Hacker News: bytesandbots

New comment by bytesandbots in "Claude for Small Business"

bytesandbots — Thu, 14 May 2026 17:07:34 +0000

A conventionally well-designed site is actually much less trustworthy for me.

GNU cash website immediately tells that it is not a Saas and doesn't need to upsell the latest trendy addons, for it to survive.

It tells that it is not "investing" in marketing to eventually turn a profit.

It is not looking for acquisition opportunities or next funding rounds.

If you want to see what a trustworthy website looks like, take a look at SQLite or postgresql or even this website itself.

New comment by bytesandbots in "Seeing like a spreadsheet"

bytesandbots — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 06:37:54 +0000

Pivot Tables was the last big feature completely missing, which is now available. Numbers might meet most of the spreadsheet requirements, except some scripting requirements. There is Applescript for those who are inclined that way. For my own use cases, I use LibreOffice Calc, even on macos. I started using it an year ago, just to see if it can work at all. So far, I haven't had any blockers, but my usage is probably not so complex.

New comment by bytesandbots in "Seedance 1.0"

bytesandbots — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 18:15:14 +0000

Has the realism of AI already caught on to that of animated CGI movies?

I assume that an expert in CGI can point out obvious flaws in these outputs. But I wonder if it is possible to fix those details by prompting it to change only specific segments.

There is also the question of how much compute/money they are spending per second of output, compared to a high-budget Hollywood CGI.

New comment by bytesandbots in "My AI skeptic friends are all nuts"

bytesandbots — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 22:35:28 +0000

The entire comment feels way too long, structured and convincing in a way that can only be written by an AI. I just hope that once the em-dashes are "fixed", we still be able to detect such text. I fear for a future when human text is sparse, even here at HN. It is depressing to see such a comment take the top spot.

New comment by bytesandbots in "My AI skeptic friends are all nuts"

bytesandbots — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 22:28:29 +0000

I am pretty sure this comment is also AI generated. Just a guess but so many em-dash is suspicious. And the overall structure of convincing feels uncanny.

If this is true, can you share your initial draft that you asked the AI to rewrite. Am I not right that the initial draft is more concise and better conveys your actual thought, even though it's not as much convincing.

New comment by bytesandbots in "Ask HN: How did you get VC funding?"

bytesandbots — Thu, 22 May 2025 02:49:17 +0000

I'm just listing some points that a VC might be interested in, but you haven't clarified, at least in this post. Usually, they need information of the following also:

- Is the market big enough to allow multiple players at a large scale? There are many viable and profitable ideas, but having a ceiling due to limited market demand is a negative.

- Apart from your technical expertise, do you have go-to-market capability to be able to capture the above market?

- Do the promoters have a vision for exit? Running a profitable long-term business is not usually the right venture for a VC. They need to see a possibility of either acquisition or market listing or further investment rounds at a higher valuation.

- Are you offering enough company shares in order for the investors to have some say in the company? A profitable investment without significant control might not be enticing for some investors.

- You have mentioned collaborating with another stealth start-up. You shouldn't appear as dependent on another company. Even having a large client as a significant fraction of your revenue can be considered as negative.

With all that said, it is a competitive market influenced also by macroeconomic conditions and fund cycles for the investors.

If you are already profitable, have confidence, and some personal financial stability, debt funding might be a good option for you.

New comment by bytesandbots in "Why the Apple II Didn't Support Lowercase Letters (2020)"

bytesandbots — Sun, 11 May 2025 05:59:46 +0000

The long now foundation

> established in 01996 to foster long-term thinking. Our work encourages imagination at the timescale of civilization

New comment by bytesandbots in "Electricity prices in France turn negative as renewable energy floods the grid"

bytesandbots — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 03:54:46 +0000

The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is the rate of the total energy output of the energy system to build and operate it over its lifetime to the average total cost of the system over that lifetime.

FreeBSD Laptop Without a GUI

bytesandbots — Thu, 02 May 2024 04:23:40 +0000

Article URL: https://rubenerd.com/my-freebsd-laptop-with-just-tmux/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40232678

Points: 7

# Comments: 0

New comment by bytesandbots in "EU rejects Apple's changes: Company could be fined 10% of global turnover"

bytesandbots — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 05:25:33 +0000

30% App Store fees is outrageous. Core technology fees is beyond outrageous and illegal.

New comment by bytesandbots in "Building an early warning system for LLM-aided biological threat creation"

bytesandbots — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 19:06:49 +0000

It might be too far, but to me this piece seems aimed at increasing concerns among regulators about AI. OpenAI might view regulation as a means of ensuring their competitive edge as other big players enter the AI space.

Volta: Multiple GitHub repositories issues in one place

bytesandbots — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 22:34:56 +0000

Article URL: https://volta.net/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39123515

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by bytesandbots in "Brute.Fail: Watch brute force attacks fail in real time"

bytesandbots — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 16:37:51 +0000

It can cause your site to end up on Google's safe Browsing black list which can be a death sentence for a business. Google has automated process for identifying malware and black list such websites. Almost all browsers use this list to warn users. This is why it is also dangerous to host anonymous uploaded files even for a short time. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25802366

New comment by bytesandbots in "Simulation of tsunami from dinosaur-killing asteroid that brought 2.5 mile waves"

bytesandbots — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 07:26:43 +0000

There needs to be another video from opposite side of the world. And data on how much difference is there in the severity on both sides.

The 2020 paper establishing Chicxulub event as the driving factor of extinction also said that "prolonged eruption of the Deccan traps might have acted as an ameliorating agent" i.e. cancelling the negative effects of asteroid impact.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7382232/

New comment by bytesandbots in "How to store your app's entire state in the url"

bytesandbots — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 15:59:26 +0000

If the schema is fixed, using proto buffers will greatly reduce the length required.

New comment by bytesandbots in "How to store your app's entire state in the url"

bytesandbots — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 15:56:51 +0000

There is a URL safe version of base64 that uses - and _ instead. Base64 tools can be more readily available.

New comment by bytesandbots in "Disputing a Parking Fine with ChatGPT"

bytesandbots — Sun, 11 Dec 2022 05:56:18 +0000

It is the responsibility of the customer to enter correct number. I am sure there is a fine print in their terms to clarify exactly this. Also, if the booking is made and slot reserved, it can be said that the service was rendered even if the customer didn't make use of it.

New comment by bytesandbots in "Tim Berners-Lee: Web3 is not the web"

bytesandbots — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 08:30:55 +0000

Isn't that Chrome's entire game? Keep developing new APIs into standards even before they are standardised such that everyone else is always just trying to keep up. Advertise these new APIs to web developers such that new websites only work well in Chrome.

New comment by bytesandbots in "The Unlicense is an inferior license wrapped in an atrocious name"

bytesandbots — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 13:31:47 +0000

I agree that the name is atrocious.

I was running `npm init` recently on a new private project, I meant to write UNLICENSED which means "all rights reserved", but I accidentally missed the "d" at end and it got marked with "Unlicense" license.

New comment by bytesandbots in "You Can Save More Animals by Donating $100 Than Going Vegan"

bytesandbots — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 14:18:33 +0000

This doesn't even mention about the environmental impacts of the meat industry. The problem with meat is not just about the animal welfare, but also of the un-sustainable demands of meat industry on the environment. The logic of this article only makes sense if someone's objective of going vegan is to increase the sum-total of animal happiness in a pure mathematical sense. Even then, increasing happiness of 350 animals while eating 105 animals sourced otherwise is absurd.