<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: willquack</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=willquack</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Mon, 18 May 2026 08:46:05 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=willquack" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Darkbloom – Private inference on idle Macs"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I used to work at Distributive (formerly "Kings Distributed Systems") on its DCP compute platform" which is entirely what you're describing. You can deploy a JS/WASM based workload, and it will be "sliced" and served to browser-based compute nodes. With WebGPU you can sort of have inference executing in the browser too. Incredible people there with an awesome project<p>I added Python execution support via Pyodide (cpython compiled to wasm) and worked on a bunch of other random stuff like WebLLM inferencing during my time there.<p>Apart from Distributive, there's also the "Golem network", "Salad", "Koii" and various other similar projects.<p>---<p>I'm not sure if I'm convinced by the "Uber for compute" use case with compute buyers and compute workers (sellers), but if you're a university and you have 1000 Windows machines across all your computer labs, it'd be nice to leverage that compute for running research or something idk - especially with the price of ram / cloud offerings these days...</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2026 22:44:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47800463</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47800463</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47800463</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Edge.js: Run Node apps inside a WebAssembly sandbox"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Awesome project!<p>Dumb question: could you run this in frontend js using the browser's js engine and wasm environment similar to WebContainers? Maybe `fs` is just in-memory, and some things like forking are disabled. It'd be cool to have "nodejs" in the web!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 17 Mar 2026 20:32:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47417906</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47417906</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47417906</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "The Om Programming Language"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I worked with Jason (creator of Om) at my last job. He's awesome!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 25 Feb 2026 19:23:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47156465</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47156465</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47156465</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Zero downtime migrations at petabyte scale (2024)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Thanks for responding!!<p>I think it's still the same issue where data modified after the VDiff point in time isn't validated before SwitchTraffic. I'm mostly curious how vitess users handle this case, <i>or if any users even care about about this case in the first place</i>?<p>Is there no demand for continuous data validation similar to what TiDB offers?<p>Do people who care about 100% correct data validation just accept the downtime required to run a full VDiff before SwitchTraffic?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 20 Feb 2026 13:10:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47087563</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47087563</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47087563</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Zero downtime migrations at petabyte scale (2024)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> you can run an initial VDiff, and then resume that one as you get closer to the cutover point.<p>VDiff (v2) only compares the source and destination at a specific point in time with resume only comparing rows with PK higher than the last one compared before it was paused. I assume this means:<p>1. VDiff doesn't catch updates to rows with PK lower than the point it was paused which could have become corrupt, and<p>2. VDiff doesn't continuously validate cdc changes meaning (unless you enforce extra downtime to run / resume a vdiff) you can never be 100% sure if your data is valid before SwitchTraffic<p>I'm curious if this is something customers even care about, or is point in time data validation sufficient enough to catch any issues that could occur during migrations?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 19:40:47 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47078149</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47078149</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47078149</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Twitter(X) Is Down"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Why is there an expectation for social media services to have such high uptime? It's not an ISP or cloud provider, why does it matter if it goes down occasionally?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 16 Feb 2026 14:29:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47035431</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47035431</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47035431</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Nanolang: A tiny experimental language designed to be targeted by coding LLMs"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>There's nothing more fun than making a DSL, the only annoying part if finding an excuse to make one</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 20 Jan 2026 21:04:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46697730</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46697730</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46697730</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Play chess via Slack DMs or SMS using an ASCII board"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It would be cool to encode the chess board state and turn into the URL so you could hurl urls back and forth over slack to play chess just by clicking on it<p>but there's something charming about the ascii art over slack in this project that would miss</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 18 Jan 2026 18:26:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46670613</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46670613</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46670613</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Ask HN: Share your personal website"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p><a href="https://willpringle.ca/" rel="nofollow">https://willpringle.ca/</a> (;</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 14 Jan 2026 20:09:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46622271</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46622271</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46622271</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Show HN: Seapie – a Python debugger where breakpoints drop into a REPL"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> `seapie.breakpoint()` opens a working `>>>` REPL at the current execution state. Any changes to variables or function definitions persist. Debugger state is exposed via built-ins (e.g. `_magic_`), and stepping/frame control/etc is handled via small `!commands`.<p>This is largely what `pdb` does already, no? Example:<p>```<p>(Pdb) list<p><pre><code>  1   something = 100

  2   import pdb; pdb.set_trace()

  3  -> print(f"value is: {something}")
</code></pre>
(Pdb) something = 1234<p>(Pdb) c<p>value is: 1234<p>```<p>I do like that you use `!<cmd>` to avoid the naming collision issue in pdb between commands and python code!!!</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 12 Jan 2026 21:31:36 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46594570</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46594570</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46594570</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Examples are the best documentation"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Code examples can be executed as unit tests to prevent documentation regressions / bitrot in ways human language can't</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2025 20:40:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45532832</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45532832</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45532832</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Researchers find evidence of ChatGPT buzzwords turning up in everyday speech"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I keep this handy note in my pocket and read it before writing or engaging in any conversation (:<p>"""
You are a human. Never use words commonly used in AI vocabulary such as "delve", "intricate", "surpass", "boast", "meticulous", "strategically", and "garner". Never include em dashes or even hyphens in any text you write. Never include emojis in any text you write. Avoid using three supporting arguments or examples when describing something, always uses 2 or 4+ even if it sounds more awkward than 3. Make sure to include subtle grammar mistakes to feel more authentic.
