5 ms·

Pelican from a few days ago: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/6/hy3/ https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/6/hy3/ - I was using the free tier on OpenRouter, whic

by simonw 4mo ago

Pelican from a few days ago: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/6/hy3/ https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/6/hy3/ - I was using the free tier on OpenRouter, which expires on July 21st. I tried the preview model 41 days ago and got a pelican with a "change pelican color" button: https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2026/hy3-preview-pelican.html https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2026/hy3-preview-pel...

righthand 4mo ago
[flagged]
- invictati 4mo ago
  Some things are better left unsaid.
  - righthand 4mo ago
    Why? “Because it looks foolish!” This account is anonymous. Who gives a fuck? I will write to whomever I want.
- kordlessagain 4mo ago
  I will vouch for Simon. I do not know him personally. To me his posts are honest and inspirational. > I have been overly critical and arguing in bad faith about your writing in the past I think you are just critical without a stated valid reason. Arguing in bad faith seems to be a thing if HN history is the judge. And this is coming from a critical thinker, who is a bit tired of people firing off "human slop" comments. The Internet is full of a lot of people, but even when a few are bad apples, it spoils the lot. Maybe that is the intent. Maybe you are just grumpy for your life's situation. It is 100% possible to build software entirely with AI. If you don't do that, that's great! I still code by hand from time to time, and I'm reading a lot of Rust nowadays, and learning the ropes. I come from a strong Python and Javascript background, plus networking and operations, which I'm a whiz at. I don't do it anymore, but I know how to inform it is done properly. With this power, I can build things nobody wants to build, but me. Doesn't mean one has to put it into production, or it has to pass some security test, although with me driving it probably will. It only need be what is important to the end user, the prompter, to matter. I think Simon helps people with this mindset be better at what they love to do. And for that, we should all be grateful.
  - righthand 4mo ago
    That’s great for you and Simon but I personally don’t think there will be enough people in the future to use or appreciate these things that can be built and eventually no who will care to build them, and while this “discovery of LLMs phase” might be fun it diminishes the value I used to get from the job, which was writing code, problem solving, discussing and learning with people (having real people and mentors to work with and look up to), and just playing with computers. There will be a few, sure but not enough. And even if there are enough to give me the things I miss, who is the expert? All of them with the exact same capability to, for example, generate some form of pelican drawing. C’est la vie, but it doesn’t mean it’s not depressing. It has nothing to do with any attachment to a project or releasing something to everyone. It is a completely personal view about how the community and reward I got from it is dying. If you remove a technical abstraction layer you remove the technical abstractors. There is a wide gulf of people who use LLMs and those who don’t and I didn’t fully realize this until the last few months. But it really is just a few industries making all the noise.
    - kordlessagain 4mo ago
