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noahbrier

383 karma · joined August 21, 2008

Alephic.com
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noahbrier··on Unix philosophy and filesystem access makes Claude Code amazing
I'm trying to engage with you on this, but I'm really not sure what you're getting at. You originally stated "I think the essential job of marketing is to help people make the connection between their problems and your solutions. Putting all on them in a kind of blamey way doesn't seem like a great approach to me."

I agree that's the job of marketing, but I'm not someone who markets AI, I'm someone who helps large marketing organizations use it effectively. I agree that if my goal was to market it that wouldn't be an effective message, but my goal is for folks who work in these companies to take some accountability for their own personal development, so that's my message. Again, all I can do is be honest about how I feel and to be consistent in my beliefs and experiences working with these kinds of organizations.

noahbrier··on Unix philosophy and filesystem access makes Claude Code amazing
I started a repo if you want to play: https://github.com/heyitsnoah/claudesidian
noahbrier··on Unix philosophy and filesystem access makes Claude Code amazing
This is my point. Those tools are great specifically because of the simplicity of how they expose their functionality.
noahbrier··on Unix philosophy and filesystem access makes Claude Code amazing
I was on a podcast last week where I went into a ton of detail: https://every.to/podcast/how-to-use-claude-code-as-a-thinkin...

Basically I have it sitting over the top of my notes and assisting with writing, editing, researching, etc.

noahbrier··on Unix philosophy and filesystem access makes Claude Code amazing
No, that’s not what it means. You can read what I’ve written about this for the last three years and I’ve been very consistent. In the enterprise too many people are waiting to be told things and whether it’s good for my business or not I’d rather be honest about how I feel (you need to just use this stuff).
noahbrier··on Unix philosophy and filesystem access makes Claude Code amazing
What the company is trying to solve or what I'm solving with Claude Code?
noahbrier··on Unix philosophy and filesystem access makes Claude Code amazing
Seems like this might be possible with opencode? Haven't played much.
noahbrier··on Unix philosophy and filesystem access makes Claude Code amazing
Tbf I haven't played much with it, but I have generally found that I don't like the permission model on Gemini CLI or Codex anywhere near as much as Claude Code.
noahbrier··on Unix philosophy and filesystem access makes Claude Code amazing
That's fair. But it's what I believe. I spend a lot of time inside giant companies and there are too many people waiting for stone tablets to come down the mountain with their use cases instead of just playing with this stuff.
noahbrier··on Alephic Writing Style Guide
Exactly this. I actually think it’s exactly the opposite of assuming your audience is a stupid: it’s respecting them enough to do the work yourself instead of offloading to them. I’ll die on the hill that 19th century referring to the 1800s is fundamentally unintuitive.
noahbrier··on Alephic Writing Style Guide
That’s mostly the point. https://newsletter.brxnd.ai/p/docs-x-ai-brxnd-dispatch-vol-8...
noahbrier··on Alephic Writing Style Guide
Ha. I’m the author of the guide and most certainly read it. Started my career as a journalist.
noahbrier··on Alephic Writing Style Guide
It’s my guide, and I agree completely. Not even sure this is useful for other companies and definitely not fiction.
noahbrier··on Alephic Writing Style Guide
Alephic co-founder here. Basically we work with marketers on ai stuff.
noahbrier··on Alephic Writing Style Guide
Thanks for the shout-out, glad you enjoyed it.
noahbrier··on Show HN: BBC “In Our Time”, categorised by Dewey Decimal, heavy lifting by GPT
One interesting side effect of the Typescript interface approach is that it doesn't tokenize well: https://twitter.com/m1guelpf/status/1630015536632569857
noahbrier··on Ask HN: Why is Lex Fridman so successful with his “tech” podcasts?
I’m not sure about the broader success of the show or how he books guests, but if the question is what makes his show work, I have a few opinions as a listener.

First and foremost, he’s a good interviewer. He knows enough about the topics being discussed to ask good questions but also has enough discipline to give his guests time to work through a question and makes it about them.

Second, and this is related to #1, his guests clearly respect him/his audience enough to give reasonably in-depth answers. I mostly listen to the interviews with the deeply technical folks, and I’m impressed by their willingness to offer long technical explanations. I don’t understand it all, but I appreciate it and haven’t found another show that offers quite the same thing.

