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Braini

46 karma · joined July 25, 2018

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Braini··on Show HN: Reverse Minesweeper
This reminds me a bit of one mode (squared) from Picture Enigmas (https://picture-enigmas.com/#features) which I like to play from time to time.
Braini··on Ask HN: Where is the programming profession going?
Its similar for us to a certain extent. I honestly don‘t know yet where this will lead to. Personally I also don‘t really follow the arguments that the agent does the coding and the human does the understanding. In my opinion one is thinking differently about the code when not coding it by himself, on a higher level or lets even say a more superficial one. To keep the understanding on the same level you would have to limit the agent to just „typing“ but this is definitely not whats happening.

Yes, may be a skill issue[tm], may be an inherent one or it may not even be relevant anymore, we will see.

For me it currently still works well because I am working on legacy systems I more or less have a good understanding about - so I can judge the agent code. Not sure how this will be with new, green field code.

Not even starting with the discussion how it should be possible to review the sheer amounts of generated code.

Braini··on Win16 Memory Management
Thats correct - and I notice that on myself. There are just much more things reachable at any point in time compared to our youth it takes real effort to focus.
Braini··on Ask HN: When did computers stop being fun?
I am also looking for that personally.

I think its partially as you say: "everything I may need either already exists". Through the connection over the internet (as great as it is) you see things already done already and often better than I would be able to do it myself with the limited time I got.

Also generally the large amount of things going on, its just a lot one could try, much more than in former times. So for people with focus problems its also a question of, yeah: focus.

For me I still code enough for work (as long as they let me do it - looking at the AI push) so I am fine but I still think back to the old times (C64, Amiga, 90s PC, rise of Linux on the Desktop) where I had more fun. So I guess its the technology getting more mature and personally its also getting older and maybe burned out a bit.

Braini··on Playing Atari ST Music on the Amiga with Zero CPU
I actually never understood this, the C128 was a strange device (as you say like the IIGS). Was it really because Albert Charpentier left and then nobody was able to do a VicIII until much later (C65)?
Braini··on Playing Atari ST Music on the Amiga with Zero CPU
Important fun fact, this synthesizer was an Ensoniq chip (ES5503 DOC), designed by Bob Yannes, the inventor of the SID chip. The IIGS was actually a cool machine, not very successful unfortunately.
Braini··on We put Claude Code in Rollercoaster Tycoon
In general you are right, I expect something like this to appear in the future and it would be cool.

But isn't the criticism rather that there are too many (as you say repetitive, not relevant) events - its not like there are cool stories emerging from the underlying game mechanics anymore ("grand strategy") but players have to click through these boring predetermined events again and again.

Braini··on iPhone Air
Well one can only hope so. It has maybe 2 good years left, would be nice to get a new one at some point.
Braini··on Software development topics I've changed my mind on
This was such a relieve for us. Looking back its unbelievable how much combined time we wasted complaining about and fixing formatting issues in code reviews and reformatting in general.

With clang-format & co. on Save plus possibly a git hook this all went away. It might not always be perfect (which is subjective anyway) but its so worth it.

Braini··on Windows 7 boots slower if you set a solid background color
Its also faster when used via Remote Desktop, VNC etc. so still doing it for these reasons.
Braini··on Ask HN: Pull the curtain back on Nvidia's CES keynote please
Wondering whether we will see some combination with Cyc at some point (which tried to solve the „encoding of the world“ problem)
Braini··on Oncall shift should be Tuesday to Tuesday
There should be SOPs in place for each "expected" issue so people know what to do. Its not like you (should) start debugging and deploying stuff in the middle of your on-call shift anyway. Its not 100% for sure but in the normal case this should be fine.
Braini··on Another burnout post
At first glance this seems like a healthy attitude (and probably is)

On the other hand this spaghetti stuff usually comes back to them in form of new (bug) tickets or even worse on-call alerts. Then they (or some other poor soul) has to deal with it again.

Braini··on Omnipresent AI cameras will ensure good behavior, says Larry Ellison
Well then let them do it. The more interesting part is the "forcing others to do it" or "being forced by others to do it". The individual should be able to make this decision. But we both know thats not how it works.
Braini··on Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal
Dry cooling towers do exist (though I am aware they also have disadvantages).
Braini··on iPhone SE 4 due in early 2025 with OLED and Apple Intelligence
Same. I switched from Android (Sony xperia compact series) to a Mini 13 and while it took a while to get used to iOS its just great. A pity they discontinued it, I intend to keep it as long as in any way possible (i.e. until apps don‘t support the then final iOS anymore)
Braini··on Is a Universal Basic Income System Even Possible?
Yes, it is unfair. If we have all this great automation and AI, why is this necessary?
Braini··on It's Time for Americans to Get over It and Embrace the Bidet (2015)
I always had one (likely stupid) question regarding these as I don‘t own one but would very much like an improvement over the paper, so now is the time to ask the experts: Are you supposed to additionally use a hand while the water runs or is the water pressure sufficient to get completely clean?
Braini··on LLMs now write lots of science. Good
Exactly.

This is the "reverse centaur" metaphor by Doctorow (for example here https://doctorow.medium.com/https-pluralistic-net-2024-04-23...)

which describes the exact problem with this.

Braini··on ICQ will stop working from June 26
Interesting, need to check but so far the modern methods of multi protocol messaging was mostly just aggregating the web UIs of the various services in a single application (read: like a web browser)

Pidgin, Miranda, Adium are the things I was referring to - would be cool if I could use them for whatsapp, signal, gmail chat/hangouts but I don‘ think thats possible. Happy to get corrected here.

Braini··on We need 70% less coders as the AI handles most of the coding
Yeah thats because then they don‘t really look at it and certainly don‘t really understand it.

In some way reviewing code is more complicated and hard than actually writing it.

I really like the „reverse centaur“ metaphor by Doctorow regarding the automation AI will bring us - humans having to double check the stuff AI wrote for correctness in AI pace.

Braini··on ICQ will stop working from June 26
That is correct but it was still more open than what we have now with the current services. 3rd party clients and multi-protocol messengers we don't have at all anymore.
Braini··on A dystopian iPad commercial has X ripping Apple for crushing instruments and art
I get that this was the original idea.

But besides the question whether that is actually true (it is not, the ipad certainly can't do everything as good) the issue people seem take with this that its not just compressed or put into it but literally destroyed and crushed.

Yeah, definitely first world problems but I can relate to that.

Braini··on Wisdom from Marcus Aurelius
Obligatory Krazam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7qjN3KF8U&t=94s

(One of their best videos imho)

Braini··on The dumbphone boom is real
Yes, I will slowly have to adapt and move to larger and larger phones once my 13 mini dies (hope this will still take a looong time).

This wont stop me from complaining how ridiculous these phones have become, even foldables are just a crude hack from my POV.

Braini··on Thoughts on the Future of Software Development
These are exactly my thoughts. I comfort myself by thinking that it is still a while away and also not certain, but this might just be willful ignorance on my side. Because TBH, no clue yet what else I would like to (or even could) do.
Braini··on Show HN: I made an extension to keep Twitter from losing my scroll position
Yes, definitely (for me at least) - broke a while ago, not exactly sure when.
Braini··on Commander Keen's adaptive tile refresh
Maybe the Colour Maximite 2 would be interesting to both of you (don't have any personal experience with it but found it rather nice once I heard about it).
Braini··on DeepSID: Online Commodore 64 SID Player
I found SidAMP to be rather good actually, nice app
Braini··on Estimation isn’t for everyone
Obligatory Link to the "Estimates" song by $stdout, its great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh7A8UChBTI
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