      There are people NOW who use and appreciate it. There are also people who speak for others. I voted you up because you actually put thought into a response, not that the response is a good argument. Some of it is your opinion, and that's yours alone and not for anyone to judge. The rest of it is more focused on others and their actions, before your own. That I can attack, and do so gleefully. I've been using LLMs for 5 years, sorry, 6 years (sigh). GPT-2 was a dumbass, but I still managed to get it to do primitive function calls - in 2020. I'm not slowing down. I'm increasing speed. It's 2026. Some of you are going to be obsoleted into oblivion if you don't start moving. I estimate I'm at least worth $600K a year now, probably a lot more. And, I don't have a masters. My dad did, and half a Phd, but I digress. I'm not him. Instead of working for the man, I'm doing my own thing, yet again. It is possible for one person to build an empire. I'm going to do it. Not ego. Intent. The thing you describe here, about it being depressing, is a logical fallacy. I'm not even looking at an AI or Wikipedia. I don't know the proper name for it, but it's a fallacy based on thinking that others bring you value. You clearly have value, you said it yourself and said it well. If anyone sits around and let others define or tell them their value, they are a dumbass. I've started using "get a horse!" as a shorthand meme for what you are feeling right now, maybe. I'm not here to speak for you or how you manage your emotions. I'm just pointing out the flaws in your thinking. This is what people on horses shouted at people driving the first cars. (the horse thing, although they probably thought driving a car was flawed thinking) Find your passion and then build it.
tarruda 4mo ago
Recently tried the pelican test on GPT-OSS which was probably one of the best local models of 2025. So cool to see how models have improved in the SVG pelican!
- pelagicAustral 4mo ago
  I'm skeptical, as tests go, I think that's burned out now. They could easily be training specifically to get a better pelican...
  - gbalduzzi 4mo ago
    If they were training specifically for it the result would be much better
  - flir 4mo ago
    Doesn't have to be specific training, just has to consume simonw's blog. It's got lots of SVG pelicans, with helpful commentary on how good they are. I think there might be some kind of hill climbing going on here.
- rurban 4mo ago
  GPT-OSS was by far the worst local model in 2026. I have the luxury of plenty of H100's to try them, and Gpt-oss was atrocious with a coding agent. Gemma4 and Deepseek 4 are the best for coding, Qwen for images.
3012756 4mo ago
Tony the Tiger on a bicycle selling addictive items to children is not new.
ignoramous 4mo ago
Curious why TFA calls out "Tencent in China". tencent/Hy3. New Apache 2.0 licensed model from Tencent in China Is there a Tencent AI lab elsewhere (MiniMax have some association with Tencent, for example)?
- JeremyHerrman 4mo ago
  I think it's just their version of "Designed by Apple in California"
- nine_k 4mo ago
  Tencent seems to have subsidiaries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent#Subsidiaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent#Subsidiaries Also they have large European / South African shareholders.
bfdm 4mo ago
I quite enjoy that the "animate wheels" button animates the sun instead.
righthand 4mo ago
I have been overly critical and arguing in bad faith about your writing in the past. As well as negative towards you, which in turn was breeding a bad environment. While I dont really enjoy LLMs, you did help me realize my unreasonable feelings as well as realize the occupation (and the joys I got from it) is essentially dead from it’s previous iteration and that I should let go and just join in the “I’m doing it for the money and attention” crowd. I will still just hand code my own projects and not use LLMs when I can. I think it’s cool you started the pelican meme however useful it really is even if only aesthetically.
- OrangeMusic 4mo ago
  Ooookay?
  - fwlr 4mo ago
    Please don’t discourage this kind of public thoughtful introspection.

