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llamataboot

7,546 karma · joined June 8, 2013

llamataboot.at.hn

social researcher and social worker turned coder -- interested in systems science, social justice, heterodox economics, non-hierarchical decision making, game theory, poker, soccer, theories of consciousness, and magic

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llamataboot··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2026)
Location: US Remote: Preferred Willing to relocate: Possibly

FT?: Open to FTE for right opportunity, but prefer contracts (PT/FT flexible)

Technologies: Ruby/Rails, Python, Ops (Heroku/AWS/Docker), CI/CD, API Design, System Architecture, thoughtful experimentation with llm ops and visibility and steering. Some: React, IoT, bit of elm, ML

Email: hello_from_hn@ericstiens.dev Website: https://ericstiens.dev Resume: https://cloud.wonderluxhouse.xyz/f/fd98d4cbdc104e3d8151/

Senior/Staff Engineer with a deep focus on backend, ops, and architecture. Can also get in there and knock out frontend features if nec, but don't prefer leading there. I build durable, scalable systems and have a knack for mentoring teams and leading projects.

I solve problems at every level of abstraction—from the 10,000-foot view down to the code you don't have to write. My first career as a social worker and policy statistician means I never forget the 'who' and 'why' behind the technology. I've been building for the web since '95 and have worked at every stage of startup, plus solo consulting.

I have a special love for complex system design, wrangling crappy third-party APIs, and hunting down really weird bugs. I can step in as a PM in a pinch, but I'd rather work with your great PMs.

Also open to short-term engagements around a specific issue (performance bottlenecks, test suite optimization, a particular stuck feature, etc) at a weekly rate.

I'm looking for a team that genuinely believes their work is making the world a bit better (or even... a lot!)

llamataboot··on Nothing Ever Happens: Polymarket bot that always buys No on non-sports markets
A persistent bias in prediction markets is pricing very non likely events as slightly more likely than they are. ie; a 1% event priced at 4%, etc, because people like to bet long shots.

Whether there is enough of a predictable bias there to snag enough low return high probability bets to beat the vig and not shift the markets I have not looked into in any way,but it is a known bias with them.

The real money to be made in prediction markets is being the ones with the actual knowledge which is arguably why they are useful and why for some topics, people find them abhorrent.

llamataboot··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (August 2025)
Location: US Remote: Preferred Willing to relocate: Possibly

FT?: Open to FTE for right opportunity, but prefer contracts (PT/FT flexible, C2H)

Technologies: Ruby/Rails, Python, Ops (Heroku/AWS/Docker), CI/CD, API Design, System Architecture, thoughtful experimentation. Some: React, IoT, bit o elm, ML, LLM ops and automation.

Email: hello_from_hn@ericstiens.dev Website: https://ericstiens.dev Resume: https://cloud.wonderluxhouse.xyz/f/fd98d4cbdc104e3d8151/

Senior/Staff Engineer with a deep focus on backend, ops, and architecture. Can also get in there and knock out frontend features if nec, but don't prefer architechting there. I build durable, scalable systems and have a knack for mentoring teams and leading projects.

I solve problems at every level of abstraction—from the 10,000-foot view down to the code you don't have to write. My first career as a social worker and policy statistician means I never forget the 'who' and 'why' behind the technology. I've been building for the web since '95 and have worked at every stage of startup, plus solo consulting.

I have a special love for complex system design, wrangling crappy third-party APIs, and hunting down really weird bugs. I can step in as a PM in a pinch, but I'd rather work with your great PMs.

Also open to short-term engagements around a specific issue (performance bottlenecks, test suite optimization, a particular stuck feature, etc) at a weekly rate.

I'm looking for a team that genuinely believes their work is making the world a bit better (or even... a lot!)

llamataboot··on Ruby 3.4 frozen string literals: What Rails developers need to know
right it was the python string transition i was talking about
llamataboot··on Ruby 3.4 frozen string literals: What Rails developers need to know
I hope this is corect - i do agree it has been a long and slow migration path and migrating is fairly easy - migrating python 2 to 3 code was fairly easy as well anyone could do it in their codebase, it remains a big deal and possibly very impactful to make such breaking changes to the behavior of primitives in mature ecosystems. How many gems does the average rails app have, okay they all need to be updated and they sohld be being updated for other reasons, I remain skeptical of how smooth the change is going to be over all ecosystem wise but time will tell.

