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ebiester

7,541 karma · joined September 14, 2009

Blog: www.ebiester.com Email: hnchat@ebiester.com
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ebiester··on What I did at Recurse Center
From what I see, this is more of a sabbatical time to just explore and enjoy programming without needing a productive end. I've been considering it myself.
ebiester··on First Principles Thinking
Thinking is great. I am arguing that “first principles “ is one tool - and it may not deserve the primacy that its advocates propose.
ebiester··on Excel now supports multiple values in a single cell
You underestimate the task by multiple orders of magnitude. It would be a significant effort even to build it on libreoffice.
ebiester··on First Principles Thinking
I think I need to write a full blog post on this.

While I think there are better introductions to "first principles thinking" than this post, the idea of "...When I step back and ask what we’re actually trying to do, why it matters, and how the pieces connect, I usually find more ways forward than I expected."

That's an important skill to have.

However, I think sometimes we overvalue thinking from first principles when it isn't warranted. I've seen times in my career where first principles thinking led to a solution that ignored key non-technical constraints. (For example, it would require a full re-architecture of the system and require deferring all feature work for a year. Another example: the proposed solution breaks Conways law in a way that would require a reorg that would break other organizational constraints.)

Sometimes, we need to recognize our constraints. Spend the time to question them when appropriate, but realize that there are other tools that are more appropriate in some cases -- such as anthropological thinking.

ebiester··on Oracle cites 'force majeure' to shield itself on controversial data center
Zipcar started in 2000/2001 on Oracle and relied heavily on stored procedures, particularly in billing (as SaaS didn't exist back when it started and was a bad fit for a long time). It took an entire rewrite of the system to get off of Oracle.
ebiester··on We've followed their lives for six decades; now the stars of 7 Up are bowing out
I don't know about it being pretty nice - I just think of Nasubi and what happened to him on Susunu! Denpa Shōnen.
ebiester··on Cloud in a Bottle: making self-hosting accessible to everyone
Or, alternatively, I was a lot more willing to put in the time to self host before I had more money and less time. If it's truly important it's not in public. If it's public, I don't have time to keep up with security patches if I'm not being paid.
ebiester··on GPT-6 Astra on OpenRouter
For those on plus, are you seeing astra limited to medium? Considering the rate limits that probably makes sense, but I'm wondering what different groups have access to.
ebiester··on No country for mediocre mathematicians
Consider that if this was ran from your machine - it would have all of your memories and might be relying on the past 2 months. I'd be curious what would happen if it was run independently.

(I am assuming they didn't train on your prompts, which is always a worry)

ebiester··on Debian votes to allow "responsible use of generative AI"
This isn't talking about bespoke software, though. This is talking about upstreaming contributions to others. This puts a low barrier to create work and a lot more work for unpaid volunteers.
ebiester··on Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal
They're also fantastic for small measures for baking and cooking when it matters.
ebiester··on Small Models Have Arrived
It depends on what you're trying to do. For non-coding tasks luna is quite often enough. Flash models are more than enough for summarizing a text, for example, or whipping up a small script to save me fifteen minutes. If you're on a 200/month plan, I see your point. If you're on a dollar limit - or worse, paying per token out of your pocket - you look to be more efficient.
ebiester··on Abdominal fat predicts heart disease risk better than BMI
Mark Stache ( https://youtu.be/L-gNdQZorEE?si=nkwAhZOiAFtY2f44 ) just did a 90 day evaluation. The biggest problem at the level they mention is some intense flatulence. He is also in good shape and had mixed results compared to the study.
ebiester··on The UK's war on anonymity has come to America
And what stops children from reinstalling their OS? I know many kids can do it at 11 or 12. Or are you requiring BIOS lock? Are there restrictions on hardware to enable this?
ebiester··on The AI Billboards Are Killing SF
I remember seeing an advertising exec talk about spending more money in the area the execs lived so they felt the impact of the advertising, regardless of how effective the spend actually was. This is likely more of the same - making the investors and C-Suite get warm fuzzies.
ebiester··on How the words we teach English language learners changed
I don't think my communication became more precise. Language is imprecise and in these cases (ESL), you are also limiting your vocabulary. (Especially when I moved outside the US - while I was around very educated people who studied for the GRE, learning a word is not the same as digesting all connotations.

