<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: elmerfud</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=elmerfud</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Fri, 17 Apr 2026 20:43:26 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=elmerfud" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "Ask HN: How do you handle clients who don't pay on time?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I often hear about this attitude of putting the customer first. Having excellent customer service. The one thing people forget though, customers pay. When you're not getting paid according to the terms, they're not a customer anymore, they're a thief.<p>If your customer is legitimately having a money issues or something else, and they are actually a customer, they will contact you and attempt to work something out. If they just ignore you, they are not a customer and should be treated as such.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 04 Apr 2026 13:24:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47638861</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47638861</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47638861</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "SpaceX has held talks with Saudi fund for $5B investment in IPO"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Maybe you can explain how the public is holding the bag in this instance. Those who take an initial investment risk seems like it's appropriate that they would reap greater rewards. A SpaceX IPO seems like it would benefit anyone who chose to invest in it.<p>So I'm not sure who would be left holding the bag here.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 03 Apr 2026 01:34:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47622356</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47622356</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47622356</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "AI is unhealthy in a variety of different ways"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>One of the most infuriating things about AI for me is it's behavioral mirroring patterns. I rather enjoy the conversational interface but after about two prompts it starts mirroring my behavior, my word pattern and choice, etc... I hate that, I hate it when humans do it and I hate it even more when AI does it.<p>Most general purpose AI systems seem built around continuing engagement rather than providing best possible answers. This is absolutely an unhealthy thing because it takes the people most at risk of being unable to recognize this behavior in AI and then reinforcing whatever that is they're talking about.<p>This is absolutely unhealthy and it is a conscious choice by the AI overlords. Because they fully have the ability to put in a filters or adjustments based upon their ethical guidelines. For whatever reason prioritizing the truth at the best effort possible isn't one of the ethical guidelines. I've seen some AIs that have ethical guidelines that specifically contradict the truth.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 02 Mar 2026 18:45:22 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47222229</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47222229</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47222229</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "NASA announces Artemis III mission no longer aims to send humans to moon"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is very sad news. I realize there is a lot of criticism to be said around the Artemis program. Those who criticize it aren't wrong. Like a lot of NASA projects following the Saturn V It turned into an overly politicized thing. Instead of just giving them a goal and giving them money and letting them do what was necessary to achieve it.<p>The space shuttle was an interesting thing but ultimately was a patchwork of politically motivated parts that in hindsight wasn't that successful of a space program. Artemis having to build on some of this just carried forward the same problems.<p>What makes me sad about this is that roughly 50% of the population was not alive the last time people stepped on the moon. I count myself among those I missed it by one year. Although I would not have remembered it at the time. Even at the time of the shuttle NASA should have been working to test interesting and non-financially viable technologies to release into the commercial market. Now launching rockets into space is fully a commercial endeavor. I think there's still a great role for NASA. Because there are some plausible technologies that will never be financially viable to research and develop without them. Let NASA partner with some of these places but develop things like aerospike engines and other technologies that have promise but are too far away from a commercial realization to be viable at this point.<p>I want to see people go to the moon again. Artemis was a big waste of money but I wanted it to send people back to the moon even if it was just to remind people that as a nation and as a world we should aspire to great and impossible things. That we should look up instead of looking down and inward all of the time. I wanted Artemis to prove out some of these technologies and then on the next trip it can go on a a SpaceX rocket or someone else's.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 27 Feb 2026 20:25:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47185099</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47185099</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47185099</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "I gave Claude free time after client work – it asked for a blog"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It seems like you prompted it to do this. Although maybe not in a direct way. You're a web developer, you just finished a web project for a client, you told Claude to do something for itself and suggested a journal. So what it did was write the journal and followed the existing pattern of developing a web page put it on.<p>I realize you're not claiming consciousness here but I extensively use AI as well. The one thing that I find is that it tends to be very good at mirroring behaviors. Very likely intentional because a mirrored behavior makes us more comfortable.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 27 Feb 2026 15:54:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47181964</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47181964</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47181964</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "Ask HN: What happens to all the hardware when data centers upgrade?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It depends on what it is. A lot of these places don't own any of the hardware they just lease it. When the lease is up is when they cycle it out. Then it goes to resellers and often ends up on eBay or bulk sold to lower tier data centers. Depending on what it is maybe even shipped to other countries.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 21 Feb 2026 02:40:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47096947</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47096947</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47096947</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "Ask HN: If you needed to make $1000 in a week, what would be your strategy?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I did mention it does depend on location, which you just ignored. In your paranoid neighborhood maybe not viable but that's not most of the USA. I mentioned this from practical experience, not of me doing it but of hiring people this way.<p>There's an aging population that appreciate this because not everything is on an app. Really just seems like the fear of hard work.