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marktolson

203 karma · joined November 26, 2013

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marktolson··on Sonnet 5.5
It's an easy way to compare the coding and creative strengths of models. I prefer them over reading a tabular comparison of benchmarks which you have no real insights into.
marktolson··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)
https://runnit.io - work / project management and automation for creative teams
marktolson··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)
https://runnit.io - creative team work/project management system
marktolson··on Need feedback: My first SaaS as a solo-founder to help brands boost visibility
Looks cool but I just ran the results url through gpt and asked it to create a plan for better optimisation. What would the point of the upsell be?
marktolson··on We spent months building AI agents. Then we deleted them
True, but resetting context to avoid bias doesn't require different agent personas with limited scope, it requires refreshing the context which can be done with a single agent.
marktolson··on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)
https://runnit.io - automated work management and ops for creative teams
marktolson··on Show HN: Ghost Pepper – Local hold-to-talk speech-to-text for macOS
I got it to transcribe this: "Create tests and ensure all tests pass" and instead of transcribing exactly what I said it outputs nonsense around "I am a large language model and I cannot create and execute tests".

Other than that issue I like it.

marktolson··on OpenScreen is an open-source alternative to Screen Studio
Genuinely impressed with this! Thank you!
marktolson··on SQL Studio
Crashes on Mac trying to open up a fairly small workspace (max 97,000 rows).
marktolson··on GPT-5.2-Codex
Looks good but there is no way I'm installing powershell as a dependency.
marktolson··on N8n raises $180M
I represent one of those stars. N8N is an amazing system. I use it daily and have seen incredible progress made consistently over the past few years. Currently my team use it for processing millions of workflows each year on a very small server and it hasn't cost us a cent so I would give them more than 1 star if I could. I wouldn't build a new system without it to be honest.
marktolson··on Show HN: Pooshit – Sync local code to remote Docker containers
Not sure if you read the description but I clearly stated that I wanted no middleman, so I'm not sure how this solves my use case. Also not sure how it requires the same amount of time, and 'manual intervention every time'? You provision a remote server, install docker then update the local config file and it's done. One line deployments everytime. And why would I update the code inside the container when you need a build process to install dependencies? If you want to update code while the app is running then restart, then docker is not the right solution.

Additionally there are a million different and better ways to deploy services, this suits the use case I described.

marktolson··on Show HN: Pooshit – Sync local code to remote Docker containers
Better off trying to get it brownlit.
marktolson··on Show HN: Pooshit – Sync local code to remote Docker containers
It's not based on k8s, it's just pushing your local app to a server and spinning up a conainer with one CLI call.
marktolson··on Show HN: Pooshit – Sync local code to remote Docker containers
Here is my main use case. I have lightweight services that I need to update and deploy regularly (until I movee to K8s or a proper production env). Using pooshit, I can push my entire local dev folder to a remote server then destroy the old image, rebuild the new image and spin up a new container with one call. Your config file contains your remote config. You need nothing in between you and your remote server and it only relies on SSH and docker, nothing else, no middleman, repos, and no deployment containers running on your VM.
marktolson··on Show HN: Pooshit – Sync local code to remote Docker containers
Probably pretty similar except you get to just write "pooshit" instead.
marktolson··on Show HN: Pooshit – Sync local code to remote Docker containers
Yes.
marktolson··on Show HN: Pooshit – Sync local code to remote Docker containers
Because I don't want to do this: https://mutagen.io/documentation/introduction/getting-starte...
marktolson··on Pooshit – sync local code to remote Docker containers
Pronounced Push-It....

I'm a lazy developer for the most part, so this is for people like me. Sometimes I just want my local code running in live remote containers quickly, without building images and syncing to cloud docker repos or setting up git workflows or any of the other draining ways to get your code running remotely.

With pooshit (and a simple config file), you can simply push your local dev files to a remote folder on a VM then automatically remove relevant running containers, then build and run an updated container with one command line call.

It works well with reverse proxies like nginx or caddy as you can specify the docker run arguments in the pooshit_config files.

marktolson··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2025)
Oh man please make this open source! I'd love to host it in a container.
marktolson··on Sail-Trim Simulator
I like the idea but I don't get this at all. Shouldn't the speed change based on the mainsail trim relative to the heading? I pointed the boat dead downwind, eased the mainsail all the way out and the speed is 0 kn. I can't even see the value for the trim, just speed, but you get speed from correctly trimmed sails.
marktolson··on CSS Hell
I thought the site was broken for the exact same reason. Instead of being a troubleshooting / practice type test it's more of a puzzle that I do not care to solve.
marktolson··on My son (9 yrs old) used plain JavaScript to make a game, and wants your feedback
I love it! I'm going to show this to my 6 yo tonight. I know for a fact she'll enjoy it.
marktolson··on Launch HN: Soundry AI (YC W24) – Music sample generator for music creators
Looks good but having to download, then sign up just to see the pricing is infuriating.
marktolson··on Plane got to top spot in project management on GitHub in less than a year
https://docs.plane.so/self-hosting/self-hosting
marktolson··on Essential AI
This has got to be the easiest money ever made. Even the companies that joined in on the 2018/2021 crypto hype train had to write whitepapers. Not only do these guys not have a product, they don't even have a clear mission or a legit looking website. Yet somehow, they have tons of funding!?
marktolson··on Essential AI
Who promised that AI could/would solve climate change or cancer? The focus at the moment is on the enterprise because that's where its current capabilities are useful.
marktolson··on Ask HN: Is anyone using cloud dev environments (e.g. Codespaces/Replit) at work?
Kind of, I used to run code server but you miss out on plug-ins and other custom settings. Connecting via SSH is seamless. You can copy from local -> remote, keep your plug-ins and access from any machine with VS Code.
marktolson··on Ask HN: Is anyone using cloud dev environments (e.g. Codespaces/Replit) at work?
We use remote dev VMs with VS Code connected via SSH. It works a treat for a small team working on microservices. You can work from any machine while everyone has their own user account. Sharing code is a breeze. It's easy to test APIs in development (no http tunneling). Deploying to a local (on the VM) docker host for longer running services in test works well and it's super cheap to run.
marktolson··on Replit AI for All
Just tested this. Pretty terrible compared to copilot. It's almost as if the context of the function isn't accounted for but makes suggestions based on the current or previous line. I'm assuming replit must be used mostly for educational purposes as I can't understand why any developer would use a sub-par IDE / environment for production services. If that assumption is correct then surely a terrible AI assistant would be counter productive for learning purposes.
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