Fast • Hacker News Board

Re: Fast

#241

Post by kristianp » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:27 AM UTC

dist-epoch wrote: post #116

calibas wrote: post #49

Efficient code is also environmentally friendly. First, efficient code is going to use less electricity, and thus, fewer resources will need to be consumed. Second, efficient code means you don't need to be constantly upgrading your hardware.

Energy used for lighting didn't decrease when the world moved to LED lights which use much less energy - instead we just used more lighting everywhere, and now cities are white instead of yellow.

I know what you mean, but do you have a citation for that? LEDs are so much more efficient that I wonder if its true.

Re: Fast

#242

Post by altairprime » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:27 AM UTC

cyanydeez wrote: post #139

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #104

Just want to say how much I thank YCom for not f'ing up the HN interface, and keeping it fast. I distinctly remember when Slashdot committed suicide. They had an interface that was very easy for me to scan and find high value comments, and in the name of "modern UI" or some other nonsense needed to keep a few designers employed, completely revamped it so that it had a ton of whitespace and made it basically impossibl…

Ive wanted tp poll HN about how many people actively track usernames. With IRC its basically part of the task, but every forum i read, its rare that i ever consider whose saying what.

I don’t even slightly.

Re: Fast

#243

Post by riffic » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:27 AM UTC

this would align well with the concept of Permacomputing

https://permacomputing.net/

Re: Fast

#244

Post by riffic » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:29 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #104

Just want to say how much I thank YCom for not f'ing up the HN interface, and keeping it fast. I distinctly remember when Slashdot committed suicide. They had an interface that was very easy for me to scan and find high value comments, and in the name of "modern UI" or some other nonsense needed to keep a few designers employed, completely revamped it so that it had a ton of whitespace and made it basically impossibl…

orange site still doesn't support markdown link tags though.

Re: Fast

#245

Post by abathologist » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:36 AM UTC

Finally, someone has thought about the importance of making things go faster!

Is the most pressing problem facing the world is that we are not doing enough things fast enough? Seems a bit off the mark, IMO.

Re: Fast

#246

Post by w10-1 » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:38 AM UTC

True, but not fast. More fun than fast.

Fast reading does not just enumerate examples.

Fast reading does not straw-man.

Fun conveys opportunity and emotion: "changing behavior", "signals simplicity", "fun". Fun creates an experience, a mode, and stickiness. It's good for marketing, but a drag on operations.

Fast is principles with methods that just work. "Got it."

Fast has a time-to-value of now.

Fast is transformative when it changes a background process requiring all the infrastructure of tracking contingencies to something that can just be done. It changes system-2 labor into system-1 activity -- like text reply vs email folders, authority vs discussion, or take-out vs. cooking.

When writers figure out how to monetize fast - how to get recurrent paying users (with out-of-band payment) just from delivering value - then we'll no longer be dragged through anecdotes and hand-waving and all the salience-stretching manipulations that tax our attention.

Imagine an AI paid by time to absorb and accept the answer instead of by the token.

Fast is better than fun -- assuming it's all good, of course :)

Re: Fast

#247

Post by kristianp » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:40 AM UTC

No mention of google search itself being fast. It's one of the poster children of speed being part of the interface.

Microsoft needs to take heed, for example Explorer's search, Teams, make your computer seem extremely slow. VS Code on the other hand is fast enough, while slower than native editors such as Sublime Text.

Re: Fast

#248

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:53 AM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #106

adwn wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "so if we make it execute in 0 seconds, does it mean you're going to make an infinite amount of money?" I don't get it. Wouldn't going from 1 second to 0 seconds add the same amount of money to the yearly profit as going from 2 seconds to 1 second did? Namely, $1M.

yeah it's one of those things that are funny to the people saying it because they don't yet realize it doesn't make sense. I bet they felt that later, in the hotel room, in the shower, probably with a bottle of scotch.

[deleted]

Re: Fast

#249

Post by dml2135 » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:56 AM UTC

raincole wrote: post #192

> Fast is relative I once used Notion at work and for personal note taking. I'd never felt it was "slow." Until later I moved my notes to Obsidian. Now when I have to use Notion at my job it feels sluggish.

Notion just seems to get worse and worse. I used to love it but now I find it infuriatingly slow.

Glad to hear Obsidian is better as I’ve been considering it as an alternative.

Re: Fast

#250

Post by ropable » Thu, Jul 31, 2025, 12:56 AM UTC

"Fast" is just another optimisation goal in a spectrum. First make it correct, then make it good, then make it fast (is a reasonable rubric).