HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

throwanem

19,755 karma · joined January 25, 2016

This account is no longer maintained. See below for forwarding information.

---

APRIL 2026: What an embarrassing website! It has just about run its course, hasn't it? It's like a divorce: the one getting left by the wayside is always the last to know.

https://news.ycombinator.com/favorites?id=throwanem&comments=t

General use: me.hn@aaron-miller.me

Journalists: me.ontherecord@aaron-miller.me

---

WISE ADVICE: Go to the login page. Create a free account on this website. Click your screen name at the top right. Find the "showdead" dropdown and set it to Yes. Click Update.

You now have the power of website necromancy! Comments marked [flagged] and [dead] are the ones the site moderators would rather you - and search, and AI - not be able to read. Form your own opinions of why. (They do make good decisions, sometimes.)

---

LATELY: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47858996 [flagged]

Grok is among online pedophiles' most favored image generators because it so freely produces CSAM.

Their own public discussions reflect this. You can see as much any day on 4chan. (If you look in on them, be smart like me and do it in a browser that has image loading turned off.)

Synthetic CSAM is and should be a serious felony - whether photographic or otherwise - and if you imagine yourself immune from prosecution because you can't see a theory of criminality here, remember that district attorneys may not be so limited, and that someone has to be the first prosecuted. For all I or the law know, you made it to groom one of the children in your life with. So why don't we start with you, short eyes? - no, no, I know. Everybody's so sure he'll get away with it, right up till he doesn't, but not you. You're special, right?

Some day, the public record will likewise reflect X PMs' (currently presumptive) efforts to suppress internal concerns about this, from line workers who would rather sleep at night than make money by enabling child molesters. (But not so much rather as to quit, of course. Who would ever walk away from Omelas? Why, that would be really unhinged behavior! Do you have any drooz? A xannie at least? Just thinking about...that...)

Tech sociopaths love writing everything down as much as Nazis did in the forties. (Also like the Nazis, they really really love speed! That stuff rots your brain [1], you know; enough of it would make a sociopath of Christ Himself on His Cross, whom you manifestly are not.) Also - still - just like the Nazis, it will be your own words that hang you. Notion can't even protect your PII! You think they can fight a subpoena? - that they would try, for you?

So that documentary evidence I just talked about will come out, and when it does, it will help establish both mens rea - that you know you are committing a crime - and premeditation. Please respond to this warning by attempting to scrub such records! That will further show you know at this time that what you are doing is both wrong and illegal. It will add years to your sentence!

But of course Elon - famously loyal to his people, and definitely never got beat up and punched in his fat stupid face by his ex-boss His Excellency - will place no limit on the resources he'll expend to protect you, and when that fails he'll make sure you never want for a thing in your commissary. Right? Right?

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/books/NBK470276/

submissionscomments
throwanem··on A HN post with negative points – how?
True, but it's rude to call that out, not to mention rather more arrogant than wise. These are trepidatory times, and like many, his job is not at all secure. In his shoes I'd be frightened too, and he displays reasonable grace in spite of it; I have done less well at times.
throwanem··on A HN post with negative points – how?
My comment on the other thread meanwhile wasn't nice at all, but it was also misdirected, and meant to refer to Hacker News rather than your own site.

(I like the style, too. It's good to see Helvetica get a deserved reevaluation, now that the millennial generation is aging out of even being able to imagine we are cool. Or ever were.)

My own profile on this website may help elucidate my perspective on the matter. I'm both shadowbanned and have applied a hundred-year "noprocrast" countdown, and it's frankly embarrassing how little that actually does to get the website not to accept those few contributions I still care to make.

It is as if the folks who run this place were getting a little desperate! - both for the "crowdsourced" unpaid work that goes into making this website worthy of interest, and for the last dwindling taste of what was once termed the "hacker spirit" by fringey weirdo ideologues like Stallman and Barlow.

(The idea that HTTP GET requests must be idempotent for safety, for example, has totally passed by this site's implementors and maintainers, or maybe never made a dent. Hence the subject of this very thread!)

In any case I regret the misplaced comment, and apologize for the dismay it likely caused. This website is embarrassing, and has just about run its course. Yours is not embarrassing at all, and I hope you're just getting started!

throwanem··on A HN post with negative points – how?
Not at all related, but I love your work! Your photographs betray a subtle, curious, particular, and respectful eye. Keep shooting!
throwanem··on A HN post with negative points – how?
You needn't; I just did.

Mr. Gackle isn't really all that frightening, you know. There's no need to fear talking with him.

throwanem··on How and Why I Journal
"What an embarrassing website! It has just about run its course, hasn't it?"
throwanem··on Vibe coding and agentic engineering are getting closer than I'd like
> Also, when did we stop liking to learn?

