Anthropic is Down • Hacker News Board

Re: Anthropic is Down

#121

Post by delaminator » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 5:12 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #114

david422 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A long time ago I was taking flight lessons and I was going through the takeoff checklist. I was going through each item, but my instructor had to remind me that I am not just reading the checklist - I need understand/verify each checklist item before moving on. Always stuck with me.

A few times a year I have to remind my co-workers that reading & understanding error messages is a critical part of being in the IT business. I'm not perfect in that regard, but the number of times the error message explaining exactly what's wrong and how to solve it is included in the screenshot they share is a little depressing.

Application Error:

The exception illegal instruction

An attempt was made to execute an illegal instruction.

(0xc000001d) occurred in the application at location.

Click on OK to terminate the program.

Re: Anthropic is Down

#122

Post by harrisi » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 5:15 PM UTC

davedx wrote: post #42

The great thing about LLMs being more or less commoditized is switching is so easy. I use Claude Code via the VS Code extension. When I got a couple of 500 errors just now I simply copy pasted my last instructions into Codex and kept going. It's pretty rare that switching costs are THAT low in technology!

I genuinely don't know how any of these companies can make extreme profit for this reason. If a company makes a significantly better model, shouldn't it be able to explain how it's better to any competitor?

Google succeeded because it understood the web better than its competitors. I don't see how any of the players in this space could be so much better that they could take over the market. It seems like these companies will create commodities, which can be profitable, but also incredibly risky for early investors and don't make the profits that would be necessary to justify the evaluations of today.

Re: Anthropic is Down

#123

Post by couchdb_ouchdb » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 5:15 PM UTC

acedTrex wrote: post #59

If this overly impacts you as an "engineer" beyond "oh thats minorly annoying i'll go do it another way" please do some soul searching.

OR just take some time off from the grind to enjoy your life.

Re: Anthropic is Down

#124

Post by crazygringo » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

harrisi wrote: post #122

davedx wrote: post #42

The great thing about LLMs being more or less commoditized is switching is so easy. I use Claude Code via the VS Code extension. When I got a couple of 500 errors just now I simply copy pasted my last instructions into Codex and kept going. It's pretty rare that switching costs are THAT low in technology!

I genuinely don't know how any of these companies can make extreme profit for this reason. If a company makes a significantly better model, shouldn't it be able to explain how it's better to any competitor? Google succeeded because it understood the web better than its competitors. I don't see how any of the players in this space could be so much better that they could take over the market. It seems like these compan…

> If a company makes a significantly better model, shouldn't it be able to explain how it's better to any competitor?

No. Not if it's not trained on any materials that reveal the secret sauce on why it's better.

LLM's don't possess introspection into their own training process or architecture.

Re: Anthropic is Down

#125

Post by oneeyedpigeon » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

NicuCalcea wrote: post #83

skydhash wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's pretty rare that switching costs are THAT low in technology! Look harder. Swapping usb devices (mouse,…) takes even less time. Switching wifi is also easy. Switching browser works the same. I can equally use vim/emacs/vscode/sublime/… for programming.

Most people only have one mouse or Wi-Fi network. If my Wi-Fi goes down, my only other option is to use a mobile hotspot, which is inferior in almost every way.

> Most people only have one mouse

Tell me you're not a Mac user without telling me you're not a Mac user...

Re: Anthropic is Down

#126

Post by crazygringo » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 5:22 PM UTC

ahmadyan wrote: post #91

skydhash wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's pretty rare that switching costs are THAT low in technology! Look harder. Swapping usb devices (mouse,…) takes even less time. Switching wifi is also easy. Switching browser works the same. I can equally use vim/emacs/vscode/sublime/… for programming.

good point, they are standards, by definition society forced vendors to behave and play nice together. LLMs are not standards yet, and it is just pure bliss that english works fine across different LLMs for now. Some labs are trying to push their own format and stop it. Specially around reasoning traces, e.g. codex removing reasoning traces between calls and gemini requiring reasoning history. So don't take this for…

I dunno. Text is a pretty good de facto standard. And they work in lots of languages, not just English.

Re: Anthropic is Down

#127

Post by crazygringo » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #125

NicuCalcea wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people only have one mouse or Wi-Fi network. If my Wi-Fi goes down, my only other option is to use a mobile hotspot, which is inferior in almost every way.

> Most people only have one mouse Tell me you're not a Mac user without telling me you're not a Mac user...

Huh?

Re: Anthropic is Down

#128

Post by bgirard » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 5:24 PM UTC

davedx wrote: post #42

The great thing about LLMs being more or less commoditized is switching is so easy. I use Claude Code via the VS Code extension. When I got a couple of 500 errors just now I simply copy pasted my last instructions into Codex and kept going. It's pretty rare that switching costs are THAT low in technology!

The switching cost is so low that I find it's easier and better value to have two $20/mo subscription from different providers than a $200/mo subscription with the frontier model of the month. Reliability and model diversity are a bonus.

Re: Anthropic is Down

#129

Post by charcircuit » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

phito wrote: post #72

egeozcan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be that you're creating a stereotype in your head and getting angry about it? People say these things against any group they dislike. It's so much that these days it feels like most of the social groups are defined by outsiders with the things they dislike about them.

Well not really, vibe coding is literally brute forcing things until it works, not caring about the details of it.

So manual programming. Humans don't always get everything perfect the first try either.

Re: Anthropic is Down

#130

Post by oneeyedpigeon » Tue, Feb 03, 2026, 5:27 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #127

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people only have one mouse Tell me you're not a Mac user without telling me you're not a Mac user...

Huh?

The default Apple mouse needs a backup because it still cannot be charged and used at the same time.