Hacker News: fludlow

New comment by fludlow in "What Is Gridifcation"

fludlow — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 13:24:46 +0000

I agree purely looking at tempo variation isn't everything, but I think perhaps "Zero tempo variation is a necessary but not sufficient indicator of "gridifcation" is closer to the message?

More specifically, they define gridification as: recording multiple takes, nudging every single note onto the grid for each one, then selecting the best take section by section (however small those sections are) so that every single note is absolutely perfectly on time, in tune etc, loses... something - it removes some of the humanity. The author also explicitly cites many other kinds of recording and editing as NOT gridification - e.g. playing to a click, using a drum machine.

New comment by fludlow in "The sordid reality of retirement villages: Residents are being milked for profit"

fludlow — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 16:29:08 +0000

Ground rent is a bizarre UK property law concept. The resident will have paid for the leasehold of the property (typically a one off payment for 99 years occupancy which is transferable if they want to sell to someone else) but the company retains the freehold and can charge ground rent in return for absolutely nothing (this is different to a service charge which would fund things like communal space/facilities upkeep). This arrangement sort of makes a tiny bit of sense for apartments if you're being generous about it but there was a scandal in the UK that lots of regular houses were being sold leasehold not freehold with ground rent that started at a token level but ramped up significantly above inflation

New comment by fludlow in "Learn to code, ignore AI, then use AI to code even better"

fludlow — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 10:51:41 +0000

I like your comparison. A related thought: what should be really valuable right now for Cursor, Windsurf etc is figuring out who the skilled users are and further training their models based on their usage. In fact, actively courting skilled devs would give them very high quality data to finesse the tools further.

If I could honestly say I was any good at coding I'd be using this as an argument for unlimited free access to these platforms!