cammasmith
Re:No Country for Mediocre Mathematicians
on Monday August 31, 2026 @02:19PM (#49512952)
Really enjoyed reading your perspective. I am a recent math PhD graduate, and I also find it both exciting and terrifying to see what AI is doing to the field of math.
Re:Ask HN: Why is it still so hard for LLMs to query NoSQL databases?
on Friday June 05, 2026 @11:33AM (#48413928)
I used AI to help write the article, but the ideas and the technical perspective are mine. This wasn't made wholesale. I've been working on creating an MCP server for DynamoDB, and have been thinking a lot about how much better AI works with SQL than without it. Considering how many people use DynamoDB, it surprises me that there aren't better ways to get AI to interact with it. Just wondering if other people feel the same way.
Ask HN: Why is it still so hard for LLMs to query NoSQL databases?
LLMs are good at SQL. It's precise, expressive, and unambiguous. If you connect an MCP server to Postgres, then the agent can query it directly. The same cannot be said for NoSQL, and given how many people use NoSQL databases, I’m surprised there isn’t more discussion about it.Part of the problem is diversity. MongoDB, DynamoDB, Cassandra, Redis, and Neo4j all have different query models....
Show HN: I built an SQL layer for a NoSQL database
Of all the NoSQL databases, DynamoDB is one of the most frustrating to query. MongoDB has an expressive query language. Cassandra has CQL, which is close enough to SQL that most engineers can pick it up quickly. DynamoDB gives you key condition expressions, attribute name placeholders for reserved words, and a query model where you have to pick the right index manually for every call. PartiQL...
Re:Modern Board Games: and why you should play them (2022)
on Thursday April 23, 2026 @11:07AM (#47876619)
Are there actually people out there who have never played “modern board games”? Maybe I’m just surrounded by nerds, but I don’t think these games are very niche. If someone I know hasn’t played board games like these, then it’s usually because they don’t have the attention span or don’t enjoy the strategy, not because they don’t realize board games exist.
Re:Creating Baby Geniuses to Thwart the AI Threat?
on Thursday April 23, 2026 @09:51AM (#47875760)
I read this article assuming the title was clickbait, but no, that pretty much sums up the whole article. “Let’s solve the AI takeover using eugenics!” If even Elon musk and the Chinese government claim the solution is immoral, then all we really have is a second problem on our hands.
Ask HN: How do you handle complex queries on DynamoDB in production?
My dad and I built a SQL layer for DynamoDB (DynamoSQL) because we kept running into the same problem: we needed to query information across multiple tables (or multiple record types within a single table) and had no good way to do it. We would either duplicate data across lots of records (denormalize everything upfront) and hope we guessed right, do multiple fetches and join in application...
Re:Ask HN: What skills are future proof in an AI driven job market?
on Wednesday April 22, 2026 @11:08AM (#47864714)
Trade school seems to be looking more and more valuable these days. I feel bad for young people who are going to a 4 year university and gaining debt for a career that might not exist in 5 years. Being a plumber might not seem glamorous, but we're a long way off from AI learning to fix your toilet.
Re:Show HN submissions tripled and now mostly have the same vibe-coded...
on Wednesday April 22, 2026 @10:55AM (#47864539)
Interesting post. I'm notoriously bad at noticing the common characteristics in AI writing, but once they were pointed out, I realized I've been seeing them everywhere in websites.
Re:How the Heck Does GPS Work?
on Wednesday April 22, 2026 @10:42AM (#47864360)
Cool article. Did a very good job explaining things simply and providing good diagrams.
Re:Medicare for all is the best hope for US healthcare (2025)
on Tuesday April 21, 2026 @11:02AM (#47849816)
I have a hard time imagining that universal medicaid would ever become reality. A more realistic goal might be making the premium tax credit more accessible or lessening the restrictions to qualify. That way, more people could afford marketplace health insurance.
Re:Middle schooler finds coin from Troy in Berlin
on Friday April 17, 2026 @12:20PM (#47807588)
Can't even imagine what it's like to live in Europe. Just casually going on a walk and finding a coin that is over 2 millennia old. Just another Tuesday.
Re:Universal INCOME via check is best way to deal with unemployment ca...
on Friday April 17, 2026 @12:12PM (#47807493)
Maybe, but I'm not surprised by the number. Saying something triggering about a topic that's triggering from a man that's triggering is bound to get responses. It got me to respond to your response.
