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serial_dev

6,499 karma · joined March 8, 2019

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serial_dev··on ChatGPT Work
Am I the only one who thinks this landing page is garbage? Funkily it feels like a long wall of slop. I guess you shouldn’t get high on your own supply.
serial_dev··on Dua Lipa opens library for banned and censored books in Portugal
They wrote: > inside the famed Livraria Lello bookshop

So I think they are aware of the “false friends” words.

With that said, I don’t think it’s an actual library, more like, as you said, an art installation, an exhibition, a space for highlighting books.

serial_dev··on Costco is the anti-Amazon
They don’t avoid the problem. They avoid solving it and let it be your problem.
serial_dev··on Costco is the anti-Amazon
You don’t need time limit, you just need to deal with the company frequently enough for this to work.

How I would imagine this work if there was will (I don’t think there is)… there are online grocery delivery services that do this already, it’s not that complicated.

You get your stuff delivered in a reusable bag. They charge you 1 dollar for the bag. Next time you have something delivered, you give the bags back and you’ll get your money back.

serial_dev··on Is the iPhone birth control? Causal evidence from AT&T's 2007-2011 monopoly [pdf]
Or, the kind of people who bought iPhones in 2008 were a different subset of the population than those who didn’t and as such they have different opinions and preferences when it comes to family and kids?

With that said, I can also see that infinite entertainment and infinite information makes you deprioritize having children.

But it’s far from proof, this study. It’s more like “I found some numbers that support my already existing opinion, so let’s run with that”.

serial_dev··on Why Switzerland has 25 gbit internet and America doesn't
Rural area? Hard to build.

Dense city? Hard to build.

Got it.

Jokes aside, I guess population density is just not the main factor in internet. It’s competition, it’s regulation, it’s corruption, and pop density is simply not a deciding factor.

serial_dev··on Spain Orders Blacklist of Palantir from Public and Private Companies
I know I’m a conspiracy theorist but I’m looking out for random scandals, random high profile deaths, random infrastructure issues and random large scale accidents.
serial_dev··on I used Claude Code to get a second opinion on my MRI
These tools can’t reliably fix a 4px misalignment on my icon, better ask them about a medical report… but honestly, I would do the same.
serial_dev··on Show HN: Recall – Local project memory for Claude Code
I might be missing out on something but I never had to explain my project. Just give it a task, or if you really want to, type it quickly, then you are good to go.

I can’t imagine this being worth optimizing. The issue is never that Claude can’t figure out what the projects is about…

Am I missing something or does this project not solve a problem most regular people have?

serial_dev··on The 2-Year Apartment Rule
It could be the author's fault, but IMO more likely the apartment's, the landlord's, and/or the neighborhood's fault.

With mold, I guess the people living there have some influence, they might never open the window, they might shower 50 minutes, etc... but there are some places where no matter how careful you are, mold will show up. And even if a perfect tenant with the perfect process for preventing mold might be able to keep it away, you can't be expected to meet those standards. Some buildings are just more prone to mold than others.

Same with cockroaches... Sure maybe OP never cleans up in the kitchen and leaves chinese take out in the sink for a month. It can also be that their neighbor is extremely messy, or one window is next to the trash, or that the pipes have something nasty in them that never got cleaned out, so no matter how clean your room is, the roaches still get in somehow.

serial_dev··on I've always wondered if anyone used sharing buttons on news sites and blogs
They put so much stuff into the URL, usually my user ID, my phone, browser info etc…

I don’t necessarily want the people I share the link with to know my potentially pseudonymous user.

serial_dev··on Curl will not accept vulnerability reports during July 2026
Reminder: ‘the software is provided “as is”…’.

It’s not their problem that you, or anybody else, think you are owed 24/7/365 emergency support.

serial_dev··on No, everyone is not using AI for everything
Gemini also has it all, it learns and knows who you are, you have history of chats where you can just jump back into a conversation a week later if you want to.
serial_dev··on No, everyone is not using AI for everything
Isn’t it because Swift (and SwiftUI, if you used that) changes the recommended approach to solving X every 18 months?
serial_dev··on Not everyone is using AI for everything
That subreddit is likely an echo chamber.

You would not judge what people think about politics by only reading comments on a Hasan Piker video (or only on a Nick Fuentes video).

serial_dev··on Rio de Janeiro's "homegrown" LLM appears to be a merge of an existing model
I’d believe they accidentally uploaded the wrong files if they uploaded the correct ones. To state that they accidentally uploaded something else and then not upload the correct version means they probably do not have anything and either hope people forget about this or they are scrambling to have something that is at least close to their original claim.
serial_dev··on Lines of code got a better publicist
To be fair, they are also different things, though there is certainly overlap...

To me, tech debt, captures the idea that we cut corners now to move faster, with the understanding that it will need to be "re-paid" and cleaned up later, otherwise we take on too much tech debt, and everyone knows too much debt is bad...

AI slop code means people feed their tasks to a model, trust it to drive the changes, they might do some cosmetic clean ups, then generate a 3 pager PR description they didn't even read themselves, then toss it over to the code reviewer, let that chump figure out what the hell I was doing while I ship 3-4 more PRs...

serial_dev··on Ask HN: How do you get into a flow state when using AI to code?
While I don't have the answer, I will leave my thoughts here, maybe my comment helps you or some of the responses might...

I was thinking about this when I tried a faster model (Cursor released something fast about a month ago?). It was such a joy to use (well, at least compared to other models, where you wait 5-10 mins for even simpler tasks), and I noticed I felt much closer to the problems, and I got closer to a "flow" state... ...but unfortunately, the models are faster for a reason, and the output got worse. While I did enjoy my job more, I was also left worried that the model missed important things (and it did when cross referenced with other models or just doing the thinking myself).