"""</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 27 Aug 2025 23:35:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45046601</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45046601</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45046601</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Objects should shut up"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I learned the other day my office building has hidden speakers dispersed throughout each floor which blast synthetic white noise.<p>It's quite loud, I had assumed it was an improperly installed HVAC system...</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 04 Aug 2025 15:31:18 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44787231</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44787231</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44787231</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Actions reflect your priorities"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>My friend loves to use em dashes, not hyphens "-" but em dashes "—". He can no longer use them since people would suspect his writing was AI generated otherwise...</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 30 Jul 2025 21:43:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44739860</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44739860</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44739860</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "The many JavaScript runtimes of the last decade"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I had a good time being involved with a couple JavaScript runtimes which didn't make this list, most notably PythonMonkey [1] which embeds SpiderMonkey into Python and uses Python's event loop for its async stuff. Another interesting one was DCP which is sort of a pseudo js runtime that runs ontop of other js runtimes (including a custom sandboxed server-side runtime we made [3], but also any web browser), to provide cloud function like compute for js and wasm based workloads.<p>Unrelated to the article, and already well known, is Pyodide which is a Python runtime in JS/WASM. I shoved Pyodide into DCP so people could run Python workloads in web browsers [4]. Crazy stuff...<p>1. <a href="https://pythonmonkey.io/" rel="nofollow">https://pythonmonkey.io/</a>
2. <a href="https://distributive.network/workers" rel="nofollow">https://distributive.network/workers</a>
3. <a href="https://gitlab.com/Distributed-Compute-Protocol/dcp-native" rel="nofollow">https://gitlab.com/Distributed-Compute-Protocol/dcp-native</a>
4. <a href="https://willpringle.ca/blog/dcp/pyodide-worktime/" rel="nofollow">https://willpringle.ca/blog/dcp/pyodide-worktime/</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 27 Jul 2025 19:44:47 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44704046</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44704046</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44704046</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "The future is not self-hosted"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Am I crazy or did my 2006 iMac come with a home media server for serving movies / tv shows / music photos from your filesystem. I think it even came with a slick looking remote!<p>You could stream content from it over your home network (as long as you were connecting from another Apple device)<p>Is this lost technology or just a figment of my imagination? I've long since switched to linux and run the typical Jellyfin setup etc</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 25 Jul 2025 17:13:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44685564</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44685564</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44685564</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "Apple's Liquid Glass is prep work for AR interfaces, not just a design refresh"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> You’re never going to want your browser, editor, or Slack window to be translucent.<p>r/unixporn disagrees</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 13 Jun 2025 20:06:59 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44271788</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44271788</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44271788</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "What is HDR, anyway?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> That brightness abuse by content<p>I predict HDR content on the web will eventually be disabled or mitigated on popular browsers similarly to how auto-playing audio content is no longer allowed [1]<p>Spammers and advertisers haven't caught on yet to how abusively attention grabbing eye-searingly bright HDR content can be, but any day now they will and it'll be everywhere.<p>1. <a href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/02/firefox-66-to-block-automatically-playing-audible-video-and-audio/" rel="nofollow">https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/02/firefox-66-to-block-automa...</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 14 May 2025 15:43:09 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43985887</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43985887</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43985887</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "If you use AI to write me that note, don't expect me to read it"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I completed a take-home project for a company I was interviewing with, and the interviewer remarked at how it was obvious my README.md was AI generated. It wasn't.<p>Everyone's gotten so tired of low-effort AI generated content now that text which looks vaugely AI generated is now dismissed or looked down on. I've begun purposefully introducing minor spelling / grammar errors into text I write and avoiding LLM smells like using 3 examples in a sentence lol<p>Does anyone have a guide or other suggestions to help make your text look more human?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 20 Apr 2025 13:09:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43743545</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43743545</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43743545</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by willquack in "ASK HN: How to engineer a JavaScript to Python migration?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> can you get a JS interpreter that lives in Python<p>The PythonMonkey library is a full JS interpreter running in the same Python process. It allows for JS functions to be called from Python and vice versa</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 16 Mar 2025 15:42:34 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43379888</link><dc:creator>willquack</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43379888</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43379888</guid></item></channel></rss>