jtsnow
Re:Show HN: 18 Words
on Thursday July 09, 2026 @04:12PM (#48851766)
Hardly dangerous. The same disclaimer put on the Anti-Defamation League website applies here:
> All the symbols depicted here must be evaluated in the context in which they appear. Few symbols represent just one idea or are used exclusively by one group. For example, 100% is often used as an amount or an expression and it is also used by some by some white supremacists as shorthand for "100% white."
Re:You Are in a Box
on Monday July 14, 2025 @01:24PM (#44562799)
I wonder if unconventional writing styles are becoming the signal for deliberate content. If text is too polished– or even using certain punctuation– can lead to readers questioning whether AI assisted in the creation of the text.
A quick search shows that others have made this connection between Altman and lowercase and non-AI authenticity: https://ted-merz.com/2023/12/18/writing-in-lowercase/
It looks like this particular blog previously used conventional capitalization from 2017 to late 2023. The first post in this style appears to hint at a kind of shift in identity of the author, so perhaps, in this instance it is more a signal of personal expression or tribalism than non-AI-ness. Then again, we may see the line between the two continue to blur.
Re:TikTok Is Harming Children at an Industrial Scale
on Thursday April 17, 2025 @03:42PM (#43721260)
This seems highly revisionist. Cancel culture isn't just about boycotting or being selective about what one consumes. It's not even about holding people accountable.
It's about destroying people and tearing them down in order to make examples of them. It results in antagonists showing up at people's homes, writing letters to employers, creating petitions, attacking people in the nastiest ways possible with out engaging with ideas or arguments.
It's the disproportionate and graceless reactions that distinguish cancel culture from past methods of accountability.
Re:Do Insects Feel Pain?
on Thursday January 30, 2025 @06:05PM (#42883130)
Wouldn't modifying current behavior be sufficient to justify the existence of pain? The mechanism can be a useful adaptation even if a single organism cannot learn. Maybe the default state of bacteria is pain and they can only relieve it temporarily. The ones that survive to multiply are the ones best adapted to relieving pain.
Re:Switch 2 will be backwards compatible with Switch, Nintendo confirms
on Wednesday November 06, 2024 @12:02PM (#42065346)
In addition to supporting GameCube discs, the Wii had physical ports for plugging in GameCube controllers and memory cards. So, not much of a stretch.
Re:DVDs are dying right as streaming has made them appealing again
on Friday July 12, 2024 @04:21AM (#40943627)
Netflix shipped DVDs from 1997 to 2023, predating Redbox by 5 years. This is essentially how we got to streaming. GameFly still ships movie and game discs as a service.
Why are most sofas so bad?
Re:TikTok-owner ByteDance planning to layoff thousands in coming months
on Thursday February 23, 2023 @02:41PM (#34915391)
Interesting data! And very different from the anecdotes presented in another top HN discussion today, detailing fierce competition with software engineer job postings are receiving 100x the number of applicants compared to just a few months ago.
Re:I don't read web articles anymore, but I read books
on Monday January 09, 2023 @02:13PM (#34314622)
"So why is reading books any better than reading tweets or wall posts? Well, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes, you need to put down your book, if only to think about what you’re reading, what you think about what you’re reading. But a book has two advantages over a tweet. First, the person who wrote it thought about it a lot more carefully. The book is the result of his solitude, his attempt to think for himself.
Second, most books are old. This is not a disadvantage: this is precisely what makes them valuable. They stand against the conventional wisdom of today simply because they’re not from today."
Thank you for reminding me of this excellent essay.
Re:Ask HN: Boring but important tech no one is working on?
on Friday August 26, 2022 @04:51PM (#32612603)
SimCopter and Crazy Taxi are older titles that come to mind.
Re:Books to read to understand financial crime
on Thursday July 14, 2022 @01:35AM (#32092384)
Red Notice
Re:Books to read to understand financial crime
on Thursday July 14, 2022 @12:44AM (#32092112)
Also worth reading are Red Notice and Freezing Order by Bill Browder.
Re:Bolivia is awash with contraband cars from Japan
on Sunday March 06, 2022 @12:39AM (#30575312)
Nation Geographic's Trafficked has a fascinating episode on the stolen car market. The episode follows cars that are shipped out of the port of New Jersey to Ghana and documents just how organized the operations are.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/shows/trafficked-with-...
