Hacker News: awithrow

New comment by awithrow in "The Future Belongs to the Weird"

awithrow — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 13:06:26 +0000

I don't see the connection of the brogrammer's to the idea of being your own brand and embracing the weird. To me, the brogrammer's were the result of the huge influx of money into the tech ecosystem. It was the arrival of those just chasing a paycheck and stock options rather than those who enjoyed programming for its own sake.

New comment by awithrow in "France's top court blocks social media ban for under-15s"

awithrow — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 14:36:54 +0000

My company has only a small office in San Francisco. There are 10 of us.

New comment by awithrow in "France's top court blocks social media ban for under-15s"

awithrow — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 20:23:42 +0000

Separation of powers between the different branches of government.

New comment by awithrow in "France's top court blocks social media ban for under-15s"

awithrow — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 20:22:20 +0000

Is there a term then that encompasses all the branches?

New comment by awithrow in "France's top court blocks social media ban for under-15s"

awithrow — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 17:03:06 +0000

The courts are part of the government no?

New comment by awithrow in "I hate packaging my software for Linux"

awithrow — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 14:22:16 +0000

I get that but I feel like its a bit different for linux users. The ecosystem has way more folks that are used to building their own tools relative to Win/Mac. Especially for something like nix. I've built nixpkgs for tools I've wanted to try & use. For something like this, I'd stick with cargo and let others do the packaging.

Circuit Board Can Rewire Itself

awithrow — Thu, 28 May 2026 15:04:20 +0000

Article URL: https://www.eejournal.com/article/this-circuit-board-can-rewire-itself/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48309974

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Prototype of the first fluid circuit board

awithrow — Wed, 27 May 2026 12:38:48 +0000

Article URL: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/prototype-of-the-worlds-first-fluid-circuit-board-can-be-physically-rewired-in-less-than-a-minute-startup-claims-could-make-hardware-iteration-1-000-times-faster-than-traditional-pcb

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48293348

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by awithrow in "Accelerando (2005)"

awithrow — Tue, 26 May 2026 19:37:20 +0000

ha, the "/s" got formatted on to a different line.

New comment by awithrow in "GitHub Actions down again today"

awithrow — Tue, 26 May 2026 12:53:31 +0000

that is absolutely not the case for any system of size and scale. that would just burn out the on-call team and not result in improvements. Error rates/budgets are used instead.

New comment by awithrow in "Accelerando (2005)"

awithrow — Sun, 17 May 2026 14:28:59 +0000

no, that is the actual author. He's been here a long time.

New comment by awithrow in "Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0"

awithrow — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 13:09:02 +0000

I really want this to be true but for me its not close. Maybe its better on the new 13 but its still night and day between my mac book and my FW 16 that's about a year old. My macbook works for days without a charge. My FW last maybe 6-8 hours on battery.

Don't get me wrong. I do really enjoy my FW but the mac hardware is still number one for me. I'd really love is an ARM based FW. Though if I could wave a magic wand it would be mac hardware running pure linux with no caveats. I really love seeing what Asahi is building

New comment by awithrow in "A macOS bug that causes TCP networking to stop working after 49.7 days"

awithrow — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 21:11:26 +0000

A ticking time bomb? What an overly dramatic way to talk about a bug that requires a reboot. Its not even a hard crash.

New comment by awithrow in "AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice"

awithrow — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 04:21:16 +0000

Correct, it's really anthropomorphizing what gets generated. It's another form of the "you're absolutely right" framing. The interesting thing is sometimes it won't do that. It'll continue to insist that some point or another is still a valid interpretation. I'm some ways it all feels like a complicated way of reading tea leaves

New comment by awithrow in "AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice"

awithrow — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 04:18:59 +0000

Yes exactly! It's very frustrating. My guess is it drives engagement. But some model that tells me what I want to hear all the time is useless.

New comment by awithrow in "AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice"

awithrow — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 16:33:55 +0000

what is Kimi white?

New comment by awithrow in "AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice"

awithrow — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 16:32:32 +0000

'admit' is anthropomorphizing the behavior, sure. The point is that sometimes the model's response will tighten, flag things that were overly supportive or what not. Sometimes it wont, it'll state that previous positions are still supported and continue to press it. Its not like either response is 'correct' but it can alter the rest of the responses in ways that are useful.

New comment by awithrow in "AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice"

awithrow — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 16:02:49 +0000

oh i do as well. I think of the LLM as another tool in the toolbox, not a replacement for interactions. There is something different about having a rubber duck as a service though.

New comment by awithrow in "AI chatbots are "Yes-Men" that reinforce bad relationship decisions, study finds"

awithrow — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 15:34:31 +0000

oh that's great. thanks for the link!

New comment by awithrow in "AI overly affirms users asking for personal advice"

awithrow — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 15:09:32 +0000

It feels like I'm fighting uphill battle when it comes to bouncing ideas off of a model. I'll set things up in the context with instructions similar to. "Help me refine my ideas, challenge, push back, and don't just be agreeable." It works for a bit but eventually the conversation creeps back into complacency and syncophancy. I'll check it too by asking "are you just placating me?" the funny thing is that often it'll admit that, yes, it wasn't being very critical, and then procede to over correct and become a complete contrarian. and not in a way that's useful either. very frustrating. I've found that Opus 4.6 is worse about this than 4.5. 4.5 does a better job IMO of following instructions and not drifting into the mode where it acts like everything i say is a grand revelation from up high.