Back when being taught how to use the internet in schools was still a thing, I would see vestigial references to Ask Jeeves included as an alternative to Google that “let you use natural sentences”. With a 0% success rate every time I tried.
I also used to see Grok boosting/slack-cutting on here/Reddit constantly back in Peak Subsidy when xAI was giving out hundreds of dollars of credits for free per month.
After they killed that and then stopped handing out free model access to users of every Cline fork for weeks following model releases, vibe coder hype moved back to Chinese models for cost and the SOTA models for quality.
On the other hand, the indignation over faulty logic I’ve seen in multiple comments already is somewhat ironic considering the hundreds of times I’ve seen the Van Halen brown M&M story invoked on HN as an example of a brilliantly simple heuristic for predicting quality.
True, I would never argue the iPhone wasn't a transformational step-up in usability that made smartphones a mainstream device category thanks to the App Store and slab screen with multi-touch.
But at the same time.... I had been doing nearly everything the iPhone could do in terms of raw functionality (plus plenty of stuff that took 1+ years to land on iPhones) on multiple different Windows Mobile and Palm smartphones pre-iPhone.
Saying pre-iPhone smartphones don't count because "ugly nerdphone with gross keyboard" is just as ridiculous as a "iPhone was overhyped and no better than existing smartphones" claim.
Apple created a device category within smartphones that then consumed and became what we now think of as a "smartphone" after iPhone and Android together strangled the first movers.
Like, the famous Steve Jobs "an iPod, a phone, an internet communicator" line was just listing standard smartphone features by that point. More or less the definition of a smartphone in fact.
Agreed. To add to this - saying that iPhones were the first version of smartphones that people actually wanted is silly - there was clearly a huge demand for these kinds of devices by the time iPhone came out.
To the best of my knowledge Linus Torvalds isn't posting walls of text to Github breathlessly announcing he's 810x-ed [1] his "logical lines of code/day" compared to what he was doing in 2013.
And, lest you think generating "600,000 lines of production code in 60 days" [2] is potentially problematic, has also fully solved the primary failure modes of AI coding identified by Andrej Karpathy, once and for all: "Karpathy's four failure modes? Already covered." [1]
As someone who has experienced mania, including with a programming bent specifically, it's hard not to raise an eyebrow at the idiosyncratic human-y bits of his thinking floating up from the sea of em-dashes and it's not X it's Y in his manifestos.
Plus volunteering this [3] in an interview:
“I sleep, like, four hours a night right now,” he told his interviewer, fellow VC Bill Gurley, during an onstage interview Saturday. “I have cyber psychosis, but I think a third of the CEOs that I know have it as well,” he joked about his current AI obsession. (Tan’s assistant confirmed to us that he was joking. ...)
It’s like I was able to re-create my startup that took $10 million in VC capital and 10 people, and I worked on that for two years, and I took anti-narcoleptics — I remember, you know, sort of being on modafinil...
(Not who you responded to.) You clearly don't know anyone who lives with a condition that would cause manic episodes.
They're terrible. Imagine being super focused and productive and excited by how much you're accomplishing as you're banging out innovative code and solving complicated problems with brilliant elegant solutions. Next thing you know you've been awake for two days and your mind no longer works but you're still super motivated and trying to make sense of what you're working on but it no longer tracks and you literally can't keep a line of code in your head long enough to combine it with the one that comes after it. And then you give up and try to watch streaming content for the next two days while your body begins to hurt terribly and you're dehydrated because you kept forgetting to drink water and you can't follow any plot-lines and your mind is mush and then when you finally fall asleep you wake up feeling like you got hit by a truck because you're so undernourished because you had no appetite for much of the episode and your body is literally failing / on the way to starvation.
For bonus points, you might even experience disordered thinking with hallucinations and paranoia and think someone has hacked into your computer and is trying to frame you for crimes and then destroy all your devices and drives, which I did once late at night before things got much worse and I came to in an ER and had to be restrained. It's super cool.
Calling out signs that someone might be experiencing this type of disorder is not being critical of their passion. It's putting notice out that they might not be operating in the same reality that you and I currently occupy.
Just commenting to say, from a place of empathy, that you're right and that it's hard for people to understand what mania looks like in someone if you haven't experienced it first-or-second-hand. You see it a few times and it becomes obvious. In the moment it can be disorienting and cause you to question your own reality because theirs seems so influential and motivated. I hope you're doing well these days.