Re:What the Omicron wave is revealing about human immunity
on Thursday February 03, 2022 @07:35PM (#30201186)
There are some good arguments that current hospitalization metrics are misleading and underestimate the healthcare workload. Delayed treatments or patients who cannot access treatment may be a more useful metric to measure how overwhelmed a healthcare system is.
See https://twitter.com/DellAnnaLuca/status/1486208081142947840/...
Re:Conservatives are flocking to the social media app Parler
on Saturday June 27, 2020 @07:48PM (#23665641)
Conservatives are running the hardest hitting anti-Trump ads this election year (see The Lincoln Project). Conservatives are split into 3 groups: Trumpers, those hoping the Republican party will just return to its roots after Trump, and those advocating for a new conservative movement because the Republican party is beyond saving.
Re:Covid-19: the harms of exaggerated information and non‐evidence‐bas...
on Monday March 23, 2020 @10:01PM (#22671081)
Ioannidis continues to push this evidence-based approach, but I have not yet seen an adequate response to critics such as Nassim Taleb or Yaneer Bar-Yam. They argue that one doesn't need raw evidence to act if the statistical evidence shows that the risks are catastrophic. They published a paper on January 26th which lays out arguments for why conventional risk management approaches are inadequate in these situations. [1]
This paper was met with disregard on HN [2], but the persistent reach of Ioannidis shows why Taleb's arguments have value.
Some on Twitter argue that the WHO statement on January 14th shows where Ioannidis' approach fails: "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission..." [3] Authorities were looking for evidence before taking any action.
[1] https://necsi.edu/systemic-risk-of-pandemic-via-novel-pathog...
Guide to Exercise at Home
Read the European Court Ruling on Magnitsky
Re:Arrived – a new model of home ownership
on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @02:13AM (#20683223)
Point (https://point.com/) is another company in this space.
Re:Who Owns Huawei?
on Friday August 09, 2019 @09:18PM (#20659556)
Or as Bill Browser described it:
"This whole exercise was teaching me that Russian business culture is closer to that of a prison yard than anything else. In prison, all you have is your reputation. Your position is hard-earned and it is not relinquished easily. When someone is crossing the yard coming for you, you cannot stand idly by. You have to kill him before he kills you. If you don’t, and if you manage to survive the attack, you’ll be deemed weak"
Rules of Engagement for Social Media Influence Operations
Re:Ask HN: What should a systems/low-level software engineer know?
on Friday January 11, 2019 @12:52PM (#18885282)
Agreed! The labs are very informative and fun. One of my favorite undergrad courses used this book/labs ~10 years ago. Glad to see it is still being used!
Re:The 30-Year Mortgage Is an Intrinsically Toxic Product
on Saturday January 05, 2019 @12:07AM (#18830020)
Depending on the rates and down payment, it's not uncommon to need >10% gains in the invested difference for the 30-year to beat the 15-year mortgage. The 15-year mortgage has proved to be much more advantageous in my case.
See https://www.mtgprofessor.com/A%20-%20Term/30_years_or_15.htm
How to Fix Stagnant Wages: Dump the World's Dumbest Idea
Selling Code
Pentagon Creates ‘Do Not Buy’ List of Russian, Chinese Software
Lemonade Stands Legalized in Utah
Re:Country Time Lemonade Will Pay Legal Fees for Unlicensed Lemonade S...
on Monday June 11, 2018 @11:30AM (#17285095)
Utah has passed legislation to protect lemonade stands and other childhood businesses. This has spurred weekend child entrepreneur markets.
See https://fee.org/articles/lemonade-stands-legalized-in-utah/
Re:Vermont will cover $10K of expenses for people who move there and w...
on Thursday May 31, 2018 @12:51PM (#17197866)
Yes, the Strong Towns organization has a unique perspective on this. They make a convincing argument that local governments in the U.S. are trapped in a "growth Ponzi scheme." [1] Without continuous growth, most of them will never cover their liabilities. Strong Towns also provides interesting insights on how to avoid and correct this pattern.