I agree it has been a well advertised and loudly migration path and timeframe for it

llamataboot··on Ruby 3.4 frozen string literals: What Rails developers need to know
just dont ask about unicode
llamataboot··on Ruby 3.4 frozen string literals: What Rails developers need to know
We learned nothing from Python 2->3

An obviously good change, actually massive performance improvements not hard to implement but its still gonna be such a headache and dependency hell

llamataboot··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2025)
Location: US

Remote: Preferred

Willing to relocate: No

FT?: Open to FTE, but prefer contracts (PT/FT flexible, C2H)

Technologies: Ruby on Rails, Python, Ops (Heroku/AWS/Docker), CI/CD, API Design, System Architecture, thoughtful experimentation. Some: React, IoT, bit o elm, ML, LLM ops and auotmation.

Email: hello_from_hn@ericstiens.dev Website: https://ericstiens.dev Resume: https://cloud.wonderluxhouse.xyz/f/fd98d4cbdc104e3d8151/

Senior/Staff Engineer with a deep focus on backend, ops, and architecture. I build durable, scalable systems and have a knack for mentoring teams and leading projects.

I solve problems at every level of abstraction—from the 10,000-foot view down to the code you don't have to write. My first career as a social worker and policy statistician means I never forget the 'who' and 'why' behind the technology. I've been building for the web since '95 and have worked at every stage of startup, plus solo consulting.

I have a special love for complex system design, wrangling crappy third-party APIs, and hunting down really weird bugs. I can step in as a PM in a pinch, but I'd rather work with your great PMs.

I'm looking for a team that genuinely believes their work is making the world a bit better (or even... a lot!)

llamataboot··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2025)
Location: US

Remote: Preferred

Willing to relocate: No

FT?: Open to FTE for right opportunity, very open to contracts, especially if they can fluctuate between PT/FT, or are contract to hire.

Technologies: Ruby, Rails, Ops (heroku/aws/ansible/docker), CI/CD, testing, API design, integrations/plumbing.

Some: Python, Elm, IoT stuff, machine learning Love: architecture, mentoring, useful and absurd experimentation

Email: hello_from_hn@ericstiens.dev

Website: https://ericstiens.dev

Resume: https://cloud.wonderluxhouse.xyz/f/fd98d4cbdc104e3d8151/

--

Senior/Staff full-stack dev (lean more towards devops->backend than backend->frontend, but I can still sling some React components together and reduce your JS payload size). Technical Lead.

I excel at figuring out how to solve problems at all levels of abstraction (including what level of abstraction you should use), getting a solution in place, and then figuring out the feedback loops to iterate on that solution. Sometimes the most impactful code is the code you don't write.

I've been programming on the web since 1995, had a first career as a social worker and policy statistician, and have worked full-time as a coder for almost a decade now at all stages of startup as well as done solo consulting.

Especially enjoy API and system design, integrating with crappy systems, user research, and really weird bugs. Make a decent PM in a pinch, but would prefer you have great PMs. Enjoy mentoring and light mgr/people stuff.

Will give you more looks if you can tell me why what you are doing makes the world better, but you've got to really believe it.

llamataboot··on LLMs don't hallucinate, only humans do
eh that's rails 8 by default these days! i actually had a PR to remove that at one point should circle back
llamataboot··on Elon Musk's DOGE reportedly gained "full access" to the federal payment system
Full on musk junta coup huh? Didnt have that on my bingo card exactly. Guess we'll really get to see if theres any rule of law in the US anymore or if its all completely as hollow as its looked for a long time.
llamataboot··on OpenAI O3-Mini
I wish they picked different descriptors than various ox with turbo mini preview etc and some of them shockingly different (o1 preview versus o1 regular for example) just give us three or four buckets of combos of cheap and fast and good :p it’s to the point where I have to look up prices and abilities and decide on a model for every use case and realize I made a mistake in the one I was using the day before.
llamataboot··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2024)
Location: US

Remote: Preferred

Willing to relocate: No

FT?: Open to FTE for right opportunity, very open to contracts, especially if they can fluctuate between PT/FT, or are contract to hire.

Technologies: Ruby, Rails, Ops (heroku/aws/ansible/docker), CI/CD, testing, API design, integrations/plumbing.

Some: Python, Elm, IoT stuff, machine learning Love: architecture, mentoring, useful and absurd experimentation

Email: hello_from_hn@ericstiens.dev

Website: https://ericstiens.dev

Resume: http://tinyurl.com/eshnresume2024

--

Senior/Staff full-stack dev (lean more towards devops->backend than backend->frontend, but I can still sling some React components together and reduce your JS payload size). Technical Lead.

