Hacker News: scroot

New comment by scroot in "Whistleblower claims ex-DOGE member says he took Social Security data to new job"

scroot — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 15:16:42 +0000

This comes on the heels of the AHA and other parties in the suit against the government posting the video depositions of some of the DOGE people to youtube [1], which are fascinating to watch.

Justin Fox not being able to say what DEI is really tells you everything you need to know about how grants were cancelled.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/@historiansorg

New comment by scroot in "HyperCard discovery: Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive (2022)"

scroot — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 12:59:38 +0000

I didn't mean "like hypercard" so literally in this manner. What I meant was, a computing environment that seems to blend seamlessly into the wider operating system, and that is able to sufficiently blur the line between end users and "programmers" (here called "authors"). Critical to this capability was the ability to "pop the hood" easily and mess with what was going on underneath.

All of today's computing is fundamentally based on a strong division between programmers and users. That division has only grown more stark with time. The dominance of Unix is partly to blame, in my view.

New comment by scroot in "HyperCard discovery: Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive (2022)"

scroot — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 12:57:15 +0000

I knew I could get Don Hopkins to show up!

New comment by scroot in "HyperCard discovery: Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive (2022)"

scroot — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 20:02:56 +0000

Imagine if computing had continued down the path laid by systems like HyperCard

New comment by scroot in "Anthropic drops flagship safety pledge"

scroot — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 22:18:00 +0000

It's the "no stopping it at this point" that always sticks out to me in these discussions. Why is there no stopping it, exactly? At this juncture these systems require massive physical infrastructure and loads of energy. It's possible to shut it all down. What's lacking is the political will.

New comment by scroot in "The Human in the Loop"

scroot — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 14:25:55 +0000

These posts claiming that "we will review the output" etc., and that claim software engineers will still need to apply their expertise and wisdom to generated outputs, never seem to think this all the way through. Those who write such articles might indeed have enough experience and deep knowledge to evaluate AI outputs. What of subsequent generations of engineers? What about the forthcoming wave of people who may never attain the (required) deep knowledge, because they've been dependent on these generation tools during the course of their own education?

The structures of our culture combined with what generative AI necessarily is means that expertise will fade generationally. I don't see a way around that, and I see almost no discussion of ameliorating the issue.

From Airbnb to the White House: Joe Gebbia Is Reshaping Government

scroot — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 13:39:16 +0000

Article URL: https://www.fastcompany.com/91458973/chief-design-officer-joe-gebbia-reshaping-the-government

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46632361

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by scroot in "A website to destroy all websites"

scroot — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 20:35:09 +0000

> treating the economic world as a gross external thing

Well, a _specific_ kind of economic world in this case. Is it not a matter of fact that big tech companies largely guide how computing is used a developed, and that they are beholden to ever-expected increases in value to their shareholders? You have still have an "economic world" that doesn't operate that way.

New comment by scroot in "How we automated federal retirements"

scroot — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 03:28:07 +0000

I would be _very_ surprised if any 18Fers were a part of the "national design studio." It is, at the very least, Doge affiliated, and Doge is who killed 18F.

New comment by scroot in "No ARIA is better than bad ARIA"

scroot — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:03:47 +0000

For those of us in civic tech, this is a higher priority. At the federal level especially, there are laws on the books about website accessibility compliance -- even if, at present, the powers that be are ignoring them.

I have found the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines [1] to be especially useful when thinking through what I need to implement and why.

It is _impossible_ to thoroughly test any of your accessibility concerns only with automated tooling. You will need to have an experienced user of screenreaders go through your site, especially if it contains complex JS enabled controls and other dynamic updates. This is because the habits of individual users and the combination of a particular screenreader application / browser can often produce different results. It's important to know what the common "patterns of use" are for, say, a JAWS user vs a VoiceOver user.

Last thing I'll recommend is that if you are testing a11y yourself on a Mac using VoiceOver, do all your a11y testing in Safari. In our research, most VO users on Macs/iOS use Safari because it has the best screenreader integration on that platform, and other browsers miss basic things.

[1] https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/

New comment by scroot in "IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off"

scroot — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 18:51:19 +0000

As an elder millennial, I just don't know what to say. That a once in a generation allocation of capital should go towards...whatever this all will be, is certainly tragic given current state of the world and its problems. Can't help but see it as the latest in a lifelong series of baffling high stakes decisions of dubious social benefit that have necessarily global consequences.

New comment by scroot in "Affinity Studio now free"

scroot — Thu, 30 Oct 2025 20:06:42 +0000

Thanks for posting, I hadn't even heard of this

New comment by scroot in "Debian Technical Committee overrides systemd change"

scroot — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 21:04:41 +0000

Whenever I'm using Guix I enjoy the simplicity of Shepherd [1]

[1] https://shepherding.services/manual/html_node/Introduction.h...

New comment by scroot in "How to write in Cuneiform"

scroot — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 02:48:25 +0000

The writing system is not syllabic. It uses ideograms, logograms, and yes syllables all together. It's also not one singular "writing system," as the set of symbols varied and changed in the context it was used (language or region) and over the two thousand years that people wrote in this style.

New comment by scroot in "National Design Studio"

scroot — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 21:35:25 +0000

All the glamour seems nice until you're in a country of continental expanse, with territories from the pacific islands to the caribbean, and with equal citizens living in areas with low-bandwidth internet access.

New comment by scroot in "The National Design Studio is a scam"

scroot — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 04:56:50 +0000

The guides have been archived on the "18F in exile" site for continued reliable public access [0][1]

[0] https://guides.18f.org/

[1] https://18f.org

New comment by scroot in "US to put economic data on 9 blockchains"

scroot — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 14:11:54 +0000

It's not an improvement.

New comment by scroot in "America by Design"

scroot — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 12:40:00 +0000

Oof, take a look under the hood. Definitely vibecoded.

[0] https://bsky.app/profile/waldo.net/post/3lx6sfupkbk2o

New comment by scroot in "What Happened to Egghead Software"

scroot — Sat, 23 Aug 2025 01:40:34 +0000

When I was about 12 or 13, I was hanging out in my local Egghead so much playing Rebel Assault on the demo machine that the guy who worked there gave me a free mousepad just to leave the store.

New comment by scroot in "Executive Order Establishing US Chief Design Officer"

scroot — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 14:02:46 +0000

Sure. Doesn't affect what I said.