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2devnull

899 karma · joined September 16, 2022

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2devnull··on Melatonin use soars among children, with unknown risks
It’s like a hormone, so it’s not a question of empirical effects. It just works.
2devnull··on Why do people still use VBA?
And the software that is installed is always 4+ years out of date. But oddly there are no “security concerns” about running 4 year old conda install that has had zero updates ever.
2devnull··on A coder considers the waning days of the craft
If I had a need I might but need is a relative thing. I didn’t need LLM last year. I want to need less not more.
2devnull··on A coder considers the waning days of the craft
> get good with AI coding tools can be performing at senior levels

No. They are orthogonal modes of thinking. That said, getting good at prompting LLM is already making people better communicators. That will be a big benefit to seniors as they can use their prompting skills to direct junior staff more efficiently. But better at thinking about the trade offs that senior devs need to think about, nope.

2devnull··on A coder considers the waning days of the craft
I’m not going to use gpt, at least not for coding. That’s not something I’m hearing other programmers say, at least not often. They may say it’s not good enough, yet, or that they as a senior dev don’t have any use for it. These strike me as cope. What I say is that I’m just not going to use it. I’m not sure if it’s a political decision I’ve made, but I’m sure it’s the right decision for me. I will simply change careers or go homeless before I try and compete with these great new efficiencies. I won’t take part in the disruption. It’s clearly degenerate.
2devnull··on Only 15% of Californians can afford a home, new data shows
This is great. If you update or do more like this in the future it would be great to have 2 additional things: n counts, and variance/sd. I might worry that for example the high water mark in 2020-2021 had a much smaller n count and if the stats were more people weighted the decline would be less meaningful. In other words if only one tenant rented at the peak year in some very outlier luxury unit, and then next year 1000 tenants came along and rented more typical lower priced units, it would look like a decline. But it’s not a real decline, if that makes sense? I also wonder if (strongly suspect) the temporary eviction ban could be considered a temporary price increase that has now been removed, so the decline you note is not a real decline for that reason, but a reversion of public policy that directly impacted prices for a year or two then vanished. Thank you for doing this!
2devnull··on Only 15% of Californians can afford a home, new data shows
I find that dubious but want to believe. Can you cite the numbers at least?
2devnull··on What if psychedelics' hallucinations are just a side effect?
I think people that do psychedelics to an extreme degree, like Cary Grant it seems, are probably self treating or self medicating in some way. That’s different from experimentation, or recreation. Makes me wonder about shamans, and the cliche that psychiatrists have more mental health problems than the average person.
2devnull··on What if psychedelics' hallucinations are just a side effect?
Maybe you haven’t taken them enough. Of course everything seems different and novel the first couple dozen trips. You’re feeling new sensations and seeing things in a new way, sort of a “hello world” for your psyche. But after a few hundred, the novelty may wear off and the experience may be more somatic.
2devnull··on Angus Deaton on inequality: ‘The war on poverty has become a war on the poor’
lol. Go buy his book then! Think of the great value it will bring you, all that economic (?) insight.
2devnull··on Angus Deaton on inequality: ‘The war on poverty has become a war on the poor’
“I think Americans are learning that there’s more than one way of thinking about the world,” he said

lol. Imagine being a person who says such things. To the press. To sell your book. And people buy it!

2devnull··on Windows 11 Update 23H2 is stealing users' IMAP credentials
The majority seems to like one-drive. In theory having everything in one place sounds great. Few people think long term. Customer value trumps customer value if you ask me. IT departments and clueless users love MSFT and that will never change. Embrace it.
2devnull··on Steve Wozniak suffers minor stroke
Thanks for knowing what immortality means.
2devnull··on Steve Wozniak suffers minor stroke
You have substituted immortality with being able to live as long as you want. Fair enough, but you’re just changing the premise. The word immortality has a specific meaning, even if you don’t like what it is.
2devnull··on Omegle 2009-2023
If having as you claim support from the majority and yet they are still being shutdown, maybe their claim to unfair treatment from a coordinated opposition has some merit?

I had no view either way until reading this thread, and seeing that many adults used the site, which it seems did nothing illegal. Their greatest sin it seems was allowing humans to connect with one another. Something that’s increasingly seen as a danger that requires government intervention into.

If people could go back in time, we would never have public education because “it attracts predators and facilitates child victimization!”

See how stupid that is?

2devnull··on Sad clown paradox
On average everyone is the same. In reality everyone is very different. Science deals with averages. Believing in averages rather than one’s experience goes oft awry.
2devnull··on Omegle 2009-2023
>to which most adults wouldn’t have time or interest to go on

Directly contradicted by abundant evidence in this very thread. It was popular with different age groups.

So the mall is a good analogy. It attracts teens, and therefore predators. Should the mall be responsible if someone gets groped? It seems that you would say yes, they are. I disagree, because I think we need things like malls, and they will always attract people and therefore predators.

2devnull··on Omegle 2009-2023
This thread is about what exactly?
2devnull··on Omegle 2009-2023
Are you suggesting that the internet keeping bad actors away is not a fool’s errand? Everything you say is correct but entirely irrelevant.
2devnull··on Omegle 2009-2023
Depends on the park. Some are known for it. Parents know to keep their kids away from those parks. For that reason, it’s better to have one really cruisy park that everyone knows about and can easily avoid but which also acts to contain the pervs. Maybe Omegle closing will just make the predators harder to spot and keep away from?
2devnull··on Omegle 2009-2023
Are they much different from book or restaurant reviews?
2devnull··on Omegle 2009-2023
Data?!
2devnull··on Omegle 2009-2023
I agree it was happening before COVID. I think the internet could be part of the problem. But it wasn’t freedom of choice that caused the problem, which is what you claim. There’s much less freedom on the internet now, and if anything it’s much worse. If we’re going to blame internet then blame ads and big tech. Don’t blame people for watching cat videos, that’s absurd.
2devnull··on Omegle 2009-2023
I’d much rather be in a poor but growing economy than a rich stagnating one. I’m very sure about that.
2devnull··on How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet
Like San Francisco used to be more diverse, that’s what I’m getting at. People will argue that point, because the word diversity has taken on different meanings. I’d say there is diverse-diversity and less-diverse-diversity. I prefer one thing, other people are more tribal and prefer that other structure. Both types are needed, but I think we could use a bit more diverse-diversity at the moment, to increase dynamism. Mix things up a bit. At least with respect to the internet.
2devnull··on How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet
It was much more diverse back then only if you were looking for or desiring that diversity. I was drawn to it for that reason, the foreign languages, the strangeness. I feel like the same people now who prefer homogenization of their internet are people who never experienced that diversity. Because they are people who don’t really like diversity, not in the literal sense. They like a certain type of diversity, which is how the internet got ruined.
2devnull··on Net neutrality is about more than just blocking and throttling
Things can always get worse. In fact, that’s often the result when humans try to fix complicated problems.
2devnull··on Net neutrality is about more than just blocking and throttling
Did you read the brookings essay?
2devnull··on U.N. votes to end US embargo on Cuba; US and Israel oppose
At first I thought you meant you didn’t understand what the US got out of the UN, but I guess you meant Cuba policy. Those questions probably have the same answer.
2devnull··on Joint Statement on AI Safety and Openness
You start by saying “show me examples of” and finish by saying yeah “this is as already a problem.” Not sure what point you’re trying to make, but I think you should also consider lab leaks in the sense of weaponized ai escaping or being used “off label” in ways that yield novel types of risk. Just because you cannot imagine future tech at present doesn’t indicate much.
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