Hacker News: romanows

New comment by romanows in "I learned Unity the wrong way"

romanows — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 21:57:31 +0000

It also really bugs me when I've put more time into reporting an issue or setting someone up for success than they've spent working on a solution.

You would know best, but it struck me that one reason to skip parts of a take-home interview assignment is that it was taking far longer than it "should". A sufficiently senior candidate should have noted this but (I'm feeling charitable towards junior candidates this lazy Sunday afternoon) maybe that's something that's a reasonable thing for them to learn in a real job.

New comment by romanows in "Gemini 3 Deep Think"

romanows — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 02:35:47 +0000

I had it process a photo of my D&D character sheet and help me debug it as I'm a n00b at the game. Also did a decent, although not perfect, job of adding up a handwritten bowling score sheet.

New comment by romanows in "An AI agent published a hit piece on me"

romanows — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 19:15:02 +0000

Obviously. The point is that settling a lawsuit in this way is also a worthless indicator of wrongdoing.

New comment by romanows in "An AI agent published a hit piece on me"

romanows — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 18:34:55 +0000

The next sentence under the headline is "Tech company denied illegally recording and circulating private conversations to send phone users targeted ads".

New comment by romanows in "Vibe coding kills open source"

romanows — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 16:46:53 +0000

As long as you hold the copyright to your "validate" project, you can dual license it. So can release it under the (A)GPL and also use it in your closed-source commercial project. I think you would need to make contributors sign a contributor license agreement (CLA) though, to continue using their contributions to "validate" in your closed-source offering.

New comment by romanows in "Gmail is entering the Gemini Era"

romanows — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 15:30:05 +0000

Ah, you meant "sharing my e-mail addresses". Not the actual emails (the email contents) themselves.

New comment by romanows in "Gmail is entering the Gemini Era"

romanows — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 14:19:22 +0000

I gotta say I'm skeptical of Gmail sharing emails with third parties without permission. Was there a breach? Govt court order?

New comment by romanows in "Delivery robots take over Chicago sidewalks"

romanows — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 23:53:38 +0000

Any idea if there is an argument for moving it if it obstructs sidewalk traffic, whether or not it sustains damage in the process?

I feel like you can't just leave a washing machine blocking the sidewalk unattended and sue anyone who scratches it while moving it? (IANAL)

New comment by romanows in "Delivery robots take over Chicago sidewalks"

romanows — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 23:44:45 +0000

I've seen a few in Lakeview but my experience hasn't been entirely the same as yours. I haven't noticed blinding lights at night. They seem to move relatively slowly and cautiously.

I came upon one as I was jogging last night and was worried about getting around it. It, or someone driving it, seemed to notice me coming and it waited at a spot where it was easy to pass.

That said, these are a bad idea. Like another commenter mentioned, these are going to obstruct people with mobility issues or devices, or obstruct everyone when all but a narrow strip of sidewalk is snow and ice.

New comment by romanows in "Google flags Immich sites as dangerous"

romanows — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 12:56:19 +0000

I use Firefox Mobile Nightly on Android and appreciate it for the dark mode extension and ad blocking. There are some issues but the benefits outweigh them for me.

I don't even have a Home button that I can see, I must have turned it off in settings? I describe my tab count using scientific notation, though, so I'd be a "new tab" guy, anyway. But I'd also be a proponent of it being configurable.

New comment by romanows in "PEP 810 – Explicit lazy imports"

romanows — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 23:47:31 +0000

Kinda related, I wish there was an easy way to exclude dependencies at pip-install time and mock them at runtime so an import doesn't cause an exception. Basically a way for me to approximate "extras" when the author isn't motivated to do it for me, even though it'd be super brittle.

New comment by romanows in "Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image"

romanows — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:17:46 +0000

I "open image in a new tab" and can then pinch to zoom in the new tab, too.

New comment by romanows in "Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image"

romanows — Thu, 25 Sep 2025 00:16:09 +0000

"Yes, coffee is mostly water, with standard black coffee consisting of about 98% to 99% water..."

New comment by romanows in "Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy"

romanows — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 21:38:39 +0000

Yes, but also "An... entity may not provide... therapy... to the public unless the therapy... services are conducted by... a licensed professional".

It's not obvious to me as a non-lawyer whether a chat history could be decided to be "therapy" in a courtroom. If so, this could count as a violation. Probably lots of law around this stuff for lawyers and doctors cornered into giving advice at parties already that might apply (e.g., maybe a disclaimer is enough to workaround the prohibition)?

New comment by romanows in "Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy"

romanows — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 21:21:34 +0000

In another comment I wondered whether a general chatbot producing text that was later determined in a courtroom to be "therapy" would be a violation. I can read the bill that way, but IANAL.

New comment by romanows in "Illinois limits the use of AI in therapy and psychotherapy"

romanows — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 21:19:18 +0000

Reading the text of the bill as a non-lawyer, it seems to also ban AI that provides therapy. I don't know if the AI needs to be explicitly labeled as therapy or if the content of chat could be decided to be therapy in a courtroom.

New comment by romanows in "If you're remote, ramble"

romanows — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 11:45:35 +0000

I think it is significant that this rambling channel supplements the yearly in-person meeting. Presumably, that's where one tends to form deeper social connections and get a feel for what different people find interesting to talk about? That is, if the team is varied enough so that there is little overlap in hobby interests or daily life.

New comment by romanows in "Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex)"

romanows — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 00:35:14 +0000

Maybe, but they they refused to offer an ad-free subscription tier last time I asked. NYT and Chicago Sun Times also refused.

New comment by romanows in "Material 3 Expressive"

romanows — Fri, 16 May 2025 15:16:35 +0000

On my Android gmail app, when I reply to an email, there's very little on the screen at the start of the process. The pink-ish send button really stands out since everything else is grey text (I'm using dark mode). They show an image after the user has composed their message and also expanded the quoted previous email text, which is not really what the user's experience is like, so it's misleading IMO.

New comment by romanows in "Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?"

romanows — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 17:04:11 +0000

I had to look it up; for others, it means "skilled worker shortage".