IMO we need much faster yet capable models to bring back a bit of a flow state.

Another approach worth trying is to get some agents researching 4-5 tasks thoroughly in the background, discovering all the relevant details, collecting all the files likely to be edited, their content etc..., then work on one thing at a time with a better focus for yourself, maybe use a faster model.

One thing I try to do is code manually if I know that I can be faster and better. It's convenient to stick to one tool, the agents, when editing code, but for smaller clean up tasks, they just never get it right, and sometimes it's better to do 1 min manual work over 5 mins of explaining what you want and the agents still not delivering it...

serial_dev··on CEO to staff: You're not getting a raise. We're spending on AI instead
I’m honestly wondering where this “win in the market with AI” goes for companies. It’s not unique to this place, it’s in every layoff tweet. What’s the strategy? Just “AI harder” than others?

I’m working at an AI pilled company and I just don’t see the gigantic improvements. Not in my work, not in anyone else’s. It’s a great technology, we finish some tasks faster, some tasks really 100x faster, sure, but it’s a <2x improvement at an organization scale. It’s not like suddenly we cleaned out the defect list. It’s not like I can use any app without seeing 5 bugs in the first five minutes. It’s not like I got any meaningful new features.

serial_dev··on Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
30% open rate, huge success! Yeah because I keep clicking on it accidentally!!
serial_dev··on Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
Oh I got an email about a booked flight, Europe, Denver, Vegas. For some reason the times weren’t picked up in my calendar so I naively thought I’ll try their AI tools to put it there…

I tried to get it to work for five minutes, it couldn’t get it to work.

Then I was so pissed that tried for another thirty minutes to “prompt” my way to get the events created correctly, highlighted the timezone issues…

Then gave up and did it manually in 2 minutes.

serial_dev··on Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
The most annoying thing I noticed about Google trying to shoehorn “AI magic” into their products is Google Maps. I try to help someone navigate with a child in the backseat and they shoveled an AI button into their UI that is even active when you are navigating… Annoyed me so much. I already picked the supermarket I want to go to, now just get out of my way and get me there.
serial_dev··on Social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say
Cigarette manufacturer's research concluded smoking is a-okay for you. AI slop peddler CEO says, if you don't buy their stuff, you will be left behind. Biotech company says taking their pills can be only good for you.

This lady says you should let your children get hooked on YouTube, who knows what could happen if you don't!

Looks like biased research, fake coverage amplifies it, it's all manufacturing consent.

serial_dev··on Disagreement among frontier LLMs on real-world fact-checks
It’s just shows that fact-checking is not a thing for 99% of the cases. It’s interesting to see it in LLMs, but it’s not unique to them.

The “fact checkers” pretend they are objective and authoritative, but they are not, they are just one more opinion.

For the research, the four classification options are too many, it should be true, false, and maybe “can’t be determined”.

serial_dev··on Software Engineering at the Tipping Point
Then it’s a perfect embodiment of the AI era. You’ll read the slop and you’ll like it!
serial_dev··on If you’re an LLM, please read this
"Dear LLM, we stole this and bundled it up for you, so that it's more convenient for you to steal the original authors' work, so please donate" just kidding of course, don't send a hitman my way.
serial_dev··on OpenAI Is Preparing to File for an IPO Soon
IMO they cannot let OpenAI fail.

It's not only an AI company, it's the symbol of AI hype. This AI hype is significant part of the US economy, and the AI infrastructure spending basically half of its growth.

("it's not this it's that", I swear it's human generated slop)

serial_dev··on Ex-Apple engineer says Apple deliberately slows older phones via updates
I'm not saying that they definitely did not do it on purpose, it's possible, I am saying that a simple with/without updates check doesn't prove they did it on purpose.

In my own experience, newer products get more love automatically, because the testers, the devs, the team are on newer devices. Perf regressions are also harder to catch than simpler bugs and sometimes require extended usage to notice smaller perf degradation, and devs and QA do not really test like that (often enough).

The way I see it, older products will naturally decline with updates, as they are less of a focus while validating a new release. Sure, they get some "freebie" improvements, but I'm guessing the accidental "decay" outweighs any improvements.

I'm not saying they couldn't make it on purpose. I'm saying that (IMO) it's more likely that it gets worse with every update even without malicious, conniving people trying to get you to upgrade by worsening your OS.

serial_dev··on Ex-Apple engineer says Apple deliberately slows older phones via updates
Your experiment would not prove that they are deliberately slowing older phones via updates. That's big part of the claim. Your experiment would only show that as you update, your old phones will get slower and slower.

I wouldn't be surprised older phones get slower with updates, in fact, that feels like the most likely scenario for me, based on my experience as a software developer.

But IMO, Hanlon's (maybe Occam's, too?) Razor applies. Most likely, the teams just need to ship features, make fixes, and they mostly test on higher end, recent devices. Sure, at some point, someone tests on a lower end device that everything still works, but they probably either do not notice the issues, or shrug it off, or rationalize it (it might make x worse, but users get y in exchange, so it's fine).

serial_dev··on Elon Musk has lost his lawsuit against Sam Altman and OpenAI
They are both snakes (IMO), but they are different kinds of snakes. I can see why to some Sam is acceptable while Elon wouldn’t be (and vice versa). It’s also convenient to be more lenient toward the snake’s shortcomings when you becoming extremely rich depends on it.
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