Hacker News: Devasta

New comment by Devasta in "UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases"

Devasta — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 13:11:45 +0000

The Guardians role in modern UK society is to launder right wing talking points through a few layers of progressive sounding rhetoric so that the average person on the street can say "Well if even The Guardian agrees, maybe there is something to it."

A worthless rag of a paper.

New comment by Devasta in "Morningstar values SpaceX at $780B, half its IPO target"

Devasta — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 18:18:06 +0000

Doesn't matter, as soon as they can they'll shove it into the indexes, meaning pension funds all over the world will be let holding the bag.

New comment by Devasta in "What if remote working, not AI, is to blame for weak junior hiring?"

Devasta — Sun, 31 May 2026 20:33:27 +0000

I have been working since 2008, in that time the only periods my manager has been within a hundred miles of me has been between 2010-2013 and 2015-2017.

Even if I pretend for a moment that a generation that is younger than Google is somehow unable to collaborate online, remote work has been the mode of operation of most people even before COVID, the only question is whether they are sitting in traffic or not first.

New comment by Devasta in "I Am Retiring from Tech to Live Offline"

Devasta — Fri, 29 May 2026 15:15:31 +0000

I have definitely found my enjoyment of coding in my spare time is lessened now that AI is on the scene. I know very few if any were going to use the code, but it felt like working on a classic car, the act of working on it was fun even if the final results seem like the effort could have been used more productively.

Now, I just feel like I am transcribing a phonebook.

New comment by Devasta in "Is AI causing a repeat of frontend’s lost decade?"

Devasta — Fri, 29 May 2026 13:04:08 +0000

People don't use web tech because they care about quality, they target it very specifically because its one of the places where quality doesn't matter. If your native app crashes, your users will curse your name. Webpage or Electron slop freezes? They'll shrug and restart.

This idea that quality ever existed on the web is ahistorical at best.

New comment by Devasta in "Tech Billionaire Peter Thiel Finds a New Escape: Argentina"

Devasta — Thu, 28 May 2026 10:56:11 +0000

Makes sense, lots of people like Peter Thiel found refuge in Argentina.

New comment by Devasta in "Jira Is Turing-Complete"

Devasta — Mon, 25 May 2026 09:52:47 +0000

> Quite a few have, the issue is that every Jira instance is a fractal shit snowflake of custom properties several layers deep through old failed migrations to new organization strategies.

This is key, Jira is fantastic so long as you have an angry commissar enforcing discipline, otherwise its a total free for all wasteland.

New comment by Devasta in "Anthropic blames dystopian sci-fi for training AI models to act "evil""

Devasta — Sat, 23 May 2026 22:23:42 +0000

Nobody forced them to build the torment nexus, blaming the authors of Don't Create The Torment Nexus is just silly.

New comment by Devasta in "Ghana proposes mandatory licensing for IT professionals and businesses [pdf]"

Devasta — Sat, 23 May 2026 17:48:32 +0000

Honestly overdue. A small town lawyer can face all manner of professional sanctions if they screw up badly, but a software engineer can cause untold amounts of social harm and it's all fine so long as they got a few people to click ads along the way.

New comment by Devasta in "US Is Starting to See Heavy Job Losses in Roles Exposed to AI"

Devasta — Sat, 16 May 2026 19:17:13 +0000

Am I meant to pretend that companies weren't for years beforehand using RTO to drive layoffs? They are always doing it, AI is just the cover.

New comment by Devasta in "OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft Back Bill to Fund 'AI Literacy' in Schools"

Devasta — Mon, 04 May 2026 19:31:53 +0000

The Chromebook has already been an unmitigated disaster for computer literacy, this will only make it worse.

New comment by Devasta in "The woes of sanitizing SVGs"

Devasta — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:13:30 +0000

> In 2019, a few months after the initial release of Scratch 3, Scratch discovered that SVGs can contain Is this really an issue? This is the method that the chrome teams polyfill to replace XSLT suggests you do. https://github.com/mfreed7/xslt_polyfill/tree/main#usage

New comment by Devasta in "Chernobyl wildlife forty years on"

Devasta — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 10:27:26 +0000

Just like the Falkland's penguins who inhabit an area filled with landmines, keeping humans out is just as crucial to biodiversity as any measure to assist the wildlife within.

New comment by Devasta in "The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it"

Devasta — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:05:00 +0000

I agree that it is mostly that the discovery mechanism is shot to bits, but its also the case that before I could find a new artist and marvel, now I have to treat with suspicion to be sure there is no AI before I do anything else.

New comment by Devasta in "The AI Industry Is Discovering That the Public Hates It"

Devasta — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 21:50:42 +0000

> The easiest way would be a straight tax on AI usage, and using that tax to pay a universal basic income.

If the Epstein class wouldn't go for something like this in a world where they needed workers to produce, the idea that they will when we are surplus to requirement is inconceivable.

New comment by Devasta in "The AI industry is discovering that the public hates it"

Devasta — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 21:49:25 +0000

It has destroyed art, it has destroyed public trust with fabricated videos, it has caused skyrocketing prices in components so stuff like Valves console cannot get made, and its enriched freaks like Sam Altman.

The fact that AI acolytes are positively giddy about the above is just icing on the cake.

New comment by Devasta in "Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys"

Devasta — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 20:24:43 +0000

This is trying to manage their personal image; they know exactly what they are and what they do.

They are just annoyed Karp is breaking Kayfabe

New comment by Devasta in "Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price"

Devasta — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 22:18:55 +0000

A few years ago, during the initial stages of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, John Deere was remotely bricking any tractors that were stolen by Russia.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/01/europe/russia-farm-vehicl...

I'm sure this was meant to be a story about the bad guys being thwarted, but it only made my blood run cold. A single company can remotely destroy the agricultural sector of a country if they felt like it.

This is a welcome development.

New comment by Devasta in "Irony as Meta staff unhappy about running surveillance software on work PCs"

Devasta — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 12:00:47 +0000

Meta employees shocked to find out they work for Meta.

New comment by Devasta in "In the UK, EVs are cheaper than petrol cars, thanks to Chinese competition"

Devasta — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 21:36:19 +0000

I don't know, Stephen King couldn't write anything that matches the horror that was the management of UK car companies in the second half of the 20th century. British Leyland was a disaster from start to finish.