Haha I recently asked Gemini for a product comparison for USB-C GaN chargers and it randomly inserted "as a Software Developer at $COMPANY working remotely, you may find the 100W fast charging useful when using your company laptop while travelling."
Like, thanks, really useful stuff (and definitely worth the creepy vibes to include that).
I wish the link for "Global Free Tier" [1] included an actual list of the free tiers GhostBox is using (ideally also including some kind of table/rubric for comparisons and any limitations, benefits, etc unique to each).
It sounds like Github Actions is the first choice, if it's unavailable (or if Github blocks GhostBox in the future), are each of the alternatives viable as a more or less drop-in replacement? Or would there be loss of functionality?
Those are the questions I had when reading through the site so I think some basic technical docs would go a long way to help people understand the project and decide to give it a try. I like the cute/whimsical branding but I'll admit to doing a little internal eye-roll when I clicked that link expecting technical specifics and instead read:
> GitHub Actions is only the first place ghosts come from. There are strange little pockets of temporary compute all over the internet. Ghostbox makes them feel like one small machine.
It's a neat idea though, and I've definitely had moments where I wished I could just spin up a free, temporary VM/container to do something but didn't feel like researching the current free-tier landscape and filling out a sign-up form and stuff.
ghost creates 1 private special repo in your account, as a unified home to hold your config and runners for all your projects - it doesn't create a repo somewhere else and doesn't need any random secrets. If you do want to customize the config and add secrets tho, ghost does support that - put their names in the toml and it will wire them through for up.
Right now it's only GitHub Actions. I didn't want to overbuild in case it wasn't a thing for others. I mostly use Actions myself. But I'm open to adding more. I think the GFT is real.
> They were always in harm's way. The war could have waited, and Iran could have doubled or tripled its missile stockpile and then they really would have been in harm's way.
I keep hearing this line defending US intervention but it doesn't really make sense. Iran was not threatening shipping traffic in the strait regardless of how many missiles they stocked up until they were forced to do so as an asymmetric warfare response to an attack by a superior military.
The missing ingredient has never been how many missiles Iran has stockpiled, it was external military action from someone like the US that gave them the window to assert that control.
The US didn't do the world any favors by getting it out of the way sooner or something, that's just absurd apoligism for a poorly planned war of choice that has obviously been a net negative for basically the entire world.
It would be like if the US nuked China and then shrugged after they predictably retaliated saying it just proved the threat from their stockpile that had always existed.
> I keep hearing this line defending US intervention but it doesn't really make sense. Iran was not threatening shipping traffic in the strait regardless of how many missiles they stocked up until they were forced to do so as an asymmetric warfare response to an attack by a superior military.
Why would they threaten to do so prior to being ready? Have you ever played a strategy game where you build up your forces for an advantageous offensive or defensive position? Countries do this too. If we were playing a game where my actions would provide some advantage or victory over you in some area or a broad area, why would I announce what my intentions were to you so you could react or anticipate my actions?
Separately, you can just ask: why are they even stockpiling missiles in the first place? Why isn't Singapore stockpiling missiles, or perhaps Portugal, or Panama, or Morocco? Of course, this then introduces the circular reasoning "because of a potential US attack", but of course if Iran wasn't funding Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and more, building up these missile stockpiles, continuing to pursue a nuclear bomb, helping Russia with its invasion of Ukraine, we wouldn't be here. At some point you just have to look at their actions and their actions suggest implementing a plan.
> The missing ingredient has never been how many missiles Iran has stockpiled, it was external military action from someone like the US that gave them the window to assert that control.
They don't have control over the Straight of Hormuz. It's a bit of semantics, but control would mean they can allow or disallow ships to pass based on their own decision making. They can disallow ships, but the US can also disallow ships. If Iran controls the Straight of Hormuz because they can fire missiles at ships, the US also controls the Straight of Hormuz because of that very same capability.
> Of course, this then introduces the circular reasoning "because of a potential US attack", but of course if Iran wasn't funding Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis
I think the first step of thinking about war objectively is to consider how each side sees it. The US POV is no less circular, from Iran’s perspective - they could list any number of provocations from the US to justify arming themselves, none more obvious than the war itself.
