yogurtboy (u/yogurtboy)

yogurtboy commented on What medieval people got right about learning (2019) scotthyoung.com/blog/2019... · Posted by u/ripe

socalgal2 · 12 days ago

NASA Video on how hard it can be to learn to surf

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wn5KqWwP6uQ

Basically lots and lots of lots of practice.

yogurtboy · 11 days ago

Not sure if you're being witty, but for the unaware, the channel here is that of Tom Sachs, an extremely successful artist who uses the aesthetics of NASA (among other orgs) in order to sort of capture their essence. This is not from NASA.

I'm a little personally split on Tom Sachs as an artist, as he is constantly riding the line between appropriating the aesthetics of respectable institutions and actually emulating their positive qualities.

yogurtboy commented on ChatGPT Is Still a Bullshit Machine gizmodo.com/chatgpt-is-st... · Posted by u/01-_-

mjd · 17 days ago

We already know the system is really bad at spelling. I have Claude configured to periodically remind me “By the way, I think there are ** n's in 'banana'”, so I don't forget what I am dealing with. It has never gotten this right.

But that doesn't mean that it is not extremely useful. It only means I shouldn't ask it to spell stuff.

If a human is unable to count the n's in 'banana' we expect them to be barely functional. Articles like this one try to draw the same inference about the LLM: it can't count 'n's, so it must not be able to do anything else either.

But it's a bad argument, and I'm tired of hearing it.

yogurtboy · 17 days ago

I don't disagree with your first point, that it's not still extremely useful despite its flaws. I absolutely use it to build project outlines, write code snippets, etc.

Your overall conclusion though seems a little free of context. Average people (i.e. my mom googling something) absolutely do not have the wherewithal to keep track of the various pros and cons of the underlying system that generates the magical giant blue box at the top of their search that has all the answers. They are being deliberately duped by the salesmen-in-chief of these giant companies, as are all of their investors.

yogurtboy commented on Meta shareholders look to haul CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg to court nypost.com/2025/07/15/bus... · Posted by u/1vuio0pswjnm7

yogurtboy · a month ago

Does anybody with knowledge of the process know if this can be a path to holding companies liable for the private data they save?

yogurtboy commented on SFStreets: History of San Francisco place names sfstreets.noahveltman.com... · Posted by u/jxmorris12

yogurtboy · 2 months ago

This is unbelievably cool. I would love to see the same for the Twin Cities, or Seattle.

yogurtboy commented on Apple files emergency motion to become defendant in US vs. Google [pdf] storage.courtlistener.com... · Posted by u/zdw

frereubu · 7 months ago

This is the case referred to:

"The United States of America, acting under the direction of the Attorney General of the United States, and the States of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, and Texas, acting through their respective Attorneys General, bring this action under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 2, to restrain Google LLC (Google) from unlawfully maintaining monopolies in the markets for general search services, search advertising, and general search text advertising in the United States through anticompetitive and exclusionary practices, and to remedy the effects of this conduct."

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/18552824/1/united-state...

Edit: NAL, but this seems to be at least partially about Apple bundling Google search in MacOS / iOS: (From the emergency motion) "Second, Apple will suffer clear and substantial irreparable harm if it is unable to participate in the remedies phase moving forward. Apple will be unable to participate in discovery and develop evidence in the targeted fashion it has proposed as this litigation progresses toward a final judgment. If Apple’s appeal is not resolved until during or after the remedies trial, Apple may well be forced to stand mute at trial, as a mere spectator, while the government pursues an extreme remedy that targets Apple by name and would prohibit any commercial arrangement between Apple and Google for a decade. This would leave Apple without the ability to defend its right to reach other arrangements with Google that could benefit millions of users and Apple’s entitlement to compensation for distributing Google search to its users. Further, Apple will be unable to present its own live testimony or cross-examine witnesses who opine about Apple’s interests and incentives with respect to the general search market."

yogurtboy · 7 months ago

Thanks for the overview!

Can't help but notice that this is all deep red states. Why might that be? From above, this seems pretty bipartisan and what Lina Khan (MVP) has been working on for the last four years.

yogurtboy commented on Estimates of plant CO2 uptake rise by nearly one third ornl.gov/news/plant-co2-u... · Posted by u/akyuu

jamiecurle · 7 months ago

It depends. For forestry stock there's no real way to avoid monoculture if you need a lot and you need it soon (40-60 years). There's much more to this answer though because Phytopthora is hammering larch, Ips is hammering spruce and red band needle blight is hammering pines. That's another topic on itself. Broadly though, there's nothing wrong with a monoculture per-se ([Pando][1], Boreal woodland) it just depends on how it is managed and how well the ecology does in response to it.

That being said, personally, I favour the continuous cover approach of mixing up natives broadleaves with non-native conifers as long as the site isn't ancient or semi-ancient natural woodland (ASNW) or plantation on ancient woodland site (PAWS). For those sites, they're too important for use as a commercial forestry site and arguably the ecology needs to be restored, maintained and managed. Those sites are precious and should be managed properly in-line with their identified [NVC identifier][2]. The one exception to this is coppicing. Having a coppice on ancient sites where coppicing was practised is one of the few woodland management techniques that adds to ecology over all four woodland layers over all time frames.

I never thought I'd answer that question on HN. I appreciate you asking. What's your take on forestry monocultures?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree) [2]: https://jncc.gov.uk/our-work/nvc/

yogurtboy · 7 months ago

Super interesting!

My preconception (not a botanist) was that monocultures were automatically worse for local ecologies. I wonder if lumbering practices in America are similar. Obviously, it's a mix of good and bad, but it would be cool to find some research that suggests how we're doing.

I also just like an eclectic, vibrant forest, and personally, monocultures ruin that vibe for me. I'm pretty spoiled though, having lived much of my life in heavily-wooded areas.

yogurtboy commented on Solar-powered desalination system requires no extra batteries news.mit.edu/2024/solar-p... · Posted by u/bentocorp

marcosdumay · 9 months ago

It's not. It's an electrodialysis desalinator. I have no idea what in the article gave you the idea it was thermal.

yogurtboy · 9 months ago

I think their thought process was "It uses the sun to desalinate water, so it must be the same"

yogurtboy commented on Mushroom Color Atlas mushroomcoloratlas.com/... · Posted by u/gaws

yogurtboy · 10 months ago

No notes, this is cool as fuck.

yogurtboy commented on Only 5.3% of US welders are women. After years as a professor, I became one theconversation.com/only-... · Posted by u/Michelangelo11

Dazzler5648 · 10 months ago

Are there actually any women in this conversation? I find many of the comments at YC to be obnoxiously male dominant and condescending, this comment section included. It's been frustrating me for quite a while now.

Would guess only 5.3% of YC readers are female. And would say, it's posh, not "real world," and it's not comfortable even though I'm a very strong woman - and a welder.

yogurtboy · 10 months ago

100% agree, every comment seems to be men explaining why the author's problems are actually not that bad.

yogurtboy commented on The sad tale of hype fanning fears modern cryptography was slain arstechnica.com/informati... · Posted by u/donatzsky

yogurtboy · 10 months ago

What is this terrible title? Am I being algo-tested?

On the link: "The sad tale of hype fanning fears modern cryptography was slain"

In the article: "Here’s the paper no one read before declaring the demise of modern cryptography"

The link title is like one of those word play sentences where you get a different meaning depending on which word is stressed the most. In this version, it's like its own puzzle where if you don't stress the right word it makes no sense at all.

Neat article, though.