Hacker News: theletterf

Feed the machines, then guide the humans

theletterf — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 13:30:28 +0000

Article URL: https://passo.uno/tech-writing-role-split/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48503860

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by theletterf in "Fine-tuning an LLM to write docs like it's 1995"

theletterf — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 19:08:35 +0000

The Windows 3.1 theme of my blog says Hi: https://passo.uno/win31/fine-tuning-docs-llm/

New comment by theletterf in "Fine-tuning an LLM to write docs like it's 1995"

theletterf — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 16:44:47 +0000

Ha! I didn't know the origin was Shannon. It makes sense now. Big fan of my namesake Bellard. :]

New comment by theletterf in "Fine-tuning an LLM to write docs like it's 1995"

theletterf — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 12:56:29 +0000

Try Runpod or similar services: you can fine-tune stuff for the price of a latte. Stanford's NLP course recommends them: https://cs336.stanford.edu/

New comment by theletterf in "Fine-tuning an LLM to write docs like it's 1995"

theletterf — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 12:31:27 +0000

I concur. Old docs are the good stuff: https://passo.uno/why-collect-read-old-computer-manuals/

New comment by theletterf in "Fine-tuning an LLM to write docs like it's 1995"

theletterf — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 11:44:15 +0000

Interesting! I think the advantage of style fine-tuning is that you might not have to provides that much context upfront. Also, it's kind of magical to have an LLM just do something out of the box. I'll compare my local fine-tuned models against the baseline with instructions and see how they fare.

New comment by theletterf in "Fine-tuning an LLM to write docs like it's 1995"

theletterf — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 10:10:51 +0000

Had to pick a year, and most of the material hovers around the mid-90s, the golden age of MS docs. And 1995 is THE Microsoft year. :)

New comment by theletterf in "Fine-tuning an LLM to write docs like it's 1995"

theletterf — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 10:08:19 +0000

Author here. Sorry, should have made that more visible!

New comment by theletterf in "Fine-tuning an LLM to write docs like it's 1995"

theletterf — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 10:07:45 +0000

Author here. Another trick, I would argue, is consistency, hence the focus on style.

I also wrote on what I think makes docs beautiful, by the way! https://passo.uno/what-makes-docs-beautiful/

Fine-tuning an LLM to write docs like it's 1995

theletterf — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 09:48:28 +0000

Article URL: https://passo.uno/fine-tuning-docs-llm/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48354674

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by theletterf in "Claude Code hook that plays a random sound on negative feedback"

theletterf — Thu, 28 May 2026 15:04:23 +0000

I sometimes long for audio feedback when interacting with Claude, so I've made a Claude Code hook that makes Claude reply to negative feedback with sounds from a folder. You can use any sound you want.

Claude Code hook that plays a random sound on negative feedback

theletterf — Thu, 28 May 2026 15:04:23 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/theletterf/defensive-hook

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48309977

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

Volcano Radio

theletterf — Thu, 28 May 2026 10:58:48 +0000

Article URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano_Radio

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48307243

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

New comment by theletterf in "Magnifica Humanitas"

theletterf — Mon, 25 May 2026 15:09:06 +0000

Thanks! That makes sense. This was just genuine curiosity on how HN works, I couldn't care less about kharma.

New comment by theletterf in "Magnifica Humanitas"

theletterf — Mon, 25 May 2026 13:01:38 +0000

@dang Is this item getting a lot of negative votes? I've no way of knowing, other than seeing my kharma increasing only slightly after all the points the story collected.

New comment by theletterf in "Magnifica Humanitas"

theletterf — Mon, 25 May 2026 12:12:18 +0000

For a moment I pictured the Jesuits training their own LLM. If Arthur C. Clarke was still alive, we'd read a story like The Star, but with AI as the main plot device.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_%28Clarke_short_story...

New comment by theletterf in "Magnifica Humanitas"

theletterf — Mon, 25 May 2026 11:04:18 +0000

I'm a non-practicing catholic, and an agnostic (or an atheist, depending on the mood). And yet I acknowledge that the Catholic church is a force to be reckoned with in the spiritual matters, and one of the few institutions to have had continuous influence on the material (or temporal) matters for centuries. Whether their brand of faith is rooted in your culture or not, these are words that deserve attention, I think.

New comment by theletterf in "Magnifica Humanitas"

theletterf — Mon, 25 May 2026 10:43:03 +0000

When he quoted Tolkien, my heart stopped. This passage might provide you with a suggestion on how to live a virtuous life:

"The twentieth-century Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien, in the words of a protagonist in one of his novels, described our responsibility in this way: “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.” [187] The civilization of love will not arise from a single or spectacular gesture, but from the sum total of small and steadfast acts of fidelity that serve as a bulwark against dehumanization."

Magnifica Humanitas

theletterf — Mon, 25 May 2026 10:11:29 +0000

Article URL: https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48265206

Points: 1650

# Comments: 965

How Big Tech is harnessing the data of Indian factory workers to train robots

theletterf — Wed, 20 May 2026 09:54:34 +0000

Article URL: https://scroll.in/article/1092960/how-big-tech-is-harnessing-the-data-of-indian-factory-workers-to-train-robots

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48205349

Points: 1

# Comments: 0