Hacker News: dj_gitmo

New comment by dj_gitmo in "So you think you could be an electrician?"

dj_gitmo — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 04:58:37 +0000

The article specifically mentions arborists. I don’t think there is any way to de-risk something like tree work.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "So you think you could be an electrician?"

dj_gitmo — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 04:52:38 +0000

Would you say your decision to switch careers is based on your evolving interests, or economics?

New comment by dj_gitmo in "Woking Electrical Control Room (2016)"

dj_gitmo — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 01:10:03 +0000

They probably preserved this in part because it is so aesthetically pleasing. It might not be representative of the average control room of that era. I’m sure some were drab and confusing.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "Toyota is taking the Corolla electric"

dj_gitmo — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 03:19:12 +0000

I have been waiting for a manufacturer to finally embrace this tech. I know electric buses already do it. I think people just have a mental barrier about this because EVs are supposed to be eco friendly.

I really hope you succeed

New comment by dj_gitmo in "One corner of China’s internet is insisting that the Tang Dynasty never existed"

dj_gitmo — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 22:07:11 +0000

> Aren't republicans in Texas trying to rewrite history books to ignore lynchings and burnings of Black Wall Street and claim that slaves were treated pretty well?

I remember this controversy from a while and IIRC I don't think this is accurate. For one thing, they teach that slavery was a central role. https://www.npr.org/2018/11/16/668557179/texas-students-will...

I remember looking at the actual key points in the Texas curriculum and nothing seems that unusual. Some people we IMO nitpicking.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "California's new tire efficiency rules could save drivers $1B a year"

dj_gitmo — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 18:46:41 +0000

If the tires wear out even 10% sooner, the entire environmental case goes out the window. I had eco tires on my Volt and they never lasted as long as they were supposed to.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "China's open-weights AI strategy is winning"

dj_gitmo — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:19:28 +0000

I don't think the US and China hold very different opinions on this question. China is very capitalist and has long ago sold off most of its older, Soviet style state enterprises. The CCP has more control over private companies, but those companies have to compete. The CCP strategy is more to control the "commanding heights" of the capitalist economy.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "How Doctors die. It’s not like the rest of us (2016)"

dj_gitmo — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 22:34:12 +0000

Once you reach that state, you cannot accomplish anything like that.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "How Doctors die. It’s not like the rest of us (2016)"

dj_gitmo — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 00:58:16 +0000

I looked into this recently and it seems like it is basically impossible to pre-arrange assisted suicide for alzheimer's or dementia. Even in countries which allow death with dignity. I find it very strange because it’s so common and I’m sure many people would prefer DWD in those circumstances.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "Successful Companies Go Blind"

dj_gitmo — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 15:16:39 +0000

> I vehemently disagree that people working at big companies are stupid, or making themselves stupid. There are VPs and SVPs at Adobe and Salesforce that are smarter, more knowledgable, and more productive than any startup employee.

In my experience the problem can be the lower level managers and ICs. If they cannot perform to the industry standard, technical debt will begin to compound, and it will be difficult to adapt. It’s also difficult to improve your standards when the competent people keep leaving, or don’t feel like they can make changes.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "EV Stupidity Checklist"

dj_gitmo — Fri, 29 May 2026 23:01:33 +0000

I think Chinese Consumer preferences are driving a lot of this. They want things to be as high tech as possible, and don’t seem to care about longevity.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "You Should Not Update Your Dependencies"

dj_gitmo — Thu, 28 May 2026 01:18:21 +0000

IMO the best practice is to leave dependencies unpinned, but use a lock file, and only update the lock file a few times a year. Upgrade enough that you don’t get stuck, but not often enough to expose yourself to supply chain attacks every time CI runs.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "Landmark L.A. jury verdict finds Instagram, YouTube were designed to addict kids"

dj_gitmo — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:06:17 +0000

> Parody: I let my child have cocaine and now they're addicted!!!!! Hilarious.

Cocaine is illegal because it is addictive.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "Tesla registrations crash 17% in Europe as BEV market surges 14%"

dj_gitmo — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 20:20:24 +0000

If you are really into EVs, like the author clearly is, than what is happening to Tesla is just sad. Tesla is being run into the ground. It was, and could be, the great American EV success story. But now it's being destroyed by a guy who has clearly lost it. And don't forget that taxpayers have foot the bill for Tesla to have this shot in the first place.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "Facebook is cooked"

dj_gitmo — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 22:24:52 +0000

You are not responding to the content of the article. Did you read it? The FB feed has changed dramatically since the adoption of genAI and the experience of using it can be pretty unpleasant. Do you disagree?

New comment by dj_gitmo in "U.S. jobs disappear at fastest January pace since great recession"

dj_gitmo — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 20:47:32 +0000

We did this to ourselves. Let’s not make excuses.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "GitHub should charge everyone $1 more per month to fund open source"

dj_gitmo — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 20:55:23 +0000

If this ever happened I imagine private equity would begin taking control of open source projects.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "Meta announces nuclear energy projects"

dj_gitmo — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 19:45:23 +0000

Okla really seems like a meme stock. Their original design was rejected by the NRC, so they are very far from ever breaking ground. I don’t understand why their valuation is so high. Why not just take all this money and build an existing, approved design?

New comment by dj_gitmo in "Scaling LLMs to Larger Codebases"

dj_gitmo — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 03:50:57 +0000

Great post. I work on two large codebases. One is structured much like the example from the post, and the other is a mess. LLMs care much better at understanding the organized code.

New comment by dj_gitmo in "AI helps ship faster but it produces 1.7× more bugs"

dj_gitmo — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 15:27:38 +0000

> It is almost aways a failure of the technical infrastructure previously created in the company. An AI will solve the trivial aspects of the problem, not the real problem.

This is so true. Software that should be simple can become so gnarly because of bad infra. For example, our CI/CD team couldn't get updated versions of Python on the CI machines, and so suddenly we need to start using Docker for what should be a very simple software. That's just an example, but you get the idea, and it causes problems to compound over the years.

You really want good people with sharp elbows laying the foundations. At one time I resented people like that, but now I have seen what happens when you don't have anyone like that making technical decisions.