<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: thornewolf</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=thornewolf</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Fri, 02 Oct 2026 21:48:11 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=thornewolf" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "Show HN: Jev Plays Pokémon Red"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>We have a bad universal classifier now (via Jev). 0->1, one might say.<p>A bad universal classifier does suggest a good one later. And that is exactly what I would call "theoretically doable"<p>That said, I don't think that Jev is a magic breakthrough or anything. I think it is just a particularly good narrative with an easy way to try it out.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 25 Sep 2026 22:41:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49850912</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49850912</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49850912</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "I asked Meta’s Muse for its filesystem and it sent me 6.8GB"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Write a prompt, evaluate the prompt, understand that is succeeds 95% of the time.<p>Write a new prompt, evaluate, it now succeeds 99% of the time. Measure what changes between prompt #1 and prompt #2, understand what contributed to the performance jump.<p>Write a third prompt, this one succeeds 100% of the time. Increase the size of your evaluation set, find a 1/5000 error-class and a 1/10000 error-class, add some explicit code to correct for this cases.<p>Roll out to production, collecting usage metrics. You make some tweaks to your harness, your prompts. Eventually you have confidence that your system has fewer mistakes than 1 in 100k.<p>Now, multiply this iteration across all your different prompts and different ways that they might interact with one another.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 22 Sep 2026 16:18:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49803720</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49803720</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49803720</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "OpenAI is well positioned to fast-follow Jev"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>without getting too far into it i would just like to note that i am in both these circles</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 22 Sep 2026 16:06:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49803551</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49803551</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49803551</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "Small programming tricks"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>some initial function like<p><pre><code>  v = setup()
  if v == 1:
    side_effect_1()
  elif v > 1:
    side_effect_1()
    side_effect_2(v)
  else:
    raise Exception()
</code></pre>
then we can "refactor"<p><pre><code>  v = setup()
  if v < 1:
    raise Exception()
  
  side_effect_1()
  if v > 1:
    side_effect_2(v)
</code></pre>
i know that this might seem "dumb" that the code was ever setup the first way but code can grow into that shape pretty easily. this refactor "removes" the v==1 branch. this new code also follows the "early return" pattern, which improves readability.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 16 Sep 2026 19:59:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49732126</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49732126</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49732126</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "The same nine streaming subscriptions cost $702/year more than in 2021"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>to add some context from "the other side": last year, i listened to 2930 distinct albums of which 50% were albums I had not listened to before. Even on a 30 year timeframe and a good discount factor for album repetition I don't think I can fit into the budget you propose without making significant concessions in my discovery process.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 13 Sep 2026 02:23:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679324</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679324</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49679324</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>My response is going to be about Gemini generally and less about NotebookLM.<p>Google's last frontier model release was Gemini 3.1 Pro, which was in February of this year[1]. At the time, it was ahead of the (at the time) flagship models of Opus 4.6 and GPT 5.2/5.3. From my recollection of the time, it was the best model in the world.<p>Anthropic released Opus 4.5 Nov '25, 4.6 in Feb '26, 4.7 in April, 4.8 in (late) May. Then Fable in June. 4.7 beat 3.1 Pro on multiple metrics. Fable eats it for breakfast. However, I want to note the 3 month gap between those first two Opus versions.<p>OpenAI released 5.2 Dec '25, 5.3 Codex Feb '26, 5.3 Instant Mar, 5.4 Mar, 5.5 (late) May, 5.6 July. 5.4 beats 3.1 Pro on agentic benchmarks[2], seems to be similar/losing on non-agentic. 5.5 seems stronger than 3.1 Pro[3].<p>Gemini 3.5 Pro is alleged to be launching within the week. Why do I type this all out? Because I think Google is getting a bad rap. They are delayed on a frontier release by a month or two and are being regarded as if they cannot release frontier models. I think their last release demonstrates strength and we need to see a weak release before we call them "behind" (in any reasonable sense). These companies swap back and forth constantly. I recall a multi-month span where 2.5 Pro was just the best thing out there by a large margin (in my opinion).<p>[1]: <a href="https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/gemini-models/gemini-3-1-pro/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/models-and-research/ge...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-7" rel="nofollow">https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-7</a><p>[3]: <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-8" rel="nofollow">https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-8</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Jul 2026 19:02:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48938792</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48938792</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48938792</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "The One-Step Trap (In AI Research)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>just read this when reviewing OpenAI's "spinning up" documentation as it was linked there!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 13 Jul 2026 01:30:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48886779</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48886779</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48886779</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "A New Typst Template for Pandoc (2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>The author explain this in more detail in the article; I also was initially confused. The key details come from their broken down pandoc command. Specifically, these two flags:<p><pre><code>  --pdf-engine=typst
  -V template=article.typ
</code></pre>
Despite the input content being a .md file, we see that the .md contents populate the .typ file. Pandoc then understands how to convert the populated .typ file into a .pdf. The author also notes in their hyperlinked .typ document where the body content is placed:<p><pre><code>  // THIS IS THE ACTUAL BODY:
</code></pre>
