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blauditoreon I'm a laptop weirdo and that's why I like my new Framework 13

In terms of hardware, there shouldn't be too many surprises. People have been doing this with desktop computers for ages, so it's known what it means to maintain and upgrade 10+ years old computers. I have one (desktop) that I'm using regularly, and did a few minor upgrades over the years.

Of course, warranty and support quality is a different question.

blauditoreon I'm a laptop weirdo and that's why I like my new Framework 13

Such details also annoy me, but this one would be very easy to fix with a semi-transparent sticker, or a marker.

blauditoreon Test, don't just verify

To my surprise, I recently found a typo in AI-generated code. It's rare though

blauditoreon Font with Built-In Syntax Highlighting (2024)

Is it really a script though? IIUC it's more like contextual declaration (e.g. of previous char is X, then use style Y), no?

blauditoreon Scaling LLMs to Larger Codebases

It's like people are rediscovering the most basic principles: E.g. that documentation ("prompt library") is usecho, or that well-organized code leads to higher velocity in development.

blauditoreon BMW Patents Proprietary Screws That Only Dealerships Can Remove

Just like Apple with their pentagonal screws, or whatever it was. I'm sure there's even some twisted argument along the lines of "we're just doing it for user safety".

blauditoreon BMW Patents Proprietary Screws That Only Dealerships Can Remove

Yes, that's why I love AliExpress. It evens the playing fieldin such cases, to some degree.

blauditoreon Gemini 3 Pro vs. 2.5 Pro in Pokemon Crystal

Actual complexity depends is not imposed by the framework, but by the application itself, and the amount of front-end logic tends to be lower. Yes, there is more complexity in the setup of front end code (now there are dependencies and build pipelines), but ultimately they should simplofy things especially for slighly more complex websites.

Testing is one of the things that's generally tedious in front end applications, but not inherently complex. There may be lots of config needed (e.g. for setting up and controlling a headless browser), and long turnarounds because tests are slow and shaky. But they are also boilerplatey.

blauditoreon Show HN: Jmail – Google Suite for Epstein files

The "Quora Digest" email killed me.

Most of the mails read like fake ones from a video game. Maybe it's because most of them were written by an older generation who uses more classic letter-style writing.

blauditoreon Gemini 3 Pro vs. 2.5 Pro in Pokemon Crystal

It's about the complexity of the task. Front end apps tend do be much less complex and boilerplate-y than backends, hence AI tends to work better.

blauditoreon We Lost Something: 1970s REPLs Were Better Than Modern Development Environments

Dynamic inspection of an object's API? I think it's a very common thing for programmers to explore a type's API on-the-go (as we can't memorize every function name). With static typing, that information is known before run time and can be immediately displayed by the IDE in the form of auto-complete. In dynamically typed languages, the most reliable way to achieve the same is by running and inspecting it, which is basically how people work in Smalltalk from what I've seen.

blauditoreon 4 billion if statements (2023)

That sounds kinda stupid, it would completely destroy the original space savings. Unless the sharding makes it fit within compiler limits.

blauditoreon We Lost Something: 1970s REPLs Were Better Than Modern Development Environments

I could never make myself like Pharo (or Smalltalk). Yes, it's interesting and exotic, but it never seemed really practical. Maybe what I was missing the most was static/explicit typing, which replaces the need for many of Smalltalk's features. I also never liked working with Python or JS for that reason.

It's amusing that in the mid-2010 with the raise of Node, web (turned "full stack") devs advocated for JS and how static typing was really not that relevant. Then TS came and suddenly the same folks considered it an absolut game changer.

blauditoreon 4 billion if statements (2023)

This could be obviously done with much less code: Just add "if"s for all even number, and at the end just return "odd" if none of the evens matched. 50% less code!

Or even simpler: If it's 0, return "even". If not, do a recursive call to n-1, if that equals "even", return "odd", otherwise return "even".

But the best way is probably to just use a library. Yes, 500MB of additional dependencies, but then it's a one-liner.

blauditoreon Has the cost of building software dropped 90%?

These kind of future prediction posts keep coming, and I'm tired of them. Reality is always more boring, less extreme, and slower at changing, because there are too many factors involved, and the authors never account for everything.

