Hacker News: smoe

New comment by smoe in "Gemini 4 Argon"

smoe — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 12:38:00 +0000

I'm a bit confused by this comment. I thought Enterprise customers didn't have access to fixed price plans like the $500/month personal tier and instead paid per token? If that's available to businesses, Astra seems like a no-brainer. But at least the regular Business plans only show me the $25 and $125/month options and the latter is a very recent addition.

New comment by smoe in "A Selection of Los Alamos Rolodex Business Cards"

smoe — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 10:18:47 +0000

I think there are already laws in a lot of places requiring food images whether photographs, illustrations, AI generated images, etc. not to materially mislead consumers about what they’re buying.

So people using AI for this might soon run into issues with hallucinated extra ingredients or exaggerated portion sizes.

New comment by smoe in "Debian votes to allow "responsible use of generative AI""

smoe — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 16:29:23 +0000

I don't care if a project uses AI or not, but I absolutely do care that they are firmly gatekept in alignment with their vision and team dynamics. Then I can choose projects whose gatekeeping policies I agree with.

There is never not an alternative to something, and I can always have my AI botch together my own version if I think this is going to get me better results.

New comment by smoe in "EVE Online moves to Python 3"

smoe — Sat, 29 Aug 2026 13:35:07 +0000

From long ago memory: in Python 2, 1 / 2 did integer division. You had to do something like 1 / 2.0 if you wanted floating point division.

New comment by smoe in "Anthropic's best AI model struggles to attract users as cheaper tools thrive"

smoe — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 15:28:21 +0000

I think they didn't even bother making a separate post about their backpedaling, they just slapped some disclaimers onto the existing page:

https://support.claude.com/en/articles/15036540-use-the-clau...

Update June 15: We're pausing the changes to Claude Agent SDK usage described below. For now, nothing has changed: Claude Agent SDK, claude -p, and third-party app usage still draw from your subscription's usage limits. The previously announced monthly credit, which would have been available to eligible claimants in connection with these changes, isn't available. We’re working to update the plan to better support how users build with Claude subscriptions. When we have an update, we'll share it before anything takes effect.

New comment by smoe in "Feature Request: Support AGENTS.md"

smoe — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 11:25:11 +0000

I think it’s more branding than moat. Free advertising if every vibe coded repo on GitHub has a CLAUDE.md at the root.

And its probably also to make people think there’s something special about Claude.

New comment by smoe in "Manabu Kosaka's Handmade Paper Sculptures"

smoe — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 11:00:18 +0000

His twitter has a daily production video log showing the process. Mesmerizing.

https://x.com/coca1127

And some longer form videos on YouTube as well like this one "Making PS2" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUCpJwhSivc

New comment by smoe in "On AI regulation and messaging"

smoe — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 11:11:18 +0000

I don't think the problem is that people don't believe AI can be beneficial. The problem is the perception that AI will affect people's lives more negatively than positively, while a few get even more obscenely rich and powerful.

If you don't tackle the societal level problems, nobody will care about research breakthroughs.

New comment by smoe in "Working with AI feels more like leadership than coding"

smoe — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 15:38:54 +0000

To me, it feels closer to dealing with a personal outsourcing agency than working with internal coworkers, because the agents have zero skin in the game.

It's great. You can get a lot of stuff done in parallel. But it's much more a game of checkbox compliance than working with someone who has their head in the same context as you all day. Even a very junior teammate has some situational awareness inside a company/team.

New comment by smoe in "Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?"

smoe — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 23:15:43 +0000

Something I've noticed quite a bit on the paid plans as well is that it starts its answers with "I mostly agree..." or "almost correct...," then goes through the list of points I made without actually disagreeing with any of them.

I assumed this is a system prompt or RL that nudges it to be always skeptical but then it still has like all the models the urge to appease the user.

New comment by smoe in "Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?"

smoe — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 14:01:01 +0000

What has worked reasonably well for me so far is not trying to stop it from writing its inane walls of text in the first place.

Let it vomit it all out, then have a /tldr with instructions to make the last answer concise and intelligible

New comment by smoe in "Oracle cut its Always Free ARM limits to 2 OCPU / 12GB, enforced Aug 18"

smoe — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 18:37:06 +0000

This is the email I received yesterday.

I think them downsizing the free tier is perfectly fine. Giving two weeks’ notice before terminating instances is not. But since this is Oracle, I always assumed they’d do something villainy someday, so it’s a bit whatever.

---

Hello,

We're writing to let you know about an important update regarding Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Always Free compute.

The Always Free compute limits have been updated. If your tenancy is currently using Always Free compute resources above the new limits, you must reduce your usage by August 18, 2026.

