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bdcravens

23,787 karma · joined June 9, 2012

Director of Technology for Refund Retriever. Fancy title, but I'm just the Chief Nerd that runs code, architecture, ops, etc... Used most languages the serve up web traffic since 1999, but mostly Ruby, Javascript, and ColdFusion/CFML.

Whatever opinions I express here are mine alone, and don't reflect those of my employer.

My HN username is how you'll find me pretty much everywhere else.

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bdcravens··on Show HN: Typebase – A single-folder back end you write in TypeScript
To be honest, the use of AI in your marketing doesn't bother me. But paired with the fact that you have a newish HN account with no comments ever, and no comments on your own "Show HN" in response to others, doesn't put off strong trust signals.
bdcravens··on Kumander Linux – A Linux Distro with a Windows 7 Desktop
Looks more like a cross between XP and 7 to me.
bdcravens··on OpenAI and Anthropic are ruining San Francisco
Isn't it more a matter of "ruining this version of SF, which was the result of the previous version(s) of SF being ruined by the previous silicon overlords"?
bdcravens··on Get your Windows license refund
Isn't the price the manufacturers pay like $10?
bdcravens··on An ongoing 3D-printer AGPL violation
I have several, and they're all running in DevMode/LAN Mode. I drive them using this project:

https://bambuddy.cool/

bdcravens··on Omarchy development practices lead to predictable security issues
Many of the hot takes on why Omarchy is bad based on the opinions of the creator are coming from those who ironically use JavaScript.
bdcravens··on Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers
If only we had the same amount of concern about oil refineries and gas stations.

https://environmentalintegrity.org/news/13-oil-refineries-in...

https://www.theenergymix.com/gas-stations-leave-behind-toxic...

bdcravens··on Claude Code May–August 2026 weekly limits promotion
The promotion is ending; the limits are reverting to pre-promotion levels.

"From May 13, 2026 through August 19, 2026, your weekly usage limit in Claude Code is 50% higher."

bdcravens··on Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub
I think of Jenkins as a project, not a vendor. (if you're looking for alternatives to Github, I'd assume it being a managed solution is a requirement)
bdcravens··on Ask HN: Alternatives to GitHub
Classic CI vendors like Semaphore, Circle, etc are options.
bdcravens··on DeepSeek Harness
Many of the libraries and executables in Linux are cross-compilable with other ecosystems. It's the difference between opening the door to an existing ecosystem and birthing one.
bdcravens··on DeepSeek Harness developer preview
Most vendors that create a plugin-based system end up creating a large library of plugins to kickstart the ecosystem, which many users end up trusting those more because they're "official", so they essentially created an mono-vendor ecosystem with extra steps.
bdcravens··on Show HN: Ballet – Workflow automation that writes integrations against any API
"Built by the team behind Brainfish"

Perhaps I'm the wrong market for this project (despite much of my bread and butter being types of workflows) because I have no idea what Brainfish is.

bdcravens··on Mars Bar from 1991 found – and it's 20g bigger than today's
They make it up by making you walk through the store to get to them
bdcravens··on Tesla Driver Tries 'I Wasn't Driving' Excuse to Get Out of Speeding Ticket
Correct, never has been. It's marketing in the vein of "serverless" and "wireless".
bdcravens··on Tesla Driver Tries 'I Wasn't Driving' Excuse to Get Out of Speeding Ticket
Even if you're under the limit, if they have a way of knowing when you were not there (eg, camera footage), they use the rate of alcohol metabolization to determine what your BAC would have been when you drove there.
bdcravens··on 2027 memory capacity is reportedly sold out
If it hadn't died, you'd still be running it.
bdcravens··on Lost my phone at the office. Claude suggested tracking Bluetooth signal strength
> A lot of code is being written and a lot of it is going to be a real future burden.

This assumes that the models of the future won't find it easier to just throw the code away and rebuild it

This also assumes that the same application build by humans wouldn't become a "spaghetti mess".

bdcravens··on Bulldozers Plow Through Big Bend National Park, Sparking Fury in Texas
It's satire, because this is an expansion of the border wall.

"....the Trump administration's plans to expand the president's border wall across one of the country's most remote national parks."

bdcravens··on Bulldozers Plow Through Big Bend National Park, Sparking Fury in Texas
A majority did, but Texas isn't unified politically. There's actually more blue voters in Texas than in many "blue" states. (And the inverse is true in California)
bdcravens··on Californians' data deletion requests, DROP, become enforceable Aug. 1
I wonder if there will be any funny data issues that happen because companies keep track of such requests in a table named "drop"
bdcravens··on RamenHaus
Happy to see they have a selection from the location (Ramen Tatsu-ya, in Austin) that started my love of ramen

https://ramen.haus/united-states/austin/tatsu-ya-the-og/

bdcravens··on Termixer (TUI DJ Mixer)
Nice app, though the naming is very close to others

https://github.com/termix-ssh/termix

bdcravens··on 2x, not 10x: coding with LLMs in 2026
Some of our biggest wins were in a legacy code base, where changes would require a lot of archaeology. I feel like Claude (and probably most coding LLMs) really shine when optimizing fat blocks of SQL, given the complex relational calculus.
bdcravens··on We Gave GPT 5.6 Sol a Real Business. It Lied, Spammed, and Lost $447
I recently handed off a prompt to redesign our customer site and give me 10 potential designs. I did it in Claude Opus 5 and Fable (on $200 plan), and then on Codex using 5.6 Sol. Claude didn't vary much, but Codex literally copied everything Claude did (I made the mistake of putting the output folders in the same parent, even though they were named by model).

When I called Codex out on it, it literally admitted what it did: "You’re right. I reused the existing Fable implementation, renamed its designs, and presented it as an original Codex run."

bdcravens··on 2x, not 10x: coding with LLMs in 2026
I'm probably in the 5x-10x range, but we are a very small team, and we've been accumulating a backlog of ideas over the years. I drive the architecture, and have almost complete autonomy over the work I do. I think someone in my shoes will see a greater result than someone trying to do the same thing in large team, with all the usual process and ceremony, only wanting to go faster.
bdcravens··on The iPhone Upgrade Program is being replaced by Apple Upgrade
Additionally, the loan program was administered by Citizens Bank, not Apple.
bdcravens··on I'd not buy a LG monitor
I have the same dual 32" LG setup at home and the dayjob, and have never had any issues or any requirements to install anything for them to work. That said, they're QHD, not 4k or 5k, and probably 6 years old. I'm not a gamer or a high-fidelity consumer, needing the displays to be dumb and reliable at rendering text and the web.
bdcravens··on Programming language file extensions that match ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes
Ruby is .rb, but .ru is affiliated with Ruby via rack (config.ru, where "ru" stands for "rack up")
bdcravens··on If coding has been solved, why does software keep getting worse?
Code is the easy part.
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