I just moved to a house with a barely finished basement. White walls, white painted floor, exposed ceiling joists and ductwork painted black. I’m experimenting with cheap projectors and lighting effects (using clamps to attach to the joists as if they were a truss) and furniture on wheels to create a configurable virtual space with full wall projections, sound, and lighting to match (but not overpower) the video. My plan is to make a camera/light platform with a cheap projector, and Raspberry Pi, and directional LED lighting so that I can coordinate all of them over the network. It’s also my office, library, game room and I have some awesome ideas on how to use the space to augment D&D games. But the white concrete floor has got to go - too bright, too cold, too hard, and too loud.
Readit Newscmpalmer52 commented on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025) · Posted by u/david927
So much more fun than leetcode. OTOH, unlikely to help you in an interview.
It would help you if I were doing the interview…
cmpalmer52 commented on Vibe Code Warning – A personal casestudy github.com/jackdoe/pico2-... · Posted by u/jackdoe
No one other than devs ever cared about the quality or readability of code. Devs are a necessary evil to business
Now that a ‘machine’ can write code no one give a crap.
Does it work? Then it’s done.
Why would anyone need devs to harness some ‘human capable’ but highly syntactically specific programming instructions that get compiled down into machine code anyhow
The new programming language is English
Only if the goal is to run the result and never have to update it or add features. Several of the good test projects I’ve made from scratch with AI (my title at work needs to be “Speaker to Silicon” because I’m usually tasked with experimenting with AI tools) have worked and looked great. Then someone wants a new feature. No problem, it adds it. Then you say, add that feature to this other part of the program, and it does it, but if you don’t look at the code, you realize it re-implemented it, so if you go back in a month and request a change, it only gets applied to the first place it finds. I had to constantly say “DRY! Don’t implement it twice, share the code!”
I mean, it’ll get better, but it ain’t there yet.
cmpalmer52 commented on Vibe Code Warning – A personal casestudy github.com/jackdoe/pico2-... · Posted by u/jackdoe
I haven’t done any serious web coding in years, so when I needed a little web page dashboard, I thought I’d do it 100% vibe coded.
Problem statement: We have four major repos spanning two different Azure DevOps servers/instances/top-level accounts. To check the status of pull requests required a lot of clicks and windows and sometimes re-logging in. So we wanted a dashboard customized to our needs that puts all active pull requests on each repo into a single page, links them to YouTrack, links them to the Azure DevOps pages, auto-refreshes, and flags them by needing attention for approval, merge conflicts, and unresolved comments. And it would use PATs for access that are only stored locally and not in the code or repo.
AI used: I began by describing the project goals to ChatGPT 5 and having it suggest a basic architecture. Then I used the Junie agent in JetBrain’s WebStorm to develop it. I gave it the ChatGPT output and told it to create a Readme and the project guidelines. Then I implemented it step by step (basic page layout, fill with dummy data, add Azure API calls, integrate with YouTrack, add features).
By following this step by step iteration, almost every step was a one-shot success - only once that I remember did it do something “wrong” - but sometimes I caught it being repetitive or inconsistent, so I added a “maximize code reuse and put all configuration in one place” step.
After about 3 hours, some of which was asking it code to my standards or change look and feel, I had a very full featured application. Three different views - the big picture, PRs that need my attention, and active PRs grouped by YouTrack items. I gave it to the team, they loved it and suggested a few new features. Another hour with the Junie Agent and I incorporated all the suggestions. Now we all use it every day.
I purposefully didn’t hand edit a single line of code. I did read the code and suggested improvements, but other than that, I think a user with no programming experience could have done it (particularly if they asked chatGPT on the side, “Now what?”). And it looked a helluva lot better than it would have if I coded it because I’m rusty and lazy.
Overall, it was my biggest success story of AI coding. We’ve been experimenting with AI bug triage, creating utility functions, and adding tests to our primary apps (all .NET Maui) but with a huge code base, it often missing things or makes bad assumptions.
But this level of project was near perfect capability to execution. I don’t know how much my skills helped me manage the project, but I know that I didn’t write the code. And it was kinda fun.
cmpalmer52 commented on Take something you don’t like and try to like it dynomight.net/liking/... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
When I was young I had a weird cognitive bias where I would think that if something tasted curious or different, that it must be good for you in some way.
E.g. the odd taste of licorice. Must mean that it was healthy or good right? Turns out licorice really isn't good for you. https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/10/28/black-licorice-is-a...
