Hacker News: wolframhempel

New comment by wolframhempel in "CNC Stone Carving"

wolframhempel — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 17:29:45 +0000

Sure - but if you take especially late Gothic cathedrals like Milan's, there's 3400 Statues and 135 spires, decorated with almost 100.000 Crockets (the decorative elements on the steeple roofs). I feel these things are more mass production than meditative process...

New comment by wolframhempel in "CNC Stone Carving"

wolframhempel — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 15:59:01 +0000

Before anyone complains that this removes the human aspect of art, it's worth stressing that sculptors have always looked for ways to automate work and save time (as the website itself points out).

As far back as ancient Egypt, grids and measuring tools were used to reproduce figures at different scales. Roman workshops churned out copies of Greek statues in marble and bronze, using casts and moulds. From the 18th century onwards, sculptors used outright pointing machines to transfer models into marble. James Watt, the steam engine guy, even built a mechanical sculpture-copying machine that could (somewhat) automatically reproduce reliefs and medallions.

Gothic architectural decoration wasn't about expressing the inner world of its makers in the way we think of art today. Much of it was produced by large masonry workshops using standardized geometry, wooden templates and repeated designs.

So, yeah, using a CNC machine is truly Gothic.

New comment by wolframhempel in "AI promised less work. I've never worked more"

wolframhempel — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 12:49:42 +0000

That's fascinating, given that out of 19 posts, 16 where written before 2020 :-)

New comment by wolframhempel in "AI promised less work. I've never worked more"

wolframhempel — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 13:17:44 +0000

If you're an employee, that's true - but as a founder of a small SaaS (https://arcentry.com) I genuinely work about 1-2 hours less and get more time walking with my dog through nature. I now have the luxury of concentrating on building the core product and writing articles for the blog and AI handles the things I'm less good at or passionate about, including marketing and content distribution, accounting, building the website (which admittedly looks a bit AI-y, but still much better than my handmade version), answering simple customer requests and escalating complicated ones to me and so on.

Meanwhile, I get to do more of what I enjoy. Of course, it's always tempting to let Codex work on the core product itself - but I resisted that urge so far as I feel a strong sense of ownership and craftsmanship - plus its the thing I actually like doing.

New comment by wolframhempel in "Documents: Police officer gave her Flock login to her ICE agent husband"

wolframhempel — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 13:17:18 +0000

As a general rule, every policy and system should be designed with the worst possible user in mind.

- German address registers with religious affiliation were a good idea until the Nazis came to power.

- Pegasus spyware was developed and sold to governments to fight terrorism and serious crime — until it was used to spy on journalists, human rights activists and political opponents, including in authoritarian states.

- Rwandan identity cards listed ethnicity for administrative purposes — until militias used them to identify and execute Tutsis at roadblocks during the 1994 genocide.

Bottom line: Even if you trust the current administration (do you?), are you sure you want 5o give that power to all future ones?

A Simple Guide to Europe's Complicated Cloud Provider Landscape

wolframhempel — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 08:55:28 +0000

Article URL: https://arcentry.com/blog/a-simple-guide-to-europes-complicated-cloud-provider-landscape/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50150014

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by wolframhempel in "Pele – Mermaid diagrams as themeable SVG"

wolframhempel — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 07:04:28 +0000

Blatant self promotion: But if you'd like your Mermaid diagrams rendered in pretty isometric 3D, we've added Mermaid support to Arcentry lately: https://arcentry.com/blog/isometric-mermaid-diagrams-with-ar...

Getting truthful reports from untrusted people

wolframhempel — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 17:40:33 +0000

Article URL: https://hivekit.io/blog/getting-truthful-reports-from-untrusted-people/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49967931

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Isometric Mermaid Diagrams with Arcentry

wolframhempel — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 15:36:21 +0000

Article URL: https://arcentry.com/blog/isometric-mermaid-diagrams-with-arcentry/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49923104

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by wolframhempel in "Show HN: Arcentry – Create 3D infrastructure diagrams"

wolframhempel — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 12:17:36 +0000

I’m excited to be bringing Arcentry back. It's thoroughly modernized, with 700+ components for everything from Foundation Models and AI Agents to the latest Cloud Services, improved automatic diagram creation, imports from Terraform, OpenTofu and CloudFormation, AI-assisted diagram creation, and quite a few other improvements.

