Hacker News Reader

justinzollarson Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?

Start with a problem. I'm building https://helppet.ai, a voice agent for Veterinarians. I didn't know anything about AI programming other than absolute fundamentals I learned in 2017 through Stanford AI course - this was just theory and a lot has changed. I followed startups doing solving similar problems, and I asked detailed questions to everyone I could. I went to AI hack events to learn techniques others are using. Eventually I ended up with something pretty great and had fun doing so. So start with a problem and then work backwards.

justinzollarson France threatens GrapheneOS with arrests / server seizure for refusing backdoors

Has anyone noticed the whole of the Western World has gone tyrannical paranoid police state?

justinzollarson Brexit reduced UK GDP by 6-8%, investments by 12-18% [pdf]

someone needs a Jump to Conclusions Mat

justinzollarson Death rates rose in hospital ERs after private equity firms took over

Thats not how private equity works.

justinzollarson Historical Tech Tree

Reminds me of the tech tree featured in the game Civilization. Pretty cool stuff

justinzollarson Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)

I support this and am willing to help.

justinzollarson Containerization is a Swift package for running Linux containers on macOS

I'm excited to run Systemd on mac!

justinzollarson VC money is fueling a global boom in worker surveillance tech

The AI could monitor the AI!

justinzollarson California has got good at building giant batteries

Who cares? Electricity is literally the flow of electric charge, typically measured in terms of current (amperes). China has substantial baseload capacity. China adds an America of capacity every 18 months. Batteries connected to the grid, imply shortages. A need to balance supply and demand, manage variability in energy sources. They are also very expensive. So we have net on net, less power, that's unreliable, that's more expensive. Nothing to brag about.

justinzollarson California has got good at building giant batteries

Yes. My energy costs have exploded over the last decade.

justinzollarson OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

We love throwing cash at Jony Ive!

justinzollarson Jules: An Asynchronous Coding Agent

Jules was unable to complete the task in time. Please review the work done so far and provide feedback for Jules to continue.

justinzollarson Era of U.S. dollar may be winding down

Wrong, Its literally defined as a tier one asset by our banking system.

justinzollarson Era of U.S. dollar may be winding down

Gold. Which qualifies as a tier 1 asset in our Banking System.

justinzollarson Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025)

Turns out 2 companies do exactly this thing:

1. https://www.stack-ai.com/ 2. https://www.intercom.com/

pivoting to something else closing down ticketsidekick after a customer brought up stack-ai.

justinzollarson Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025)

Yup we are big fans.

justinzollarson Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025)

https://www.ticketsidekick.com/

I'm working on TicketSidekick having lots of fun with pinecone, chromadb, llms, aws serverless and golang!

TicketSidekick is a smart support agent that manages tech support automatically across the entire incident lifecycle.

justinzollarson A startup doesn't need to be a unicorn

We are currently fundraising - and we consider this a valid path if VCs don't bite. We have customers and no matter what - we are building something valuable. Nice post!

justinzollarson Earth's clouds are shrinking, boosting global warming

if it bleeds it leads.

justinzollarson [dead]

This is a poorly written argument. I found this essay by By Michael Every of Rabobank that explains from a geo-political perspective what is happening. Worth exploring!

"Hoot Small-ly and Reverse Nixon Again"

justinzollarson Dogs may have domesticated themselves because they liked snacks, model suggests

My dog agrees.

justinzollarson U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users' encrypted accounts

The UK is as important as Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe, is probably a bit more relevant to the future. Unplug the UK. No way we should follow this law.

justinzollarson Caltrain's electric fleet more efficient than expected

> With the agency expecting approximately $6 million annually in energy credits from the California Air Resources Board’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard Program the first year of electric service will have lower fuel costs than the previous diesel service

Thats the key. Without the subsidy its more expensive and less efficient than carbon based fuel. In the long run we are worse off, because the subsidy can't last forever.

justinzollarson TikTok goes dark in the US

Yes.

justinzollarson Show HN: My $1k self-install, off-grid solar backup build for renters

This depends on the interest rate. Today there is a huge 30% federal tax credit that would take 1/3 off of any such installation. That said, the tax credit is still not enough to cover the price increases due to inflation and interest cost of financing a system. I spent a large amount of time trying to make this work this year, and it just feels foolish. You'd be buying really expensive energy just for the novelty of saying you have solar.

justinzollarson Geoengineering test launched in Alameda

Geoengineering from a political engineering website: politico.com. We are scientistic.

justinzollarson Launch HN: PointOne (YC W24) – Automated time tracking for lawyers

Yep we worked on in from 2014-2021 when it sold.

justinzollarson Launch HN: PointOne (YC W24) – Automated time tracking for lawyers

We created and sold a company that did this, eventually it was sold to bighand.

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/digitory-legal

justinzollarson Retirement Age vs. Years to Live

True, I wonder how this applies to startups?

justinzollarson Remote Work Is Here to Stay

Not sure about this. Many big tech companies are very productive an generate a lot of income.