brdd

Hosted models only. (my philosophy is that I need these things to be fast if I'm talking to them, and they also need to be maximally not wrong, which means cloud hosted big models even if they're expensive. To me, if it's wrong even once or if I'm sitting there waiting for it to reply, that's already making the value prop not worth it)

I think per token costs I calculated on Opus 4.5/4.6 were like $0.30/day for my text automations; $0.60/day for a few things I do that load up the browser. In general, anything browser-based munches up a lot more token (expected). What can be a bit of sticker shock is if you're having it load a lot of large web pages in a long conversation-- that can be several dollars. In the grand scheme of things, several dollars is not a lot but certainly from a "should I just go to the website myself" it tips the scale. I'm usually more interested in doing things once to "teach" it what to do (e.g. how to check a price) and then having it run that as a dialed-in cron job

Hope this helps

I wrote a piece on this which was on the front page of HN a few weeks ago: https://brandon.wang/2026/clawdbot

I still do all of the text automations, which have been pretty set-and-forget.

it's meant to throw out crazy low or crazy high numbers. i monitor 5 nearby stations and usually only 1-2 of them are bad (which is tolerable but not ideal).

OP here!

i am actually very anti-notification (almost all are disabled; i use the iphone "notification summary" feature to get them delivered a few times a day only).

i do want to be on top of things and hate the feeling when i've double-booked myself or promised someone something that i forget. (i don't catalog everything in my fridge; the example was for a "deep freezer" i keep in the back room. this is super common for most suburban households but maybe lost on international audiences)

i am a normal level of busy and i think i was trying to have a bit of fun with creating things with a very low threshold for how good they had to be. i'm not bothered by everyone's speculations about me — i wanted to provoke some conversation — but this really is just about a bit of joy and building things i use every day makes me happy. people think it's cool that my calendar events make themselves.

hope this context helps :)

it uses a real chrome browser window (that i can see when i remote desktop into the mac mini) that's been very good so far.

re: scale, is it that this whole project is worthless bc nobody needs it, or is it that its so good that scale is a requirement? this is a project i built for myself, i'm not commercializing anything

I use PurpleAir data for a lot of my home automations— I have a smart window vent and configure it to blow in/out depending on which side has the worse air.

(Thank you to those who maintain public sensors!)

I do notice that in my neighborhood (Noe Valley) a lot of the sensors are very incorrect or often offline. I've resorted to taking the median and throwing outliers away, but even this often doesn't work. This is the challenge of relying on crowdsourced data I suppose...

They give you a cleaning cloth? Did I accidentally throw mine away!?

We agree! Unchecked development could lead to disaster. Insurers can insist on adherence to best practices to incentivize safe practices. They can also clarify liability and cover most (but not all) of the risk, leaving the developer on the hook for a portion of it.

Thanks for the thoughtful response! Some replies:

1. Someone is always carrying the risk; the question is, who it should be? We suggest private markets should price and carry the first $10B+ before the government backstop. That incentivizes them to price and manage it.

2. Insurance has plenty of ways to manage moral hazard (e.g. copays). Pricing any new risk is hard, but at least with AI you can run simulations, red-team, review existing data, etc.

3. We agree on existential losses, but catastrophic events can be priced and covered. Insurers enforcing compliance with audits/standards would help them reduce catastrophes, in turn reducing the risk of many existential risks.

The "Incentive Flywheel" of AI: how insurance unlocks secure Al progress and enables faster AI adoption.

Dreambound | San Francisco, CA or remote | Full-time | Senior Software Engineer | https://dreambound.com/company/jobs/405770100 ----

Dreambound creates upward mobility for American job seekers and simplifies hiring for employers. We’re an early startup helping low-income folks upskill and afford vocational training (think truck driving or nursing) with zero-interest loans. It’s a bit like Affirm meets edtech meets workforce development — deeply mission-oriented work helping people get ready for an economy that’s left them behind, and also an exciting engineering challenge as we’re working with a modern stack and awesome team.

This is engineering role #4 at a 10+ person company with some phenomenal talent and great culture. We're hiring for both front-end and back-end roles, with a focus on someone who has had 2+ years of experience working on front-end (React, TypeScript) or back-end (TypeScript). We have an SF office and a distributed team — on-site post-COVID and remote available.

In my time in tech I have never come across a company that is as mission-oriented as ours — while still very much focused on building a successful business. For many of our customers, Dreambound represents a lifeline to economic stability. We are backed by USV; leaders at Affirm, Twitter, General Assembly; and some of the best VCs/angels in the business. It's a GREAT opportunity to join an early-stage company.

