Top all-time · #2821
Scott Smitelli
Personal blog · scottsmitelli.com/articles · on HN as smitelliprogrammingculture
Scott Smitelli's personal blog at scottsmitelli.com covers programming and culture. Since 2012, 26 different Hacker News readers have linked it 40 times, most often “If it cites em dashes as proof, it came from a tool”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-19, and you can follow it by feed.
Most-linked posts?
- If it cites em dashes as proof, it came from a tool5 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2025-07-07
- The ideal candidate will be punched in the stomach3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-02-18
- Altoids by the Fistful2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-09-23
- You Don't Have To2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-02-28
- Et tu, Panera?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-05-16
- This is my dead grandmother's Special Day2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-10-01
- Shut Up and Dance2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-04-25
- Take this on-call rotation and shove it2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-03-27
- The "No, but" Engineer2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-03-01
What Hacker News says?
It's not just Perplexity, it's any of the "deep research" offerings on the market really. And the reason why they work so well isn't because of any kind of secret sauce, it's because they have infinite patience to wade through all the bullshit and can thus brute force this without necessarily knowing the shortcuts. It's basically more of the same: https://www.scottsmitelli.com/articles/altoids-by-the-fistfu...
Comment linking /articles/altoids-by-the-fistful/
on “Everything that's wrong with Google Search in one image”Submitted The ideal candidate will be punched in the stomach as a story · 394 points
HN discussionhttps://www.scottsmitelli.com/articles/em-dash-tool/
Comment linking /articles/em-dash-tool/
on “You did this with an AI and you do not understand what you're doing here”Submitted Altoids by the Fistful as a story · 274 points
HN discussionToo much has been written about em-dashes and LLMs, but I'd highly recommend If it cites em dashes as proof, it came from a tool from Scott Smitelli if you haven't read it. It's a brilliant skewering of the 'em dash means LLM' heuristic as a broken trick. 1. https://www.scottsmitelli.com/articles/em-dash-tool/
Comment linking /articles/em-dash-tool/
on “Using LLMs at Oxide”Submitted The Hidden Worlds of the Klein Tools TI250 Thermal Imager as a story · 245 points
HN discussionhttps://www.scottsmitelli.com/articles/altoids-by-the-fistfu...
Comment linking /articles/altoids-by-the-fistful/
on “Comprehension debt: A ticking time bomb of LLM-generated code”Submitted Take this on-call rotation and shove it as a story · 191 points
HN discussionEven if it's not you, it's still ethically questionable. It won't be the manager in question who will have to deal with the fallout, even in the long run - it will be another software engineer. It would ultimately contribute to this: https://www.scottsmitelli.com/articles/altoids-by-the-fistfu...
Comment linking /articles/altoids-by-the-fistful/
on “Comprehension debt: A ticking time bomb of LLM-generated code”Submitted Large Chainsaw Model as a story · 36 points
HN discussionhttps://www.scottsmitelli.com/articles/em-dash-tool/
Comment linking /articles/em-dash-tool/
on “PyTorch Monarch”Submitted This is my dead grandmother's Special Day as a story · 16 points
HN discussionhttps://www.scottsmitelli.com/articles/em-dash-tool/
Comment linking /articles/em-dash-tool/
on “Show HN: FFmpeg in plain English – LLM-assisted FFmpeg in the browser”Submitted If it cites em dashes as proof, it came from a tool as a story · 11 points
HN discussionso Spice86 helps in translating realmode 16bit DOS code into similar assembler looking like C# code - which got the exact same semantic and behavior but its pure C# - you can then use the normal Visual Studio debugger/IDE to port or extend the code - that is a huge benefit over beeing trapped using >30 years old DOS debuggers, compilers and IDEs for this already very hard work its to ease the process of rewriting as…
Comment linking /projects/cosmore/
on “Spice86 – A PC emulator for real mode reverse engineering”Submitted You Don't Have To as a story · 3 points
HN discussionFor some reason, my first thought when I saw this was to think back to this other recent post: https://www.scottsmitelli.com/articles/ideal-candidate/ I feel like these are linked in some hard to describe way.
Comment linking /articles/ideal-candidate/
on “I ate and reviewed every snack in our office kitchen”Submitted Et Tu, Panera? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionBorn in 79 so I'm either X or millenial - don't really care. I'm nostalgic about the times when tech was sought out and less pervasive. This recent article[1] really made me nostalic about the "goold ole days". The "boring" days. Anyways, I feel less sorry for myself and more empathy for younger generations. Growing up has always been challenging, before school shootings, and online bullying.. Now you can't escape t…
Comment linking /articles/take-oncall-and-shove-it/
on “The Gen X Career Meltdown”Submitted Et tu, Panera? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionhttps://www.scottsmitelli.com/articles/em-dash-tool/
Comment linking /articles/em-dash-tool/
on “You cannot outsource understanding”Submitted The "No, but" Engineer as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis article is a brilliant skewering of the 'em dash means LLM' heuristic as a broken trick deployed by those too-clever-by-half. 1. https://www.scottsmitelli.com/articles/em-dash-tool/
Comment linking /articles/em-dash-tool/
on “Show HN: Saunas lower nighttime heart rate more than exercise (n=59,000)”Submitted An Unwilling Participant in Your Smart Fantasy as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI developed a monstrous stress cough, which sometimes made me double over and vomit. Reminds me of the all too relatable allegory "The Ideal Candidate Will Be Punched in the Stomach" https://www.scottsmitelli.com/articles/ideal-candidate/
Comment linking /articles/ideal-candidate/
on “Speaking of Amazon, here's a fresh post from an engineer who just quit”Submitted Google Calendar: This is [my dead grandmother]'s special day! as a story · 3 points
HN discussionhttps://www.scottsmitelli.com/articles/em-dash-tool/ Discerning readers do not stop at the em dash. At least, I don't.
Comment linking /articles/em-dash-tool/
on “CSS Proves Me Human”Submitted You don't have to if you don't want to as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Everybody Imitates Hypnotoad (History of and Recreating the Hypnotoad Sound) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Dirty, disgusting, filthy, lice-ridden boids. § Scott Smitelli as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
