pahbloo
Re:The Chauffeur Problem
on Thursday August 20, 2026 @07:48AM (#49373332)
https://engines.egr.uh.edu/
> The Engines of Our Ingenuity tells how human creativity forms our culture, using radio and podcasts.
> This site holds transcripts of all episodes since the show's inception in 1988, and many other features.
Re:From Rust to Ruby
on Tuesday May 26, 2026 @11:07PM (#48289069)
Not a xkcd, but quite relevant:
https://web.archive.org/web/20091015091833/http://www.hackle...
I work with and contribute to a QGIS plugin that manage water and sewage network data. Together with PostGIS, it's a powerful tool.
I don't know about Blender, but for QGIS I think open or at least well known formats are what gave it a chance to compete against ArcGIS.
For CAD, I think that an strong open format would make things much more easy for FOSS CAD software. I can see this starting happening with BIM.
Re:Show HN: I quit coding years ago. AI brought me back
on Monday January 19, 2026 @08:54AM (#46678997)
There is an interesting pattern emerging in this thread. There are a lot of 'same here' and 'opposite for me' comments, but both sides are converging on the same point: people developing software to solve a problem.
Many who are considering a career shift away from software due to 'AI disgust' devoted their lives to developing software because they loved the craft. But with AI churning out cheap, ugly, but passable code, it's clear that businesses never appreciated the craft. I hope these folks find an area outside of SWE that they love just as much.
But once these folks find this area, it would be naive to think they won't use software to scratch their itch. In the same way that people who didn't pursue a career in SWE (because they felt under-qualified) are using AI to solve their problems, these folks will now find their own problems to solve with software, even if at first that is not their intention. They probably won't use AI to write the code, but ultimately, AI is forcing everyone to become a product manager.
Re:Launch HN: Tweeks (YC W25) – Browser extension to de-enshittify the...
on Friday November 14, 2025 @09:47AM (#45927219)
Yeah, but I think there is a space in the market for people who don't want/know how to manage their own API keys. Anyway, IMO Tweeks is not for most of the HN audience [EDIT: because there are alternatives like Magix or even Greasemonkey itself].
Re:Optimising for maintainability – Gleam in production at Strand
on Friday August 29, 2025 @01:44PM (#45067196)
I believe the best scenario is a language that gives an AI the best environment to train itself in a manner similar to the way a game like Go gave AlphaGo the opportunity to play innumerable times against itself and study the results.
I think the best programming languages of the future will come with their own LLMs, synthetically trained before release.
Re:A gentle introduction to anchor positioning
on Wednesday August 13, 2025 @12:12PM (#44890357)
That's telling about CSS design. Folks here on HN are talking about how they purposely ask LLMs about APIs that don't exist, and they hallucinate with a better and more intuitive design that they would come up with on their own.
I don't know the best solution for the problem, but CSS is a very convoluted one.
Re:How to Use Em Dashes (–), En Dashes (–), and Hyphens (-)
on Friday March 28, 2025 @01:48PM (#43508189)
Fun fact: In Portuguese, the em dash is often used to introduce direct discourse, much like double quotes are used in English, but only when the direct discourse opens the paragraph. So instead of:
"Hello," said John, "how are you today?"
You'd see:
— Hello — said John — how are you today?
Re:Show HN: Live-updating version of the 'What a week, huh?' meme
on Tuesday February 18, 2025 @05:48AM (#43088183)
Awesome idea! Just a thought, but a century version would be spot-on!
Re:A Mini Data Center
on Friday February 07, 2025 @05:16PM (#42978141)
How is the strategy for backups and redundancy in a setup like this?
Re:The myth that you can’t build interactive web apps except as single...
on Monday November 18, 2024 @08:22AM (#42172084)
People treat SPA and MPA as oposing teams, one is the right way and the other is garbage. But this is not how it must be seen.
What we have is the natural way to do things with web stack (the way it's is mean to be used), and the "hacky way" (the way that let us do what we want to do, even when the web stack doesn't support it yet).
