Hacker News: billbrown

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.

New comment by billbrown in "Show HN: A native macOS client for Hacker News, built with SwiftUI"

billbrown — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 05:44:45 +0000

One thing that I _love_ with the browser is this extension:

https://github.com/timkuijsten/BoundedBikeshed

It lets me see the top-level comments with some indication of the thread depth. Totally changed my post scanning.

New comment by billbrown in "Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)"

billbrown — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 23:09:57 +0000

Check out Wonderfalls, his first series.

New comment by billbrown in "Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)"

billbrown — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 06:47:26 +0000

And Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies, two of my favorite shows ever.

New comment by billbrown in "Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)"

billbrown — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 06:45:24 +0000

If you like Lee Pace, watch Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies.

New comment by billbrown in "Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)"

billbrown — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 06:44:36 +0000

Dig up Wonderfalls, his first series, and Pushing Daisies. They form the Lee Pace Triumvirate (with Halt and Catch Fire) as far as I'm concerned.

New comment by billbrown in "Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)"

billbrown — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 06:40:46 +0000

It's terrific. Just rewatched it for a third time.

New comment by billbrown in "Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)"

billbrown — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 17:06:22 +0000

Also, if you loved Patriot, the creator has two podcasts stemming from it:

https://www.lgclaret.com/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/new-techniques-in-mode...

(And he's also done two bands: The Jones Sisters and Hoist the King.)

New comment by billbrown in "Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)"

billbrown — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 17:03:29 +0000

I'll second Patriot and add Perpetual Grace Ltd. from the same creator.

I'd also add the two other legs of the Lee Pace Great Television stool: Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies.

New comment by billbrown in "The Jeff Dean Facts"

billbrown — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 15:05:36 +0000

He's the Chuck Norris of StackOverflow, maybe.