Re:Making Wax Sealed Letters at Scale
on Thursday April 16, 2026 @10:42AM (#47793737)
I think the price would need to be closer to $4 or $5 per letter for me personally to recommend it or consider it. My SIL just sent out wedding invitations with stamped seals, and I think she would have paid $5 per letter to mail 50 envelopes. But at $8 a letter, I start thinking about how I can pay someone to print the cards and I can buy a wax seal at Hobby Lobby myself.
Re:Making Wax Sealed Letters at Scale
on Wednesday April 15, 2026 @10:33AM (#47779571)
Cool idea. I can see you guys doing well in the wedding industry. The price seems steep, but I appreciate the transparency of your pricing. It's refreshing.
Re:Can you pass the reverse Turing test?
on Tuesday April 14, 2026 @09:01AM (#47765122)
That was a lot of fun. I got it wrong. I narrowed it down to two options, and neither was correct. Good stuff.
Show HN: DynamoSQL – I made a SQL query engine for DynamoDB
As a software developer, I've frequently used DynamoDB, and I have found myself missing the ease of SQL querying. So I built DynamoSQL to be a SQL layer. It allows you to write standard ANSI SQL in DynamoDB, including JOINs across tables, CTEs, subqueries, GROUP BY, and aggregations. There's no ETL, data export, or separate warehouse. The optimizer is index-aware and uses your partition keys,...
Re:Is Math Big or Small?
on Monday April 13, 2026 @10:35AM (#47752612)
It kinda seems like the point of the article was to talk about different mathematical illustrations, not to determine if math was big or small. Even in the article, the conclusion is that it's both. I suspect the only reason for choosing the title is to grab attention (and it worked on me).
Of course, I am extra cynical as a number theorist who can't visualize most of my field. I wrote my doctorate on Siegel modular forms, and I can honestly say I have no way to visualize them any further than numbers on a page.
Re:Ask HN: What are you building that's not AI related?
on Friday April 10, 2026 @12:15PM (#47720315)
I agree for cases that need real-time replication and are querying at high frequency. There is a trade-off, though. You're adding three services to maintain, there's replication lag, and Aurora's running continuously whether you're querying or not. For teams that need occasional analytical access to their DynamoDB data without building and operating a replication pipeline, I still think the in-memory trade-off is worth it. Different teams, different trade-offs.
Re:Ask HN: What are you building that's not AI related?
on Friday April 10, 2026 @10:31AM (#47718746)
Valid points. The read cost and in-memory aggregation concerns are real and worth flagging. DynamoSQL is index-aware and will use your partition keys, sort keys, and GSIs where it can, but you're right that a well-designed native access pattern will be cheaper.
That said, not everyone using DynamoDB has the luxury of designing perfect access patterns from the start. Real production tables are often messier than the textbook examples. And for analytical or exploratory work (e.g. understanding your data, debugging a production issue, running ad-hoc reports) a slightly more expensive read is a reasonable trade-off for writing SQL in seconds rather than SDK code in minutes.
I appreciate the feedback. The cost visibility question is something worth being clearer about in the docs.
Re:Charcuterie – Visual similarity Unicode explorer
on Friday April 10, 2026 @10:13AM (#47718474)
I agree. If Word had something like this, it would be so much easier to find the symbol you're looking for.
Re:Model-Based Testing for Dungeons & Dragons
on Friday April 10, 2026 @10:07AM (#47718408)
One of my biggest issues with playing DND is that I never fully understood the rules. I'd play with people who had been playing for years, and they didn't explain things very well, and that made it hard to play. Hopefully, this will help with that.
Re:Ask HN: What are you building that's not AI related?
on Thursday April 09, 2026 @11:51AM (#47705281)
Built a SQL interface for DynamoDB. I was tired of constantly trying to find workarounds for querying on a NoSQL database, so I built a direct interface for DynamoDB, which I'm calling DynamoSQL. With it, you can use standard SQL (even JOINs) on DynamoDB. I'm really excited about it, and I'm starting beta trials this week.
Re:Show HN: Moon simulator game, ray-casting
on Thursday April 09, 2026 @11:43AM (#47705186)
Cool game. The sound keeps glitching on and off. Also, maybe I'm just dumb, but I couldn't figure out where to go or how to land.