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mlloyd

222 karma · joined December 10, 2010

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mlloyd··on Nvidia's first GPU: GeForce 256
I still have one of these in the basement storage.
mlloyd··on Kev: Tiny Jev-like family of decision models built on top of Qwen3.5
You already wrote the prompt, no? What I'd do, if I were you, is run the question through a LLM and then come back with targeted questions that it didn't answer.

I did the first part yesterday, jumped down the rabbit hole, and have 3 product ideas in my head now.

"Why is Jev fundamentally better than classification models like BERT or traditional ML?"

mlloyd··on GPS and the Lost Art of Getting Lost
I'll be honest, I'm not sure why I should feel nostalgic about inconvenience. Getting lost is a major inconvenience, it creates anxiety, wastes time, and all around just sucks.

GPS greatly reduces all of those things at the expense of... I'm not sure what honestly. The article was short on that part - or at least, to me, the benefits felt like inconveniences reframed as excitement and entertainment. I'll pass on this and most of the 'I miss the good ol days when life was harder ' genre.

I don't miss the days of stopping at a gas station for directions. I don't miss taking the slower route because I didn't have traffic updates redirecting me. I don't miss inconvenience for its own sake.

To each their own, but I really don't get this inconvenience nostalgia period we find ourselves in.

mlloyd··on Peter Principle
Think about it. If you're great at the job you're doing, companies tend to promote you because they assume you'll be good at the next one up too. That happens until you're at the top or no longer doing your current job well enough to be promotion eligible.

It's actually a very rational perspective, but companies aren't rational. So I'm unconvinced that this actually exists despite seeing several examples of it in the wild.

mlloyd··on Developers are attached to tools because tools encode trust
I have it give me a punchlist and a tldr in a table format for every turn. It helps cut through the incessant babbling.
mlloyd··on Developers are attached to tools because tools encode trust
Lots of people saying the same about Deepseek v4 Flash. Seems like it's an artifact of that model.
mlloyd··on Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown
Are they? Or do they just have superior recall? Or maybe lack test-taking anxiety? Or write or type quicker or...?

Lots of reasons a slow student can be just as smart or smarter than a fast one.

mlloyd··on Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown
Acceptable is different from being an accurate assessment of knowledge. The question is what is the teacher attempting to measure?
mlloyd··on Amazon won't release Fire Sticks that support sideloading anymore
Because those folks don't move the needle on sales. They're buying one, maybe two firesticks and using them OOB. I'd bet a significant portion of sales go to people 'jailbreaking' them and buying in bulk.
mlloyd··on SpaceX files to go public
Agreed. They won by having the best product. And it wasn't even close.
mlloyd··on AWS CEO says replacing junior devs with AI is 'one of the dumbest ideas'
One thing I'd point out is that there are only so many ways to write a document or build a spreadsheet. There are a ton of business processes that are custom enough to that org that they have to decide to go custom, change their process, or deal with the inefficiency of not having a technical solution that accomplishes the goal easily.

Lotus Notes is an example of that custom software niche that took off and spawned a successful consulting ecosystem around it too.

mlloyd··on Noninvasive imaging could replace finger pricks for measuring blood glucose
I don't think we use CGMs enough. There's nothing that tells you more about your food choice than the way your blood sugar reacts after you eat it. Teaching that can actually help folks manage their weight better because they can see in real time what's a good dietary choice vs a bad one.

And while blood sugar isn't the only metric for healthy eating, it's significant enough that management of it will show measurable increases to one's health.

mlloyd··on Bring Back the Blue-Book Exam
There are also many subskills not worth learning to some people. Sometimes traversal is what's needed and not understanding. (Though I'm never going to knock gaining more understanding)

Tools allow traversal of poorly understood, but recognized, subskills in a way that will make one effective in their job. An understanding of the entire stack of knowledge for every skill needed is an academic requirement born out of a lack of real world employment experience. For example, I don't need to know how LLMs work to use them effectively in my job or hobby.

