Hacker News: ForHackernews

New comment by ForHackernews in "Ask HN: I quit my job over weaponized robots to start my own venture"

ForHackernews — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 12:49:45 +0000

Why would they have to be killer robots strapped with explosives? If we have highly capable semi-autonomous robots they could be non-lethal with no risk of life to their owners. It upends the entire paradigm of kill-or-be-killed warfare.

Rather than blowing up a school full of little girls, you could deploy a swarm of thousands of fast-moving cat-sized robots armed with tasers and bolas to identify and capture targeted enemy leaders.

New comment by ForHackernews in "Franklin's bad ads for Apple II clones and the beloved impersonator they depict"

ForHackernews — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 12:31:57 +0000

New comment by ForHackernews in "Franklin's bad ads for Apple II clones and the beloved impersonator they depict"

ForHackernews — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 11:09:02 +0000

Same. Cloning proprietary hardware is doing God's work. We should all hope someone in the modern era can knock off NVidia and Apple silicon.

Competition is great for everyone except Apple shareholders.

New comment by ForHackernews in "European AI. A playbook to own it"

ForHackernews — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:23:24 +0000

> The Chinese, Google and OpenAI are burning money and we get to use the service.

Exactly. Take what they spent a lot of R&D bucks developing and host it ourselves at the fraction of the cost.

The point is digital sovereignty. The same reason you keep data on your own hard drive instead of Google's cloud.

New comment by ForHackernews in "No one owes you supply-chain security"

ForHackernews — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 20:46:57 +0000

Anyone who is making money off my open source work can PAY ME if they want signed, reproducible builds.

Anyone who is not paying me can use what I generously give away for free without THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Concerned about security? Good for you, build it yourself.

New comment by ForHackernews in "European AI. A playbook to own it"

ForHackernews — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 20:40:23 +0000

I don't understand why European providers can't just host open-weight models developed by the Chinese, or distill Google/OpenAI/Anthropic models to produce their own models on the the cheap.

Nobody acts like you need to invent steel to have a steel mill.

New comment by ForHackernews in "No one owes you supply-chain security"

ForHackernews — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 17:15:49 +0000

No one has an ethical responsibility to provide free security auditing to trillion dollar companies.

Gnome OS revealed what Linux is becoming

ForHackernews — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 10:42:54 +0000

Article URL: https://www.makeuseof.com/i-tried-gnome-os-and-it-showed-me-where-linux-is-actually-heading/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47738175

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by ForHackernews in "France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins"

ForHackernews — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 10:53:46 +0000

It doesn't have to be friction-free. The rough edges can be sanded down with government investment that addresses the needs of citizen-users.

New comment by ForHackernews in "Old laptops in a colo as low cost servers"

ForHackernews — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 09:25:37 +0000

I assume this startup yanks all the batteries and runs them in a rack with a UPS.

New comment by ForHackernews in "How NASA built Artemis II’s fault-tolerant computer"

ForHackernews — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 09:03:41 +0000

SCRUM methodology absolutely prioritizes a "Potentially Shippable Product Increment" as the output of every sprint.

New comment by ForHackernews in "Lichess and Take Take Take Sign Cooperation Agreement"

ForHackernews — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:39:48 +0000

As it happens "Take Take Take Sign Cooperation Agreement" is also OpenAI's modus operandi when it comes to the publishing industry.

New comment by ForHackernews in "A New Oil Shock Accelerates a Return to Nuclear Power"

ForHackernews — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 10:52:18 +0000

Either or both would be a great improvement over burning more coal.

New comment by ForHackernews in "My Experience as a Rice Farmer"

ForHackernews — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 08:15:56 +0000

It's true, every small business owner enjoys larping as a capitalist until it comes time to declare bankruptcy https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistan...

New comment by ForHackernews in "Working on Products People Hate"

ForHackernews — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 13:35:13 +0000

https://minnstate.pressbooks.pub/professionalethics/chapter/...

------------------

What is a profession?

Some skilled jobs are called professions, and this special label indicates that they are more than merely jobs. The professions involve a special set of services to society, and people who join these professions are expected to uphold high ethical standards in their professional conduct.

Although many professionals have their own private businesses, and many others are employed by businesses, these occupations are misunderstood if we equate them with businesses. In fact, the growing tendency to treat professional work as nothing more than a paid jobs is the source of many ethical challenges.

- The primary goal of a business is to make a profit for the owners, and it does this by providing some product or service to customers.

- The basic purpose of a profession is to provide a service to the community. Here, the primary goal is societal well-being, not profit.

This distinction reflects a higher level of responsibility, expertise, and commitment to maintaining standards that sets professions apart from other occupations.

New comment by ForHackernews in "Working on Products People Hate"

ForHackernews — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:29:37 +0000

Engineers are only one type of professional: doctors, lawyers and accountants are also professionals who have obligations to their profession before their obligation to their employer.

The title 'software developer' is correct. We are not engineers and we are not professionals. Pretending otherwise is a grasp for unearned status.

New comment by ForHackernews in "Working on Products People Hate"

ForHackernews — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 10:46:46 +0000

This is why software devs are not professionals. A professional engineer will not sign off a bridge that he knows is liable to collapse. Software devs will build whatever dangerous immoral garbage their boss tells them to, and then rationalize it to themselves.

A professional has an obligation to a code of professional ethics that supercedes loyalty to their employer. Nothing of the sort exists in software.

New comment by ForHackernews in "Good ideas do not need lots of lies in order to gain public acceptance (2008)"

ForHackernews — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 21:35:01 +0000

Good maxim with general applicability: cryptocurrency, wars in the middle east, online age verification checks.

New comment by ForHackernews in "OpenAI demand sinks on secondary market as Anthropic runs hot"

ForHackernews — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 14:44:16 +0000

OpenAI increasingly looking like the Kozmo.com of the AI bubble.

Project Mario: How DeepMind tried to secure independence from Google

ForHackernews — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:00:30 +0000

Article URL: https://colossus.com/article/project-mario-demis-hassabis-deepmind-mallaby/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47599229

Points: 4

# Comments: 0