Hacker News: riddlemethat

New comment by riddlemethat in "Prime Agent: A self-improving RLM agent"

riddlemethat — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 22:39:22 +0000

I built one of these RLM harnesses and a local MCP server along with logging, memories, and project rules based on directories. It worked great for a while but the foundational models have largely caught up to the point where they don't need this harness anymore. At least for my use cases. I can basically just store context in .md in the directories we work out of together and accomplish what I need.

New comment by riddlemethat in "Read this before you buy that TV streaming stick"

riddlemethat — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 11:53:33 +0000

We bought a Bosch dishwasher from Costco in January. It was defective and wouldn’t start after 10 days. Costco replaced it. The replacement came with a big gash on the front off the truck so we refused it and Costco sent a third replacement. Again, it was the same model and again it wouldn’t start after another 30 days. Costco took it back. No cost to us for any of these delivery or install attempts.

We bought a different model from Costco and it’s been rock solid. I expect I will never buy a major appliance from any other retailer as long as Costco continues to care like they do today.

New comment by riddlemethat in "Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise"

riddlemethat — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 05:16:41 +0000

Last retreat I went on the CFO drove drunk around 350 miles to get there. The CEO insisted on heavy drinking for everyone. Then he ordered one of everything on the menu the next morning at a Cracker Barrel for himself and wasted a ton of food. I found out he had a cocaine addiction about a month before the company was acquired. They also had orgies in the office break rooms and gave out a machete to everyone as a Christmas gift. Amongst the many crazy times…

My fraternity was more tame and we used to have guys gazing each other in the main room during parties.

New comment by riddlemethat in "Under federal rule, colleges must leave grads better off or lose financial aid"

riddlemethat — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 05:30:01 +0000

Do those students deserve lifelong debt they cannot discharge?

New comment by riddlemethat in "GPT-5.6 Sol Ultra produces proof of the Cycle Double Cover Conjecture [pdf]"

riddlemethat — Sat, 11 Jul 2026 02:25:39 +0000

The current foundational models have basic reasoning with glimpses of brilliant reasoning.

New comment by riddlemethat in "EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0"

riddlemethat — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 12:36:20 +0000

This removes circus from the children.

New comment by riddlemethat in "Apple to increase spend with Broadcom to produce billions more U.S. chips"

riddlemethat — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 12:10:09 +0000

If it had been done with coordinated investment/lending from the government to spur domestic production it’d be a very good move. The economy is stalling (outside of tech) because there is no money for increased production domestically.

New comment by riddlemethat in "New AI tutor achieves 0.71-1.30 SD effect size in Dartmouth course [pdf]"

riddlemethat — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 04:13:35 +0000

On a Dartmouth related note, I still can’t believe they abandoned Blitzmail for Office 365. What a loss.

New comment by riddlemethat in "For most of the world, open-source AI is the only way forward"

riddlemethat — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 17:40:09 +0000

They got paid. That’s what the money was for. It’s the investors who backed these foundational model companies who will hold the bag as more open source models come along and consume more market share.

New comment by riddlemethat in "Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes"

riddlemethat — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 12:46:05 +0000

Universities today are seen as debt manufacturing facilities. Debt that cannot be discharged. AI is seen as an act of war against the world’s working classes. Rich people aren’t building bunkers in foreign countries and buying yachts the size of a town because we ran out of land in America. Buckle up for a wild tumultuous period of human history.

New comment by riddlemethat in "Show HN: I reverse engineered Apple's video wallpapers"

riddlemethat — Thu, 21 May 2026 02:32:53 +0000

I’m imagining dozens of people worldwide sharing your nostalgia for Vista.

New comment by riddlemethat in "Anthropic acquires Stainless"

riddlemethat — Tue, 19 May 2026 00:59:10 +0000

In the niches there are riches and boring businesses build wealth. Congrats!

New comment by riddlemethat in "Legacy Update for Windows 8.1 for x64-based Systems"

riddlemethat — Sun, 17 May 2026 16:53:22 +0000

Or Windows 8.x in general

New comment by riddlemethat in "AI subscriptions are a ticking time bomb for enterprise"

riddlemethat — Sun, 17 May 2026 13:04:10 +0000

Open source models apply pressures on the low end of the market. The paid models are so much better that they can charge based on value for enterprises.

New comment by riddlemethat in "A Meta employee gets real about the horror of working there"

riddlemethat — Sat, 16 May 2026 13:41:21 +0000

People actually use AI. People do not use virtual reality headsets.

New comment by riddlemethat in "Gmail registration now requires scanning a QR code and sending a text message"

riddlemethat — Fri, 15 May 2026 04:08:26 +0000

That regulatory framework would add a lot of cost to providing online services. There would be far fewer people able to use them because companies would pass that cost to their users/customers.

New comment by riddlemethat in "Claude for Small Business"

riddlemethat — Fri, 15 May 2026 04:06:34 +0000

The downvotes are because my post was clear and they did not understand the point. We did not replace our CPA. We replaced the book keeper. The human CPA is the human in the middle reviewing the work of the AI. There is no responsible business owner alive today who would trust an LLM to replace their CPA, IMHO.

New comment by riddlemethat in "Codex is now in the ChatGPT mobile app"

riddlemethat — Fri, 15 May 2026 04:04:17 +0000

I stopped trying to use Claude to do anything with 4.7 because it sucks up so many tokens so quickly. I use the 4.6 model still and have switched to Codex for larger tasks. It also works better at more complex coding tasks than Claude for web apps that have python backends and typescript front ends.

New comment by riddlemethat in "Claude for Small Business"

riddlemethat — Thu, 14 May 2026 13:25:49 +0000

Csv files are fine with a bot categorizing the expenses.

No need to have a desktop app to do entry.

Why would I worry about an LLM properly cataloging expenses (book keepers job) when we keep human in the loop with the CPA to check their work?

I think you don’t understand the problem the AI solved/reduced costs on.

New comment by riddlemethat in "Claude for Small Business"

riddlemethat — Thu, 14 May 2026 12:14:01 +0000

I run a small business. I used AI to do book keeping for my LLC with two members (I have a partner). We had used a bookkeeper in previous years but we couldn’t ignore the potential cost savings of using AI. We have a CPA who said the books look great so we will likely no longer need a human to do book keeping. We were able to cancel Quickbooks because of this. Quickbooks (andvanced plan) alone was $3k/year in savings.