squishington (u/squishington)

squishington commented on Ask HN: How many people got VPNs in response to laws like UK Online Safety Act? · Posted by u/hodgesrm

aprilnya · 9 days ago

I’ve seen people do this on the router level with a proxy, with imgur being the example - all other traffic just went as normal but imgur traffic was sent through a VPN.

However it was a very complicated setup with many parts and a home server so I would definitely like to see a proper app built around this that just handles everything for you.

squishington · 9 days ago

Openwrt with the policy based routing package can do this, and is simple to set up.

squishington commented on EmacsConf 2025 emacsconf.org/2025/... · Posted by u/birdculture

positron26 · 13 days ago

The schedule grows small. I have stopped writing new Elisp and will learn CL in order to adopt Lem.

A few years back, this schedule included smart voices attempting to exercise some cultural leadership. It was bright, well-meaning, and largely right. Being right does not stop RMS. It inspires him to travel in an alternative direction of his choosing for the rest of his life.

squishington · 13 days ago

Could you expand on your comment a bit please? I've not heard of Lem before now. How does it compare to Emacs? Also your comment about cultural leadership. I'm not sure what you're referring to specifically. (Asking in good faith out of curiosity).

squishington commented on Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts theguardian.com/society/2... · Posted by u/pseudolus

carsoon · 25 days ago

The problem with suicidal depression is that if someone has created the thought pattern that death is best, then removing the symptoms of depression (lethargy, lack of energy, no willpower) now gives the person the ability to actually follow through with the act.

Medications almost always target symptoms and never address root causes.

squishington · 24 days ago

My understanding is that the optimal scenario is taking an SSRI in combination with therapy. The SSRI adds flexibility for the brain to respond to therapy and envisage new possibilities. If you don't include therapy, you've just established a new baseline to habituate to.

squishington commented on Students fight back over course taught by AI theguardian.com/education... · Posted by u/level87

recursivecaveat · 25 days ago

It is crazy to me the amount of people who are auto-completing through their education. "I don't need to learn how to code, the ai will do it for me" etc. If the only value you provide is pressing [ok] on content you don't understand, why do you think someone won't replace you with a bot? To me it's like going to pilot's school and saying you'll just have your copilot fly the plane for you.

squishington · 25 days ago

I was drawn to engineering by the joy of learning and problem solving. The pain of puzzling over a difficult problem, then the ecstatic release when you figure it out and get it working. I don't understand why someone would want to give that up. It gives meaning to the work.

squishington commented on Once Australia's second priciest city, Melbourne has become more affordable theguardian.com/australia... · Posted by u/PaulHoule

empressplay · a month ago

I recently returned to Melbourne after being away for 5 years. They've been building a lot, particularly in the Western suburbs, and in satellite towns. Also there are a lot more people working remote / hybrid and living farther out in the country. A house in a smaller city like Bendigo is $400+ a week. But I expect this has been driving prices in Melbourne down -- but I'd hardly call it 'affordable' at ~$500 a week for a small house.

squishington · a month ago

Competition at the $500 per week range is intense, because there are many people who can't afford more than that.

squishington commented on Carlo Rovelli’s radical perspective on reality quantamagazine.org/carlo-... · Posted by u/vismit2000

d4rkn0d3z · 2 months ago

I have a degree in theoretical physics and a gold medal, which is to say I have endured the requisite intellectual beatings. Often the best interpretations of physical theory are unpalatable to the average person. The idea that there is in fact no objective physical reality is the most egregious offender in this regard. However, it is nonetheless the best conclusion that one can draw given strict adherence to what the mathematical formalism of QM provides. There is simply no physical machinery to support an objective reality, period.

Now, that being said, the remarkable part is that the forgoing conclusion does us zero harm. We can still have the logical predictive fiction that an objective reality exists. What staggers the mind is the corollary that no human has ever erected a truth. Moreover, every intelligent species that ever endeavors to ask these questions will find the same non-answer.

squishington · 2 months ago

I think language does us a disservice here. I'm reminded of Korzybski's work in Science and Sanity. The interpretation of "truth" depends on which level of abstraction you are operating on. "Every statement is true in some sense, false in some sense, and meaningless in some sense". The term "reality" implies a perceiver, and that perceiver is generating "reality" based on their neurological instrument, which has its own biases based on its prior experience and genetics.

squishington commented on The graduate 'jobpocalypse': Where have all the entry-level jobs gone? [video] youtube.com/watch?v=IeTFp... · Posted by u/sarmike31

y0eswddl · 3 months ago

> My feeling is there are often factors which are not captured in job market statistics

they absolutely manipulate the numbers and choose a formula that doesn't accurately represent most people's feelings about the market. I always trust a lot of anecdata over the "official" numbers - word of mouth almost always indicates a problem before the official numbers do.

squishington · 3 months ago

Thanks for your input. I have a similar feeling about general economic matters. I like Gary Stevenson's perspective on this. When the numbers say the economy is doing well, but you talk to "ordinary people" and they say they feel their living standard is declining, which source do you believe? All inputs should be considered to try to get an accurate picture.

squishington commented on The graduate 'jobpocalypse': Where have all the entry-level jobs gone? [video] youtube.com/watch?v=IeTFp... · Posted by u/sarmike31

unmole · 3 months ago

> why it's important to listen to the experience of grads seeking jobs.

Anecdotes from people who didn't experience any other hiring market?

squishington · 3 months ago

For what it's worth, one of my uni lecturers in my final uni year told me that over half the cohort for that year would never work in engineering because there weren't enough jobs. He said the uni didn't want him imparting that information but he thought it was unethical. I'm sure he had a historical perspective that informed that advice. I've worked with older guys who got engineering jobs without degrees and taught themselves FPGA design on the job in the 80s and 90s. There's no chance of that happening now.

squishington commented on The graduate 'jobpocalypse': Where have all the entry-level jobs gone? [video] youtube.com/watch?v=IeTFp... · Posted by u/sarmike31

roxolotl · 3 months ago

We have this data[0]. It’s not that bad out there right now compared to 2008-2013 but it is way worse than a few years ago. Everything is relative when it come to how people feel.

0: https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market#--:...

squishington · 3 months ago

My feeling is there are often factors which are not captured in job market statistics, which is why it's important to listen to the experience of grads seeking jobs. When I graduated in 2018, it took me a whole year to land a job (graduated with first class honours in electronics engineering in Australia, with 7 months overseas experience working for a chip design company in germany and a research scholarship at university). I came across job interviewers who had very irrational approaches to hiring, which I suspect was partly because they had too many applicants and were overworked processing them. One medical hardware company turned me down because they said I was overqualified and would get bored and quit. Overqualified as a grad. What a joke. I just needed a job before the next round of grads came out and left me forever shut out of my future field. It was a massive shock to my system as I had done nothing but work hard for years to get top marks and industry experience, and it still wasn't satisfactory (also building projects to showcase in interviews). I feel for new grads.

squishington commented on For comedians around the world, the laughs often end as democracy fades theguardian.com/world/202... · Posted by u/thunderbong

jaybrendansmith · 3 months ago

I have been completely radicalized. I used to be a boring moderate; was a liberal when it came to social issues, but somewhat conservative fiscally. Now I find I am just an American, and it is no longer about left or right, it is about what is moral and immoral. I never would have believed so many in my country would have zero self-reflection and ignorance, but here we are. I suppose they have always been here, I just did not want to believe it.

squishington · 3 months ago

The left and right have more in common with each other than they realise. Many of the distinctions become irrelevant when you realise it's really workers against the power of massive capital.