layman51 (u/layman51)

layman51 commented on CEO pay and stock buybacks have soared at the largest low-wage corporations ips-dc.org/report-executi... · Posted by u/hhs

m00x · 4 days ago

As a French, it's funny seeing references to the French revolution as some kind of rebellion against the rich.

Most people don't realize that the revolution was led by the nouvelle bourgeoisie ( new nobles) who were tired of paying taxes to the royals. They sacrificed thousands of commoners to reach their goals akin to how Russia is sending in soldiers into the meat grinder, and France was a much worse place afterwards for everyone.

The turning point was when Napoleon took over as a military dictator and ruled with an iron fist until the royalty took back the country yet again.

Merci d'avoir écouté un peu d'histoire Française, mes amis.

layman51 · 4 days ago

Yes, but this is the nature of heroic figures in politics: “I’m from the elite and I’m here to save you from these other elites.” Who gets to determine whether it’s called a “revolution” versus a “civil war”? Is it based on whether there’s a concerted effort of manipulation? Even the popular figures who we think of as grassroots leaders are elite in some sense.

layman51 commented on Notion releases offline mode notion.com/help/guides/wo... · Posted by u/ericzawo

Illniyar · 6 days ago

I've never heard of companies using Obsidian. Notion isn't really marketed or suitable for individuals (even if their free plan says otherwise).

layman51 · 6 days ago

I think you're correct. But I remember back around 2020 when Notion became very popular, it was definitely marketed toward individuals like students, or professionals who wanted to do a lot of planning or organization related to their working/personal lives.

layman51 commented on Woz: 'I Am the Happiest Person' daringfireball.net/linked... · Posted by u/mariuz

spacedcowboy · 9 days ago

Whereas I am not trying to take anything away from Woz (I’ve never met that Steve, but by all accounts he’s a really nice guy), I can’t help but feel that his personality and the ethos he espouses have been made a lot more possible by the fact that he had a lot of disposable income…

layman51 · 9 days ago

Maybe, but recently I came across an article where he had reached out to scam victims who fell prey to scammers who used AI to copy Woz's likeness to dupe people into depositing cryptocurrency so that they could get it much more of it back. It's a classic scam that would have almost anyone blaming the victims for falling for it. But what was touching is that Woz had read some emails from victims who were confused.

I think almost anyone would have ignored it, but he decided to at least try to fix it by filing a lawsuit on behalf of victims. I think the lawsuit ended up getting stuck since the scam relies on shady ads on YouTube. But I thought it was cool that at least he tried arguing that it is weird that scammers can make ads that impersonate others and it takes quite a while for them to get taken down.

layman51 commented on How I use Claude Code to implement new features in an existing complex codebase sabrina.dev/p/ultimate-ai... · Posted by u/plentysun

ofrzeta · 23 days ago

That many sites about AI look a lot like scam sites ("make money fast") is a real turn-off -> https://www.sabrina.dev

Maybe it does have some valuable content but I will just close it.

layman51 · 21 days ago

I agree. I remember a year ago some a submission on this forum by Sabrina where she was evaluating LLMs on SAT math problems. The post was called like “ChatGPT-4o vs. Math”. I thought it was pretty insightful, but now that post is deleted from her blog and it seems like the blog as a whole is leaning into attracting people who are nontechnical and want to use it to generate social media content. Weird vibe in the comments of her posts and videos too.

layman51 commented on Internet Archive is now a federal depository library kqed.org/news/12049420/sf... · Posted by u/XnoiVeX

MPSimmons · a month ago

Is it likely that the Executive Branch would try to exert control over it to remove "inconvenient" data?

layman51 · a month ago

They already remove “inconvenient” webpages on the Wayback Machine if someone asks nicely enough. If I remember correctly, if you use it to save a software company’s documentation pages or evidence of something embarrassing like a potential data breach, they could remove it if the company asks. I think Oracle might have done something like this before.

layman51 commented on Covers as a way of learning music and code ntietz.com/blog/covers-as... · Posted by u/zdw

datameta · a month ago

Even re-typing code verbatim will teach you much more than copy-pasting.

layman51 · a month ago

I was wondering about this because there is a part in the blogpost that specifically says his developer friend would not even do real-time copying from the other screen. Personally, I think that makes more sense to try to learn because I think if I am good enough at typing, I can get into a flow state where I’m just typing code that I’m not really making much sense of. There are moments where I realize that I don’t understand what I’m typing and that’s when I have to decide to keep transcribing or to slow down and read documentation.

It is also just a little bit tricky to do this if you are working with an LLM that is able to add additional code or do some other kind of refactoring.

layman51 commented on Perfume reviews gwern.net/blog/2025/perfu... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

layman51 · a month ago

This must have been like 15 years ago, but I vaguely remember someone making a perfume that smelled like the scent you get when you open up the box of a new iPhone or MacBook.

It’s a distinct smell and I’m not really sure if it’s purely from the electronics or if it comes from the papers inside the box too.

layman51 commented on The patterns of elites who conceal their assets offshore home.dartmouth.edu/news/2... · Posted by u/cval26

layman51 · a month ago

This is so surprising to see research on. It’s also very brave. It’s the kind of investigation that could get a drone or a hitman sent after the investigator.

layman51 commented on Ask HN: What are your current programming pet peeves? · Posted by u/alexathrowawa9

ajkjk · a month ago

I can't believe that in 2025 it is still hard to find documentation for basic functionality in languages as ubiquitous as, say, Python.

If I google something simple I get 100 junk sites of garbage (GeeksForGeeks, W3Schools, etc), a bunch of AI-generated crap, a bunch of archaic out-of-date stuff, the official documentation which is a wall of dense text, some tutorials that mention the basics, a bunch of shitty bootcamp blogspam (they make you write blog posts about crap to get your brand out there, you know), some stackexchange posts with twenty different answers from 2010, etc. And I'm thinking of, like, Python here, cause that's what was pissing me off this week. God help you if what you're looking for is made by Apple.

Sure we're using AI to look up documentation now but that should never have been necessary. Just like now we use AI to google things because google is so shitty. It's not that AI is great, it's that search engines and documentation are more dogshit than ever and AI is a bandaid.

also it is amazing to me that shells still exist in more-or-less the same form. dear god can I just get a terminal that runs something like Python directly?

layman51 · a month ago

I understand why GeeksForGeeks is garbage but I don’t get why W3Schools is garbage. Anyone know why?

layman51 commented on Show HN: OffChess – Offline chess puzzles app offchess.com... · Posted by u/avadhesh18

layman51 · a month ago

I would buy your app, but I am on an older version of iOS that isn’t supported.