Hasty Briefsbeta

All tags

#productivity

670 stories total

Bilingual

Show HN: Docx to PDF in the Browser Using Pandoc and Typst (WASM)
3 months ago
- PDF remains the gold standard for sharing professional documents in 2026.
- ToolKuai uses Client-Side Technology for secure, private Word to PDF conversion.
- Key features include 100% free usage, unlimited conversions, and batch processing.
- Perfect layout preservation ensures documents look identical to the original.
- Files are processed locally, guaranteeing 100% privacy and security.
- Simple four-step conversion process: access, upload, convert, download.
- Works across all platforms without installation, including mobile devices.
- FAQ covers font preservation, no account needed, file size limits, and mobile compatibility.
Using an Engineering Notebook
3 months ago
- The author emphasizes the importance of using a physical engineering notebook for productivity and effectiveness in software engineering.
- An engineering notebook is a detailed, dated, real-time, permanent, and original record of work, similar to lab notebooks used by researchers.
- The author started using an engineering notebook in 2016 for consulting work and finds it helps with memory and clear thinking.
- Writing by hand aids memory and clarity, though the author rarely refers back to old notes except for recent work.
- The notebook is private, used solely for the author's work and thought process, not shared with others.
- The author encourages others to try using an engineering notebook and experiment with different formats to find what works best.
- The author uses an e-ink notebook to avoid smudging and for portability.
Lines of Code Are Back (and It's Worse Than Before)
3 months ago
- The software industry historically agreed that lines of code (LOC) is a terrible metric for productivity, as it encourages verbose and inefficient code.
- With the advent of AI, LOC has resurfaced as a key metric, with tech CEOs boasting about the percentage of AI-generated code in their projects.
- AI-generated code is often measured by volume (e.g., 'Total Lines Suggested' and 'Total Lines Accepted'), ignoring quality, bugs, or whether the code was ever deployed.
- Goodhart's Law is exacerbated by AI, as the cost of generating code drops to zero, making LOC an even more meaningless metric.
- Studies show that AI-generated code leads to increased duplication, reduced refactoring, and higher churn rates, indicating lower quality and maintainability.
- Developers using AI tools often take longer to complete tasks but perceive themselves as faster, highlighting a significant perception gap.
- Security flaws are prevalent in AI-generated code, with reports showing 45% of such code contains vulnerabilities.
- The industry has shifted to 'acceptance rate' as a new metric, but it suffers from the same flaws as LOC, conflating 'not rejected' with 'valuable.'
- Alternative metrics like time-to-value, code half-life, defect origin rate, and comprehension coverage are proposed as better measures of productivity and quality.
- The real bottleneck in software development is understanding, design, and judgment, not typing speed or code volume.
MiniMax M2.5 released: 80.2% in SWE-bench Verified
3 months ago
- MiniMax introduces M2.5, a faster, stronger, and smarter model optimized for real-world productivity.
- M2.5 excels in coding, agentic tool use, search, and office work, with top scores in benchmarks like SWE-Bench Verified (80.2%) and BrowseComp (76.3%).
- The model is cost-effective, priced at $1/hour for 100 tokens per second and $0.30/hour for 50 tokens per second.
- M2.5 shows significant improvements in multilingual coding tasks and architectural planning, trained on 10+ languages across 200,000+ real-world environments.
- Enhanced search and tool calling capabilities make M2.5 adept at expert-level tasks, with better efficiency and decision-making.
- Office productivity is boosted with M2.5's ability to handle Word, PowerPoint, and Excel tasks, achieving a 59.0% win rate in evaluations.
- M2.5 is 37% faster than its predecessor, M2.1, and matches Claude Opus 4.6's speed at a fraction of the cost.
- The model supports agentic applications with two versions: M2.5 and M2.5-Lightning, differing in speed and cost.
- MiniMax Agent integrates M2.5, offering standardized Office Skills and customizable Experts for various industries.
- M2.5 is already handling 30% of MiniMax's internal tasks, with 80% of new code commits generated by the model.
More lessons from 14 years at Google
3 months ago
- The best engineers focus on solving the right problems, not just any problem.
- Effective meetings require clear decisions; vague meetings lead to wasted time and drift.
- Progress requires specific actions with names and dates, not just intentions.
- Slow decisions are often the root cause of project delays, not slow coding.
- Reliability should be treated as a key product feature with dedicated resources.
- Clear team interfaces reduce the need for excessive communication.
- Escalations should come with proposals to facilitate decision-making.
- Avoid hero culture by building systems that don't rely on individual heroics.
- Observability should be integrated into features from the start.
- Small PRs are easier to review and lead to faster, more reliable deployments.
