It requires no registration, no installation, and no configuration. Just run it on any computer and start drawing freely. |
It requires no registration, no installation, and no configuration. Just run it on any computer and start drawing freely. |
So, congrats on your release.
Because those don’t have the same issues. It’s not like IDEs, LSPs, and other tools were the target of warranted criticism and then we stopped. Rather, they never received this kind of backlash in the first place.
No IDE has ever caused millions of people absolutely unrelated to it to have to ration water.
https://archive.ph/20250731222011/https://m.economictimes.co...
To use an exaggerated analogy, it’s like saying “people are complaining about arsenic being added to food but we need to overcome that sentiment, after all we don’t blame people adding salt and pepper which have become the norm”.
1. Tons of pointless comments outlining trivial low-level behaviour,
2. No understanding of abstraction levels,
3. No real architecture at all,
4. Not DRY, no helper functions or inconsistent use of said functions across project,
5. Way too many lines of code.
None of these are shaming for use of any particular tool, they are just shaming the output.
HN leans "old school". It's the Angry Nerd trope; Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons.
The people doing "AI shaming" or claiming that "AI doesn't work" are going to have their lunch eaten.
We want to engage with the person who engineered the thing, not someone who is just going to pipe our feedback into an LLM and see what pops out.
Just like I'd consider it deceptive if it turned out that HN populated the comments with an LLM. I want to engage with humans using their own brain.
That said, I would also consider it acceptable if you mentioned that your Show HN was vibe-coded if it were. But consider the vibe shift (pun) that would happen. We'd be curious about your vibe-code workflow and the experience of vibe-coding it if it was impressive, not necessarily curious about the thing the LLM built because that part isn't necessarily interesting anymore.
Finally, it's inevitable that these lines will quickly blur over time as AI becomes increasingly centerpiece in our lives. But in this transitionary phase so far, it kinda feels like you've been actually playing on a bot server in Quake 3 when you catch yourself admiring something that you thought the OP made: it's not rewarding to realize you're just stomping bots that you thought were human.
Generic, does the job, not the highest quality, bleak, fast repetitious output
For my programmer art I also use old (Autodesk) Animator (in DOSBox) a lot. It is small and runs anywhere. Perfect for doodling on my phone, with some configuration to add various on-screen buttons in DOSBox. Small enough (less than 1 MB) that the entire application plus all configuration and saved working files can go into every source code repository where I want to edit some pixel art. https://github.com/AnimatorPro
Also have VGA Paint 386 installed in DOSBox everywhere. Have not used it much, but it seems good (probably more interesting for those that want something closer to a Deluxe Paint clone). https://www.bttr-software.de/products/vp386/
Then there is https://orama-interactive.itch.io/pixelorama that is open source and seems to improve at a good pace. I just never took the time to look very close.
Going to have a look at Tilf as well, to see if it is not too much work to get it to run in FreeBSD. Not being an expert in drawing anything, it helps to have many tools and switch between, as all tend to have something they do better (or easier) than the other ones.
It should work without any issues, as long as there’s a Python interpreter you can definitely run it. If needed, let me know and I’ll try to work on it. I have plenty of other ideas to implement as well.
I have one very silly question... Why is the elf logo not pixel art? :)
One helpful feature would be to shift an entire row/column of pixels down X rows/columns. Perhaps if I get time I'll submit a PR for it.
Working at the pixel level, it is extremely useful to be able to "toggle" a pixel without switching tools. MacPaint (for example) would use the foreground color if you click on a pixel whose color is not the foreground color. If you start your Pencil drawing (click) on a pixel that is the foreground color, the Pencil draws with the background color instead.
Also, a modifier (like the Option key), is a nice way to also specify the background color for the pencil (regardless of the initial pixel clicked on).
Why? What’s the problem with it?
If it becomes popular though, you can always just refactor and improve the important parts.
What made you decide to go with PySlide6?
There are some downsides of course (like the bundle size, for example), but that's not a problem, the core idea is: double-click on Tilf and start drawing right away.
Please, stop it. AI doesn't work for every use case, and when it "works" it fails to stay up to the exaggerated hype. People with deep knowledge and experience will eat their lunch. LLMs knowledge is stale as soon as a new version comes out and no rag hallucinate too. It's a tool and a tool doesn't have appetite
Any guesses what this is? Spoiler: it's an RSS reader.
Thanks again!
Actually, I'm not referring to you but if all these suggestions were opened as issues, it would be easier for me to write a "thank you note" for each one lol
Providing feedback to an author is only valuable if the author at least knows why they did something, so you can discuss how it's good or how it's not.
That's not the impression I had though, the criticism I usually see is around laziness, low-effort submissions, etc... Which are not inherent issues of using llms.
But they are exacerbated by them, so the criticism still stands. No one visits HN for low-quality same-loking submissions. It’s like frequenting r/toolgifs and suddenly almost every post is about one specific hammer. That’d be understandably annoying, and while not the inherent fault of the hammer, it would be an issue only possible because it exists.
Even if LLMs don't succeed in their seemingly ultimate goal of replacing humans, and I don't think they will, there's no future where we completely stop using them.
I guess either we find out a way to filter out ai-slop or we wait until people are tired of rehashing the same low-effort criticisms.
Now you seem like one of the few people that is concerned over environmental issues and I respect that, if that's why people are against them it's a whole other discussion and we can disregard anything I said here.
Main takeaways:
- Why are we building data centres so close to the equator where it's hot.