What is not clear to me is the actual mechanism that tells pandoc where to place the body contents in the template. I presume it's some "magic" from the pandoc docs. The pandoc templates documentation[1] does reveal to us that `-V` is setting a variable called `template`. I don't have pandoc locally, but from another post[2] from the same author and a chatgpt query, it seems that the `body` symbol in the template is the chosen substitution symbol.<p>[1]: <a href="https://pandoc.org/demo/example33/6-templates.html" rel="nofollow">https://pandoc.org/demo/example33/6-templates.html</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://imaginarytext.ca/posts/2024/pandoc-typst-tutorial/" rel="nofollow">https://imaginarytext.ca/posts/2024/pandoc-typst-tutorial/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2026 02:56:41 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48303862</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48303862</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48303862</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "Ask HN: Are Tech Meetups Dead?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>not dead, they are on "luma". quality is higher in some ways, lower in some ways when compared to "old school" meetups</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 28 May 2026 00:54:26 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48302856</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48302856</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48302856</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "Chewing gum restores dad's taste and smell years after Covid"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I can't smell much at all. one time when i was 17 my friend told me i was kinda smelly (i had just exercised). I've been stressed about it since. the human brain can latch on to the oddest things</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 21 May 2026 20:16:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48228336</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48228336</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48228336</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "Codex is now in the ChatGPT mobile app"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>there is something "wrong" with the ux that is hard to pin down. these things generate even text summaries more rapidly than i can read them. i need a better method for dumping info into my brain + dynamic control (if necessary)</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 14 May 2026 22:36:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48142168</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48142168</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48142168</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "Show HN: Adam – An embeddable cross-platform AI agent library"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>They have named themselves sqliteai and are releasing a library called adam. this is just advanced seo. seems neat though</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 06 May 2026 15:48:40 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48037603</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48037603</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48037603</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "Show HN: Prompt-to-Excalidraw demo with Gemma 4 E2B in the browser (3.1GB)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>it's a security feature. otherwise my malicious site could check for cdn.sensitivephotoswebsite.com and blackmail you if it was cached already</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 19 Apr 2026 17:26:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825937</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825937</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47825937</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "The economics of software teams: Why most engineering orgs are flying blind"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>more ai articles on my front page :(</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 13 Apr 2026 22:59:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47759064</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47759064</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47759064</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "The bridge to wealth is being pulled up with AI"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I noticed this article is written by AI. Have you considered adding a disclosure?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 24 Mar 2026 16:14:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47504923</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47504923</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47504923</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "What if Python was natively distributable?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>just disclose please. i churn on non-disclosed ai generated content as a matter of principle. i don't necessarily churn on other variants</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 19 Mar 2026 21:24:39 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47446397</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47446397</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47446397</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "What if Python was natively distributable?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>this article comes back 100% ai (for the opening). i will not reveal the tell that made me churn</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 19 Mar 2026 20:11:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47445218</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47445218</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47445218</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "Gemini 3.1 Pro"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I have swapped to using gemini over chatgpt for casual conversation and question answering. there are some lacking features in the app but i get faster and more intelligent responses.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 18:08:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47076915</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47076915</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47076915</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "The only moat left is money?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>For the comment from "Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning", the article author editorializes<p>"One of the great benefits of AI tools, is they allow anyone to build stuff... even if they have no ideas or knowledge.<p>One of the great drawbacks of AI tools, is they allow anyone to build stuff... even if they have no ideas or knowledge."<p>into<p>"One of the great benefits of AI tools is they allow anyone to build stuff, even if they have no ideas or knowledge. One of the great drawbacks is they allow anyone to build stuff."<p>which removes the rhetorical effectiveness of the comment (and also breaks the promise of a quotation). I recommend that OP represents the source exactly.<p>____<p>I now see that this article contains multiple GPT-isms</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 18 Feb 2026 17:40:18 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47063750</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47063750</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47063750</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by thornewolf in "Railway (PaaS) global outage"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>dispell the hate from your heart</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 11 Feb 2026 16:30:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46977053</link><dc:creator>thornewolf</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46977053</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46977053</guid></item></channel></rss>