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blhack

24,931 karma · joined August 27, 2008

My name is Ryan.

email is: blhack at gmail dto cmo.

My current (profitable) stack is: python/jquery/apache/mysql My current (dev) stack is: golang/react/RDS

My failed startups are: Social networking websites: thingist.com (better, more organized facebook/twitter), newslily.com (fark/digg/reddit/HN clone), lanmarks.com (social mapping). News aggregators: newsyndicated.com (computational linguistics applied to news/RSS).

Successful startups are: Business analytics/CRM software for niche industries.

Startups I have worked with but not founded so I won't name: Unnamed telemedicine project. Well funded, solved social isolation in the elderly. Great team. Parent company was acquired, and our project (ran as an internal startup to the larger company) was terminated. My role here was research/design/build hardware devices which were to be placed in senior's homes, as well as the backend service that they reported to, and the interface for remote health-providers to interface with this data. Unnamed educational non-profit. This project is ongoing and successful.

Times I have been rejected from YC: 2.

Other consulting that I have done and don't consider startups: design and build custom robotics and control systems for large scale advertising installations. Clients have been amazon, carvana, Tostitos, red bull, the NFL. Design and build complex, custom fire effects displays for use at music festivals including EDC and bonnaroo. The fire effects team is easily one of the most brilliant, competent groups of people I have ever gotten to work with.

My skillset is extremely broad, and I have worked at almost every design/build level of many different successful products.

My hobby is designing and teaching educational workshops for teenagers. I have a strong belief that most people are capable of much more than they realize; I find sharing this understanding with people extremely rewarding, and so do my students. I have taught workshops on electronics to both children and adults all over the world.

My other hobby is creating interactive art installations. I have a profound love for people and humanity, and my art projects typically try to highlight the beauty I see in other people.

submissionscomments
blhack··on Trump administration is suspending Microsoft from a green card program
A follow up question for you: why isn’t India lobbying heavily to end the H1B program? Wouldn’t it be a massive economic benefit to them?
blhack··on US Suspends Visa Program for Tech Firms Including Microsoft
That will come next.
blhack··on Y Combinator's Ankit Gupta faces backlash over H-1B comments
YC has. There has been (if I remember correctly) batches entirely based on India.
blhack··on Statement on US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5
What is going on at Anthropic?

First, it comes out that on some specified subset of queries they will simply downgrade you to a different model. One example is if you are doing model research. Imagine OSX shutting down if it detects you’re working on software.

And now they’ve decided that they’ll just shut off access to the model completely as part of what seems to be a sort of marketing stunt or temper tantrum.

They’re a service provider. Can you imagine AWS just deciding you’re getting nullrouted over some unrelated fight they’re having with the DoD?

If they weren’t a supply chain risk before this, they’re sort of doing everything they can to become one.

blhack··on Postmortem: TanStack NPM supply-chain compromise
Is there any obvious way to detect if you’ve gotten owned by this?
blhack··on An Introduction to Meshtastic
This is bad advice. The choice depends on which is more popular in your area. For me in Phoenix that’s meshtastic.
blhack··on An Introduction to Meshtastic
Meshtastic is really cool! The heltec v4 is the best board for it you can get on Amazon.

Put it on your roof with a cheap solar panel meant for a security camera, and join it to your home WiFi.

Just use the little plastic case it came in as an enclosure. Cut a hole for the antenna and USB.

A slightly larger antenna will help. There are many on Amazon, and they’re cheap.

(I have tried lots of boards and this has been the best setup for me)

blhack··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
Well I certainly feel surveilled when I know that OpenAI will simply give up my data if asked.

If anthro is saying they won’t, that’s good!

blhack··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
Strength is saying what they were asked to do. I want to know!

Did the DoW ask them to make kill drones? Because if so THAT IS A REALLY BIG DEAL.

The vagueness is irritating. He’s saying they won’t do something, the DoW is saying they don’t even want them to do that, which should resolve the issue, but hasn’t. There is obviously something else at play here.

blhack··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
>he said this

>>no he didn’t he actually said the opposite of that and the link you just posted says the opposite of what you are claiming

>but he might change his mind!

Okay?

blhack··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
GOOD. I don’t want Anthropic, or anybody else to have their tools used for these things either.

But Dario is showing weakness here by talking around it. Whatever they were asked to do, they should just be upfront about.

blhack··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
No, the DoW may be implicitly asking for those things.

That’s the point I’m trying to make here: Anthropic should just say the unsaid thing here.

DoW asked for the following thing: $foo. We won’t give that to them.

blhack··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
Because mass surveillance has been happening by every tech company under every president since George W. Bush, and despite everybody trying to stop it they haven’t been able to.

