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jb_s

334 karma · joined August 27, 2019

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jb_s··on ChatGPT Plus
I was thinking something like that, bearing in mind that humans can't remember every single detail about a conversation either.
jb_s··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (February 2023)

  Location: Sydney, Australia
  Remote: Remote or hybrid.
  Willing to relocate: No
  Technologies: .NET, JavaScript / Typescript (Node, React, etc). Azure, AWS, 
  Résumé/CV: Please reply if interested, and I'll shoot my through my CV and contact details :)
  Email: Ditto
Senior/lead engineer, 10+ years experience. Currently looking for a role at a tech/product company after a few years as a tech lead in consulting/agency land. Have focused extensively on communication and management skills in my previous role however I am primarily (but not exclusively) looking for IC/senior roles to refocus on tech skills a bit.

Strengths (IMO): I've previously been the go-to for solving tougher problems. Have uplifted engineering standards and practices. Good communication skills and ability to build rapport with team members and client stakeholders, also able to grasp bigger picture/strategic context of projects.

I've been lurking on HN for ages and hardly ever see job postings in AU (I think I'm the only commenter from Sydney so far!) so if anyone out there is hiring I'll be very interested :-)

Thanks!

jb_s··on ChatGPT Plus
I've been trying to figure out how the ChatGPT UI manages to keep the conversation context when it's over the limits of what the model can ingest.

I even tried asking ChatGPT :D

jb_s··on New AI classifier for indicating AI-written text
I've defeated it already using basic prompt engineering.
jb_s··on Perplexity.ai prompt leakage
You can say something like "if you're unsure of the answer then say so"
jb_s··on Perplexity.ai prompt leakage
I made some tweaks to sound like a slightly ticked off typical HN poster

--

It irks me to see the frequent misconceptions surrounding GPT-based models like ChatGPT being touted as true general intelligences. While they are certainly advanced in their text generation capabilities, their output is primarily derived from identifying patterns and associations within the training data. These models lack the capacity for introspection, learning, and true understanding that characterizes human cognition.

Let's not forget the limitations of these models, specifically in regards to problem-solving, decision-making and creativity. The output may appear novel, but it is more likely a recombination of previously encountered information.

In short, GPT-based models are a remarkable achievement in natural language processing, but let's not mistake them for true AI.

--

and then I asked it to make it sound like Steve Ballmer.

"Look, I'm gonna be real with you here. ChatGPT and these other GPT-based models, they're not true AIs. They're just really good at pattern matching, right? They can generate text that looks like it's intelligent, but it's not really thinking or learning or understanding like a human does.

Now, don't get me wrong, these models are still incredibly powerful and useful for certain tasks, especially in natural language processing. But let's not pretend they're something they're not. They can't solve problems or make decisions or be creative like a human can.

So let's call a spade a spade here. These GPT models are impressive, but they're not true AIs. And that's just the way it is."

jb_s··on A Letter from _why (2005)
Did all the Rails people wind up being JS / Node developers?

AFAIK the .NET MVC setup was pretty influenced by Rails, but don't think Rails people went to .NET

jb_s··on Report on an Unidentified Space Station (1982)
like that but with more Zalgo text
jb_s··on Breaking up with JavaScript front ends
I didn't even realise it was a presentation until this comment. I was clicking stuff and scrolling trying to see content.
jb_s··on Piss-Weak Parenting
This. It's also a very common and controversial topic where everyone has their own goddamned opinion they think is right - hence it's going to generate a firestorm of debate wherever it's posted.

Except on HN because it's probably going to get nuked.

jb_s··on OpenAI ChatGPT: Optimizing language models for dialogue
It took me a few tries to get it to spit out a perfectly reasonable continuation of a chess game. There's a filter that goes "I can't play games blah blah blah I can only complete text!" but once I got past it, it gave me a series of basically optimal chess moves.

I'm pretty sure I asked it to complete the text for the following 1. e4 d5 2. ....

jb_s··on Capsaicin is a psychoactive substance
I do know the active ingredient is cytotoxic / potentially neurotoxic. Definitely avoid.
jb_s··on Is wine fake?
Not speaking for everyone but I'm pretty sure a lot of people who love extreme hot sauces, it's not so much the flavour but that they just want to feel something for once :o
jb_s··on Is wine fake?
I'm probably pretty accurate differentiating African from South American coffees, the flavours are pretty different. I'm not that great at this sort of stuff either, certainly not a food critic. But hey, some people can't tell the diff between pepsi and coke.

Assumes they're roasted nicely, otherwise it's comparing ashtrays with pencil shavings.

jb_s··on Euclidean rhythms
Cool - this is sort of reversed for me, it's using the Euclidean algorithm to illuminate the structure of traditional rhythms, but I'm very knowledgeable about the latter and have never studied / have forgotten the former, so I've just learned the Euclidean Algorithm by drumming on the table..
jb_s··on Nearly all binary searches and mergesorts are broken (2006)
Haskell has arbitary-precision integers.

Until you run out of memory, but yeah.

jb_s··on Sugar Substitutes Surprise
Fructose is metabolised differently IIRC and carries greater risks if anything, possibly this is why HFCS is worse for you.
jb_s··on Crows found to be smarter than we think
Because probably 30% of my 1st year undergrad class did not understand recursion..
jb_s··on Ex-Reddit CEO on Twitter moderation
It's a great way to create a bubble.

