<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: DougWebb</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=DougWebb</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Wed, 13 May 2026 15:03:43 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=DougWebb" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Why senior developers fail to communicate their expertise"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The company is providing <i>existing</i> services to <i>existing</i> users for payment.<p>The company is offering <i>potential new</i> services to <i>current and potential</i> users in the market and getting feedback on how valuable those new services might be.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 12 May 2026 19:54:19 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48113553</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48113553</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48113553</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "AI can code, but it can't build software"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Just today, I spent an hour documenting a function that performs a set of complex scientific simulations. Defined the function input structure, the outputs, and put a bunch of references in the body to function calls it would use.<p>So that's... math. A very well defined problem, defined very well. Any decent programmer should be able to produce working software from that, and it's great that ChatGPT was able to help you get it done much faster than you could have done it yourself. That's also the kind of project that's very well suited for unit testing, because again: math. Functions with well defined inputs, outputs, and no side-effects.<p>Only a tiny subset of software development projects are like that though.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:42:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45728108</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45728108</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45728108</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Launch HN: Integuru (YC W24) – Reverse-engineer internal APIs using LLMs"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If they have deeper pockets than the user, they're the ones who will get sued for abuse they enable.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 29 Oct 2024 16:35:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41986165</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41986165</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41986165</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "GPTs and Hallucination"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I've never been worried about LLMs. I've always been worried about how people will use LLMs and how they will interpret the output of LLMs. Especially people who don't understand what LLMs are doing.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 10 Sep 2024 16:03:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41502239</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41502239</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41502239</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Show HN: If YouTube had actual channels"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You should make the channels change the video they're playing on a schedule, and link to a tv guide listing that shows the schedule.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 14 Aug 2024 15:36:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41247317</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41247317</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41247317</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Show HN: If YouTube had actual channels"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I really like how there are only 12 channels, and you don't get to choose what's on. The only way to make it even more like tv from a few decades ago would be if half of the channels were static.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 14 Aug 2024 15:35:38 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41247296</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41247296</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41247296</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Taking my diabetes treatment into my own hands"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>T1 and T2 are completely different diseases. T2 should not be called diabetes. It should be called insulin resistance or chronic carbohydrate overdose.<p>I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic/T2. I started wearing a cgm and watching how various foods affected my blood sugar. I eliminated foods that caused spikes, and started cooking my own meals so I could control what went into them. I wound up with a very low carb diet of meat and vegetables, and a very stable blood sugar with NO spikes ever. According to my blood work and checkups I cured my NAFLD, cured my hypertension (including getting off drugs for that), and "cured" my pre-diabetes. I lost a lot of weight, but still have a lot more to lose.<p>I put cured in quotes because I don't think this diet can cure you once you're bad enough to need treatment. I think it can only put your disease into remission so that you don't suffer any health effects from it. Some of us just can't overeat carbs or we develop this disease, and the only effective treatment is to stop eating the carbs.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 24 Jul 2024 11:20:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41055776</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41055776</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41055776</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "How I overcame my addiction to sugar"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Your body doesn't prefer glucose over fat. Too much glucose is toxic, so your body will focus on reducing it first. Too little is also dangerous so your body will make some from protein if necessary. But only as much as it needs.<p>Fat adaptation is about shifting your hormonal balance and response to retrain your body to maintain a lower level of glucose, and to retrain your cravings and hunger.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 29 Jun 2024 12:18:38 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40829892</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40829892</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40829892</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Why is no one making a new version of old Facebook?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Gmail was invite-only to join and get an @gmail.com account, but once you had it you could interact with any email account user, and they could interact with you. GMail isn't a walled garden. Facebook, Wave, G+, etc are. That's why they depend on rapid user growth very early on when the hype is fresh.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 20 Feb 2024 23:26:13 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39448331</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39448331</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39448331</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Some fish live beyond 100 and get healthier as they age"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>So, getting fatter as I get older is a good thing? /s</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 21 Jan 2024 16:36:27 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39079979</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39079979</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39079979</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Tesla owners in deep freeze discover the cold, hard truth about EVs"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Maybe, in climates that get cold, these chargers should be indoors? It's not like they need to worry about exhaust fumes.