andruby's comments

On: Drones will realize the promise of suicide terrorism

[andruby]

What's the state of "automated" drone defense systems that fire a laser at the drone?

On: Left-Pad (2024)

[andruby]

Thank you for writing this akoculu.

I remember the incident and what stuck me most is how, for me, this was a clear example of a community (Javascript) that depended too much on dependencies (pun somewhat intended)

I don't know why so many people put so much blame on you. You unpublished a package with 11 lines of code [0]. I don't think you fully understood the frustration it would cause. And you mentioned that in the post.

> NPM didn't show usage stats, and there was almost no activity on Github. As a user, it was impossible to know the impact of unpublishing packages

The root cause imo isn't akoculu unpublishing the package. In my opinion that lies more in the over-reliance on dependencies, the npm policies and maybe also build systems not caching/vendoring code.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Npm_left-pad_incident#Backgrou...

On: Detection of hidden cellular GPS vehicle trackers

[andruby]

That would require plugging into the wiring. At that point you no longer need a battery and can just use the car's power.

[TheSoftwareGuy → andruby]

I'd be wary of draining the battery while the car is off. You don't want to prevent the car from starting

[dmd → TheSoftwareGuy]

The ~10 or 20mA or so one of these things draws would take months to do that.

[subscribed → andruby]

Untrue. Imagine a cute convertible car or sportbike in the snow country.

On: The librarian immediately attempts to sell you a vuvuzela

[andruby]

That's not how accounting works. Companies pay salaries and pay for hardware. They don't make profit so they don't pay taxes.

By labeling the salaries as R&D assets and amortizing that over 5 years (instead of taking it completely in the first year), they're more likely to make "accounting" profit and pay taxes in the early years.

Those legislative changes will likely move forward the taxes being paid.

But to your point: not paying taxes because a company is investing doesn't mean taxpayers are footing the bill. It does mean the company isn't contributing to paying taxes while it is in "growth investing" mode.

On: Why Koreans ask what year you were born

[andruby]

And with french you also have Tu vs Vous.

I am almost at the halfway point of my life expectancy, and I do actually prefer people using my first name over my last name.

On: Successful people set constraints rather than chasing goals

[andruby]

> At some point the complexity of the world collapses all your games. Then you hit your mid-life crisis.

Thanks for this gem. We're all just learning this game/world of life as we go along, right?

On: Magistral — the first reasoning model by Mistral AI

[andruby]

EU never just states "you can not have the cool thing". Please provide an example if you disagree.

It is very hard to create policies and legislation that protects consumers, workers and privacy while also giving enough liberties for innovation. These are difficult but important trade-offs.

I'm glad there is diversity in cultures and values between the US, EU and Asia.

On: Ask HN: How do you integrate AI assistants into your note taking?

[andruby]

Ooh. I love the voice recordings to solve the mobile/on-the-go flow. In practice, it is often indeed small things.

Interesting idea of adding AI via a real-time collaboration plugin. I'll try to keep an eye on it :-)

On: Joining Apple Computer (2018)

[andruby]

It's an impressive photo, but they were already famous when they gathered together

On: Ask HN: How do you integrate AI assistants into your note taking?

[andruby]

I'm playing with the idea of using a code editor like Zed.dev for my notes, and using its "AI Agent" flow.

I'd move the Obsidian markdown notes into a git repo (for versioning). Which would also open the door to running Claude Code to analyse my note taking.

Creating commits could be (semi) automated with a script that takes a git-diff and ask a local (or cheap) LLM to create logical commits with a reasonable commit message. The script could run on file save or periodically.

Mobile editing would be worse than Obsidian's iOS app. Workingcopy.app could provide an inferior but working UX.

Thinking in progress :D