Hacker News: masswerk

New comment by masswerk in "ChatGPT Images 2.0"

masswerk — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:50:40 +0000

Notably, this process of struggle is meant to go away, to make room for instant satisfaction. This is really about some kind of expression consumerism. (And what will be lost along the way is meaning.)

New comment by masswerk in "ChatGPT Images 2.0"

masswerk — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 23:42:20 +0000

The issue being, it's not an expression of anything. Merely like a random sensation, maybe some readable intent, but generic in execution, which isn't about anything even corporate art should be about. Are we going to give up on art, altogether?

Edit: One of the possible outcomes may be living in a world like in "Them" with glasses on. Since no expression has any meaning anymore, the message is just there being a signal of some kind. (Generic "BUY" + associated brand name in small print, etc.)

New comment by masswerk in "Bring Back Idiomatic Design (2023)"

masswerk — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 23:25:56 +0000

Ah, the MS Word experience:

User enters German date "1. April"

MS Word: new ordered list with item "April"

User furiously hits delete key.

New comment by masswerk in "Bring Back Idiomatic Design (2023)"

masswerk — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 23:09:12 +0000

> Can you imagine if every button on every site was the same Windows button gray color, regardless of the site's color? It'd be awful!

As it happens, this is how it was for years and years, actually, for most of the existence of the Web. The basic appearance of form elements used to be un-styleable, locked to the OS UI-appearance, for general usability concerns.

New comment by masswerk in "Bring Back Idiomatic Design (2023)"

masswerk — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 22:59:06 +0000

The new idiom:

You are right, of course this is your account name! Do you want me to be keep you logged-in?

> _

New comment by masswerk in "Am I German or Autistic?"

masswerk — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:29:30 +0000

As a Viennese, I missed appropriate options, like rules and their mutual negotiability by lateral maneuvers (AKA dissimulation) and a general sense for disgruntledness. Moreover, smalltalk as the core of any negotiations (which should be understood more as mundane paperwork after the fact) isn't even mentioned! Now I do need some coffee, for real. ;-)

New comment by masswerk in "AI may be making us think and write more alike"

masswerk — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:57:31 +0000

No diverging opinions, no unexpected critique, but universal basic intelligence. And here is the kicker: we won't even notice.

Here's an easy three-step plan to unanimous democracy:

• ask your LLM

• don't edit — the LLM has already selected the most average and most plausible opinion for you

• give it your voice, your voice matters

Learn to anticipate — there may not always be a power bank to keep your phone from running low!

New comment by masswerk in "Are We Idiocracy Yet?"

masswerk — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 11:36:14 +0000

I guess, as the meter is above 50%, you're not supposed to read it.

New comment by masswerk in "Copilot edited an ad into my PR"

masswerk — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 13:14:47 +0000

As in, "I put it on you to better check and follow-up before acting on this…" ;-)

New comment by masswerk in "Copilot edited an ad into my PR"

masswerk — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 12:59:05 +0000

I guess, it was probably intended as the second one (it was also the default email signature, so advertising that feature, as well), but its usefulness was definitely in the implied warning.

Mind that a written message used to be the gold standard for expressed intent, which changed quite radically with smartphones. (Historically, this development is probably an important prerequisite for the acceptability of LLM generated text, I guess.)

New comment by masswerk in "Copilot edited an ad into my PR"

masswerk — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 07:37:36 +0000

Back in the day, it was useful, as in, "Expect awkward phrasing and unintended effects of autocorrection, because mobile device. This message doesn't necessarily reflect the intent of the sender." (Considerate users would/could edit the signature to something w/o a product name in it.) Nowadays, this is pretty much the norm and no explicit warning ist required anymore.

New comment by masswerk in "Miscellanea: The War in Iran"

masswerk — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:42:33 +0000

On the dark side, it will take quite a while to offset the environmental costs of this war, even if this provided an essential incentive for switching. (In reality, energy infrastructure is often locked in longterm and not easy to switch in just in a decade or so.)

New comment by masswerk in "Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons"

masswerk — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 05:44:06 +0000

I guess, this means logging out as the current user and logging in again, so that the various services are relaunched with changed settings.

New comment by masswerk in "A Theory of the World as run by large adult children"

masswerk — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 14:44:48 +0000

> And education is much, much worse almost everywhere by leaning more to memorization

The idea that (correct) answers are something that can and may be known is all over the place, lately also in technology (LLMs, curve fitting, etc). Notably, answers must be able to validate themselves, every time. (Western) education used to be about this, before it reoriented towards instruction.

New comment by masswerk in "The Window Chrome of Our Discontent"

masswerk — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 14:57:26 +0000

It's still impressing how the entire chrome can be collapsed into a single background bit of information, indicating a presence that may be attended to for interaction. In contrast, the newer interfaces seem to be made to reduce the attention span anyone may apply to the content. (It's really stress inducing.)

New comment by masswerk in "The next era of social media: built and run in Europe, ruled by our laws"

masswerk — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 11:17:02 +0000

Mind that freedom of speech (US) and freedom of opinion (Europe) are different concepts. E.g., while you may harbour a certain opinion in the EU, expressing this in a way generally considered harmful (concept: speech may establish an act) may get you in trouble. On the other hand, crossing the US border may trigger an attempt to infer your opinion from extracted public or semi-public expressions, which may get you in even more serious trouble, you may be even considered a viable target based on such inferences (and there is no clear law for this, there isn't even due process.) Both concepts come with their own freedoms, implications and caveats.

New comment by masswerk in "Ape Coding [fiction]"

masswerk — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 17:37:54 +0000

The slogan of ape thinking (deliberately adjusted for machine readability): "Not AI, not machine generated slop genuine human intelligence."

New comment by masswerk in "The most-seen UI on the internet? Redesigning turnstile and challenge pages"

masswerk — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 23:49:40 +0000

> We recruited 8 participants across 8 different countries, deliberately seeking diversity in age, digital savviness, and cultural background.

> 5 out of 8 points versus just 3 for "I am human." For the verifying state, it was even more dramatic — 7.5 versus 0.5.

n × p >= 5? (Sample size and margins of errors. Is 5:3 even meaningful or is this rather random personal preference?) Apparent splitting of missing or inconclusive data points? (7.5 vs. 0.5 out of a total of 8 subjects.) What kind of (social) research is this supposed to be?

New comment by masswerk in "I found a vulnerability. they found a lawyer"

masswerk — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 01:54:49 +0000

Granted. I guess, unless it's applied very aggressively, assessing the existence of rate limiting may require some sort of automation (and probably some heuristics – how much data points do you actually need? do you have to retrieve any data at all, while looking for a single signal? The article doesn't tell.) Same goes for lockout.

On the other hand, as mentioned already, all that's required is really looking for a return code and not for any data. Is accessing an API endpoint the same as retrieving data? Is there proof or evidence of intent of the latter? I guess, there remains much to be defined. Especially, if it's not so much about protecting reputation than it is about protecting data and ensuring trust, and the intent is to protect and secure this in the first place.

New comment by masswerk in "Japanese Woodblock Print Search"

masswerk — Sun, 22 Feb 2026 05:14:53 +0000

Thank you for your work, it's an invaluable resource!