Hacker News: towledev

New comment by towledev in "U.S. science is in chaos"

towledev — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 19:49:18 +0000

At Heritage, in the break room over the microwave, there's a sign: "science delende est."

New comment by towledev in "Running local models is good now"

towledev — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 11:45:19 +0000

> may pass the Turing Test

Why do you say 'may'? Just curious. Surely you've got something

New comment by towledev in "Commodore Releases Flip Phone"

towledev — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 11:45:56 +0000

For me, Maps and pods.

If it looked like a RAZR, I'd buy one today

New comment by towledev in "Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb"

towledev — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 11:36:13 +0000

if anyone's writing a script with a nerd in it, this line would kill

New comment by towledev in "Japan’s robot wolf sells out as record bear attacks drive demand"

towledev — Sat, 16 May 2026 19:35:12 +0000

I wonder how the bears would write this headline

New comment by towledev in "Newton's law of gravity passes its biggest test"

towledev — Tue, 05 May 2026 11:35:04 +0000

Maybe you can point me to the "equal predictive and explanatory power" bit in William's writings.

New comment by towledev in "Newton's law of gravity passes its biggest test"

towledev — Tue, 05 May 2026 00:40:58 +0000

The razor is commonly misunderstood.

William of Ockham objected to his fellow theologians inventing things out of whole cloth (like dark matter question mark). That’s the point, not that a simpler explanation is more likely to be true.

The common understanding would have us believe that creationism, being simpler, outshines evolution, or that there is no such thing as a color revolution because the simplest explanation is that the mass protests are earnestly aggrieved locals.

New comment by towledev in "What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)"

towledev — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 14:22:19 +0000

I think ppl really do overrate the "mind shift" needed for zero. That's my honest opinion. I think ppl don't think about it hard enough.

The fact is, zero's usefulness is a bookkeeping device. "There are zero apples" is not better or more useful than "there are no apples." That's not why zero survives. You can wax poetic day and night about what a mind shift "lack of existence is." You're not getting it. You're missing the point. What does that _enable_ that "no apples" does not? That's the measure of its usefulness, right?

It enables positional notation. That's zero's primary gift to the world. It is a necessary bookkeeping device for positional notation. And the measure of positional's usefulness over its predecessor, additive numerals a la the Roman system, is so profoundly great that no argument need be made. No waxing poetic is needed. No "it seems obvious now but back then." It's just indisputable.

New comment by towledev in "The Death of Character in Game Console Interfaces"

towledev — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:35:00 +0000

XP was dope. Long-as-hell start menu with 80 folders.

New comment by towledev in "What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)"

towledev — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 01:37:25 +0000

In this case, the building. To give bricks the win over any building ever simply because bricks precede buildings is a little - what’s the word - dumb

New comment by towledev in "What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)"

towledev — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 01:34:45 +0000

And that is an all-time great innovation outpacing the Cartesian coordinate system, you say, being able to word a sentence differently

New comment by towledev in "Ask HN: Who is using OpenClaw?"

towledev — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 23:17:51 +0000

Do you build out your own information hierarchies and tell the model to use as-is, or do you let it organize everything itself?

New comment by towledev in "What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)"

towledev — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:27:33 +0000

Notably, zero persons have chosen to make the explicit case that zero is more ingenious than the Cartesian coordinate system. :)

New comment by towledev in "What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)"

towledev — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 13:45:54 +0000

ok, "no apples."

New comment by towledev in "AI Will Be Met with Violence, and Nothing Good Will Come of It"

towledev — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 13:43:43 +0000

The circumstances are similar, but the people are different. Look outside: this is WALL-E.

New comment by towledev in "What have been the greatest intellectual achievements? (2017)"

towledev — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 12:09:14 +0000

Is it though? All languages have the word 'nothing'.

Better candidates: a) place-value numbering aka the positional numeral system, b) the Cartesian coordinate system. Forced to choose, I would pick (b).

New comment by towledev in "Nowhere is safe"

towledev — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 17:46:03 +0000

Re starting wars, you’re preaching to the choir.

Re international agreements: yes, the idea is that _broad support_ is required for binding international agreements. Senate ratification represents broad support.

The JCPOA was written in pencil.

New comment by towledev in "Nowhere is safe"

towledev — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 12:00:28 +0000

I seek only to point out that we, the United States, have a constitutionally-outlined treaty-making process which involves Senate ratification, and that in the case of the JCPOA, the Senate did not ratify.

New comment by towledev in "Nowhere is safe"

towledev — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 11:56:18 +0000

It would be truer to say the agreement was between several world powers and Obama, as the Senate didn't ratify.

New comment by towledev in "Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in eight-year 'civil war', say researchers"

towledev — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 21:24:31 +0000

Was the fruit tree important for its fruit? Surely there are other fruit sources, no?