throwaway041207

Crystal is great and I think it nailed statically typing in a Ruby like language, but I've always been wary of day job use of the language because it doesn't have a significant user base.

> No eval: eval, instance_eval, class_eval

> No metaprogramming: send, method_missing, define_method (dynamic)

> No threads: Thread, Mutex (Fiber is supported)

Speaking as someone who has written a lot of Ruby code over the years, utilizing every single one of these features of Ruby, I have to say this is the version of Ruby I've evolved to want: simpler and easier to understand but with the aesthetic beauty of Ruby intact.

IMO this more limited variant of Ruby is more practical now that we have extremely productive code generation tools in the form of LLMs. A lot of meta-programming ostensibly exists to make developers more productive by reducing the amount of boilerplate code that has to be written, but that seems no longer necessary now that developers aren't writing code.

> But it's clear that Zed's focus is on AI integration because that's where the money's going

Do you really think Zed's focus on AI is just about money? You do realize software engineering is in the midst of a tectonic shift?

Yep, between this and the pricing for the code review tool that was released a couple weeks ago (15-25 a review), and the usage pricing and very expensive cost of Claude Design, I do wonder if Anthropic is making a conscious, incremental effort to raise the baseline for AI engineering tasks, especially for enterprise customers.

You could call it a rug pull, but they may just be doing the math and realize this is where pricing needs to shift to before going public.

If you're talking about APIs and SDKs, whether direct API calls or driving tools like Claude code or codex with human out of the loop, I think that's actually fairly straightforward to switch between the various tools.

If you're talking about output quality, then yeah, that's not as easy. But for product outputs (building a customer service agent or something like that), having a well-designed eval harness and doing testing and iteration can get you some degree of convergence between the models of similar generations. Coding is similar (iterate, measure), but less easy to eval.

Dawg, I'm just trying to keep my managers happy so I can get a paycheck and have health care and hit the trails on the weekend.

I work at a company that has gone all in on Anthropic, and we're just shoveling money at them. I suspect there are a more enterprises than we realize that are doing this.

When I read these comments on Hacker News, I see a lot of people miffed about their personal subscription limits. I think this is a viewpoint that is very consumer focused, and probably within Anthropic they're seeing buckets of money being dumped on them from enterprises. They probably don't really care as much about the individual subscription user, especially power users.

Agree. I'm building a software factory at my job right now that leverages Claude Code. It seems like almost daily Anthropic is releasing new products or features on existing products that seem to overlap with the factory I'm building. I still think my project provides a more coherent workflow from a SDLC standpoint, bringing an idea to a ticket, to a prompt, to a plan, and finally coding and creating a PR, but it definitely feels like Anthropic is heading in that direction as well. It'll be interesting if they eventually bring all of this together into a single uber tool.

The improved mental health and decision making effects of this drug present well before people lose meaningful amounts of weight.

If one spends any time on the various GLP-1 reddits you'll see plenty of these stories. It's clear that the current formulation or dosing regimen isn't ideal for everyone. That said, there is hope as there are multiple variations of the drugs now and more in the works. Part of the weight loss component of this drug happens in the brain and targeting that mechanism and developing formulations that mitigate nausea is almost certainly happening in labs across the world right now.

It will probably be the case that there will be a diverse set of offerings of these kind of drugs, with different priorities and people will just have to try each until they find the one that works best for them.

I did not, but like I said above I've never had physical addiction such that it caused serious withdrawal symptoms (night sweats, seizures, etc have never been an issue for me), so I'm lucky in that respect. Mostly just tremors or what not when I'm on a string of binge drinking nights. I'm a big guy so I don't know if that's why, or just that I am lucky. In the last decade or so I primarily drink beer, mostly because I'm a very fast drinker and I will drink everything under the roof when I get a full head of steam, so I defensively avoid keeping liquor around.

My sleep has been pretty hosed up since I started but it wasn't like it was great before. I am also probably suffering from sleep apnea and I'm hoping to address that soon as I probably have another 4-6 months at the current weight loss rate before I am at a normal BMI.

No prob.

I noticed that I did not want to drink the day after my first shot. It was that fast. If anything the closest I came to drinking came from routine, not desire. That is to say, what is an afternoon watching football if not with a beer in hand? But I was able to move past that.

One thing I should make clear, no matter how heavy a drinker I have been at times in my life, including with liquor, I have never had a physical addiction. A person deep in the throws of physical addiction will need to approach this carefully.

