Top all-time · #11596
Machine Learning Everything
Personal blog · mleverything.substack.com · on HN as bkoeconomicsaipolitics
Machine Learning Everything is a personal blog at mleverything.substack.com about economics, ai and politics. Since 2021, 6 different Hacker News readers have linked it 158 times, most often “Performance of Gold Since the End of the Gold Standard”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Posts on work hours, the role of hard work in success, and AI risk scenarios. Commenters cite it for AI risks and push back on its argument about hard work.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Thoughts on machine learning, programming and finance.
Most-linked posts?
- Performance of Gold Since the End of the Gold Standard2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-03-29
- Where did the $12T of Covid spending go?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-02-11
- Elon Musk, John Carmack and Gatekeeping Engineering2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-08-23
- Crypto decentralized finance: Automated Market Markers2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-06-08
- Thoughts on A.I. Dilemma: Language as the ultimate medium2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-04-17
What Hacker News says?
> As far as they are concerned, every serious (non-legacy/donor) applicant is a truly exceptional student. I know it's fun to dunk on legacy admissions but legacy students are actually more qualified by objective measures than non legacy. It makes sense that some genetics that predisposes children to an academic environment gets passed on. Not to mention the fact that their parents value education. This holds up eve…
Comment linking /p/in-defense-of-legacy-admissions-to
on “Trump administration halts Harvard's ability to enroll international students”Submitted When did writing in major newspapers become so bad? as a story · 327 points
HN discussionFunny you should say that. In another post I compared sitting congressmen to convicted felons - 440 images of congressmen - 1,756 mugshots - 10 mismatches (?) with 70+% certainty The highest was 86%, but to be fair, I wouldn't be able to tell you confidently for all of them that the convicts aren't the same person. And under 80% should be suspect anyway. It's just that you need to use the right statistical methods w…
Comment linking /p/how-facial-recognition-works-part-4-comparing-congressmen-to-mugshots-bf08b72c3c2a
on “How normal am I?”Submitted Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics? as a story · 277 points
HN discussionI played around with Amazon's Rekognition software. I took one of those youtube videos where someone takes a picture of themselves every day for 10 years. It was fairly ideal conditions (consistent lighting, same pose for the most part) but the kid also went from 12 years old to 22, so his face definitely changed a lot. I used the first image as the image to compare the rest to (12 years old at the time), and I was…
Comment linking /p/how-facial-recognition-works-part-3-how-a-face-changes-over-10-years-ba0e418a0ae4
on “How normal am I?”Submitted Why is every consumer startup selling me what I already own for 10x the price? as a story · 113 points
HN discussionI think the bigger issue is that the main signal to YC (and other elite institutions) is the acceptance rate (<1%). That's probably the #1 thing people know about YC. A lot of people try to get in, and few do. The main criticism I have of YC is their constants chants of "everyone should apply!". Here is what you commonly hear: YC: You should apply to YC! Person: But I don’t have a product YC: You should still apply,…
Comment linking /p/dont-play-status-games
on “Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth”Submitted When did “privacy issues” start to mean “too much privacy”? as a story · 109 points
HN discussionOne thing I don't understand is how the rise of food delivery has gone up so much and is terrible for everyone. For context, I used to deliver pizzas in a the early 2000s. I made $4-5 an hour + $1 per delivery + tips (~$3 average) My typical night made me about $20/hour (3-4 deliveries per hour). Someone would order $20 pizza, pay $4 for delivery fee and tip (16% markup). Restaurant paid $1.5 per delivery (amortized…
Comment linking /p/what-happened-to-food-delivery
on “DoorDash to acquire Instacart”Submitted Comma.ai, self-driving cars and indefinite optimism as a story · 109 points
HN discussionLet's be real. Social media doesn't have a choice. They are pre-empting orders for the government or they have already received them. There's a direct line from the white house to social media platforms. Youtube and Google is a business after-all. And the federal government could make it very hard for them to continue From a press conference from July 15 2021 > Q Thanks, Jen. Can you talk a little bit more about thi…
Comment linking /p/what-would-government-censorship
on “YouTube deletes rapper's 'Let's Go Brandon' song claiming medical misinformation”Submitted Cancelling student debt is essentially printing money as a story · 81 points
