Comment by simonw
5 days ago
It's hard to overstate the impact Georgi Gerganov and llama.cpp have had on the local model space. He pretty much kicked off the revolution in March 2023, making LLaMA work on consumer laptops.
Here's that README from March 10th 2023 https://github.com/ggml-org/llama.cpp/blob/775328064e69db1eb...
> The main goal is to run the model using 4-bit quantization on a MacBook. [...] This was hacked in an evening - I have no idea if it works correctly.
Hugging Face have been a great open source steward of Transformers, I'm optimistic the same will be true for GGML.
I wrote a bit about this here: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/20/ggmlai-joins-hugging-f...
i am curious, why are your comments always pinned to the top?
Because many of us think simonw has discerning taste on this topic and like to read what he has to say about it, so we upvote his comments.
i don't doubt this. i just find it questionable that one particular poster always gets in the spotlight when AI is the topic - while other conversations in my opinion offer more interesting angles.
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At a guess that's because my comment attracted more up-votes than the other top-level comments in the thread.
I generally try to include something in a comment that's not information already under discussion - in this case that was the link and quote from the original README.
of course your comment attracts more upvotes - it's at the top.
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HN goes through phases. I remember when patio11 was the star of the hour on here. At another time it was that security guy (can't remember his name).
And for those who think it's just organic with all of the upvotes, HN absolutely does have a +/- comment bias for users, and it does automatically feature certain people and suppress others.
> And for those who think it's just organic with all of the upvotes, HN absolutely does have a bias for authors, and it does automatically feature certain people and suppress others.
Exactly.
There are configurable settings for each account, which might be automatically or manually set—I'm not sure–, that control the initial position of a comment in threads, and how long it stays there. There might be a reward system, where comments from high-karma accounts are prioritized over others, and accounts with "strikes", e.g. direct warnings from moderators, are penalized.
The difference in upvotes that account ultimately receives, and thus the impact on the discussion, is quite stark. The more visible a comment is, i.e. the more at the top it is, the more upvotes it can collect, which in turn makes it stay at the top, and so on.
It's safe to assume that certain accounts, such as those of YC staff, mods, or alumni, or tech celebrities like simonw, are given the highest priority.
I've noticed this on my own account. Before being warned for an IMO bullshit reason, my comments started to appear near the middle, and quickly float down to the bottom, whereas before they would usually be at the top for a few minutes. The quality of what I say hasn't changed, though the account's standing, and certainly the community itself, has.
I don't mind, nor particularly care about an arbitrary number. This is a proprietary platform run by a VC firm. It would be silly to expect that they've cracked the code of online discourse, or that their goal is to keep it balanced. The discussions here are better on average than elsewhere because of the community, although that also has been declining over the years.
I still find it jarring that most people would vote on a comment depending on if they agree with it or not, instead of engaging with it intellectually, which often pushes interesting comments to the bottom. This is an unsolved problem here, as much as it is on other platforms.
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the security you mean is probably tptacek (https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek)
Time flies and simonw his AI feedback isn't always received favorably, sometimes he pushes it too much.
They aren't pinned, people just vote on them, and more so because simonw is a recognizable name with lots of posts and comments.
New comments get a boost, and as such are frequently near the top just due to that. Frequent upvotes also boosts. There might be other factors.
However these things are dynamic and change over time. As I read the discussion just now, the GP comment was the ~5th top-level comment.
thanks for reminding me i need to follow his blog weekly again