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nlawalkeron What is agentic engineering?

I think within the industry and practice there's going to be a renewed philosophical and psychological examination of exactly what accountability is over the next few years, and maybe some moral reckoning about it.

What makes a human a suitable source of accountability and an AI agent an unsuitable one? What is the quantity and quality of value in a "throat to choke", a human soul who is dependent on employment for income and social stature and is motivated to keep things from going wrong by threat of termination?

nlawalkeron Allow me to get to know you, mistakes and all

Same, it's the push that gets the ball rolling down the hill.

>clearly expressing what I mean

I have use for it here too - I use it like a "power thesaurus" when I've got the feeling that the word I have doesn't have quite the right connotation, or to test out different versions of rephrasing something when I feel it could flow better or be clearer but I can't quite get my finger on it. But I don't just take output and paste it, I use it like a pair programmer for writing, where I'm the driver and the AI is the observer.

nlawalkeron Launching the Claude Partner Network

As a consumer of them, I love them: a company with an influential, widely-used technology or platform spends a ton of money signaling to the industry exactly what's important to know about it, creating training curriculum for it, and a whole infrastructure to verify when someone knows it, I'm going to take them up on all of that, especially in the cases where the investment is like $100, a little bit of studying (the likes of which I'd want to do anyway if I'm learning something new, and I'm happy to have their structured, prioritized list of topics and/or guided curriculum) and a couple hours taking an online-proctored exam. From that perspective, I don't have a good reason not to have a certification in something that's super relevant to my role.

In interview/hiring situations where they're not expected or effectively required, they make for great chat fodder and a really good opportunity to exhibit awareness about yourself, the industry, and how the person on the other side of the table might perceive certifications given the context.

nlawalkeron AI writing has a homogeneity problem

With their blessing, right? See https://news.google.com/search?q=grammarly

nlawalkeron AI writing has a homogeneity problem

Suggestion: publish multiple versions of this post with different profiles and their human names applied to it by your product. To be very blunt I'm still not entirely sure if this is meant to be like very self-aware satire for people paying attention, because it very much reads like AI writing.

nlawalkeron Willingness to look stupid

Exactly, when your paycheck depends on you not being stupid, it takes some finesse, you can't just ask the silly questions and drop the mic.

nlawalkeron Grief and the AI split

>I think recognizing which kind of grief you're feeling is the actually useful thing here. If you're mourning the loss of the craft itself—the texture of writing code, the satisfaction of an elegant solution—that's real, and no amount of "just adapt" addresses it. You might need to find that satisfaction somewhere else, or accept that work is going to feel different. Frankly, we've been lucky there's been a livelihood in craft up to now.

The blog post is all about being clear-eyed about the source of grief, but doesn't seem to articulate that it's the livelihood that's gone, not the craft. There's never been a better time to practice the craft itself.

nlawalkeron The modern formatting addiction in writing

>I’m not really looking for something to read. I just want to skim an overview of the main theories. I’ve experimented with asking AIs to give the same information in various styles, and I reluctantly concede that the formatting helps. But that’s not reading.

[...]

>Namely, why do so many people today seem to write more like Exhibit A than Exhibit B?

Because they're writing for an audience that's not really looking for something to read. See Axios and Smart Brevity:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axios_(website)#Content

https://www.axios.com/smart-brevity

nlawalkeron Building Better Country Selects

This was discussed a few days ago in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47292485

EDIT to remove negativity, was unnecessary.

nlawalkeron I was interviewed by an AI bot for a job

The linked article is just a wordy pointer to the video, which is in fact an interesting look.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtIUQhb2h3A

nlawalkeron GitHub having issues [resolved]

The appearance of a thread here is so consistent that HN needs a black-bar style indicator for GH outages that points to it.

nlawalkeron Just two days of oatmeal cut bad cholesterol by 10%

Peanut butter, chia seed and banana slices.

nlawalkeron 56% of CEOs report zero financial return from AI in 2026 (PwC survey, n=4,454)

> PwC calls it "Pilot Purgatory." The pattern: AI gets deployed in isolated, tactical projects that don't connect to revenue.

I feel like both the name and the description miss the mark though - the use isn't in pilots or isolated projects, it's individual people using it to find stuff and read/write/code/work/make decisions for them, and none of that is going to drive strategic value until companies raise expectations on productivity to take advantage of it.

It makes me think of a couple of bullet points from that "An AI CEO said something honest" post[1]:

> - majority of workers have no reason to be super motivated, they want to do their 9-5 and get back to their life

> - they're not using AI to be 10x more effective they're using it to churn out their tasks with less energy spend

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47042788

nlawalkeron I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978

In elementary school, a couple friends and I sketched out an entire game's worth of ideas for Mega Man bosses and mailed them to Capcom (this would have been 1990 or so). I remember how thick the envelope was.

