Hacker News: whack

I Study Successful People. They Have One Habit in Common

whack — Sun, 30 Aug 2026 19:47:01 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/28/opinion/successful-people-help.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49502095

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by whack in "I co-founded Burning Man. The festival has lost its soul"

whack — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 23:44:10 +0000

> ...the festival I helped invent 36 years ago. Curiously, I get this interest even though I haven’t set foot in the Black Rock Desert since 1996.

Not doubting the headline conclusion, but I would have expected a better source than someone who hasn't been to Burning Man in literally 30 years. AFAICT, Burning Man was still very well regarded ~20 years ago, long after this founder stopped attending

New comment by whack in "Bhartrhari's Paradox"

whack — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 20:00:17 +0000

Can't this also be used to justify things that are obviously nonsensical. Like for example: "I possess an immense undetectable sphere. How can I prove this? Well, any proof I offer you would by definition violate the undetectability of the sphere. So there's no way for me to prove it, I guess you'll just have to trust me bro."

New comment by whack in "The Teaser Period: Why the AI Boom Is Hitting a Reset Wall"

whack — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:32:01 +0000

Funny how you're echoing exactly what the author said in the article

> This is not precisely 2008. GPUs are not houses; take-or-pay contracts are not mortgage-backed securities; OpenAI is not a subprime borrower in Stockton, and artificial intelligence may well be the most consequential technology of the century, which is more than anyone could ever say for a McMansion in the Inland Empire.

> The bear case in this piece is not that artificial intelligence will fail, or that the demand is fake, or that the technology disappoints. It is narrower: that the financing structure can break before the demand arrives, because the obligations are fixed and front-loaded in commencement while the revenue is variable and back-loaded in adoption - and a fixed obligation meeting a lagging revenue stream is a solvency problem regardless of how transformative the underlying technology turns out to be.

> The industry will spend the next eighteen months debating whether artificial intelligence is a bubble, which is the wrong question, asked at the wrong layer. The technology is real; so were the houses. The question is narrower: what happens when instruments underwritten at the teaser meet their reset schedule, and who is holding the paper when the obligations cannot be met as written

Ie, if you spent $10M buying a house, it doesn't matter if it will be worth $100M in the future. If you're unable to make your mortgage payments in the interim, you're going to lose everything

A Masked Man Was Scaring Philadelphians. Then He Picked the Wrong Woman

whack — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 23:37:12 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/20/us/chucky-doll-mask-kick-philadelphia.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49404899

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

He Said He Was the Healthiest Man. Then Came a Diagnosis

whack — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 13:42:04 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/21/us/bryan-johnson-biohacker-autoimmune-gastritis.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49399664

Points: 3

# Comments: 2

The Scales Can't Fall from Our Eyes Fast Enough

whack — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 22:40:01 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/20/opinion/trump-maga-immigration-woke-democrats.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49394592

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

'With All My Heart, Natalie.' Trump's Most Devoted Aide Emerges

whack — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 21:50:32 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/18/us/politics/natalie-harp-trump-devotion-white-house.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49380748

Points: 8

# Comments: 1

New comment by whack in "Go 1.27"

whack — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 01:54:16 +0000

Wow, that thread is a piece of work

> Gofmt was written to reduce the number of pointless discussions about code formatting. It succeeded admirably. I'm sad to say it had no effect whatsoever on the number of pointless discussions about syntax highlighting, or as I prefer to call it, spitzensparken blinkelichtzen.

> When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

I sincerely hope Rob Pike was being sarcastic/ironic, because otherwise, he sounds insufferable

The Meaning of the $20 Burrito That's Tearing MAGA Apart

whack — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 20:48:53 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/opinion/inflation-affordability-prices-burrito.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49367046

Points: 8

# Comments: 0

Trump's Broken Promises, in 11 Charts

whack — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:46:37 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/08/18/opinion/trump-economy-campaign-promises.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49355087

Points: 9

# Comments: 0

Exercises Physical Therapists Wish Everyone Did to Age Well

whack — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 14:40:59 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/15/well/move/exercises-physical-therapists-longevity.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49331833

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by whack in "Anthropic's ‘watermark’ text adulteration in Claude is a perversion of writing"

whack — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 14:03:24 +0000

"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." - Mark Twain

"Just flip a coin to pick a random synonym. Who cares?" - AI Labs

An Idiot's Guide to Winning Elections

whack — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 00:23:11 +0000

Article URL: https://outlookzen.com/2026/08/15/an-idiots-guide-to-winning-elections/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49315633

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

FDA Classifies Egg Recall as Class I, for Highest Health Risk

whack — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 16:49:44 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/14/health/fda-egg-recall-salmonella.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49312126

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

Wisconsin Primary Election Results

whack — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 16:46:26 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/08/11/us/elections/results-wisconsin-primary.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49275243

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Flight Is Canceled After a Child Refuses to Be Seated

whack — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 22:33:44 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/09/travel/flight-canceled-child-seatbelt-porter-canada.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49265410

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

New comment by whack in "How Claude marks AI-generated content"

whack — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 15:01:24 +0000

> But I really would have liked for them to state explicitly that entirely false positives where a piece is fully human-written may still be marked as generated

Are you talking about pieces that were fully human-written with zero AI editing/rewriting etc? If so, what makes you think that false positives will happen there? They aren't looking for "writing styles" or emdashes etc. They are using watermarks and metadata.

If you're talking about people using AI to copy-edit text they manually wrote, this was explicitly called out in the article:

> A detected mark provides a signal that content was processed by Claude, but is not fully conclusive. Detecting a Claude mark tells you that the content may have been processed by Claude. It does not, on its own, confirm the full provenance of the content. For example: Claude may not be the original author. People often use Claude to proofread, translate, summarize, or convert files. The output can carry a Claude mark even if the underlying ideas, text, or data originated from another source; The content may have changed after Claude processed it. Marked content may be modified, excerpted, or combined with other material after Claude processed it.

New comment by whack in "US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects"

whack — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 12:46:08 +0000

My comment was indeed inspired by Hanlon's razor. And I generally do agree with Hanlon's razor. I just think there's a distinction between malice and selfishness.

- Someone harming you because they expressly desire to harm you? Unlikely

- Someone harming you because they are stupid and don't realize what they are doing? Maybe.

- Someone harming you as a side-effect of pursuing their own selfish interests? Most likely.

New comment by whack in "US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects"

whack — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 13:10:47 +0000

Never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to self-interest. It sure looks stupid when you look at America or the Roman Empire as a whole. But when you look at the specific individuals doing these "stupid" things, and the individuals enabling them, it is perfectly aligned with their own best interests.