- Adding team members increases coordination costs; design teams to minimize dependencies.
- Migrations require planning for human factors, not just technical challenges.
- AI makes generating drafts easy, but taste in selection becomes crucial.
- Trust within teams reduces decision latency and increases efficiency.
Show HN: Long Mem code agent cut 95% costs for Claude with small model reading
3 months ago
- CoSave is a VSCode extension that reduces AI coding costs by up to 95% using dual-model optimization.
- It intelligently uses small models for reading/analysis and large models for code writing to cut costs.
- Features long-term memory, auto-accumulating project experience in mem.md for continuous improvement.
- Enables sequential task execution—set tasks once and let them run unattended, even overnight.
- Allows remote task management from a phone, supporting work from anywhere.
- Supports multi-task parallel processing to minimize wait times.
- Default 'dual model mode' requires no extra setup for immediate use.
Breaking the spell of vibe coding
3 months ago
- Vibe coding involves generating large amounts of complex AI code, often not meant for human review, impacting the tech industry.
- Executives and managers push for AI-generated code quotas, causing stress among developers and students about career viability.
- AI coding can lead to 'agent psychosis,' where developers waste time on unused or non-functional tools, similar to gambling addiction.
- Flow state in coding is positive, but 'junk flow' or 'dark flow' describes addictive, non-productive engagement with activities like vibe coding.
- Vibe coding parallels gambling with misleading productivity signals, false wins, and unclear performance metrics.
- Studies show developers using AI tools overestimate their productivity, working slower despite feeling faster.
- AI-generated content, like code or text, lacks meaningful abstraction, modularization, and precision, failing to replace human creativity.
- Failed AI predictions (e.g., replacing radiologists by 2021) highlight risks of over-reliance on speculative tech advancements.
- Outsourcing thinking to AI risks stunting skill development, emphasizing the need for balanced human-AI collaboration.
Show HN: GitHub "Lines Viewed" extension to keep you sane reviewing long AI PRs
3 months ago
- Tracks lines viewed in GitHub PRs alongside files viewed
- Version 1.0.0, updated February 14, 2026
- Size: 12.17KiB, supports English (United States)
- Developer contact: [email protected], non-trader status
- Privacy-focused: no data collection or third-party sharing
- Data not used for creditworthiness or unrelated purposes
The Coherence Premium
3 months ago
- The author critiques the concept of 'second brains' and AI-driven productivity, arguing they often lead to digital hoarding and incoherent output.
- Introduces 'coherence' as a system where all parts of an operation derive from a single, unified understanding and model of reality.
- References Ronald Coase's theory on why firms exist, highlighting transaction costs and how their collapse changes organizational dynamics.
- Describes the inefficiencies in large organizations due to information loss and context fragmentation across multiple minds and layers.
- Explains 'process drift' in growing companies, where initial processes lose context and create inconsistency and overhead.
- Highlights the 'single-player mode advantage' where solo operators maintain one coherent context, enhanced by AI execution.
- Presents a 'coherence stack' with four layers: Mind, Context, Execution, and Output, emphasizing the flow of information and coherence checks.
- Details the 'context layer' as crucial, including an operating model with five core questions to maintain alignment.
- Lists anti-patterns that break coherence, such as context starvation, output accumulation, and decision amnesia.
- Advocates for regular 'fragmentation audits' to detect and correct drift in outputs and understanding.
- Posits that coherence is a competitive advantage over scale, especially in knowledge work, as it compounds over time while organizational incoherence does the opposite.
- Suggests that 'coherence' could be the new moat in a world where transaction costs are collapsing, favoring solo operators with deliberate systems.
GitHub - steipete/gogcli: Google Suite CLI: Gmail, GCal, GDrive, GContacts.
3 months ago
- gogcli is a fast, script-friendly CLI for various Google services including Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and more.
- Supports JSON-first output, multiple accounts, and least-privilege authentication.
- Features include email tracking, calendar event management, document export, and task management.
- Allows secure credential storage using OS keyring or encrypted on-disk keyring.
- Supports auto-refreshing tokens and least-privilege auth with --readonly and --drive-scope options.
- Can be installed via Homebrew, AUR, or from source.
- Includes commands for managing OAuth credentials, service accounts, and domain-wide delegation.
- Offers detailed documentation for setup, usage, and integration testing.
Token Anxiety
3 months ago
- A friend left a party early to return to his AI agents, a common behavior in San Francisco in 2026.
- Parties are now sober, with young people prioritizing work and AI agent productivity over drinking.