The debate around who started the hostility is ultimately pointless, the question is what to do about. Ideally the answer isn’t “arm for obliteration because the other side started it”
So let's say Iran stops building up massive amounts of missiles, funding these terrorist groups, stops pursuing a nuclear weapon, stops mass killing of its own civilians, and stops helping Russia prosecute its war against Ukraine (we can even leave this optional just to not introduce additional complexities).
What will the United States now have to do on its side as it pertains to Iran?
are you implying that the US share in the hostilities is only direct military intervention? because that's not correct. through their alliances, they are additionally responsible for more
It is not a game. And this war happened because Israel and USA assumed Iran is weak.
This had squat zero with acute danger of military buildup. This happened because Hegseth thought Iran will fold and found it super unfair they did not.
> Separately, you can just ask: why are they even stockpiling missiles in the first place?
To protect themselves when America starta Another war. It cant go without war for long. As brutal as iran is, there was no imminent threat of expansion
It is israel who just displaced millions of people.
Is the idea here that only USA gets to have missiles?
Iran is weak compared to the United States. The war wasn't started because Iran is weak, it was started because Iran is engaging in various activities that have effects in the world that the United States finds unacceptable.
> To protect themselves when America starta Another war.
Yet, only Iran has to protect themselves. Why is that? Well it's because they're doing bad things, and they know that we may do something about it. Why isn't Peru stockpiling missiles, or Thailand, or Iceland? It's because Iran's government was seized by an authoritarian regime that hates America and decided we would be the enemy forever and has continued to attack, and take other violent or non-violent actions that destabilize the region and global trade. If they just stopped doing this stuff, there wouldn't be a reason to "attack".
> It is israel who just displaced millions of people.
I don't think so. But Iran is responsible for Syria and those millions of people too. Like Maduro is responsible for the 8 million + refugees from Venezuela.
Your point of view of the world does not match reality. Stop making excuses and defending brutal authoritarian dictatorships.
> Is the idea here that only USA gets to have missiles?
Well you believe in nuclear non-proliferation, right?
> Stop making excuses and defending brutal authoritarian dictatorships.
this style of argument really falls flat in 2026 tho. at least for a global audience. it seems you don't appreciate how much america's image as a champion in good faith of freedom, democracy and prosperity has been shattered. not least because the old neoliberal guard has been busy undermining it (see carney's speech at WEF, where he started by pointing out that not only was the rules based order a lie, but that it is no longer acceptable to pretend otherwise). but now also because US aggression is perceived as directly responsible for the global energy crisis, which is affecting everyone else. america simply doesn't have a high horse to get on anymore
Part of the problem here is that folks have become so angry about Donald Trump that they've forgotten the broader picture. Taking out Maduro, taking action to stop Iran's regime, and more are unambiguously good things from the prospect of "freedom and democracy". There's a lot of conflict and anger and whatnot regarding trade and Trump's general idiocy, but if all of the world order, all of the good faith, all of that stuff is shattered so quickly? It wasn't very strong or valuable to begin with and so I don't mourn its loss.
If we no longer have a high horse, that gives us much more flexibility to act in our own self-interest since we no longer have to focus on taking losses to placate an image.
as i mentioned elsewhere. i don't disagree that america is in a strong position, relatively to everyone else. and has the means to achieve its interests. even without the superficial image of acting in good faith. but the old messaging ("america's tide is lifting all boats" etc) comes across uncalibrated
agreement on fundamental principles at a global level was the american (liberal) context. stepping outside of it leads to discovering a diverse world that you didn't account for before. as an example, even among iranians there doesn't seem to be enough support for the attack on their regime
Yep, allowing users to hide history has made it straightforward for bots to exist unchallenged.
Previously a quick scan of comment history would make it obvious you're looking at an LLM, now you're stuck arguing over a one off comment where they can get away with benefit of the doubt.
> Importantly, journalists in media, classically inept at any economic analysis, implied that 10% tariff = 10% RRP rise. They never corrected themselves, nor for the economists who falsely claimed the economy would collapse.
This is irrelevant to the discussion in the article, which is specifically about refunding a portion of whatever amount a company receives back from the government to customers.
It's also pretty vague without any examples of what specifically deserves corrections.
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