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BoxedEmpathy

69 karma · joined August 12, 2024

I'm in a box
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BoxedEmpathy··on I don't think AI will make your processes go faster
This matches my experience. My previous position was at a FAANG and sometimes getting a VPN link setup for a new host would take a month of approvals.

Writing actual code was maybe 10-20% of what I did. Most of it was meetings, design review, authorization requests, etc

BoxedEmpathy··on I don't think AI will make your processes go faster
What tools are you using? What settings? What process? What's your code review like?

I think this varies a lot. I find with a c++ project I'm working on that the LLM needs a lot of guardrails and guidance, and still gets a lot wrong. But with a vite/js project it often one shots complex and intricate changes in large codebases.

BoxedEmpathy··on MCP Hello Page
MCP is fine for exposing tools that don't have APIs, but wrapping an API is an MCP is fine if you like consistency.

Personally, for just tools, I wire up tool calls with context captured via system prompt.

BoxedEmpathy··on Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features
And I'll try again when I have more time.
BoxedEmpathy··on Linux gaming is faster because Windows APIs are becoming Linux kernel features
I gave it a try. Got a steam deck, tries steam os on my desktop.

I kept running into issues that took me time to solve. I understand that the only reason it took me time to solve these issues is because I'm new to it and that people who have been gaming on Linux for years already know how to solve them all. But what would happen was is I would sit down to play a game spend maybe an hour or two fixing issues and then after that I ran out of time to play the game. I kept this up for a couple months but honestly at some point I just gave up. Now I'm playing games on Windows again.

To be clear, I'm a huge proponent of Linux gaming. I just unfortunately am too busy these days to spend the time to get it to work.

BoxedEmpathy··on New stainless steel can survive conditions for hydrogen production in seawater
Nope.

I've noticed this too, even when agreeing lots of comments start with a negative.

BoxedEmpathy··on Starship V3
I really hope I get to see a permanent settlement on Mars or the moon. I don't care who settles it I just want to see humanity reach for the stars.
BoxedEmpathy··on Starship V3
I don't like Elon and I'm still going to buy into the SpaceX IPO
BoxedEmpathy··on Starship V3
Mostly starlink
BoxedEmpathy··on Nintendo announces price increases for Nintendo Switch 2
About a month for me
BoxedEmpathy··on AlphaEvolve: Gemini-powered coding agent scaling impact across fields
I've been seeing the same in my product; 429s in vertex.

We generally avoid any Google AI for the most part because it's so unreliable.

BoxedEmpathy··on Show HN: PHP-fts – Full-text search engine in pure PHP, no extensions
This is super cool! Thank you!
BoxedEmpathy··on Google Cloud fraud defense, the next evolution of reCAPTCHA
I think you're spot on. This will block and inconvenience legitimate users while fraudsters have no problem buying more phones.

Not a useful direction for real end users.

BoxedEmpathy··on GPT‑5.5 Instant
Is this available on the API? I didn't see instant. I see chat?
BoxedEmpathy··on How OpenAI delivers low-latency voice AI at scale
I've been looking at this! Great project.
BoxedEmpathy··on New research suggests people can communicate and practice skills while dreaming
I've met a few people who write English but can't speak it. One of them is polish and learned to type English to play online video games.
BoxedEmpathy··on Psychology suggests making a shopping list is a sign of sharper thinking
Psychology suggestions opinion pieces (like this) are full of self serving bias and projection...
BoxedEmpathy··on Psychology suggests making a shopping list is a sign of sharper thinking
Agreed. It's opinion and unscientific.

The article fallaciously overstates the cognitive significance of shopping lists by misapplying general psychological concepts to a mundane habit. It relies on false cause and appeal to authority, conflating a standard compensatory memory mechanism with inherent intelligence. The author generalizes behavior, ignoring alternative motivators like memory deficits or anxiety. Furthermore, the piece lacks precise citations and improperly retrofits foundational research—such as academic note-taking studies—to fit its narrative. Ultimately, while it references factual cognitive capacity limits, the core claim that list-making signifies "sharper thinking" remains an unsupported editorial opinion rather than empirical science. Any article that contains "Psychology suggests" isn't worth reading.

