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pettijohn

52 karma · joined June 9, 2026

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pettijohn··on MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display and Touch
You can clean it now and then, you know ;-)
pettijohn··on MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display and Touch
I have a Windows laptop with touchscreen and pen support and I like it (HP Omnibook, Lunar Lake). My top use case is probably holding the hinge of the laptop in a way that one thumb can reach the screen, and I scroll with it. Revolutionary I know! Sometimes reaching up and tapping a button (large target) is faster than using the touchpad. Signing documents with the pen. A 360° hinge helps, too, for tent mode and everything in between. Touch is easier on an airplane when space is tight for my arms.

I can and do live without it on other devices (my desktop PC), but it's a nice addition that should just be standard equipment everywhere.

pettijohn··on New iPad mini
I am a nerd, but scrolling and my mouse cursor is obviously smoother at 120hz over 60. I can't tell the difference at 144 vs 120 however.
pettijohn··on PHP2Shell: AI uncovers critical RCE in PHP
Silly question, is PHP part of Project Glasswing? Crazy this has been dormant for a decade. And scary to wonder what else is lurking out there.
pettijohn··on Kolibri: A Sovereign Open-Weight Model
Seems like it's good at reading German documents and reasoning over them. Custom German-language tokenizer, and one of the least hallucinating models.
pettijohn··on Pi 1.0
Open source? Neat idea.
pettijohn··on Pi 1.0
I use PI WEB (https://pi-web.dev, there's more than one with that name) to orchestrate remotely. Pi lets me run local models (currently Qwen 3.8 Flash Next on Strix Halo 128GB) and flagship models (with subscription auth, not API pricing) side by side. I typically ask GPT 6.1 Sol to review requirements and then spawn a subsession with Qwen, review Qwen's work, ask Qwen to fix. About 95% success with a single pass like that, achieving flagship quality without the price tag (albeit slower).

I started using Pi because it has a small system prompt and local models were too slow to start. Then I started adding custom skills and extensions when I hit little corner cases. It's been so easy to bend into what I need.

pettijohn··on New Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra
I recently got a refurbished Strix Halo 128GB desktop for a steal ($2200) and I have a feeling it's going to be my last PC purchase for the next 3-5 years. Who knows how long this RAMpocalypse will last. My Lunar Lake 32GB laptop is already a couple years old, and it's not a speed demon but it ticks all the laptop boxes (portable, great battery).
pettijohn··on Bun 1.4
I for one prefer batteries-included. Decision fatigue for every cobbled together package takes its toll. Having a single, trustworthy, good-enough solution for so many things makes my life easier.
pettijohn··on Muse Glimmer: 30B-parameter model optimized for always-on local agent workflows
I'm so excited about these two new models. Qwen 3.6 27B has been my sweet spot so I cannot wait to try 3.8. Glimmer looks really strong, I'm encouraged that Meta compared it to 3.6 in the model card! Exciting times!
pettijohn··on Qwen3.8-Max: A New Bar for Coding and Cowork
Strix Halo, 128GB RAM. I got a refurbished Corsair AI Workstation for a smoking price ($2100) about two months ago. Lucky timing that it was in stock.
pettijohn··on Qwen3.8-Max: A New Bar for Coding and Cowork
Wow, bike geometry is really good! Except for the missing wheels lol
pettijohn··on Qwen3.8-Max: A New Bar for Coding and Cowork
35B MoE is certainly a good and fast local model. I find 27B dense to be quite a bit smarter, so I daily drive that. I wish there was a ~100B MoE with maybe 10B active. It would be super smart and fast!
pettijohn··on Show HN: Syncular – offline-first SQL sync with TypeScript and Rust cores
https://github.com/syncular/syncular/blob/0ff4fed6b7e538293e...
pettijohn··on The development pipeline is a production system
One of my mantras for decades has been: make change easy. Once you invest in great CI/CD, you can change stuff quickly and reliably. Then you can easily fix/roll back production issues. The dev team doesn't fear production deployments once change is easy.
pettijohn··on Qwen 3.8
SO MUCH THIS. I have Strix Halo with 128GB RAM and was a large and fast model like 122B A10B. Here's hoping!
pettijohn··on Show HN: Get alerts for good seats at 70mm IMAX showings of The Odyssey
Please add Vancouver BC
pettijohn··on Prefer strict tables in SQLite
I always define a primary key, integer or otherwise, and prefer the be explicit and consistent.
pettijohn··on Prefer strict tables in SQLite
CREATE TABLE ... STRICT WITHOUT ROWID is my default, I don't know why I'd ever do otherwise.
pettijohn··on AMD Ryzen AI Halo – $4k AI Dev Kit
I think I got lucky -- look for "revival" series on their web site. I happened to see it one time and pulled the trigger.
pettijohn··on AMD Ryzen AI Halo – $4k AI Dev Kit
$4k is pretty darn spendy. I recently purchased a refurbished Corsair AI Workstation with almost the same hardware (same chip, same 128GB RAM, but only 1TB storage) for $2160. Pretty good deal! Codex and I wrote a Linux driver to report the power mode of the device:

https://github.com/pettijohn/corsair-ai-workstation-performa...

pettijohn··on Ask HN: What are tools you have made for yourself since the advent of AI?
A Linux kernel module and userspace app to read the performance level of my Corsair AI Workstation PC (Strix Halo). Corsair only ships a Windows on screen display app and I was flying blind. AI helped me look over the Windows installer, decompile ACPI tables, and identify the WMI events. Built it all in Rust. When done I asked a different AI model to perform a security assessment and help me harden it. Way out of my wheelhouse, yet an afternoon project with AI.

https://github.com/pettijohn/corsair-ai-workstation-performa...