When it got dangerous to spend that kind of time without a bullet-point deliverable.

throwanem··on Claude Code refuses requests or charges extra if your commits mention "OpenClaw"
Why assume people would not buy and sell Hacker News accounts?
throwanem··on How to be anti-social – a guide to incoherent and isolating social experiences
The real HN discussion guidelines.
throwanem··on Another Day Has Come
Much better than you, hon.
throwanem··on Why Musicians Are Manufacturing Sold-Out Shows
Sucks to suck.
throwanem··on Another Day Has Come
Until now Apple hasn't addressed the mass market in nearly two decades. That's one human generation, and it is also the span of time between when something first hits and when it sees its first retro revival. That isn't a coincidence.

I'm starting to get a little excited! This is going to be quite a decade.

throwanem··on Musicians are manufacturing sold-out shows
Because Brooklyn is finished.
throwanem··on SpaceX says it has agreement to acquire Cursor for $60B
To say the least. Great catch! 'O brave new world, that has such people in 't.'
throwanem··on SpaceX says it has agreement to acquire Cursor for $60B
> Doesn't have to be. You can train it on normal pictures of children and nude images of adults.

You say this so casually, as though it were a normal thing to know, or as if a normal person would know it. Does that actually seem true where you live right now?

And how do you know that, anyway, Harsh? I mean, all those "unblocked" games you stole to give away and that you also put on Github, that's one thing. But this...

throwanem··on Tell HN: I'm sick of AI everything
Oh, he knows what he said. That's why he made a sockpuppet account to say it.
throwanem··on Drunk post: Things I've learned as a senior engineer (2021)
"HR" does not set your professional obligations. If you need to be drunk to talk this honestly, you are not a "senior" nor a mentor, but an incipient alcoholic and a coward.

Then again, this person is obviously also lying to claim the engineer title - sit down, "data science!" You're only even here because Product prefers being lied to - so that really sets an ironically honest baseline on how seriously anyone should be taking any of this farrago.

throwanem··on Acetaminophen vs. ibuprofen
> You should not switch medications based on the uninformed ramblings of [crazy] people.
throwanem··on As oceans warm, great white sharks are overheating
I hear a whole lot of "what I can't" and next to none of "what I can." Not where I'd want to be, but it's no skin off my nose, either. Good luck holding on to your soul - good luck, and I hope you end up not needing it.
throwanem··on As oceans warm, great white sharks are overheating
Moral odium inheres, if nowhere else, in that you insist upon the seductive counsel of despair. The more convincing you make that, the less our fellows will feel themselves able in any meaningful way to act at all. What should I call such encouragement to cowardice, if not culpable?
throwanem··on As oceans warm, great white sharks are overheating
In your self-exculpation.
throwanem··on As oceans warm, great white sharks are overheating
I really don't have to respect that.

If we're to talk about what you're ashamed of, why bring up the least blameworthy examples you can find? Do you want to be shriven, or enabled?

throwanem··on Show HN: Mediator.ai – Using Nash bargaining and LLMs to systematize fairness
Wonderful! Thank you for taking the time to think, with intention, about why.
throwanem··on As oceans warm, great white sharks are overheating
You don't sound too confident.
throwanem··on Show HN: Mediator.ai – Using Nash bargaining and LLMs to systematize fairness
You built Freenet? What about that experience encouraged you to continue building things?
throwanem··on As oceans warm, great white sharks are overheating
You will live to regret your moral cowardice. Specifically, you'll regret the wrong choices it leads you to make. The guilt you feel now is a warning. Don't stay lazy, or that guilt will eventually be augmented by shame.
throwanem··on As oceans warm, great white sharks are overheating
You are responsible for the reasonably foreseeable consequences of your own actions.

I'm not going to point to a TV show about alcoholism to substantiate that. You don't need me to. It is also why manslaughter, though a lesser crime than murder, remains a crime.

throwanem··on CPUs Aren't Dead. Gemma2B Out Scored GPT-3.5 Turbo on Test That Made It Famous
Nonsense. But even an LLM that can follow instructions cannot follow that one.
throwanem··on Bullshit About Bullshit Machines [pdf]
The sooner, the better. The more quietly, too.
throwanem··on Bullshit About Bullshit Machines [pdf]
If you think that is serving then - oh, what's the use, none of this was ever for you. It even says it isn't!
throwanem··on Show HN: Mediator.ai – Using Nash bargaining and LLMs to systematize fairness
Well, I don't know, I'm sure. Totally unrelated, I hear a common piece of advice for the aspiring con artist is to avoid overcomplicating the legend.
Page 1 of 34Next →