bumholio (u/bumholio)

bumholio commented on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (August 2024) · Posted by u/whoishiring

bumholio · 2 years ago

Location: Romania

Remote: yes

Willing to relocate: not in the next year or so (toddler duty), but open in principle and available to travel frequently in Europe

Technologies: Python, JS, Rust, Bash, DevOps, Linux, embedded C, PyTorch, electronics and robotics, transport and parking infrastructure and technology, navigating political bureaucracies

Resume: http://www.linkedin.com/in/p918345638147

email: mres at gmx.com

I am looking to return to technology after an 8 year stint into public service and political office. An engineer by formation, I am a very broad generalist, taking interest into various technical fields as well as social sciences - hence my venture into politics. I have managed transport infrastructure projects for my public sector employers but I also know my way around a git command line and a large codebase written in a dozen languages.

I am particularly interested in fast-moving startups that can benefit from my broad skill set. I am ready to get hands-on and handle any development and engineering tasks to support growth. Ideally, I would like to manage a team of like-minded engineers eager to make an impact.

I am available to work through my own company as a business-to-business contractor, handling my own taxes, etc., if that is beneficial, for example, to a US-based company.

bumholio commented on Proof of work is temporarily illegal in New York mastodon.social/@thefirst... · Posted by u/tcfhgj

bumholio · 3 years ago

Instead of banning proof of work they should firewall crypto assets from the traditional financial system.

"Let crypto burn" as they say, both figuratively and in the practical sense, let them burn resources but only it they can pay for them by creating value outside their own bubble, services for which people are willing to pay. Currently the massive impetus of the resource burn is crypto speculation, the hope that a substantial part of the traditional financial system will move to crypto systems and take advantage of the low regulations. That's the major promise of crypto that's driving adoption in the traditional space, regulatory arbitrage.

bumholio commented on Chief scientist of major corporation can’t handle criticism of the work he hypes statmodeling.stat.columbi... · Posted by u/Tomte

bumholio · 3 years ago

Expecting Galactica to produce truthful academic papers is just about as sensible as expecting to find a significant other among your kitchen appliances. Language models are a way to emulate the writing style of human produced content, only a fool would expect them to reason about the text to any level resembling a scientific standard.

Written language is a doorway to the full extent of human cognition; unless the problem domain is severely constrained (ie "What is the distance to Mars?"), you are very likely to fall into reflexive traps that rapidly devolve into AGI ("I think, therefore I am?").

bumholio commented on Please restore our registers when you’re done with them randomascii.wordpress.com... · Posted by u/jmillikin

bumholio · 3 years ago

If one could reliably detect this DLL injection in the process address space, then the correct "fix" is to crash immediately. Authors of such tools should seek another way of accomplishing their goal, preferably one that does not export their own bugs to innocent bystanders.

bumholio commented on Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges bbc.co.uk/news/business-4... · Posted by u/al_ramich

iamben · 7 years ago

Not sure how I feel about this. It annoyed my greatly on my last RyanAir flight that in order to take a slightly larger than laptop sized bag (35L) I had to pay for priority which was 8 quid or whatever. A Primera flight I've just booked is now doing exactly the same. Small bag free, bigger bag not so. But, as some of the comments here, I think it sped things up once on the plane. However, adding the extra charge leaves a bitter taste in my mouth - "here's the price for you cheap flight, but here's the actual 20% more price now you have to add a bag". It'll be a smooth win for the first aggregator (Skyscanner or whoever) that adds a 'taking max size cabin bag' option to their search and includes it in the price.

bumholio · 7 years ago

Google flights already has an "access to the overhead bins" tick box, but yes, there is space to improve the comparison.

bumholio commented on Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges bbc.co.uk/news/business-4... · Posted by u/al_ramich

wastedhours · 7 years ago

I understand why this is being downvoted, and agree that it's not a nice point to try and argue - however it is somewhat irksome when I (as a recovering anorexic with a very small physical footprint) is penalised for a baggage weight allowance and yet there's no difference in seat cost between myself at 51kg and someone at twice that.

Completely appreciate there's no fair way to police it (other than that, I think Samoan airline, who charged based on the person/bag weight combination), but I think it's indicative of it all being a bit of a sham. Of course weight increases costs of flying, but is an extra 1kg in a checked bag really worse than carrying 20/30kg more of fat or muscle?

bumholio · 7 years ago

Weight is largely irrelevant. The difference between a airliner full of 45Kg people versus 90Kg people constitutes about 5% of the total plane weight. Some fuel savings but would not be worth the aggravation, client humiliation, lawsuits etc.

What it boils down to is volume and time. A passenger takes up a seat regardless of how large he is (...) so he's charged for a seat. Luggage changes that equation far more than passenger body weight.

bumholio commented on Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges bbc.co.uk/news/business-4... · Posted by u/al_ramich

pjc50 · 7 years ago

The only reason people store so much hand luggage is that the airlines charge for checked baggage. This wasn't always the case.

> offer a discount if you show up without hand luggage

Realistically, how many such people are there going to be who are travelling without a change of clothes?

And if they win on this one, where's next on the slippery slope? Differential pricing for handbags and laptop bags? Could they maybe start charging based on the contents of the bags?

bumholio · 7 years ago

You aren't going without any luggage, but just what you can fit behind the seat in front - and you can fit multiple change of clothes there, I assure you.

bumholio commented on Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges bbc.co.uk/news/business-4... · Posted by u/al_ramich

raverbashing · 7 years ago

> incentivizing people to take less luggage (bags that can be stored under your seat are still free)

So how far and for how long do you think someone can fly with a luggage that fits under their seat?

You can't honestly say you're selling a transportation service and let people take almost no luggage.

If a fee is unavoidable, then it's not a fee, it's part of the price.

bumholio · 7 years ago

>So how far and for how long do you think someone can fly with a luggage that fits under their seat?

In any 1 week vacation to any destination around the world? People are diverse and you shouldn't presume everything about yourself applies to everybody else. I've been on dozens such vacations.

bumholio commented on Italy opens probe into Ryanair hand luggage charges bbc.co.uk/news/business-4... · Posted by u/al_ramich

bumholio · 7 years ago

Firstly, travelers are consenting adults that should understand and accept the baggage policy - or use a different airline. The market is extremely competitive.

Secondly, as a person who has traveled backpack for years, I find the whole "luggage is an essential element of air transport" line quite offensive. It's a service I want to purchase but you won't let me because some guy might be confused by a price comparison app to buy a baggage-less ticket (mind you, not even by Ryanair themselves, on their website it is very clear what you get for the price). It's revolting.

bumholio commented on Ticketmaster recruits pros for secret scalper program cbc.ca/news/business/a-pu... · Posted by u/rinze

bumholio · 7 years ago

This industry can only exist because labels and artists are not willing to sell tickets at the market clearing price, since they would be seen as exploitative by their own fans. So they sell the tickets are significantly discounted prices, in the hopes that at least some of them end up in the hands of the fans, saving face but creating a niche for a super-sleazy industry.

The solution I believe is to directly engage the fans and include with the price of the ticket benefits that only have value for fans. For example, when purchasing a ticket the market price is $100, out of which $40 is the price of the ticket and $60 is the "anti-scalping deposit" that fans get back when purchasing from their account with the band's site. So you would get $60 back in your account that you can use to purchase items valuable for fans such as limited edition CD, merchandise or even other tickets in the future (this is a bit tricky since scalpers can automate it, but exposes them to a major risk of detection and loosing the deposit, unlike the automation of the single ticket purchase, which either works or is risk free).

Providing this service seems like a nice idea to build a company on.