Was that the one immediately after the great paradigm shift of November 2025, and before the great paradigm shift of January 2026? I think I remember it.
I think the issue is less attribution and more review mode.
If I assume a change was written and checked line-by-line by the author, I review it one way.
If an LLM had a big hand in it, I review it another way.
I haven't tried my HN comments; I've only tried things spanning more than a few sentences and that I've put more effort into. I only discovered this when my son put an e-mail I wrote to his teacher that he was CC'd on into the tool on his school iPad.
I guess I'm happy being dumb if it means I deserve a laptop with a battery that lasts all day, a trackpad that doesn't feel like it's covered in dry syrup, a case that doesn't make noises when I pick it up, and a processor that feels like alien tech.
I haven't used a laptop in the last decade that wouldn't last a whole day on battery, or would hold any of those qualifiers for that matter, from Apple or other manufacturers. Not that Apple are bad devices, but they are flawed like the rest of them (often less, and sometimes more in areas that may matter less to you, the software being a major and increasingly one to me).
Also good to remember that Apple is a company of good devices and tremendous marketing, not a company of tremendous devices per se. That entails a lot of subjectivity and awkward tribalism.
Any mid- to high-end pro-line laptop from the usual manufacturers (dell latitude series, lenovo T series, hp pro/elitebook series) gives you that, really (rigidly built body using magnesium/aluminum alloys, good input devices and IO, high-end config, …) and some practical perks (hot swappable batteries, repairable/expandable, on-site warranty, …)
> gleeful stories of how they kept a phone spammer on a call for 45 minutes: "That'll teach 'em, ha ha!" Do these types of techniques really work? I’m not convinced.
It’s one of the best time investments I’ve ever made. They just don’t call me anymore.
I think they have two lists: the “do not call” list, and the “unprofitable to call” list. You want to be on the latter list.
I'm guessing they might only know how long they had you on the phone per call and be oblivious to the fact you're intentionally wasting their time. I suppose you're still tying down a person who could be otherwise be genuinely scamming someone.
Cogs receiving abuse (which in this case is a scary word for "feedback from the public who is paying you and is unhappy with your process") _do_ cause the system to change. It's really not that much different from writing angry letters to Congressmen:
One letter "doesn't do anything", but a surprisingly small number of letters does. And the one Congressmen "can't do anything", but usually a small number of Congressmen can sway real change. HN often advocates writing angry letters to Congress because it understands this dynamic.
You will never be allowed to talk to the people who made the fax policy; they hired people like Karen specifically to make sure that doesn't happen. The person who can talk to management is... Karen.
These systems usually settle into a steady state where the interface with the public receives an acceptable amount of abuse. I guarantee that if a few people a month did what OP claims to have done, they'd figure out how to take docs over email pretty quickly.
In fact, writing to your Congressional rep is probably the way to solve this.
They usually offer "casework" services where a staffer will facilitate their constituent's interactions with federal agencies. This would probably help get the OP's specific issue solved AND make the legislators aware of the problem more generally. My impression is that agencies are often pretty responsive to these things: nobody wants to be on a senator's bad side.
>They usually offer "casework" services where a staffer will facilitate their constituent's interactions with federal agencies. This would probably help get the OP's specific issue solved
That's almost worse because what it creates is a system that abuses everyone by default and only when someone cries to their politician does it shape up.
I guess this depends on whether you think the system was deliberately designed to be “abusive” or has evolved some blind spots/legacy issues.
In this case, I’d guess “fax in your documents” was, long ago, meant to be an improvement over having to mail them in. It wasn’t chosen to be intentionally inconvenient. The system—or perhaps the laws it operates under—could certainly be modernized and your rep is well-positioned to nudge that along.
Likewise, I doubt the rudeness was a matter of policy. At a business, you’d ask to speak with the manager. Here, YOU via your rep are the manager and this is how you get your say.
And saying it doesn't is like saying "my one piece of litter won't make the park dirty". Just because you can't see the effect one instance has doesn't mean that it isn't meaningful when added all up.
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