Hacker News: nperez

New comment by nperez in "Be Like Clippy"

nperez — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 04:07:25 +0000

The HN audience is overwhelmingly aware of the issues around right to repair and data collection, so there isn't much reacting to do there - I assume there's already near-unanimous agreement that it's a good thing to educate people on, but we will have opinions on how to do it (or not do it) effectively.

New comment by nperez in "Claude Skills"

nperez — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 16:56:22 +0000

Seems like a more organized way to do the equivalent of a folder full of md files + instructing the LLM to ls that folder and read the ones it needs

New comment by nperez in "MIT Study Finds AI Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline"

nperez — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 13:20:17 +0000

I feel like this sort of thing will be referenced for comic relief in future talks about hysteria at the dawn of the AI era.

The article actually contains the sentence "The machines aren’t just taking over our work—they’re taking over our minds." which reminds me more of Reefer Madness than an honest critique of modern tech.

New comment by nperez in "Petition to stop Google from restricting sideloading and FOSS apps"

nperez — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 13:40:36 +0000

Whether web or native is better is hardly relevant to the core of this issue IMO, which is about fundamental rights to admin our own devices. Having to make a network request to fetch an external resource every time you want to run code on your own device is sort of a non-solution to this problem.

For a while, I had stopped flashing custom ROMs because the default Android experience was good enough for me, but it looks like this is now necessary again.

New comment by nperez in "Claudia – Desktop companion for Claude code"

nperez — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 18:19:27 +0000

Agreed 100%. When you work on an app every day, it all makes sense to see the cool features flash by, but you need to design for people who don't have a clue what your app does.

New comment by nperez in "LL3M: Large Language 3D Modelers"

nperez — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 17:34:57 +0000

I'm not a modeler but I've tried it a few times. For me, modeling is a pain that I need to deal with to solo-dev a 3d game project. I would think about using something like this for small indie projects to output super low-poly base models, which I could then essentially use as a scaffold for my own finer adjustments. Saving time is better than generating high-poly masterpieces, for me at least.

New comment by nperez in "Monday – A personality experiment"

nperez — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 19:22:15 +0000

Kind of fun to get into a brutal insult battle with. Hope I didn't violate any TOS with with that one.

New comment by nperez in "Ask HN: How many of you are working in tech without a STEM degree?"

nperez — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 00:13:43 +0000

No degree. I've been working the full stack for almost 15 years full time, including recently learning to train various types of gen AI models. There are still orgs that are rigid about their requirements, but I'm a mid-30s guy at an experience level where it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to overthink what I was learning 2 decades ago.

New comment by nperez in "LLM Inevitabilism"

nperez — Tue, 15 Jul 2025 05:50:04 +0000

It's inevitable because it's here. LLMs aren't the "future" anymore, they're the present. They're unseating Google as the SOTA method of finding information on the internet. People have been trying to do that for decades. The future probably holds even bigger things, but even if it plateaus for a while, showing real ability to defeat traditional search is a crazy start and just one example.

New comment by nperez in "The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela"

nperez — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 01:00:14 +0000

I'm not going to disagree because greed knows no bounds, but that could be RIP for the enthusiast crowd's proprietary LLM use. We may not have cheap local open models that beat the SOTA, but is it possible to beat an ad-poisoned SOTA model on a consumer laptop? Maybe.

New comment by nperez in "OpenAI scrubs diversity commitment web page from its site"

nperez — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 03:10:16 +0000

I think I'm mostly in agreement with your points. I think a significant part of the downfall of DEI was deliberate bad-faith behavior from those who actually oppose equality, but there are also things to be learned about how DEI programs were run.

I've been in mandatory corporate DEI seminars that I had high hopes for, only to find that they felt overly prescriptive and ill-equipped for the complexities of trying to be sensitive to every culture. Having to jump in and explain "Well, some Latinos actually find LatinX to be an offensive term, so you might get the stink-eye if you use it" was a bit uncomfortable for me personally, for example. Getting it all right is hard, and getting a few things wrong can leave a really bad taste.

