HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

jamesrom

1,432 karma · joined December 19, 2010

submissionscomments
jamesrom··on Package Managers need global hooks
safely-bump-deps.sh does not need to do impossibly hard things. It can just call npm: outdated, install --save-exact and/or install --package-lock-only. There's plenty of solutions here.

Pushing this into a hook makes it invisible, implicit, hard to debug, and an entry point for all sorts of undefined behaviours.

jamesrom··on Package Managers need global hooks
This is the opposite of "do one thing and do it well" unix philosophy.

You don't need your package manager to invoke your hook. You need _your_ tooling to invoke your hook.

./safely-bump-deps.sh && npm install

Want it global? Use a bash alias.

jamesrom··on America Lost the Mandate of Heaven
That egotist got you to create an account to post that.
jamesrom··on The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew
A lot of odd takes in the comments.

I think the most correct take is that seeing a the top bun slightly off is more realistic and honest.

Respecting your customers, even in advertising, is appreciated.

jamesrom··on The buns in McDonald's Japan's burger photos are all slightly askew
Mos takes it even further, the top bun is completely off.
jamesrom··on MCP is dead; long live MCP
The problem with MCP isn't MCP. It's the way it's invoked by your agent.

IMO, by default MCP tools should run in forked context. Only a compacted version of the tool response should be returned to the main context. This costs tokens yes, but doesn't blow out your entire context.

If other information is required post-hoc, the full response can be explored on disk.

jamesrom··on MCP is dead; long live MCP
What part of MCP do you think is over-engineered?

This is quite literally the opposite opinion I and many others had when first exploring MCP. It's so _obviously_ simple, which is why it gained traction in the first place.

jamesrom··on Agentic Patterns
This comment defines the next era of software development.
jamesrom··on Cancer is surging, bringing a debate about whether to look for it
> It's significantly more wicked to pretend that tests, treatments, and more aren't done by healthcare workers (yes, even private ones), and to inundate them with unimportant medical procedures while truly sick people are dying.

Strawman+ad hominem. No one is suggesting to pretend _anything_. Charge premiums for these tests based on how "unimportant" they are. Use market forces to move money from those willing to pay, to those who cannot.

jamesrom··on Cancer is surging, bringing a debate about whether to look for it
Then here's an idea: instead of hiding that information, you can explain it to the patient.

You have no authority to treat your patient like a child.

jamesrom··on Cancer is surging, bringing a debate about whether to look for it
> We already have an extreme shortage of available healthcare workers. We don't need to stress them further because 20% of the population suddenly decides they need 80 elective surgeries to remove things that would've gone away or stayed benign on their own.

Strawman. No one is suggesting adding extra stress to healthcare workers. It's also not you or your doctors call to make: let's gatekeep this patients cancer because our hospital can't deal with the workload. What a truly wicked idea.

To help alleviate the extreme shortage of available healthcare workers we should instead allow those wanting to pay for these elective surgeries, to pay for them! Drive money into healthcare, scale up treatments, drive money into research. Let the system work.

Don't just turn off the lights and shut the door.

jamesrom··on The Company Man
If you need a case study on "kill your darlings", read this.
jamesrom··on Notation as a Tool of Thought (1979)
It's easy to think of notation like shell expansions, that all you're doing is replacing expressions with other expressions.

But it goes much deeper than that. Once my professor explained how many great discoveries are often paired with new notation. That new notation signifies "here's a new way to think about this problem". And that many unsolved problems today will give way to powerful notation.

jamesrom··on Show HN: FlakeUI
Kind of cool for a presentation deck. Sorely needs keyboard navigation support though.
jamesrom··on Did missing/corrupt dates in COBOL default to 1875-05-20?
Who said a COBOL system is prone to fraud?

Incomplete and inaccurate data is prone to fraud. Talking about COBOL is missing the point.

jamesrom··on Did missing/corrupt dates in COBOL default to 1875-05-20?
Musk said: “Crazy things like just cursory examination of Social Security and we’ve got people in there that are 150 years old.”

He qualified this claim as a “cursory examination”. It’s clearly a comment about the quality of the data and systems. That this is the kind of thing that would be prone to fraud.

Before you hit downvote, please provide evidence that you didn’t hallucinate Musk’s claims here.

jamesrom··on Microsoft Says Apple's 30% Fee Makes Xbox Cloud Gaming iOS App 'Impossible'
This is a PR maneuver that Microsoft can bring to the table to strike a deal with Apple.

They want everyone to think of the iOS + App Store as just distribution.

They want everyone to think of Xbox Cloud Gaming as a platform for developers.

The reality is the difference between these platforms is not so clear cut.

jamesrom··on Microsoft Says Apple's 30% Fee Makes Xbox Cloud Gaming iOS App 'Impossible'
It's disingenuous in that they are both platforms doing the same thing.

Apple could argue that it's Microsoft's 30% cut that makes it impossible for developers to get their games published on the App Store. That too, would be disingenuous.

But Microsoft are making a PR maneuver that they can bring to the table to strike a deal with apple.

jamesrom··on The History of Machine Learning in Trackmania
I’m not saying render the scene. I’m saying take your measurements from where the camera is (or would be).
jamesrom··on The History of Machine Learning in Trackmania
I’m not saying render the scene. I’m saying take your measurements from where the camera is (or would be).

It would require no extra infra or compute.

jamesrom··on The History of Machine Learning in Trackmania
It never made sense to me why they raycast from the car. Humans don't play this way. The car is an abstraction the model doesn't need to care about it.

It literally doesn't matter if it's 1px or 100 meters to the wall, just learn to not hit it.

Instead, measure from the _camera_. That's all that matters. That's what humans do when we play.

Bonus: with this added perspective you'll be able to drive maps with hills and jumps. Not just flat maps.

jamesrom··on IKEA's retailer's solved global 'unhappy worker' crisis by raising salaries
Doing stuff that makes people happy makes people happy.

In other news, water found to be wet.

jamesrom··on Bank Rescinds a Job Offer Because It Had Cancelled the Candidate's Credit Cards
I wonder why it's being framed the way it is by nytimes...
jamesrom··on The Sam Altman Playbook: Fear, the Denial of Uncertainties, and Hype
>(again without presenting evidence that historically extremely difficult problems are close to being solved)

This tells you everything you need to know about the author. Anyone that has solved difficult problems knows that evidence of being close to a solution is not a thing. In fact, by the time you're close, proving you're close is _harder_ than finishing the solution.

jamesrom··on Harvard Probe Finds Honesty Researcher Engaged in Scientific Misconduct
is*
jamesrom··on Both pilots of an A320 fell asleep in the cockpit for 28 minutes
If other controls are being actively engaged by the pilot, the need for the button press would be delayed only until there's some continuous period of non-engagement.
jamesrom··on A simple dice game shines a bit of light on the psychology of regret
Prediction: no study will be able to replicate these findings.
jamesrom··on WhatsApp forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code
They almost certainly know the exploits being used by Pegasus. It's in their best interest to turn a blind eye.

Bookmark this post.

jamesrom··on WhatsApp forces Pegasus spyware maker to share its secret code
Apple and Google can disable Pegasus whenever they wish.
jamesrom··on Enhancing Factorio with SAT solvers
This is awesome, but balancing belts is usually a fool's errand. It's better to design your base as factories with inputs prioritized with priority splitters.
Page 1 of 15Next →