Hacker News: el_benhameen

No Signs of AI in the Productivity Data

el_benhameen — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 16:39:55 +0000

Article URL: https://view.e.apollo.com/?vawpToken=7L5HV5YJ6JNUHBYA6QBXXEV6CY.120045&utm_source=mce&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=701Dp00000017sOIAQ&utm_content=https%3a%2f%2fview.e.apollo.com%2f%3fvawpToken%3d%25%25tokenized_vawp_metadata%25%25&utm_id=76effdac4c9a922585b0715a3796d544&mce_id=208988442

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49967165

Points: 6

# Comments: 2

New comment by el_benhameen in "Behold the pawpaw"

el_benhameen — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 03:22:29 +0000

Read a really interesting writeup on blueberry engineering and economics a while ago. Worth checking out.

https://sftw.substack.com/p/chasing-counter-seasonality

New comment by el_benhameen in "My Recent Woodworking Projects"

el_benhameen — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 01:18:45 +0000

Pocket hole screws and glue won’t earn you any awards for beautiful joinery, but they’ll get a project done in a weekend and look plenty nice, especially if you’re going to paint it. The Kreg jigs are a little pricey but absolutely worth it.

New comment by el_benhameen in "Creatine uptake enhances antitumor immunity"

el_benhameen — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 18:44:28 +0000

Don’t worry, if you aren’t confused enough there’s also this to send you through another cycle! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33811821/

New comment by el_benhameen in "Grok 4.7"

el_benhameen — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 18:57:08 +0000

I tried this a while back and I felt like the result was the same weird shoehorning of ideas into language, just with a different vocabulary. I’d really like for it to work, though.

New comment by el_benhameen in "iOS 27, iPadOS 27, and macOS 27"

el_benhameen — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 23:58:54 +0000

And’s! Fucking and’s! Every goddamned time, regardless of the fact that I have never once intentionally typed and’s (until now, which probably means that it’ll now either appear constantly or never again).

New comment by el_benhameen in "Show HN: Graphify C# – Compiler-accurate Find Usages for coding agents"

el_benhameen — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 04:35:35 +0000

Very excited to see union types and to see C# on here. C# can feel like a bit of a scarlet letter in the bay.

New comment by el_benhameen in "Eating Fruit Skins"

el_benhameen — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 20:24:08 +0000

Now that is actually novel! To me, at least. You cook them into a regular soup as an additive? Or you make watermelon rind soup? How’s it taste?

New comment by el_benhameen in "Rust is tier-1 language at Microsoft"

el_benhameen — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 22:25:54 +0000

Native AOT with C#/.net has come a long way, fwiw.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/nati...

New comment by el_benhameen in "De-Brainrot Vacations"

el_benhameen — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 17:40:13 +0000

I had a similar drop off in high school. For me it happened when the volume of assigned reading, particularly summer reading, crowded out all of the reading for pleasure. I just never started back up after that, despite fits and starts over the years.

I decided that I wanted to change about three years ago.

The first thing that helped was finding a book that I really wanted to finish and that I saw as a challenge. I tend to be motivated by challenges. Instead of “I want to get back to regular reading”, it was “I want to finish this one book no matter what”.

Second, I bought an e-reader that let me set the margins and text size to old man settings, such that there are only a few lines per screen. My mind wanders easily, especially when it feels like there’s an ocean of text on a page, so less text and frequent page turns helped me keep my momentum up and avoid constant wandering and re-reading.

As much as we all hate commutes here, getting a job that has me back in the office has had a silver lining in that time on the train is scheduled, routine time where I can’t do something else. I made the decision that it would not be dead time, so I religiously put my phone in my bag, get my book out, and focus on it for the 40 minutes until my destination.

I am a relatively slow reader like you, but much like exercise, sticking to a routine has meant slow but noticeable improvement. I think of myself as a book reader again, and I’ve made it over the hump where sustained concentration feels effortful. You can do it!

New comment by el_benhameen in "Calibrate Before You Accelerate: Bias Toward Action in a New Role"

el_benhameen — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 19:46:17 +0000

Thoughtful and to the point, I like it. I’m curious how long this process takes others. I’m in a new role for the first time in a while and trying to find the right balance between ramping up quickly and taking enough time for deeper learning.

New comment by el_benhameen in "Stalking the Wily Hacker: 40 years later – Cliff Stoll [video]"

el_benhameen — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 17:17:26 +0000

I bought one for my dad a long time ago. I was late in ordering (if memory serves) and asked if I could pick it up in person. Not only did Cliff say yes, but he gave me a tour of his shop and let me watch as he retrieved the bottle from his crawl space storage with a robot he’d built. Incredible customer service!

New comment by el_benhameen in "I'm becoming AI-blind"

el_benhameen — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 19:44:27 +0000

This is a really good description of the problem. I’ve been trying to use Claude to get familiar with the mechanics of a new codebase, and there have been so many moments where I’ve stopped after reading the same paragraph five times in a row and thought “Am I tired? Or stupid? Or is this codebase just wildly more complex than anything I’ve seen before?” before realizing that it’s just taken English and smushed it around like a ball of clay into some abstract sculpture that kind of evokes something from real life.

I think part of it might be an innate feature of LLMs, but Claude seems extra prone to it lately. I ran the same query about the same codebase with Codex, and it gave me an answer that was about 1/4 the length and made me realize that it really wasn’t all that complex.

If nothing else, it’s good training for my own writing. I’ve been working on making myself be more straightforward and concise, and Claude’s writing is a good example of how cleaner prose is a functional choice, not just a stylistic one.

New comment by el_benhameen in "Sun Clock"

el_benhameen — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 18:21:51 +0000

The “Solar Dial” face does pretty much what the site does.

New comment by el_benhameen in "Engineers will do anything to avoid learning from history"

el_benhameen — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 00:21:04 +0000

I would also love to hear more details.

New comment by el_benhameen in "Blogging can just be stating the obvious"

el_benhameen — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 04:16:09 +0000

I’ve never thought about it quite like that, but it’s a great point. So, thanks for sharing the thought in this unique way.

New comment by el_benhameen in "The founder of Craigslist has given away half a billion dollars"

el_benhameen — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 19:16:30 +0000

Good interview with him here. Interesting dude.

https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/craig-newmark/

New comment by el_benhameen in "Your ePub Is fine"

el_benhameen — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 01:51:42 +0000

Have you tried the beta? Have you found it to be substantially better?

New comment by el_benhameen in "Don't trust large context windows"

el_benhameen — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 17:14:59 +0000

I would also be really interested in seeing this if you’re willing to share it.

Against Taste

el_benhameen — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:55:59 +0000

Article URL: https://minutes.substack.com/p/against-taste

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48440231

Points: 4

# Comments: 0