You can apply here and mention HN, or email me directly (brandon@ the below domain name):

https://dreambound.com/company/jobs/4046711003

We're also hiring for operations, growth, and sales roles!

This is a classic!

https://qntm.org/abolish

Totally false. We saw many commercial units between $35-50/sf IG and just signed on one at $37/sf.

Dreambound | San Francisco, CA or remote | Full-time | Senior Software Engineer | https://dreambound.com/company/jobs/405770100

----

Dreambound creates upward mobility for American job seekers and simplifies hiring for employers. We’re an early startup helping low-income folks upskill and afford vocational training (think truck driving or nursing) with zero-interest loans. It’s a bit like Affirm meets edtech meets workforce development — deeply mission-oriented work helping people get ready for an economy that’s left them behind, and also an exciting engineering challenge as we’re working with a modern stack and awesome team.

This is engineering role #4 at a 10+ person company with some phenomenal talent and great culture. We're hiring for both front-end and back-end roles, with a focus on someone who has had 2+ years of experience working on front-end (React, TypeScript) or back-end (TypeScript). We have an SF office and a distributed team — on-site post-COVID and remote available.

In my time in tech I have never come across a company that is as mission-oriented as ours — while still very much focused on building a successful business. For many of our customers, Dreambound represents a lifeline to economic stability. We are backed by USV; leaders at Affirm, Twitter, General Assembly; and some of the best VCs/angels in the business. It's a GREAT opportunity to join an early-stage company.

You can apply here and mention HN, or email me directly (brandon@ the below domain name):

https://dreambound.com/company/jobs/4046711003

We're also hiring for operations, growth, and sales roles!

Dreambound | San Francisco, CA or remote | Full-time | Senior Software Engineer | https://dreambound.com/company/jobs/405770100

----

Dreambound creates upward mobility for American job seekers and simplifies hiring for employers. We’re an early startup helping low-income folks upskill and afford vocational training (think truck driving or nursing) with zero-interest loans. It’s a bit like Affirm meets edtech meets workforce development — deeply mission-oriented work helping people get ready for an economy that’s left them behind, and also an exciting engineering challenge as we’re working with a modern stack and awesome team.

This is engineering role #4 at a 10+ person company with some phenomenal talent and great culture. We're hiring for both front-end and back-end roles, with a focus on someone who has had 2+ years of experience working on front-end (React, TypeScript) or back-end (TypeScript). We have an SF office and a distributed team — on-site post-COVID and remote available.

In my time in tech I have never come across a company that is as mission-oriented as ours — while still very much focused on building a successful business. For many of our customers, Dreambound represents a lifeline to economic stability. We are backed by USV; leaders at Affirm, Twitter, General Assembly; and some of the best VCs/angels in the business. It's a GREAT opportunity to join an early-stage company.

You can apply here and mention HN, or email me directly (brandon@ the below domain name):

https://dreambound.com/company/jobs/4046711003

We're also hiring for operations, growth, and sales roles!

Dreambound | San Francisco, CA | Full-time | Senior Software Engineer, Product | https://dreambound.com/company/jobs/4057701003 ----

Dreambound creates upward mobility for American job seekers and simplifies hiring for employers. We’re an early startup helping low-income folks upskill and afford vocational training (think truck driving or nursing) with zero-interest loans. It’s a bit like Affirm meets edtech meets workforce development — deeply mission-oriented work helping people get ready for an economy that’s left them behind, and also an exciting engineering challenge as we’re working with a modern stack and awesome team.

This is engineering role #4 at a 10+ person company with some phenomenal talent and great culture. We're hiring for both front-end and back-end roles, with a focus on someone who has had 2+ years of experience working on front-end (React, TypeScript) or back-end (TypeScript). We have an SF office and a distributed team — on-site post-COVID and remote available.

In my time in tech I have never come across a company that is as mission-oriented as ours — while still very much focused on building a successful business. For many of our customers, Dreambound represents a lifeline to economic stability. We are backed by USV; leaders at Affirm, Twitter, General Assembly; and some of the best VCs/angels in the business. It's a GREAT opportunity to join an early-stage company.

You can apply here and mention HN, or email me directly (brandon@ the below domain name):

https://dreambound.com/company/jobs/4046711003

We're also hiring for operations, growth, and sales roles!

During a pandemic, the only roles that you can hire for are ones that are remote (by definition, more or less). So this is not really charting a "shift". The question is, post-pandemic, will new roles continue to be permanent remote or will they gravitate back towards office roles?