SPA is the hacky way today, but before it we had CGI, Java applets, Flash... And the web purists were always very vocal against the hacky way.
But the hacky way is what pushs the envelope of what the natural way can do. Every feature cited in the article that makes an MPA competitive with an SPA today only exists because of SPAs.
I'm on the side of preferencially use the web the way it's meant to use whenever it's possible, but I love to see what can be done when we are a little hacky, and it's awesome to see the web stack adapting to do these things in a less hacky way.
Re:Wikipedia article blocked worldwide by Delhi high court
on Friday October 25, 2024 @10:46PM (#41952128)
In fact, the most valuable resource on the internet is finite: atention with the possibility of influence those who give it to you. This is already a question of national security.
Re:Rust is rolling off the Volvo assembly line
on Tuesday October 08, 2024 @08:21AM (#41776530)
Rust (the language) is rolling off the Volvo assembly (not the language) line
Re:GNU Turns 40
on Thursday September 21, 2023 @08:32AM (#37596651)
Even ignoring opinions not related to software, Stallman is still controversial; he's a radical advocate for software freedom. And FSF is a radical organization, too. People and institutions with radical positions are unlikely to achieve mainstream acceptance. But, radical positions are a needed influence in the ecosystem, helping to keep the balance. So, I think that after all FSF is a succesfull organization.
Re:There Are at Least 10 Cities with Their Own Psychological Disorders
on Friday July 28, 2023 @10:00AM (#36906888)
Maybe this entry is fake, just thrown in there to catch any future copycats.
SVG: Browsers vs. Editors, a light talk on a serious struggle
Re:The Windows 11 Trash Party
on Wednesday April 19, 2023 @09:48AM (#35628091)
It would be incredibly ironic if Linux were to win the desktop, and Microsoft were to become the biggest vendor.
Use a pseudocode language to get consistent code from ChatGPT
Re:Making Python 100x faster with less than 100 lines of Rust
on Thursday March 30, 2023 @11:16AM (#35373976)
What are the best alternatives to Python then?
Re:Ian Fleming explains how to write a thriller (2019)
on Thursday December 08, 2022 @01:43PM (#33911453)
I had to look at your comment history to see if you always comment in parentheses.
Browsertech: Ambitious applications that make use of modern browser APIs
CSVZ: Zipped CSV files with optional metadata (2020)
Re:Show HN: Bolt.css – Another classless CSS library
on Tuesday October 25, 2022 @01:50PM (#33333929)
I really like how Pico has a classless base and builds responsive layouts from there.
Re:A beginners guide to Esperanto (2003)
on Thursday September 29, 2022 @04:11AM (#33017758)
There is a specific mindset that makes someone want to learn Esperanto: curiosity, affinity for linguistics, ideals of a "world citizenship". I think this leads to a shared culture between two Esperantists, even if they are from different countries. (That's if you can find two of them.)
Re:Inverted Pyramid (Writing Style)
on Thursday June 23, 2022 @03:14PM (#31853882)
That's how the print media wrote their articles. They've already sold the paper/magazine to you, so now the goal was to make you feel like you have as much information as you would like with as little effort as possible, so you're willing to buy the next issue.
Nowadays, with the attention economy, the writing style has changed. The main objective is to keep the user reading for as long as possible.
Inverted Pyramid (Writing Style)
Re:Twitter Notes
on Thursday June 23, 2022 @03:08PM (#31853802)
This "depth slider" is called the Inverted Pyramid [0]. The first paragraph has the main information (aka tl;dr). The next the secondary points. And as a reader, you just have to keep reading as you want more details. You know the next few paragraphs don't have more important information than what you've already read.
That's how the print media wrote their articles. They've already sold the paper/magazine to you, so now the goal was to make you feel like you have as much information as you would like with as little effort as possible, so you're willing to buy the next issue.
Nowadays, with the attention economy, the writing style has changed. The main objective is to keep the user reading for as long as possible.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)
Re:An illustrated guide to plastic straws (2021)
on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @09:46AM (#31248239)
Not the kind of garbage collection I expected a discussion on HN about.