- The Mission district is filled with people working on laptops in cafes, sidewalks, and parks, replacing drunk laughter with keystrokes.
- Dinner conversations now revolve around the number of AI agents one has, replacing discussions about follower counts or personal accomplishments.
- AI models are described with wine-like terminology, and their control is likened to handling animals with harnesses and reins.
- People wake up to check the output of their AI agents before doing anything else, including checking texts or having coffee.
- Weekends are dedicated to uninterrupted work with AI agents, with social media showcasing terminal screenshots and shipping receipts.
- The rapid advancement of AI benchmarks creates constant pressure to stay ahead, making last month's workflows seem outdated.
- Leisure activities like reading novels or watching movies without multitasking feel indulgent or wasteful.
- Despite knowing the need to step away, the brain remains preoccupied with AI agent productivity even during aimless walks.
Just in time software
3 months ago
- Author creates a simple shopping list app on the fly in a grocery store using exe.dev
- The app allows pasting a shopping list and checking off items, with all state stored client-side
- Later adds a feature to sort completed items to the bottom upon request
- Argues that creating custom software can be faster than searching for existing solutions
- Compares internet to a cluttered colonial house full of obscure tools
- Discusses the concept of disposable, single-use software and its environmental impact
- Calculates the minimal cost and environmental footprint of creating such temporary apps
- Concludes that just-in-time software tailored to immediate needs is the future
Approaches to writing two-sentence journal entries
3 months ago
- The author shares three primary methods for composing two-sentence journal entries: writing on scrap paper, revising a Google Keep note, and writing directly in the journal.
- Scrap paper method involves jotting down quick sentences during breaks, refining them throughout the day, and transferring the final version to the journal.
- Google Keep method leverages the app's convenience for recording and revising entries on the go, especially useful during busy or mobile days.
- Direct journal writing is reserved for busy days, focusing on immediate thoughts or reflective moments before sleep.
- The author maintains both an analog (handwritten in a Moleskine) and a digital (markdown file) version of the journal for preservation, continuity, and legibility.
- Formatting in the analog journal includes line breaks and indents for readability, while the digital version uses markdown for organization and ease of access.
- The digital journal includes a table of contents with year and month headings for easy navigation and reference.
- The author emphasizes that these methods are personal preferences and encourages readers to adapt or ignore them based on what works best for their own journaling practice.
I Use Obsidian
3 months ago
- Obsidian is used for note-taking, organizing interests, and publishing a personal site with a bottom-up approach.
- A 'vault' in Obsidian is a folder of files, emphasizing the 'file over app' philosophy for lasting digital artifacts.
- The vault template includes downloading/cloning from GitHub, using Minimal theme with Flexoki color scheme, and various Obsidian tools like Web Clipper and Sync.
- Personal rules include avoiding multiple vaults, non-standard Markdown, and using internal links, pluralized tags, and YYYY-MM-DD dates consistently.
- Organization is minimal with few folders; notes are primarily in the root or categorized using properties, with specific folders for references, clippings, and admin.
- Internal links are used extensively to connect notes, with unresolved links serving as breadcrumbs for future connections.
- Fractal journaling involves compiling thoughts from fragments into reviews at different time intervals, with random revisits to maintain and find inspiration in old notes.
- Templates are used for almost every note, with properties for dates, people, themes, locations, and ratings, aiming for reusability and composability.
- A 7-point rating system is used for granularity, especially for positive experiences.
- Publishing to the web involves a separate vault, using Jekyll for static site generation, with notes pushed to GitHub and compiled by Netlify, using the Flexoki color palette.
Thousands of CEOs just admitted AI had no impact on employment or productivity
3 months ago
- Robert Solow observed a slowdown in productivity growth despite the advent of computers in the 1960s, known as Solow’s productivity paradox.
- Recent data shows that despite widespread mentions of AI in corporate earnings calls, productivity gains from AI are not yet evident.
- A study found that most executives see little impact from AI on their operations, with only about 1.5 hours of AI usage per week reported.
- Expectations for AI’s future impact remain high, with forecasts of productivity increases of 1.4% and output increases of 0.8% over the next three years.
- Economists are divided on AI’s current productivity impact, with some studies showing modest gains and others showing none.
- Workers’ confidence in AI’s utility has declined, indicating persistent distrust despite increased usage.
