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snarf21

Apologies, I meant that the UI shows the up and down arrows in the blocks in a way that is unintuitive to me.
Re:Show HN: I've built a words game based on binary search on Thursday July 16, 2026 @10:57AM (#48935490)
The high/lo feels unintuitive to me .. Down on a P makes me thing R-Z not A-O.

I actually think left/right is a more clear visual and mental model.

I like the game and it is quite difficult sometimes to come up with a legal word that gives you an improved anchor point for the binary search.

Re:The Tower Keeps Rising on Tuesday July 14, 2026 @01:54PM (#48910604)
It feels to me like I'm stuck doing code reviews for a junior dev all day so I use it as little as possible and mostly to look for things I may have missed.
Re:Ants: Who looks after the injured in a colony? on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @11:29AM (#48833256)
Yeah, wood ants are particularly prolific in these areas. They are quite amazing creatures.
Re:Tiny data centre used to heat public swimming pool on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @10:22AM (#48832361)
Undecided just did an episode on a waste heat machine that is being slowly rolled out to industry. The founder of the company is also the guy who invented the Super Soaker.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuQRxatte5g

Re:Why I Stopped Arguing with People on Thursday July 02, 2026 @08:36AM (#48760528)
Honestly, I have barely looked into it. The main thing I know is that there is currently about ~7 year payoff in terms of carbon. My general sense is that we should be investing in solar and batteries and not doing wind except in specific isolated situations but I don't have the knowledge to back that up right now.

I'd also argue that people above are making my point for me. It isn't enough to say that wind is better than coal. Lots of things are better than coal. That still doesn't mean that it is the right choice or best use of our time and resources to help combat climate change. The switch to EV is going to be long and slow but attacking electricity generation carbon is something we can do more directly more quickly (assuming the political will). The calculus on the quickest and biggest bang for our buck is insanely complicated.

Re:Why I Stopped Arguing with People on Wednesday July 01, 2026 @12:05PM (#48749088)
This is indeed part of the problem. Life today is just too complicated. Take a simple topic like wind turbines: there is so so much to truly understand about materials, net lifetime carbon offset, environmental issues, recycling, capacity, placement, etc. that is is all but impossible to become a true subject matter expert on this one issue alone. Even gaining a cursory understanding of the issues at hand requires many many hours of reading and research from all positions. And this just makes you knowledgeable on this one small subject.

So what we do in practice is this: Pick the issue I care most about, then assume that any group that agrees with me on that position is a safe source to trust for ALL issues. This is our human need to belong (and tribalism). The problem is that the groups pushing these positions leverage this other'ing to create divisiveness for the sole purpose of making more and more money.

Re:Rocketlab acquires Iridium on Monday June 29, 2026 @03:38PM (#48724059)
There is a huge market for people to connection while doing outdoor activities, including downloading maps, sharing current location, etc. It isn't just people who live in BFE looking for a downlink.
Re:Crypto in 2026: Oh, This Is the Bad Place on Tuesday June 23, 2026 @11:13AM (#48646321)
What is the main success for an Ethereum project that solves something that can't be solved without crypto or in a hugely more efficient/better way? I'm a crypto skeptic and I've never been introduced where crypto actually solves a problem.
Re:15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test on Monday June 22, 2026 @09:53AM (#48630178)
Largely it was a multi-year process trying to find the source of all my symptoms. Eventually, I found someone posting on a Reddit forum about long Covid and they suggested to someone that they have problems with mold exposure instead. I collected dust from my house and sent it off to be tested. The test came back with an UNINHABITABLE result for Aspergillus versicolor (a highly resilient and ubiquitous indoor mold frequently found in water-damaged building materials like drywall, carpet, and ceiling tiles)

You can't really test for it in blood or urine unless you are currently under super high exposure. Unfortunately, most doctors have never heard of it and have no idea what to do. Some don't believe you because all your bloodwork is fine. It finally clicked for me when I realized that I had 20 of the 21 most common symptoms and had had a roof leak a few years before (since fixed).

I have an extreme heat intolerance now too so I only feel okay when cold and overly hydrated. I started pushing the vitamins above after eating peas one night and magically feeling human again 30 minutes later. Even though your levels may be "normal", the mycotoxins prevent uptake so you have to flood your system and hope enough gets through. I also make sure I'm getting enough vit C, B and D in my diet. I even do things like buying a specific coffee that is tested for mold. A lot of foods sit around collecting mold before they get processed into food. These mycotoxins (not live mold) will get bound to the bile in your gut naturally. Bile is energy expensive for your liver to make so it is highly recycled as it helps you break down fats in your guts. You can do a lot more reading in the ToxicMoldExposure Reddit.

Re:15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test on Monday June 22, 2026 @09:41AM (#48630005)
How kind of you to say.... If you do much research on the topic, you will find that this is the standard advice. It is almost impossible to remove (especially for any porous surface). People with CIRS can by symptomatic even from dead mold spores.
Re:15-minute at-home Lyme disease tick test on Sunday June 21, 2026 @10:58AM (#48619516)
If you think you have long Covid, you should do some research about CIRS (Chronic Inflammation Response Syndrome). It is a condition caused by exposure to toxic mold from water damaged (inside or out) buildings. There is growing evidence that there isn't actually a separate condition for long Covid, but rather it is Covid-triggered CIRS. (Lyme can trigger it too). (Note: only about 25% of people are genetically susceptible to suffering from CIRS)

CIRS causes your body's call-and-response immune system to short circuit; meaning one part detects the problem and the part is supposed to fix it but the part that is supposed to fix it (remove the mycotoxins) doesn't see the problem and does nothing. CIRS causes a lot of side effects, including all the ones mentioned by the GP and many more. If you want to test for toxic mold, you need to test the dust in your space. Some amount of mold is naturally in the air at all times. The dust will show and accumulation of mold over time and show if there is a real problem.