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 16 Jan 2024 15:26:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39014300</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39014300</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39014300</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm hardly an expert, but I think "government debt" and "government investment" are accounted for the same way, but only the former is a problem. If the government sells bonds/T-bills (eg acquires debt) and uses that to improve the country in a way that benefits the citizens and encourages population and economic growth, then its worth doing. If the government uses the money only to pay interest on existing debt, or to give it away to make wealthy citizens more wealthy, or other unproductive uses, then it's not so good.<p>The attacks directly on the national debt are a political strawman, meant to distract from the real issues about where revenue comes from and how it is spent. It's like the constant debt ceiling wailing; Congress sets a budget and legislation that requires spending more than the revenue available, then sets a debt ceiling that prevents the treasure from borrowing to cover the <i>required by law</i> spending, then bitches and moans and grandstands over how the debt ceiling creates a crisis. It's all for show.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 17 Nov 2023 17:28:41 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38306806</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38306806</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38306806</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Tell HN: Submit comments to IRS re tax treatment of software dev expenses"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>What kind of software maintenance work does not create new software? Are you only deleting lines of code from the existing software?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 04 Nov 2023 22:41:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38145957</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38145957</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38145957</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Inhibition of fatty acid oxidation enables heart regeneration in adult mice"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The problem isn't that the drug results don't translate from mice to humans. The problem is that after testing the drug successfully in mice, they follow that with testing the marketing campaign with the mice. The mice never buy the drug, so they decide to drop it as unprofitable and move on to another drug.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 28 Sep 2023 12:30:57 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37688675</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37688675</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37688675</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "A tech writer’s letter to software developers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>If you can provide more info about this, I'd be very interested. What sort of breakdown are you getting? Function names and descriptions of their behavior? Or is it more like the auto-generated reference documentation that you get from something like JavaDoc, where it's just a list of functions and argument names with no indication of what anything does?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 26 Jun 2023 14:15:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36479913</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36479913</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36479913</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Why are so many giants of AI getting GPTs so badly wrong?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You complain about arguments that don't define "intelligence" and what it means for AI to have that, and then you say:<p><i>If we create something that can do critical reasoning, all the more power to us.</i><p>It seems to me you're not defining "critical reasoning", and that it's effectively a synonym for "intelligence", at least as applied to AI capabilities.<p>I think AI responses are like the responses of a person who's very new to a subject and doesn't understand it, but they know all of the terminology and how the terms are usually used together. They can be helpful, and often correct, but only an expert in the field is going to know for sure if they're correct. And my fear about AI is not the AI itself, it's how the non-experts are going to use the AI to try to replace the experts in fields where being correct is really important. That will work, but only sometimes. If we don't make the people who choose the AI this way responsible for the outcomes, we're going to have a real mess on our hands.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 22 May 2023 21:01:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36036692</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36036692</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36036692</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Glucomate: an app for people who record, track, and monitor their blood glucose"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Wow, you're right. The 14-day sensor didn't require one, but that's not available anymore.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 21 Apr 2023 12:11:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35652545</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35652545</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35652545</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "Glucomate: an app for people who record, track, and monitor their blood glucose"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The Libre sensor can be purchased without a prescription, and used with a free smartphone app. This link is for the V3 sensor. I bought the older 14-day sensors from this mail order pharmacy while I was using them. Cheaper than my local pharmacy or many other sources, even with shipping cost.<p><a href="https://myehcs.com/product/freestyle-libre-3-sensor/" rel="nofollow">https://myehcs.com/product/freestyle-libre-3-sensor/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 21 Apr 2023 03:49:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35649645</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35649645</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35649645</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "What are the most common tinnitus frequencies? (2015)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Hearing loss is a physical problem. Tinnitus, often, is a signaling problem. The signal can represent a sound that the physical sensors can't produce anymore.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 12 Apr 2023 03:00:12 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35534510</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35534510</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35534510</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by DougWebb in "It Turns Out Money Does Buy Happiness"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Sure, but I think the transition through my stages is a sharp S-curve, and then going through your stages is a more gradual increase. And based on how many wealthy people behave, it seems like the happiness curve peaks at some point and then starts dropping again for many of them.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 08 Mar 2023 16:26:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35070987</link><dc:creator>DougWebb</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35070987</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35070987</guid></item></channel></rss>