Hacker News: zbikowski

New comment by zbikowski in "Your Favorite Movies Were CIA Propaganda [video]"

zbikowski — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 12:29:49 +0000

Can't watch the video at the moment, so here's a fun tidbit about everyone's favorite propaganda piece, Top Gun: 94,878 people enlisted in the Navy in fiscal year 1985/86 compared to 87,593 the previous year (~8.3%). Enlistment then fell 2.1% the next year[0]. The Navy's general advertising budget nearly doubled in this time, so it's hard to attribute it to the movie, but I can't help but think it had some effect. It certainly made me think flying fighter jets was the coolest thing ever when I was a kid.

[0] https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/maverick-top-gun-stat-turns...

New comment by zbikowski in "Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI?"

zbikowski — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:33:22 +0000

I always imagined this to have evolved from a long history of humans getting sick around rotting corpses. The logical move is to stay away from them, and thinking they're freaky-looking is a good driver for that. Though the idea of neandertals eliciting a similar reaction has always been interesting to me.

New comment by zbikowski in "Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI?"

zbikowski — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:27:24 +0000

I think that the interior structure doesn't necessarily matter—the problem here is that we don't know what consciousness is, or how it interacts with the physical body. We understand decently well how the brain itself works, which suggests that consciousness is some other layer or abstraction beyond the mechanism.

That said, I think that LLMs are not conscious and are more like p-zombies. It can be argued that an LLM has no qualia and is thus not conscious, due to having no interaction with an outside world or anything "real" other than user input (mainly text). Another reason driving my opinion is because it is impossible to explain "what it is like" to be an LLM. See Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"

I do agree with the parent comment's pushback on any sort of certainty in this regard—with existing frameworks, it is not possible to prove anything is conscious other than oneself. The p-zombie will, obviously, always argue that it is a truly conscious being.

New comment by zbikowski in "LittleSnitch for Linux"

zbikowski — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:50:55 +0000

Last phase of the desktop wars? by Eric Raymond: https://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=8764

New comment by zbikowski in "Take better notes, by hand"

zbikowski — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:58:06 +0000

You may be unpleasantly surprised. I have TWSBI Eco-T pens in both and , which write similarly to some Japanese and nibs respectively. I would recommend, if you want something with true portion control, to get a Pilot Prera in or a Kakuno in (or any pen with a Japanese nib), just to check it out. Both are fairly affordable.

Also, given you’re a lefty, you may want to avoid “good paper” for fountain pens. Coatings on the paper that allow inks to “sit on top” of the page while they dry, preventing feathering and allowing the ink’s properties to develop, understandably slow the drying process. In addition, avoid Noodler’s inks. They look beautiful but dry at an absolutely glacial pace—in my experience, up to several days’ time to fully dry (unassisted, in a dry environment) on Midori MD notebook paper.

New comment by zbikowski in "You are not your job"

zbikowski — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 13:23:12 +0000

Thanks very much for sharing this - despite his declaration of his majority audience, this is excellent, hard-hitting advice for anyone who feels lost in the gap between their achievements and their "potential."