Source: I thought I had long Covid for a long time, until I realized the real problem which was toxic white mold in my house. I threw everything in a dumpster and sold my house and am now on the long slow multi-year process of recovery. If you think you may have it, try pushing Mg, Zinc and Potassium really hard for a few weeks. Take things that naturally bind the bile in your gut (the mycotoxins attach to the bile which is recycled). There are heavier binders that bind everything but I wouldn't start there.

Re:I'm Tired of Talking to AI on Wednesday May 27, 2026 @11:02AM (#48295411)
At my company, non technical Managers (including marketing folks) are posting Claude and ChatGPT responses in bug tickets with the "fix" for the bug. No explanation of what the expected vs actual behavior is, just AI slop telling me how to fix it. Soooo helpful.
I feel the same but the question I struggle most with is this: "Does it matter when the people who are going to come along and maintain this are just going to use AI to fix or adjust this maintenance nightmare?"
Re:Meta to cut 10% of jobs, or 8k employees on Friday April 24, 2026 @12:00PM (#47892029)
I think it is hard to call IG and WA bets. He simply bought the competition that was set to wreck his platform.
This just another example of Sinclair's Law.
Re:Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022) on Thursday April 23, 2026 @11:06AM (#47876612)
We are living in a board game and card game Renaissance. For those outside of "the hobby", there are thousands of new titles being released every year. Some challenge the notion of what it even means to be a game. Even in the party game space, there is a lot of innovation. It doesn't matter what kind of game you like, there is one from the last 10 years that is your "perfect" game. If you hop on to BGG or the right Discords, you can find it fairly quickly. There is also LOTS of online playtesting happening with groups like Break My Game where you can play games still being designed. Additionally, I'll mention Board Game Arena which has digital implementations for over 1200 games.

[Source: I've been designing games as a hobby for the last 10 years)

Maybe I missed it but if I don't solve in time, it didn't show me the correct answers.
It isn't just the EU. Anytime $1M in lobbying will buy you $1B in contracts or regulatory capture, it will always be a no brainer. We need better transparency about the money trail and full disclosure before things go to vote so the public can weigh in.
If anyone is interested in why we are bad at estimating, please check out the amazing book Thinking, Fast and Slow: Daniel Kahneman.
Most Amish under 30 have secret cell phones. It would only be the oldest generations without them. There are even lots of wink & nod arrangements where they may even have electricity in some outbuilding but they unplug it when elder comes to visit. It also depends on the Order as some are more strict than others. They generally aren't allowed to have electricity in "the house" but batteries and other workarounds exist.

They aren't as isolated these days as they used to be. If you go to Costco, you see them with 3 carts loaded 3 feet high of all the same crap everyone else is buying. A lot of times, they don't even transport it back via buggy but call the "Amish taxi service" which is people who drive them around town in large passenger vans. Even from a work source perspective, a lot have moved on from farm work and work in construction, roofing and other trades. If you go to a gas station in the morning, you'll see work trucks roll up and only Amish rollout to go buy soda and lunches or whatever.

[Source: I live in Lancaster and have for many years.]

The best hiring advice is this: Take half of the resumes you receive and just throw them in the trash. You don't want to hire unlucky people!
No offense, but that is meaningless.

60% support abortion but he we are with no Roe. 70% support gay marriage but the small percentage in charge want to outlaw it.

It takes more than polling to become legislation. Weird indeed.

I think politically it is an easier sell than medicare for all or government only healthcare.
Yeah, what I'm suggesting is that your premiums are funded through your HSA, not just your deductible and medicines. Obviously, the max HSA funding amounts would have to change.
I worked in healthcare start-ups for many years and the main problem is mis-aligned incentives.

The #1 thing we need to do is make it illegal for your healthcare to be tied to your employment. We can still have your employer provide a X% or $Y to an HSA account that the employee can buy health coverage wherever they like. (I'm not optimistic that this will ever happen politically)

The issue today is that NOT healing you makes everyone more money, like a LOT more. There is no incentive for anyone to help people get healthy just to have a different insurance company benefit from the decreased claims.

This is also the only way forward to value based care (for primary) where doctors (providers et al) can take on the risk/reward. They get some amount (say $1K ??) per year and they keep it and submit no claims. However, if there costs go above, they eat it loss. Now the doctor and the insurance company (payer) are all incentivized to get and keep people healthy.

Re:ATMs didn't kill bank Teller jobs, but the iPhone did on Thursday March 12, 2026 @11:27AM (#47352157)
Don't count all those chickens before they hatch. There might be more started but do they all survive? Think back to the dot-com boom/crash for an example of where that initial gold rush didn't just magically ramp forever. There were fits and starts as the usefulness of the technology was figured out.
Re:ATMs didn't kill bank Teller jobs, but the iPhone did on Thursday March 12, 2026 @11:24AM (#47352094)
Mostly easier in the sense that it is always in your hand already, not at home on the charger on your desk.
Space/land; you have to displace and buy the four corner properties (at least) to put one in.
It is almost as if this was a planned wealth transfer that was immensely succesful.

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