Beginning on August 18, 2026, Oracle will begin enforcing the updated Always Free compute limits. Compute instances that exceed the Always Free entitlement will be automatically terminated.

Current Always Free compute limits

    Up to 2 Ampere A1 OCPUs
    Up to 12 GB of memory

If your tenancy is already within these limits, no action is required.
Your tenancy and other Always Free services will remain available. If compute instances are terminated because they exceed the Always Free entitlement, you can launch new Always Free compute instances within the current limits at any time.
You can review the current Always Free limits and manage your compute resources in the OCI Console.
For more information, see:
Always Free Documentation
Thank you for using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Team

New comment by smoe in "The AI Aesthetic"

smoe — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 01:33:59 +0000

I would say by default, the AI aesthetic is the opposite of utilitarian. It adds so much unnecessary bits and bobs everywhere, random things that look reasonable at first glance but often are nonsensical noise. The visual equivalent of the endless yapping in chat.

For me it was a lot of work with Fable to keep it focused on producing a minimal, medium-high information density system. Sure, it works very well if you are just IP laundering another product, less so for more niche applications. Still super useful, but I haven't seen it produce much "intentional" design on its own.

New comment by smoe in "Delayed Gratification – Proud to Be 'Last to Breaking News'"

smoe — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 12:29:31 +0000

Inevitably, yes, that is one of the ways. Albeit not a very useful one.

Keep in mind that the definition of news I’m using is specifically “reporting on recent events,” not all forms of journalism or ways in which information is shared.

It’s the former that I have gripes with and see people consume like a drug. It takes significant effort to be informed about the world, and reading the news, I think, is not a very good way to do so. The time and mental energy are better spent elsewhere.

New comment by smoe in "Delayed Gratification – Proud to Be 'Last to Breaking News'"

smoe — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 20:43:01 +0000

I wonder, do those people you talk about also happen to avoid the other forms of journalism, such as investigative reporting, analysis, essays, documentaries, books, and long-form features in general?

Those are the things among many others that actually make you informed about the world, in my opinion, not the news feed.

New comment by smoe in "Delayed Gratification – Proud to Be 'Last to Breaking News'"

smoe — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 19:20:14 +0000

15 years after making the decision, while working for a major news outlet, to no longer read “the news,” I can pretty confidently say: if something is important enough for you to know, it will reach you eventually anyway.

Consuming news has little to do with being informed. Quite the opposite, at times.

New comment by smoe in "Elevated Errors for Opus 5"

smoe — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 11:37:59 +0000

Over the last couple months, I’ve gotten the impression that OAI does indeed have the better infra setup and team, not just more capacity.

I don’t think Codex’s 99.98% uptime vs Claude Code’s 99.44%, is just due to OAI having more hardware to run it on.

https://status.openai.com/

https://status.claude.com/

New comment by smoe in "Opus 5 is currently #1 on Artificial Analysis Intelligence Leaderboard"

smoe — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 11:44:39 +0000

Not OP, but I got downgraded almost every time I had Fable implement something with security implications. Codex reviews it and identifies potential security issues, but Fable refuses to address them and downgrades instead.

New comment by smoe in "$100 AI Music Video: Claude Fable 5 vs. GPT-5.6 Sol"

smoe — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 12:35:08 +0000

Gossip Goblin, I think, is a great example of what artists with actual working experience can do with AI.

That said, for my taste, his works, while visually beautiful and interesting, feel a bit collage-y and lacking in emotion. The over the top visuals distract from a lack of depth. Sound design is very meh.

As I said, I think there are and will be many artists using AI in great and novel ways. It’s just that so far I have seen many more grifters than artists.

I’m not yet convinced that AI will bring us the next Masamune Shirow, Katsuhiro Otomo, Moebius, H.R. Giger, or Syd Mead in terms of lasting stylistic impact on the genre without them having to learn some actual skills, rather than just being an “idea person"

New comment by smoe in "$100 AI Music Video: Claude Fable 5 vs. GPT-5.6 Sol"

smoe — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 11:01:50 +0000

Interestingly, I enjoyed early GenAI videos much more. All those bizarre, fever dream like experiences from the lack of consistency between frames, where things would morph or pop in and out of existence. They had a certain flair and something truly distinct to the medium. Now it is mostly just this uncanny valley of bringing stock photography to life.

Obviously, there will be some who use AI to great artistic effect, but I'm really worried about the discoverability of actually interesting stuff, whether it uses AI or not. Everything will be swamped by the automated goo of mediocrity that will vastly dominate in volume.

My perhaps naive hope is that this pushes people back toward offline and local communities, as well as toward more physical art instead of even more consumerism.