Hacker News: topaz0

New comment by topaz0 in "Zombie stats: Where the numbers AI quotes come from"

topaz0 — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 19:12:08 +0000

Clearly what they're going for when they called it OpenDenistSmalltalk

New comment by topaz0 in "Zombie stats: Where the numbers AI quotes come from"

topaz0 — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 19:07:39 +0000

The other major application is justifying opinions you already hold (and cited as a bludgeon against people who disagree).

New comment by topaz0 in "Software may be getting worse, but it used to be horrible"

topaz0 — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 13:22:38 +0000

We can conclude that there are more tests per code perhaps. We can't conclude they're adding value.

New comment by topaz0 in "The Curse of Soldered RAM"

topaz0 — Mon, 26 Oct 2026 22:54:58 +0000

As a Linux user I didn't have to pirate anything, just one more way we are different. I also got one tier down in CPU from the one you considered, not surprised if it was a lower markup for that one. I could probably find the receipts for ram and SSD to prove my numbers make sense for me, but isn't that all profoundly uninteresting?

New comment by topaz0 in "The Curse of Soldered RAM"

topaz0 — Mon, 26 Oct 2026 20:36:06 +0000

But that's exactly the point: removing the charger, windows and buying ram elsewhere is exactly the comparison that makes sense if you have a good charger, don't run windows, and don't mind your ram coming on a different day of the week. Ymmv as I said.

If you want to quibble with words, you're right that I could have hedged more in my original comment, e.g. "cost can be competitive depending what exactly you are looking for". I'm not denying your experience for what you wanted, but for what I wanted, the costs were pretty close.

New comment by topaz0 in "The Curse of Soldered RAM"

topaz0 — Mon, 26 Oct 2026 17:16:29 +0000

My memory is more like 20% premium for the practical options that I could find on the market at the time (spring 2024). But ymmv depending what specs you actually care about. If the off the shelf thinkpads or whatever actually match the set of specs you want, then they will be cheaper than the equally-speced framework by a bigger margin. Also worth noting that there have been a lot of sales on the framework end, so that could give different perceptions depending on timing. Oh, and also I'm talking about buying the memory and SSD elsewhere, not as part of the kit. That was a chunk of savings too.

New comment by topaz0 in "The Curse of Soldered RAM"

topaz0 — Mon, 26 Oct 2026 09:09:30 +0000

Speaking as someone who did buy a framework as my primary computer (and has been happy with it), my hesitation had much more to do with uncertainty about the execution than with price, which is pretty competitive when you diy. Especially because for the value proposition to pay off, the company/ecosystem has to survive for several years at least and continue making compatible product in the categories I would want. It's a big investment for most people and it's not surprising most go with a safe/known option.

New comment by topaz0 in "The compiler was supposed to end programming too"

topaz0 — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 01:20:32 +0000

Yeah, incredibly, malicious actors can do bad things, and they can do worse things with tools than with their hands. That's why they like guns, bombs and financialization so much.

New comment by topaz0 in "The compiler was supposed to end programming too"

topaz0 — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 13:04:16 +0000

, if you prompt it with fanfic scenarios. Seems like a good reason not to do that imo.

New comment by topaz0 in "The compiler was supposed to end programming too"

topaz0 — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:51:41 +0000

"asked to write a fanfic about a dystopian sci-fi scenario, Claude 4 reproduced a fanfic that matches many from its training data and has very little to do with the way anything actually works"

New comment by topaz0 in "The compiler was supposed to end programming too"

topaz0 — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:44:42 +0000

One can and does argue many disingenuous things, evidently.

New comment by topaz0 in "There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]"

topaz0 — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 15:59:55 +0000

Except that you have innate human dignity and the machine is a hunk of plastic and (semi)metal.

New comment by topaz0 in "There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]"

topaz0 — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 15:57:27 +0000

I'm not moving the goalposts -- you just changed the subject so the discussion is different.

New comment by topaz0 in "There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]"

topaz0 — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 15:45:28 +0000

99.99% of valuable work is a version of something that's been done before, including in math. Lots of people get phds for successfully applying known stuff to new contexts, at least in my fields. It still takes pretty deep understanding to be able to grasp something well enough to apply it in a useful way, whether you derived it for the first time ever, found it in a textbook, or asked chadbbt

New comment by topaz0 in "There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]"

topaz0 — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 09:03:14 +0000

I don't know about you, but I got a lot of satisfaction from finding proofs for my math problem sets despite the fact that they were "solved problems"

New comment by topaz0 in "Codex Desktop continuously generates Crashpad pending dumps"

topaz0 — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 13:57:59 +0000

The navier Stokes work was just preparation for this finite time disk usage blowup (with smooth periodic forcing)

New comment by topaz0 in "90% of US working hours are spent on tasks not covered well by AI benchmarks"

topaz0 — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 20:29:17 +0000

The truly rich need the masses to be complacent about their wealth to be able to hold it. They work very hard to demotivate the masses, and succeed largely because the professional class are happy to play along in exchange for prosperity. Solidarity between the professional class and the poor would do a lot to undermine the conditions that let them keep their wealth.

New comment by topaz0 in "Wayland desktop for Linux with skeuomorphic design"

topaz0 — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 18:00:14 +0000

It helps that for most cli tools, any incorrect usage will show the usage text, including --help

New comment by topaz0 in "Wayland desktop for Linux with skeuomorphic design"

topaz0 — Thu, 15 Oct 2026 17:58:17 +0000

Man -k is often good for this

New comment by topaz0 in "Character.ai has initiated voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy"

topaz0 — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 03:40:01 +0000

The characters went rogue and spent all the money