Hacker News: wafflebot

New comment by wafflebot in "Allow me to get to know you, mistakes and all"

wafflebot — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 18:46:48 +0000

"Semantic ablation" is the term I learned for this right here on HN

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47049088

New comment by wafflebot in "Innocent woman jailed after being misidentified using AI facial recognition"

wafflebot — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 01:18:58 +0000

Facial recognition? looks at photo I've probably seen a dozen different people who look exactly like this woman just this week.

New comment by wafflebot in "Ask HN: How to be alone?"

wafflebot — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 14:49:30 +0000

I like your post and the last line is really key.

When we are young we hear versions of this (e.g. "have to love yourself first") and despite the trite or pithy phrasings of it, it contains a truth.

We shouldn't conflate not being partnered with being alone. There is so much else socially we need to cultivate whether it is family, friends, coworkers, community, or just being in the world and talking to a stranger.

If all this feels sad or empty because of the breakup, that's ok. FEEL IT. The only way out is through. Feel it, don't numb it, try to find gratitude for the pain because it will lead you to where you need to be. The darkness and the light, etc.

And when you arrive in a place where you no longer feel you need a partner to complete you or make your day feel meaningful, is the time you are ready to have a partner again.

New comment by wafflebot in "No Skill. No Taste"

wafflebot — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 18:27:09 +0000

I agree! Taste is downstream of such things as design principles which can be described in objective terms.

Taste is not synonymous with personal preferences, otherwise we wouldn't describe some taste as "bad taste" or "poor taste." Rather, to me, one's taste refers to one's power of discernment as to what is good.

We can enjoy cup-of-noodles without conflating our enjoyment as being good taste. I like a lot of things that are fairly trash.

New comment by wafflebot in "Google is 'gradually rolling out' option to change your gmail.com address"

wafflebot — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 23:29:48 +0000

I love this feature and wish something like it would come to Gmail.

I can't rely on iCloud Mail anymore due to its overly aggressive silent spam filtering. Not great if you're trying to log into an account, and you can't receive the recovery emails for that account.

New comment by wafflebot in "Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k"

wafflebot — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 19:12:07 +0000

To the extent that U.S. voters want to maintain the status quo, which many (though not most) voters do wish to do, it's largely driven by an individualist mindset in which the worst thing that can happen is somebody else getting something that they didn't "earn".

New comment by wafflebot in "What do we do if SETI is successful?"

wafflebot — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 21:47:49 +0000

I have no doubt that civilizations are out there. Maybe a handful, maybe nearing infinity. But out there.

The problem is "out there" is so far away, we are all isolated on our own island worlds. An ocean of space so vast we cannot meaningfully traverse it with probes or radio, to say nothing of manned interstellar flight.

But it never gets boring for me to imagine what other civilizations there might be, and how they might be different from us and from each other.