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allanmacgregor

330 karma · joined July 20, 2013

20 years turning technical bets into shipped products. CTO @ LiORA, building Bloccs. Ex-CTPO @ Humi ($140M+ CAD exit). I write http://thepragmaticcto.com
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allanmacgregor··on Jev introduces a new shape of LLM
I thought this wasn't really an LLM sure text as input but the folks at Typesafe have been very adamant this is a new class of model not just another LLM.

Although to be fair we don't know enough about the architecture.

allanmacgregor··on Tiny village votes for 'independence' from UK amid asylum seeker row
> and ultimately they have to go somewhere; wherever the government puts them is going to object.

Back to their own country, look I am an immigrant myself but there is this massive trend of goverments developing suicidal empathy even at the cost of their own citizens; it really needs to stop.

allanmacgregor··on Radio – a chatroom for multiplayer agent work
One of the things that I found extremely helpful is combining agents running different models to review and challenge the other one. Trying to coordinate both and have them have a single point of communication has always been challenging.

Radio seems like an interesting solution to the problem I'm very keen to try, this as part of my workflow.

allanmacgregor··on I Don't Think I Can Stay in Tech
Bit of a strawman here, particularly the last one. Find a single US administration in recent history that hasn't killed thousands in the middle east? I'll wait.
allanmacgregor··on I Don't Think I Can Stay in Tech
Sorry, but people are calling anyone who disagrees with them nazis or fascists so frequently that it is hard to take seriously anymore?

You don't agree with my exact political views?! Then you are a fascist.

Also blatant fascism? By which definition? the OP article pretty much cites a single blog post as his evidence of DHH being a fascist; but never really defines fascism.

I get it DHH is not a very likeable guy, and a bit of a prick but calling him a fascist or taking childish jabs like calling Omarchy "vibecoded scripts on top of Arch" really removes a lot of credibility

allanmacgregor··on Canada Hires 48 Scholars Away from Top U.S. Universities
Scholars in what fields?
allanmacgregor··on Show HN: Prove your code produced your claims without making reviewers rerun it
This is exactly what it is, just slop. I do agree with the intent we need someway to verify and validate agentic coding output that doesn't rely on codereviews; but this project is just sloppy.
allanmacgregor··on Twitter Is Back at Twitter.now
Is no one going to call out the lazy and clear AI Slop on the landing page? https://twitter.now/

"We are Twitter, reclaimed. Operation Bluebird, Inc. picked up the name X Corp. walked away from and is rebuilding it on trust, in your browser at twitter.now. We are not X, and we are not affiliated with X Corp."

"Not a price. Early Access and a stake." Not X but Y

And goes on, I'm staying the hell away from this vibe-coded nightmare.

allanmacgregor··on What will be left for us to work on
"It simply does not add up that someone who lacks purely technical skills in an area can make good decisions."

Let me introduce you the the executive team of every company.

allanmacgregor··on Incident with Github.com
So whats the alternative? I'm thinking I'll migrate my company to something self hosted, but what about personal projects?
allanmacgregor··on Incident with Github.com
Its all vibes man
allanmacgregor··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)
This is amazing I been wanting something like for a long time. I'm also curious whats up with the no VC logo at the bottom of the page?
allanmacgregor··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)
I'm testing a bunch of Saas ideas, all micro or smaller. I got to launch the first one last week; a feedback collection widget and board so users can submit feedback anonymously. Its a simpler version of Canny or UpVote; and with an MCP and API backed in from the get go.

I got inspired by the guys behind purelymail.com so I'm keeping the pricing simple $9/mo or $90/yr per project. The free plan has every feature, capped at 50 feedback items.

I'm running a promotion for the month of August: http://shiplog.ca/fairwinds

allanmacgregor··on [dead]
"The Atmosphere Is Moving Faster Than Anything Evolved to Track It"

Yup AI Slop

allanmacgregor··on Elixir-lang.org has a new design
Looks pretty good, I like that they are highlighting the potential uses for elixir.
allanmacgregor··on Open Source is not immune to monopoly
Stopped reading immediatly ...." Linus Torvalds running Linux like the privileged man that he is and entirely missing the central points of the arguments made by people who don’t enjoy his kind of privilege"

Its open source, go start your own project and stop complaining.

allanmacgregor··on Architecture Description Languages [pdf]
Yes, I'm exploring something similar with bloccs.io
allanmacgregor··on How the first solo-founder unicorn gets built
> The easy story, and the fact that kills it

Claude fingerprints are becoming easier to detect

allanmacgregor··on What I'm Finding About LLM Code Style and Token Costs
Human writting will come at a premium. I don't think LLM-generated prose goes away at all; the scary part is that I'm starting to catch people adopt the same tropes and language patterns in their speech/writing, manufactured contrarianism for example seems rampant in social media and blog posts ... but I guess nobody is talking about that :D.
allanmacgregor··on Ask HN: Where is our profession (programmer) going?
AI is just a tool, and, as always, people will use it incorrectly and lazily. Are we forgetting the good old days of Copy/Paste from Stack Overflow?

LLMs just made it more convenient for the same people to take the lazy route.

allanmacgregor··on Markdy: Like Mermaid Diagrams, but for Motion
How is this in the frontpage and with 77 points?!
allanmacgregor··on Markdy: Like Mermaid Diagrams, but for Motion
Are going to pretend this wasn't vibecoded?
allanmacgregor··on Tim Davis – Probabilistic engineering and the 24-7 employee
> Software is quietly becoming a probabilistic system, and almost no one is saying it out loud.

AI generated or at least heavily edited would be my guess. Although, I'm with you at this point hard to tell, I'm seeing those AI filler phrases or over use words like "here is what actually happening" more and more and not only on blog posts but social media, video content, podcasts.

allanmacgregor··on Bouncer: Block "crypto", "rage politics", and more from your X feed using AI
Maybe, but no one worth listening to uses bluesky
allanmacgregor··on r/programming bans all discussion of LLM programming
Lobste.rs is against AI in a pretty fanatical way and most posts have little to no discussion, also good luck accessing them if you use Brave Browser
allanmacgregor··on r/programming bans all discussion of LLM programming
> LLM-generated projects, articles, blogs are low-effort products lacking authenticity.

I think this is mostly true but not completely true, LLMs are a tool and right now we are learning how to use it, how to use it well and more importantly how not to use them.

allanmacgregor··on Anthropic is preparing to release new models – Mythos and Capybara
Funny I got the same impression.
allanmacgregor··on Show HN: AWSight: flat-rate AWS security checks mapped to CIS/NIST
I think you might have made a mistake on the post? Is not linking you to the actual site or product
allanmacgregor··on Tell HN: Tired of Generic Long Form A.I Posts
You are absolutely right! Here is a shorter version of the article (hint: is still the same lenght and has all the tells) .... But seriously, is one thing on blogpost and articles but I'm starting to hear it in podcast and videos too, pay attention the speech sounds unnatural:

“Here’s what actually matters.” “Let’s break it down.” “The key takeaway is…” “The bottom line is…” “What this really means is…”

Also hearing this a lot:

“Here’s what nobody is talking about.” “Here’s the part people miss.” “What most people don’t realize is…”

allanmacgregor··on Iran's attacks on Amazon data centers in UAE, Bahrain signal a new kind of war
You confused AWS with Amazon distribution and warehouses, and you are doubling down ? Likely or not, much of the world's infrastructure runs on or through AWS data centers. Attacks like this can cause significant disruption.
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