Hacker News: tony_cannistra

New comment by tony_cannistra in "I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers"

tony_cannistra — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:08:48 +0000

Don't forget software engineering

New comment by tony_cannistra in "I like 'em thick: an apology to my English teachers"

tony_cannistra — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 16:08:15 +0000

I have to say, this guy should teach English to high-schoolers.

New comment by tony_cannistra in "Poles of Inaccessibility in the San Gabriel Mountains (2015)"

tony_cannistra — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 17:46:46 +0000

somewhat sad to say that if you follow the map link (https://caltopo.com/m/4N7A) there's in fact a trail right next to the "point of inaccessibility" that includes trails + roads.

The path was added to OSM two years ago, which is after the analysis was done. OSM is a moving target!

https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/1255896413

New comment by tony_cannistra in "Poles of Inaccessibility in the San Gabriel Mountains"

tony_cannistra — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 17:43:26 +0000

I once made a similar map at work, but for the whole USA. You can view it if you use onX Hunt - called the "Roadless" layer under "Roads Trails & Rec."

New comment by tony_cannistra in "Why DNA damage from smoking and UV rays cause cancer in some but not others"

tony_cannistra — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 22:21:15 +0000

This is a common misconception. Topical tretinoin has been shown to have no effect on the fetus. Oral tretinoins (like isotretinoin) have been linked to congenital defects. This is due to the differing rates of absorption and the resulting ability for the retinoid to cross the placenta at higher concentrations.

With that said, folks who are pregnant are discouraged from using any retinoids out of an abundance of caution.

New comment by tony_cannistra in "Quality non-fiction books are the antithesis of AI slop"

tony_cannistra — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 22:56:49 +0000

Same here. I always marvel at this. These recollections can even be years later, and the memory of the place in which I heard the remembered thing is vivid.

New comment by tony_cannistra in "Fable 5 vs. GPT-5.6 Sol on an NP-Hard Problem: Does /goal help?"

tony_cannistra — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 15:54:59 +0000

This is the way.

New comment by tony_cannistra in "We don't use AI in any of our design or production processes"

tony_cannistra — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 23:29:47 +0000

Thanks for writing it, I enjoyed the perspective. I found it by way of Michael Sacasas' post: https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/feeding-on-illusi...

New comment by tony_cannistra in "We don't use AI in any of our design or production processes"

tony_cannistra — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 23:25:52 +0000

Look, really not trying to get into the weeds here, but since we're there: I respect your take that nothing in this article is novel, though I disagree with it.

My point wasn't as much about that as it was the lack of good faith engagement and curiosity.

Not interesting? Let the damn thing die on /new.

New comment by tony_cannistra in "We don't use AI in any of our design or production processes"

tony_cannistra — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 23:22:03 +0000

TFA raises several points I hadn't heard before. Here's one.

The artifacts we produce define our culture. If we allow LLMs to produce our work, our culture represents that which they understand. But LLMs can't be trained on the entirety of the human experience. "How dare we abandon so many countless traditions and people and ideas and nuances, simply because they are underrepresented in the training data?"

I just feel like that's not performative in the way you're insinuating. That feels like a take to me. Respectful engagement is what I expected here.

New comment by tony_cannistra in "We don't use AI in any of our design or production processes"

tony_cannistra — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 23:08:53 +0000

I'm the op on this one (not the author). Gotta say, I had higher hopes for the community here.

Isn't it worthwhile to examine our patterns of thinking and work? Shouldn't alternative perspectives such as these spark conversation, rather than sly jibes?

HN grew from curiosity and good-faith. Y'all are not showing up.

New comment by tony_cannistra in "We don't use AI in any of our design or production processes"

tony_cannistra — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 23:04:48 +0000

I believe we before we had "virtue signaling" we called it "sharing opinions"

New comment by tony_cannistra in "World Base Map (Natural Earth 6.0)"

tony_cannistra — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 21:39:07 +0000

This is good. The number of times I've downloaded and re-converted these files...too many to count.

We don't use AI in any of our design or production processes

tony_cannistra — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 21:36:49 +0000

Article URL: https://mass-driver.com/article/from-human-hands

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48927373

Points: 111

# Comments: 113

New comment by tony_cannistra in "Postgres locks do not scale"

tony_cannistra — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 22:39:51 +0000

Yeah. This is why we have connection pooling.

New comment by tony_cannistra in "Auditory and spontaneous movement responses to music over first postnatal year"

tony_cannistra — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 16:46:56 +0000

"spontaneous movements of increasing complexity" is a great way to say "dancing"

New comment by tony_cannistra in "Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?"

tony_cannistra — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 20:26:36 +0000

I've also tried this. Very interesting, but must be used sparingly in my experience. Hiking is a place where before I used to go to think, or not think at all. Prompting an AI while doing so can feel very bad if really what I'm looking for is some disconnection or quiet thinking time.

New comment by tony_cannistra in "Monetization Gateway: Charge for any resource behind Cloudflare via x402"

tony_cannistra — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 18:23:11 +0000

Vending machines can't be used by thousands of people from differing tax jurisdictions at once

New comment by tony_cannistra in "I want to live like Costco people"

tony_cannistra — Thu, 07 May 2026 18:27:16 +0000

It's America. We have mythology.

New comment by tony_cannistra in "FSF trying to contact Google about spammer sending 10k+ mails from Gmail account"

tony_cannistra — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 21:28:27 +0000

You haven't been to