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burnte

6,740 karma · joined February 8, 2014

Healthcare CIO, web hacker, hardware hacker, deep generalist. Mozilla volunteer, open-web proponent, free-speech advocate.

meet.hn/city/33.7489924,-84.3902644/Atlanta

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burnte··on Patrick Stewart has died
I have always used it as a model for my own leadership and it's worked out extraordinarily well almost always, and has been abused just once. I've had former employees who I've fired who would still work for me again, and I take great pride in treating peole with respect generates results like that. It works.
burnte··on Microsoft offers mass buyouts for roughly a quarter of its workforce
Did it ever occur to you I may have experience relating to what I said?
burnte··on Discord will soon let anyone find public server messages through Google
> it's a super low-friction text, voice & screenshare program with support for your whole WoW guild (or whatever communities) and you have "genuinely zero idea" why people use it?

Yes. The UI is so bad I wouldn't call it "zero friction". But it's just my opinion.

burnte··on Discord will soon let anyone find public server messages through Google
I'm not a fan of the change. I wanted Discord to remain it's little walled garden so I could continue to ignore it. It's a terrible experience in every way and I genuinely have zero idea why anyone uses it.
burnte··on Microsoft offers mass buyouts for roughly a quarter of its workforce
Nearly every HR department uses AI these days, and it just makes things worse because they're easy to game.
burnte··on Microsoft offers mass buyouts for roughly a quarter of its workforce
We as in humans in general.
burnte··on Microsoft offers mass buyouts for roughly a quarter of its workforce
Definitely not. We are no better at finding good employees than we ever were. It's the human biases that make it bad, not the technology.
burnte··on Why is AI generated language so hard to understand?
I'm a writer, a technical writer, and a highly technical person in the executive space. Communication has always been one of my strong points, and the blathering on that AI does drives me to distraction. It's impossible to really tailor the output of LLMs very much. I value information dense, direct writing when it comes to technical things and they're always embellishing and going off on side quests and it's obnoxious.
burnte··on Show HN: Making a smart TV dumb and then smart
Ok, but in this context it's EXACTLY what the user wants for a TV. Everything can go to an HDMI switch, including external tuners, and you'll have a soundbar because TV speakers are GARBAGE today.
burnte··on Every AI model has the same "controversial" take on humans
I would argue it's easy to understand how they all have this opinion: Because humans understand this about ourselves. It's in the data we create and provided to the LLMs.
burnte··on Investor-owned utilities charge 23% more for electricity than public providers
You are 100% correct.
burnte··on Woman charged with computer fraud due to scam CashApp account being in her name
As people have said, they hate losing a case and will try to tempt you into a plea deal that seems like less hassle than anything else and "make this go away." But I'm stubborn, always have been. I made a fool of him in court by his reckoning because I challenged his authority and won.
burnte··on Woman charged with computer fraud due to scam CashApp account being in her name
Absolutely. I actually went to trial many years ago because a DA wouldn't back down, he thought I'd bend. I didn't. We literally had video footage of the culprit, it clearly wasn't me and clearly WAS someone else. The DA waited until the day before we were to pick a jury to drop the charges, just a few days before trial. After, the DA even said to me, "I'm a dangerous man to make an enemy of." I think I was 20, so obviously I was cocky and snapped back "So am I," and stormed off. I not live a thousand miles away from that crappy little town.
burnte··on Quad9 to exit France
They don't have to. Despite Europe's best efforts, national laws are not enforceable outside the borders without lots of cooperation, and tech regulation is not an area where people are collaborating.
burnte··on Linux 7.3
> why does it matter “my” patch was submitted?

If you want your code in the kernel, it has to be accepted. If you don't care, then it doesn't matter at all.

> is the Linux kernel on its way to obsolescence?

Only if computers are, which is unlikely.

> Our field of software engineering and how and what it’s applied to is changing at a drastic rate.

Rate of change is not a useful metric here.

> The os was built for programs to run which were built by programmers.

AI code is still programs written by programmers, it's just some of the programmers are AI.

