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billbrownon I switched to Brave

WebKit-based is probably the next best alternative. I switched to Orion from Brave and have _mostly_ been pleased with it. (I do miss the Chrome DevTools but eventually I'll get used to these.)

https://orionbrowser.com/

billbrownon Hister: A private search engine for the pages you visit and the files you keep

It does that already. https://hister.org/docs/import#importing-from-linkwarden

billbrownon Tim Curry has died

For me, his best work was Muppet Treasure Island. I'm glad I watched this BTS video with him: I had no idea he had a stroke in 2012 and hasn't acted since.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzU8f4HaQw0

billbrownon Claude: System Prompts

I suspect it's related to EU-required watermarking:

> Having said that, in areas where there is an arbitrary choice between particular words or terms within the code, the watermark can be used, such as comments within code. But by definition, it will have a negligible effect on the actual code produced. [1]

I've found that you can reduce the prolixity before (or afterwards) by asking it to use ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English or ISO 24495-1 after deciding whether a particular comment is worthwhile. (I've since included a standard for "worthwhile" because the clanker doesn't have a good bead on _that_ matter.)

[1] https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-text-watermark

billbrownon Why does Opus 5 feel worse to work with?

You could create an output style to make this prevalent.

billbrownon Should you wash your solar panels?

Dust can reduce capacity by 40% in the desert.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40807-017-0043-y

billbrownon Agnes Callard’s theory of the uni-context

I wish philosophers—everyone, really—would provide a definition of their neologisms. I'd prefer a succinct, Aristotlian one but I'll settle for anything approximating it.

This is probably the best source, but it's completely unavailable online:

https://www.reed.edu/events/?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26even...

billbrownon Alan Greenspan has died

The guy who called the Federal Reserve the "penny in the fuse box" of the economy was not an "Ayn Rand disciple" by the time he took the chairmanship. Power as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under Ford really transformed him and I think severed the tenuous hold he had on her principles.

billbrownon I'm Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" and new book "Incorruptible" – AMA

I didn't see that anyone had done it (and I think the commentary has died down entirely) but here's an Artifact that extracts Ries' responses plus the original question into a table:

https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/0f204165-e363-4553-a4ce-4...

billbrownon The AirPods Effect

100% this. People used to read newspapers and books on mas transit and Walkmans have been with us since the early 80s.

I think it comes down to people not _wanting_ to interact with anyone outside of their circle. I pull out my earbuds _constantly_ when I'm out in order to greet people, interact with retail staff, and hear things around me.

billbrownon From Chesterton's fence to Chesterton's gap

It's normally been called a "white elephant" but this framing is a perfect completion to Torvalds' previously-two-part troika.

Thank you for sharing it!

billbrownon Apple reveals new AI architecture built around Google Gemini models

I thought this seemed significant at the time: https://github.com/ml-explore/mlx/pull/1983

billbrownon Private equity bought America's essential services

And it blames the sidelining of more than half of LA's fire trucks at production delays for new fire trucks? Well, I say "blames" generously—what it really does is "insinuates" since it never connects the consolidation back to the original charge.

Moreover, one company having control of 44% of the market would suggest that there might still be other options available.

What trash.

billbrownon Bttf is a command line datetime Swiss army knife

Everyone talking about "biff" should be aware that it's actually "bttf" like "back to the future"

billbrownon College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos

There was an effort to disinvite him as soon as it was announced that he was the speaker.[1] And then when that failed, activists passed out flyers encouraging students to boo Schmidt during his speech.[2] This all took place before he set foot on campus because of alleged sexual harassment.

This wasn't about what everyone wants it to be about.

[1] https://tucson.com/news/local/education/college/article_078e...

[2] https://tucson.com/news/local/education/college/article_ab7e...

billbrownon I Spent My Sabbatical Building a Power Meter for Sledgehammers

Have you met shovelglove?

https://shovelglove.com

billbrownon AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

I've told everyone I hire that "I hired you for your mind so always use it." Push back on requirements, question my decisions, think about your approaches.

I can''t imagine telling them now to stop—use the Ersatz Intelligence instead of Actual Intelligence.

billbrownon AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

I use it both ways:

1) Day job 2) Side project

It would be unprofessional to treat the first like the second.

billbrownon AI should elevate your thinking, not replace it

AI is Augmenting (Actual) Intelligence.

billbrownon After outages, Amazon to make senior engineers sign off on AI-assisted changes

Yes, underthinking is rampant. Glancing at "AI" output is not reviewing code: you have to grok it (in the Heinlein sense) in order to treat it as your own.

billbrownon Show HN: A native macOS client for Hacker News, built with SwiftUI

One thing that I _love_ with the browser is this extension:

https://github.com/timkuijsten/BoundedBikeshed

It lets me see the top-level comments with some indication of the thread depth. Totally changed my post scanning.

billbrownon Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

Check out Wonderfalls, his first series.

billbrownon Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

And Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies, two of my favorite shows ever.

billbrownon Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

If you like Lee Pace, watch Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies.

billbrownon Halt and Catch Fire: TV’s best drama you’ve probably never heard of (2021)

Dig up Wonderfalls, his first series, and Pushing Daisies. They form the Lee Pace Triumvirate (with Halt and Catch Fire) as far as I'm concerned.