- IBM plans to triple young hires, suggesting AI’s automation may not replace entry-level roles but could affect future leadership pipelines.
- Historical IT productivity booms suggest AI’s impact may follow a delayed 'J-curve,' with initial slowdowns followed by exponential growth.
- AI’s future productivity depends on how companies implement and integrate the technology across different sectors.
Show HN: Free printable micro-habit tracker inspired by Atomic Habits
3 months ago
- Add your habits, pick a month, and print your tracking calendar.
- Suggested habits include reading 10 pages, meditating 5 minutes, exercising 30 minutes, no social media before noon, drinking 8 glasses of water, and writing in a journal.
- The Micro-Habit Tracker is a free, printable monthly habit tracking calendar inspired by Atomic Habits by James Clear.
- A physical sheet on your wall is harder to ignore than an app notification, with no sign-up, subscription, or ads.
- How it works: Add habits, pick a month/year, print the calendar, hang it up, and start tracking.
- Inspired by Atomic Habits principles: make it obvious, satisfying, don't break the chain, and identity-based habits.
Show HN: Strava for Claude Code
3 months ago
- One command to log Claude Code output, tracking spend, pace, and streaks.
- Visualizes sessions with daily output details like cost, tokens, models, and leaderboard position.
- Features include logging output, sharing sessions, and competing on leaderboards.
- Simple three-step process: log session with a command, automatic post creation, and leaderboard climbing.
- Community aspect with global and regional rankings and kudos from followers.
- Reflections on the high opportunity cost of not building in 2026, emphasizing the importance of focusing on Claude Code.
When interfaces become disposable
3 months ago
- The author became a parent and is experiencing sleep deprivation due to newborn care.
- FitBit's sleep tracking UX doesn't accommodate fragmented sleep patterns common with newborns.
- The author used FitBit's public API and AI coding tools to create a custom sleep visualization app.
- The custom app helped analyze sleep patterns, nap effectiveness, and overall fatigue levels.
- The author distinguishes between a 'product' (core capabilities) and 'interfaces' (UI/UX layers).
- The custom app is disposable software, serving a niche, temporary need without MVP features.
- Public APIs enable users to extend products with personal, disposable interfaces.
- AI agents can bypass traditional interfaces, interacting directly with service layers via APIs.
- Businesses monetizing service layers (e.g., subscriptions) are more resilient to interface fragmentation.
- In 2026, durable products will prioritize monetizing capabilities over interfaces.
How AI is affecting productivity and jobs in Europe
3 months ago
- Europe faces a critical choice in AI adoption, with potential for productivity gains but risks of exacerbating inequality.
- Europe lags behind the US and China in AI innovation but shows similar adoption levels, with significant disparities among EU countries.
- AI adoption in Europe increases labor productivity by 4% on average, without short-term job losses, but benefits are unevenly distributed.
- Larger firms and those in financially developed EU countries adopt AI more readily, highlighting the role of resources and scale.
- Complementary investments in software, data infrastructure, and workforce training significantly amplify AI's productivity effects.
- Policy implications include supporting smaller firms, advancing financial markets, and focusing on complementary investments and skills development.
Famous Signatures Through History
3 months ago
- Free online tool to create professional handwritten signatures.
- Velocity-sensitive strokes mimic real pen writing.
- Download options: transparent PNG for documents/emails, scalable SVG for any size.
- Works on all devices (phone, tablet, desktop) without installation.
- Historical signatures section featuring notable figures like John Hancock, Shakespeare, and Einstein.
- Tips for designing your own signature: practice cursive, pick an anchor letter, add a flourish.
- FAQ covers legality, formats (PNG/SVG), device compatibility, and privacy (no data stored).
- Electronic signatures are legally binding in most countries under laws like the U.S. ESIGN Act.

first prev29next

About|Login

#productivity

Show HN: Docx to PDF in the Browser Using Pandoc and Typst (WASM)

Using an Engineering Notebook

Lines of Code Are Back (and It's Worse Than Before)

MiniMax M2.5 released: 80.2% in SWE-bench Verified

More lessons from 14 years at Google

Show HN: Long Mem code agent cut 95% costs for Claude with small model reading

Breaking the spell of vibe coding

Show HN: GitHub "Lines Viewed" extension to keep you sane reviewing long AI PRs

The Coherence Premium

GitHub - steipete/gogcli: Google Suite CLI: Gmail, GCal, GDrive, GContacts.

Token Anxiety

Just in time software

Approaches to writing two-sentence journal entries

I Use Obsidian

Thousands of CEOs just admitted AI had no impact on employment or productivity

Show HN: Free printable micro-habit tracker inspired by Atomic Habits

Show HN: Strava for Claude Code

When interfaces become disposable

How AI is affecting productivity and jobs in Europe

Famous Signatures Through History