Hacker News: lbourdages

New comment by lbourdages in "Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?"

lbourdages — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 20:30:10 +0000

- load-bearing

- smoking gun

- I found the seam

New comment by lbourdages in "Stateless MCP has recaptured my interest"

lbourdages — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 14:07:37 +0000

As is the entirety of using an LLM? If you want something deterministic and efficient you get the agent to write a script, verify it, then run it yourself.

New comment by lbourdages in "Stateless MCP has recaptured my interest"

lbourdages — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 11:40:43 +0000

OpenAPI already exists, you can serve it on an endpoint for tool descriptions. Why did we need MCP again?

New comment by lbourdages in "Apple is getting this wrong"

lbourdages — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 11:39:30 +0000

I have a company-managed Apple account on my work iPhone and Mac. So I beg to differ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

It is quite nerfed compared to a normal Apple account - for example the App store is effectively disabled and you need some MDM to be able to install or update apps. But otherwise, it allows me to not use my personal Apple account which was the main objective.

Edit for precision: I don't work at Apple. My point is that it is possible - I guess Apple doesn't want to manage these accounts, but it is not for lack of technical feasibility.

New comment by lbourdages in "Bonsai: Janestreet's UI Library"

lbourdages — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 11:28:49 +0000

Couldn't WASM solve that problem once and for all? Is there some limitation that WASM has that JS doesn't?

Disclaimer: I am very inexperienced at front-end development.

New comment by lbourdages in "SQLite should have (Rust-style) editions"

lbourdages — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 02:19:28 +0000

Well, it goes both ways. You'll see articles saying essentially "you don't need Postgres or any other fancy database, SQlite is enough" while ignoring the fact that some use-cases warrant a more conventional DB server.

Different tools for different situations!

New comment by lbourdages in "Apple's rumored M7 Ultra targets 1.5TB and Blackwell-class AI performance"

lbourdages — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:44:08 +0000

Maybe they are just for internal use? I doubt Apple is going back on the server market, and given how little they have invested in the Mac Pro, I doubt they are going to make a new version. There is little advantage compared to the Mac Studio for most users. External GPU support would change that, but it doesn't seem to be what they want.

New comment by lbourdages in "Incident with Issues and Webhooks – Resolved"

lbourdages — Mon, 04 May 2026 16:09:24 +0000

It's been unacceptable for months, but now it's at the level of "we should actively look for alternatives".

New comment by lbourdages in "Tell HN: An app is silently installing itself on my iPhone every day"

lbourdages — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 13:10:36 +0000

Didn't know that tool existed, thanks for that! I assume it's using the development features in order to bypass protections?

New comment by lbourdages in "Iranian hackers launching disruptive attacks at U.S. energy, water targets [pdf]"

lbourdages — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 20:32:35 +0000

Links are also often modified with "hxxps" instead of "https". Link is still clickable but will not work.

New comment by lbourdages in "Why Inventing Color TV Was So Difficult [video]"

lbourdages — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 17:19:37 +0000

Fascinating! So it's a bit like a plate reverb (used in the olden days in audio engineering), but in the MHz range.

New comment by lbourdages in "GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone without requiring personal information"

lbourdages — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 02:07:42 +0000

There is a technical solution to this - make Amber alerts specifically not bypass do-not-disturb. Others can stay as-is because I want to get woken up in case of natural disaster or other catastrophe.

My phone is always on vibration, but even on do-not-disturb, Amber alerts make it vibrate on my nightstand and that is enough to wake me up (especially since I have a work phone and a personal phone triggering at the same time).

Anyway, it's definitely a first-world problem but it is one with an easy, no-downside solution.

New comment by lbourdages in "Is it a pint?"

lbourdages — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 17:34:59 +0000

It is the same in Canada [1] yet I frequently see beer sold in "US pints" over here. I assume they do it so they can advertise cheaper prices (the amount being smaller). Some places will write the glass size in ounces, but some won't.

It is one of my pet peeves for sure.

[1]: https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/measurement-canada/en/buyin...

New comment by lbourdages in "GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone without requiring personal information"

lbourdages — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:40:35 +0000

I don't understand what is their thought process. Am I supposed to get up and start driving in hopes of finding the kid(s)? By the time I wake up in the morning, usually, they have been found.

Just set it so that it doesn't bypass do-not-disturb and it'll have the same result while not disturbing sleep. Those awake will get the notification, and for the others, they can see it in the morning.

New comment by lbourdages in "Building a new Flash"

lbourdages — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 22:37:16 +0000

Apart from the HTML5 export mentioned by another commenter, there exists Ruffle[1], a Rust + WASM reimplementation of Flash that can play swf files. It's used a lot on archive.org or on some websites like https://homestarrunner.com.

[1] https://ruffle.rs/

New comment by lbourdages in "Just Send the Prompt"

lbourdages — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 03:22:47 +0000

It's particularly annoying one asks for people's input/opinion, and then someone posts an emoji-ridden tirade that is clearly copy-pasted from ChatGPT.

Like, I know how to use it. The fact that I asked a bunch of humans is because I wanted actual people to respond, and specifically not AI.

New comment by lbourdages in "The Hydrogen Truck Problem Isn't the Truck"

lbourdages — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 01:39:03 +0000

Except you can make oxygen for pretty cheap using oxygen concentrators. The technology is simple enough that home versions exist for patients with lung problems can lug one around at all times to have a feed of oxygen rich air. Oxygen is almost 21% of the air we breathe, it's trivial to capture. Hydrogen counts for only 0.000055%.

New comment by lbourdages in "How far back in time can you understand English?"

lbourdages — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 04:07:36 +0000

Native French speaker here. 1300s I could still kinda follow the story with difficulty but from the 1200s I just couldn't anymore.

I felt like it helped to use an "old english" accent in my inner voice when reading.

New comment by lbourdages in "I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure"

lbourdages — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 12:24:14 +0000

AWS does have a European sovereign cloud now: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/opening-the-aws-european-so...

Now how bulletproof it is in practice will be tested in years to come, I'm sure. But it seems to be using the same model as AWS in China where a local company licenses and operates the software from AWS.

New comment by lbourdages in "iOS 27 'Rave' Update to Clean Up Code, Could Boost Battery Life"

lbourdages — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 16:49:15 +0000

I think the abysmal adoption numbers of the v26 OSes have played a big role here.