Hacker News: dom96

New comment by dom96 in "Feature Request: Support AGENTS.md"

dom96 — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:24:48 +0000

I exposed this JSON API in the same style as their original API at api.reddiw.com and they banned my account without warning. I explicitly included my reddit username in the user-agent so that they could reach out if they had a problem with it. Nope, straight to banning my decade old account.

The company has turned evil sadly.

New comment by dom96 in "A new study of a bot running a store finds it is friendly but not very smart"

dom96 — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 20:03:28 +0000

They can have memory, it's just limited to their context window.

New comment by dom96 in "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers"

dom96 — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 21:07:35 +0000

Genuinely tempted to move to Iceland

New comment by dom96 in "Mars Bar from 1991 found – and it's 20g bigger than today's"

dom96 — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 21:06:59 +0000

To be fair, some customers may prefer portions that are less unhealthy.

Ask HN: Anything as Fast as Google's AI Mode in the CLI?

dom96 — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 16:20:56 +0000

I'm realising that Google's AI mode is the fastest for quick questions. Like questions about how to do X in library Y.

Is it possible to use it from the CLI? Alternatively, what is a good fast free model that folks use for this purpose?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49232797

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by dom96 in "Open-source interactive map for the Aug 12 total solar eclipse"

dom96 — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 08:11:49 +0000

Really? Well that's sad. I'll be going to see my first partial eclipse this week.

New comment by dom96 in "What happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers"

dom96 — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 22:20:16 +0000

Not the person you're replying to, but this is genuinely the killer feature of the UK. Yes, we get heat waves and more of them now, but it's much better than mainland Europe. Especially if you stay away from London (which I would recommend).

New comment by dom96 in "Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak"

dom96 — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 21:23:38 +0000

I don't think that's the reason. The fact is that HTML/CSS gives far more flexibility for design than any native framework has ever done. Also, nope, it's not easy to make a UI using native desktop frameworks, especially if you need to target all 3 platforms.

New comment by dom96 in "Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak"

dom96 — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 21:21:08 +0000

I've used GTK in the past and I wouldn't consider it robust nor easy to use. But most importantly, it doesn't look good, especially on macOS. No matter how hard you try, you cannot make it feel native.

But the point is: LLMs should make it easy to generate a native UI for each of the main platform's UI frameworks. GTK should no longer be needed.

New comment by dom96 in "Software development with AI is starting to feel like cooking steak"

dom96 — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 16:00:38 +0000

I hope and believe that some great companies and teams will use LLMs to build higher quality software.

We built Electron because writing UIs using native desktop frameworks is tough. Is it still tough? Surely LLMs make it easier to use and so we will end up with faster and more native feeling applications.

What about having a couple of ideas of what might make a feature feel good? Well now you can make multiple prototypes fast and pick the best one. Your users get the best one.

I hope to build software this way in the future.

New comment by dom96 in "AI's debt binge can't last, hidden borrowing reaches $1.65T"

dom96 — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 21:23:11 +0000

That's not what "this year" means lol

New comment by dom96 in "AI's debt binge can't last, hidden borrowing reaches $1.65T"

dom96 — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 22:09:20 +0000

> Models just got good at writing code this year

That's not correct, is it? Opus 4.5 came out in Nov 2025. Some might say models were good at coding even before that.

New comment by dom96 in "New York Will Require Digital ID Checks for Social Feeds"

dom96 — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 19:54:18 +0000

We can get the best of both worlds: privacy and age checks. The governments just need to implement ZKP passports/IDs and give them to everyone.

New comment by dom96 in "The Strongest El Niño Ever"

dom96 — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 20:23:50 +0000

Yeah, I wasn't planning to run the cold loops through the existing radiator piping. I just want the ability to cool at least 1 room by reusing the air-to-water system, even if that means the FPU requires its own piping from the outside.

In that scenario, are FPUs a good option? Are there other drawbacks?

New comment by dom96 in "London Gatwick has launched a robotic airport parking service"

dom96 — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 19:50:56 +0000

Meanwhile their toilets are all completely down because of water supply failures[1]. A sad and funny juxtaposition.

1 - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/26/water-supply...

New comment by dom96 in "The Strongest El Niño Ever"

dom96 — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 19:43:51 +0000

The annoying thing is that UK at least has a bigger grant for air-to-water systems.

I've been doing some research into this, because I would ideally like to get this system so I can make use of the existing radiators in my old house, but I do also want to have the option of cooling my home. It does seem like Fan Coil Units (FCUs) are an option for this. Anyone have experience with these? Are they really inefficient compared to standard air-to-air units?

New comment by dom96 in "Memory safety absolutists"

dom96 — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 10:10:49 +0000

> The thing is, programs that can be also written in GC powered languages, often don't need unsafe at all

That's true, though it's worth noting that they do still need unsafe for the FFI. Often this is where the memory safety issues arise in GC languages. So no language is truly "memory safe".

New comment by dom96 in "I love LLMs, I hate hype"

dom96 — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 19:53:50 +0000

I love LLMs too, but I am concerned about their cost. They are all still very subsidised. Is there any guarantee that I'll be able to run a Opus 4.8-level model on my personal computer before the big AI labs decide to hike up the prices?

New comment by dom96 in "My thoughts on the Bun Rust rewrite"

dom96 — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 00:06:59 +0000

Well, the creator of Bun is certainly someone that deserves professionalism.

But even random people you get on GitHub sending you PRs. You shouldn't reject them with "this code is slop". At least say "Cannot accept this. The code quality isn't great" or something to that effect.

But the point is: dismissing real people who are doing real work and spending a lot of effort on something with "that's slop" is very unprofessional.

You are just coming up with scenarios that don't really apply to what happened in this blog post.

New comment by dom96 in "SpaceX wants to launch 100k more Starlink satellites for 100x the bandwidth"

dom96 — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 14:36:31 +0000

What I don't understand is where are the Starlink competitors. Supposedly the UK government owns a stake of 10% in OneWeb and yet they are planning to use Starlink for trains.

Is it really just too hard to put enough satellites in orbit to be competitive with Starlink?