- It's depressing to see the high quality reporting from The Austin Chronicle watered down into more and more clickbaity soundbytes as it gets recycled through other "news" orgs. But at the same time, I wouldn't have heard about it otherwise.
- The water evaporation was interesting to me, and would love to read more on what percentage evaporates, and whether the Stargate plans to build non-evaporative cooling will actually hold out and how that'll impact the water grid.
- Would love some more info/context on that 463 mil number, but stopping my research here for now. Combining this with when/how often Texas has to ration its water would provide a stronger argument in support/against the provided claim of water rationing.
- The fact that we don't have good numbers for how much water data centres are using is crazy, we need that level of granularity/regulation.
- Markers of poor reporting:
- Numbers without context/clarity. Would it kill these sites to include a bar chart.
- Citations of sites that market engaging/entertaining
- Ambiguous / contradictory data
- Ambiguous references
Notes:
Interesting article! A few weird things:
1. The most cited reference is to a site called "Techie + Gamers", which self-describes itself as "TechieGamers.com is a leading destination for engaging entertainment coverage, news, net worths and TV shows with a strong focus on Shark Tank." Makes me suspicious of the journalistic quality of this and that article.
2. In the headline it says "Texas AI centers guzzle 463 million gallons". Further down it says "According to a July 2025 investigation by The Austin Chronicle, data centers across Central Texas, including Microsoft and US Army Corps facilities in San Antonio, used a combined 463 million gallons of water in 2023 and 2024 alone, as reported by Techie + Gamers." Over 2023 and 2024? Odd that it's giving the sum over 2 years. And not sure what it means that it includes the US Army? Also without any context I don't know what this number means.
- I checked the TechieGamers article and this contradicts what is written there, which says the 463 million number is for San Antonio alone.
3. Robert Mace, executive director of The Meadows Center for Water, notes that "once water evaporates, it's gone." This is interesting, not sure how much water is actually evaporated vs returned to the grid.
4. "The scale of water use is massive, as the Texas Water Development Board projections estimate that data centers in the state will consume 49 billion gallons of water in 2025, soaring to nearly 400 billion gallons by 2030, as per Techie + Gamers report. That’s about 7% of Texas’s total projected water use, according to the report." - Mixed citations here, not sure whether these numbers are from Texas Water Development Board or Techie + Gamers. Also they project an increase from ~232 million gallons/year in 2024 to 49 billion in 2025? That's a 200x increase. And they expect a further ~8x increase from 2025 to 2030 to 400 billion? Or is it because the original number was only for Central Texas?
- 7% of what? The 2025 number or the 2030 number?
- Again subtle contradictions with TechieGamer which says "a white paper submitted to the Texas Water Development Board projected that data centers in the state will consume 49 billion gallons of water in 2025. That number is expected to rise to 399 billion gallons by 2030, nearly 7% of the state’s total projected water use.". So it's not the Texas Water Development Board but a whitepaper submitted to the board? Not sure who made these numbers now.
5. "Much of the water these centers use evaporates during cooling and can’t be recycled, a critical issue in an area already grappling with scarce water resources, as reported by Techie + Gamers."
- Again really want more info/numbers on this.
The root article seems to be from "The Austin Chronicle" :
1. This starts with "After Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s public breakup, Sam Altman replaced Musk as the president’s new favorite tech guy. Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has become something like Musk’s archnemesis on the rapidly developing stage of artificial intelligence in Texas." This doesn't seem accurate with my reading of the news, and is so colourful that it makes me question the journalistic quality of this article.
2. The reporting across the three sources is mixed on who they're blaming. Economic Times doesn't even mention OpenAI and calls it "Microsoft's Stargate campus". Techi Gamers uses this phrase, but also later says "Microsoft has partnered with OpenAI". And The Austin Chronicle doesn't mention Microsoft at all and focuses on OpenAI. And the Wikipedia page for Stargate says "joint venture created by OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and investment firm MGX." ?
3. I take it back reading it further this article is _significantly_ better than the others, with many more reputable sources.
4. Finally we get some real sources!! The 49 billion 2025 and 400 billion 2030 numbers are from HARC, Houston Advanced Research Center. And the 7% is actually 6.6%, and relative to the 2030 projection.
5. Finally real info on evaporation!! Still no numbers but we get a description of the process:
> Most data centers use an evaporative cooling system, in which the servers’ heat is absorbed by water. The heat is then removed from the water through evaporation, causing the water to be lost as vapor in the air. The cooler water then goes back through the machines, and this loop is regularly topped off with fresh water. After all, evaporation renders the water saltier and unusable after four or five cycles. “Then they dump the water, and it goes down the sewer,” Mace said.
> ...
> The Abilene Stargate campus will reportedly use a closed-loop, non-evaporative liquid cooling system that requires an initial refill of around 1 million gallons of water, with “minor” maintenance refills. Cook is skeptical that such closed-loop systems will use as little water as they suggest. It’s not possible, Cook says, to use the same water over and over again, recycled infinitely, to cool servers.
6. This article doesn't mention the 463 mil anywhere, which makes me think that was original research from TechiGamers. They reference SAWS, San Antonio Water System, but again the numbers are without context, so would need to do some original research to get any meaningful insights from these numbers.
To put thing in perspective, Fortran was invented in 1954, Lisp 4 years later. In the following decades, the assembly language was being used along in various ways. And it is still being used in certain applications.
Asking tech people not to care more about the software they use than the average person seems pointless though.
I bet AI writes better code than 80% of developers out there.
But all developers think they are in the 20%.