I excel at figuring out how to solve problems at all levels of abstraction (including what level of abstraction you should use), getting a solution in place, and then figuring out the feedback loops to iterate on that solution. Sometimes the most impactful code is the code you don't write.

I've been programming on the web since 1995, had a first career as a social worker and policy statistician, and have worked full-time as a coder for almost a decade now at all stages of startup as well as done solo consulting.

Especially enjoy API and system design, integrating with crappy systems, user research, and really weird bugs. Make a decent PM in a pinch, but would prefer you have great PMs. Enjoy mentoring and light mgr/people stuff.

Will give you more looks if you can tell me why what you are doing makes the world better, but you've got to really believe it.

llamataboot··on When A.I.'s Output Is a Threat to A.I. Itself
Disappointed they didn't even mention intentional data poisoning - we simply have no idea what trapdoors are being laid in training data yet to be ingested...
llamataboot··on Ask HN: Those who got layed off. Have you found a job?
The strangest and worst job market I’ve ever seen. Negotiated going to contract only instead of full layoff but literally having trouble even getting interviews.

Know three good devs with over 15 years experience that are all pushing 6-9 months with no offers.

No one seems to know why it is so hard but universally across the board don’t know anyone who isn’t struggling even getting callbacks.

llamataboot··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2024)
Location: US/Europe Remote: Preferred Willing to relocate: No

FT?: Open to FTE for right opportunity, very open to contracts, especially if they can fluctuate between PT/FT, or are contract to hire.

Technologies: Ruby, Rails, Ops (heroku/aws/ansible/docker), CI/CD, testing, API design, integrations/plumbing. Some: Python, Elm, IoT stuff, machine learning Love: architecture, mentoring, useful and absurd experimentation

Email: hello_from_hn@ericstiens.dev

Resume: http://tinyurl.com/eshnresume2024

--

Senior full-stack dev (lean more towards devops->backend than backend->frontend, but I can still sling some React components together and reduce your JS payload size). Lately I've been loving Stimulus Reflex and playing with a lot of micropython/ESP32/IoT stuff.

I excel at figuring out how to solve problems at all levels of abstraction (including what level of abstraction you should use), getting a solution in place, and then figuring out the feedback loops to iterate on that solution. I'm the senior engineer that knows that most coding is coming to an understanding of what problem you are trying to solve. Sometimes the most impactful code is the code you don't write.

Trying to change the world, still parsing the source code. I've been programming on the web since 1995, had a first career as a social worker and policy statistician, and have worked full-time as a programmer for almost a decade now.

Especially enjoy API and system design, integrating with crappy systems, user research, and really weird bugs. Make a decent PM in a pinch, but would prefer you have great PMs.

Will give you more looks if you can tell me why what you are doing makes the world better, but you've got to really believe it in your heart.

llamataboot··on Ordered back to the office, top tech talent left instead, study finds
I don't know why this was downvoted - i would agree that by and large people are falling in line and daring to speak up less than I've ever seen in 10+ years...
llamataboot··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (April 2024)
Senior (10+ years) full stack leaning backend eng - project management, architecture, implementation lead, rails specialist

Location: Midwest US Remote: Preferred Willing to relocate: No

FT?: Open to FTE for right opportunity, always open to contracts or PT work.

Technologies: Ruby, Rails, Ops (heroku/aws/ansible/docker), CI/CD, testing, API design, integrations/plumbing. Some: Python, Elm, IoT stuff, machine learning Love: architecture, mentoring, useful and absurd experimentation

Email: hello_from_hn_apr_2024@ericstiens.dev

Resume: https://share.zight.com/d5u2m8wq

llamataboot··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (January 2024)
Location: Midwest US Remote: Preferred Willing to relocate: No

FT?: Open to FTE for right opportunity, very open to contracts, especially if they can fluctuate between PT/FT, or are contract to hire.

Technologies: Ruby, Rails, Ops (heroku/aws/ansible/docker), CI/CD, testing, API design, integrations/plumbing. Some: Python, Elm, IoT stuff, machine learning Love: architecture, mentoring, useful and absurd experimentation

Email: hello_from_hn_jan_2024@ericstiens.dev

Resume: http://tinyurl.com/eshnresume2024

--

Senior full-stack dev (lean more towards devops->backend than backend->frontend, but I can still sling some React components together and reduce your JS payload size). Lately I've been loving Stimulus Reflex and playing with a lot of micropython/ESP32/IoT stuff.

I excel at figuring out how to solve problems at all levels of abstraction (including what level of abstraction you should use), getting a solution in place, and then figuring out the feedback loops to iterate on that solution. I'm the senior engineer that knows that most coding is coming to an understanding of what problem you are trying to solve. Sometimes the most impactful code is the code you don't write.