If you are interested in this topic, I highly recommend reading this newsletter: https://recursiveadaptation.com/

There is a lot of great writing on this subject and some real world testimonies in there. Also happy to answer any more questions here.

> I am very cautious about the potential for damaging long-term side effects.

This is fair. But I'll ask you this: how long would it take for you to trust it? Assuming there are no side effects beyond what we know now, which are:

* gastroparesis is a small number of patients

* elevated thyroid cancer risk in mice

* nausea and general uncomfortableness when taking it (some percentage, not all)

* muscle and bone loss which seems to be roughly on par with any rapid weight loss approach

* a small percentage of people develop malaise, anhedonia and suicidal ideation

* a propensity to gain some percentage of weight back and/or relapse in addictive behavior when going off the drug

These are the side effects we know about with over a decade of prescribing GLP-1 agonists. Assuming these continue to be the primary side effects, how long would you wait until you are comfortable in trusting they are the only ones?

I do not have ADHD. I am not sure exactly why I drink so much -- there are a number of alcoholics on both sides of my family, but I also spent many years drinking in bars in a big city, living a very social life. During COVID I became much more of a solitary drinker and over the last five or so years I have drank out of a sense of malaise. Every morning became the day I was going to take a break and every night there was an excuse to start drinking again.

The strange thing about GLP-1s effect on my desire to drink is how it manifests: I just don't care about drinking. I actually _could_ drink and be fine I think, I haven't tested it. I don't go through life with the burden of the knowledge of my own addiction. I don't have to be vigilant about triggers and self-assess my actions. I just don't drink.

Still titrating up, will be there in a month.

I have been on compounded GLP-1 for a month, prior to this I was a highly functional alcoholic, basically starting drinking after work every night and going until I passed out. I've drunk well over 50 beers (probably more) a week for the last 20 years. I have not had a drink since going on it.

I have been reading obsessively about this drug since going on it. I have been fortunate enough not to suffer side effects on it, save for one -- frustration with the cynicism around it. A cynicism I shared prior to experiencing its effects.

I am convinced that, barring any life threatening long term side effects, this is the most important drug of our lifetime (from a first world perspective) or until a silver bullet cancer drug is found. The potential to be the tide that lifts so many boats and alleviates so much physical and emotional pain and suffering on a population level is almost overwhelming to think about.

Additionally, semaglutide was developed as a drug for diabetes. It took a decade or so for NN to realize they walked backward into a giant money pit with the weight and addiction component and they are doing their damnedest to get every last cent they can before the patent expires. As is their prerogative, technically, but at this point I think this drug promises a real significant public health benefit that we haven't seen in our lifetime, especially around addiction and other impulse disorders.

Millions of peoples lives could be made better within months if this stuff was made freely available tomorrow. It would cause all manner of downstream benefits for society, in particular I think it would have a real impact on reducing some load on a healthcare industry that is buckling at the weight of our collective unhealthiness.

I honestly think the FDA should find a way to put the screws to NN such that they reduce the cost of this drug and license it at an affordable cost to the compounders.

I absolutely eat better than before. Part of it may be mindfulness, but overall I do not crave specific kinds of foods like I did before and by that I mean... any specific kind of food.

One way of thinking about it is that I have always enjoyed fruits like apples, blueberries, etc but I have always enjoyed a bag of chips or a great sandwich more. What I've found now is if I keep fruits, yogurts, cottage cheese etc in the fridge I will opt for them over the more junky foods, or at least just as much.

Vox is diversified enough across publications (sports, trad media like NY mag, vox.com) and platforms (video, movies, etc) that they will be fine. They may never deliver the multiples they promised investors but their investors don't care -- Accel and Allen & Co types didn't put a ton into them, NBCU and Penske are probably just happy Vox hasn't folded like BF and Vice... Vox is solid in the world of media but certainly failed in what they promised to achieve. Still though, just surviving is a high measure of success in the hellscape that is VC funded online media.

The "For You" section of my youtube search is awful, like terribly awful. It's decided for some reason I enjoy popping and weird skin infection videos. I think this is because I clicked through to an external link to a horse getting a hoof infection shaved once (did not enjoy and did not watch all of it). That's literally the only time I've watched anything like that and since then it's always at the bottom of my search. These videos are never recommended on my front page, though.

There are some weird corners of YouTube.