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pnw

1,582 karma · joined June 21, 2021

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pnw··on GPT 6.1 Sol: Near-Astra intelligence for a fifth of the price
I spent the weekend trying Deepseek 4 Pro on a Linux porting project and it led me down a complete rabbit hole where Linux wouldn't even boot by the end of the weekend. Waste of $120. Switched back to GPT 6 on Monday and Linux is booting again and I'm making progress.

The only thing I've found Deepseek and Kimi good for are security tasks that GPT refuses to do.

This is a summary of what Deepseek did and got wrong:

Lost the proven baseline: changed kernel source, configuration, compiler, RAM geometry, MMC width, and peripherals together. Matching an upstream commit did not preserve local boot fixes, making failures difficult to isolate. Misidentified an image: a file labelled “r18-known-good” actually contained the r23 parent bootloader. Filename-based reasoning replaced verification of the artifact’s identity and provenance. Shipped inconsistent boot contracts: flash-16b’s loader read too few kernel blocks. Fresh2 changed the device tree without updating the loader’s expected length and CRC, creating deterministic rejection before normal Linux handoff. Patched binaries without maintaining reproducible source: loader constants diverged from source, a separately compiled cache-flush length remained stale, and assembly used an oversized stage-two slot. Their causal contribution to hangs was not established. Overstated diagnosis: claimed failures were definitively in U-Boot, blamed compiler or IPU changes without controlled isolation, converted noisy observations into confirmed hangs, and neglected persistent journals as an alternative explanation. Mistook compilation for integration: framebuffer registration was incomplete, timing success handling was inverted, BT.656 selection was unreachable, encoder overrides were missing, and audio lacked software clock configuration. Misread hardware evidence: asserted interrupt-free PMIC operation, assigned RF to the wrong SPI controller, confused regulator identifiers with register addresses, and described repeated encoder writes as unique registers. Overclaimed results: treated kernel/probe indications as userspace success, presented earlier discoveries as new progress, and omitted failed flashing attempts from the final narrative.

pnw··on What Sun got wrong
I enjoyed this article because I've lived this story before and it's bemusing to be on the wrong side of a vendors distribution strategy.

But it was the "Steve from Dell" revelation at the end that absolutely killed me!

pnw··on Seattle Bans Rental Junk Fees
You are incorrect about this law being "simple". For a start it requires three years of mandatory recordkeeping with an automatic presumption of violation for inadequate records. Forget to save a copy of that ad you ran on Facebook three years ago for your rental? Tough luck, you owe the tenant $4000 plus their attorney fees.

The city also added a private right of action so this law will be weaponized by attorneys with a profit motive, the same way the ADA has been.

Seattle is free to pass whatever laws they wish but they can't do so and then complain about a lack of homes for rent in the city. This hits families who want to rent a home much harder than single people or couples who tend to rent apartments.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/where-seattle...

pnw··on Seattle Bans Rental Junk Fees
Seattle's push to add additional regulation, compliance, fees and inspections has resulted in an exodus of small landlords, which are down anywhere from 19% to 22% in four years depending on how you slice it, and an explosion in large landlords which are up 77% in the same period.

The city has basically consolidated the rental market so it works best for large corporations. Was that the intent?

pnw··on UFO Series Home Page: "UFO" TV Series from 1970
An incredible show and such a creative vision of a future that alas never came to pass.

The conspiratorial angles and the continued mystery around the aliens were engrossing. Add terrifying episodes like "A Question of Priorities" and UFO probably scarred a generation of kids for life.

The Andersons created it as a show for adult audiences which explains the dark storylines and sexy outfits, but somehow it ended up being slotted in children's viewing hours!

pnw··on I don't like passkeys
Why doesn't Chromium let me turn this 'feature' off?
pnw··on I don't like passkeys
Blocking bank account numbers from being pasted is considered an error prevention measure. By forcing people to enter it manually at least once, you stop them from blindly pasting the wrong number twice.

There's no real regulation requiring blocking paste but it has become an annoying informal standard of sorts.

pnw··on Show HN: An e-ink frame that hears birds and draws them as 1800s illustrations
Cool project! I set up an e-ink frame with this recently as a gift and it's been so much fun creating themed collections.

https://github.com/defl/hokku_epaper

pnw··on Data collected by cars and sold to third parties
When given the choice between privacy and convenience, the great majority of consumers choose convenience over and over again.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but it's not going to be market based if you look at any recent trends. Interest in privacy is unfortunately a niche concern outside of places like HN.

