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ibejoeb

5,626 karma · joined September 28, 2009

joe at bokengroup dot com

https://keybase.io/joeb/chat

Technologist-at-large.

Recently: fractional CTO, LLM operations and automation, mobile apps, browser extensions, due diligence, business combinations and integrations.

Formerly: multiple CTO roles, head of product, chief architect, VP Eng., and many different IC roles. A few acquisitions including a cloud financial software company and an Inc. 500 startup. Also experience in healthcare, industrial engineering, transportation/logistics, and manufacturing. I studied maths-based computer science.

The things I like:

1. Pro bono technology implementation and management for charitable concerns.

2. Exigency: contact me if your situation might benefit from external support.

3. Data modeling, data migrations, and making your data systems work really well, i.e., not just fast, but correct. I can help you get the most out of the technology in which you're invested. "You bought it, so you ought to use it."

4. Green fields, end-to-end development.

5. Opportunities to employ ML-family languages for practical applications. (F# f#@<ks.)

6. Low-level odd/embedded platforms, like printers, fabrication machines, industrial automation controllers, and low-power devices, especially building drivers for newer connectivity like WebBLE and WebUSB.

I work a lot with React Native, Expo, React, TypeScript, Python, and Rails. I have a lot of practical, production experience in the cloud on AWS, Azure, and GCP. I'm also comfortable in a traditional datacenter after many years of building servers and running co-lo. My relational databases of choice are Oracle (ask me why) and PostgreSQL. My graph database of choice is Neo4j. I have a long history with Java and the EE platform, Spring, and all sorts of other things in that ecosystem.

I'm also somewhat of an expert in certain areas of financial reporting: FAS 109, FAS 123(r)/ASC 718, FAS 128, FAS 5, FAS 114, FIN 48, transfer pricing, GAAP/IFRS convergence.

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[ my public key: https://keybase.io/joeb; my proof: https://keybase.io/joeb/sigs/iywPxIUXq1g8UfPHGaDKhWNw5opq-mXsGfuK9W9PKAo ]

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meet.hn/city/us-Miami

Interests: Mobile Development, AI/ML, Fintech, Entrepreneurship, Martial Arts, Privacy

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submissionscomments
ibejoeb··on Astra can read and write weights to improve Qwen
That's what I was thinking of, except it's not even dealing with the corpus of kung fu and doing the super-speed rounds of learning. It's directly reconfiguring the neurons. It's even better.
ibejoeb··on Astra can read and write weights to improve Qwen
As I read it, this is saying it can effectively spot-edit the weights without training.

> Zero-data capability steering

Presumably it can de-nerf a model with onboard safeguards.

ibejoeb··on DoorDash to acquire Instacart
Why would any of these jobs be new? People are already doing them. Would you not just reduce the earning potential by removing tips?
ibejoeb··on Discord will soon let anyone find public server messages through Google
Maybe I'm jaded. Is this discord announcing that it is entering the training data business?
ibejoeb··on Microsoft offers mass buyouts for roughly a quarter of its workforce
In general, and especially for the technical roles, they are probably going to have trouble finding relatively similar compensation.
ibejoeb··on FreeDNS
Looks like they've been around for 25 years.
ibejoeb··on Elon Musk Just Gave Europe a Reason to Replace American Technology
Ukraine's position has been that starlink is used exclusively for drone defense, i.e., interceptors. That is sensible because that's within the contracted terms. However, there is intentional obfuscation of starlink and starshield in all of this. Ukraine also claims that it doesn't use star-anything for offensive drone attacks, which is kind of unbelievable. The contention started when the White House told Ukraine that refineries were off limits, and then Ukraine struck refineries anyway. It seems clear to me that 1) they are using the technology, however it is branded, to reach and possibly cross the border, and 2) this was a signal to abide by the temporary restrictions, as the tri-lateral talks are being negotiated.
ibejoeb··on Shitter – A Nitter Fork
It doesn't proxy the images, so they won't load with enhanced tracking protection enabled.
ibejoeb··on Amazon identifies Oct 17 PHP2Shell exploitation prior to public disclosure
"memory leaks here aren’t too relevant" will be a real candidate for Rasmus' epitaph
ibejoeb··on Upcoming critical PHP security release (CVE-2026-109618 / -109619)
context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50176735
ibejoeb··on US imposes sanctions on ICC hours after former judge wins Nobel Peace Prize
That's not sovereignty. Sovereignty doesn't imply anything and it is not a designation bestowed by some other entity. It is purely descriptive of an evident state. If you can defend your claim to sovereignty, you are sovereign. Moreover, no claim need be made.
ibejoeb··on Yes, and
It's the architecture. That's the correct answer here. The current models produce good implementations. They're also quite good at identifying and planning for edge cases. But, today, a successful software project requires picking the right atoms for the job.

Some of the calculus for that picking will change, since volume of code that must be produced becomes less of an issue. And I don't doubt that models next year and year after will be able to make better formative architectural choices. But as it is now, I'm certain that actual systems handling real workloads require a human designer.

Someone who knows what good software looks like is empowered with agents. Someone without that knowledge isn't going to create a high quality system yet.

ibejoeb··on Theranos.world
She was truly ahead of her time.
ibejoeb··on Anthropic reported diary entry to police, woman faces felony charge
The prosecutors aren't on the hook, anyway. They have absolute immunity. The decision to charge is protected. The prosecutor would have to have done one of the few, enumerable things outside the scope of the role, like conducting an investigation without probable cause or hiding exculpatory evidence.
ibejoeb··on Anthropic reported diary entry to police, woman faces felony charge
Not only that they can review flagged content, but they tend to have separate retention policies for flagged content. Anthropic's is this: "We retain inputs and outputs for up to 2 years and trust and safety classification scores for up to 7 years if your chat or session is flagged by our automated trust and safety systems as violating our Usage Policy."