As someone who has posted many remote Who is Hiring posts, I know that they've had little bearing on our company's decision process to move new roles back in-person or stay remote.

If you're on HN, chances are, you're not very correlated to the sample from this research study... which looks entirely at correlation, not causation. I'm interested in a long-term study that identifies real differences in health outcomes, not just population bias.

Well you must be very fun in meetings.

Dreambound | San Francisco, CA | Full-time | Senior Software Engineer, Product | https://dreambound.com/company/jobs/4057701003

----

Dreambound creates upward mobility for American job seekers and simplifies hiring for employers. We’re an early startup helping low-income folks upskill and afford vocational training (think truck driving or nursing) with zero-interest loans. It’s a bit like Affirm meets edtech meets workforce development — deeply mission-oriented work helping people get ready for an economy that’s left them behind, and also an exciting engineering challenge as we’re working with a modern stack and awesome team.

This is engineering role #4 at a 10+ person company with some phenomenal talent and great culture. We're hiring for both front-end and back-end roles, with a focus on someone who has had 2+ years of experience working on front-end (React, TypeScript) or back-end (TypeScript). We have an SF office and a distributed team — on-site post-COVID and remote available.

In my time in tech I have never come across a company that is as mission-oriented as ours — while still very much focused on building a successful business. For many of our customers, Dreambound represents a lifeline to economic stability. We are backed by USV; leaders at Affirm, Twitter, General Assembly; and some of the best VCs/angels in the business. It's a GREAT opportunity to join an early-stage company.

You can apply here and mention HN, or email me directly (brandon@ the below domain name):

https://dreambound.com/company/jobs/4046711003

We're also hiring for operations, growth, and sales roles!

I disagree — as a direct result of play #7 in this playbook, multiple large-scale initiatives were launched; most notably 18F, which is like a "startup" within the federal government:

https://18f.gsa.gov/

Another one that comes to mind is Coding It Forward, which has the express mission of creating government tech internships that rival FB/Google internships in terms of pay, experience, and mentorship:

https://www.codingitforward.com/

Do you have a source for Livermore designing their bridges to specifically prevent BART expansion? I'm a transit nerd and I find this to be stunning, but I Googled around and couldn't find anything corroborating that

Dreambound | San Francisco, CA | Full-time | Senior Software Engineer, Product | https://dreambound.com/company/jobs/4057701003 ----

Dreambound (formerly Ladder) creates upward mobility for American job seekers and simplifies hiring for employers. We’re an early startup helping low-income folks upskill and afford vocational training (think truck driving or nursing) with zero-interest loans. It’s a bit like Affirm meets edtech meets workforce development — deeply mission-oriented work helping people get ready for an economy that’s left them behind, and also an exciting engineering challenge as we’re working with a modern stack and awesome team.

This is engineering role #3 at a 10+ person company with some phenomenal talent and great culture. We're hiring for both front-end and back-end roles, with a focus on the front-end role and someone who has had 2+ years of experience working in React, TypeScript, and front-end JavaScript frameworks. We are SF based but many team members are distributed.

In my time in tech I have never come across a company that is as mission-oriented as ours — while still very much focused on building a successful business. For many of our customers, Ladder represents a lifeline to economic stability. We are backed by USV; leaders at Affirm, Twitter, General Assembly; and some of the best VCs/angels in the business. It's a GREAT opportunity to join an early-stage company.

You can apply here and mention HN, or email me directly (brandon@ the below domain name):

https://withladder.com/company/jobs/4057701003

We're also hiring spring/summer 2021 software engineering interns, and for growth/sales!

Ladder | San Francisco, CA | Full-time | Senior Software Engineer, Product | https://withladder.com/company/jobs/4057701003

----

Ladder creates upward mobility for American job seekers and simplifies hiring for employers. We’re an early startup helping low-income folks upskill and afford vocational training (think truck driving or nursing) with zero-interest loans. It’s a bit like Affirm meets edtech meets workforce development — deeply mission-oriented work helping people get ready for an economy that’s left them behind, and also an exciting engineering challenge as we’re working with a modern stack and awesome team.

This is engineering role #3 at a 10+ person company with some phenomenal talent and great culture. We're hiring for both front-end and back-end roles, with a focus on the front-end role and someone who has had 2+ years of experience working in React, TypeScript, and front-end JavaScript frameworks. We are SF based but many team members are distributed.

