Hacker News: ktzar

New comment by ktzar in "ESP32 Bit Pirate, a Hardware Hacking Tool with WebCLI That Speaks Every Protocol"

ktzar — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 09:08:27 +0000

compatible with Cardputer?

New comment by ktzar in "Pandoc Templates"

ktzar — Sat, 30 May 2026 12:13:46 +0000

Pandoc is such an amazing piece of software. I used it to format my novel and made it part of a GitHub action to produce all the formats I required. I wasn't aware of templates, but some look really sleek.

I keep thinking that modern text editors are just flawed and markdown, with all its downsides and limitations, is what 99% is the people need.

New comment by ktzar in "I'm going back to writing code by hand"

ktzar — Mon, 11 May 2026 10:17:41 +0000

I don't think we're in the early ages... LLMs technology has essentially stagnated since GPT3.5, we just have bigger models that can handle more context. We're trying to cope for the lack of progress of the actual technology by coming up with contraptions of multiple models stuck together, Mixture-of-Experts, Reviewer models, PM models...

New comment by ktzar in "Do you even need a database?"

ktzar — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 14:42:44 +0000

Writing your own storage is a great way to understand how databases work (if you do it efficiently, keeping indexes, correct data structures, etc.) and to come to the conclusion that if your intention wasn't just tinkering, you should've used a database from day 1.

New comment by ktzar in "I built Timeframe, our family e-paper dashboard"

ktzar — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 21:33:33 +0000

I LOVE this, but I am still love the Sunday night family bonding moment of planning the week in the pen and paper weekly planner that also costs us $10 a year.

New comment by ktzar in "Two kinds of AI users are emerging"

ktzar — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 07:44:24 +0000

because we have an alternative that we humans can fix. The problem with AI is that it creates without leaving a trace of understanding.

New comment by ktzar in "Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025"

ktzar — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 23:07:36 +0000

Didn't know about Grokipedia, I've just opened an article in it about Spain, scrolled to a random paragraph, and the information in it is plain wrong:

From https://grokipedia.com/page/Spain#terrain-and-landforms > Spain's peninsular terrain is dominated by the Meseta Central, a vast interior plateau covering about two-thirds of the country's land area, with elevations ranging from 610 to 760 meters and averaging around 660 meters

Segovia is at 1.000 meters, and so is most of the top half of the "Meseta". https://en-gb.topographic-map.com/map-763q/Spain/?center=41....

I still stand on not trusting any of what AI spits out, be it code or text. And it takes me usually longer to check that everything is ok than doing it myself, but my brain is enticed by the "effort shortcut" that AI promised.

New comment by ktzar in "Small Kafka: Tansu and SQLite on a free t3.micro"

ktzar — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 21:46:28 +0000

I didn't know about Tansu and probably would not use it for anything too serious (yet!). Bus as a firm believer of event sourcing and change of paradigm that Kafka brings this is certainly interesting for small projects.

New comment by ktzar in "Lessons from 14 years at Google"

ktzar — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 10:49:49 +0000

Just that all of those activities you mention feel like a useless life compared to spending time with your own children in a house big enough for everyone to have their space, but small enough to force you to feel you're living with each other, seeing them grow and thrive, and going around your closest nature patch.

Not much money is needed to have a fulfilling and worth-living life.

New comment by ktzar in "Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes"

ktzar — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 09:52:15 +0000

There's no more proof that any Venezuelan election's results has been tampered with than with any US election. The state of Venezuela's state is sad, and so is the fact that millions of people have felt forced to flee the country due to economic uncertainty. But this is probably a mix of culture, ingrained corruption and US blockage for decades.

New comment by ktzar in "A small collection of text-only websites"

ktzar — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 19:35:13 +0000

I really enjoy using text.npr.org from my Kindle / Kindle Scribe. I'm really thinking about setting up a self-hosted RSS aggregator site that's Kindle-friendly.

AI can write code. But who understands it?

ktzar — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 09:19:04 +0000

Article URL: https://medium.com/enrique-dans/ai-can-write-the-code-but-who-understands-it-2e28e3e12f3e

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46418855

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by ktzar in "I program on the subway"

ktzar — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 19:03:46 +0000

I developed a big chunk of my Scumm games decompiler in London's central line. I was lucky (or unlucky) enough to go far enough each day to always hand an empty seat and enjoy 30 minutes of me time each way.

All on a Chromebook with crostini. Cheap, long battery life and decent keyboard.

New comment by ktzar in "Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks"

ktzar — Sun, 21 Dec 2025 08:27:50 +0000

It's the same hunch we all have when we think we're going to learn something by watching tutorials. We learn by struggling.

New comment by ktzar in "Everyone in Seattle hates AI"

ktzar — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 21:37:38 +0000

I think you hit the nail in the head there. There's absolutely nothing we can do with AI that we can't do without it. And the level of understanding of a large codebase that a solid group of engineers has is paramount to moving fast once the product is live.

New comment by ktzar in "Microsoft's lack of quality control is out of control"

ktzar — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 11:19:26 +0000

Consequences of having early access to ChatGPT and getting AI knowledge debt?

New comment by ktzar in "Getting AI to work in complex codebases"

ktzar — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 08:52:51 +0000

And most importantly, we're paying with our brain and skills degradation. Once all these services stop being subsidised there will be a massive amount of programmers who no longer can code.

New comment by ktzar in "Tokens are getting more expensive"

ktzar — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 09:41:16 +0000

Also, the way models are evolving (thinking process, llms waiting for interactions with external entities via MCP, mixture of experts, ...) are making "useful chatbot responses" way way way more expensive than they used to be when you were pretty much hitting an autocomplete. To a level where these are starting to be prohibitive to run locally at a decent tokens/s speed, and we're being tied to using their models.

New comment by ktzar in "6 weeks of Claude Code"

ktzar — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 13:37:35 +0000

Tried it a few times, and I feel I'm paying to become a worse developer for a maybe 30% speed increase in total.

New comment by ktzar in "Rotring 600 Ballpoint Pen"

ktzar — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 06:57:17 +0000

I still think that fountain pens are the pinnacle of writing stationery. One lasts generations and there's no consumables that need recycling or disposing of, if you use a rechargeable cartridge and buy ink bottles.