HN isn't what it once was.

BoxedEmpathy··on Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub
“We have no choice but to cut off that dirty neck that has lunged at us, without a moment’s hesitation. Are you ready?”

- Chinese Consul-General in Osaka, Xue Jian, addressing Japan

BoxedEmpathy··on Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub
“We have no choice but to cut off that dirty neck that has lunged at us, without a moment’s hesitation. Are you ready?”

- Chinese Consul-General in Osaka, Xue Jian, in reference to Japan

BoxedEmpathy··on Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub
“We have no choice but to cut off that dirty neck that has lunged at us, without a moment’s hesitation. Are you ready?” -Chinese Consul-General in Osaka, Xue Jian, directed at Japan

Is that not a threat?

BoxedEmpathy··on Japan's gamble to turn island of Hokkaido into global chip hub
Also Korean War, 1959 Tibetan Uprising, Nathu La and Cho La clashes, Sino-Soviet Border Conflict, Paracel Islands conflict, Sino-Vietnam border clashes, Johnson South Reef Skirmish, China–India border clashes (Galwan), South China Sea standoffs.
BoxedEmpathy··on Blue Origin lands New Glenn rocket booster on second try
Fantastic news! I hope to live long enough to see LEO become more accessible to everybody.
BoxedEmpathy··on Sherlock: Hunt down social media accounts by username across 400 social networks
I specifically write with different perspectives, tones, and opinions on different sites in a probably vain attempt to mitigate this.

For example, on YouTube I use twitch slang, and on Reddit I use TikTok slang, and on TikTok I use reddit slang. On hackernews a use a slightly whimsical pedantically-infused undergrad tone.

BoxedEmpathy··on Browsing negative content online makes mental health struggles worse: Study
If the world was flat imagine the 5 star hotel on the edge. It would be awesome.
BoxedEmpathy··on Browsing negative content online makes mental health struggles worse: Study
For me, none of that stuff bothers me. What gives me the social media heartbreak is seeing the hate. Seeing commenters get so upset with each other over misunderstandings and miscommunications.

I've tried completely avoiding comments, and I admit it makes my life less stressful, but it feels like closing your eyes to solve littering.

So now what I do is try to assume every positive commenter is a human and every negative commenter is maybe a LLM/hatebot. This has given me just enough magical thinking to avoid the stress but not so much as to distort my world view... hopefully..

BoxedEmpathy··on Browsing negative content online makes mental health struggles worse
I'm ready to migrate back to digg, after coming from digg to reddit so many years ago..
BoxedEmpathy··on I Followed the Official AWS Amplify Guide and Was Charged $1,100
I very recently had a run away SageMaker issue that wasn't refunded. Wasn't much, only $50, but they said no.
BoxedEmpathy··on GPTs Are Maxed Out
Interesting way to look at it.

I suppose I have trouble seeing it that way because I view words as pointers to meaning. The word itself holds no intrinsic value; it's the meaning humans attach to it and the context in which it's used that gives it significance.

When we give "thinking" a scientifically testable definition we can reason around it in a more academic way.

I've read psych papers that defined "thinking" as cognition, measured by action potentials. A participant was said to be "thinking more" when their EEG showed increased activity.

It's important to understand that "thinking" here was only defined within the context of the paper.

To use an analogy, many people say their computer is thinking when it's undergoing a heavy processor load. Strictly speaking this is not the case, their computer cannot think, but they aren't wrong or incorrect because in that context 'thinking' literally means 'processing'.

BoxedEmpathy··on GPTs Are Maxed Out
Thank you very much for the elaboration!

I think I follow better. Thinking doesn't have a rigorous and testable definition, so it isn't scientific. We all have our own colloquial understand. Since it's not testable and the definition varies person to person, it's not useful when reasoning about AI or intelligence.

Also I wanted to say I love how you write!

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