Hacker News Reader

drinfinityon Google releases Bard to a limited number of users in the US and UK

Somehow I'll miss you Google. I'll miss the simpler times. You were a fine search engine and gmail was pretty great too, at the time. I was really excited to get an invite. Good memories.

We'll always remember you. Well.. not always, but for some time to come. Rest in peace.

drinfinityon GPTs Are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of LLMs

That's (IMO) too narrow view of what a "machine" is. Complex machinery of any kind never is 100% correct and needs constant correction and maintenance. I still think approaching this as a "calculator" is awkward at best.

drinfinityon GPTs Are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of LLMs

Confining an LLM to the very narrow domain of "calculators" is a mistake, I think.

You wouldn't say "a programmer that is 99% correct is worthless, I need 100%". I'm pushing it, but for a more fair comparison I'd say measure it against a programmer. How often are we wrong? 75% of the time? :) being generous here. It's the tools that make us productive.

I don't know about you specifically, but I don't think you'll be very productive with a bare terminal lacking any modern IDE-like or even REPL facilities. I'll ask you to come up with instantly working code every time, all the time. It doesn't work like that. You need iteration and I believe these kinds of AI have the same issues as us. There are wrong sometimes (often) and need feedback.

drinfinityon Who knew the first AI battles would be fought by artists?

You think music theory is more demanding than CS? I've dedicated decades and probably 75% of my youth to mastering this instrument called a computing device. It has numerous layers, each completely different and each significant enough to build a standalone career out of (OS, networking, etc). I feel insulted if you think playing and mastering a piano is the same thing.

Extreme specialists are found everywhere. Mastering skateboarding at world level will eat your life too, but it's not "harder" than programming. At least, for any commonsensical interpretation of "harder".

All the rest, we do too. Except I don't record videos and I'm sure it is not childishly easy, but it will not eat my life.

drinfinityon Who knew the first AI battles would be fought by artists?

Making art is not "vastly more difficult" or at least it is (IMO) highly debatable. Some parts of it require decades of experience to do with any kind of excellence, yes. That's also the case with powerlifting, figure skating and raising children and indeed programming. It's just that your boss made a money printer that takes in bullshit and outputs bullshit which gives you your cosy job.

But that is not "programming". That is glueing together bullshit until it works and the results of that "work" are "blessing" us everyday. The gift that keeps on giving. You FAANG people are indeed astronomically, immorally, overpaid and actively harm the world.

But, luckily, the world has more layers than that. Programming for Facebook is not the same as programming for a small chemical startup or programming in any resource-restricted environment where you can't just spin up 1000 AWS instances at your leisure and you actually have to know what you're doing with the metal.

drinfinityon Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?

  Broken heart
  Broken leg
  Blindness
  Losing a child
  Having a low (or too high) IQ
  Having severe mental disorder(s)

drinfinityon Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?

Why do you want to change? Regret anything?

I don't know the first thing about you, so it's hard to say what is going to help. If you truly are a narcissist all bets are off, but perhaps you are just a bit self-centered which might mean there is still hope after all.

I'd look for books on being a "building lasting relations", "how to deal with emotions", "how to be a good mother/father". That kind of stuff. Bring out the wounded inner child and see if some CPR is still an option.

drinfinityon Snowpack: Build a web application without a bundler

It does not suck. The compile times are OK and are getting better. Angular (and other) SPAs have capabilities no RoR, ASP.NET or Django setup can even begin to touch. Separating the back-end from the front-end with an independent API is also a god-send.

Death to remaining in the dark ages for nostalgia's sake.

drinfinityon The University Is a Ticking Time Bomb

He is not a developer. He fudges with scripts.

Good luck bootcamping someone to engineer. Civil or otherwise.

drinfinityon CPU Introspection: Intel Load Port Snooping

I find it interesting that somebody dedicates his or her life to figuring out how these CPUs work when exactly that information is just laying about in some vault in Santa Clara.

drinfinityon A lot of complex “scalable” systems can be done with a simple, single C++ server

Try it. It might surprise you.

drinfinityon Software Library: MS-DOS Games

Target the NES or SNES. Emulators are tiny and work on all platforms. Bundle one.

drinfinityon Why do holes horrify me?

Snakes don't phase me _at all_, no pulse change whatever. I don't care, never have. I'll happily enter a bath filled with them and stay there for hours. My baby boy doesn't care about spiders, snakes, etc. He is now learning it because my wife is (over)reacting to them.

There is a major environmental/learned aspect to this, I don't buy the 100% inborn argument at all. Young children (0-12mo) don't give a damn about anything. I do believe we are born with the innate potential to focus on these creatures faster/earlier than other animals, but fear, that's learned.

drinfinityon Ask HN: What should be taught in high school?

> as a women

Sexist.

drinfinityon Matestack: Rapidly create interactive UIs in Ruby

An API backend + UI front-end consuming it is the perfect solution, it is the only sane thing I ever came across. Stop trying so hard to shoehorn old bullshit over it. It took us decades to settle on this, please leave it be and focus on more pressing issues. World hunger or something.

drinfinityon How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch

It actually means the same thing to everyone except that, as an Italian, you redefine what productivity means as to include "being non-productive".

drinfinityon How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch

They don't.

India is also hot, they don't close for siestas.

drinfinityon NASA engineer's 'helical engine' may violate the laws of physics

Where can I observe these magical laws you speak of?

drinfinityon WTF – A personal information dashboard for your terminal

Become a developer, then you will understand. It is like asking why mechanics have a lot of tools around them.

drinfinityon Being Bored Is Good

Try it. You will fail.

It is way harder (to do it right) than anything you can imagine.

drinfinityon Amazon to Uber: From the lens of a software engineer

I'm worse though, just in a different way.

drinfinityon Amazon to Uber: From the lens of a software engineer

Agreed.

drinfinityon Meli email client, pre-alpha release

No, I'm young-ish (33) and I agree.

TUI's are just a very restricted type of GUI's. These restrictions make the devs focus on what is important, because there is literally no room for bullshit. These UI's pack more punch per pixel and thus make for a more productive experience - if you're so inclined.

While I like true CLI TUIs, I can also live with TUI-like interface in the browser. I just like the style of them, the compactness, the cleanness. They will never go out of style. They are too productive.

drinfinityon Atlantropa

Good idea.

drinfinityon The Ramanujan Machine: Using algorithms to discover new mathematics

Through my genius I've come to the conclusion that primes are related to entropy. There is no hope.

drinfinityon There is nothing more depressing than “positive news”

Everything is going to shit and we are all going to die in a horrible, horrible fire while being trampled by giant T-Rexes.

drinfinityon New Game: Minecraft Earth

Do you even play, bro? Building is not performed while standing still, also it is quite finicky. Walking around touching the screen will get old really fast.

drinfinityon Next-Paradigm Programming Languages: What Will They Look Like?

I think things are going to split up even more:

- languages for physicists - languages for game developers - languages for business apps - languages for mobile apps - etc

These domains turn out - IMHO - to have vastly different needs and are better served by specialist tools. Some of them textually, some of them visually (game design: Unreal's blueprint).

drinfinityon 737 Max: 1960s Design, 1990s Computing Power and Paper Manuals

Airbus agrees Boeing should make its software opensource.

drinfinityon The high speed of society has jammed our internal clock

Just keep walking and ignore them. Claim your space. For some reason they find out in the last fucking second you are walking there after all and they should make space. This is just dominance, they knew you were coming and decided to ignore you.