Hacker News: Freebytes

New comment by Freebytes in "You are not your job"

Freebytes — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 15:56:54 +0000

I am often asked "What do you do?" when I meet someone new. I know they are asking about my job, but I throw off the expectations by saying, "Oh, I like to play video games and watch movies primarily." This is usually followed by, "Sorry, I meant what do you do for a living?" I will then, of course, tell them what they expect to hear; however, even the question "What do you do for a living?" implies that we live to work. I play video games and watch movies for living. I work merely to survive and buy the things that allow me to live my life the way I want.

New comment by Freebytes in "Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans"

Freebytes — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:48:30 +0000

AI has not been used to write any comment that I have ever posted on Hacker News. You can observe my previous comments over the years, even prior to the adoption of modern LLMs, which demonstrate how I communicate.

(While the patterns may be similar, I have a tendency to be more loquacious due to my larger token limit! %)

New comment by Freebytes in "Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans"

Freebytes — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:25:15 +0000

Using AI to write content is seen so harshly because it violates the previously held social contract that it takes more effort to write messages than to read messages. If a person goes through the trouble of thinking out and writing an argument or message, then reading is a sufficient donation of time.

However, with the recent chat based AI models, this agreement has been turned around. It is now easier to get a written message than to read it. Reading it now takes more effort. If a person is not going to take the time to express messages based on their own thoughts, then they do not have sufficient respect for the reader, and their comments can be dismissed for that reason.

New comment by Freebytes in "Banned in California"

Freebytes — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 19:54:35 +0000

This is such an impossible to solve problem that every advanced nation on Earth has already solved it, except the United States.

New comment by Freebytes in "Design and Implementation of Sprites"

Freebytes — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 19:34:02 +0000

I thought this was a post about graphics.

New comment by Freebytes in "Design and Implementation of Sprites"

Freebytes — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 19:33:17 +0000

There needs to be a way to see how much it is being used then and not simply the life of the Sprite.

New comment by Freebytes in "AI coding assistants are getting worse?"

Freebytes — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 18:36:07 +0000

Merely choosing lines to copy and paste from one file of your own code to another is a learning experience for your brain. AI is excellent for removing a lot of grunt work, but that type of work also reinforces your brain even if you think you are learning nothing. Something can still be lost even if AI is merely providing templates or scaffolding. The same can be said of using Google to find examples, though. You should try to come up with the correct function name or parameter list yourself in your head before using a search engine or AI. And that is for the moist simple examples, e.g. "SQL table creation example". These should be things we know off the top of our heads, so we should first try to type it out before we go to look for an answer.

New comment by Freebytes in "Donut Lab’s all-solid-state battery delivers 400 Wh/kg of energy density"

Freebytes — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 01:37:32 +0000

Some models of the motorcycle are available right now and can charge to 80% in 10 minutes and go ~350 miles. Unless it is a scam, and you will not get your motorcycle... However, this seems legitimate.

New comment by Freebytes in "Strange.website"

Freebytes — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 01:04:45 +0000

This reminds me of the way the Internet was in the past. And the random sites to which this site links. (If you have not seen Neocities, it is another similar place which is the predecessor of Geocities before Yahoo! bought it and killed it.)

New comment by Freebytes in "AI will kill all the lawyers"

Freebytes — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 19:01:32 +0000

This article talks about martinis about as much as it talks about the careers of lawyers being threatened by AI. The article provides no real justification for its claims outside of anecdotal opinions. The only value of this article is that it results in a discussion in the comments section that provide the actual credence to the claims.

New comment by Freebytes in "Radiant Computer"

Freebytes — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 19:05:42 +0000

I thought they were talking about redesigning hardware from the ground up. There will always be history and baggage if you are working with the same computer instruction sets. From the very beginning at the level of assembly, there is history and baggage. This is not ambitious enough.

New comment by Freebytes in "Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure"

Freebytes — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 13:06:05 +0000

In many cases, it may be to fulfill rules associated with PCIDSS requirements, even if the company never sees the credit card. This all originates from consultants, and the consultants are engaged in security theater.

New comment by Freebytes in "Frequent reauth doesn't make you more secure"

Freebytes — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 13:03:21 +0000

Yes, it makes sense if the environment has changed, the device has changed, or if the person is logging in from a higher threat source such as a VPN IP address. However, if nothing changed, it is a waste of time in many cases.

New comment by Freebytes in "FOSS infrastructure is under attack by AI companies"

Freebytes — Thu, 20 Mar 2025 17:45:50 +0000

Along with having block lists, perhaps you could add poison to your results that generates random bad code that will not work, and that is only seen by bots (display: none when rendered), and the bots will use it, but a human never would.

New comment by Freebytes in "OpenAI O3 breakthrough high score on ARC-AGI-PUB"

Freebytes — Sat, 21 Dec 2024 02:15:08 +0000

This might be because they are referencing single step, and I do not think o1 is single step.

New comment by Freebytes in "SpiderBasic"

Freebytes — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 17:33:49 +0000

In the past, BASIC was certainly the easiest programming language to use, but ironically, many newer programming languages are now actually easier to learn. Yes, BASIC is easy, but Python, PHP, and C# are actually just as easy as the old syntax when it comes to web based solutions.

New comment by Freebytes in "‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’"

Freebytes — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 21:26:45 +0000

The 'people' that undergo this first will experience the most incredible pain imaginable if we do not figure out a way to block such pain first.

New comment by Freebytes in "‘With brain preservation, nobody has to die’"

Freebytes — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 20:06:01 +0000

I consider that I have likely died more than twice in my lifetime already. And before this body gives up, I will have already died more times. Must simply enjoy the present and give gifts to my future self.

New comment by Freebytes in "The Coming Technological Singularity (1993)"

Freebytes — Mon, 28 Oct 2024 02:16:08 +0000

The LLM will apologize for the mistake, tell you it understands now, and then proceed to make the exact same mistake again.

New comment by Freebytes in "Inside the "3 billion people" national public data breach"

Freebytes — Sat, 17 Aug 2024 23:34:32 +0000

Is the country wide 2FA implemented by the country or a private company? While rare, what if a person does not have access to the 2FA mechanism, and what mechanisms are permitted to confirm an identity?