> The programmers thought about what the users of their programs needed to get stuff done and use the programs.

Yes, this is how you build software useful to the users. This won't change. If you make a program without thinking about how it's used, you haven't made a useful program. There are lots of apps throughout history in this pile, programs that were never fit for use.

> This paradigm is changing - fast

It's not, and it never will. Programs always have to be fit for use, and have to be useful tools for the users.

> - an in 10 years it’s going to be very diff place where the users simply build programs or their agents etc.

This doesn't change anything about Linux or applications, though. 100 years ago you bought meat and veggies grown nearby so your home because we didn't have transportation. Refrigerated trains made it possible to ship food long distances quickly and while cold. However, this did not change the way people ate the food, they still used pots and pans to cook, plates and utensil to eat, etc. Same thing here. Rather than artisanal, hand crafted code we'll use robot-generated code, and it won't matter at all to the user, or how applications need to be fit to the job.

burnte··on Tesla Roadster
I really was just arguing some of those EV points were weak, but I'm all in favor of EVs.
burnte··on Tesla Roadster
I agree, but it still takes longer and there's never a need to gas up on your commute if you just watch your tank.
burnte··on Tesla Roadster
> - rarely having to take it in for service

ICE cars are pretty reliable, frequent service tends to be for luxury brands.

> - never having to stop for gas when commuting

This is achievable with ICE by just watching your tank. Also, it's not really a benefit because charging takes a lot longer than a gas fill up.

> - a much smoother ride (no transmission)

Unless it puts the motors in the wheels, they have transmissions and gearboxes.

> - no emissions

They have emissions base4d on the electricity generation method, but even so it's still a lot less than ICE and this is a huge benefit.

burnte··on Delta’s Biscoff cookies were supposed to be temporary
ChocZero makes a zero sugar version of the speculoos cookie butter and it's amazing.
burnte··on Steam Client is now faster than Epic's new vibe coded launcher
yeah, Steam takes forever to start, one of the slowest apps I use. Photoshop is similarly lethargic starting up.
burnte··on Character.ai has initiated voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy
> It's unbelievable to me that this is legal. You put your trust into a corporate entity with your data. The entity goes away, so does the guarantee? Oh, OK.

I agree it sucks but isn't that life? Jim makes you a promise, Jim dies, his kids don't have to keep Jim's promise, nor anyone else.

burnte··on 'AI' Is Not a Tool by Rich Hickey
Automations are machines, and machines are tools. AI is a tool.
burnte··on I turned my unused Kindle into a photo frame with GPT-6 Astra
Didn't I read this a year ago?
burnte··on FDA may allow some toxic chemicals to be added to food without safety review
I'm only repeating what he said. I agree, I think the drugs cooked his brain way more than any damage from the brainworm. And you're right, this is just the weaponization of government against the people, the very thing conservatives are supposed to be against.
burnte··on FDA may allow some toxic chemicals to be added to food without safety review
He testified in court his brainworm had damaged his brain so much he could not reliably work and pay alimony to his ex wife. I don't think it's too much to say people who have had debilitating brainworn infections should not be in charge of public health.
burnte··on How did Rosalind Franklin miss the helix in her iconic DNA image? She didn't
I'd love to know what about my statement is incorrect or objectionable.
burnte··on How did Rosalind Franklin miss the helix in her iconic DNA image? She didn't
She totally did. She was the crystallography expert, she understood the meaning of the results immediately. She died and had no one to defend her so W&C were left with the credit, as was normal in the 50s and 60s (and 70s, 80s, 90s, etc).
burnte··on Shipping JPEG XL in Chrome
This way browser vendors control what their app supports, and won't have something break because a user doesn't have a library.
burnte··on Greenvolt begins building 600 MW/2.4 GWh BESS in Poland
They ARE making noise because they can't actually turn back the tide. They can try, but they can't succeed. There's too much money in renewables and the momentum is too much to change now.
burnte··on Greenvolt begins building 600 MW/2.4 GWh BESS in Poland
Thank you for understanding a broad view.
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