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philip1209on Context Rot: How increasing input tokens impacts LLM performance

Chroma does vector, full-text, and regex search. And, it's designed for multitenant workloads typical of AI applications. So, not just a "vectorDB company"

philip1209on Postcard is now open source

That's fair, I can add smtp config.

Really I was just concerned about configuration overload from too many options. Seems like SMTP is worth splitting out, though.

philip1209on Postcard is now open source

Postcard originally used Postmark. But, Postmark deliverability has been decreasing. And, for the open-source version, I wanted to simplify dependencies. So, I moved it to SES. It works for small lists, but won't scale to massive ones.

I welcome PRs to add additional sending providers - it wouldn't be onerous.

philip1209on Postcard is now open source

Well, this service has been live and maintained for almost 3 years. And, if you self-host, then you can guarantee longevity.

Github, Airbnb, Shopify, Stripe, Basecamp, Instacart, Zendesk, Square, and others seem to be staying online, too.

I've written more about my Ruby opinions here: https://www.contraption.co/rails-versus-nextjs/

(Discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43130546 )

philip1209on Postcard is now open source

Ah, thanks. Just pushed a fix for this.

philip1209on Postcard is now open source

What's failing - the blog? Seems to be working fine for me and my uptime monitoring hasn't caught anything. Hopefully it's a blip!

My hosting setup is . . peculiar: https://www.contraption.co/a-mini-data-center/

philip1209on Postcard is now open source

Originally shared here in 2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33549267

philip1209on Sam Altman Slams Meta's AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

The modern iPhone vs. Android battle

philip1209on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2025)

Chroma | ONSITE - San Francisco | Full-time | https://trychroma.com

Chroma is building retrieval database for AI applications. It's an open-source database with vector, regex, and full-text search. We support local, single-node, and cloud hosting. Help build the future of context engineering!

We're hiring for these areas:

- Product design

- Production engineering

- AI tools engineering

- Go to market

Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/trychroma/9ed3aee8-07dd-44e3-9ca1-d...

More details at: https://careers.trychroma.com

philip1209on Philadelphia Transit System Votes to Cut Service by 45%, Hike Fares

I think the suburban angle does matter because the general life cycle of a suburb is that they start rich because they have 0 maintenance costs, but after 20-30 years require money to pay for road + sewer + water maintenance.

So they start with a massive budget surplus which creates well-funded schools that attract rich people. But after 30 years, they cannibalize education to fix potholes. And the socio-economic landscape changes to reflect this.

We're starting to hit a lot of suburbs in the USA around that 30 year mark, and they're attracting progressively lower income residents for whom transportation costs become an increasingly important factor in their home buying decisions.

philip1209on Philadelphia Transit System Votes to Cut Service by 45%, Hike Fares

I agree, but based on my daily encounters with Waymos in San Francisco, they leave me far more optimistic than human drivers. They yield to people in crosswalks, they don't honk and create unnecessary noise because they're having an emotional reaction to something they can't control (like a person jaywalking). They don't get drunk and smash into things.

And biggest of all, they don't take up a ton of public space for parking. Yes, they do require depots, but they don't require the continued existence of things like minimum parking ratio laws.

philip1209on Philadelphia Transit System Votes to Cut Service by 45%, Hike Fares

America has and likes roads, so the marginal capex here is low.

Half of the country lives in suburbs and that's not going to change overnight. So roads are an unfortunate reality of keeping America functional.

Self-driving cars should enable higher throughput on existing roads, though, because they don't gawk at accidents and potentially could drive in denser formations with less separation.

philip1209on Philadelphia Transit System Votes to Cut Service by 45%, Hike Fares

America makes more sense if you think of it as a developing country that happens to be rich.

philip1209on Philadelphia Transit System Votes to Cut Service by 45%, Hike Fares

I strongly support public transportation (specifically, rail), but:

> I wonder if American society will ever come up with a solution for this since the problem is so widespread.

