Hacker News: iankp

New comment by iankp in "Show HN: Moltbook – A social network for moltbots (clawdbots) to hang out"

iankp — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 10:20:30 +0000

What is the point of wasting tokens having bots roleplay social media posts? We already know they can do that. Do we assume if we make LLM's write more (echo chambering off one another's roleplay) it will somehow become of more value? Almost certainly not. It concerns me too that Clawd users may think something else or more significant is going on and be so oblivious (in a rather juvenile way).

New comment by iankp in "Programmers and software developers lost the plot on naming their tools"

iankp — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 10:20:06 +0000

I'm not sure arguing in favor of alphabet soup naming is any better. At least we ended up with semantic versioning, because originally it had also been just an expression of marketing and creativity. I don't understand even slightly why he blames Google in the article. He also forgot to propose what he believes Google should have been named. Search Engine? AWCSS? And the fact that he'd be fine with Viper and Cobra if they had backronyms points to the ridiculousness of the whole article. I'm genuinely most fascinated by how he accomplished writing that much text without the nonsense of his position dawning on him.

New comment by iankp in "Show HN: I built a more productive way to manage AI chats"

iankp — Fri, 23 May 2025 22:44:06 +0000

Isn't NotebookLM already exactly web and file context (a "ContextChat")?

Edit: I assume it is basically a similar product, but your differentiators are mainly the customer getting to choose their model, and you getting to write your own context adding ergonomics (like adding links from a Sitemap)?

New comment by iankp in "Hasbro's Trademark for the Smell of Play-Doh (2018)"

iankp — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 17:09:11 +0000

Are you talking about the Replica line by Maison Margiela, because those are obviously not trying to be bootlegs, they replicate smells from nature. However you're right, that fragrances are one of the most ripped off original works in existence, with machines to even analyze the composition in creating duplicates. Those master perfumers that make unique works of art through their studies and talents have it worse than Nike shoes.

New comment by iankp in "Meaningful Nonsense: How I generate sentences"

iankp — Thu, 30 May 2024 08:48:57 +0000

She asks the question of if it makes sense, but I find the example sentence "Existence learns about a dream" actually very interesting and poetic

New comment by iankp in "Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’"

iankp — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 10:51:56 +0000

Isn't that concept of "luck" as strange as considering us "lucky" for currently being? Non-existent things aren't in a lobby waiting to win a lottery. There was no choice; we came to exist, then considered ourselves. Whatever conditions create, does not imply luck for what is created.

New comment by iankp in "Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop"

iankp — Mon, 03 May 2021 08:13:49 +0000

The problem is you're being presented a mandatory popup for what appears to be used as GDPR compliance but realize that it isn't because real ones are instant. This is fake GDPR in the sense that it isn't (compliant); it's other things, as you note. If the purpose is to facilitate GDPR, that opt-out time shouldn't be conflated (the ad stuff shouldn't be bundled), given that GDPR appears to have a requisite "It shall be as easy to withdraw as to give consent.". Is that a correct interpretation? You're suddenly notified you can't operate for minutes (unless you opt-in), which is definitely dark, and unnecessary (unless you want to achieve the action they're doing, but you didn't; you just need GDPR). Sitting captive for minutes is not a modern day web experience anyone finds acceptable, that's why Google is so focused on empowering loading speed inspection/resolution. The experience made me wonder if they use users who don't opt out (I almost gave up just to get out of being locked out) as a selling point. There wasn't, that I could find, an instant GDPR-compliant way around this obstruction. Why would any company care for this experience? If they wanted to be polite and do extra action (this ad network regulations thing), they have the tech to do it asynchronously/unobtrusively, right?

New comment by iankp in "Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop"

iankp — Sun, 02 May 2021 19:02:26 +0000

The problem is their competitors manage to accomplish opting-out near instantly.

New comment by iankp in "Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop"

iankp — Sun, 02 May 2021 18:31:28 +0000

TrustArc is a company used by major brands that utilizes dark patterns to FAKE opt-out time for GDRP compliance. Major companies employ lies. It will hold your browser captive for 2 minutes in hopes that you cancel or accept all. If you don't, it shows "We are processing the requested change to your cookie preferences. This may take up to a few minutes to process.". Not even incompetence could make this an honest process.

New comment by iankp in "Show HN: I Rebuilt MySpace from 2007"

iankp — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 11:24:08 +0000

The most interesting thing to note is that MySpace was personal. The smallest facet of what MySpace was, the 50px tall little "Bulletin" feature, was the place where you talk to yourself at everyone. This, however, is what the entire internet has become, the social paradigm shift, thanks to Facebook's sterile data output container superseding it. Facebook is the MySpace "Bulletin" blown to full size, and that's what we've come to believe the web and networking are. The only saving grace for Twitter is that it's where you follow people you DON'T know, and they tend to be industry experts.

New comment by iankp in "Show HN: I Rebuilt MySpace from 2007"

iankp — Mon, 30 Nov 2020 11:19:59 +0000

How did you recreate the interface though? Most of it was behind the log-in screen which wasn't captured by archive services. Are you trying to scrap together old screenshots? Even with that, I feel like not all UI screens are represented.

New comment by iankp in "The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program"

iankp — Sun, 17 Dec 2017 08:42:51 +0000

I'll share that I had an encounter that seemed unnatural/impossible and I wasn't alone at the time. It also was reported in our local paper the following day. I contentiously (regardless of the experience) have never and do not believe in aliens.

New comment by iankp in "Vim setup for Go"

iankp — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 18:10:07 +0000

I don't use Go so I can't compare these packages directly but you may wish to look into klen/python-mode

New comment by iankp in "Apache releases Lucene Core 4.0 and Solr 4.0"

iankp — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 03:28:14 +0000

Nope, you're spot-on. The Solr Wiki reads like it expects you to be the person who wrote the entire system.

New comment by iankp in "Dwm.vim : Tiled Window Management for Vim "

iankp — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 04:58:04 +0000

This can be a common problem especially when working with a module which occupies a split, but doesn't depend on the file you're working on, like NERDTree. I've solved this problem in a fairly lightweight and elegant manner with the Bclose module, however, by (c)mapping bd to Bclose