Hacker News: dw_arthur

New comment by dw_arthur in "We Are the Last People Who Know How It Works"

dw_arthur — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 21:52:14 +0000

It reads like marketing speak is the problem. Why is it written in such a urgent, compelling manner with those short punchy sentences? It may not be AI, but no one writes like that naturally. Maybe the author picked it up from reading a bunch of AI writing? The repetition of using you as a subject is also a red flag.

New comment by dw_arthur in "Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast"

dw_arthur — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 18:25:56 +0000

A camera in 2026 is not the camera of 1996. Cameras today are connected to active and passive monitoring systems which are much more invasive to privacy. What will a camera be able to do in 2036?

New comment by dw_arthur in "Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast"

dw_arthur — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 15:26:28 +0000

You're correct that it is a choice. Flock would barely move the needle on stopping crimes caused by the mentally ill and drug addicted.

New comment by dw_arthur in "Flock-Powered Police Chiefs Stalking Women Shows Why Warrants Are Needed"

dw_arthur — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 23:01:08 +0000

The majority of crime is committed by a relatively small number of individuals. If citizens feel crime is out of control they need to vote in politicians and judges who sentence repeat offenders to long sentences or involuntary commitment.

New comment by dw_arthur in "US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%"

dw_arthur — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 17:53:51 +0000

The only thing I want to spend a bunch of extra money on is a nice property and making twice the money would not get me there in what I consider a reasonable amount of time. I'm also not interested in going on an extra two fancy vacations per year or a nicer car. I'm plenty content to read, cook, learn, and enjoy the arts.

New comment by dw_arthur in "US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%"

dw_arthur — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 17:46:48 +0000

I don't have a family, so it's manageable. If I had kids there is no way I could work part-time.

New comment by dw_arthur in "US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%"

dw_arthur — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 17:45:15 +0000

My salary has not kept up with inflation over the last 15 years. The industry I am in, which is not related to tech, has undergone massive consolidation leading to 2-3% raises some years and no raises other years.

New comment by dw_arthur in "US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%"

dw_arthur — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:50:04 +0000

Paradoxically, inflation has contributed to me taking a sabbatical. While I live in a LCOL area and made ~140k/year it just no longer felt worth it to work as I saw my retirement accounts start to match and exceed my salary in yearly gains. I do plan on going back to work in a part time manner, but inflation has killed any reason for me to work hard at a job for that level of salary. Furthermore, the feeling of "what's the point" around white collar work has never been more intense.

New comment by dw_arthur in "Where is the AI jobs crisis?"

dw_arthur — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 23:14:44 +0000

I assume they are working on low stakes software. Does it really matter if you use an LLM to code a scheduling app for a hair salon or veterinary clinic?

New comment by dw_arthur in "The solution might be cancelling my AI subscription"

dw_arthur — Sun, 31 May 2026 17:13:52 +0000

Sounds like internet addiction with new programs/features being the high you chase instead of new tweets, articles, or videos. It's beyond clear that we all need to be cutting back on our computer/screen usage.

New comment by dw_arthur in "AI is too expensive"

dw_arthur — Tue, 19 May 2026 17:56:00 +0000

I don't understand his audience still being in denial about what is coming. There may not be a job apocalypse but there is a decent chance tough times are ahead. Eventually, his audience may turn into outright Luddites. If that happens I sort of hope they don't stop at data centers/AI and go for the whole project of the Internet.

New comment by dw_arthur in "Higher usage limits for Claude and a compute deal with SpaceX"

dw_arthur — Fri, 08 May 2026 14:29:45 +0000

Good news, I was wrong. The discount only applies to Deepseek v4 PRO. Deepseek v4 Flash is not currently on discount which means the dirt cheap price will stay the same.

New comment by dw_arthur in "Higher usage limits for Claude and a compute deal with SpaceX"

dw_arthur — Wed, 06 May 2026 17:58:01 +0000

For my hobbyist purposes Deepseek v4 Flash has replaced Claude Code because I was also sick of hitting 5 hour limits with Claude. Right now, the only thing I miss from Claude is multi-modal image support. I can work around no image support since I can use v4 Flash all day and spend around $1. I am aware Deepseek is currently discounting their API at 75% off so I may try out another provider once the discount is gone at the end of the month.

At this point if feels like if you properly scope your work open weight LLMs are adequate.

New comment by dw_arthur in "America's Expanding Domestic Surveillance"

dw_arthur — Sat, 02 May 2026 17:38:48 +0000

A surveillance state was always inevitable once wireless networking, GPS, and cameras were ubiquitous. If you say this isn't true, show me anywhere in the world with these technologies that is not headed down this path.

New comment by dw_arthur in "Notes from the SF peptide scene"

dw_arthur — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 18:56:26 +0000

Injecting unregulated chemicals into your body is something you may regret in the future. If you inject a Chinese peptide to improve your sleep quality score and three years later you're diagnosed with cancer the inscrutable nature of causality in the body may drive you mad.

New comment by dw_arthur in "AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing"

dw_arthur — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 15:04:08 +0000

We have been since we bound consumption to the internet. All of this was inevitable after that.

New comment by dw_arthur in "MacBook M5 Pro and Qwen3.5 = Local AI Security System"

dw_arthur — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 20:21:17 +0000

LLMs are powerful systems that eventually may be a requirement for being able to economically participate in a large portion of the economy. For this and other reasons it's important that people are able to control their own LLM.

Look at how much Google has changed over the years in the pursuit of profit. What will ChatGPT and Claude look like when they are pushed further down the profit maximization path?

New comment by dw_arthur in "I'm OK being left behind, thanks"

dw_arthur — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:32:36 +0000

Even two or three years ago I had ideas for projects but I could see the models were not ergonomic for my uses. I decided to wait for better models and sure enough the agentic models showed up which are much easier to use.

Next thing I'm waiting on is building a new server for a powerful locally hosted LLM in 5 years. No need to go through the headaches and cost of doing it now with models that may not be powerful enough.

New comment by dw_arthur in "$96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor"

dw_arthur — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 15:46:12 +0000

Throwing an aside here that anyone interested in 1940s war technology must check out the old BBC documentary The Secret War (1977) which goes into depth on solving the engineering challenges of the war.

New comment by dw_arthur in "India's top court angry after junior judge cites fake AI-generated orders"

dw_arthur — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 14:22:37 +0000

As someone who has done QA on white collar work it's tiring looking for little errors in work reports. Most people are not cut out for it.