We should stop spending so much time teaching kids crap that will ONLY satisfy tests and teachers but has a much reduced usefulness once they leave school.

mlloyd··on OpenAI's "Study Mode" and the risks of flattery
I love this. A teacher that actually engages with change instead of just pretending it's evil or doesn't exist. Refreshing.
mlloyd··on Ask HN: How did Soham Parekh get so many jobs?
THIS. Companies establish the minimum level of productivity acceptable by keeping the lowest performer. There's very little benefit in producing much beyond that level in most organizations. What do you do with all the extra time if you're a superstar? You could give it to your employer for free or sell it on the open market by acquiring another job and profiting off your own performance.
mlloyd··on I Conditioned Myself to Fail
This hits home. I love the thrill of the build and I immediately stop caring once it's done. I love the 'rewire for action' perspective because I've conditioned myself that seeking information IS action. But it's not really, it's decision avoidance via constructive procrastination. And that feels amazing because it makes me more knowledgeable while also ensuring that I avoid any anxiety associated with execution. Gotta fix this.
mlloyd··on Higher potassium intake at dinner linked to fewer sleep disturbances – study
>I also would have massive unquenchable thirst during this that I now don’t have.

Have you been checked for diabetes? The thirst is one of the bigger symptoms.

mlloyd··on Meta's memo to employees rolling back DEI programs
Yep. What this shows is that companies sway with what they perceive is public opinion. From Floyd to Trump, companies are shaping their internal public facing policies to mirror where they think the public is on social issues.

Lesson taught and learned.

mlloyd··on Complain and Propose (2014)
>But I also think it's pretty hard to foster an environment where people of every seniority level feel comfortable doing that.

That's because pretending to be unsinkable is much easier than working to prevent the ship from sinking. Especially when there's a perception that the problem carries very low risk. That creates situations where there's little individual benefit and a lot of reputational risk for raising the alarm.

To fix this you have to intentionally create a culture that aligns individual and organizational incentives around the behavior you want to see encouraged.

mlloyd··on Ars Technica guide to mechanical keyboards
Thanks for this! I use a Perrix 835 and I'm quite happy with it except that the keys are rubbing raw and I need new key caps. But I'm always looking to trade up if possible.
mlloyd··on I automated my job application process
When folks are engaging in mass circumventing of pervasive processes, it's because the process has broken 'typical' attempts to interact with it.

You're being penalized for doing right by candidates but it's likely that a lot of those candidates were penalized previously when they tried to interact the 'right' way with other folks hiring and adapted workarounds as a result.

It's a quintessential arms race. For what it's worth, I appreciate that you're trying hard to keep your hiring process broad and to mitigate your potential blind spots. That's refreshing to hear from a hiring manager.

mlloyd··on Cognitive load is what matters
>In addition companies don't seem to give a shit about straightforward code, they want LOC per day and the cheapest price possible which leads to tons of crap code.

Companies don't care about LOC, they care about solving problems. 30 LOC or 30k LOC doesn't matter much MOST of the time. They're just after a solution that puts the problem to rest.

mlloyd··on Engineers do not get to make startup mistakes when they build ledgers
This sounds like a situation that I know about at the placed identified by name in your comment. It took months to track down the issue.
mlloyd··on I shut down my startup. Here's the honest truth
Armchair QBing this thing with practically no info, but I wonder if this isn't the type of idea that should target specific places with incomes that can support higher prices and demographics that are educated enough to be looking for/open to this type of service and expand/scale once established.

Meaning, target affluent blue suburbs first. And then use those as beach heads to scale to lower income areas over time. This could have been tried for all I know, but I think if you do it in a controlled manner like that you can also build deeper local connections with care providers so that people have someone they can talk to in person, which I sense is also important for users of this service. Also, I don't really like the name. It tells me nothing about the service. This is also something that I'd be open to as a girldad.

mlloyd··on Hi-Tech Bifocals Improved My Eyesight but Made Me Look Like a Dork
If they could adjust for LED headlights at night, this would be even more of a no-brainer. I'd still wear them if needed.
mlloyd··on NaNoWriMo is in disarray after organizers defend AI writing tools
You don't even need to charge, just some sort of validation wall before submission. I bet a non-functional AI checker would discourage the great majority of these.
mlloyd··on Founder Mode
> 2. Break the rules if the rules are stupid.

This.

mlloyd··on Artificial intelligence is losing hype
The most valuable thing AI has done for me with coding is commenting my code and creating documentation from it. It saves so much time doing a task that hardly any of us actually want to do - and it does it well.
mlloyd··on Dropbox Acquires Reclaim.ai
Seriously! I've tried a few times off and on and it just isn't something to tackle without having a ton of time and effort and stamina and stubbornness. And then still likely failing.
mlloyd··on 'Rare species' not seen in the area for 50 years spotted on Arizona trail camera
There's a great Dr Who episode (Listen) that hypothesized this very thing.
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