Hacker News: efskap

New comment by efskap in "Show HN: Needle: We Distilled Gemini Tool Calling into a 26M Model"

efskap — Wed, 13 May 2026 00:27:43 +0000

No FFN is blowing my mind. This is pretty much "Attention Is ACTUALLY All You Need". Reminds me of BERT Q&A which would return indices into the input context, but even that had a FFN. Really exciting work.

New comment by efskap in "Beyond Semantic Similarity"

efskap — Tue, 12 May 2026 21:52:17 +0000

Makes sense that the agent can refine its search terms/strategy based on discovered context.

But it still has to enumerate synonyms to find things.

I would assume it's very domain dependent, like code or technical docs would have more precise terminology that is better for fixed string search. On the other hand, medical or legal text can have many many ways to say something

New comment by efskap in "Googlebook"

efskap — Tue, 12 May 2026 18:58:07 +0000

Looks and feels premium, but ultimately fundamentally disposable.

This pattern extends to so many goods in modern life. Washing machines, microwaves, etc aren't worth the time of a local repairman. Repair is economically incompatible with its life cycle.

Clothes are replaced, not stitched. And after a few washes at that. Cars, phones, etc, consist of proprietary parts all sealed up.

New comment by efskap in "The Vatican's Website in Latin"

efskap — Thu, 07 May 2026 04:18:32 +0000

Thanks for the perspective! I guess it depends on the outcomes in question

If they're measured by traditional academic metrics (parsing, recalling declension tables, translating into English), then Wheelock's grammar-first approach really does optimize for that. On the other hand Ørberg optimizes more for reading fluency and intuitive comprehension, which is harder to measure on a standard Latin exam.

New comment by efskap in "The Vatican's Website in Latin"

efskap — Thu, 07 May 2026 02:04:50 +0000

If anyone is interested in learning it, there's nothing better than Ørberg's Lingua Latina per se Illustrata. It's entirely in Latin, including grammar explanations, but it starts out incredibly simple and ramps up gradually with lots of repetition. And that's fun AND effective, since you're immersed rather than grinding tables.

New comment by efskap in "Show HN: WhatCable, a tiny menu bar app for inspecting USB-C cables"

efskap — Sat, 02 May 2026 02:16:56 +0000

Sure you can.

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain NSStatusItemSpacing -int 2

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain NSStatusItemSelectionPadding -int 2

Replace write with delete to undo.

New comment by efskap in "Agents Aren't Coworkers, Embed Them in Your Software"

efskap — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 01:44:57 +0000

Right and modulo agents, they're just describing event-driven architecture like Lambda.

New comment by efskap in "Ping-pong robot beats top-level human players"

efskap — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 02:22:06 +0000

Furthermore, I think we care most about the context surrounding the humans.

If a txt2vid model could generate a 100% perfect video of a soccer match, perfectly rendering each blade of grass, would anyone watch it? No, because we care about the team and the stories of the players. Not just the spectacle being shown.

New comment by efskap in "Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price"

efskap — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 18:33:37 +0000

Any sufficiently mundane technology is indistinguishable from... furniture?

New comment by efskap in "Good sleep, good learning, good life (2012)"

efskap — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 21:59:29 +0000

On the other hand, outcome-driven fitness (pursuing a goal like "i want to get shredded") never worked for me as well as process-focused.

I have strong legs not because that was a goal, but because I fell in love with cycling and never set ANY goals, just enjoyed getting out and riding my serotonin machine.

That might be more sustainable for some people, but if your interests/hobbies are constantly in flux (which mine are as well to an extent), maybe not. I need to find a way to enjoy the process of sleeping more.

New comment by efskap in "JSON formatter Chrome plugin now closed and injecting adware"

efskap — Sat, 11 Apr 2026 03:13:41 +0000

>Firefox doesn't allow you to bypass its marketplace and load extensions that you build from source yourself

It's less than ideal but you can 1) load extensions temporarily in about:debugging, 2) turn off xpinstall.signatures.required in nightly or dev edition to install them for good or 3) sign on addons.mozilla.org without publishing to the marketplace.

New comment by efskap in "Where does all the milk go?"

efskap — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 19:20:47 +0000

It's not "missing" the cream, it's intentionally homogenized by mechanically disrupting the fat globules.

New comment by efskap in "Where does all the milk go?"

efskap — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 19:14:55 +0000

They didn't say during pregnancy. Cows only produce milk after giving birth to a calf, so they're regularly inseminated.

I think a lot of people don't realize we're hijacking their reproductive systems, instead assuming cows constantly produce milk.

One could argue there's more suffering in a glass of milk than a steak, which makes ethical vegetarianism flawed despite its good intentions.

New comment by efskap in "Battle for Wesnoth: open-source, turn-based strategy game"

efskap — Mon, 06 Apr 2026 20:43:53 +0000

If you like arena shooters, Xonotic is quite remarkable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xonotic

New comment by efskap in "Claude Code's source code has been leaked via a map file in their NPM registry"

efskap — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 05:17:06 +0000

Wait, is it expected for them to be able to change? According to this SO answer [0] it's only really possible through GDB or "nasty hacks" as there's no API for it.

[0] https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/38205/change-enviro...

New comment by efskap in "Fermented foods shaped human biology"

efskap — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 21:13:35 +0000

That's a fermented food too!

New comment by efskap in "I built an AI receptionist for a mechanic shop"

efskap — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 22:21:52 +0000

> It's not X — it's Y.

The "author" sure did...

New comment by efskap in "Kagi is contemplating the removal of the assistant from its professional tier"

efskap — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 03:00:42 +0000

That's right:

> Kagi Assistant's web tool uses Kagi Search, and that has nothing to do with this subscription plans discussion, we're not changing anything there. The same applies to LLM-powered features in Kagi Search, like Quick Answer.

New comment by efskap in "Kagi is contemplating the removal of the assistant from its professional tier"

efskap — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 02:59:56 +0000

Luckily they're not changing that part.

New comment by efskap in "Wander – A tiny, decentralised tool to explore the small web"

efskap — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 02:42:31 +0000

They're cool, but centralized and, well, a ring. I like how this is a decentralized graph, the next step in their evolution.