OpenAI has already said that they’ll give up whatever info the government wants if they’re issued a subpoena; they don’t have a choice.

blhack··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
The first sentence of that post is:

> The Department of War has no interest in using AI to conduct mass surveillance of Americans (which is illegal) nor do we want to use AI to develop autonomous weapons that operate without human involvement.

blhack··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
Then Anthropic should say: this is what the DoW has asked for, and we aren’t able to do it, or don’t want to.
blhack··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
The DoW has explicitly said they don’t want this, and what you are describing are not automated kill drones.

Anthropic’s safeguards already prevent what you are describing, again the thing thar DoW has said they don’t want.

blhack··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
Right. Did the DoW ask for that? Or does Anthropic make a product that does that?
blhack··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
Did the DoW ask for these things?

This whole thing seems like people talking past each other, and that there’s something being left unsaid.

Anthropic doesn’t make a product that would assist with kill drones, and they don’t have the right to deny subpoenas.

blhack··on The recurring dream of replacing developers
Consider what the rise of things like shopify, squarespace, etc. did for developers.

In 2001, you needed an entire development team if you wanted to have an online business. Having an online business was a complicated, niche thing.

Now, because it has gotten substantially easier, there are thousands of times as many (probably millions of times) online stores, and many of them employ some sort of developer (usually on a retainer) to do work for them. Those consultants probably make more than the devs of 2001 did, too.

blhack··on FBI raids Washington Post reporter's home
I think you're talking about Renee Good - who is the other person?
blhack··on The creator of Claude Code's Claude setup
Especially when the software they're developing is supposed to speed up the speed at which the software they are developing is developed.
blhack··on Why didn't AI “join the workforce” in 2025?
Can you elaborate on this more? What would be a task you would use claude code for, and what would accomplishing the task look like?
blhack··on DoorDash and Waymo launch autonomous delivery service in Phoenix
These are all over the place in Tempe, AZ. I see them cruising through my neighborhood all the time.

The funny thing is that there is usually a guy on an ebike following right behind, and he's usually just decked out in sortof tactical-ish gear. Full mask, head to toe in all black. I feel bad for whoever it is in the summer, because it gets really hot here.

Very interesting to see.

blhack··on Many people don't pay full price, most don't want to pay at all for news
I will happily pay for high quality news. Every few months I check back in with The Financial Times to see if I can get it delivered to my house again (they used to deliver in Phoenix, but stopped, presumably they lost their printing partner here). My wife even tried to set up a PO box in another state and have the contents forwarded to us, but we could never get it working.

I also paid for Foreign Affairs for a long time, but eventually the quality of the paper (as in the physical material) dropped down a lot, and the number of ads went up.

Lapham's Quarterly (now defunct) wasn't really news, but happily paid for that.

Also plenty of substacks, patreon podcasts, etc.

--

My local paper just ran a story about a woman "trapped" in her Tesla because the battery died. They started the story with a "warning" to anybody who might be considering buying one. The solution, according to this article, was to locate the "secret" release button that opens the door. Of course to anybody who has ever ridden in the front seat of a Tesla this is an absurd framing of the physical door handle which opens the door in the exact same fashion as every door that has been manufactured for a vehicle for the last 100 years. If you own a Tesla you have probably had to tell somebody not to use this handle (since it seems like such an obvious way to open the door) because it doesn't crack the windows and could damage the window seal (or so the warning that pops up when you use it says).

I'm not going to pay for that.

blhack··on Slack AI Training with Customer Data
How could this possibly comply with European "right to be forgotten" legislation? In fact, how could any of these AI models comply with that? If a user requests to be forgotten, is the entire model retrained (I don't think so).
blhack··on Veo
Have you ever seen the Northern Lights with your eyes? If so I'm curious where you saw them.

I echo what some other posters here have said: they're certainly not gray.

blhack··on Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
Was there a similar backlash to this identical ad from LG in 2009? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcUAQ2i5Tfo
blhack··on Ask HN: What movies changed your perception of reality or life?
Yes! I love Aronofsky's work. The Fountain is a hauntingly beautiful film. The poster from this film hangs in my children's bedroom and I can't wait to watch it with them when they're ready for that type of story.
blhack··on Ask HN: What movies changed your perception of reality or life?
Synecdoche NY, specifically this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9PzSNy3xj0

But there is also a scene (which I cannot find online) where the main character (a playwright) is explaining that the only way to make his play work is to make everybody a main character. He realizes that everybody, everywhere, is living out a rich life and that they're the main character of that life.

It is a fantastic movie and i highly recommend it.

blhack··on Starlink Direct to Cell
Sorry if that was confusing. I mean that for instance: tmobile will be adding this to their coverage map, but they're not getting rid of the towers, and the primary way your phone is communicating with the world is not going to be via starlink satellites.
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