Hacker News: ethagnawl

New comment by ethagnawl in "A Preview of DuckDB v2.0"

ethagnawl — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 15:48:32 +0000

I was wrong. Apologies.

> They decided to work together, and DuckLabs would become a co-founder of the new endeavor.

https://motherduck.com/about-us/

New comment by ethagnawl in "A Preview of DuckDB v2.0"

ethagnawl — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 15:22:30 +0000

UPDATE: Removed uninformed comment about the relationship between DuckDB and MotherDuck.

New comment by ethagnawl in "Incident with Github.com"

ethagnawl — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 14:37:03 +0000

No questions. Only bench press.

New comment by ethagnawl in "Incident with Github.com"

ethagnawl — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 14:35:09 +0000

You're right.

However, I'm also of the boomer opinion that you should get what you pay for. "Ranting online" about a service (you pay for) being unavailable is a reasonable reaction. It's not like they have a call center you can dial into for support ...

New comment by ethagnawl in "Firefox is now the last major browser that still supports uBlock Origin"

ethagnawl — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 00:38:36 +0000

I'm not sure why you're being downvoted; you're right. Firefox the browser is an amazingly capable tool but I wish it was shepherded by an org that prioritized its users' interests (privacy, performance, etc.) instead of ramming AI, crypto or cute marketing campaigns that NOBODY wants into its flagship offering.

New comment by ethagnawl in "AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?"

ethagnawl — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 05:29:46 +0000

I'm sorry. These charades are such a complete waste of time, energy and money. They're some real 21st Century Office Space nonsense.

I recently joked (only slightly) that it's currently possible to get yourself promoted at these orgs using tokens as a productivity proxy by spending your days having Claude OCR dictionary pages.

The concerning corollary of that joke and this management strategy is: when do orgs start offloading reviews to Claude? They're already surveiling a large percentage of peoples' day-to-day and are in a position (or will claim to be) to make a judgement about how those tokens are being used.

New comment by ethagnawl in "AI is removing the middle class of software engineering?"

ethagnawl — Thu, 13 Aug 2026 04:45:21 +0000

Depends on your definitions, I guess, but look up people who get busted for performing sex acts at massage parlors.

New comment by ethagnawl in "Docker Sandboxes – Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"

ethagnawl — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 21:19:26 +0000

Thanks. That omission didn't smell right based on everything I know about Docker. Curious choice, indeed, not to show Linux install instructions.

New comment by ethagnawl in "Docker Sandboxes – Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"

ethagnawl — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 13:24:14 +0000

Whoah. I took for granted it'd work on Linux.

New comment by ethagnawl in "U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, a sudden reversal"

ethagnawl — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 13:59:28 +0000

And, as a result, the market is ... up?

New comment by ethagnawl in "I won't read LLM authored fiction"

ethagnawl — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 08:52:50 +0000

> I'm amazed that someone was able to do that

This is a bit "woo" but I've always thought of this experience/phenomenon as souls touching across time and space. LLMs either don't have souls or they've stolen them but, either way, that experience (if still possible with slop) would be tainted and perverted.

New comment by ethagnawl in "On non-rooted Android 17, ADB uninstall of system apps fails"

ethagnawl — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 13:59:05 +0000

> I use adb to uninstall all of the system apps like facebook

I've only ever used Cyanogen/Lineage or Graphene, so I had no idea this was a thing. I'm not surprised but ... WOOF.

New comment by ethagnawl in "How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023)"

ethagnawl — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:59:18 +0000

I've always found YT's comment features to be worst in class. I never see notifications, there's a way to find your own past comments but it seems purposely hidden and the Android app keyboard / spell checker is really wonky -- like they don't want you to use it to type anything substantive.

New comment by ethagnawl in "There Will Come Soft Rains (1950) [pdf]"

ethagnawl — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:04:18 +0000

You left out the best part:

> The planet is fine, the people are fucked.

New comment by ethagnawl in "How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023)"

ethagnawl — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 02:41:36 +0000

Well, everybody _did_ use Google+ but nobody _wanted to_. I remember constantly finding myself redirected to it and them doing shady things like automatically connecting you with everyone in your gmail contact list. Also, if memory serves, they chose an avatar for me using Picasa or photos in my gmail or something and it was a photo of me without a shirt on.

New comment by ethagnawl in "How Google helped destroy adoption of RSS feeds (2023)"

ethagnawl — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 02:34:43 +0000

> ... when I first stumbled on to the internet ...

StumbleUpon used to be an endlessly entertaining way to find new content on the internet.

Old.reddit.com is now requiring users to log in

ethagnawl — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 21:01:45 +0000

This was announced a while ago and covered by Ars Technica but it's finally been put into practice.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49103041

Points: 7

# Comments: 6

New comment by ethagnawl in "Did They Ghost You?"

ethagnawl — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 23:57:13 +0000

I've been meaning to write something up about this myself but, suffice it to say, I've been asking myself this question a lot lately.

Gatekeepers, Luddites, Haters and AI-Generated Maps

ethagnawl — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 03:50:51 +0000

Article URL: https://www.maproomblog.com/2026/07/gatekeepers-luddites-haters-and-ai-generated-maps/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49044345

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by ethagnawl in "How Do We Stop Vibe Coding?"

ethagnawl — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 15:54:17 +0000

That's pretty much how I feel. I've been extremely lucky in that, for the last ~15 years, work often hasn't felt like work as a result. I also think I was (am?) _average at best_ but continually saw improvement, found new tricks, etc. and was kept engaged.

If I wind up stocking shelves at Tractor Supply, like I keep threatening to (because I have no interest in feeding bots with markdown), I'm sure I'll be in for a rude awakening.