HN discussionThey also suspended Nancy Tracker [0], a twitter account tracking Nancy Pelosi's stock trades. Something else I noticed that I think has changed is the follower counts on suspended accounts, which is only available on the app. It may have always been hidden on the web. I get it, they're a private platform. But if they're acting on behalf of powerful state actors, how can we say that's not suppression on speech? The…
Comment linking /p/what-would-government-censorship
on “Twitter suspends account tracking Maxwell trial”Submitted Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change as a story · 79 points
HN discussionThis is also unlikely to work because Congress members don't do particularly well on trading. It's very hard to trade successfully, even with insider information its not entirely obvious what a stock price will do. It seems obvious because news media often reports ad-hoc analysis on a stock price movement. For instance, they'll say "Apple up 5% based on surprising App store revenue growth", but if it were to drop yo…
Comment linking /p/analyzing-us-senators-stock-picks-e8106bbbe8e
on “TikTokers Are Trading Stocks by Copying What Members of Congress Do”Submitted Gifted children are special needs children as a story · 66 points
HN discussionWhat do you mean "this just doesn't work"? You do understand that an overwhelming majority of crime and overall anti social behavior is done by a tiny percentage of people. Remove those people and you spare the rest of us. For instance, the number of prisoners that have had 15 or more prior arrests is over 26%. You can just have a 15 strikes and you're out policy and make a huge impact. Once these bad actors are out…
Comment linking /p/acceptance-of-crime-is-a-policy-choice-135
on “Home Depot sued for 'secretly' using facial recognition at self-checkouts”Submitted New Jersey bans paper bags as a story · 40 points
HN discussionI don't know if that's really it. In the US, sure, there was a direct line of communication between all the large social media companies and the federal government. It was used to censor what was deemed "conspiracy theories" around covid and election interference. That could be seen as protecting politicians. But in the UK, what I read about is cases where it offended someone, like the case of a an autistic teenage…
Comment linking /p/what-would-government-censorship
on “4chan will refuse to pay daily online safety fines, lawyer tells BBC”Submitted Where did the $12T of Covid spending go? Part 5: USD as global reserve currency as a story · 36 points
HN discussionOr I cannot trust a contrived laboratory setting with it's garden of forking paths. https://mleverything.substack.com/p/garden-of-forking-paths-...
Comment linking /p/garden-of-forking-paths-in-the-research
on “AI slows down open source developers. Peter Naur can teach us why”Submitted Thoughts on Lex Fridman's Interview with Pfizer CEO as a story · 23 points
HN discussionI often see "recycled" or similar as a signal for more expensive. My favorite was when I saw a jam that touted "upcycled" strawberries. When I looked into it, it basically meant that it was made from beat up ugly strawberries that would have been used for animal feed. Surely there would be cost savings in using reject fruit, right? No, an 8oz jar retails for over $8 compared to about half that to an organic no sugar…
Comment linking /p/what-are-upcycled-strawberries-anyway
on “A laptop stand made from a single sheet of recycled paper”Submitted The idea of uploading consciousness is misdirected narcissism as a story · 20 points
HN discussionCongrats! You just hit the clever hypothetical on my anti flock bingo card! Step one: find two things that differ in nearly every relevant respect Step two: identify the broad category they share. Step three: ask, “If you accept one, why don’t you accept the other?” https://mleverything.substack.com/p/anti-flock-activist-bing...
Comment linking /p/anti-flock-activist-bingo-card
on “In Leaked Audio, Flock CEO Tells Cops Backlash to the Company Isn't Real”Submitted The “success isn't based on hard work” crowd as a story · 15 points
HN discussionThis reminds me how much fund I had with GPT-3 when it was in beta and available for free. I used it to recreate a reddit "bot" that explained jokes. It was a joke because it was obviously a human. Example Joke: Three men are on a boat. They have four cigarettes, but nothing to light them with. So they throw a cigarette overboard and the whole boat becomes a cigarette lighter. Explained: Lighter can mean a device th…
Comment linking /p/using-gpt-3-to-explain-jokes-2001a5aefb68
on “Joke written by an AI: “A basic program walked into a bar ””Submitted America's Failing Schools as a story · 9 points
HN discussionThe indifference of this by everyone involved is infuriating. This criminal activity is treated as natural as rain, just something us 98% of people have to endure. It's important to remember that accepting crime, especially low level crime like this is a policy choice. It's the same people doing the same crimes over and over. They have run ins with the law and they just get let go to continue terrorizing the rest of…
Comment linking /p/acceptance-of-crime-is-a-policy-choice-135
on “So thieves broke into your storage unit again”Submitted Gmail UX Is a Mess as a story · 8 points
HN discussion