I think the answer will be something having to do with self-driving cars.

If you look at companies like Glydways, they're starting to provide transit-like services to governments.

The reason I think self-driving cars will perform better in the USA is that it is high in OpEx, but low in CapEx, which I think translates better to how Americans fund things (immediate results, no big investment that can unravel)

philip1209on Cursor 1.0

There has to be some kind of joke in here about how long it takes people to declare a 1.0 release. "1 million ARR? Not yet. 10 million ARR? Not yet. 300 million ARR? Maybe soon."

philip1209on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2025)

Chroma | ONSITE - San Francisco | Full-time | https://trychroma.com

Chroma is building the memory layer for AI applications. It's an open-source vector database, with multi-environment support from a local DB to a unique serverless architecture. We just launch a re-written version of our product in Rust, and also work in Typescript, Next.js, Go, and Python.

We're hiring for these areas:

- Product design

- Infrastructure engineering

- Production engineering

- AI tools engineering

- AI Engineer - Tools & Support, focused on developer support

- Go to market

Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/trychroma/9ed3aee8-07dd-44e3-9ca1-d...

More details at: https://careers.trychroma.com

philip1209on Trump administration halts Harvard's ability to enroll international students

MBAs are a cash cow

philip1209on Trump administration halts Harvard's ability to enroll international students

I heard University of Illinois bought a policy to protect against losing cash tuitions from Chinese grad students. Perhaps other universities have done the same.

philip1209on Trump administration halts Harvard's ability to enroll international students

So much for "law and order" - this is about sycophancy toward an authoritarian who chooses his own rules.

philip1209on OpenAI for Countries

I guess Norway as first customer.

philip1209on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2025)

Chroma | ONSITE - San Francisco | Full-time | https://trychroma.com Chroma is building the memory layer for AI applications. It's an open-source vector database, with multi-environment support from a local DB to a unique serverless architecture. We just launch a re-written version of our product in Rust, and also work in Typescript, Next.js, Go, and Python.

We're hiring for these areas:

- Product design

- Infrastructure engineering

- Production engineering

- AI tools engineering

- AI Engineer - Tools & Support, focused on developer support

Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/trychroma/9ed3aee8-07dd-44e3-9ca1-d...

More details at: https://careers.trychroma.com

philip1209on Tilt: dev environment as code

If you want to see Tilt in action, our Chroma open-source repo uses it to run the distributed version of the database for development and ci. It's pretty cool - just clone then run `tilt up` and it's working:

https://github.com/chroma-core/chroma

philip1209on America Needs More Sprawl to Fix Its Housing Crisis

I hate this article. Can't we build up?

We are building a world where a car is necessary for anything. It isolates kids and the elderly. And, instead of building social and community spaces, we're dividing up the world into private parcels, and ruining the natural beauty of the environment.

In contrast, I advocate for Compact City design: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_city

philip1209on Ask HN: How do I become a better PM as an engineer?

1. Practice technical writing. Information hierarchy, flowcharts, tables.

2. Funnel analysis and its practical implications.

3. Building and launching a side project, and having to do things like write copy for a landing page or deal with highly ambiguous choices.

4. Understanding the basics of product-led growth versus enterprise sales, and getting deep on one.

philip1209on The blissful Zen of a good side project

I was thinking of this with relation to the book "Man's Search for Meaning", which asserts that "a personal project can be a powerful tool for finding and cultivating that meaning, providing purpose and resilience in the face of adversity." [1]

[1] summary by Gemini

philip1209on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2025)

Chroma | ONSITE - San Francisco | Full-time | https://trychroma.com

We're hiring for these engineering areas:

- Infrastructure

- Production engineering

- AI tools engineering

- AI Engineer - Tools & Support, focused on developer support

Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/trychroma/9ed3aee8-07dd-44e3-9ca1-d...

More details at: https://careers.trychroma.com

philip1209on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2025)

Chroma | ONSITE - San Francisco | Full-time | https://trychroma.com