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HuwFulcher

276 karma · joined January 25, 2021

AI Engineering Lead

You can find me at: https://huwfulcher.com

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/huwfulcher; my proof: https://keybase.io/huwfulcher/sigs/oxU3GC_S7uKggXi5WhVmGcTi9JpDaUoJmw8zC-APRkM ]

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HuwFulcher··on Quill OS: An open-source OS for Kobo's eReaders
I came onto the comments to bemoan the fact that there isn't an easy way to sync progress across devices. This is definitely going to be the trigger for me to buy a Kobo
HuwFulcher··on The 512KB Club
While a fun idea, arbitrary limits like this just aren’t necessary. Yes it’s all well and good in the name of reducing trackers, etc but what if I want to have an image heavy site? Why does that get perceived as a bad thing?
HuwFulcher··on Why the open social web matters now
The definition of “nazi” will make it niche
HuwFulcher··on Nostr
There is the concept of Data Vending Machines (DVMs) and curated follow lists now.

There’s also work on a Web of Trust in some clients that filters notes from people that don’t meet the WOT score. It’s essentially a weighted score based on who you follow and who they follow

HuwFulcher··on Writing code is easy, reading it isn't
Yes it’s definitely possible now. My point was that people need to move past “vibe coding” to using the AI as what it should be, an assistant
HuwFulcher··on Writing code is easy, reading it isn't
This is a challenge which I don't think AI tools like Cursor have cracked yet. They're great for laying "fresh pavement" but it's akin to being a project manager contracting the work out.

Even if I use Cursor (or some other equivalent) and review the code I find my mental model of the system is much more lacking. It actually had a net negative on my productivity as it gave me anxiety at going back to the codebase.

If an AI tool could help a user interactively learn the mental model I think that would be a great step in the right direction.

HuwFulcher··on Mastodon is not decentralized · Victor Wynne
I like the idea of there being interest specific mastodon servers. It makes content curation easier but the locking of accounts to a particular server is problematic.

Protocols like Nostr offer a good alternative to this. At the moment relays are just used as nodes in the decentralised network but there is work on how to view feeds from specific relays which could make the idea of content specific relays more likely

HuwFulcher··on Next.js 15 Markdown Boilerplate
> Next.js

Hmmmmmm no

HuwFulcher··on Python: The Documentary – An origin story [video]
Fail to see how it was a Perl advert
HuwFulcher··on Amazon has mostly sat out the AI talent war
As the other response said. It’s DevOps for ML. They have Amazon SageMaker which is the managed ML/MLOps offering that we use extensively because we’re a small team. The documentation is awful
HuwFulcher··on Amazon has mostly sat out the AI talent war
Yes have seen about that. It’s crazy to me that they still haven’t released it. Really think it could save a dying product
HuwFulcher··on Amazon has mostly sat out the AI talent war
AWS specifically have really dropped the ball on this.

I interact regularly with AWS to support our needs in MLOps and to some extent GenAI. 3 of the experts we talked to have all left for competitors in the last year.

re:Invent London this year presented nothing new of note on the GenAI front. The year before was full of promise on Bedrock.

Outside of AWS, I still can’t fathom how they haven’t integrated an AI assistant into Alexa yet either

HuwFulcher··on Amazon has mostly sat out the AI talent war
Web archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20250901163205/https://www.busin...
HuwFulcher··on UN attendees underestimate public willingness to contribute to climate action
Why would we when our individual efforts are eclipsed by industry and celebrities who expend more carbon in a year than we will in our lives?
HuwFulcher··on Python: The Documentary – An origin story [video]
Care to elaborate why?
HuwFulcher··on I built an app to backup Live Photos from iPhone to external hard drives
You’re looking at £300ish for an entry level Synology and the storage. That isn’t a realistic expense for many users.
HuwFulcher··on My imaginary children aren't using your streaming service
What a weird article. Feels distasteful to utilise a group’s trauma to reinforce your point despite being decidedly anti-child.
HuwFulcher··on You Need a Content Tap
I've been reflecting recently on our patterns of content consumption online. Curious to hear people's perspectives on the matter.
HuwFulcher··on Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure
Yes a regular check-up wouldn't be the silver bullet but it would help expose larger problems under the surface which could be prevented with prescribed exercise, diet, etc.

