Hacker News: timwaagh

New comment by timwaagh in "Amid cuts to basic research, New Zealand scraps all support for social sciences"

timwaagh — Sun, 22 Dec 2024 16:53:03 +0000

Your argument about knowledge being lost is probably valid but I am not sure it's convincing. If your research creates results that result in products being sold elsewhere, like say in medicine, that will mean patents and local opportunities for high value export oriented business like pharma companies. Which could bring in much needed foreign currency for the new zealand economy and help boost it's GDP per capita. Which right now in ppp terms is more at the level of Eastern Europe than the west. In other words new zealand has some catch-up to do.

New comment by timwaagh in "Amid cuts to basic research, New Zealand scraps all support for social sciences"

timwaagh — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 14:37:52 +0000

Love the decision tbh. Social science does not deserve money. There has been too much fraud going on and I'm not sure about the benefits compared to hard science or medical science. I do understand why this impacts Maori disproportionately but making this matter about race is unfair. we're talking about a very small number of researchers here. The average person of whichever race is only affected in the sense that his tax dollars are spent more effectively.

New comment by timwaagh in "Italy declares its "web tax" applicable to any digital service worldwide"

timwaagh — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 07:34:10 +0000

Paying tax is normal for most companies. I am not sure why the us is being the slave of these companies and threatening retaliation. Apparently it wants to be the only one to take a cut (despite money being made from Italians). That's extreme. If NATO is a family of mobsters, then this is not how things are done within the family. I know we're not supposed to anger the us as they are the best guarantor for European security and freedom but such bullying tactics, effectively making Italy pay a tribute like a vassal state, does make me question whether we can be independent and guarantee such things ourselves.

New comment by timwaagh in "Learning to Learn"

timwaagh — Tue, 22 Oct 2024 12:08:51 +0000

I dont think it's going to be that important. Different people have different learning styles but also vastly different capacities making this really difficult to research accurately. People claim to find the secret sauce from time to time. They're most likely wrong.

New comment by timwaagh in "Who is Marcellus Williams: Execution in Missouri despite evidence of innocence"

timwaagh — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 08:12:54 +0000

the American justice system is flawed. It's mob justice that was only fit for the 1700s when there was nothing better. Or maybe there was,I wasn't around. Untrained people can't decide on guilt or innocence. They can't judge evidence. They allow themselves to be swayed by beauty or likeability to greater extent. They're lives are no good, on average. This makes most of them mean and vindictive. If they can allow someone to suffer like they have, it feels good to them.

I'm not sure whether it's racism. It's the usual explanation for this phenomenon. I can understand racism. I don't believe in opening the floodgates. it sounds more like plain bloodlust. Because blood is what you're going to get if you go on this way.

New comment by timwaagh in "Ultra high-resolution image of The Night Watch (2022)"

timwaagh — Sat, 21 Sep 2024 12:32:36 +0000

Sounds like you have been to the Rijks and nowhere else. Lots of old paintings of all kinds of scenes hang in lots of museums all over this country. Not a huge museum goer but this lacks nuance.

New comment by timwaagh in "Ultra high-resolution image of The Night Watch"

timwaagh — Sat, 21 Sep 2024 12:21:50 +0000

Rembrandt did not work in this resolution so i think zoomed in it will just be a bunch of random noise.

New comment by timwaagh in "Contextual Retrieval"

timwaagh — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 07:48:18 +0000

I guess this does give some insights. Using a more space efficient language for your codebase will mean more functionality in the ais context window when working with Claude and code.

New comment by timwaagh in "A high-performance, zero-overhead, extensible Python compiler using LLVM"

timwaagh — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 20:31:28 +0000

It's a really expensive piece of software. They do not publish their prices because of it. I don't think it's reasonable to market such products onto your average dev because of it. Anyhow Cython and a bunch of others provide a free and open source alternative.

New comment by timwaagh in "In ‘The Book Against Death,’ Elias Canetti rants against mortality"

timwaagh — Thu, 08 Aug 2024 17:25:59 +0000

the only thing that is evidence of is that people never wanted to die.

New comment by timwaagh in "Reversal of autism symptoms among dizygotic twins: A case report"

timwaagh — Mon, 22 Jul 2024 10:47:04 +0000

Basically they did about a thousand things and it resulted in some very real improvements. Their view is that there's no single cause but many and each cause needs to be addressed individually. Which seems realistic. But it doesn't help us see what does what exactly.

New comment by timwaagh in "Gut microbiota markers for autism spectrum disorder"

timwaagh — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 14:54:15 +0000

new autism cure: yakult

New comment by timwaagh in "Sprinting Slows You Down: A Better Way to Build Software"

timwaagh — Sat, 08 Jun 2024 14:52:08 +0000

Deadline by the end of the sprint is not how we typically approach things even in a scrum context. I'm not sure whether there's any words about it in the scrum dogma.

New comment by timwaagh in "Third Time: a better way to work (2022)"

timwaagh — Sat, 18 May 2024 05:54:52 +0000

If you're enjoying it well enough this is typically not a concern. I do take breaks when the program is building though. Or when I'm not feeling it. Please don't try to replace your feelings by ridiculously rigid schemes.

New comment by timwaagh in "Quitting engineering to pursue art full-time"

timwaagh — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 20:45:09 +0000

Talk about failing upwards

New comment by timwaagh in "Stop Acting Like You're Famous"

timwaagh — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 07:56:07 +0000

In the sense of the article artists have always done their best to cater to the taste of the people who might pay them. At least from the 16th century. They were typically paid for and protected by a mecenas (wealthy Merchant or nobility). There are no doubt exceptions but in general the art was to please their mecenas.

New comment by timwaagh in "Could the cosmos, in fact, be conscious?"

timwaagh — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 18:52:07 +0000

Do pigs, in fact, fly?

New comment by timwaagh in "Headline Driven Development"

timwaagh — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 09:27:48 +0000

Is that you boss?

New comment by timwaagh in "Return to Office Is a Mistake"

timwaagh — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 06:05:51 +0000

Because a lot of tech companies are monopolies and do not have to compete. They can do what they want.

New comment by timwaagh in "Why are there suddenly so many car washes?"

timwaagh — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 10:10:35 +0000

I think this is just pushing so called georgist ideology literally nothing else.