Maybe we should collect all of these predictions, then go back in 5-10 years and see if anyone was actually right.

blauditoreon AI should only run as fast as we can catch up

All these engineers who claim to write most code through AI - I wonder what kind of codebase that is. I keep on trying, but it always ends up producing superficially okay-looking code, but getting nuances wrong. Also fails to fix them (just changes random stuff) if pointed to said nuances.

I work on a large product with two decades of accumulated legacy, maybe that's the problem. I can see though how generating and editing a simple greenfield web frontend project could work much better, as long as actual complexity is low.

blauditoreon Claude 4.5 Opus’ Soul Document

To me, it all tastes a bit like an echo chamber of folks working on AI, convincing each other they are truly changing the world and building something as powerful as in science fiction movies.

blauditoreon How to Attend Meetings

>doesn't even have solid support for good meeting invite commentary

Description is sent along with the initial invite, and for subsequent invites, there's a text box for commentary on the sent emails.

Or what are you looking for?

blauditoreon Stop Hacklore – An Open Letter

Forced password changes are one of those security theater exercises that drive me absolutely nuts. It's a huge inconvenience long-term, and drives people to apply tricks (write it on a post-it note, or just keep adding dots, or +1 every time).

Plus, if your password gets stolen, there's a good chance most of the damage has already been done by the time you change the password based on a schedule, so any security benefit is only for preventing long-term access by account hijackers.

blauditoreon Stop Hacklore – An Open Letter

NordVPN is also one of the worst offenders in borderline marketing campaigns. Really questionable company.

blauditoreon Stop Hacklore – An Open Letter

No. If a shitty service stores your password in plain and leaks it, this won't affect your other accounts, unless you reuse passwords.

I simply can't remember dozens of passwords, so a pw manager is the best I can do realistically. Yes, it's a single point of failure, but so is using the same pw everywhere.

blauditoreon AI is a front for consolidation of resources and power

You could make the same argument about video conferencing: Yes, you can now talk to anyone anywhere anytime, and it's amazing. But somehow all big companies are convinced that in-person office work is more productive.

blauditoreon The Death of Arduino?

Love it, and I agree. I've built two "star skies" for kids, using cheap RGB LED lights, programming them to slowly change color, only use warm colors, and turn off more and more stars over time. Nothing super fancy, but very custom to my needs.

blauditoreon Google Antigravity

Devs are starting to realize that the sweet spot for AI support in coding is on a small scale, i.e. extended code completion. Generating huge chunks of code is often not reliable enough except for some niches (such as simple greenfield projects which profit from millions of examples online).

blauditoreon Show HN: I built a synth for my daughter

3-year-olds actually have quite a vocabulary, so they can certainly talk about what the knobs are doing, maybe just not as accurately as adults.

Regarding discovering functionality: The author mentions Montessori stuff, and the philosophy there is unguided discovery, "let them figure out by themselves". Not sure if that's how the author is planning to use this too, though.

blauditoreon Why aren't smart people happier?

> Note: I wrote this comment after reading just the title...

Not sure if the irony is intended, but I find it hilarious.

blauditoreon Attention lapses due to sleep deprivation due to flushing fluid from brain

Repressed memory due to trauma is "scientifically discredited" nowadays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory

blauditoreon Attention lapses due to sleep deprivation due to flushing fluid from brain

Distancing yourself from a trauma (as a coping mechanism), not having any thought of it for years, and then have it re-surface is not the same as fully suppressed, inaccessible memories as discussed in the article.

If it takes long, intense therapy to "bring back", it's almost cerainly untrue or falsified. There was a case of accused childhood abuse among close relatives of me, by someone who found out about this in therapy. It tore apart the family. I cannot take any sides because I was not there and cannot know the truth, but it checks all the boxes of falsified memories. It has destroyed multiple lifes. That's how I even learned about that stuff, and why I care.

Btw, better source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repressed_memory (I originally mostly read stuff in my native language, so I didn't what to look for initially)

blauditoreon Can we talk about the rude installers not asking for installation locations?

After many years of working with computers, I'm still confused about what exactly installing means. Whenever I have to set up something by hand (e.g. some SDK), there's a good chance of spending hours trying to make everything work everywhere, mostly dealing with environment variables, where to set them, and how to make sure all the tool who need to use the thing see it. Not to speak about the slight differences between operating systems. Maybe I just suck at this.