Hacker News: lykahb

New comment by lykahb in "Aperio Lang"

lykahb — Fri, 15 May 2026 21:31:11 +0000

The claim that existing languages add inefficiency for LLM's lacks supporting evidence. The complexity of software engineering, both for people and LLM's, comes from issues other than syntax.

New comment by lykahb in "The 1987 game “The Last Ninja” was 40 kilobytes"

lykahb — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 01:54:35 +0000

Many mobile J2ME games in the 2005-2015 had a similar size and were impressive too. Sometimes a time window appears and creates the economic incentives for optimization ingenuity.

New comment by lykahb in "Our commitment to Windows quality"

lykahb — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 03:44:54 +0000

I wonder if the incentive structure shaped by the internal MS metrics has been updated to reflect this commitment. Otherwise, little is going to change.

New comment by lykahb in "The time I didn't meet Jeffrey Epstein"

lykahb — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 18:08:57 +0000

Before applying sortition to the civil service, it'd be wise to observe how it works on a smaller scale. Some corporations may attempt it. Though it's more radical than the flat structure or other organization alternatives.

New comment by lykahb in "Pocket TTS: A high quality TTS that gives your CPU a voice"

lykahb — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 06:11:18 +0000

It'd be great if it supported stdin&stdout for text and wav. Then it could get piped right into afplay

New comment by lykahb in "I can build enterprise software but I can't charge for it"

lykahb — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 00:06:56 +0000

Is this a request to bypass the sanctions?

New comment by lykahb in "When a stadium adds AI to everything, it's worse experience for everyone"

lykahb — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 20:45:37 +0000

Once you enter the stadium or a concert, you become a part of the captive market. There exists an incentive to limit your choices and extract as much value out of you as possible. The limit to that is mostly defined by the organizer decency and the amount of pushback.

The experience is usually better at the smaller venues that aren't a part of strong fandom and more sensitive to the customer sentiment: indie cinemas, comedy clubs, etc.

Superbad

lykahb — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 05:11:15 +0000

Article URL: https://www.superbad.com

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45576481

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

New comment by lykahb in "Mamdani says he would phase out NYC gifted program for early grades"

lykahb — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 23:23:11 +0000

In USSR they actually recognized gifted students and placed them into specialized classes and schools where they would thrive. They treated it as a matter of national security. The math circles and dedicated schools with STEM had the state support. The "equity" applied to the later stages of life - an engineer or a scientist would earn not much more than a blue collar worker.

New comment by lykahb in "'Make invalid states unrepresentable' considered harmful"

lykahb — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 04:59:40 +0000

It matters where the constraints live. Inside of a codebase they are easier to change. Updating the database schema would be harder. On the protocol level it may be impossible if not all parties can be updated. However, if the protocol is too loosely specified, it could create other problems.

New comment by lykahb in "Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android"

lykahb — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 21:46:22 +0000

I have good memories about a website with ELF's for the Siemens phones. Its name had "kebab" in it. By any chance, was it you running it?

New comment by lykahb in "The Size of Adobe Reader Installers Through the Years"

lykahb — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 17:41:34 +0000

Which tools are capable of filling in a PDF form that has javascript?

TSA to Allow Shoes to Stay on for Airport Security Screening

lykahb — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 04:36:12 +0000

Article URL: https://www.wsj.com/business/tsa-shoes-airport-security-400b0ad3

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44497113

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by lykahb in "Gateway Books: The lessons of a defunct canon"

lykahb — Thu, 15 May 2025 21:38:36 +0000

I read Catcher in the Rye as a teenager. Even then I perceived some of that rebelliousness as trying too hard. A reminder that life at school sucks and many things are meaningless is hardly an epiphany.

Those books come from the times when the counterculture barely started getting commercialized. The market niche for the angsty teenagers, who self-identify as intellectuals, is quite filled with YA, movies and games. One modern outlet that comes to mind is the rationalist community - it provides a distinct perspective to view the world, together with the feeling that you see it better than others.

New comment by lykahb in "Dusk OS"

lykahb — Tue, 13 May 2025 21:10:08 +0000

I think that in the event of a such a collapse, there would be two new directions: turning the surviving advanced digital devices into general computers, and building new electronics. Reusing existing common software would be easier than building something from scratch. So, I'd expect that postmarketOS and flavours of Linux for low-power machines meets most needs.

Also, it'd be fantastic if iPhones have a doomsday switch that untethers them from Apple - that'd be the difference between a useless brick and a precious artifact of a bygone era. The post-apocalyptic setting has potential for a game that comes from the perspective of a builder, and goes deeply into civil engineering and IT - build architecture that can withstand the elements, design a water chip, write embedded software for it.

New comment by lykahb in "Someone at YouTube needs glasses"

lykahb — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 16:40:46 +0000

Displaying more videos gives more choice to the users. It may also be slightly better for collecting data about the user. But that's reducing the impact of the algorithmic feed and is opposite to what tiktok does. I unironically agree with the prediction that the endgame is just one video.

New comment by lykahb in "The Cassowary Linear Arithmetic Constraint Solving Algorithm [pdf] (2002)"

lykahb — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 18:13:06 +0000

This depends on how well this abstraction can be encapsulated. The systems with rigorous mathematical foundations often result in simple to use products that compose well. The 3d modelling relies on linear algebra, but the designers don't need to understand those details. The regular CSS involves very complex layout calculations too.

New comment by lykahb in "Atlanta Fed predicts -2.8% GDP"

lykahb — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 22:12:46 +0000

I'd call many of the non-Trump factions of the Republican Party conservative. But the current administration is far from that given their threats to the long-term allies, weakening NATO, and swift changes to the federal govt.

New comment by lykahb in "China tells its AI leaders to avoid U.S. travel over security concerns"

lykahb — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 19:50:08 +0000

I think that the autonomous drone warfare is more of a near-term milestone than the goal. The goal itself seems to be AGI and the advances in the basic research and engineering that it brings.

New comment by lykahb in "Avoiding outrage fatigue while staying informed"

lykahb — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 21:18:22 +0000

I think that the social media is okay as long as no algorithmic feed gets involved. Visiting a few select tech subreddits doesn't affect me negatively. On other platforms the feed can't be avoided as easily.