Hacker News: grimcompanion

New comment by grimcompanion in "Don't be a meat proxy"

grimcompanion — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 20:06:57 +0000

IMO this definitely helps, but only to a degree, because the more quickly I can read/digest output, the more quickly I've got more output to read/digest. The jargon/quirks aren't as dense per message but they still accumulate eventually, and so either way I hit a wall where I need to do something, anything, besides read another line from CC.

New comment by grimcompanion in "How to stop Claude from saying load-bearing"

grimcompanion — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 21:19:30 +0000

Yep, I've heard humans use load-bearing twice in the past week, versus approximately never in a software eng context before that.

New comment by grimcompanion in "Memorizing session transcripts isn't useful"

grimcompanion — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 17:34:39 +0000

> I believed this so strongly that my company built an entire product around this concept. I used to tell folks that "session transcripts were the new oil," that they were more valuable than the code itself.

This is infuriatingly common wrt talking/writing about how to use AI effectively. All of the "this is how you write an AGENTS.md" and "you need to talk to it like X to optimize it". Like sure, you can believe that as much as you want but unless you provide some evidence you can keep your shitty CLAUDE.md to yourself and don't pollute the whole company's git repo, thanks.

The scandal of two-tier degrees Extra time infantilizes students

grimcompanion — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 23:06:22 +0000

Article URL: https://unherd.com/2026/05/the-scandal-of-two-tier-degrees/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48604346

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by grimcompanion in "'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York"

grimcompanion — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 01:45:05 +0000

Totally agree. I actually got a job off of AngelList back in the day, when I was fairly junior. Was getting messages from hiring managers, founders, and in-house recruiters almost daily. 5 years later, I updated my profile with a much more legit background than before, messaged a few places - it's been 100% crickets.

New comment by grimcompanion in "US cities are axing Flock Safety surveillance technology"

grimcompanion — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:47:08 +0000

OTOH it will provide more surveillance of the police themselves. Humans are also bad at gun detection (sometimes willfully so) and this provides another check.

New comment by grimcompanion in "Ask HN: How do you get your devs to understand your customers?"

grimcompanion — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 13:13:17 +0000

I think there are different solutions for features vs issues.

For features -

Do developers have ownership? Do they write tech specs, proposals, etc? If so, these should include a section on what problem is being solved. If they don't understand the product this is a good way to kick off more conversations about it.

If developers aren't doing this - e.g. if you're leaving it up to management to tell them what to do and how to do it - that's the problem. Companies like this lack incentives for devs to learn about the product if they're just going to be told exactly what to do and aren't given the freedom to think creatively. If this is you and you want to shift the culture, start encouraging developers to propose features and show that you value their contribution to the product. Invite lead devs to meetings and to comment on documents where features are being proposed, from the beginning, instead of handing them a thing to implement.

For issues -

Are PMs communicating issues well? Including why the issue is important? Perhaps something like a loom demonstrating the exact issue would help.

Have a rotation for addressing issues. e.g. if a dev is on call they should work on customer issues when they're not fighting fires.

New comment by grimcompanion in "I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt"

grimcompanion — Mon, 05 May 2025 15:19:27 +0000

I absolutely don't endorse it. I just find it counterproductive to say things like "malice is the point".

I do have trouble finding good faith arguments in favor of this policy. It is cruel. But the people who decided to implement it aren't "other". They're humans who think they're good people (aside from a small minority of people who really don't care) and much as we'd like to think so we're not that different than them. If we can understand their justification, that's a step toward actually convincing them there is another way. And yes, I have changed many people's viewpoints with this level of patience, not everyone is too stupid/mean/insult of your choice to change their minds.

New comment by grimcompanion in "I decided to pay off a school’s lunch debt"

grimcompanion — Mon, 05 May 2025 14:08:26 +0000

It's way too simple to categorize behavior like this into good/evil. It's a worthwhile thought experiment (and habit) to assume that everyone is trying to do the right thing, and try to understand how they might come to a different viewpoint than you.