by simonw 4mo ago

righthand 4mo ago

[flagged]

invictati 4mo ago
Some things are better left unsaid.
- righthand 4mo ago
  Why? “Because it looks foolish!” This account is anonymous. Who gives a fuck? I will write to whomever I want.
kordlessagain 4mo ago
I will vouch for Simon. I do not know him personally. To me his posts are honest and inspirational. > I have been overly critical and arguing in bad faith about your writing in the past I think you are just critical without a stated valid reason. Arguing in bad faith seems to be a thing if HN history is the judge. And this is coming from a critical thinker, who is a bit tired of people firing off "human slop" comments. The Internet is full of a lot of people, but even when a few are bad apples, it spoils the lot. Maybe that is the intent. Maybe you are just grumpy for your life's situation. It is 100% possible to build software entirely with AI. If you don't do that, that's great! I still code by hand from time to time, and I'm reading a lot of Rust nowadays, and learning the ropes. I come from a strong Python and Javascript background, plus networking and operations, which I'm a whiz at. I don't do it anymore, but I know how to inform it is done properly. With this power, I can build things nobody wants to build, but me. Doesn't mean one has to put it into production, or it has to pass some security test, although with me driving it probably will. It only need be what is important to the end user, the prompter, to matter. I think Simon helps people with this mindset be better at what they love to do. And for that, we should all be grateful.
- righthand 4mo ago
  That’s great for you and Simon but I personally don’t think there will be enough people in the future to use or appreciate these things that can be built and eventually no who will care to build them, and while this “discovery of LLMs phase” might be fun it diminishes the value I used to get from the job, which was writing code, problem solving, discussing and learning with people (having real people and mentors to work with and look up to), and just playing with computers. There will be a few, sure but not enough. And even if there are enough to give me the things I miss, who is the expert? All of them with the exact same capability to, for example, generate some form of pelican drawing. C’est la vie, but it doesn’t mean it’s not depressing. It has nothing to do with any attachment to a project or releasing something to everyone. It is a completely personal view about how the community and reward I got from it is dying. If you remove a technical abstraction layer you remove the technical abstractors. There is a wide gulf of people who use LLMs and those who don’t and I didn’t fully realize this until the last few months. But it really is just a few industries making all the noise.
  - kordlessagain 4mo ago
    There are people NOW who use and appreciate it. There are also people who speak for others. I voted you up because you actually put thought into a response, not that the response is a good argument. Some of it is your opinion, and that's yours alone and not for anyone to judge. The rest of it is more focused on others and their actions, before your own. That I can attack, and do so gleefully. I've been using LLMs for 5 years, sorry, 6 years (sigh). GPT-2 was a dumbass, but I still managed to get it to do primitive function calls - in 2020. I'm not slowing down. I'm increasing speed. It's 2026. Some of you are going to be obsoleted into oblivion if you don't start moving. I estimate I'm at least worth $600K a year now, probably a lot more. And, I don't have a masters. My dad did, and half a Phd, but I digress. I'm not him. Instead of working for the man, I'm doing my own thing, yet again. It is possible for one person to build an empire. I'm going to do it. Not ego. Intent. The thing you describe here, about it being depressing, is a logical fallacy. I'm not even looking at an AI or Wikipedia. I don't know the proper name for it, but it's a fallacy based on thinking that others bring you value. You clearly have value, you said it yourself and said it well. If anyone sits around and let others define or tell them their value, they are a dumbass. I've started using "get a horse!" as a shorthand meme for what you are feeling right now, maybe. I'm not here to speak for you or how you manage your emotions. I'm just pointing out the flaws in your thinking. This is what people on horses shouted at people driving the first cars. (the horse thing, although they probably thought driving a car was flawed thinking) Find your passion and then build it.

tarruda 4mo ago

Recently tried the pelican test on GPT-OSS which was probably one of the best local models of 2025. So cool to see how models have improved in the SVG pelican!

pelagicAustral 4mo ago
I'm skeptical, as tests go, I think that's burned out now. They could easily be training specifically to get a better pelican...
- gbalduzzi 4mo ago
  If they were training specifically for it the result would be much better
- flir 4mo ago
  Doesn't have to be specific training, just has to consume simonw's blog. It's got lots of SVG pelicans, with helpful commentary on how good they are. I think there might be some kind of hill climbing going on here.
rurban 4mo ago
GPT-OSS was by far the worst local model in 2026. I have the luxury of plenty of H100's to try them, and Gpt-oss was atrocious with a coding agent. Gemma4 and Deepseek 4 are the best for coding, Qwen for images.

3012756 4mo ago

Tony the Tiger on a bicycle selling addictive items to children is not new.

ignoramous 4mo ago

Curious why TFA calls out "Tencent in China". tencent/Hy3. New Apache 2.0 licensed model from Tencent in China Is there a Tencent AI lab elsewhere (MiniMax have some association with Tencent, for example)?

JeremyHerrman 4mo ago
I think it's just their version of "Designed by Apple in California"
nine_k 4mo ago
Tencent seems to have subsidiaries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent#Subsidiaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent#Subsidiaries Also they have large European / South African shareholders.

bfdm 4mo ago

I quite enjoy that the "animate wheels" button animates the sun instead.

righthand 4mo ago

I have been overly critical and arguing in bad faith about your writing in the past. As well as negative towards you, which in turn was breeding a bad environment. While I dont really enjoy LLMs, you did help me realize my unreasonable feelings as well as realize the occupation (and the joys I got from it) is essentially dead from it’s previous iteration and that I should let go and just join in the “I’m doing it for the money and attention” crowd. I will still just hand code my own projects and not use LLMs when I can. I think it’s cool you started the pelican meme however useful it really is even if only aesthetically.

OrangeMusic 4mo ago
Ooookay?
- fwlr 4mo ago
  Please don’t discourage this kind of public thoughtful introspection.