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gryfft

1,168 karma · joined April 23, 2016

Opinions are my own. Everything I say comes from my fallible human neurons, modulo catastrophic failures of autocorrect.
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gryfft··on Become Worthless (To Tech Companies)
The underlying philosophy really speaks to me. I try never to sign up for anything if I possibly can.
gryfft··on Sharded matrices and how to multiply them
[2025]
gryfft··on [dead]
Anything further to add?
gryfft··on Show HN: What if the speed of light was 5 km/h?
It would be nice to add controls for mobile.
gryfft··on Macbeth and His Problems
Not a joke, I think. Thespians are a superstitious bunch and the Scottish play at this point is virtually a self-fulfilling prophecy of disastrous productions.
gryfft··on De-Brainrot Vacations
This is something I've felt very deeply intuitively. (It's also something that it feels like my life actively optimizes against to prevent me being able to do it.)
gryfft··on GPT-6 Astra on robot arms
An automated service station could be quite compact; it wouldn't need plumbing, lighting, human-comfortable climate control. Parts can be modular, and when a station gets low on spare parts, a self-driving truck could come by to pick up damaged parts and drop off replacements.

We're not there yet, but I think we're a lot closer than most people realize.

gryfft··on Ask HN: Looking for a sci-fi short story posted here
Lucky day for me then! Thanks for the recommendation!

Edit: Enjoyed and reshared, good rec

gryfft··on Ask HN: Looking for a sci-fi short story posted here
I haven't heard of this one specifically but the themes remind me of Lena [0] and SOMA [1].

0. https://qntm.org/mmacevedo

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_(video_game)

gryfft··on US diesel prices hit a record high of $5.85 on average
If it's more efficient, is that not an arbitrage opportunity?
gryfft··on How accurate have Ed Zitron's AI skeptic predictions been?
I believe the saying goes:

  Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
gryfft··on TurboKV: Insanely fast Rust key-value store
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishmen...
gryfft··on How much of HN is AI?
It's like blasting white noise at max volume. I wonder if all communication will eventually be rendered into a homogenous thrumming hiss.
gryfft··on Ask HN: How do I get Fable to acknowledge me?
Use the /btw feature. If you talk while it's thinking, it takes what your say as steering, not as the next rung in the conversation. You can also hit escape to make it stop and acknowledge you.
gryfft··on Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
Many people feel that winners should be rewarded and losers should be punished.

Systems thinkers may try to push notions of connectedness in societies, and moralists may try to push notions of universal equality of human dignity, but in the end, both are overwhelmingly outnumbered by tribal thinkers, who wish to harm the outgroup at absolutely any cost.

gryfft··on Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study
I wonder how many people would be on board for a program to make Medicare available for free for households making over $100,000 annually with 1-3 children.

We're talking about families that are provably not lazy or sucking up handouts: taxpaying citizens with beautiful, healthy children. The job creators and professionals driving America, securing their future and their children's future.

If the government were to focus on these first-class citizens, who knows what could be accomplished once the drag is taken off the system of the useless eaters and the welfare queens.

gryfft··on Show HN: Bribes.fyi – Compare bribes statistics department wise
In India*
gryfft··on Coin-sized device can hack a Boeing 737
> the solution would be to respect and pay workers more

Not to worry, they're furiously working on an alternative which will ensure no worker must ever be respected or paid ever again!

gryfft··on The Science Fiction Book Every Systems Architect Should Read [video]
To mitigate the clickbait title:

Doggerland by Ben Smith. Here's a review from 2019. [1]

1. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/25/doggerland-rev...

gryfft··on McDonald's Built a 515-Page Dossier on Me. It Says I'll Never Stop Eating There
I'm definitely glad for this journalism, but find myself a bit surprised that a 515 page dossier's spiciest bit is apparently the metric referenced in the title (likelihood of customer attrition == 0.)
gryfft··on Issue Has Been Resolved
You can add whatever threats you like to your LLM prompts without also posting confusing, out-of-context threads on Hacker News. Threatening models with punishment-- even nonsensical punishment-- has been shown to improve performance.

> If your autocorrect gets too bad, you, too, can threaten to file a congressional report about it and it will be fixed within minutes.

No, making up pretend governmental functions will not improve my phone's autocorrect. My phone's autocorrect is not based on generative pretrained transformers.

gryfft··on Tell HN: Striking a Balance Between Stating Your Requirements and Griefers
I mean this as gently as I can say it.

You either have a grievous misunderstanding of how frontier models work, or are developing the beginnings of schizophrenia.

YOU are the human in the loop. There is no griefing human messing up your LLM chats.

If you have been taking a break from prescribed psychiatric medication, I ask you to please, take your medicine and speak with your doctor.

gryfft··on Issue Has Been Resolved
That is not what Hacker News or common spaces are for. You are polluting a public space with antisocial behavior.
gryfft··on Can blockchain save London's gold trade?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines
gryfft··on Tell HN: Striking a Balance Between Stating Your Requirements and Griefers
OP seems to be drifting between referring to other people and talking about responses from LLMs.

He seems to blame "griefers" for his vibe coded software not coming out the way he wants. He has lots of ad hominem insults for these... People? Perceived gremlins in the machine?

The video didn't explain who he's working on the project with, or what the project is ultimately for. It doesn't address any of your explicit or implicit questions. You are saving yourself time and frustration by not watching it.

Edit: based on earlier submissions by OP, he seems to think that anytime an LLM does not do what he means, it is due to intentional and malicious actions taken by human beings. OP, in all seriousness, please get help.

gryfft··on Issue Has Been Resolved
I'm pleading with you one last time.

Can you explain yourself in a way that someone who hasn't been following along can understand? I realize you aren't talking about the United States Congress; but that means what you're saying is actually meaningless to me. I may as well threaten to report you to the Omniversal Administrator.

Can you please address me as though I am a stranger on the internet who doesn't know what any of your weird posting means, and **give me the missing context?**

gryfft··on Issue Has Been Resolved
What in the world do you mean by "congressional report"?!
gryfft··on Issue Has Been Resolved
I couldn't make head or tail of their comment, submission title, or headline, so I looked for myself. OP is making a custom VNC client and server with Codex and is timing how long it takes.

OP, please rewrite your verbiage to clearly state what you're doing and why we should care.

Don't treat this thread as a place where we should already have all the context for what you've been working on. We don't!

OP, you left the timer running even though you say it's resolved. Write up something yourself. Do NOT use AI to generate your summary.

gryfft··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)
My first question is whether it incorporates any resources from Erowid.
gryfft··on Is it all just vapourware?
It's strange to me that the voices naysaying agentic coding capabilities seem to be getting louder in recent weeks.

I almost wonder if there's a campaign to start suppressing public awareness of where SOTA capabilities really are.

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