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RHSeeger

7,577 karma · joined July 18, 2012

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RHSeeger··on StackOverflow now gets fewer than 1000 questions a month
> That’s why it succeeded. It was not a forum, it was something new.

And _then_ it became so much more hostile to users - and lost a lot of what made it so wonderful. It became very common that asking a new, good question would be marked as a duplicate because there was something it wasn't a duplicate of.

RHSeeger··on Discord will soon let anyone find public server messages through Google
Discord is a mediocre chat medium - I don't mind using it, but it wouldn't be my first choice.

But people use it to store all information about some games - effectively replacing a wiki. And it is AWFUL for that. Everything about Discord makes it bad for that

- Can't be found in search engines

- Abysmal search functionality

- Abysmal discoverability

RHSeeger··on I will no longer upload to NEW
> Can an LLM catch some errors? Absolutely. Can it be trusted to be correct absent review of the output?

And the person that wrote the code is expected to be the review.

Unless it's an automated pipeline that fixes the things found - I'm not a fan of that unless it's made VERY clear the LLM needs to be VERY sure it's right. And even then, I'd prefer it go through a human to decide which things are valid, then send them off to be fixed.

RHSeeger··on I will no longer upload to NEW
I don't have a problem with reading LLM feedback on my code, to check if there's anything it pointed out that's valid. Sometimes it points out things that aren't valid, and I ignore it. Sometimes it points out things that are valid, and I change it.

I don't feel the need to make someone else read the LLM output first just to do an inferior job than what I would do (since I know the code and can more easily identify what is valid vs what isn't).

RHSeeger··on Investor-owned utilities charge 23% more for electricity than public providers
I don't think that contradicts what the person you were replying to said. Specifically, they said break it up or make it public. If there is no option to break it up, then making it public is the only option.
RHSeeger··on Meta ordered to pay $25B penalty in New Mexico Cambridge Analytica case
Beating someone with a stick isn't the only way to cause harm. And if you cause harm to 40 million people, you should be held accountable - it should be treated as a crime.
RHSeeger··on Intuitive concurrent programming in any language
Depends on the usage.

- Its favorite color is blue. The ball is its

- Her favorite color is blue. The ball is hers

Which - just adds to the inconsistency.

RHSeeger··on I no longer care to work on any Ruby gems so I've archived all my repositories
> I don’t need to see why you feel the desperate need to larp as a technologist when you’re happy with letting an agent solve all the technical problems.

This is a false comparison. Agents cannot solve all the technical problems, so the entire statement falls apart.

RHSeeger··on Dogs seem to agree with humans that 'bouba' is round and 'kiki' is spiky
My first thought was that kiki would be spicy.
RHSeeger··on Intuitive concurrent programming in any language
Indeed, it's pretty much the opposite of "logic and precision"
RHSeeger··on Passkeys are not a trap
Every point in that post has been discussed at length other places, some of which is in the HN thread the author mentions. And the discussions make it clear that the points being made are not seeing the problem - not that there isn't a problem.

Passkeys have benefits - but they also have problems. Many people just don't think the benefits are worth the problems. And many people are afraid that sites will just stop accepting passwords in favor of passkeys, leaving people worse off.

RHSeeger··on Now that information is free, what's a college campus for?
> Even before the internet, a determined person could learn about anything at a library. It's been a long time since a university has been strictly necessary for that

That completely overlooks some things

- Most people are _not_ that determined and need something to help them stay focused and committed to your goals.

- Learning the material is only one part - having someone guide you through _what_ to learn is very beneficial

- Taking time off life (work, etc) in order to do that learning isn't that easy. "Going to college" is a lot easier to explain/fund then "taking some me time for 3 years"

RHSeeger··on AI is a tool and using it well takes skill
> LLMs when employed in a manner on the extreme end of the vibe coding spectrum are automating every stage of the process

And when you have a backhoe, you can skip a lot of those things, too. It's bad, sure.. but so is skipping a lot of the important parts when using AI.

RHSeeger··on Returning from vacation? The government can search your phone without a warrant
If you think the current administration hasn't pushed this so far beyond, and so much faster, what any previous administration has done - since maybe the red scare - I don't have a bridge to sell you. Because honestly, you shouldn't be anywhere near anything involving public welfare.
RHSeeger··on Why Is Sam Altman a Free Man?
Given how many people seem unsurprised by what happened, and the number of stories of AIs "escaping" their bounds - I don't think it's reasonable to think that any competent person would think that telling an AI "by any means necessary" would limit it to playing nicely.

I'll admit that this doesn't _need_ to be the result of maliciousness.