More details here: https://arcentry.com/blog/arcentry-is-back-and-better-than-e...

Show HN: Arcentry – Create 3D infrastructure diagrams

wolframhempel — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 12:16:37 +0000

Article URL: https://arcentry.com/?hn

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49876821

Points: 2

# Comments: 2

Arcentry is back – create beautiful 3D infrastructure diagrams

wolframhempel — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 08:01:01 +0000

Article URL: https://arcentry.com/?src=hn

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49812985

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by wolframhempel in "Show HN: Arcentry – Create 3D infrastructure diagrams"

wolframhempel — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 12:23:28 +0000

More details here: https://arcentry.com/blog/arcentry-is-back-and-better-than-e...

Show HN: Arcentry – Create 3D infrastructure diagrams

wolframhempel — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 12:23:06 +0000

Article URL: https://arcentry.com

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49800076

Points: 3

# Comments: 2

New comment by wolframhempel in "If materialism is true, the United States is probably conscious"

wolframhempel — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:12:25 +0000

I think the line is at emergence.

Once a system (made of people, neurons, wires) creates outputs that are greater than the sum of its individual parts AND these outputs are self-referential you have something that could be considered conciousness. I wouldn't think the business in your example is self conscious - its an entity that is fully controlled by the person and an extension of it.

But, once the business grows, is composed of more people and interacts with customers and markets, it will develop automatisms for self preservation. At this stage, I would consider it concious.

New comment by wolframhempel in "If materialism is true, the United States is probably conscious"

wolframhempel — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 13:51:28 +0000

I'm perfectly happy to believe that the United States has an awareness of itself in the abstract sense that its a complex system with emerging behaviors that are feedbackloops of itself. I'm also convinced that all mammals and most sea and air creatures have consciousness in this as well as the more general sense.

To me, the fact that an awareness of one self exists isn't particularly stunning - what's stunning to me is that we believe it is something incredibly special and we are the only ones endowed with it.

I think this assumption comes from the same human self confidence that decided it was the only thing "created in gods image" in the universe and so on...

You might want to build your WebApp in Canvas instead of HTML

wolframhempel — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 11:11:59 +0000

Article URL: https://hivekit.io/blog/why-you-might-want-to-build-your-webapp-in-canvas-instead-of-html/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49154190

Points: 42

# Comments: 59

New comment by wolframhempel in "Mag 7 starting to underperform [pdf]"

wolframhempel — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 14:40:50 +0000

This seems healthy to me. A market where returns are less dependent on seven mega-cap names is probably more stable, not less. If earnings growth broadens out and capital starts flowing back toward quality and free cash flow outside the obvious AI winners, that should reduce concentration risk and make the whole market less fragile.

New comment by wolframhempel in "Ferrari Luce"

wolframhempel — Tue, 26 May 2026 18:54:24 +0000

Maybe that's what I don't get. Ferraris in my mind need to be great at two things: Going 300kph around a racetrack and going 3kph in front of Harrods. If I want a comfy way to get my family around, I'd get a Mercedes.

New comment by wolframhempel in "Ferrari Luce"

wolframhempel — Tue, 26 May 2026 08:05:09 +0000

I've seen a lot of explanations, including one by Marques Brownlee, stating that electric cars need large batteries in the floor, meaning they necessarily have to be taller and more SUV-like—and that, hence, a low, two-seater electric sports car is very hard to pull off with a decent range. But then, the Rimac Nevera is low and fast with 490 km of range—and that was released five years ago. I'm not sure why Ferrari couldn't have built something like that.