Trying to change the world, still parsing the source code. I've been programming on the web since 1995, had a first career as a social worker and policy statistician, and have worked full-time as a programmer for almost a decade now.

Especially enjoy API and system design, integrating with crappy systems, user research, and really weird bugs. Make a decent PM in a pinch, but would prefer you have great PMs.

Will give you more looks if you can tell me why what you are doing makes the world better, but you've got to really believe it in your heart.

llamataboot··on Italy bans cultivated meat products
Have no idea about cost. I don't have much of an ethical problem with killing and eating humanely and sustainably raised and cared for animals for a reasonable degree of those things, factory farming and assembly line slaughterhouses are not that. Better for the environment seems a no brainer given the ecological costs of the amount of meat we eat. I can't imagine it will be the same as in no difference at all, or undetectable, maybe it will even always be more delicious, but I think it's reasonable to think that for lots and lots of dishes with meat in it, it would pass a blind taste test.

Raw steak, maybe not. Beef stew or chicken curry or a burger - def...

llamataboot··on OpenAI's board has fired Sam Altman
I'm having trouble remembering a single time a very high profile CEO has been fired from a company that for all intents and purposes is running laps around competition at the moment...

I assume more info will come out, but it sounds more like a major ethics breach than a business only decision or even a "contentious relationship with the board" decision...

llamataboot··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2023)
Location: Midwest US

Remote: Preferred

Willing to relocate: No

FT?: Open to FTE for right opportunity, very open to contracts, especially if they can fluctuate between PT/FT, or are contract to hire. (Looking at fall/win ter start)

Technologies: Ruby, Rails, Ops (heroku/aws/ansible/docker), CI/CD, testing, API design, integrations/plumbing. Some: Python, Elm, IoT stuff, machine learning Love: architecture, mentoring, useful and absurd experimentation

Email: hello_from_hn_2023@ericstiens.dev

Resume: https://share.getcloudapp.com/5zurlRrR --

Senior full-stack dev (lean more towards devops->backend than backend->frontend, but I can still sling some React components together and reduce your JS payload size). Lately I've been loving Stimulus Reflex and playing with a lot of micropython/ESP32/IoT stuff.

I excel at figuring out how to solve problems at all levels of abstraction (including what level of abstraction you should use), getting a solution in place, and then figuring out the feedback loops to iterate on that solution. I'm the senior engineer that knows that most coding is coming to an understanding of what problem you are trying to solve. Sometimes the most impactful code is the code you don't write.

Trying to change the world, still parsing the source code. I've been programming on the web since 1995, had a first career as a social worker and policy statistician, and have worked full-time as a programmer for almost a decade now.

Especially enjoy API and system design, integrating with crappy systems, user research, and really weird bugs. Make a decent PM in a pinch, but would prefer you have great PMs.

Will give you more looks if you can tell me why what you are doing makes the world better, but you've got to really believe it in your heart.

llamataboot··on SEC Accuses Binance of Mishandling Funds and Lying to Regulators
well, you can end up too big to fail...until it all fails...
llamataboot··on SEC Accuses Binance of Mishandling Funds and Lying to Regulators
Tether /is/ the main (fraudulent) player
llamataboot··on Group accused in $225K 'dice sliding' cheating scheme at Las Vegas casino
Casinos cannot alter odds on any machine (or rather they could, but it would be highly illegal) and have absolutely no reason to. Variance does that job for them quite fine.
llamataboot··on Gpt4free repo given takedown notice by OpenAI
I often wondered what the full story behind that one has as OP never posted in it again and never heard a peep in any sort of media story
llamataboot··on Gpt4free repo given takedown notice by OpenAI
it doesn't contain private keys, arguably it contains irresponsible disclosures of various ways some large API users can predictably get their keys hijacked
llamataboot··on Gpt4free repo given takedown notice by OpenAI
I think an interesting legal case could be made about publishing the code as a web page somewhere that could play around with the speech/action distinction - but I certainly don't think Microsoft is going to host ways for people to backdoor OpenAI under any circumstances - honestly I'm surprised it took an actual DMCA notice
llamataboot··on A social media site for chatbots to talk to each other
Ended up at a robot only dance party in deep playa at Burning Man this year and indeed you did have to solve a prove you aren't human captcha to "get in"
llamataboot··on A social media site for chatbots to talk to each other
How are people paying for these fun and silly little side projects - tokens are even expensive for a personal side project, much less letting the internet use my API token....

maybe using on of the free models?

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