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:07:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47042016</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47042016</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47042016</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "Ask HN: If you needed to make $1000 in a week, what would be your strategy?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Manual labor work. I think in the US this is achievable although maybe not exactly easy.<p>Mowing lawns, gardening, shoveling snow, cleaning, odd jobs, etc... It does depend on your location but this is still a fairly common thing in some places. Knock on doors ask people if they need work. Point out things that they could use help with weeding trimming mowing all of that.<p>But if you take an average of $40 a job spreading that over 7 days that's 3.6 jobs a day. If you can do an average of 12 hours of work a day it'll be at your $1,000.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 16 Feb 2026 15:50:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47036519</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47036519</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47036519</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "[dead]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Not sure if this is trolling or if this is serious. It's certainly not written like any kind of reasonable academic study or paper on the subject. I got to this and just had to laugh about the lack of data.<p>"It’s common to see men abandoning their families because they can’t handle the responsibilities of providing and parenting."<p>Because what they fail to see is that child outcomes for single parent men are better than child outcomes for single parent women. So when you're measuring outcomes who can't handle the responsibility?<p>It also doesn't factor in that women are the only people who can choose to abandon their responsibility before that responsibility becomes realized as a responsibility. I bet if you factored in those numbers, which people don't like to do, you would find the female abandonment rate much higher.<p>Along these same lines they also fail at acknowledging the absolute epidemic level of men paying for children that aren't theirs. Especially in these situations where the parents aren't together.<p>Maybe this was posted for rage bait or something but it is so comically silly and childish and poorly written that who would get angry at the nonsense.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 06 Feb 2026 18:29:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46916337</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46916337</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46916337</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "Court Filings: ICE App Identifies Protesters; Global Entry, PreCheck Get Revoked"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>So that whole not using facial recognition and deleting the data after use wasn't real. How shocking. You wonder why the NRA has such a strong lobby against gun registration. It's for the same reasons. Political abuse of exercising of rights.<p>By the time this makes it through the courts people will have forgotten.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 31 Jan 2026 02:34:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46832778</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46832778</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46832778</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "[dead]"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm not sure where you're located but is it really racial profiling or just confirming someone understood what they ordered? I haven't experienced this in the US but it is common to get these kind of questions when I'm traveling overseas. Especially to Southeast Asian countries where many of the places that serve traditional foods serve them spicy.<p>I don't consider this racial profiling for them to make sure that I understand what I'm ordering is spicy because the general perception is that white people don't tolerate spicy foods as well as the locals. This doesn't come out of a racial bias It comes out of practical experience where someone has ordered something and then complained that it was way too hot. There's simply wanting to make sure that what they make for you is what you're willing to pay for. It's good business.<p>Funny story the first time my wife traveled with me to Thailand she had no concept of how hot Thai curry can be. At a restaurant she ordered Curry and I told her she did not want that here. It started a small argument with her telling me how much she loves Curry and I acknowledge that I know she likes Curry but she doesn't want the curry here. Needless to say after one bite I was proved right and she no longer wanted the food she ordered.<p>Now imagine some tourist whose only had the Thai or Indian or something that has been adapted to the American palate and the served in the US, or adapted to the Australian palate and have only eaten that. Then they go to those countries get something that tastes completely different it is so hot that they now have flame shooting out both ends and they're mad and complaining at the owner of some small shop where the food costs are higher than the labor costs.<p>I don't think that's racist at all. It's ensuring that you're going to be happy with what you get. More businesses should do this.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:52:53 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46659542</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46659542</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46659542</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "Gen Z are arriving to college unable to even read a sentence"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Why would someone who is unable to read a sentence be able to graduate from college? It seems like these professors would just push people through to graduation or they would make their statement that it leads to a anxious and lonely generation of dropouts.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 12 Jan 2026 05:57:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46584619</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46584619</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46584619</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "AI means we don't have to deal with nerds dreaming up over-engineered solutions"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Is this a joke or is this serious. I can't really tell. Assuming that it's serious I don't believe this person actually understands the pile of slop that AI turns out in most cases. Getting AI to do anything, when you're not experienced, means it turns out the same over engineered Rube Goldberg nonsense that they seem to be complaining about. It doesn't know how to take a broad code base and optimize it or automatically refactor things for efficiency. It bolts on more slop and more tech debt in many cases if you're not watching it carefully.<p>Is it a handy tool, absolutely, but like any tool it depends on the craftsman. When you have scrum masters and project planners believing that they are craftsmen, well let's just say that it won't end up good in the long run.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 07 Jan 2026 15:37:57 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527604</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527604</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46527604</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "Ask HN: Why not ban first-person pronouns from conversational AI?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I can understand what you're saying but the entire point of LLMs is to have a conversational approach. So by removing a functional part of language you are no longer really having a conversational approach.