My rule is that if other human beings eat something for pleasure (and not out of desperation, a dare, or to show off), then I should at least try it a few times as long as I don’t have ethical qualms about it.
cmpalmer52 commented on Take something you don’t like and try to like it dynomight.net/liking/... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
I tried salted licorice. Granted, I don’t really like sweet licorice, or anise, or fennel, or any of the liquors that use that flavoring, but I tolerate them. The salted licorice was the worst thing I’d ever tasted.
So I bought a whole bag of it and ate a piece every day or so. After a week, I wasn’t cringing as much. After two or three weeks I started craving it. By the end of the month, I liked it. I don’t love it, but I did buy another bag when that one was done. And yes I know the health risks, but I’m never going to be eating a bag or two a day.
The weirdest, though, was cilantro. I’m in the genetic group that thinks it tastes soapy. And yet, after trying it enough, I love it.
With me, it has been story/novel ideas. The AI is a genuinely useful tool for brainstorming through ideas and giving historical and scientific background. I don’t let it write the stories, but I throw ideas at it and it riffs on the ideas which gives me new ideas and so on. Useful, but you realize it’s 4AM and you’re obsessively plot outlining a trilogy and sketching out characters and inventing a new economy when you connected to ask a personal finance question.
I’ve found it useful, but I recommend a “give me an honest critical evaluation as if you were an editor/agent/publisher” and “Is this derivative of anything?”
Just an anecdote, but back in college, I had an algorithms professor who gave us a classifier problem like the square and triangle boundary problem. His English was poor and nobody understood the problem as he stated it. I got an okay score on it, but never understood it very well.
Anyway, it’s 40 years later and I just read this article and said, “Oh! Now I get it.” A little too late, for Dr. Hippe’s class.
cmpalmer52 commented on An Alabama landline that keeps ringing oxfordamerican.org/oa-now... · Posted by u/bookofjoe
What a fun surprise to see this on HN!
I had the opportunity to work the Foy Desk a few times during my undergrad at Auburn in the early 2000s - mostly as a volunteer while the regular workers would be in meetings. At the time we had a multi-page list of common questions and answers, the Internet (as it was then), as well as access to university computer systems for things like class schedule lookups.
The most common questions I got then were from other students, most around when a certain class started or where it was located. This is was the early 2000s and, while a lot of this was available via OASIS (the Auburn student system) for any student, many either didn't have the computer savvy to use it or ... didn't have a computer at home at all!
The most unusual call I took was from a student who was lost in Haley Center (the largest building on Auburn's campus - at the time, not sure about now as I haven't been back in decades - and somewhat difficult to navigate if you aren't familiar with its layout). The poor kid sounded absolutely panicked. I actually had to pull up a map and walk the him turn-by-turn until he found the main hallway again.
As an aside, it's neat to see a few other Auburn alums on here. WDE!
WDE! I remember calling the Foy desk one night (this would have been late 80’s) because someone at a party said “It says Crun-chy” in a Paul Lynde voice and we couldn’t remember the name of the rat from Charlotte’s Web (Templeton).
cmpalmer52 commented on Invisible Electrostatic Wall at 3M plant (1996) amasci.com/weird/unusual/... · Posted by u/Simon_O_Rourke
Reminds me of the time I turned myself into a Van de Graff generator at work.
I was a theater projectionist, back when you had 20 minute reels you had to constantly change, while babysitting two high-voltage, water-cooled, carbon arc projectors. Sometimes the film would break and you’d have to splice it. So when the theater got a print in, you had to count and log the number of splices for each reel, then the next theater would do the same and retire the print when it got too spliced up (plus, sometimes if it was the last night of a run, some lazy projectionists would splice it in place with masking tape and then you’d have to fix it). Sometimes you had to splice in new trailers or remove inappropriate ones as well.
Anyway, you counted splices by rapidly winding through the reel with a benchtop motor with a speed control belted to a takeup reel while the source spun freely. Then, while letting the film slide between your fingers, counting each “bump” you felt as it wound through. I was told to ground myself by touching the metal switch plate of the speed control knob with my other hand. One night I forgot and let go until my hair started rising. I’d gone through most of the reel at a very high speed and acquired its charge.
I reached for the switch plate and shot an 8-10” arcing discharge between the plate and my fingers.
Lesson learned, I held the switch plate from then on.