Hacker News: tootie

New comment by tootie in "Fully autonomous drones have killed human soldiers for the first time"

tootie — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 18:42:44 +0000

Arguably the V-2 was fully autonomous as well. It was just indiscriminate.

New comment by tootie in "Building an HTML-first site doubled our users overnight"

tootie — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 13:43:46 +0000

I was a little confused by "doubled our users" since that's more about inbound traffic than site experience. I guess it's really shorthand for "halved form abandonment" which is still pretty great.

New comment by tootie in "xAI is looking more like a datacentre REIT than a frontier lab"

tootie — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 21:02:50 +0000

Compute is presently in shortage but generally it's a commodity. It also depreciates.

New comment by tootie in "US House lawmakers release draft bill to prohibit state AI rules"

tootie — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 15:39:14 +0000

It's perfectly reasonable to want one set of rules instead of a patchwork across very open borders. But just saying "you can't do it" is pretty lame compared to actually coming up with sensible rules first.

New comment by tootie in "SpaceX, Other Mega IPOs Denied Fast Index Entry by S&P"

tootie — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 04:09:10 +0000

Basically nothing happened though. SpaceX asked them to change rules and they said no.

New comment by tootie in "Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026"

tootie — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 03:30:10 +0000

Why did you mention being uncomfortable in hot and cold season? I still don't know what you're complaining about. If an industrial process needs a lot of heat, you can burn stuff or use a giant heat pump. It makes no difference. Idk why you think everything is going to shrivel up and stop producing as much because it uses a different energy source. Thermodynamics doesn't care where energy comes from.

New comment by tootie in "Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026"

tootie — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 00:49:30 +0000

Nothing and we don't have to and idk what you're talking about. I literally have an all-electric home and it's perfectly comfortable. Heat pump works great on the hottest and coldest days (outside temp has been as low 2F as high as 99F). And security benefits are also very much in favor of renewables. There is no global supply chain for wind and sun in the hands of a cartel. You have been suckered by a lot of industry propaganda.

New comment by tootie in "Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026"

tootie — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 21:46:21 +0000

I just said. To reduce environmental impacts. A fully electric factory drawing power from a grid of renewables is cleaner, safer and more stable.

New comment by tootie in "Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026"

tootie — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:49:07 +0000

If you're considering the total cost then you have to factor in the entire reason to electrify which is the environmental cost of continuing to burn dead organic matter. In that case, electrification is absolute bargain.

New comment by tootie in "The desperation of NYTimes"

tootie — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:06:11 +0000

Having worked in donor dependent nonprofit, this kind of stuff just unfortunately works way too well. You'd be surprised what generates the most revenue. Despite having a large digital audience, we had the highest conversion rate on paper mailers. All the popups and email begs just worked way more often than they pissed anybody off. The economics demand it.

And it stands to reason NYT do this so aggressively since they also have by far the most successful subscription business in the entire world of journalism.

New comment by tootie in "Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026"

tootie — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:31:25 +0000

Most of it can be electrified. NYC has banned gas hookups in new residential buildings (I live in one and it's great). Industrial electrification will never be 100% but I've seen estimates as high as 90%. It will take time and money but it will happen.

New comment by tootie in "Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026"

tootie — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:28:19 +0000

AI is enough of an issue. As fast as we are adding renewable capacity, demand is also growing extremely fast. We're chasing a rapidly moving target. And we're stuck in an adverse political climate for the time being as well.

New comment by tootie in "Wind and solar generated more power than gas globally in April 2026"

tootie — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:10:32 +0000

Sure but compare that to the amount of land used for oil and gas extraction. The difference is that mines and drills can only go where there's stuff to extract and solar panels can go anywhere. Including near residential areas. That's also due to the fact that they are so environmentally neutral.

New comment by tootie in "Morningstar values SpaceX at $780B, half its IPO target"

tootie — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:23:31 +0000

What's that old saw the investors use? The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent? You can bet on the fundamentals or you can bet on other investors.

New comment by tootie in "Trump Administration to Dismantle Ocean Monitoring System"

tootie — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 03:47:27 +0000

> It cost $48 million annually to operate the network. The Trump administration repeatedly tried to shutter it, proposing to cut its funding by 80 percent in both 2025 and again in 2026. Congress pushed back, restoring the money.

Congress made the allocation then isn't he obligated to spend it? I know it hasn't stopped him before but I'm hoping we get a separation of powers lawsuit.

New comment by tootie in "Sergey Brin told Google staff that working 60 hours a week is the 'sweet spot' (2025)"

tootie — Sun, 31 May 2026 19:30:07 +0000

Random anecdote: I worked for years in the digital agency space and we basically just sold billable hours. Hours worked was everything. When crunch time hit, you worked until you were done. I once clocked 110 hours after working straight through two weekends on a remote work site to finish a huge project and when it was done, I was just there by myself. No one said a word. Boss didn't say anything, account manager didn't say anything, client didn't say anything. I never felt more alienated from a job than that moment.

New comment by tootie in "WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants"

tootie — Sat, 30 May 2026 15:54:52 +0000

No it's worse than that. Your grant application must be actively aligned with their political agenda. If you are polite, deferential and apolitical but you want to study climate change you will be rejected.

New comment by tootie in "You can just say it"

tootie — Sat, 30 May 2026 00:44:50 +0000

See also Hank Green's take on the definition of slop: https://youtu.be/dT5IJExTUR4?si=mjkHK024MUqCId0k

The tl;dr is pretty similar. Intent and care are the functional variables. A human can produce slop without AI and they can produce art with AI. AI just enables slop at an industrial scale.

New comment by tootie in "I am retiring from tech to live offline"

tootie — Fri, 29 May 2026 20:56:17 +0000

As an AI hater, I sympathize. I really don't enjoy the engineering world since LLMs. I fully concede their value is immense, I just don't like it. Unlike Chad, I've put in enough years that I can step back and kinda do nothing. I don't want to actually do nothing, nothing. I have absolutely zero respect for the foolish notion of returning to a fully pre-modern lifestyle. It sounds he's accepting electricity, but rejecting the internet which feels arbitrary. Maybe an attempt to return to the world of his childhood which was scary and new for people who born 30 years before him. It's fine and even laudable to want to be more connected to humans and to reject the toxic parts of the online world, but it's another to stick your head in the sand.

New comment by tootie in "The real cost of owning a home"

tootie — Wed, 27 May 2026 14:01:57 +0000

The cost of moving from owned home to owned home is far higher. Brokers, lawyers and all the associated closing costs can be huge. And you still have to pay movers and worry about new furniture.