Hacker News: 4lx87

New comment by 4lx87 in "We've built an open-source feature flag server for 11 years"

4lx87 — Fri, 06 Nov 2026 17:21:32 +0000

We are an unserious industry run by idiots and grifters. We deserve to be replaced by AI. AI isn't going to purchase a SaaS to store a fucking boolean.

My company has used 3 different feature flag services in 5 years, spent thousands of dollars, with multiple migrations and teams of engineers involved. All to basically implement `SELECT 1 FROM feature_flags WHERE team_id = ?`. Makes me want to blow my brains out.

New comment by 4lx87 in "Ask HN: How to get the most intelligence out of your agents?"

4lx87 — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 01:48:19 +0000

In case you're not aware, Codex lets you set the reasoning effort in the model picker or with codex --config 'model_reasoning_effort="high"'.

New comment by 4lx87 in "Ask HN: How do you review code nowadays?"

4lx87 — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 01:24:45 +0000

I don't. I only review working software, or demo videos of working software. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

New comment by 4lx87 in "The Harness Is the Company"

4lx87 — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 22:26:53 +0000

All harnesses are basically the same. Why wouldn't there be a few large harnesses that everyone uses to run the whole business? In other words, why would there be a plethora of small harnesses and not a few big ones?

New comment by 4lx87 in "Ask HN: What are you reading to your kids?"

4lx87 — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 15:54:54 +0000

We go to the library a few times a month and pick out new books. Our reading list is always changing. Buying new books is pretty expensive, as we don't read most books repeatedly for more than a week or two.

Frog & Toad series by Arnold Lobel is a favorite.

New comment by 4lx87 in "Dots: Always-on agents"

4lx87 — Wed, 30 Sep 2026 15:52:29 +0000

I've never seen an office in real life as nice as the one in the video. You're lucky if you get a cubicle! Ditto for the home. And what's up with the large screens everywhere? The sets in the video are bizarre.

New comment by 4lx87 in "Management is forcing us to use AI"

4lx87 — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 20:20:44 +0000

Lean into it. Automate your code reviews. Automate ticket refinement. Automatically draft PRs with a demo video of every acceptance criteria. Automate status updates to Slack.

New comment by 4lx87 in "Does Georgism work? Five years later"

4lx87 — Sun, 27 Sep 2026 15:53:16 +0000

> Thanks to capitalism.

Thanks to technology. Productivity increases are due to technology.

New comment by 4lx87 in "Too AI; Didn't Read"

4lx87 — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 21:31:43 +0000

Most people at my work don't think I'm using AI simply because I instruct it to never use more than two sentences of max 10-15 words each.

New comment by 4lx87 in "Toyota is taking the Corolla electric"

4lx87 — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 17:48:58 +0000

What's the math on that? Average kWh in California is around 18 cents. Assuming 0.35 kWh per mile, that's 6.3 cents per mile. You'd need to get 100mpg+ to beat an EV at current gas prices. A brand new Corolla hybrid my family recently bought gets around 40-60 mpg driving around a small city. And that's without factoring in maintenance differences costs per mile.

New comment by 4lx87 in "Feds Target AI Critics as "Foreign Agents""

4lx87 — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 02:51:36 +0000

Unless I'm missing something, those sources don't mention anything about amplifying AI opposition efforts.

New comment by 4lx87 in "Socialism's Positive Rating Tops 40% for First Time"

4lx87 — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 16:45:31 +0000

Define socialism.

79 percent of U.S. adults said Social Security benefits shouldn’t be reduced in any way according to Pew. 87 percent of Americans agree that Social Security should remain a priority for the nation no matter the state of budget deficits, according to NIRS.

66 percent believe the government should be responsible for ensuring Americans have health coverage (90 percent for Democrats and left-leaners), according to Pew.

New comment by 4lx87 in "I Don't Want the Details"

4lx87 — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 13:48:19 +0000

The important part is the action items are assigned an owner and executed.

I’ve done plenty of postmortems and many meetings where we go through the motions but “leadership” does not assign and address follow-ups. Most organizations pay lip service to reliability.

The data does not show mass unemployment

4lx87 — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 20:22:33 +0000

Article URL: https://lemire.me/blog/2026/09/21/nomassunemployment/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49792858

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

New comment by 4lx87 in "US Military had close call after using AI for hallucinated intelligence report"

4lx87 — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 20:01:30 +0000

We understand how networks compute decisions, though explaining every internal influence remains difficult.

New comment by 4lx87 in "How to Write with an LLM"

4lx87 — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:16:02 +0000

It's more effective in my experience to have an LLM emulate your own writing examples than to apply lists of rules in the hope it sounds human.

New comment by 4lx87 in "OpenAI's Sam Altman says it would be 'ill-advised' to go public in 2026"

4lx87 — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 22:20:00 +0000

I don't get it. Isn't every IPO a potential exit for investors?

New comment by 4lx87 in "The UN challenges five centuries of cartography"

4lx87 — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 03:57:25 +0000

Don't give the lying-felon-in-chief any ideas.

New comment by 4lx87 in "What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks"

4lx87 — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 22:13:58 +0000

Prices reflect the credit card merchant fees, even if there's no separate surcharge. People pay higher prices and anyone who doesn't use a credit card to recoup some in "rewards" is effectively getting taxed.

New comment by 4lx87 in "What do Visa and Mastercard do? An intro to card networks"

4lx87 — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 22:12:20 +0000

You get charged higher prices and then have to use a credit card to recoup the loss, so that rent-seeking monopolists can make money. And Americans are also seemingly baffled by the idea of regulating this away, as if other countries doing this don't exist. Credit cards are the USA epitomized.