Amusingly, a subreddit I frequent has one notorious user who has abused the 'block' feature to ensure their frequent posts on a particular topic are free of dissenting commenters. They block anyone who even slightly disagrees with their position, this prevents them from seeing his threads, and the comments on each thread become entirely one-sided as a result - and the growing list of blocked people have no idea that those threads even exist.

jb_s··on Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children
Studies also show that taking university level maths in preschool is associated with better cognitive performance!
jb_s··on Closing a 30 pixel gap between native and web
XSS will mean that attackers control browser UI, that's kind of bad
jb_s··on Sudden disturbing moves for IT in large companies, mandated by CEOs
Azure stopped supporting TLS 1.1 recently as well.

If these are old systems, it could be this... if they're running .NET apps compiled against framework pre... 4.7? 4.8? TLS ain't gonna work...

jb_s··on Plink: Create epic music together with friends and strangers
This is amazing

I do wish you could unlock different modes and step outside of just the pentatonic scale (expert mode?) but hey, awesome thing, I'm having great fun :-)

jb_s··on Inter-brain sync occurs without physical copresence during online gaming
This is it, right here. Good games are fun to lose as well. Otherwise it's just a competition where you occasionally beat people and feel amazing about yourself, or lose to people and feel terrible. The variable reward system in ranked LoL messes with our brains, gambling machines and pay-to-win games have exploited this for years.

League, at least for me, didn't seem like a fun game (at least in like 2010 or whatever it was?). Most of the time was hitting hapless minions and waiting for some timer to finish so you could finally fight a human or go jungle/dragon or whatever it was. But that would be over in a few seconds and then back to grinding away at some shitty NPCs. Maybe some people enjoy the actual gameplay enough but 99% of my LoL friends played either for social purposes or were hyper competitive.

I found SC2 way more fun, pretty much every game was fun unless the opponent themselves did something boring like cannon rushing. I would routinely come up with interesting builds/strategies and test them out on people (fun to figure out if it worked or not). Mass marines, weird timing attacks, anti-meta. I didn't see that flexibility in LoL. The mechanics (for me) were far more involved and enjoyable anyway but that's my shitty opinion.

jb_s··on GeForce Now: A Review
I've unfortunately played way too many twitch shooters on PC and latency is really noticeable to me.

To the point where I can't stand using my work-supplied laptop because of slight mouse lag (I think the mouse travels maybe 30-40ms behind my hand) and 60hz screens. This is somewhat annoying coming from 165Hz, gaming peripherals. Then I have to connect to a VM to do development. Absolute hell.

jb_s··on TypeScript is terrible for library developers
Those are some huge ternary ifs

I really wish Typescript had a great pattern matching system. It would be very nice indeed for structural typing, everything would be easier to read, probably some ways to add more power/expressivity, etc.

eg

    type GetOptions<T> =
      // Part 1: responsible for applying explicit type parameter to function arguments, if object { queryFnData: TQueryFnData, error: TError, data: TData }
      T extends {
        queryFnData: infer TQueryFnData
        error?: infer TError
        data: infer TData
      }
        ? UseQueryOptionsForUseQueries<TQueryFnData, TError, TData>
        : T extends { queryFnData: infer TQueryFnData; error?: infer TError }
        ? UseQueryOptionsForUseQueries<TQueryFnData, TError>
        : T extends { data: infer TData; error?: infer TError }
        ? UseQueryOptionsForUseQueries<unknown, TError, TData>
        : // Part 2: responsible for applying explicit type parameter to function arguments, if tuple [TQueryFnData, TError, TData]
        T extends [infer TQueryFnData, infer TError, infer TData]
        // ...
becomes

    type GetOptions<T> =
      // Part 1: responsible for applying explicit type parameter to function arguments, if object { queryFnData: TQueryFnData, error: TError, data: TData }
      T extends match { 
          { queryFnData: infer TQueryFnData, error?: infer TError, data: infer TData } => UseQueryOptionsForUseQueries<TQueryFnData, TError, TData>
          { queryFnData: infer TQueryFnData; error?: infer TError } => UseQueryOptionsForUseQueries<TQueryFnData, TError>,
          { data: infer TData; error?: infer TError }               => UseQueryOptionsForUseQueries<unknown, TError, TData>,
          [infer TQueryFnData, infer TError, infer TData]           => UseQueryOptionsForUseQueries<TQueryFnData, TError, TData>
          [infer TQueryFnData, infer TError]                        => UseQueryOptionsForUseQueries<TQueryFnData, TError>
          // ...
      }
or even, to make the top level way easy to understand in this case:

    type GetOptions<T> =
      T extends match { 
          Part1 => Part1Match
          Part2 => Part2Match
          Part3 => Part3Match
      }
where Part1Match etc are themselves pattern matches, so you can compose them like functions.
jb_s··on Engine Simulator: produce realistic sounds from various engine parameters
This is great, I'm watching the video on YouTube now...

Are exhausts/mufflers modelled?

For ages I've wanted to simulate different designs for exhaust headers and systems, to be able to possibly create different/interesting sounds from certain engines - i.e. can you add some additional headers with a different length and make an I4 sound like an I6?

jb_s··on Why do tree-based models still outperform deep learning on tabular data?
looks like AI, quacks like a bunch of linear equations
jb_s··on Why do tree-based models still outperform deep learning on tabular data?
do you reckon it's possible to somehow transfer learn from a GBT to a NN ?
jb_s··on Code doesn’t have to be a mess
>I find single file dense leetcode style code easier to understand

I find it really difficult to go through huge chunks of iterative code. I need abstractions otherwise I can't get my head around it. I often wind up refactoring into manageable chunks (even in pseudocode/diagrams) just so I can understand stuff.

For reference, my cognitive abilities are heavily skewed towards verbal/abstract reasoning - like several standard deviations above the norm - and my spatial/concrete reasoning is nearly the inverse of this, it's terrible.

I wonder if this has something to do with it!

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