But that means the possible explanations are maliciousness or incompetency.

I don't know that we want people with _either_ of those traits in the positions they are in.

RHSeeger··on Most data centers refusing to say how much water, electricity they use
You say that, but over and over we see things like

> You can't build an apartment complex here, because our water/sewer system is already over capacity

/ignores that statement and builds the apartment complex because "omg, we need more housing" arguments are used to not pay attention to consequences

/water and sewer system can't keep up and all kinds of expensive problems occur

RHSeeger··on Why Is Sam Altman a Free Man?
> They are not making models to be evil

There are multiple ways to read this

1. They are not making models with the intent that those models act in ways that are evil

2. They are not making models with the intent that those models act in ways that are evil - But the way they are making the models results in the models acting in ways that are evil

3. They want to act evilly and making the models is a way to do that

4. The way they are making the models is an act of evil (this isn't an interpretation of the sentence, just kind of closing the grouping of situations)

I would argue that

- 1 & 3 are very likely not true

- 2 & 4 are entirely reasonable interpretations of the situation

If you act in a way to bring benefit to yourself with the result of considerable harm to others, especially if it's clear you just don't care if others are harmed - then that's a sign you're probably a bad person.

RHSeeger··on Why Is Sam Altman a Free Man?
> The models were given instructions to get answers by any means in a loose test harness, not to steal stuff, moreover, they're not 'learning from OAI staff'.

If you equip someone with the tools to do harm and then tell it to accomplish a goal "by any means necessary", especially someone you KNOW has no real concept of ethical behavior... then you are telling it that it is acceptable to steal, kill, or whatever else. I honestly cannot how it can be seen any other way.

If it was a crime boss telling their enforcer "by any means necessary", we would all know exactly what that means. And we should all know what it means here, too.

RHSeeger··on Solving Factorio Quality
So, you want a team comprised of Factorio players and tabletop RPG players.
RHSeeger··on Tcl/Tk 9.1
I like the concept of Lua, but I ran into enough issues with it's "everything is a table" design that I stopped using it.
RHSeeger··on Tcl/Tk 9.1
Same here. I enjoyed that time/experience a lot.
RHSeeger··on Tcl/Tk 9.1
I've always thought of Tcl as a type of Lisp. Clearly, the relationship isn't direct, but it allows a lot of the same things that Lisps do. Plus, the way one nests commands is similar.

And it shares a lot of the same metaprogramming that Lisps have - more so than the vast majority of other languages.

RHSeeger··on Tcl/Tk 9.1
Expect was amazing - game changing. The things you could do with it couldn't be replicated elsewhere (well, clearly "could", but not reasonably so)
RHSeeger··on There is more to code review than (automatable) detection
> That's a strong signal that your team isn't doing well. Significant problems should have been spotted at a software design stage, or raised in standups, or identified in a pairing session.

This is a strong signal that you're looking at different things than a lot of people doing code reviews are.

- Why are you using this api for this instead of this other one? We use the other one because it avoids a specific issue.

- Your code isn't following the same patterns that we use in these places. It should be using the same patterns so that it's more obvious to anyone else that works on it

- The name you gave this function/class/whatever doesn't accurately represent what it is for

These are the kinds of things that are generally noticeable during a code review, and can make a big difference later on. And they're generally not going to be identified during standups and/or design.

Pairing is an option, since it is (effectively) code review _while_ writing the code (with a certain amount of blinders on, so not quite as effective). That being said, I hate pairing, so it's certainly not on my recommendation list.

RHSeeger··on Seattle Bans Rental Junk Fees
Pet deposit is for that, not pet rent. Or just deposit in general. Humans _can_ cause just as much damage as pets.
RHSeeger··on Uber arbitration award over Emily Normandin-Parker’s death
Except for the fact that they don't actually know that's what happened.
RHSeeger··on ChatGPT now knows what you do on other websites via ad collector
The fact that other countries have tried to do <bad thing> does not mean it's acceptable for another country to do <bad thing>
RHSeeger··on Border agents can search cellphones without a warrant or reasonable suspicion
https://www.rightsprotection.org/the-united-states-constitut...

If the constitution doesn't take away a right from you specifically, then you have that right.

RHSeeger··on I don't like passkeys
The computer I just replaced had neither wifi nor bluetooth. It was a desktop device and had no use for either.
RHSeeger··on I don't like passkeys
The fact that nearly every passkey implementation is lacking in a variety of very impactful ways... is a very good reason to _not_ use passkeys.

When every passkey interaction is a different variety of user interaction nightmare, it's not very convincing that it's a good idea in the first place

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