Hacker News: davidrupp

New comment by davidrupp in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)"

davidrupp — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 18:58:02 +0000

I learned the term at ThoughtWorks (consulting company), where it was a play on the phrase "on the bench", which itself meant "not working on a billable project". The "bench" version comes from sports like (American) football, where "on the bench" means "sidelined" or "out of action", which has a mildly negative connotation compared to the "beach", which sounds pleasant and fun.

New comment by davidrupp in "JRR Tolkien reads from The Hobbit for 30 Minutes (1952)"

davidrupp — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 19:04:06 +0000

> Kill Sauron and the Palantiri are safe to use again.

Alt: Be Aragorn and wrest control of the Orthanc stone from Sauron.

New comment by davidrupp in "AWS multiple services outage in us-east-1"

davidrupp — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 17:13:16 +0000

I used to tell people there that my favorite development technique was to sit down and think about the system I wanted to build, then wait for it to be announced at that year's re:Invent. I called it "re:Invent and Simplify". "I" built my best stuff that way.

New comment by davidrupp in "AWS multiple services outage in us-east-1"

davidrupp — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 15:54:38 +0000

AWS Fault Injection Service: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/fis/latest/userguide/what-is.htm...

The AI Bubble Is Worse Than We Thought

davidrupp — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 13:09:09 +0000

Article URL: https://www.planetearthandbeyond.co/p/the-ai-bubble-is-far-worse-than-we

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45579590

Points: 5

# Comments: 0

New comment by davidrupp in "MIT Study Finds AI Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline"

davidrupp — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 15:46:19 +0000

> A modern compiler embeds a considerable degree of probabilistic behaviour.

Can you give some examples?

New comment by davidrupp in "Ticket-Driven Development: The Fastest Way to Go Nowhere"

davidrupp — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 12:07:59 +0000

I'm intrigued, as this article did not trigger my (clearly as yet underdeveloped) GenAI spidey sense. Will you share some specifics of what triggered yours?

Separately, do you have any thoughts on the subject matter? Whoever or whatever put these words in a row, they resonate deeply with my lived experience of the last several years.

Simplicity, Agility, and Agency

davidrupp — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 11:26:19 +0000

Article URL: https://articles.pragdave.me/p/simplicity-agility-and-agency

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44386300

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by davidrupp in "Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups"

davidrupp — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 12:43:11 +0000

I agree that it wouldn't cause the doors to open any sooner for deplaning, but once they did, people could just ... leave. The people standing in the aisle with their luggage out of the compartment are the ones who started in the aisle seats. People in the other seats need to get out, reach up, pull down, get organized. Sometimes they have to salmon their way back from their actual seat to the compartment several rows behind them because that's where they had to stow their carry-on because the people seated in row 30 put their bag over row 16 when they boarded[1].

Similarly, for takeoff I agree that it wouldn't necessarily save time, net. But it would help with the frustration of standing in line, backed up on the jetway while everyone is struggling with setting up the initial conditions for the deplaning scenario I described above. At least people could get seated sooner and be comfortable for longer while they're waiting for takeoff.

[1] Based on a true story.

New comment by davidrupp in "Airlines are charging solo passengers higher fares than groups"

davidrupp — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 10:30:45 +0000

One reason that I would value is that it would speed up boarding and deplaning. As you correctly point out, the prevailing overhead luggage system provides a benefit to some travelers, potentially to the detriment of others. It's a tradeoff.

New comment by davidrupp in "AI helps unravel a cause of Alzheimer’s and identify a therapeutic candidate"

davidrupp — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 02:15:54 +0000

I do the same substitution for “ML”. :-)

New comment by davidrupp in "AI helps unravel a cause of Alzheimer’s and identify a therapeutic candidate"

davidrupp — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 13:44:07 +0000

Whenever I see the term "AI" or similar, I mentally substitute the phrase "a lot of math, done very quickly", which is more concrete, and typically helps me sort out the stuff that still seems plausible, as in the sentence you quoted.

Decomposing Aurora DSQL

davidrupp — Sat, 19 Apr 2025 15:07:08 +0000

Article URL: https://brooker.co.za/blog/2025/04/17/decomposing.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43736925

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by davidrupp in "Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly"

davidrupp — Mon, 17 Mar 2025 23:26:43 +0000

SDE, just passed ten years at Amazon; opinions my own, obvs. The three best managers I've worked with in my career have all been at Amazon (you know who you are). Also the three worst (ditto). And the respective bars were pretty [high | low] coming in. Just like everywhere else I've been, it comes down to the individual. Amazon, as far as I can tell, have never tried to homogenize management. Your team delivers? You're in.

New comment by davidrupp in "Does current AI represent a dead end?"

davidrupp — Fri, 27 Dec 2024 22:26:24 +0000

> it runs red lights

Fixing that would require "full self stopping". Coming soon[1].

[1] ... for some value of "soon", that is.

New comment by davidrupp in "Starting Hospice"

davidrupp — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 18:24:05 +0000

He did? I'm surprised to find a quote I'm not familiar with. On what page of which edition did he say this?

New comment by davidrupp in "How actors remember their lines"

davidrupp — Thu, 30 May 2024 18:32:37 +0000

I recently was asked to take over the role of Deputy Governor Danforth in The Crucible a week before opening. I accomplished it -- barely -- largely through rote memorization. Yes, I also had to imbue the words with appropriate intent and emotion, which I did not achieve by rote, but in a way it was comforting to have those specific words to start with, rather than make up some of my own that might or might not actually convey the proper intent, and almost surely not nearly as well as a luminary like Arthur Miller. As I see it, it's those words that establish my character, not the other way around.

I like how Patrick Stewart puts it [1], as "dead letter perfect", which is apparently the default expectation in British theatre more so than, say, film acting.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2007/jul/29/theatre2

New comment by davidrupp in "Best engineering interview question I've gotten"

davidrupp — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 14:18:44 +0000

And how do "you" evaluate Alice, with an MS in Computer Science, active Github, ten years of experience, all FAANG? Exactly the same way.

Even if I agreed with your premise that the prevailing paradigm is necessary for Bob (spoiler: I don't agree), I would rather it not be for Alice.

New comment by davidrupp in "Fig is sunsetting"

davidrupp — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 00:57:04 +0000

Perhaps because it was a better deal than any of the alternatives. I left a startup a few months before it was (as far as I know) acquihired, partly because I could see the end of the runway approaching. All of the extant team were offered roles at the acquiring company, which I'm sure they and their families appreciated. Is "all they get out of it is to work at Amazon" preferable to a Big $$$ Exit? Maybe not. But the latter may not have been an option IRL. As a side note, I've been working at Amazon for nearly ten years now, and I have not been displeased with the improvement in my financial situation thereby.

New comment by davidrupp in "After a $1.8B verdict, the clock is ticking on the 6% realtor commission"

davidrupp — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 03:27:32 +0000

@dang: Not sure what guideline I broke with my previous comment that was flagged, but I would love to learn so I don't repeat offend.