In my time in tech I have never come across a company that is as mission-oriented as ours — while still very much focused on building a successful business. For many of our customers, Ladder represents a lifeline to economic stability. We are backed by USV; leaders at Affirm, Twitter, General Assembly; and some of the best VCs/angels in the business. It's a GREAT opportunity to join an early-stage company.

You can apply here and mention HN, or email me directly (brandon@ the below domain name):

https://withladder.com/company/jobs/4057701003

Ladder | San Francisco, CA | Full-time | Senior Software Engineer https://withladder.com/company/jobs/4057701003

----

Ladder creates upward mobility for American job seekers and simplifies hiring for employers. Right now, we're helping job seekers attend 3-14 week classes to become certified nursing assistants (CNAs), financing their tuition and placing them with employers immediately upon completion. For many, Ladder represents a new lifeline to economic stability and a better chance at a fulfilling career.

This is engineering role #3 at a 10+ person company with some phenomenal talent and great culture. We're hiring for both front-end and back-end roles, with a focus on the front-end role and someone who has had 2+ years of experience working in React, TypeScript, and front-end JavaScript frameworks. We are optionally WFH thru the end of 2020.

In my time in tech I have never come across a company that is as mission-oriented as ours — while still very much focused on building a successful business. We are backed by USV and some of the best VCs/angels in the business. It's a great opportunity to join an early-stage company.

You can apply here and mention HN, or email me directly (brandon@ the below domain name):

https://withladder.com/company/jobs/4057701003

I'm really excited, although the Mac part of this page is somewhat misleading — there isn't anything available on the Mac side yet (everything is "coming soon")

There's a lot of misunderstanding in general, I think, about the rights that employees have under labor relations laws, and how those laws are routinely broken.

For example, up until very recently (December 2019, when a Republican-led NLRB overturned a previous 2014 ruling) it was expressly required that employees at a company be allowed to use email in order to unionize and organize.

In fact, in general there are still quite a few protections afforded to organizing workers -- even with recent rulings. The rule is that policies cannot discriminate on content. For example, if employees are allowed to use a work Google Calendar to plan birthday parties and events, then they must be allowed to use the same calendar to unionize. If employees have a workplace bulletin board where they can post about Girl Scout cookie sales or anything else personal, then they must be allowed to use that same bulletin board to post about unionization.

Ladder | Full-stack Software Engineer | San Francisco, CA | Full time

America has an upward mobility problem: too many people lack access to opportunity and stable employment. Underbanked, underserved, and underappreciated are status quos we’re not willing to accept.

Ladder creates upward mobility for American job seekers and simplifies hiring for employers. Right now, we're helping job seekers attend 3-14 week classes to become certified nursing assistants (CNAs), financing their tuition and placing them with employers immediately upon completion. Our customers pay us back in installments if and only they get a job.

We raised a seed round from top venture funds in Silicon Valley and New York City. We're well-funded and ready to improve upward mobility and the health care labor supply in America.

Apply here! https://grnh.se/c81356ef3us

We have used ULIDs in production for over a year now-- and have generated millions of these.

First, the main benefit of ULID is that you can generate the IDs within your own software rather than rely on the database. We can queue them or even reference them before they land in the database. The traditional roundtrip has been eliminated.

Secondly, being able to sort ULIDs is a nice plus, although not that big of a deal. It makes it relatively easy to shard or partition databases, and it provides a convenient sort if you're not looking for extreme accuracy.

ULIDs are also shorter and slightly more user friendly than UUIDs.

In some circumstances we found the actual implementations to be slightly lacking. For example, the JS library for ULID once returned a 25 character string rather than the standard 26 characters, causing a big ruckus that we had to manually resolve.

Conduit | Software engineer (JS/Python) | Boston/Cambridge, MA (Harvard Square) | Full time, ONSITE

https://conduithq.com/company/

Conduit is AI chief of staff for busy individuals, connectors, and leaders. When people traditionally turn to CRMs, we want to reinvent the model. We provide insight and help answer questions like "what are the key events in my relationship with someone" or "who are the people I should talk to next".

We've built a complex model, the Conduit Personal Graph, to support syncing, processing, and analyzing data in a secure and privacy-conscious way. We're bringing our software to web and mobile.

No legacy engineering: we work with modern technologies:

- Front-end: JavaScript (ES6), React, Node.js/Express, GraphQL, Apollo, Babel, Webpack.

- Back-end/data: Python 3, PostgreSQL, Flask, Redis, Pandas/Numpy, SpaCy.

- Across our stack: Docker, Kubernetes.