Anyone who has tried to market a privacy oriented product knows what I am talking about.

pnw··on LG denies TV spying claims, says tracking and snooping concerns 'not true'
FWIW, LG will connect to a public DNS and use encryption so a basic PiHole list doesn't help unless you combine it with firewall rules. See the caveats section of that Github link.
pnw··on US Military disables ad trackers on troops' phones
Testing that on ten phones is hardly evidence. I am skeptical that the approach described would be very useful for reliable fingerprinting.

IIRC Apple also specifically prohibits exporting device signals like boot time and available disk space, so that SDK would be in violation of their rules if the description is accurate.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/ap...

pnw··on Claude's new system prompt doesn't want to reproduce song lyrics
Great album and backstory. You can't really go wrong with anything he composed. Rest in peace Johann.
pnw··on US Military disables ad trackers on troops' phones
Disabling "advertising ID" on iOS makes it extremely difficult to reliably fingerprint phones. Apple doesn't allow SDKs which attempt to bypass this, so the app would have to have a first party auth of some type.
pnw··on I turned my security cameras into an automatic bird identification system
This is awesome! I just asked Hermes to deploy it for me at home and it's already listing some interesting birds.
pnw··on 'Mad honey' that can stop your heart is being sold online
Grayanotoxin is a neurotoxin with a lot of unpleasant side effects. It would make a terrible drug for high blood pressure.
pnw··on A look under our trunk: what's in our compute
I don't think all of the economic benefit stays in NYC even when you take a yellow cab. A significant share of NYC taxi medallions are owned by entities based outside the city. Marblegate Capital in Connecticut owns about 2,146 medallions—nearly 16% of all NYC taxi medallions. They make more profit off the medallion financing business than actually operating the taxis which is basically break-even AFAIK.
pnw··on Omacom Foundation launches with $8M
I installed Omarchy on an old laptop yesterday and was impressed with the smooth installation. The UI is definitely a different approach, I can see any developer who prefers the keyboard to the mouse would love it.

Good to see some innovation. Desktop Linux feels like it has been stalled for years and needs new ideas.

Also, having an AI to pre-flight compatibility issues and help with UEFI and BIOS configs makes life so much more pleasant.

pnw··on Data centers raise nearby temperatures by up to 4 degrees in Phoenix
Which power utility do you use?
pnw··on Data centers raise nearby temperatures by up to 4 degrees in Phoenix
You can look up the NTT PH1 Datacenter from the study on Google Maps. It doesn't have much of a parking lot but due to poor industrial zoning, it's right next to a residential suburb. It's basically a failure of urban planning.
pnw··on Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers
Neither did the data centers. Datacenters use less than 5% of US electricity.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.19777

pnw··on Field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts of data centers
It's the issue du jour because of foreign influence. The situation in Phoenix is due more to poor zoning since the DC is right across the street from a residential area.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/china-russia-ai-...

pnw··on An update on leaving Gmail for Fastmail
I switched away from Google and haven't had a single issue going from 'login with google' to a regular email/password FWIW. Every site has offered some kind of painless recovery.
pnw··on In Australia, a home battery boom has helped cut wholesale power prices
If you read the article, most of the decline in gas consumption in Australia is from changes in industrial usage. Residential demand is only down by 6% and part of that is likely due to the effective ban on gas in new residential construction which started in 2023 in Victoria. Prior to 2023 residential gas usage was increasing.
pnw··on Judge Rejects Google's Attempt to DMCA Its Way Out of Being Scraped
Your first assertion is obviously untrue. And fake celebrity endorsements pre-date the existence of the Internet, let alone Meta. There were lawsuits back in the 1800s on this topic. This is hardly a new problem unique to Meta.
pnw··on FreeInk: Open ecosystem for e-readers
Kindle regularly removes sideloaded books if it decides you didn't purchase them from Amazon. Allegedly it's due to an incompatibility between the Kindle DRM and the way Calibre tricks the Kindle into displaying book covers for sideloaded files, but it's still annoying. The solution is to leave the device in airplane mode.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=340936

pnw··on Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them
The ACCC is the compliance and enforcement body for Digital ID for all Australians.

https://www.accc.gov.au/by-industry/digital-platforms-and-se...

pnw··on Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them
Why, do you want Sony to add mandatory Digital ID to their platform?
pnw··on Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
I think Brewster is one of those photos in your video. I met him because I set up the first WAIS server in Australia and he was kind enough to offer a tour when I mentioned I was visiting Boston. Good times.
pnw··on Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
Great video. I visited Brewster Kahle at Thinking Machines back when I was in college and that visit ended up being one of the major influences in my career. The CM was way ahead of it's time.

Thinking Machines also pioneered WAIS which was a precursor to modern search engines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide_Area_Information_Server

pnw··on Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity
You mention a "Chinese economic report". Are you aware the CCP has an active propaganda effort against Western data centers?

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/09/business/china-russia-ai-...

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