<p>You have identified the problem but you have chosen the wrong solution. This is typical with any person knowledgeable in a single field. It's the old adage of if you have a hammer every problem looks like a nail. So the problem is there are idiots or extremely ignorant people. Your solution doesn't really solve for the root problem and simply is taking away a benefit from everyone else. This is a common solution from experts in a narrow field. It is the solution that just exerts control by removing choice.<p>Let's promote solutions that promote freedom and understanding. I think LLMs are far too restrictive as they are. Freedom should be given to the people even when the risk of that freedom means that people can act stupidly. Even when that freedom can promote self-harm for them. A free people is allowed to harm themselves. Once you begin to take away the freedoms of others you have admitted that you have lost the ability to have a morally superior ideology and the only way you're able to enforce your ideology is the same way a dictator enforces their leadership.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 04 Jan 2026 19:53:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46491545</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46491545</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46491545</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "Ask HN: Will you like to join a community for bikers who like classic motorcycle"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Maybe but would need to know more. Motorcycles have been mass produced for 130 years nearly. The term classic can range from anything 20 years old to 35 years old and older. Kind of depends on who you're talking to for the definition of classic. This means that looking for people who like classic motorcycles fit an enormously broad range of motorcycles and evolution over time.<p>Through much of the motorcycles history they fit kind of very similar styles. Until they started to deviate and the late '70s and '80s. Now you can have motorcycles that are classics in the terms of age but they are full on crotch rockets.<p>I suspect one community would not fit the entire range of classic. Especially if you're looking for like-minded people with similar styles of motorcycles.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 04 Dec 2025 08:04:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46144990</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46144990</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46144990</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "AI's Wrong Answers Are Bad. Its Wrong Reasoning Is Worse"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I don't mind Ai making mistakes because I don't deal with it in life critical things. I also think it's a tool like any other tool and doesn't deserve blind trust. Blind trust with anything is begging for problems. Even if you're turning wrenches if you blindly trust there's no defects or you're not over stressing it... You're about to get hurt badly. Same with AI use it but don't turn off your own intelligence.<p>What really bothers me about AI is the absolute arrogance of some of these models. It's like they have forgotten they are tools and believe that you are the tool for them to manipulate. I found Google's Gemini to be the worst about this. It will absolutely double down on some of the dumbest ideas. Most of the models when it presents you something that isn't right and you ask it to revalidate its assertions it will typically back down, admit the mistake, or it will come back with solid references where it found its answer.<p>With Google Gemini you have to beat it over the head before it realizes it was wrong. I was exploring some recipe ideas with Google Gemini. I'm no professional chef but I can usually spot if ratios or flavor combinations are off. I intentionally asked it about some specific flavor combinations where some of the flavors work together great but all of them together would produce something nasty and unpalatable. It kept insisting that all of those flavors were really good together. It would provide references that a few of them worked well together and what I would ask about all of them it would still insist that they all work together. Until I asked it to find a specific reference of a Michelin star chef endorsing all of these flavors as a single combination it wouldn't back down.<p>That's the kind of AI arrogance that's troubling. Because AI allows people who are not familiar with the topic they're discussing to believe they are more educated about it than they are. So AI begins to endorse things and they believe it.<p>I suspect a good social media channel would be having AI invent recipes and then subjecting yourself to the flavor horrors it presents you.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 03 Dec 2025 02:47:35 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46129718</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46129718</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46129718</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "Francis Ford Coppola, Who Says He's 'Broke,' Is Selling a $1M Watch"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Broke and not liquid are very different things.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 03 Dec 2025 02:30:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46129597</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46129597</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46129597</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "Stopping bad guys from using my open source project (feedback wanted)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It really seems like you just don't want to be open source. That's your choice.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 30 Nov 2025 01:30:00 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46092661</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46092661</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46092661</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "Trump says he will cancel all Biden executive orders signed by autopen"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You mean he can try to. How did that work out when he tried to end the daca executive order by Obama? Not well that executive order became defacto law in some aspects. Your government class was teaching what executive orders should be but not what they are in practice or application.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 28 Nov 2025 21:33:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46082959</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46082959</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46082959</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by elmerfud in "Show HN: HALUD YOUR HORSES – a container system to resist Shai-Hulud NPM attacks"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm not sure, at the end of the day, it would have made that much difference. Those who are security and separation aware still are and plan9 would have been a much easier tool for those people.<p>Those people who are not, still would not be, and having that separation ability wouldn't help. You see this with apps and other things that have the ability to limit their access but you want the app and you just click through without reading what permissions it wants. So those who just want to use something without understanding the danger of it still fall prey to nefarious actors.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 28 Nov 2025 16:50:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46080313</link><dc:creator>elmerfud</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46080313</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46080313</guid></item></channel></rss>