Hacker News: ern

New comment by ern in "Vercel April 2026 security incident"

ern — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 06:48:16 +0000

I think they simply just haven't figured out that the barrier to entry is so low, that no one really cares what their app can do, even if does something genuinely useful.

New comment by ern in "Vercel April 2026 security incident"

ern — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 06:46:53 +0000

I've done a ton of low-effort vibe-coded projects that suit my exact use cases. In many cases, I might do a quick Google search, not find an exact match, or find some bloated adware or subscription-ware and not bother going any further.

Claude Code can produce exactly what I want, quickly.

The difference is that I don't really share my projects. People who share them probably haven't realized that code has become cheap, and no one really needs/wants to see them since they can just roll their own.

New comment by ern in "Don't post generated/AI-edited comments. HN is for conversation between humans."

ern — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 02:09:58 +0000

I caught myself structuring a comment like an LLM on another site. It's expected that people who chat heavily to LLMs will start to mirror their styles.

New comment by ern in "How will OpenAI compete?"

ern — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 14:19:07 +0000

I'm surprised how many of my technical team use free ChatGPT in their personal lives. The rest have Claude subscriptions. I'm the only one with ChatGPT and Claude subs and I'll be switching from Claude Pro to Ckaude Max and cancelling ChatGPT, since I only use it when I hit my Claude quota.

New comment by ern in "Opus 4.5 is not the normal AI agent experience that I have had thus far"

ern — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 01:51:35 +0000

I'd used both CC and Copilot Agent Mode in VSCode, but not the combination of CC + Opus 4.5, and I agree, I was happy enough with Copilot.

The gap didn't seem big, but in November (which admittedly was when Opus 4.5 was in preview on Copilot) Opus 4.5 with Copilot was awful.

New comment by ern in "Opus 4.5 is not the normal AI agent experience that I have had thus far"

ern — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 00:11:19 +0000

I have been out of the loop for a couple of months (vacation). I tried Claude Opus 4.5 at the end of November 2025 with the corporate Github Copilot subscription in Agent mode and it was awful: basically ignoring code and hallucinating.

My team is using it with Claude Code and say it works brilliantly, so I'll be giving it another go.

How much of the value comes from Opus 4.5, how much comes from Claude Code, and how much comes from the combination?

New comment by ern in "I'm Kenyan. I don't write like ChatGPT, ChatGPT writes like me"

ern — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 23:58:54 +0000

I firmly believe that the heuristics that teachers/lecturers/instructors worldwide use to avoid engaging with reams of mundane text have been successfully by LLMs, and that's why they were so hostile to them initially.

They have to actually read material, and not just use the structure as a proxy for ability.

New comment by ern in "Flight disruption warning as Airbus requests modifications to 6k planes"

ern — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 23:24:35 +0000

The relief second officer basically pulled up when the stall protection had been disabled and by the time the other pilot and captain realized what was happening it was too late to save the plane.

There is a design flaw though: the sidesticks in modern Airbus planes are independent, so the other pilot didn’t get any tactile feedback when the second officer was pulling back.

New comment by ern in "If a pilot ejects, what is the autopilot programmed to do? (2018)"

ern — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 01:39:52 +0000

By "publicize" I meant making sure the consequences were well known within the fighter pilot community.

New comment by ern in "If a pilot ejects, what is the autopilot programmed to do? (2018)"

ern — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 23:22:15 +0000

Making sure that the consequences are well-publicized also has the useful side-effect of making sure that ejection is regarded as a last resort.

New comment by ern in "Using AI to negotiate a $195k hospital bill down to $33k"

ern — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 03:11:10 +0000

This is the exact sort of performative garbage that LLMs are great for. I had to do an electrical install, but the installer felt that the code required additional work (I don't think he was trying to rip us off, he sincerely believed it, since it's a volume business model).

I got ChatGPT to come up with some plausible interpretations of the electrical code that allowed the install to continue, including citations. I don't know how accurate it all was, but I sent the argument off to the installer, and he came back and did the work the next day. Even if it gets audited, the chances of the auditor picking apart the arguments are probably slim to none. He has plausible deniability.

This is also why schools and colleges are struggling. No one expected superficially "high quality" work from average and poor students, and now that they have to carefully evaluate everyone's work, they've been caught with their pants down.

Someday superficial AIs will talk to other superficial AIs and they'll deadlock, requiring humans back into the mix. Until then, it's a useful way to do bureaucratic judo.

New comment by ern in "A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool"

ern — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 03:27:16 +0000

I get a feeling that there are a lot of people trying to minimize this incident for some reason.

New comment by ern in "Things managers do that leaders never would"

ern — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 04:04:49 +0000

This “manager” vs “leader” thing is slightly overdone in general.

A manager who doesn’t lead will end up the issues raised in the article.

A leader who can’t manage will face administrative chaos.

New comment by ern in "React is winning by default and slowing innovation"

ern — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 23:54:40 +0000

Angular was bigger than react until 2018/19-ish in the enterprisey places I worked at.

New comment by ern in "React is winning by default and slowing innovation"

ern — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 23:02:54 +0000

Maybe I'm stupid, but as I recall, React hooks were quite complicated. It's been a few years since I wrote production front-end code, but it felt like some kind of high IQ/elitist barrier.

New comment by ern in "The staff ate it later"

ern — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 23:40:50 +0000

I've seen clips on Reddit where animals are harmed for engagement. Usually "nature is brutal" type clips, where one animal kills another.

I mean nature is brutal, but typing down an animal to be consumed by another isn't natural.

Anyway, I don't think movies and TV are the main source of animal cruelty anymore.

New comment by ern in "What could have been"

ern — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 01:18:44 +0000

I have 4 cameras, a home security system, a remotely monitored smoke detector, a smart plug, 4 leak sensors, smart bulbs, a car whose location and state of charge I can track remotely, a smart garage door opener, a smart doorbell, and 7 smart speakers.

I think IoT was more than just hype.

New comment by ern in "Allianz Life says 'majority' of customers' personal data stolen in cyberattack"

ern — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 02:52:53 +0000

I don't know how the social engineering happened, beyond what's mentioned in the article as a possibility (calling helpdesks). But there's a ton of corporate information that's widely available for exploitation.

LinkedIn, for example is a goldmine for social engineering, and there's no way to secure a profile from being viewed by logged-in users, even if they are unconnected.

I'm surprised more employers don't closely audit their employees profiles.

New comment by ern in "Major rule about cooking meat turns out to be wrong"

ern — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 23:08:29 +0000

I think that's because it's been heavily monetized (YouTube, social media in general, books, products).

New comment by ern in "My experience with Claude Code after two weeks of adventures"

ern — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 04:34:01 +0000

I liked Claude Code when I used it initially to document a legacy codebase. The developer who maintains the system reviewed the documentation, and said it was spot-on.

But the other day I asked it to help add boundary logging to another legacy codebase and it produced some horrible, duplicated and redundant code. I see these huge Claude instruction files people share on social media, and I have to wonder...

Not sure if they're rationing "the smarts" or performance is highly variable.