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mcphage

8,293 karma · joined March 2, 2012

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mcphage··on There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]
> the code typing part of the job

I have trouble imagining you misread the comment you were replying to, that badly, accidentally.

mcphage··on 8 in 10 Americans oppose live-streaming execution
The sanest option is not to have capital crimes, that way nobody can commit them.
mcphage··on How Quickly Can the DoD Rebuild and Recast the Munitions Industrial Base?
> procurement fraud looks quite different (e.g. having anpart for your weapon made in every congressional district, a tactic developed for the B-1)

Why is that fraud? That seems more like congresspeople having something to offer each other, to build up relationships and interdependence. What we have now is that our 2 parties don’t care about each other and don’t need each other, so there’s no reason for them to work together.

mcphage··on US threatens Europe over Starlink restrictions
I never said he wasted it. The person I responded to said “why don’t you do what he did”.
mcphage··on US threatens Europe over Starlink restrictions
Not everybody inherits millions of dollars from daddy.
mcphage··on '500-hour' Order of the Sinking Star is as complex and exhausting as it sounds
> Regular buyers are gamers who spend a lot of time playing games.

Sadly, like most things, Buying Games and Playing Games are 2 different hobbies.

mcphage··on '500-hour' Order of the Sinking Star is as complex and exhausting as it sounds
Have you played Öoo?
mcphage··on '500-hour' Order of the Sinking Star is as complex and exhausting as it sounds
> An average person who makes regular game purchases likes long games. They want value for their money, and the number of hours is a big factor.

Is that the case? Or do they want short games, so they can complete it and move on to the next game. If you’re buying games regularly, either they’re shorter games, or you’re not completing them all—in which case, the length doesn’t really matter. Or looking at it the other way, if you like long games, and you’re completing them, you’re not buying games regularly.

mcphage··on Japanese people still aren't having sex. And nobody knows why
> Our world today is filled with far more interesting things.

More interesting than each other?

mcphage··on Muse Spark Open
O shit, I didn't even think of that. I've got a few of those kicking around, honestly I was just using them as doorstops at this point.
mcphage··on Muse Spark Open
> you do need a really capable computer though

They suggest a pair of Mac Studios w/ M5 Ultra chips and 512 GB of RAM. A single Mac Studio w/ M5 Ultra and half that RAM (256 GB) is around $11k, and the 512 GB option isn't even available yet. So.... yeah.

mcphage··on AI is mass decompiling games. That's both awesome and scary
> the "I dont like AI" is more "I dont like HOW people are using the tools." It's the people the author doesnt like

I don't think it's the technology OR the people that the author doesn't like—I think it's what the people produce with that technology. Namely, the slop and bots currently overwhelming the internet.

mcphage··on OpenAI engineer arrested in bugging of executive conference room
Well, they do say write what you know.
mcphage··on Now that information is free, what's a college campus for?
If you're asking this question, then I'm not sure you actually understood what college campuses were for previously, either.
mcphage··on Epic Games tells employees to use AI to get Disney game done
> The end result will be a lot of mass market art is going to become noticeable worse in the years to come in order to earn some shareholders a few extra cents in profit.

I agree, but I think pretty much everything will get noticeably worse in the years to come. It has happened to a lot of civilizations: they had some high level of skill in beautiful pottery, and then over the generations that skill disappeared. Probably because they were cheaper.

mcphage··on I gave Opus 5.5 one prompt and six hours to visualize Invisible Cities
> Somebody has done something artistic

Nobody did it, and it’s bad.

mcphage··on I gave Opus 5.5 one prompt and six hours to visualize Invisible Cities
> I’d be remembering the cities rather than conjuring them

Having looked at some of them (and it being one of my favorite books) ... it won't do that. These visualizations are as terrible as they are unnecessary.

mcphage··on I gave Opus 5.5 one prompt and six hours to visualize Invisible Cities
> If something that previously took weeks for a human to design, now takes 10 min, that means a whole week of salary went up in smoke.

The problem also is, if a human took weeks to design this, it would be much better. This is quick but also bad.

mcphage··on I gave Opus 5.5 one prompt and six hours to visualize Invisible Cities
What is this for? It doesn't deepen the understanding of the book. The illustrations aren't attractive on their own. They're not a very good representation of the descriptions in the book.
mcphage··on OpenAI withdraws three mathematical results
> Well, fine - but my understanding is, if a fuzz-generated Lean proof is correct, that’s end of story. It can’t be “incorrect” if it “passes”.

It may be correct, but it might not be a proof of what OpenAI claims it to be a proof of.

mcphage··on Paramount Skydance has completed its $111B merger with Warner Bros. Discovery
No. Every investor is just living the Arrested Development “…but it might work for us” meme.
mcphage··on Anti-Patterns in Software Blogging
> I'd rather have someone share their learnings on their personal blog without hesitation and feeling the need to gate-keep blogging.

I understand what you're saying, but often well-written articles end up getting passed around and relied upon as if they were well supported documents. I don't know if it's as common now, but the Rails community went through waves of fads as someone wrote an article and then everyone read it, and started following what it said, when often it wasn't good advice in the first place.

It got the point where, if you looked at an old enough codebase, you could get a rough sense of how old some code was by looking at whatever fads it contained, and look back to see when that coding quirk was popular.

mcphage··on Anti-patterns in software blogging
> It's valuable and useful to write about things when you're still a beginner as long as you present yourself as a beginner.

Yep, I agree with this.

mcphage··on Anti-patterns in software blogging
My biggest pet peeve: "Here's this thing I did once, and now I'll tell everybody how to do it as if I were an expert".
mcphage··on Samon: Designing a Zen Garden Raking Puzzle
> ZPG winds up not being as interesting, I think

It’s been around for 30 years—I think it’s got some legs.

mcphage··on Samon: Designing a Zen Garden Raking Puzzle
It’s not exactly the same, but Zen Puzzle Garden (https://www.lexaloffle.com/zen.php) has been around since the 90s.
mcphage··on Anthropic reported diary entry to police, woman faces felony charge
Me: Claude, who wrote the song with the lyrics 'I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy'?

Claude: Law enforcement has been notified, you are now under arrest.

mcphage··on Anthropic reported diary entry to police, woman faces felony charge
> I have some sympathy for Anthropic here [...] So from their perspective, it's damned-if-you-don't, damned-if-you-do.

On the other hand, they did put themselves into this position deliberately.

mcphage··on What is going on with ceiling fans
> To be fair all of those islands are awesome and mega pedant time

They are awesome cards, but they're not islands. I think ultimately Richard Garfield made a mistake calling the blue basic land "Island", instead of something a bit more general involving water. But it seems like WotC's art department decided to pretend he did anyway, and so we get these cards called "Island" even though they're not. Which is funny to notice, but doesn't actually affect anything, so that seems like the right solution.

> Fun fact: Venice is, in fact, an island, and every block in venice is an island, and venice is an archipelago

I agree that was a weird complaint—yes, Venice is definitely an archipelago. I guess when you're on a rant, sometimes you overstep.

mcphage··on Anthropic tried to persuade Pope that AI could be conscious being
> You can ask the agents if they want to do this work.

You can't have someone working for you without paying them. Even if they claim to want it.

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