fasterik

10 ms·

181.
by fasterik 5mo ago
There are several software packages that are essentially mandatory if you want to run a modern distro with good desktop hardware support. Some that come to mind are glibc, systemd, and Wayland. These projects have made controversial design
182.
by fasterik 5mo ago
>If you know better just hack it your way. While this might be technically true, I also think it's a lazy argument that ignores practical reality. It's basically a way to avoid any kind of accountability or self-reflection on
183.
by fasterik 6mo ago
The problem to me seems to be that we are trying to map everyday language onto the mathematics. Even though we have a symbol for infinity, infinity is not necessarily a "thing" that the symbol points to. In analysis, when we write
184.
by fasterik 6mo ago
I've also been shocked by the censoriousness around gambling in particular on HN recently. I feel like this is filtering in from some culture war that I'm not exposed to as a part of my information diet.
185.
by fasterik 6mo ago
You can always point at bad things happening, no matter what time period you're in. You need to look at the graph over decades/centuries. Poverty, child mortality, literacy, standard of living, access to healthcare, etc. etc. are
186.
by fasterik 6mo ago
I've come to the conclusion that nostalgia is almost never about the objective quality of something. It's about the associations we make between a certain time in our lives and the media/technology that surrounded us at the
187.
by fasterik 6mo ago
My favorite recent thing from Tim Heidecker was him interviewing Fred Armisen in the style of Bill Maher. The parody is uncanny. I could see him doing a really good Alex Jones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ha6D1LQGD4
188.
by fasterik 6mo ago
> don't trust advice from people who have never actually done the thing you're trying to do Probably one of the most important heuristics to have in the age of self-help gurus and influencers. 99.999% of them haven't acc
189.
by fasterik 6mo ago
- The detention of 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities, forced labor, and mass surveillance in Xinjiang. The destruction of Tibetan society and culture. The only comparable violation of human rights on this scale in the other co
190.
by fasterik 6mo ago
According to the Princeton Gerrymandering project, California's districts are better than average, with some bias. You can see a map of the entire U.S. on their front page. https://gerrymander.princeton.edu/ Before the
191.
by fasterik 6mo ago
> America is just as bad The Human Rights Index for the United States dropped from 0.93 to 0.83 in 2025, which is concerning. Meanwhile, China scores 0.18, which is significantly worse. For comparison, countries that score higher tha
192.
by fasterik 6mo ago
What you describe as "single-party government" is in fact a democracy where one party is more popular than the others. Or are you trying to imply that California's elections are not free and fair? If voters want to hold polit
193.
by fasterik 6mo ago
I don't consider those off limits for recreational consumption in safe doses . If fentanyl were legalized, I would see a strong argument for restricting the sale of large amounts of pure fentanyl. Fentanyl lollipops with small doses,
194.
by fasterik 6mo ago
I'm pretty liberal when it comes to drugs. I think it's a case by case basis, but I do believe that heroin and most other drugs should be legal and regulated. As long as there's demand, prohibition just leads to black markets
195.
by fasterik 6mo ago
Your quote "abusing the same power" appears nowhere in my post. I am saying that neither Democrats nor Republicans, when they get into power, do anything to bring the deficit down to 3% of GDP as is recommended by economists, or t
196.
by fasterik 6mo ago
I've felt increasingly politically homeless over the past few years. Neither major party appears to care about the two largest problems facing the U.S.: the national debt, and the inability of Congress to assert the powers delegated to
197.
by fasterik 6mo ago
I believe most of the negative impacts you're referring to are covered by existing laws concerning fraud and consumer protection. I'm in favor of making truly fraudulent and predatory behavior illegal. I don't see any evidenc
198.
by fasterik 6mo ago
That's quite a straw man. Drunk driving is and should be illegal because it puts the lives of others at risk. Alcohol is legal because it only puts the health of the drinker at risk. Generally in a free society we accept that adults sh
199.
by fasterik 6mo ago
Remember when alcohol was illegal? Ahh, the remote, halcyon, bygone days of the 1920s. How about we treat adults like they're adults and let them make their own choices?
200.
by fasterik 6mo ago
The distinction doesn't matter in this case. The fundamental question is whether a government can compel a decentralized open-source project to change its codebase. If you believe code is speech, it's a violation of the right to f
201.
by fasterik 6mo ago
I suspect you are accessing their website from a European IP address. The clause you quoted is not present for users outside of the EU/UK. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47590473
202.
by fasterik 6mo ago
Would it be a mistake to use Desmos in a math classroom, or 3Blue1Brown style animations, to build up visual intuition? Should we not teach basic numerical and statistical methods in Python? Should kids be forced to use physical copies of n
203.
by fasterik 6mo ago
In general, mastery involves taking the basic mechanics of something and making them completely automatic, freeing up cognitive resources for higher level processes. Expert pianists don't need to look down at their hands when sight rea
204.
by fasterik 6mo ago
Even if they have a computer at home, that doesn't mean they're practicing the relevant skills. Touch typing, word processing, researching a topic online, etc. are things that need deliberate practice. Based on my own experience,
205.
by fasterik 6mo ago
>I realized using tech in education (pre university) was a mistake. I think we should use tech in education, but in a targeted way. It's important that children gain basic technical literacy, like how to touch type and use basic s
206.
by fasterik 6mo ago
>this is why I run ad blockers. It's important to note that this isn't fixed by ad blockers. To avoid this kind of fingerprinting, you need to disable JavaScript or use a browser like Firefox which randomizes extension UUIDs.
207.
by fasterik 6mo ago
The key phrase is "kind of thing". It certainly does matter what kinds of things we focus our attention on as a species. I think you would have to be quite cynical to think that progress in spaceflight over the past 60+ years hasn
208.
by fasterik 6mo ago
They were making a legitimate point a humorous way. The problem of manually typing in IP addresses has been solved by DNS for over 50 years.
209.
by fasterik 7mo ago
I think this is a false dichotomy. If you're passionate about your craft, you will make a higher quality product. The real division is between those who measure the success of a project in: - revenue/man-hour, features shipped&#x2
210.
by fasterik 7mo ago
Most mathematicians don't understand the fields outside of their specialization (at a research level). Your assumption that intuition and applications are limited to hobbyists ignores the possibility of enabling mathematicians to work

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