Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | swasheck's commentslogin

zero _immediate_ results. hate is a powerful motivator and hard to overcome, and the political machinations also don’t really allow for immediate feedback. we will see what happens this midterm cycle. polls show repudiation of the current administration across all dimensions.

as were the protests in the 60s. violent uprisings give greater permission for violent suppression. nonviolent protests that are met with violence draw greater scrutiny. the american behemoth rarely turns quickly.

along those lines, this is a “fun” (albeit tangential) read https://x.com/PalantirTech/status/2045574398573453312?s=20

people really do struggle to differentiate between correlation and causation. we humans love our patterns so that we can make sense of existence.

More like a struggle to STFU about things people don't know much about. I don't think the comments are thought out at all beyond being said in reaction, or likely to get a reaction.

i think "SELECT * FROM my_df" is a convenience from the python module and how tightly integrated it is, but i can’t get this to replicate using the cli or dbeaver or datagrip.

and yes, being able to layer analytical sql on top of your csv/json/parquet/gpx/arrow (but not xml?) is the massive appeal of duckdb for a variety of reasons. it’s a paradigm shift for me as an old timer but it’s also suited my needs quite well over the past few years


must be a seasonal thing. i’ve never seen nobody but have also never seen disney.

Disney is engineered to be "packed" no matter the season or weather.

But national parks are very seasonal; go even slightly off-season and everything is empty (but you may miss some things that close for winter, etc).


whether or not you agree with the author's conclusions, most of his rationale behind them is spot on. yeah GC is majestic and amazing from the bottom up, and if you find the hidden gems within the park then you are golden. but the average experience is a solid “meh.”

was disappointed to see the great sand dunes omitted from the list of the worst. people obsess over those and every time i’ve gone it’s been a unquestionably miserable experience, not to mention a general letdown


i think we need to encode (or refine) what we mean by “vibe code.” my original impression was that it was used to describe the process whereby someone with an idea but lacking development/engineering skills leveraged llm via an agent to create the mechanics to bring their idea to fruition. anymore it seems like if it has the hint of AI then it’s “vibe coded.”

ironically, i didn’t read the article because i come to comments now to see if its been identified as AI slop, so i don’t know which area this falls into


Definitely. The original vibe coding tweet is pretty explicit about “forgetting the code exists”, and “throwaway weekend projects” (https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383)

Now however, many people just use it to mean any ai-assisted coding.

One person says “vibe coding” to mean a throwaway script to scrape some page. Others use it to mean a code reviewed app built by a team using Claude.

It is so broad as to be meaningless at this point


Some people (me included) are trying to separate Vibe Coding (no idea about code, just give me the result) from Vibe Engineering (I know how to do this, but can't be arsed to write. I also know what the result should look like)

Cool. Thus I am an ai/llm-assisted coder amateur. I don’t code for living, I know principles (or I think so) but don’t remember syntax (too old to learn new tricks :)

negligence (especially via ignorance) is a thing. a hobbyist wanting to celebrate their first batch with their buddies can poison them with some smeared hearts. but i get what you’re saying.


No, they really can't.

First, if they are not using anything with pectin in it, there isn't a significant amount of methanol at all worth measuring.

Second, if they did use fruit skins in the fermentation stage, there still isn't enough methanol to compete with the ethanol, (which is the cure to methanol poisoning) with out intentionally poisoning the batch.

You shouldn't push such FUD.


> ethanol, (which is the cure to methanol poisoning)

Now that is completely incorrect. There is no way to prevent metabolism of methanol once it has been ingested, ethanol just competes with it for metabolisis.

Alcohol fermented from fruit byproduct is extremely common in many cultures. It is asinine to think that only grain will be used once this is legalised.

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/methanol-poisoning-the-c...

If you don't get on dialysis within 24 hours of drinking more than 30mL of ethanol there is high risk of blindness, and higher doses can easily cause death.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_toxicity

"Methanol poisoning can be treated with fomepizole or ethanol.[19][22][23] Both drugs act to reduce the action of alcohol dehydrogenase on methanol by means of competitive inhibition. Ethanol, the active ingredient in alcoholic beverages, acts as a competitive inhibitor by more effectively binding and saturating the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme in the liver, thus blocking the binding of methanol. Methanol is excreted by the kidneys without being converted into the toxic metabolites formaldehyde and formic acid. "

So completely correct.

>Alcohol fermented from fruit byproduct is extremely common in many cultures. It is asinine to think that only grain will be used once this is legalised.

Not what I was saying at all. You could use grain, or sugar (cheapest and easiest). That said, the levels are not significantly high enough to poison you unless someone is trying to poison you. It's not happening when making alcohol to drink.

