Hacker News: ddawson

New comment by ddawson in "Websites Should Be Printable"

ddawson — Mon, 26 Oct 2026 14:55:55 +0000

I'm looking on Chrome for Windows and it looks just like the web view.

I am with those disagreeing with the original proposal that websites should be printable. There are so many things that go into showing you a web page and so many things that go into preparing that page for print. Even something basic like this isn't consistent.

New comment by ddawson in "Ask HN: How do you deal with people who trust LLMs?"

ddawson — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 01:55:30 +0000

I'm going to hold them to the same standard no matter if they use crappy sources, plagiarize, or hallucinate on their own. If someone asked, when and if I am in a position where I have to tell them, I would remind them that LLMs prioritize their own confidence over correctness.

LLMs aren't a special case to me. Glue doesn't belong on pizza and you shouldn't eat one rock a day but we've been giving and getting bad advice forever. The person needs to take ownership for the output and getting it right, no matter the source, is their responsibility.

New comment by ddawson in "MacBook Neo"

ddawson — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 22:59:38 +0000

They're finally laying the silly "Macs cost too much" complaint to bed.

New comment by ddawson in "How wolves became dogs"

ddawson — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 14:53:49 +0000

Culture has been affected by Toxoplasmosis which humans are primarily exposed to through cats so this makes sense.

New comment by ddawson in "After my dad died, we found the love letters"

ddawson — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 15:21:31 +0000

Wow, I'm reading this very differently. I don't know why there has to be emotional violence erupting. Handling something that's fundamentally changed at the core of a relationship and at the core of one's identity will bring strong emotions but it doesn't have to be violent. It can also be handled with all the best qualities we all have like patience, curiosity, support, trust. Strong relationships can grow stronger after being tested.

New comment by ddawson in "Cormac McCarthy's tips on how to write a science paper (2019) [pdf]"

ddawson — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 16:57:31 +0000

Cormac McCarthy was deeply interested in physics and mathematics and was a trustee at the Santa Fe Institute, which has a heritage connected with Los Alamos National Laboratory. I don't know a lot about this side of him, only reading about it after reading his last two novels which do show a mastery of physics that really seemed to mirror his master of bridles and guns and culture in the old west. I don't remember reading that he had actually published any of this himself but he was spoken of as intensely curious about physics.

New comment by ddawson in "MapSCII – World map in terminal"

ddawson — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 12:39:33 +0000

Bonkers. This is a lot of fun.

New comment by ddawson in "Strengths Are Your Weaknesses"

ddawson — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 13:18:36 +0000

I'm so happy i work on a team. Early in my career I substituted my speed for what I saw as deep experience of others around me. I was the one willing to move fast and break things and I'm still doing that. Fortunately, I've learned to temper my eagerness by teaming up with others willing to probe my approach. I'm still impatience and eager but I'm much, much stronger in a team than as a lone cowboy.

New comment by ddawson in "Ask HN: Do you still use search engines?"

ddawson — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 22:56:41 +0000

For years I was screaming at Google because I just wanted answers rather than endless blue links for me to research my answer. LLMs were such an amazing innovation in that it provides answers instead but now I'm finding my way back to keyword search. I think I'm still searching about 15% of the time.

New comment by ddawson in "I've been using Claude Code for a couple of days"

ddawson — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 16:56:24 +0000

Exactly. It's also exciting to see things at the frontier, just because they're new. I wasn't planning to release the game, just get something working for myself. By the way, this was July 2024 shortly after Anthropic introduced Claude Artifacts.

New comment by ddawson in "I've been using Claude Code for a couple of days"

ddawson — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 16:54:38 +0000

I'm not asking for an award. lol. I'm not sure exactly what you're after here, with asking what was particularly positive.

It's a personal attempt to see how much I can do with an automaton. I could pay someone to do my taxes or file them myself (I'm in the US). There is much more room for frustration but also lots of benefits to the latter.

In particular, with Claude Artifacts, I had a chance to see an amazing innovation. Have you ever wanted to see something new just because it's new? It changes you, which of course is one of the purposes of exploring novelties. By the way, this was my experience in July 2024.

New comment by ddawson in "I've been using Claude Code for a couple of days"

ddawson — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 23:01:45 +0000

I do not know how to code, nothing beyond the simplest things but I am obsessed with AI development. Several month’s ago I decided to see if Claude could do the work for me.

My test was to create a tower defense game that would run in a web browser. It took me about eight prompts, each time refining it, including agreeing to the suggesting that Claude recommended and seeing Claude agree with me on the bugs that I pointed out.

It was mind blowing. It’s not pretty at all but is recognizable as a TD game. I thanked Claude and said that was enough and Claude signed off as well saying, well if you’re going to continue to refine it, do these four things. I was really stunned.

New comment by ddawson in "Is USAID mainly serving US interests? (2013)"

ddawson — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 17:53:54 +0000

He's eager to get before the Supreme Court and has people whispering in his ear that the Impoundment Control Act is unconstituional. I think the shock and awe campaign has politician gains at deployment and any fights can be turned to his favor in public, too. He's very good at getting people to play on his terms.

New comment by ddawson in "Is USAID mainly serving US interests? (2013)"

ddawson — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 17:51:41 +0000

Poland is very clear advocate for Trump's new target of 5%.

New comment by ddawson in "Is USAID mainly serving US interests? (2013)"

ddawson — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 17:50:05 +0000

Certainly depends on what you mean about US interests. I'm a US citizen and am very pleased with what they have done enhancing trade, feeding people, addressing malaria and TB, education, sanitation, and lots more. It's easy to connect this with promoting democracy, paving the way for Pax Americana, and other things which are pro-American.

New comment by ddawson in "Relax while watching bouncing particles making connections when they get closer"

ddawson — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 14:56:25 +0000

I feel like that's what's happening to my neurons when I'm browsing Reddit. And Hacker News.

New comment by ddawson in "Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions"

ddawson — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 20:39:14 +0000

https://www.wsj.com/tech/amazon-alexa-devices-echo-losses-st...

New comment by ddawson in "The human body has 1.8T cells dedicated to defending it"

ddawson — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 19:20:43 +0000

So, a metric billion?