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Show HN: AsteroidOS 2.0 – Nobody asked, we shipped anyway

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Re: Show HN: AsteroidOS 2.0 – Nobody asked, we shipped anyway

#41

Post by bjackman »

moWerk wrote: post #32
antonvs wrote: post #31

fyi the announcement is very obviously ai-written. It’s off-putting.

Fair suspicion in 2026 — but we actually started drafting that announcement in early 2023 before first committing it here: https://github.com/jrtberlin/aos2.0-post . As a non native speaker i sure ran my commits through grammar polishing multiple times over the years. And i am genuinely curious now what to avoid to not sound like an LLM if you could dig out one or two examples.

FWIW as someone who sadly has about 10% of his brain constantly engaged in AI detection when I read HN, absolutely nothing about the announcement struck me as feeling AI generated.

(I feel guilty for pointing it out but I guess it's actually a compliment in this context: I even saw a beautifully reassuring mis-conjugated verb elsewhere on the website. I wonder if LLMs will have to start injecting these errors to give us an authentic feel. Maybe they already have).

I think we are at a point now where just coz AI is so prevalent, every post on any programming forum will have at least one comment saying "AI slop".

Re: Show HN: AsteroidOS 2.0 – Nobody asked, we shipped anyway

#42

Post by coffeeenjoyer »

Wow, this looks pretty cool! It seems you have quite a few features going... The main reason I haven't gotten a smartwatch yet is because of privacy concerns. But now seems like a good time to experiment with one of the watches you support.

I also still dream of one day daily driving a Linux smartphone, but that feels a bit more unrealistic to me, as I have more expectations from a phone, like being able to use bank apps and having a good battery life. But for a smartwatch, which I only expect to show me some biometrics and pass notifications from my phone, this seems perfect.

On this note: aren't JavaScript and QML/Qt too heavy/bloated for a device so small? I expect them to constrain performance and battery life quite a bit, but I admit I don't have a clue and would love to be proven wrong...

Re: Show HN: AsteroidOS 2.0 – Nobody asked, we shipped anyway

#43

Post by nunobrito »

Thanks for sharing, indeed it is good to reuse and improve hardware whenever possible rather than just going to waste. Had never heard of this project before, so it was a good find.

I see the supported watches, still have a doubt: what is scenario looking like for the cheap smarwatches from Aliexpress and similar? Any chance to also flash a new firmware or is this limited to more CPU-powerful watches?

Re: Show HN: AsteroidOS 2.0 – Nobody asked, we shipped anyway

#44

Post by nunobrito »

prmoustache wrote: post #40
antonvs wrote: post #31

fyi the announcement is very obviously ai-written. It’s off-putting.

What is off-putting ia this kind of comments everywhere you go. This is the new "this has clearly been photoshoped" meme we used to see on every forum thread 2 decades ago and it is annoying as hell.

Not on this article, but everywhere nowadays are hints of AI. For example using emoticons on the beginning of each sentence or never really going deep into the topic. The complete lack of grammatical errors is another tip, unless the prompter asks to write minor errors and pretend to be a human.

Wouldn't be suprised that before the end of this year we see more website declaring themselves to be "human-only zones", considering we won't be able to match the speed and quantity and replies from bots. Making it difficult to hold proper conversations.

Re: Show HN: AsteroidOS 2.0 – Nobody asked, we shipped anyway

#45

Post by thinkingemote »

nunobrito wrote: post #44
prmoustache wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is off-putting ia this kind of comments everywhere you go. This is the new "this has clearly been photoshoped" meme we used to see on every forum thread 2 decades ago and it is annoying as hell.

Not on this article, but everywhere nowadays are hints of AI. For example using emoticons on the beginning of each sentence or never really going deep into the topic. The complete lack of grammatical errors is another tip, unless the prompter asks to write minor errors and pretend to be a human. Wouldn't be suprised that before the end of this year we see more website declaring themselves to be "human-only zones", co…

This is one theory about the controversial age identification currently being implemented happily by social media companies: it's actually about human identification. That's the new captcha.