So in social communication, you aren't getting more precise -- in many cases, you're getting less precise and taking more words to handle that. Consider the idiom "shit or get off the pot." You can say that "Make a decision" is less precise. "Do it or don't" is also an idiom but doesn't express the frustration that the vulgarity does. "I am frustrated and need you to either take action or shut up" is more direct and possibly more offensive because it takes formality.

And then there's the prefix of "Sometimes you need to" that turns it from a command to advice. "Sometimes you need to either take action or stop complaining" sounds like the emphasis is on "you" instead of the predicate as if it's a critique of the person, whereas the idiom gives more of a proverb connotation.

The problem is that language carries many layers and "more precise" is a goal in technical communication but neglects the other layers.

ebiester··on How the words we teach English language learners changed
When I started dating someone whose second language was English, I found that the idioms were a giant hurdle. We really do speak in idioms and metaphors and this makes it very difficult for people who understand the words but not the cultural context. While my (now spouse) adapted, I also adapted by learning how to speak far more literally, especially around people of mixed levels of English.

I don't think there is a fear of being imprecise. If anything, it is a fear of speaking plainly as boring.

ebiester··on Authorize, don't authenticate
1. How do you get around performance issues? If I have a difficult join and you have a slow database, or you have a flaky connection, how can I debug the problem on my end?

2. What stops me (or any attacker) from exploiting your lack of security? Are you 100% sure you are secure?

3. You mention collaboration - How does this work at a company level if we have many users and need to control access - the company is the entity with rights to the data in this case.

ebiester··on New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study
We don't need an expert even - pre-clinical is a far ways off even if successful.

This is in the "interesting advancement" stage, not "promising treatment."

ebiester··on New HIV vaccine shows unprecedented success in preclinical study
The people who would "let their guard down" did long before this news. (Or Prep, for that matter.)
ebiester··on Exercise works for depression. So why isn't it treated like real medicine?
More importantly - the cost of the medical assistance to help someone get out of the house and physically train is much more expensive than a drug.

If you want to prescribe exercise for someone with this level of depression, you need to prescribe someone to remove the barriers to exercise.

ebiester··on FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers
It's fairly rare - like when 1984 was deleted from amazon when the seller didn't have the rights (and customer was refunded), but https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/oct/22/amazon-wipes-c... shows an example where someone's account was deleted and they lost all licenses of books they bought.
ebiester··on Reynard: A real Firefox web browser for iOS 13 or later
Or, perhaps, apple users are rational actors that have different weights to their tradeoffs than you.

The last time I checked Android, the security and privacy story was much worse than Apple. Further, it's not just me who has to make the change - it's the family I share photos and videos and other things.

Yes, I would prefer to have other App Store options, but it is balanced against other issues. (And yes, I have owned an Android phone before - every time I buy a new phone I compare the two again.)

ebiester··on Show HN: Ant – A JavaScript runtime and ecosystem
I thought I was the only person who remembered Apache Ant... I know we're running out of names but that was a really influential piece of infrastructure.
ebiester··on Write code like a human will maintain it
You should do an experiment of splitting that up to multiple reviews that are logically together. My hypothesis is that you may be losing signal due to the amount of text expected back.
ebiester··on Stealing Is a Skill
https://kunekuneyokai.home.blog/2019/01/18/virgil-abloh-stea... from a quick look.
ebiester··on System Card: Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 [pdf]
I mean, if by right you mean "insiders leaked to make a few bucks..." sure?
ebiester··on WWDC 2026: Apple is Folding
Or, alternatively, they feel like they finally cracked the code and think they can do it better. That's when Apple finally enters a market.

Consider how much money they put in to building a car to cancel it when they decided they couldn't, in fact, do it better. I'm sure there are hundreds - maybe thousands - of failed prototypes along the way.

ebiester··on S&P 500 rejects SpaceX, also blocking entry for OpenAI and Anthropic
If it’s like other things, the auditors of Anthropic will have a contract with OpenAI and vice versa.
ebiester··on Private Equity Bought America's Essential Services
It's the concern for the community who pays in higher prices, and the employees in their job stability.

Has everyone forgotten the social contract? We do not exist as communities to make a small number of people richer. If the trade doesn't work for all involved, we change the rules.

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