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New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: Anyone else feel this community has changed recently?

Ask HN: Anyone else feel this community has changed recently? 3 by kypro | 0 comments on Hacker News. I've been on HN under different aliases since 2010 and over the last couple of years I feel like the quality of HN has nosed dived and so has my enjoyment. For the first time ever I questioned today whether I should continue to use HN anymore so I'm writing this partly to explore my own thoughts and to see if anyone else feels similarly. 1. AI, AI, AI. I get it. AI is the big thing right now, but I find AI posts fundamentally less interesting than the traditional tech content that used to be posted here. A post containing someone's qualitative opinion on how different AI models compare when drawing pelicans simply isn't as technically interesting as something like this, https://ift.tt/f57VlkH 2. Does any build startups here anymore? Again, I get it. I largely quit trying to bootstrap my own startup ideas in the late 2010s. The industry became too competitive for a so...

New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: Why do we still buy things by browsing catalogs?

Ask HN: Why do we still buy things by browsing catalogs? 5 by dannythecount | 4 comments on Hacker News. Every time we want to buy something online, we go through the same ritual. Open a marketplace. Search. Scroll endless catalogs. Skip ads. Ignore “recommended” products. Compare listings that look almost identical. Eventually fatigue wins and we click something — not because we’re sure it’s the best option, but because we want to stop spending time on it. It’s strange that we’ve normalized this. Buying online often means navigating noise: catalogs, ads, rankings, and persuasion systems competing for attention. What I keep wondering is this: When personal AI agents become common, what prevents them from doing exactly the same thing? If the interface to commerce remains “browse catalogs and search results,” then agents will simply automate the same inefficient process — crawling listings, parsing ads, and navigating ranking systems just to reach something the buyer already knew they...

New ask Hacker News story: Self taught gen-xers with senior dev/pm exp. Where's my imposter syndrome team?

Self taught gen-xers with senior dev/pm exp. Where's my imposter syndrome team? 3 by _hugerobots_ | 0 comments on Hacker News. tldr: it's been a few years since I've run into anyone in the pool without a degree. quixotic history aside, how rare is it to get contract work as sendev, devops(sysop ftw) or mid-pm at some F50 houses? My offers are usually about 60% of CS holders... but I'd rather do than don't. Could just be the market in Vancouver, probably a skill issue.

New ask Hacker News story: Amazon degraded shopping- you have to put in cart to see the price

Amazon degraded shopping- you have to put in cart to see the price 7 by talkingtab | 4 comments on Hacker News. I just went to Amazon and searched for "espresso tamper". Of the 15 top results only ONE had a price. Fourteen (14) say "See options" then "put in cart to see price" My first thought is that it was insane. My second thought was that they must be going broke to make this kind of change. Maybe there is some other reason, but I'm wondering if I need to find an alternative. Oh and in order to comment on this post you need to put it in your cart first! :-)

New ask Hacker News story: HATEOAS Works with an LLM in the Mix

HATEOAS Works with an LLM in the Mix 2 by charlieflowers | 0 comments on Hacker News. Just an observation, a light bulb moment, I wanted to share. Most of the dev teams I've ever encountered who said they were "doing REST" were not actually following HATEOAS. Per a strict reading of Roy Fielding, he would consider that "not really REST." (Now don't get distracted, I don't want to wade into that whole purist debate). The reason many did not do HATEOAS is that it requires the API client to be smart and adaptive. It would discover "ok, what can i do next", apply logic to it, and choose the next step. But many shops were on tight time commitments and it was much simpler to just think of REST as "json over http with consistent url patterns." The cool thing is: With an LLM in the mix, HATEOAS is unchained. An LLM can do exactly what a "dumb" api client cannot: ask "what can i do next", and then use _inference_ to unde...

New ask Hacker News story: Stathat Is Shutting Down

Stathat Is Shutting Down 5 by jervant | 0 comments on Hacker News. I received this email (nothing on their website though): Hi XX, We have some difficult news to share: StatHat will be shutting down in 30 days on April 4, 2026. Until then, you can export all of your data. Instructions are at https://ift.tt/jwNIUKq Key dates: • Data export available now through: April 3, 2026 • Service shuts down: April 4, 2026 If you have any questions, please contact us at contact@stathat.com. Thank you for using StatHat for all these years. - StatHat

New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: How do you find contracting/freelance roles without recruiters nowadays?

Ask HN: How do you find contracting/freelance roles without recruiters nowadays? 3 by Gooblebrai | 1 comments on Hacker News.