Hacker News: yifanl

New comment by yifanl in "OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future"

yifanl — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:34:55 +0000

Only truly exceptional executives can be SBF or Elizabeth Holmes.

New comment by yifanl in "LLMs aren't remotely like compilers or power tools"

yifanl — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:14:07 +0000

Its true that things change, but it's also true that there will eventually be a day when the last programmer is hired.

New comment by yifanl in "LLMs aren't remotely like compilers or power tools"

yifanl — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 14:42:18 +0000

There's actually zero difference between a bottle of water and a river reservoir if you think about it.

New comment by yifanl in "Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software"

yifanl — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 18:52:26 +0000

Rule's maybe too strong a word, but knowing that you have all the good ideas and wanting to structure everything to support those good ideas... it's not a bad word for it.

Like, it's certainly easy to point out that there are things that aren't being done efficiently, but finding the balance on how to prioritize the right efficiencies is the why society exists.

New comment by yifanl in "Microsoft fire idTech team at Id software"

yifanl — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 18:23:38 +0000

This is one of the oldest ideas of civilization, wanting society to be ruled by philosopher kings (who happen to be people just like me!).

New comment by yifanl in "Ford AI hiccups push carmaker to rehire ‘gray beard’ inspectors"

yifanl — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:45:51 +0000

If they gave the engineers appropriate severance packages, then they're at least out that much as a stupidity tax, but that's probably the most we can expect as far as consequences for the exec suite.

New comment by yifanl in "Canada plans 'nuclear renaissance' with up to 10 reactors built by 2040"

yifanl — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 13:48:42 +0000

This is good to keep in mind, but we'd need a substantial proliferation of nuclear before we get into a position where over-standardization is a problem.

New comment by yifanl in "Jobs and Software Is Fucked"

yifanl — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 10:47:02 +0000

I don't doubt there are exceptional people working at BigCo at any role you or I can name, but by definition, it isn't possible that _everyone_ working there is exceptional.

New comment by yifanl in "Jobs and Software Is Fucked"

yifanl — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 20:17:11 +0000

> Wherever these tens of thousands of qualified ex-Meta, ex-Microsoft engineers willing to work less are, I'm not seeing them.

Two possible reasons:

1. People who are truly in-demand still have an easy time of finding jobs without going through the tedious process you set up.

2. FAANGMANGAMEME never hired that many truly exceptional people in the first place and you've fallen for corporate propaganda.

New comment by yifanl in "The hacker sent by Anthropic to calm the government's nerves about AI safety"

yifanl — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 19:51:07 +0000

OpenAI is much more eager to jump on board with the administration than Anthropic is, Altman is a lot of things, but he definitely knows which wheels need grease.

New comment by yifanl in "Want your images back? That'll be $5"

yifanl — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:50:50 +0000

I just ask it to spellcheck the Webster dictionary about 50 times an hour.

New comment by yifanl in "SpaceX to buy Cursor for $60B"

yifanl — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:19:14 +0000

Because there's nowhere else for the money to go, the money must go to AI.

There are no growth opportunities in any other industry (except healthcare due to disastrous demographics), where else are people going to invest?

New comment by yifanl in "What the Fuck Happened to Nerds"

yifanl — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 13:50:03 +0000

The ones who were good at becoming rich became rich. The ones who weren't were punished for not becoming rich.

New comment by yifanl in "Claude Fable 5"

yifanl — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 18:31:47 +0000

If I speak up, I'm in big trouble.

New comment by yifanl in "Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers"

yifanl — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:23:34 +0000

You're talking about living in a world where we have to take entirely preventative steps, not reactive because hacking is going to be that much more prevalent.

AI can tell you you're being zero-day'd, but that isn't much comfort - you're already expecting everyone to always be zero-day'd at all times!

New comment by yifanl in "Microsoft's open source tools were hacked to steal passwords of AI developers"

yifanl — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:11:23 +0000

AI harnesses were exploited, here's why it's actually good for AI.

New comment by yifanl in "Cannibalism"

yifanl — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:20:01 +0000

An automated job is not a job at all.

New comment by yifanl in "Anti-social: It's fads, not friends, which now dominate social media feeds"

yifanl — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:28:11 +0000

We keep saying it, because it's what it is. There's some black box (that can _sometimes_ be reached via dang) that determines what you see on HN's front page, and this place is just as susceptible to trends and rabbit holes as any short form video app, it just doesn't have the funny sound effects.

New comment by yifanl in "Conventional Commits encourages focus on the wrong things"

yifanl — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 20:48:26 +0000

Some programmers prefer 2 spaces, some programmers prefer 4, why don't we compromise and pick a number between 2 and 4?

New comment by yifanl in "U.S. to dismantle system tracking Atlantic currents that are at risk of collapse"

yifanl — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 14:08:15 +0000

Feelings don't care about your facts. It's far cheaper to be vegetarian than not, how many vegetarians do you know?