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maxweylandt commented on America is now one big bet on AI   ft.com/content/6cc87bd9-c... · Posted by u/saubeidl
Oras · 3 months ago
> No nation has seen an immigration boom-bust cycle near the scale of the one roiling America. Net immigration nearly quadrupled after 2020 to peak at well over 3mn in 2023, but the backlash led by President Donald Trump sent that figure into freefall. This year only around 400,000 net new arrivals are expected, and that could be the trend in the coming years.

If true, that's <1% of the population?

maxweylandt · 3 months ago
I also suspect using 2020 as a baseline will inflate how large the increases appear. Cursory google, but this dataset suggests pretty steady number apart from the covid downturn and now the recent crackdown:

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/usa/uni...

maxweylandt commented on A teen was suicidal. ChatGPT was the friend he confided in   nytimes.com/2025/08/26/te... · Posted by u/jaredwiener
podgietaru · 4 months ago
There was a fascinating article I read a while back about Sylvia Plath, and the idea that she likely wouldn't have commited suicide a few years later due to the removal of that method.

It was mostly about the access of guns in the US, and the role that plays in suicidality. I cannot for the life of me find it, but I believe it was based on this paper: https://drexel.edu/~/media/Files/law/law%20review/V17-3/Goul...

Which was summarised by NPR here: https://www.npr.org/2008/07/08/92319314/in-suicide-preventio...

When it comes to suicide, it's a complicated topic. There was also the incident with 13 reasons why. Showing suicide in media also grants permission structures to those who are in that state, and actually increases the rate of suicide in the general population.

Where I lie on this is there is a modicum of responsibility that companies need to have. Making access harder to that information ABSOLUTELY saves lives, when it comes to asking how. And giving easy access to suicide prevention resources can also help.

maxweylandt · 4 months ago
another example: packing paracetamol in blister packs seems to have reduced suicides.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC526120/

> Suicidal deaths from paracetamol and salicylates were reduced by 22% (95% confidence interval 11% to 32%) in the year after the change in legislation on 16 September 1998, and this reduction persisted in the next two years. Liver unit admissions and liver transplants for paracetamol induced hepatotoxicity were reduced by around 30% in the four years after the legislation.

(This was posted here on HN in the thread on the new paracetamol in utero study that I can't seem to dig up right now)

maxweylandt commented on Interactive map of Paul's first century travels in Roman world   intofarlands.com/map-of-p... · Posted by u/intofarlands
maxweylandt · 4 months ago
neat! Small typo in 'Paul's first Journey' :

>This first trip laid the framework for hsi other trips further afield.

should be 'his'

maxweylandt commented on Friction and Not Being Touched   tante.cc/2025/07/30/frict... · Posted by u/colinprince
atoav · 5 months ago
Counter to the authors claim my experience is that friction is an essential building block of literally any organization.

Have a hard time reaching customer service? That is because they added friction to finding the number on purpose. Have to wait in the phone line and go through a maze of electronic voices before being able to talk to a person? Friction. That tax form seems needlessly complicated? Friction.

Friction is an essential design component of any system and some of it's uses are also legitimate.

Sometimes you want the costly action to have a small cost on the user side as well, which will act as a filter for people who really need your help, for example.

Let's say for example you have a self-service platform for students and they should be able to change their name. Now you could do that frictionless, but a name change is not frictionless in the bureaucratic backend of the student office. That means representing it to the user as a simple frictionless process, when it isn't is a misrepresentation of reality. Then it is better to represent it as a thing they can request and have to wait for till it is done.

Ideally of course the student office would have systems where names can be changed 10 times a second with flawless forward- and backwards-compatibility, but that isn't the world we live in.

maxweylandt · 5 months ago
> Counter to the authors claim my experience is that friction is an essential building block of literally any organization.

I don't read the author as claiming that at all. In fact I came away thinking this was an argument for friction, if anything.

maxweylandt commented on What happens when an octopus engages with art?   cnn.com/2025/07/17/style/... · Posted by u/robinhouston
ranguna · 5 months ago
TIL the word octopus is not from Latin origin, it's Greek and it's plural is octopodes, but somewhere along the history of the English language, people decided to accept octopuses as the most common and correct plural of octopus. Therefor, octopi is considered incorrect.
maxweylandt · 5 months ago
Would that be stressed on the last syllable? (octopodés? Don't know how to formally mark stress, sorry)
maxweylandt commented on I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018)   mcsweeneys.net/articles/i... · Posted by u/2color
comrade1234 · 6 months ago
I live in Zurich - the tightest rental market in the world (.7% availability) but don't really have a homeless problem for some reason. I have met a lot of people that have had to move to neighboring cities though.
maxweylandt · 6 months ago
How is public transport to nearby commuter towns? If it's affordable/convenient/reasonably quick that can help a lot, I suspect. (But am quite ignorant so appreciate correction!)
maxweylandt commented on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2025)    · Posted by u/whoishiring
maxweylandt · 8 months ago
Hello, please specify Fully Remote (US) in the heading of your post
maxweylandt commented on Shared DNA in Music   pudding.cool/2025/04/musi... · Posted by u/ksampath02
trial3 · 9 months ago
when i gave a presentation on sampling for a public speaking class in college i played the amen break, then slowed it down to show it was used in Fuck Tha Police, then sped it up to show it was used in the powerpuff girls theme song
maxweylandt · 9 months ago
Thanks for teaching me about this! I listened to it and immediately thought I recognized it from Jamie XX's Oh my Gosh. In the event I was wrong, it samples Lyn Collins -- another classic sample I believe, certainly in hip hop. But I'm sure I'll hear it pop up in lots of places now, always nice to learn a piece of history.

https://www.whosampled.com/sample/343380/Jamie-xx-Gosh-Lyn-C...

u/maxweylandt

KarmaCake day209May 10, 2023View Original