I recall their response being very human, warm and encouraging, but it also included all of our original sketches, with a very direct (but kid-understandable) statement that they were obligated to return the originals to make it very clear that they were not kept and thus could not possibly be understood to be "inspiration" for anything that might be in a future game.

nlawalkeron I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed

I don't disagree, but I think it would benefit everyone to be clear, upfront and honest with themselves and others about exactly what's being lost and grieved. The weeds are still growing and our hands are still available to pull them, so it's not that.

nlawalkeron Introducing the Developer Knowledge API and MCP Server

Microsoft too:

https://learn.microsoft.com/training/support/mcp

https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/mcp

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/microsoft-learn-mcp-se...

nlawalkeron We tasked Opus 4.6 using agent teams to build a C Compiler

I see that as the point that all this is proving - most people, most of the time, are essentially reinventing the wheel at some scope and scale or another, so we’d all benefit from being able to find and copy each others’ homework more efficiently.

nlawalkeron The Unsettling Rise of AI Real-Estate Slop

Gift link: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/02/real-estate-list...

nlawalkeron 'It's ridiculous': publicans bemused by rise of single-file queues to get served

It’s not COVID, it’s the rise of technology-enabled orderliness and reward for planning ahead, like ordering food and drinks ahead for pickup, or booking the specific seats you want at the theater, and growing expectations that such orderliness is present.

nlawalkeron Doing the thing is doing the thing

My two favorite bits of wisdom in this vein:

Dan Harmon's advice on writer's block: https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/5b2w4c/dan_h...

>You know how you suck and you know how everything sucks and when you see something that sucks, you know exactly how to fix it, because you're an asshole. So that is my advice about getting unblocked. Switch from team "I will one day write something good" to team "I have no choice but to write a piece of shit" and then take off your "bad writer" hat and replace it with a "petty critic" hat and go to town on that poor hack's draft and that's your second draft.

"The Gap" by Ira Glass: https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/c98jpd/the_g...

>Your taste is why your work disappoints you... it is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.*

nlawalkeron Doing the thing is doing the thing

Oh man, I feel this.

Somewhat related, I've learned that when you're the one who ends up doing the thing, it's important to take advantage of that. Make decisions that benefit you where you have the flexibility.

nlawalkeron Chuck Klosterman on why we've never actually seen a real football game

>During the college football playoffs, ESPN’s family of networks will sometimes show the same game on multiple channels, with one channel broadcasting the whole affair from the Skycam camera. This is a remote camera hovering above and behind the line of scrimmage, replicating the perspective one sees in a video game. Coaches call this the “All‑22” view, because all 22 players on the field are simultaneously observable.

I remember there being discussion here about coverage of when the NFL first made all-22 available for public viewing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4549832

nlawalkeron Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

I have, but what’s relevant is that I’m always commanded to dump out any liquids in containers bigger than the 3.4 oz limit before going through security unless they’re like a prescription medication. What I’m unclear on why that’s changed if the improvement that’s been made is in detection of liquids in packed bags.

nlawalkeron Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

You’re right. I am genuinely curious though, so I shouldn’t have been so snarky about it. I’ll try again:

I’ve always been under the impression that large containers of liquids were forbidden because they were potentially dangerous. If that hasn’t changed, and if the new technology is only about being able to better detect the presence of liquids in packed luggage, why have the limits on container size changed?

EDIT: So I see that the article says that it’s about being able to keep the liquids in your bag when going through security. But I thought liquids in large containers were forbidden from going through security entirely unless you had some kind of medical justification for them?

nlawalkeron Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

Let me get this straight. If the article is correct, the new capabilities are related to better detection of large liquid containers, not determination of whether or not the liquid is dangerous.

So - you couldn’t take large amounts of liquids previously because some liquids in large amounts might be able to be weaponized. If you were caught with too much liquid (in sum total, or in containers that are too large) they’d throw it out and send you on your way.

But now that they have the ability to detect larger containers, they… do what? Declare that it’s safe and send you on your way with it still in your possession?

nlawalkeron You have to know how to drive the car

>Shipping is a social construct within a company.

Thanks for flagging this, this was an epiphany for me today, so for anyone else struck by it I'm linking directly to the article it's from (same author, and linked from the article in the context the parent mentions, just not linked directly in their post above):

"How I ship projects at big tech companies" https://www.seangoedecke.com/how-to-ship/

Also the HN comments on it from when it was originally posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42111031

nlawalkeron AI Tribalism

You don’t have to! Enjoy it! Just don’t bank on getting paid for it indefinitely. That’s the aspect of it that’s causing so much consternation.

nlawalkeron World’s most powerful literary critic is on TikTok

>on YouTube, has 1.5 million subscribers and 158 million views

nlawalkeron Amazon braces for another major round of layoffs, 14,000 jobs at risk

"While WARN requires only 60 days’ advance notice, Amazon is providing at least 90 days’ notice to all affected employees before their separations are scheduled to occur. Affected employees who accept internal transfer opportunities at Amazon prior to their separation date will not be separated as a result of this action."

These people were told they were being laid off in October but remain on payroll. What Amazon is "bracing" for is another one of these announcements, much larger, announcing people who will actually separate from the company 90 days later. They will find out on or around the same day the WARN notice is posted.