Ultimately it's down to the patient to put in the work but if the NHS focused more on creating community practices where these things could be more widely available then maybe we should see more meaningful change.

HuwFulcher··on Five minutes of exercise a day could lower blood pressure
This is a big problem in the UK I think. The idea of having a regular checkup with a doctor is unheard of and will get you some weird looks if you ask for it.

The NHS doesn't seem (as an outsider looking in) to do well with preventative care. I firmly believe (without necessarily a lot of evidence) that if we focused more on healthy lifestyles and made them more cost effective for people the amount of money we plough into the NHS every year could be reduced drastically.

HuwFulcher··on Plausible Community Edition
They make $300/mo from donations from those that self-host. The point they are making is that enterprise level users are self-hosting and not putting back into the running of Plausible.

I still think the way they've done this stinks though.

HuwFulcher··on Plausible Community Edition
Being cynical it looks like a way of holding features hostage for the purpose of extracting revenue.

I sympathise with the problem of re-sellers abusing their hard work but they are also creating two different classes of product with this change.

HuwFulcher··on I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future
I’m not concerned about myself being banned on Masotodon as I keep away from political subjects. I don’t find the platform useful as the conversations that I’ve been able to find are highly politicised. I guess I need to work better at tuning out the noise on there.

On X I mainly occupy the indie hacker space which is focused on that topic. There are definitely more political conversations that come up but it’s much easier to filter those out.

HuwFulcher··on I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future
I'm not looking for value through political debate and heterodoxy. In fact I'm trying to look for the opposite, I'm glad you seem to have found it! Algorithmic content is a double edged sword. I've found it much easier to find people on X to discuss the non-political content I want. On the other hand it's much harder on Mastodon.
HuwFulcher··on I'm closing up shop on my Mastodon for the foreseeable future
I find that Mastodon has become the mirror-verse version of Twitter/X. I've tried spending time on there but unless if you subscribe to certain political/ideological values then you wont find much to hang around for.

On the flip side I find the discourse on X a lot more varied. There are definitely big problems with the types of conversations that happen on X but I have to go out of my way to find them. On Mastodon it's not that hard, mainly down to it being a smaller pool of content.

ActivityPub/Mastodon is flawed at its core with its concept of federation. They paint a pretty utopian picture of decentralised communities but there really isn't much difference between them. They are mostly part of the same political zeitgeist and if you don't toe the line you get banned. Once you're banned that's it, you've lost your profile, sure you can recreate elsewhere but have to start from scratch.

For the problems alternatives have like Nostr at least they are truly censorship resistant.

HuwFulcher··on Study puts fermented foods, not fire, as pivotal moment in human brain growth
Plant based "news" is a misnomer unfortunately. They operate as an activist org rather than news. Nothing necessarily wrong with that but they can conveniently leave out facts that don't align with a plant based philosophy.
HuwFulcher··on Ask HN: What's the deal with the "open-source SaaS" trend these days?
It's what you've stated but also there's an ethical side to it. Many founders want to give the option for competent users to self-host, only way to do that is open up the source code. They could go completely down the open source route and rely on donations but that doesn't usually cut it. The business model then is to provide a managed service where the founders deal with the hosting, updating, security, etc.
HuwFulcher··on Fujitsu will not bid for UK.gov business until Post Office inquiry closes
Based on my experience of consulting with public sector, most projects “fail” in one way or another.

Gov departments are notorious for not giving correct requirements, changing requirements or swamping the project in bureaucracy.

If we said firms couldn’t rebid after a failed project (without the cool off) I suspect there wouldn’t be many firms left.

It shouldn’t be this way but unfortunately it is.

HuwFulcher··on The Stasis of E-Ink
I’ve heard of adafruit before but haven’t looked at their stuff. Will check it out
HuwFulcher··on The Stasis of E-Ink
Thanks will take a look! At the risk of sounding ignorant, I can’t understand why such seemingly simple peripherals are so expensive
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