Hacker News: pmg101

New comment by pmg101 in "UK to require ID or face scan before you can make social media accounts"

pmg101 — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 16:55:51 +0000

I am so tired of everyone assuming the worst possible implementation of age verification.

Whatever happened to steel manning? It's supposed to be in the fabric of HN. Curious enquiry.

Is it nice children are exposed to dreadful things? No. Could we, with tech, come up with a way to improve things? Probably! Let's discuss and think about how!

New comment by pmg101 in "I Love the Computer"

pmg101 — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 21:09:00 +0000

I love the computer too. Never more than while writing 6502 assembler for a decades-defunct home computer for literally no purpose at all.

Meanwhile, the economy needs software to be written and I need employment, and I'm lucky enough to have a job that hews somewhat close to my interests, whether that be learning the latest JS framework or to prompt Claude. It's all pretty decent and better than chiselling coal out of a pit for 10 hours a day.

New comment by pmg101 in "Replies to comments on my "LLMs are eroding my career" post"

pmg101 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:21:56 +0000

It certainly seems similar.

Except China is just humans in a different location so it shouldn't be surprising they can do things humans in the US can do.

LLMs are a totally distinct type of thing. It's possible they'll be able to do Taste but it's also quite possible they'll never be able to.

New comment by pmg101 in "Age verification tech could put children at greater risk, says think tank"

pmg101 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:25:31 +0000

I have a 10yo. I know loads of parents too. I don't think I've ever heard the "freedom" position taken apart from on HN. To non-techies it just seems self evident we should block kids from seeing beheadings and donkey porn. They haven't usually thought much about how that would be achieved and what the knock on effects would be. But they do want it.

New comment by pmg101 in "Dopamine Fracking"

pmg101 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 05:20:07 +0000

A deeper dive would go into why this seems to be such a quintessentially American pursuit.

I'd speculate perhaps something to do with capitalism, and also maybe a culture made out of people coming together from other cultures was more able to throw out "baggage"(ie context) and distil pure experiences.

New comment by pmg101 in "How LLMs work"

pmg101 — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 07:16:39 +0000

Because god forbid that childhood, the one time in your life when you don't have any responsibilities, should be fun.

New comment by pmg101 in "Will technology put an end to jobs? (1980)"

pmg101 — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:39:43 +0000

Will we all be automated out of our jobs? Will it create an economic boom, or a crash? How will it affect education? Will we all work from home?

The microprocessor revolution.

Will technology put an end to jobs? (1980)

pmg101 — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:39:43 +0000

Article URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRTv9S8ufBw

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48403620

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

New comment by pmg101 in "Uber's $1,500/month AI limit is a useful signal for AI tool pricing"

pmg101 — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 19:34:26 +0000

I think the right comparison is the invention of the microprocessor. At that time people were grappling with a lot of the same things we are today - would it automate jobs away, would it transform education and the work place, etc.

New comment by pmg101 in "Age verification for social media, the beginning of the end for a free internet?"

pmg101 — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 21:19:18 +0000

It seems to me that the supply of friends is more or less unlimited, such that it's pretty reasonable to apply filters when choosing who to befriend.

"Also not using tiktok" could be one such filter.

New comment by pmg101 in "Uber’s COO says it’s getting harder to justify money spent on tokenmaxxing"

pmg101 — Tue, 26 May 2026 14:00:55 +0000

I wouldn't describe it as malice. If your job is to make the line go up, you make the line go up, and are rewarded for doing so, then you have done your job.

New comment by pmg101 in "Uber’s COO says it’s getting harder to justify money spent on tokenmaxxing"

pmg101 — Mon, 25 May 2026 20:36:02 +0000

This is one explanation, sure.

Isn't it more likely that they simply don't in fact care about the "thing they care about", only the metric?

They can plot the metric on a chart and receive praise, so that's what they're interested in.

New comment by pmg101 in "GitHub's take on age assurance for developers"

pmg101 — Thu, 21 May 2026 12:23:06 +0000

Are you saying that the proposals will not protect children?

Or that they may protect children, and that is being presented as the rationale behind such proposals, but that is not the real underlying reason?

New comment by pmg101 in "The Interview That Ships to Production: replacing whiteboards with pull requests"

pmg101 — Thu, 21 May 2026 12:09:05 +0000

> If you're the kind of engineer who reads the implementation instead of trusting the function name, we'd like to talk.

Functional decomposition, combined with good naming, is what allows engineers to raise the level of abstraction and localise understanding of a large codebase.

Without it, if your only option is "read the implementation" for every line of code, you've lost control of the codebase.

Knowledge Graphs for AI Coding Assistants

pmg101 — Mon, 18 May 2026 19:09:30 +0000

Article URL: https://graphify.net/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48184149

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by pmg101 in "Remind HN: Today is Mother's Day, call your moms"

pmg101 — Fri, 15 May 2026 18:31:09 +0000

Nothing to do with mothers, wasn't it something to do with visiting your "mother church", the church where you were baptised?

New comment by pmg101 in "AI is making me dumb"

pmg101 — Thu, 14 May 2026 19:28:18 +0000

That certainly used to be the case.

Do you think that in 2026 maybe rapid progress can also come from using the same primitives faster?

I'm still figuring this out but I'm certainly open to the possibility.

New comment by pmg101 in "Remind HN: Today is Mother's Day, call your moms"

pmg101 — Sun, 10 May 2026 17:23:47 +0000

Fourth Sunday in Lent or something, very easy to forget it!

New comment by pmg101 in "Appearing productive in the workplace"

pmg101 — Fri, 08 May 2026 10:15:42 +0000

Awesome AI startup idea.

There's a camera in the glasses and a motor in the mouse. It watches your screen and moves the mouse to click on the right things at the right times.

What are we doing about the keyboard though? Are we putting your arms on fine strings, marionette-style?

New comment by pmg101 in "Appearing productive in the workplace"

pmg101 — Thu, 07 May 2026 15:07:10 +0000

I really used to think this. Those old incumbents, I used to think. Such slow old dinosaurs! A crack team of just me and a few friends could eat their lunch for sure, and soon they'll be gone.

And yet, here we are.

Of course, some things get disrupted, sometimes. But I'd hardly say all the bloat has been competed out, would you?