Hacker News Reader

bigwheelson Grief and the AI split

I was still skeptical at the start of this year, but there seems to be a shift underway. Found the StrongDM Dark Factory docs in Feb and they've netted novel results that have been inspiring enough to keep studying and practicing.

https://factory.strongdm.ai/techniques

https://factory.strongdm.ai/products/attractor

If you've found better or ancillary resources, please share.

bigwheelson An old photo of a large BBS

Would these machines have been networked with CAT-3? Daisy chained phone cords?

bigwheelson Kotlin creator's new language: talk to LLMs in specs, not English

LLMs are not deterministic:

1.) There is typically a temperature setting (even when not exposed, most major providers have stopped exposing it [esp in the TUIs]).

2.) Then, even with the temperature set to 0, it will be almost deterministic but you'll still observe small variations due to the limited precision of float numbers.

Edit: thanks for the corrections

bigwheelson Atlassian to cut roughly 1,600 jobs in pivot to AI

It went cloud-only and Atlassian discontinued the self-hosted version of Bitbucket. Not strictly neglect, likely just a business decision, but even still the cloud version of bitbucket remains a subpar UX.

bigwheelson AI should not replace people at Atlassian, says CEO

Also:

An important update on our team https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47342835 - Yesterday, 18 comments

bigwheelson An important update on our team

At least the stock went up two bucks after the announcement, $75 -> $77:

https://www.google.com/search?q=atlassian+stock&rlz=1C5GCEM_...

Way to go, $TEAM.

bigwheelson Levels of Agentic Engineering

Levels 7 and 8 sounds a lot like the StrongDM AI Dark Software Factory published last month:

https://factory.strongdm.ai/techniques

Techniques covered in-depth + Attractor open source implementations:

https://factory.strongdm.ai/products/attractor#community

https://github.com/search?q=strongdm+attractor&type=reposito...

https://github.com/strongdm/attractor/forks

I'm continuing to study and refine my approach to leverage all this.

bigwheelson OpenAI Symphony

It's been a month since they unveiled The Attractor and already there are hundreds of open source implementations:

https://factory.strongdm.ai/products/attractor#community

https://github.com/search?q=strongdm+attractor&type=reposito...

https://github.com/strongdm/attractor/forks

bigwheelson An interactive map of Flock Cams

When your car gets stolen, suddenly nobody can access the data.

Are there any coordinated efforts for widespread scrubbing or removal of these parasitic devices?

bigwheelson Don't become an engineering manager

It's an artifact of humans being obsessed with hierarchy and pecking order.

Overall rather petty and boring.

bigwheelson Attyx – tiny and fast GPU-accelerated terminal emulator written in Zig

> What is the benefit of GPU acceleration?

Yes, I'm also not clear on what is different between this and a PTY.

bigwheelson Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs

A related past submission comes to mind:

Show HN: Using stylometry to find HN users with alternate accounts

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33755016 - Nov 2022, 519 comments

bigwheelson Anthropic acquires Vercept_AI to advance Claude's computer use capabilities

https://xcancel.com/AnthropicAI/status/2026705792033026465

bigwheelson New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

The only practical purpose I can think of for farming karma on HN with an LLM would be to amass an army of medium-low karma accounts over time and use the botnet for targeted astroturfing or other mass-manipulation. Eek.

bigwheelson GPT-5.3-Codex is now available for all developers

Confirmed, gpt-5.3-codex is now available on the API.

bigwheelson Samsung Upcycle Promise

Even good PR is an investment in the brand which can be profitable.

The real problem is the shortsightedness, where the top dogs only care about money coming in the next 3-12 months. Even this is more a reflection of the system that consistently produces companies which operate this way. Which is a reflection of..

bigwheelson OpenAI has deleted the word 'safely' from its mission

The 2024 shift which nixed "unconstrained by a need to generate financial return" was really telling. Once you abandon that tenet, what's left?

bigwheelson Software design is now cheap

This seems like an uncharitable take. Personally I would refrain from putting a 20 year barrier around the qualification, that seems a little harsh.

TFA's take makes sense in a certain context. Getting a high-quality design which is flexible in desirable ways is now easier than ever. As the human asking an LLM for the design, maybe you shouldn't be claiming to have "designed" it, though.

bigwheelson I Built a Browser Flight Simulator Using Three.js and CesiumJS

https://flight.tarmizi.id/

bigwheelson Waymo exec reveals company uses remote workers in the Philippines

The fleet of human operators manage many details of Waymo rides.

* Interpreting traffic laws

* Managing construction

* Navigating unusual intersections

* Re-routing due to traffic or other unusual conditions

* Safety threshold intervene

bigwheelson Show HN: Clawe – open-source Trello for agent teams

If you email the mods, they'll likely update it for you after the freeze.

bigwheelson The shadowy world of abandoned oil tankers

Reminds me of the Shipbreakers article from 3 years ago:

https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/the-toxic-tide-of-sh...

The toxic tide of ship breaking https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34905496 - 30 comments

Unforgettable.

bigwheelson CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook

Thanks! Expanded:

Spotlighting the World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891794 - 126 comments, Feb 2026

bigwheelson The Codex app illustrates the shift left of IDEs and coding GUIs

Why do the illustrations bear such a strong resemblance to those in the Gas Town article?

https://steve-yegge.medium.com/welcome-to-gas-town-4f25ee16d...

Is it a nano banana tendency or was it probably intentional?

bigwheelson French streamer unbanked by Qonto after criticizing Palantir and Peter Thiel

Since it's in French, here's the translation:

> They are lying to you. They keep repeating that "it's your money". It's false. It’s only a temporary access right that the system can take away from you with one click.

> I dared to criticize Palantir. A few days later, @getqonto deactivated my card, closed my account and blocked my funds. Without a word. I was erased, and I don’t believe in coincidences.

> When a "French unicorn" is funded by Peter Thiel’s millions, freedom of speech becomes a risk. Who really holds the switch to your life?

bigwheelson Lessons learned shipping 500 units of my first hardware product

I'm curious about the final financial outcome: after all the rework, mistakes, and learning costs, did the project end up net positive, or was it ultimately a loss?

bigwheelson Sandboxing AI Agents in Linux

I use Leash [1] [2] for sandboxing my agents (to great effect!). I've been very happy with it, it provides strict policy-level control for all process-level + network-level activity, as well as full visibility and dynamic runtime controls via WebUI. Way better than bubblewrap imo.

I originally saw it here on HN and have been hooked ever since.

[1] Screenshot: https://camo.githubusercontent.com/99b9e199ffb820c27c4e977f2...

[2] https://github.com/strongdm/leash

Fun fact: Do you know what container / sandboxing system is in most widespread use? Not docker containers, certainly not bubblewrap, and not even full VMs or firecracker. It's Chrome tabs.

bigwheelson Carnegie Mellon Unversity Computer Club FTP Server

Yes you could, but ftp:// links still won't be clickable, which kills the discovery aspect. :: sadblob ::

bigwheelson Carnegie Mellon Unversity Computer Club FTP Server

It's a shame browser makers removed FTP:// browsing support.

FTP was a lot more fun than the homogeneous blob of HTTP we have today. I only discovered FTP transparently via web browsing and clicking around as a kid.

bigwheelson xAI joins SpaceX

Sir, your comment appears to qualify as "moving the goal post". TSLA never delivered a single inexpensive electric vehicle, and just last week abandoned all high-end efforts (S/X/CT discontinued). All TSLA manufactures now are overpriced "meh" transport boxes. Yes, TSLA was early, and now they are far, far behind the competition.

Can we evaluate based on the stated goals, or why does the criteria keep shifting?