Finally, he does long episodes. This gives everything room to breathe. For me at least, my favorite interview podcasts are the ones where guests are hanging around for awhile. It gives interviewer and guest time to get acquainted and also let’s them cover a lot of ground. When I am deciding whether to listen to a Marc Maron episode, for instance, I’m definitely wary of anyone that goes to close to 60 minutes because it feels more likely it was just another interview for that person.

noahbrier··on Citicorp Center Engineering Crisis
The New Yorker story from the 90s on this is excellent. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/05/29/the-fifty-nine...

Here’s a non-paywalled version: https://www.uh.edu/ethicsinscience/Media/59Story.pdf

noahbrier··on EBUG: The NHL's emergency backup goalie rule
Definitely. The videos from the locker room are amazing. https://twitter.com/AnaheimDucks/status/1520238634539962368
noahbrier··on Ask HN: Have TV ads changed?
To the general question “have ads changed?” Yes. The style of ads generally evolve to match the time. Some of this is because the industry learns what’s effective and some is because trends and aesthetics change. In the 80s there were a lot of jingles and characters in ads, which you see much less of now. In the late 90s/early 2000s Apple started to include pop songs and the rest of the industry followed suit.

As to whether this is an effective strategy, it’s hard to say without knowing the specifics of the ad and the business, but as a rule for an ad to be effective it needs to be noticed and you need to connect it with the brand, so if it’s not accomplishing that it probably isn’t delivering on its intention (though it’s also possible that you’re not the target and if you were it would deliver). FWIW, I pretty strongly suspect that there’s too much sameness in the aesthetics and that’s hurting effectiveness. https://whyisthisinteresting.substack.com/p/why-is-this-inte...

A few books if you want more on commercials and mass advertising: - https://www.amazon.com/How-Brands-Grow-What-Marketers/dp/151... - https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Humbug-Think-Differently-Adve... - https://www.amazon.com/Seducing-Subconscious-Psychology-Emot...

noahbrier··on Not all SaaS revenue is the same
What do you mean?
noahbrier··on Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction
Ok, actually fixed now. Just got rid of inspector and changed to the proper name. Thanks.
noahbrier··on Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction
Agree, that's on me. Fixed.
noahbrier··on Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction
You're right, those are both on me. I put the link in and will fix that and spelling.

(I run Why is this interesting? and edited the piece.)

noahbrier··on Father Knox’s decalogue: the ten rules of Golden Age detective fiction
Actually, that’s a reference to a movie called Inspector Dupin which is based on the book. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9135798/
noahbrier··on Ask HN: How do I learn how to tell a good story?
I had a book agent tell me once that every business book is made up of a simple structure:

1. What? 2. So what? 3. Now what?

Say what you will about most business books, but the structure has stuck with me as a good way to make sure you’ve got the building blocks to a good story (in a business context).

noahbrier··on Using a spark file instead of backlog for product ideas
Agree. On the flip side, I've moved away from the value of group brainstorms for some of the same reasons. I find it much more valuable to let these things simmer for a bit on my own before bringing to a wider group precisely because they're so informal.
noahbrier··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2021)
Variance | Remote (USA) | Full Time

Variance - https://variance.com - is building a real-time data platform that helps sales team interact with customer data and grow their accounts. We are well-funded, started by second-time entrepreneurs, and still a small team with lots of opportunities to shape the product.

Looking for a python engineer with 4+ years of experience to join the team. Full details here: https://www.variance.com/jobs/sr-backend-engineer-remote-job...

noahbrier··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2021)
Variance | Remote

Variance - https://variance.com - is building a real-time data platform that helps sales team interact with customer data and grow their accounts. We are well-funded, started by second-time entrepreneurs, and still a small team with lots of opportunities to shape the product.

Looking for a python engineer with 4+ years of experience to join the team. Full details here: https://www.variance.com/jobs/sr-backend-engineer-remote-job...

noahbrier··on Goodhart's Law and how systems are shaped by the metrics you chase
Was mostly referencing back to this on general systems stuff, not a specific metrics system that works. https://whyisthisinteresting.substack.com/p/why-is-this-inte...
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