Hacker News: sfjailbird

New comment by sfjailbird in "It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12"

sfjailbird — Sat, 30 May 2026 12:49:44 +0000

It's funny how Apple has come full circle. Back in the 90s, when they were in deep crisis (before the second coming of Jobs), it was almost conventional wisdom that they should just stop selling hardware, and focus on their superior software. And here we are today when a lot of people lust for the hardware, but just can't deal with MacOS.

New comment by sfjailbird in "Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down"

sfjailbird — Tue, 26 May 2026 22:14:12 +0000

> the big players have their own deeply integrated solutions: Apple (iCloud), Google (Drive), Microsoft (OneDrive).

So Steve Jobs was right: Dropbox is a feature, not a product.

New comment by sfjailbird in "Starship's Twelfth Flight Test"

sfjailbird — Wed, 20 May 2026 22:20:50 +0000

That's a fake youtube channel that is somehow allowed to squat the SpaceX channel name. It's been going on for years, including the crypto scam. Baffling. Maybe a big middle finger from Google to Elon.

New comment by sfjailbird in "Starship's Twelfth Flight Test"

sfjailbird — Wed, 20 May 2026 22:14:43 +0000

This is the first flight of the new engines. They look so much sleeker and simpler than the previous two generations:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQGMtnP...

* And supposedly with a 20% power increase to boot!

New comment by sfjailbird in "AI slop is killing online communities"

sfjailbird — Thu, 07 May 2026 23:02:49 +0000

Crypto could be a part of it. Like you need to sign with an adress that has held some non-trivial amount for some minimum amount of time. As a component of such a system it could cut down on mass or low-effort impersonation.

New comment by sfjailbird in "Vibe coding and agentic engineering are getting closer than I'd like"

sfjailbird — Wed, 06 May 2026 22:51:35 +0000

How do we make sure the LLM generated code works? We'll have LLM generated tests! Wait a minute...

New comment by sfjailbird in "BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets"

sfjailbird — Wed, 06 May 2026 21:21:52 +0000

> This is to say nothing of the CCP and their record on human rights

The U.S. record on human rights is horrific, if you see it from a global perspective (which you should). China is a saint in comparison.

New comment by sfjailbird in "Aspartame is not that bad? (2022)"

sfjailbird — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 14:07:58 +0000

It's an acquired taste.

New comment by sfjailbird in "Aspartame is not that bad? (2022)"

sfjailbird — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 14:05:39 +0000

> dozens of cans of sugar free soda every day

In that case phosphoric acid is a bigger problem than aspartam will ever be

New comment by sfjailbird in "I don't want your PRs anymore"

sfjailbird — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 21:32:39 +0000

Given that submitters are just using LLMs to produce the PR anyway, it makes sense that the author can just run that prompt himself. Just share the 'prompt' (whether or not it is actually formatted as a prompt for an LLM), which is not too different than a feature request by any other name.

New comment by sfjailbird in "Helium is hard to replace"

sfjailbird — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 22:22:00 +0000

Helium mines on the sun, pumping out millions of barrels of birthday-grade helium.

New comment by sfjailbird in "German implementation of eIDAS will require an Apple/Google account to function"

sfjailbird — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:47:28 +0000

Most people wouldn't know what to do with a certificate, so governments build some stuff on top (like an official mobile app) which makes auth easier. It's usually just certificates underneath (not exposed to the user).

Eidas tries to harmonize these implementations across EU member states.

New comment by sfjailbird in "Hong Kong police can now demand phone passwords under new security rules"

sfjailbird — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 20:18:16 +0000

Crypto wallets work like that. Put in a different password (in addition to the seed) and it's a different account, preferably with some chump change on it for plausibility.

New comment by sfjailbird in "“Microslop” filtered in the official Microsoft Copilot Discord server"

sfjailbird — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 18:12:50 +0000

Lol, I was thinking about that comic just yesterday, what a coincidence. "As you have no doubt been monitoring my communications for quite some time!" read in the voice of the pharmacy owner from Family Guy.

New comment by sfjailbird in "New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes"

sfjailbird — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:21:35 +0000

They are very valuable. Just a few of them can put a link on the HN front page. Upvote a certain viewpoint. Or bury any post they want gone.

New comment by sfjailbird in "Large study finds link between cannabis use in teens and psychosis later"

sfjailbird — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 18:09:23 +0000

Weed can make you paranoid, every smoker knows this. It is patently obvious that it could trigger something worse, too, if you are already sensitive.

I think only young people in their weed honeymoon phase get defensive about this.

New comment by sfjailbird in "Keep Android Open"

sfjailbird — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 05:38:54 +0000

"Misinformation" usually meaning information the people in power would rather you don't get to see and make up your own mind about.

New comment by sfjailbird in "Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores"

sfjailbird — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:27:54 +0000

It has been their practice since forever. Look up the diapers.com case.

New comment by sfjailbird in "Letting Claude play text adventures"

sfjailbird — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 22:28:52 +0000

Having read through the entire game session, Claude plays the game admirably! For example, it finds a random tin of oily fish somewhere, and later tries (unsuccessfully) to use it to oil a rusty lock. Later it successfully solves a puzzle inside the house by thoroughly examining random furniture and picking up subtle clues about what to do, based on it.

It did so well that I can't not suspect that it used some hints or walkthroughs, but then again it did a bunch of clueless stuff too, like any player new to the game.

For one thing, this would be a great testing tool for the author of such a game. And more generally, the world of software testing is probably about to take some big leaps forward.

New comment by sfjailbird in "Letting Claude play text adventures"

sfjailbird — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 21:54:32 +0000

You can see Claude's responses in the repo. The first one is:

Ah, Anchorhead! One of the most celebrated pieces of interactive fiction ever written