Hacker News: warbaker

New comment by warbaker in "EFF is leaving X"

warbaker — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 20:34:52 +0000

And downvoted to pieces. HN is such a cool place for dialogue!

New comment by warbaker in "EFF is leaving X"

warbaker — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 18:17:27 +0000

I wish this announcement weren't infused with intersectionality.

"Your abortion fund uses TikTok to spread crucial information" is listed as one of three sample reasons you might use social media.

I support reproductive rights! But I don't want EFF to do that, and I don't want EFF to push conservatives out of the movement. I want EFF to appeal to everyone who cares about digital civil liberties, including people who disagree with me on other issues.

New comment by warbaker in "Running on Empty: Copper"

warbaker — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 00:29:02 +0000

You can locate an aluminum plant pretty much anywhere you want, as the energy required to make aluminum is large compared to the cost of mining/shipping bauxite. This solves the main problem with geothermal, which is that it's in random locations around the world that don't necessarily have many people living there.

Any place with significant volcanic activity (e.g. Hawaii) could probably do geothermal power if they wanted to.

New comment by warbaker in "Running on Empty: Copper"

warbaker — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 23:52:02 +0000

On aluminum, the author says:

> “renewables” cannot provide the stable current and carbon atoms needed to make the process possible

This is untrue. Iceland has a huge aluminum industry, using mainly geothermal power: https://energytransition.org/2023/03/geothermal-iceland-this...

Iceland alone accounts for 1/10th of global aluminum production! https://www.riotinto.com/en/operations/iceland/isal

You do need constant, reliable power, as even a brief interruption makes a huge mess when the aluminum/slag freezes in the processor.

New comment by warbaker in "John Giannandrea to retire from Apple"

warbaker — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 00:07:39 +0000

Unfortunate that JG is the fall guy for Siri. He was very successful at Google (e.g. BERT was published just after he left), but it looks like he wasn't able to save Apple from itself.

New comment by warbaker in "Google experts tell the US DOJ selling its ad tech business would be impossible"

warbaker — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 21:44:35 +0000

Is anyone willing to explain to me how Google is a monopolist in advertising? There are other online advertising platforms, and publishers can and do sell adds directly to advertisers.

New comment by warbaker in "More liberals, people of color and LGBTQ say they're buying guns out of fear"

warbaker — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 22:22:21 +0000

See https://www.reddit.com/r/liberalgunowners/

New comment by warbaker in "Bitchat for Gaza – messaging without internet"

warbaker — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 21:58:16 +0000

...except that he is definitely wrong about the targeting aspect as well. Almost all of the people hit by the pager explosions were legit military targets. In the videos of the explosions, you can see people unharmed who were standing within meters of the targets. It was one of the most well-targeted anti-terrorist strikes in history.

Foxglove raises $40M to scale its data platform for roboticists

warbaker — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 22:59:05 +0000

Article URL: https://www.therobotreport.com/foxglove-raises-40m-scale-data-platform-roboticists/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45921836

Points: 21

# Comments: 0

New comment by warbaker in "Leaving Meta and PyTorch"

warbaker — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 20:54:11 +0000

I just want to say: thank you. It is hard to overstate how much Pytorch has accelerated ML/AI development, across the board.

Oldest marathon runner Fauja Singh dies at 114 in hit-and-run

warbaker — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 23:52:42 +0000

Article URL: https://www.reuters.com/sports/athletics/oldest-marathon-runner-fauja-singh-dies-114-hit-and-run-2025-07-15/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45842035

Points: 12

# Comments: 3

Pint: Python library that makes units easy

warbaker — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 03:40:51 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/hgrecco/pint

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45831124

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Physics-driven self-supervised learning for 3D light-field microscopy

warbaker — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 02:24:48 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-025-02698-z

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45830692

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by warbaker in "Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade"

warbaker — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 00:41:26 +0000

Thanks for this - does this actually install CUDA, or just give a pytorch install for a particular CUDA version?

New comment by warbaker in "Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade"

warbaker — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 00:38:48 +0000

What do you do when a new CUDA version is released?

New comment by warbaker in "Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade"

warbaker — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 22:33:40 +0000

Have you figured out a good way to manage CUDA dependencies with uv?

New comment by warbaker in "Uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade"

warbaker — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 21:26:06 +0000

Does uv handle CUDA versioning? This is the big reason I'm still on conda -- I can save a whole environment with `conda list --explicit`, including CUDA stuff, and I can set up a new machine with the same environment just from that file.

New comment by warbaker in "Why MIT switched from Scheme to Python (2009)"

warbaker — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 21:32:54 +0000

16 years later, I'm still disappointed about this decision. The justification for it is just awful: "6.001 had been conceived to teach engineers how to take small parts that they understood entirely and use simple techniques to compose them into larger things that do what you want. But programming now isn’t so much like that, said Sussman. Nowadays you muck around with incomprehensible or nonexistent man pages for software you don’t know who wrote."

This is just false. Engineering is still about taking small parts you understand entirely and using simple techniques to compose them into larger things you want. Sussman's justification is an abject surrender to shitty complexity. Engineers need to develop a taste for simplicity and elegance, especially at the beginning of their education.

Incidentally, an overlooked advantage of teaching in Scheme is that it levels the playing field, as pre-undergrad programming classes almost never use functional languages.

New comment by warbaker in "Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices"

warbaker — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 02:09:55 +0000

"without distinguishing between military officials and civilians"

Israel has air supremacy over Tehran. The facts don't support your narrative that Israel is flattening Tehran.

New comment by warbaker in "Iran asks its people to delete WhatsApp from their devices"

warbaker — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 20:14:44 +0000

"Israel's defense minister warned Saturday that "Tehran will burn" if Iran continues firing missiles at Israel." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-israel-retaliatory-strikes...

Don't get me wrong, Katz is a douchebag, but this was specifically a threat to retaliate in-kind of Iran continued to target arbitrary Israeli population centers.

I haven't seen any evidence of Israel targeting civilians (nuclear scientists aside), despite having complete air supremacy over Tehran. Air supremacy means Israel could carpet bomb the city if they wanted, but they don't want this. Not only would it be a horrible thing to do and of no military value, they simply don't blame the people of Iran for the IRGC's actions.