +0000

It automatically refreshes in the background. You can just set it and forget it. Not sure why people think it is complicated.

New comment by theferalrobot in "AI-Generated Data Can Poison Future AI Models"

theferalrobot — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 19:33:20 +0000

I don't think any of the major players could do that for all their data and they are acquiring it legally.

New comment by theferalrobot in "Home Screen Advantage"

theferalrobot — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 08:16:51 +0000

If we're getting technical you don't need to jailbreak to sideload on iOS either. AltStore automates the tedium but you can side load just fine on iOS too (for now).