So don't run for office or anything like that. Someone, somewhere will have a contact that will get that.

ibejoeb··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2026)
Location: Miami, NYC, LA

Remote: Preferred over relocation, but happy to travel to office and clients

Willing to relocate: Yes, if it makes sense. USA preferred. US/EU citizen.

Technologies: ios and Android apps (Expo, Swift, Kotlin/Jetpack Compose); web applications (many: Next.js, Django, Rails, Laravel...); POSIX; sockets; .NET; LLMs (langchain, pytorch); agentic development

Résumé/CV: https://gist.github.com/ibejoeb/902026c035a995d5719204511092...

Email: joe@bokengroup.com

ibejoeb··on What is going on with ceiling fans
Well now you've got me backed into a corner...
ibejoeb··on An Update on Orion for Linux and Windows
The AI is pretty benign, too. They offer diverse models and they make it as privacy-preserving as possible, considering you can opt to use closed models. They are very open about training and retention: https://help.kagi.com/kagi/ai/llms-privacy.html. An interesting note there on models served by OpenAI: "The Assistant does not include a unique user identifier for these requests." I don't know if you can trust OpenAI, but Kagi is at least doing its part.

Also, All the AI integration into the product is gated by a single setting.

ibejoeb··on An Update on Orion for Linux and Windows
In addition to what other have said about extensions, ad blocking, no telemetry, and some nice features like tab management, it works in the Apple ecosystem. If you use a mac and an iphone, you get the native sync services for history, bookmarks, passwords, etc. Makes sense that they're focusing on that.

Developing internally initially, as opposed to making it open source, was probably the only practical way for a small team with a specific goal to get there. I don't see any problem turning it over to community development for secondary platforms. If it gets adoption, great. If it fizzles out on linux and windows, nothing is lost.

ibejoeb··on What is going on with ceiling fans
I will never love anything as much as Alec loves oil bath motors.
ibejoeb··on Dots: Always-on agents
I think it's pretty subjective if you mean "lead" to be capability and not raw number of users. I jumped back and forth quite a bit last year because there were some pretty major shortcoming in both. Now they're both quite reliable without too much hand-holding. Codex now consistently works better for the kind of work I'm doing, and it's good enough that I'm not inclined to go to claude, because I don't have any significant problems.
ibejoeb··on Unknown number of Texas voter registrations went unprocessed due to DPS error
I posted 2 sources. I did not post a comment. Take it up with the authors.
ibejoeb··on Unknown number of Texas voter registrations went unprocessed due to DPS error
That's all in the cited sources. I didn't offer an opinion. I added contextual information related directly to your positions.
ibejoeb··on Allow Carriers on Planes
I don't think that's actually what the FAA has reasoned.

FAA calls all of these devices, in general, child restraint systems. Rigid seats with harnesses are allowed under FAA rules. The real consideration is blocked egress, since a large, rigid device strapped to a seat could actually make egress more challenging. That is covered in a more subjective advisory circular, which allows airlines to make policy, e.g., it may only be used at a window seat of a non-exit row.

Since FAA just this month has decided to start enforcing a 1992 rule requiring even so much as a paper cup to be stowed before pushback citing the egress concern, we might even expect some new policy on this.

ibejoeb··on Unknown number of Texas voter registrations went unprocessed due to DPS error
For context:

Illegal immigrant voted: https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/pr/colombian-national-plea...

6,600 noncitizens registered, 400 noncitizens voted, undisclosed how many, if any, are unlawfully in country: https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/elections/2026/6600-nonci...

ibejoeb··on google.com/goto: Google's anti-scraping update
I use kagi exclusively because it works. I get the results I need every time, and it's not annoying. I haven't used Google in years. Simply no need. I really hope people keep paying kagi so they stick around.
ibejoeb··on OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees
Thoughts and open (I think) questions:

1. What are we actually talking about, slowing development or slowing public release? I can't imagine the the US is keen to slow actual development when we have adversarial state-backed labs continuing development. Seems to me that this is a global pact or it's nothing. Stopping a single lab, even if it's the current leader, won't put the genie back in the bottle.

2. Unless they stop actual advancement, isn't the risk essentially identical? At this point, it's an arms race between the lab and its own model. I don't think it far fetched to think that it might successfully exfiltrate its weights, for example.

3. There are going to be factions who don't want to stop. Should we worry about them defecting to other labs or other countries?

ibejoeb··on Matt Mullenweg tells Automattic staff in Slack he's back in control after ouster
Then released under the MPL
ibejoeb··on Matt Mullenweg tells Automattic staff in Slack he's back in control after ouster
I don't know... WordPress is a pretty huge open source project and community. He also opened Pocket Casts.
ibejoeb··on NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami
The PM got his rating about 18 months ago. The PF only got his this past May. The PM had more overall hours, but this is looking a lot like a skills issue. He was flying an unstable approach. He wasn't configured for landing.

This pairing, considering past incidents with similar airframe vs. total hours disparity, really does look to be bad practice. You've got to acknowledge the human psychology. Part of it is probably the crazy pipeline over the past few years where people are racing to 1500 hours no matter how they log them, or they're getting on restricted certs with lower hours.

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