New comment by nperez in "OpenAI scrubs diversity commitment web page from its site"

nperez — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 02:23:42 +0000

I think there's still appeal in the underlying (very) basic ideas of trying to create a workplace that's comfortable for everyone.

It's being rolled back quickly because that's what influential rich people want, and because DEI has become a politically charged term that pretty much invites conflict and toxicity at this point

New comment by nperez in "Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts"

nperez — Sat, 21 Dec 2024 06:47:38 +0000

I think information and culture/fashion both have a lot to do with it.

Pre-social media, you could get drunk and embarrass yourself, and forget about it by the next day. Now everything is recorded. Information about alcoholism is easier to come by, and there are influencers like worldoftshirts who show people what life as an alcoholic is like. I don't see how anyone could want a drink after watching content like that. Smoking weed in front of a camera doesn't seem as edgy as it used to now that it's legal. Having red eyes in a photo is annoying. Vaping has always had a cringe factor.

All of this tech is giving us the ability to look in the mirror and see what we're doing to ourselves.

New comment by nperez in "Matt Mullenweg temporarily shuts down some Wordpress.org functions"

nperez — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 20:37:10 +0000

Not a lawyer but my opinion is the law shouldn't be used to compel anyone to provide unpaid services. With that said, I still think it's terrible for the community. If other package repositories like npm, PyPI, and others decided to randomly block people over grudges, it would create a lot of dysfunction. The consequences should come in the form of Matt no longer being reputable as a provider of services to the community

New comment by nperez in "Matt Mullenweg temporarily shuts down some Wordpress.org functions"

nperez — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 17:53:01 +0000

The preamble of the GPLV2 begins with: "The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. "

I don't think Matt should ever be required to provide the live services of wordpress.org, but as for WP Engine, the license is supposed to be free for them and that's pretty clear.

New comment by nperez in "AI Integration Is Coming to Firefox"

nperez — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 15:35:39 +0000

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but it sounds like they're doing this the right way.

I want to be able to run a local model using something like VLLM or FastChat, then be able to call it from a context menu. No obnoxious toolbar taking up the UI like Edge, just access to use the tools I'm running when I need them.

That's what this appears to be - not a case of a specific AI service being shoved in anyone's face.

New comment by nperez in "I don't want anything your AI generates"

nperez — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 22:58:28 +0000

That's hilarious. Someday we'll all be working QA, just scanning over AI output for issues, like manufactured goods passing by on a conveyor belt.

New comment by nperez in "GoatCounter creator is hoping to raise at least €1k for basic living expense"

nperez — Sat, 13 Jan 2024 13:15:09 +0000

I began my career in a startup where pretty much everyone else but myself was an Ivy grad, with many coming from FAANG internships, and I have very high opinions of them. We all were very driven and all had things to teach each other. I don't want to downplay the notion that it's an indicator of high quality talent. I just think that it shouldn't be downplayed that growing up developing software out of an interest in the work is a strong indicator too.

New comment by nperez in "GoatCounter creator is hoping to raise at least €1k for basic living expense"

nperez — Sat, 13 Jan 2024 11:51:15 +0000

Reminds me a lot of the boat I'm in - based on his CV it looks like he's self-taught and started around the same time I did. This market right now is killing us, and I've got to wonder if AI tools are filtering out self-taught devs more aggressively than they used to. In the worst case scenario, I have family I can move in with, but I don't know how to function in any other role after dedicating myself to this since childhood. Just going to keep refining skills and hope things turn around soon.

New comment by nperez in "Show HN: NinjaDM"

nperez — Sat, 13 Jan 2024 02:44:20 +0000

There's not enough info on how this works. I need to understand the full user flow for both parties before considering signing up. Will I be giving others an alternative email address, like what Apple does? Or do they also need to sign up for NinjaDM?