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PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42816284

[flagged]


> Before you ask: this quote was made with ChatGPT (GPT-5.2), unmodified, first attempt.

Just a heads up in case you didn't know, but generated comments are not allowed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45077654


Thanks, I wasn't aware.

I'll understand if dang takes it down, but the heavy (and intentional, I assume) irony makes it one I'd personally keep up. Thanks for posting that.

I think dang's intention here is to prohibit undisclosed comments posted by either bots or lazy humans, not topical, attributed comments that were generated by models and posted as part of a good-faith discussion by actual users.

Can't speak for dang, obviously, but that's the rule I'd make in his shoes.



The people he's addressing were either actively trying to fool other users, or lazily using AI to engage as superficially as they could.

The comment here was a borderline case of the latter, but I think it was on the worthwhile side of the border, personally.

In any case, a blanket prohibition is pointless, because it won't be long before there's simply no way to tell.


A blanket prohibition may be futile but it's anything but pointless.

Once Hacker News becomes nothing but bots posting stories written by bots for other bots to comment on - which is the inevitable end point of a permissive attitude towards this stuff - what even is the fucking point to any of this? SEO juice?


Let me know when AI can create functions for the secp256k1 library that adds a point in jacobian coordinates to another point in jacobian coordinates, both in variable time and in constant time. i.e. add functions

    void secp256k1_gej_add_gej(secp256k1_gej *r, const secp256k1_gej *a, const secp256k1_gej *b);
and

    void secp256k1_gej_add_gej_var(secp256k1_gej *r, const secp256k1_gej *a, const secp256k1_gej *b);
As with the other functions in the library the parameters r and a are allowed to alias.

It probably can't do that.

But neither can most humans.

I admit to being surprised at what it actually can do, pretty much all by itself.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/12/the-ars-technica-ai-codin...


Sure, I get that most humans aren't programmers, but the thrust of the article here is defending the position that "AI Can Write Your Code. [It Can’t Do Your Job.]" However, this task is literally the sort of code that I write. So if AI cannot do the above task, then AI cannot (yet) write my code.

I don't know what other programmers are doing, but a lot of my time is spent on tasks like this.

Here's another random task: Write an analytic ray - cubic Bézier patch intersection routine based on the based on the "Ray Tracing Parametric Patches", SIGGRAPH 82 paper. This is a task I did as part of my final project for my undergraduate graphics class.

These are both straightforward tasks to take well-described existing algorithms from literature and implement them concretely. Very few design choices to consider. In theory it ought to be right up the alley for what AI is supposedly good for.


I also unsubscribed, but even with you and me out, from what I read, it was a profitable move on Netflix's part. I guess I can't fault them.

Do not try this at home, but I replaced the lead acid battery in my UPS with a LFP battery. From what I read online, the charging curves for lead acid batteries and LFP batteries are very similar. The LFP batteries have a slightly higher charging voltage, so I expect my LFP battery to only charge upto about 80% capacity or so due to the charging voltage being slightly too low. I'm hoping the battery will last 10 years instead of 2 or 3 years.

Do not try this at home, as changing battery chemistry is quite ill advised.


I used my rooted TV to root my PS4. I'm not even joking.

https://youtu.be/NzBBfGnAWM0


I am doing the same! I have been jailbreaking PS4 for few years and Modded Warfare is where I learned about the LG TV jailbreak

Not that I'm qualified to reply, but I think this is debated. I seem to recall reading in "Immune" by Philipp Dettmer that there is an argument that a virus is analogous to a spore stage of life, and the virus begins "living" when it plants itself inside a cell full of "nutrients", sheds it's skin and begins consuming and replicating.


It is always going to be controversial but after discovery of prions - needle shifted to "self-replicating means nothing and viruses are also dead". Then scientists also found viruses large enough that they get infected with other viruses, and parasitic cells that are missing most parts required for metabolism, so it is getting more fuzzy again.

How do you deal with "branded" types, if you know what I mean.

Edit: I mean structurally identical types that are meant to be distinct. As I recall Modula 3 used a BRANDED keyword for this.


aha yeah! good question! We have two different types of type declarations, and each has its own keyword: "structural" and "unique". So you can define two different types as as

structural type Optional a = Some a | None structural type Maybe a = Just a | Nothing

and these two types would get the same hash, and the types and constructors could be used interchangeably. If you used the "unique" type instead:

unique type Optional a = Some a | None uniqte type Maybe a = Just a | Nothing

Then these would be totally separate types with separate constructors, which I believe corresponds to the `BRANDED` keyword in Modula 3.

Originally, if you omitted both and just said:

type Optional a = Some a | None

The default was "structural". We switched that a couple of years ago so that now the default is "unique". We are interestingly uniquely able to do something like this, since we don't store source code, we store the syntax tree, so it doesn't matter which way you specified it before we made the change, we can just change the language and pretty print your source in the new format the next time you need it.


How does the implementation of unique types works? It seems you need to add some salt to the hashes of unique type data, but where does the entropy come from?


I've been meaning to see how close I can come to Markdown syntax using SGML's SHORTREF and perhaps architectural forms.


Markdown inline syntax is straightforward to capture using SGML SHORTREF. What's more difficult (impossible) are things such as reference links where a markdown processor is supposed to pull text (the title of a link) from wherever it's defined before or after its usage.

Haven't heard about archforms in a while ;) but it's not a technique for custom syntax, and since markdown is specified as a Wiki syntax with canonical mapping to HTML, there's no need for the kind of simplistic element and token renaming possible with archforms.


I've use archforms in my custom markup before: https://r6.ca/HtmlAsSgml.html

For example added an <nbsp> attribute to turn all spaces into non-breaking spaces, and used archforms to remove the attribute afterwards.

But yeah, maybe for Makrdown you don't need archforms. On the other hand, perhaps there is some super clever way to use archforms to get your reference links working.


Huh? The CAD/USD exchange rate is exactly where I remember it being 30 years ago.


CAD/USD is down ~5.3% over the past 20 years.


How much is it down over the past 30 years?

FWIW, my mental CAD/USD price anchor was set when I was coming of age at 0.75 CAD / USD. Today it at 0.73 CAD / USD, and I've seen it touch 0.60 ish and pass parity in my lifetime.


IMO: 30 years isn't relevant to look at, because its ancient history (I'm calling both of us ancient here). It pushes back too far beyond 2008 & the GFC to capture data that isn't relevant to the modern global economy. Everything about everything about the world, today, is a consequence of the GFC, and its likely that by the year 2100 we'll still talk about it as among the most significant things to happen to the world in the past century. Maybe the most significant.


I also have a ventless, but it is a washr/dryer all-in-one unit.

It probably also takes 4.5 hours to wash and dry, but I wouldn't know because it happens when I'm sleeping (which just happens to be the same time as the ultra-low time-of-day electricity rates where I live) . It's pretty great. Definitely recommend.


My laundry room is under my bedroom so the noise is disruptive. Especially when the anti-wrinkle setting runs for three hours on a load of towels.


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