Hacker News: billbrown

New comment by billbrown in "I switched to Brave"

billbrown — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 01:12:21 +0000

WebKit-based is probably the next best alternative. I switched to Orion from Brave and have _mostly_ been pleased with it. (I do miss the Chrome DevTools but eventually I'll get used to these.)

https://orionbrowser.com/

New comment by billbrown in "Hister: A private search engine for the pages you visit and the files you keep"

billbrown — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 17:26:22 +0000

It does that already. https://hister.org/docs/import#importing-from-linkwarden

New comment by billbrown in "Tim Curry has died"

billbrown — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:03:25 +0000

For me, his best work was Muppet Treasure Island. I'm glad I watched this BTS video with him: I had no idea he had a stroke in 2012 and hasn't acted since.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzU8f4HaQw0

New comment by billbrown in "Claude: System Prompts"

billbrown — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 22:25:58 +0000

I suspect it's related to EU-required watermarking:

> Having said that, in areas where there is an arbitrary choice between particular words or terms within the code, the watermark can be used, such as comments within code. But by definition, it will have a negligible effect on the actual code produced. [1]

I've found that you can reduce the prolixity before (or afterwards) by asking it to use ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English or ISO 24495-1 after deciding whether a particular comment is worthwhile. (I've since included a standard for "worthwhile" because the clanker doesn't have a good bead on _that_ matter.)

[1] https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-text-watermark

New comment by billbrown in "Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?"

billbrown — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 21:17:59 +0000

You could create an output style to make this prevalent.

New comment by billbrown in "Should you wash your solar panels?"

billbrown — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 20:11:53 +0000

Dust can reduce capacity by 40% in the desert.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40807-017-0043-y

New comment by billbrown in "Agnes Callard’s theory of the uni-context"

billbrown — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 06:58:36 +0000

I wish philosophers—everyone, really—would provide a definition of their neologisms. I'd prefer a succinct, Aristotlian one but I'll settle for anything approximating it.

This is probably the best source, but it's completely unavailable online:

https://www.reed.edu/events/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26even...

New comment by billbrown in "Alan Greenspan has died"

billbrown — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 15:28:22 +0000

The guy who called the Federal Reserve the "penny in the fuse box" of the economy was not an "Ayn Rand disciple" by the time he took the chairmanship. Power as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under Ford really transformed him and I think severed the tenuous hold he had on her principles.

New comment by billbrown in "I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA"

billbrown — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 23:16:37 +0000

I didn't see that anyone had done it (and I think the commentary has died down entirely) but here's an Artifact that extracts Ries' responses plus the original question into a table:

https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/0f204165-e363-4553-a4ce-4...

New comment by billbrown in "The AirPods Effect"

billbrown — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 18:01:42 +0000

100% this. People used to read newspapers and books on mas transit and Walkmans have been with us since the early 80s.

I think it comes down to people not _wanting_ to interact with anyone outside of their circle. I pull out my earbuds _constantly_ when I'm out in order to greet people, interact with retail staff, and hear things around me.

New comment by billbrown in "From Chesterton's fence to Chesterton's gap"

billbrown — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 15:36:21 +0000

It's normally been called a "white elephant" but this framing is a perfect completion to Torvalds' previously-two-part troika.

Thank you for sharing it!

New comment by billbrown in "Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models"

billbrown — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:38:25 +0000

I thought this seemed significant at the time: https://github.com/ml-explore/mlx/pull/1983

New comment by billbrown in "Private equity bought America's essential services"

billbrown — Sat, 30 May 2026 16:37:41 +0000

And it blames the sidelining of more than half of LA's fire trucks at production delays for new fire trucks? Well, I say "blames" generously—what it really does is "insinuates" since it never connects the consolidation back to the original charge.

Moreover, one company having control of 44% of the market would suggest that there might still be other options available.

What trash.

New comment by billbrown in "Bttf is a command line datetime Swiss army knife"

billbrown — Thu, 28 May 2026 17:15:54 +0000

Everyone talking about "biff" should be aware that it's actually "bttf" like "back to the future"

New comment by billbrown in "College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos"

billbrown — Wed, 20 May 2026 16:49:05 +0000

There was an effort to disinvite him as soon as it was announced that he was the speaker.[1] And then when that failed, activists passed out flyers encouraging students to boo Schmidt during his speech.[2] This all took place before he set foot on campus because of alleged sexual harassment.

This wasn't about what everyone wants it to be about.

[1] https://tucson.com/news/local/education/college/article_078e...

[2] https://tucson.com/news/local/education/college/article_ab7e...

New comment by billbrown in "I Spent My Sabbatical Building a Power Meter for Sledgehammers"

billbrown — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 15:11:06 +0000

Have you met shovelglove?

https://shovelglove.com

New comment by billbrown in "AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it"

billbrown — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 06:23:16 +0000

I've told everyone I hire that "I hired you for your mind so always use it." Push back on requirements, question my decisions, think about your approaches.

I can''t imagine telling them now to stop—use the Ersatz Intelligence instead of Actual Intelligence.

New comment by billbrown in "AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it"

billbrown — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 06:18:47 +0000

I use it both ways:

1) Day job 2) Side project

It would be unprofessional to treat the first like the second.

New comment by billbrown in "AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it"

billbrown — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 06:15:55 +0000

AI is Augmenting (Actual) Intelligence.

New comment by billbrown in "After outages, Amazon to make senior engineers sign off on AI-assisted changes"

billbrown — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:35:27 +0000

Yes, underthinking is rampant. Glancing at "AI" output is not reviewing code: you have to grok it (in the Heinlein sense) in order to treat it as your own.