Re: Show HN: AsteroidOS 2.0 – Nobody asked, we shipped anyway

#46

Post by casept »

nunobrito wrote: post #43

Thanks for sharing, indeed it is good to reuse and improve hardware whenever possible rather than just going to waste. Had never heard of this project before, so it was a good find. I see the supported watches, still have a doubt: what is scenario looking like for the cheap smarwatches from Aliexpress and similar? Any chance to also flash a new firmware or is this limited to more CPU-powerful watches?

Most cheap watches are microcontroller-only. AsteroidOS is a Linux distro and therefore needs a chip capable of running some Linux variant.

Re: Show HN: AsteroidOS 2.0 – Nobody asked, we shipped anyway

#47

Post by fsflover »

xrd wrote: post #10

Can anyone suggest where to find a watch that is supported if you live in the US? I've been scanning eBay but it feels difficult to get ahold of a supported device. Are there sites that ship to the US where a new or used device can be found?

Did you consider PineTime?

Re: Show HN: AsteroidOS 2.0 – Nobody asked, we shipped anyway

#48

Post by mapcars »

nunobrito wrote: post #44
prmoustache wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is off-putting ia this kind of comments everywhere you go. This is the new "this has clearly been photoshoped" meme we used to see on every forum thread 2 decades ago and it is annoying as hell.

Not on this article, but everywhere nowadays are hints of AI. For example using emoticons on the beginning of each sentence or never really going deep into the topic. The complete lack of grammatical errors is another tip, unless the prompter asks to write minor errors and pretend to be a human. Wouldn't be suprised that before the end of this year we see more website declaring themselves to be "human-only zones", co…

I don't care if the text is ai-written as long as it delivers the message that it is supposed to deliver correctly. If none of the engineers on the team feels like writing long announcement posts - why couldn't they use ai, check/correct its output and go back enjoy hacking smartwatches?

I think people are getting too fixated on how exactly each symbol was created instead of what the message is.

Re: Show HN: AsteroidOS 2.0 – Nobody asked, we shipped anyway

#49

Post by moWerk »

fsflover wrote: post #47
xrd wrote: post #10

Can anyone suggest where to find a watch that is supported if you live in the US? I've been scanning eBay but it feels difficult to get ahold of a supported device. Are there sites that ship to the US where a new or used device can be found?

Did you consider PineTime?

While the PineTime/Infinitime is an awesome project everyone in our community roots for, the hardware platforms are totally different. The PineTime is microcontroller based and works on just 64KB memory and 512KB flash. AsteroidOS is a linux distro tailored for devices with SoC, half a gig of memory and >2GB storage. Arguably its much smarter on many levels to use the microcontroller approach for the rather simple smartwatch task. But somehow these full SoC general purpose computing smartwatches have been produced and we as linux people slipped into the niche of seizing those.

Re: Show HN: AsteroidOS 2.0 – Nobody asked, we shipped anyway

#50

Post by nunobrito »

mapcars wrote: post #48
nunobrito wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not on this article, but everywhere nowadays are hints of AI. For example using emoticons on the beginning of each sentence or never really going deep into the topic. The complete lack of grammatical errors is another tip, unless the prompter asks to write minor errors and pretend to be a human. Wouldn't be suprised that before the end of this year we see more website declaring themselves to be "human-only zones", co…

I don't care if the text is ai-written as long as it delivers the message that it is supposed to deliver correctly. If none of the engineers on the team feels like writing long announcement posts - why couldn't they use ai, check/correct its output and go back enjoy hacking smartwatches? I think people are getting too fixated on how exactly each symbol was created instead of what the message is.

There is misunderstanding. There is nothing against using it for those cases, the problem is when it gets used for producing long and unverified slop or debatting against humans.
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