From the link you posted

>Administering patients with controlled doses of either ethanol or fomepizole is standard practice.

Again, what I said is completely correct, your own source confirmed it.

Secondly, also from the article

>Bootleg brewers also sometimes add enough methanol to informally produced spirits to cause serious health effects.

Again, as I said, someone intentionally trying to poison you.

And here's an actual study

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240584402...

>Both commercial and home-distilled alcohols exhibited methanol concentrations remarkably below the 0.35 % limit for brandy set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

You're simply misinformed.


From how I'm reading this, you're disagreeing with the parent but your quotes actually support what they wrote? Ethanol is not an antidote or "cure", it's more or less an attempt at dilution. There are other posts in this thread explaining why it's dangerous to believe that methanol poisoning can simply be counteracted with ethanol.

>Bootleg brewers also sometimes add enough methanol to informally produced spirits to cause serious health effects.

I don't think the "to" here is meant to imply intent. It's "enough to", referring to the amount. I don't know where the notion comes from that people try to intentionally poison people with moonshine. Maybe in a Columbo episode. It happens when people cut corners or don't pay attention or get scammed.


The US Govt did it during prohibition. It has been retconned by wacky homebrew fringe into a belief that all poisonings are due to adulteration, probably by Big Alcohol.


https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/0b9...

“As methanol is highly soluble in water, it will distil over more at the end of distillations when vapours are richer in water. That means, methanol will appear in almost equal concentration in almost all fractions of pot still distillation in reference to ethanol (i.e., as g/hL pa), until the very end where it accumulates in the so-called tailings fraction. However, even today many professional distillers believe that methanol concentrates preferably in the first fractions.”

Hernández, J. A., Wörner, S., & Riedl, K. (2021). Methanol Mitigation during Manufacturing of Fruit Spirits with Special Regard to Novel Coffee Cherry Spirits. Foods, 10(5), 994.


There isn't enough methanol procured during distillation to cause I'll effects. So home made spirits are safe.

So if someone gets methanol poisoning from shine, it's because it was added by someone intentionally.

So don't buy bootleg spirits.


Alcohol is not an antidote! It only competes with enzyme binding to slow the production of fomic acid.

Fomepizole costs thousands of dollars and is often unstocked for that reason in many countries, although I guess it will become stocked in the US now. Dialysis machines are also in short supply. One mass poisoning event would overwhelm available dialysis resources in a state.

>>Bootleg brewers also sometimes add enough methanol to informally produced spirits to cause serious health effects.

> Again, as I said, someone intentionally trying to poison you.

No, someone in the supply chain making cash. Someone swapped in some 20% methanol and hoped it would go unnoticed.

You can cherry pick a study from Texas where there are hardcore home distillers, but that won't change what happens when a heap of amateurs across the country do it.

Eg Turkey https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11097313/

Also let's not ignore the toxic copper and lead in the moonshine. It is a persistent problem.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01960...

Obviously you are going to hold tight to your beliefs. Please spread them somewhere else.


I didn't say antidote, I did say its used in treatment.

How do you imagine a mass poisoning event is going to occur? Is it something like a mass ecoli or salmonella event?

>No, someone in the supply chain making cash. Someone swapped in some 20% methanol and hoped it would go unnoticed.

How does that have anything to do with home made and unsold products?

You're raising a valid issue with any tainted consumable, not something specific to home distillation.

>Also let's not ignore the toxic copper and lead in the moonshine. It is a persistent problem.

You can, if you do what's common and build out of stainless steel. And again we're talking home consumption.

Why are you the police of what I poison myself with?

>Obviously you are going to hold tight to your beliefs. Please spread them somewhere else

I'm sticking with the data, you are angry and wrong. Your ignorance at this point is willful. GLWT.


> A 10% ethanol solution administered intravenously is a safe and effective antidote for severe methanol poisoning. Ethanol therapy is recommended when plasma methanol concentrations are higher than 20 mg per dl, when ingested doses are greater than 30 ml and when there is evidence of acidosis or visual abnormalities in cases of suspected methanol poisoning.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1306022/

So I their words, it is an antitode, effective and recommended treatment.


ok. thanks for the correction. that’s good information that helps me overcome some of the FUD i’ve received


it has been my go-to provider for things but i noticed extraordinarily high usage rate last month on a little side project i started so that i could learn about things that are interesting to me while helping my day to day responsibilities (creating an iceberg data lake from my existing parquet files). i used my month’s worth of corporate subscription allocated tokens in 3 days. never seen that before so now i’m a lot more apprehensive about getting into the weeds with claude but i’m also so much less impressed with the other available models for work in this domain.


Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: