freetinker (u/freetinker)

freetinker commented on American importers and consumers bear the cost of 2025 tariffs: analysis kielinstitut.de/publicati... · Posted by u/47282847

riffraff · 24 days ago

I have a friend who works with american tourists visiting europe, mostly older folks, mostly to religious sights. They are, for the vast majority, indoctrinated beyond any chance of reasonable change of opinion.

Talking with him makes _me_ worry about my own beliefs, because if these people can be so blind, maybe I am too.

freetinker · 24 days ago

You’re self-questioning and self-reflective. Totally not worried for you or by you. Keep it up.

freetinker commented on There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape blog.jgc.org/2026/01/ther... · Posted by u/abnercoimbre

ryandrake · a month ago

While this is a decision-making problem, it is also an engineering incompetence problem. No matter what pointy haired boss is yelling about "priorities" ultimately software developers are the ones writing the code, and are responsible for how awful it is.

When it comes to priorities about what to write and what to focus on, the buck stops at management and leadership. When it comes to the actual quality of the software written, the buck stops at the developer. Blame can be shared.

freetinker · a month ago

To paraphrase Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to prioritize something when his salary depends upon his not prioritizing it.”

freetinker commented on Waymo is bringing autonomous, driverless ride-hailing to London in 2026 9to5google.com/2025/10/15... · Posted by u/pykello

ageitgey · 4 months ago

If they can operate in London, they will have really shown that autonomy is working. London is full of two-way roads that are only one car width wide, roads were you can just get stuck and have to fully back out, vehicles entirely blocking roads requiring complex cooperation between drivers to negotiate, etc. And that's not even considering the complex logic of figuring out where you can stop to let someone out.

freetinker · 4 months ago

Waymo solved San Francisco. Non-trivial, imo. Is London more complex?

freetinker commented on Steve Jobs and Cray-1 to be featured on 2026 American Innovations $1 coin usmint.gov/news/press-rel... · Posted by u/maguay

scoofy · 4 months ago

This is one reason I support not putting humans on money. We used to put mythological figures on our coinage (liberty, justice, etc), because the are symbols and are uncomplicated by substance.

Humans are flawed. Putting humans on money -- as symbols -- is going to make us go in circles about their imperfection. From Washington as a slave owner to Steve Jobs suppressing wages.

This is not an issue if we just put the symbols on the money instead of using people as proxies. If we want a coin for innovators, but Providentia on the coin.

freetinker · 4 months ago

This is an evolved view. Let’s put achievements on currency, not humans. Of course, this is no panacea - “achievement” is ambiguous enough to be open to interpretation, and therefore political capture. But it’s a step forward.

freetinker commented on Ask HN: How can I use my laptop without monitors? · Posted by u/bix6

freetinker · 4 months ago

Apple Vision Pro.

freetinker commented on Benefits of choosing email over messaging spinellis.gr/blog/2025092... · Posted by u/iparaskev

freetinker · 4 months ago

Emails are optimized for COA record-keeping, not efficient communication.

freetinker commented on Meta CTO explains why the smart glasses demos failed at Meta Connect techcrunch.com/2025/09/19... · Posted by u/saikatsg

laweijfmvo · 5 months ago

Here’s a better response for next time: “I’m embarrassed by our recent failures to demonstrate our latest products. Our customers absolutely deserve better and I’ll be personally making certain that all of these issues are fully resolved before any products ship to paying customers.”

Is that really so hard? If I can write this on the toilet why can’t one of the top tech companies and their massive PR budgets do it?

freetinker · 5 months ago

PR budgets exist to _prevent_ exactly this sort of response.

freetinker commented on You’re a slow thinker. Now what? chillphysicsenjoyer.subst... · Posted by u/sebg

tptacek · 5 months ago

Given the whole point of the article is that this person's thinking style isn't dysfunctional, in fact seems to be working out just fine for them, why wouldn't we just look at this and say "this is a normal way for a human being to operate" and refuse to pathologize it? Why drug your way to a different thinking style?

freetinker · 5 months ago

This is an astute point. I’m a mid-40s mech engineer in the Bay Area. HN is my tribe, by and large. I’ve been bombarded with perspectives that ADHD medication is the answer. (Not officially diagnosed, but I’m confident I meet the criteria and very likely “afflicted.”)

The brain is complex—adapted, or maladapted, for different tasks. My working hypothesis: mine is maladapted to the behaviors currently rewarded in corporate America. And I know I’m not Feynman.

So here I am, stuck in a bi-modal world (or maybe just worldview). This piece hits hard.

freetinker commented on A love letter to the CSV format (2024) medialab.sciencespo.fr/en... · Posted by u/jordigh

joz1-k · 5 months ago

Except that the "comma" was a poor choice for a separator, the CSV is just a plain text that can be trivially parsed from any language or platform. That's its biggest value. There is essentially no format, library, or platform lock-in. JSON comes close to this level of openness and ease, but YAML is already too complicated as a file format.

freetinker · 5 months ago

The comma makes it more human-readable. What separator would you suggest?

freetinker commented on What fact do you wish everyone understood? · Posted by u/iambateman

unsupp0rted · 6 months ago

The more you travel, the better you understand that there are differences between cultures and some cultures are better at specific things or worse at specific things.

Those specific things have such an outsized impact that it's obvious after living there for a bit that one culture is overall better or overall worse than another.

We're fine to compare company cultures and to insist that company cultures are decisive in company success. But when it comes to national cultures we pretend that they're all comparable and all equally good. They are not.

freetinker · 6 months ago

This is a largely correct, but incomplete take imo. Cultures are neither “good” nor “bad”. Some are better than others at optimizing different outcomes. Of course, culture A might be objectively better or worse for you vs culture B - depending on what you value or prefer optimizing.

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KarmaCake day282August 24, 2021

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