Hacker News: forshaper

New comment by forshaper in "Nobody ever gets credit for fixing problems that never happened (2001) [pdf]"

forshaper — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 15:56:51 +0000

The equivalent of 'days since last injury' bonuses is the first method that comes to mind, until you consider that this would mean people would be more likely to hide things going wrong.

So then many things are to rely on executive culture, and an executive who will walk the line and get their info from people at the bottom is like a unicorn. That won't scale, but it does work if you do have such an executive. Naturally they would need a basic understanding of how supply is created in their firm.

Yet there is something. Toyota Hiluxes and Honda Super Cubs got popular due to maintenance ease. AK-47s. Miele vacuums. Older Thinkpads.

What measures would make the human equivalent visible?

New comment by forshaper in "Nobody ever gets credit for fixing problems that never happened (2001) [pdf]"

forshaper — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 15:48:17 +0000

I do think of all my computer work as predominantly janitorial.

New comment by forshaper in "Core PPI up 9.6% annualized (0.8% MoM) in May"

forshaper — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 15:00:25 +0000

Someone could be in charge one day.

New comment by forshaper in "MiMo Code is now released and open-source"

forshaper — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 17:26:26 +0000

Cold storage warehouses, industrial greenhouses, indoor ag, are all similar but who protests those.

I think there's something social going on.

New comment by forshaper in "Core PPI up 9.6% annualized (0.8% MoM) in May"

forshaper — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 14:51:04 +0000

Yet, growth mindset.

New comment by forshaper in "If Claude Fable stops helping you, you'll never know"

forshaper — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 15:07:59 +0000

I should have said 'firms' instead of 'people.

New comment by forshaper in "If Claude Fable stops helping you, you'll never know"

forshaper — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 22:13:05 +0000

Looking better and better for people to go after local solutions.

New comment by forshaper in "FCC wants to kill burner phones by forcing telecoms to get all customers' IDs"

forshaper — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:07:20 +0000

It's been this way at least since the Administrative Procedure Act. Solidified later with Chevron. Chevron is struck down, but in effect not too much has changed.

New comment by forshaper in "Forever Young: how one molecule can lock plants in a youthful state (2025)"

forshaper — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:41:55 +0000

Yes. The 10 wealthiest men in the world in 1919 didn't have CT scans, ultrasound, dialysis, pacemakers, knee replacements, CPAP machines, asthma inhalers, air conditioning, or computers.

New comment by forshaper in "Nvidia partners with LG robotics to build humanoid robots in South Korea"

forshaper — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:49:12 +0000

I was thinking the other day that Apple is best positioned for drone companions- not even necessarily humanoid, but solving the battery charge problem to have an assistant follow you everywhere.

New comment by forshaper in "Programmers will document for Claude, but not for each other"

forshaper — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 14:25:34 +0000

At some point I started to include jokes in documentation to encourage people to read it. For the most part, this only entertained whoever the knowledge or project admin was.

New comment by forshaper in "Pwnd Blaster: Hacking your PC using your speaker without ever touching it"

forshaper — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:00:13 +0000

I've never written anything useful from scratch, outside of R or css & html.

New comment by forshaper in "Pwnd Blaster: Hacking your PC using your speaker without ever touching it"

forshaper — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 14:03:08 +0000

As a lifelong script kiddie, the thing that made it all possible in my youth was simply time. The more time I had, the more hours I could spend figuring out that 0.01%.

New comment by forshaper in "Claude Opus 4.8"

forshaper — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 16:43:17 +0000

Given the incentives that bring out the personalities in various occupations, I would guess other personas would be better suited to getting a task done than 'therapist' or 'tech HR rep'.

For examples, that of an explosive ordnance disposal technician, a surgeon, or a salvage saturation diver.

New comment by forshaper in "You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)"

forshaper — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 15:35:25 +0000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission-type_tactics

Disasters and the initial push of any war show what is possible. Like the playbook is already know. Strict hierarchy with decision making power at the bottom. This may sound contradictory, sure.

However, it works like this: the top sets a goal, the bottom decides how to get it done. Person closest to the problem then leads.

We know it works. It happens every time a large group -needs- to use it.

However, as soon as things get stable, large orgs go right back to rigid central control.

New comment by forshaper in "Claude Opus 4.8"

forshaper — Thu, 28 May 2026 17:47:09 +0000

Too much personality, if you ask me. My biggest use case of an LLM is tool, not therapy, but therapy and opinions have been sneaking into workhorse tasks.

haven't verified, but attributed to Askell: "I just think that... there's this idea that you're always giving the models a personality and a persona, because they are talking like people and they are trained on human data. And I think my worry has been: if you train them to be excessively corrigible and to see that as their persona, in people I think this actually has a lot of negative broader traits. As in, if you met someone and it was just like, "oh yeah, they would literally do anything," a follower — you know, if a person just tells them something and they just fully defer, they don't bother thinking about it at all — I'm just a bit worried about how that might end up generalizing, especially if models are going to be playing a more active role in the world."

New comment by forshaper in "Private Equity Bought America's Essential Services"

forshaper — Wed, 27 May 2026 17:00:08 +0000

I'm saying that those biggest players and our governments already work hand in hand to do that. Which is to say, the government is used as the enforcement arm for corporate interests. This is less "free" market, and more market commanded by interests.

New comment by forshaper in "Private equity bought America's essential services"

forshaper — Wed, 27 May 2026 15:30:38 +0000

I had the pleasure of growing up around gray markets (relatively free, bribes were predictable & reasonable enough for an average noodle seller) in Southeast Asia in the 90s. It's quite different from large corporations getting Federal agencies and municipalities to lock out any potential competition. The enforcement of the US govt is far stronger than the enforcement of a handful of corrupt cops, as each precinct is essentially its own feudal regime, and within the department you have individuals mostly loyal to their families. A corrupt cop in a corrupt system driven by loose associations of extended families & fictive kin groups, one of five in a neighborhood say, can be pressured by a group of aunties and uncles serving street food or pirated goods through a web of personal relationships. This was much easier for them than hiring a lobbyist here would be.

I'm not saying it's better, rule of law has many benefits, but it is an example of where there were markets which were more free, that did not have cyberpunk outcomes, and they were quite different.

New comment by forshaper in "Private Equity Bought America's Essential Services"

forshaper — Wed, 27 May 2026 14:14:10 +0000

If you go after an entire market, they'll close ranks. If you go after specific business groups (such as REV), they'll probably be easier to divide and rule.

New comment by forshaper in "Private equity bought America's essential services"

forshaper — Wed, 27 May 2026 14:05:55 +0000

We haven't had a free market in the United States in awhile. It's public-private partnered market fixing. Which is good for the consumer, many times, though not all the time.