distalx
Joined 10 years ago
Joined 10 years ago
I really appreciate that HN still just uses temporary rate limits. You get the occasional "sorry" text, but as soon as traffic drops or your IP changes, you can read without logging in.
I wish more platforms stuck to temporary rate limits instead of building permanent walled gardens.
I think it's slop to many of us, but to a general user, they just aren't seeing it as slop.
Sure, you can patch that specific case with guardrails, but how many unpredictable edge cases are you going to cover? It only takes a user with a bit of ingenuity to circumvent them. There are already several examples of AI agents getting stuck in infinite loops, burning through massive API bills while achieving absolutely nothing.
You can contain a system failure, but you cannot contain a logic failure if the system doesn't know the logic is wrong.
A reasoning error has an infinite, unpredictable blast radius. When an LLM hallucinates, it doesn't fail safely but it writes perfectly compiling code that does the wrong thing. That "wrong thing" might just render a button incorrectly, or it might silently delete your production database, or open a security backdoor.
You can build reliable abstractions over failures that are predictable and contained. You cannot abstract away unpredictable destruction.
We are playing with fire. If we keep treating "I don't read the code I ship" as a feature rather than a liability, it's going to cause a massive, real-world disaster. The resulting regulation will be so heavy that software engineering will end up needing a Bar Council or Medical Board just to ship a basic feature. We're cheering for a trend that is going to regulate us into a corner.
Instead of just revealing letters when completely stuck, it would be cool to get a hint showing where or how the word is used.
Also, on completion or failure, instead of immediately loading the next challenge, it would be great to have an option to 'learn more' about the word and its usage. It would be amazing for learning new words, and you can just add a 'next' button for those who want to keep playing!