Hacker News: willmadden

New comment by willmadden in "No, everyone is not using AI for everything"

willmadden — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 16:51:18 +0000

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."

New comment by willmadden in "Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau"

willmadden — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:02:22 +0000

I'm not sure why your comment is grayed out.

Cell tower data, credit bureau integration, social media scraping, palantir, smart home device surveillance, DNA database exploitation, facial recognition networks, tax, payroll, passport, visa, medicare/medicaid, immigrations and customs databases and many more...

The census is a historical relic used to jerrymander congressional seats, and that's about it.

New comment by willmadden in "Stop Killing Games"

willmadden — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 16:00:36 +0000

That's not clear from the article. Even if that's the case, it still gives away the studio's IP the moment they discontinue the game. Counter strike wouldn't exist if these "freedoms" were in effect when half-life ended support.

New comment by willmadden in "Artificial intelligence is not conscious – Ted Chiang"

willmadden — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 15:48:45 +0000

It’s not yet clear whether consciousness can be fully explained in physical terms. There is strong evidence linking it to brain activity, but we don’t have a complete theory of how subjective experience arises. It’s possible our current frameworks are incomplete and there are other forces we cannot currently measure in play.

New comment by willmadden in "First U.S. screwworm case confirmed in South Texas"

willmadden — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 14:53:03 +0000

It's an accurate statement, not propaganda. When the borders were open people smuggled in livestock. With border agents overwhelmed by human traffic, agricultural inspections plummeted. In 2022, CBP admitted inspecting less than 1% of vehicles for pests. That's down from 20% in the prior term. There were case clusters at ports of entry. Outbreaks are concentrated near El Paso, Laredo, and McAllen-prime smuggling routes for Mexican cattle and animal products contaminated with screwworms. That admin also ignored USDA warnings and refused to require proof of livestock treatment for screwworms.

New comment by willmadden in "Stop Killing Games"

willmadden — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 14:44:32 +0000

Did you read the article?

>The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others. >The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

It's forcing all games to be open-source. If you develop a big video game with an eight or nine figure budget and your customers are free to distribute and modify your product you will lose everything.

New comment by willmadden in "Stop Killing Games"

willmadden — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:14:25 +0000

Idiots putting their noses where they don't belong. We do not need legislation for this. It would kill the gaming industry.

New comment by willmadden in "UAE to leave OPEC in blow to oil cartel"

willmadden — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 13:45:03 +0000

No it isn't!

New comment by willmadden in "What's missing in the 'agentic' story: a well-defined user agent role"

willmadden — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 17:21:38 +0000

I'm vibe coding this presently. Update soon.

New comment by willmadden in "Why Japan has such good railways"

willmadden — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 18:40:48 +0000

Hear, hear! Fun fact: Germany was once famous for its on-time trains. You are now lucky if they show up at all.

New comment by willmadden in "Why Japan has such good railways"

willmadden — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 16:16:45 +0000

I know why Japan has such good railways, and I can also tell you that this blog article doesn't mention any them.

New comment by willmadden in "Labor market impacts of AI: A new measure and early evidence"

willmadden — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 02:39:18 +0000

What "decision" are you talking about? You said you don't code, but you administer and maintain code. It sounds like you integrate new features into an existing codebase?

New comment by willmadden in "Labor market impacts of AI: A new measure and early evidence"

willmadden — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 16:12:36 +0000

The LLM needs to understand your existing codebase if it's going to be useful building features that integrate with said codebase seamlessly without breaking things or assuming things that don't exist. That's not something you want to give away to a private AI company, so self-host an open source model.

New comment by willmadden in "Labor market impacts of AI: A new measure and early evidence"

willmadden — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 01:53:18 +0000

Did you train a self-hosted/open source LLM on your existing software and documentation? That should make it far more useful. It's not claude code, but some of those models are 80% there. In 6 months they'll be today's claude code.

New comment by willmadden in "Labor market impacts of AI: A new measure and early evidence"

willmadden — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:59:11 +0000

Build a new feature. If you aren't bogged down in bureaucracy it will happen much faster.

New comment by willmadden in "Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs"

willmadden — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:08:37 +0000

What they sold isn't a security regulated by the SEC. There is no "insider trading". There aren't enough facts to determine if what his sons did was ethical and/or legal.

New comment by willmadden in "Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?"

willmadden — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 22:16:53 +0000

Floor safes do better than above-ground safes.

New comment by willmadden in "A sane but bull case on Clawdbot / OpenClaw"

willmadden — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 18:44:17 +0000

AI is useful for researching things far more quickly before making a decision and for automation/robotics. Motivated people don't need a nagbot to replace their calendar.

New comment by willmadden in "xAI joins SpaceX"

willmadden — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:50:03 +0000

What are you talking about? They are both private companies. They don't have public financial reporting.

New comment by willmadden in "Tell HN: Merry Christmas"

willmadden — Thu, 25 Dec 2025 16:02:04 +0000

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 ===[ MERRY * CHRISTMAS ]===