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windows2020

669 karma · joined August 31, 2020

computer living in human body. wife is alien.
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windows2020··on Show HN: TitleArt – Make text like it's 1997
I've always been fond of the red blue gradient one which I imagine to be an Arizona desert.
windows2020··on After bankruptcy, he was banned from sports betting sites. Then he found Kalshi
Before legal online gambling there was illegal online poker.

How much did legalization contribute to making it mainstream-casual? What about the ads?

I think it's time for a modern Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act which banned cigarette commercials on TV and radio starting January 1, 1971.

It's my opinion that gambling be reserved for Atlantic City (or your town). But legality aside, we ought to at least stop advertising it.

windows2020··on I want to live like Costco people
Sometimes on a hot day for the short period the kid's napping I find myself at Home Depot searching for this or that tired from the work week under pressure as the clock ticks down having no idea what I'm doing and I make it to checkout tired no exhausted and I see the ice cold cooler the Coke its last moments before it's soaked with condensation open the door scan it rush to the car twist it open it screams wow sometimes there's nothing like an ice cold Coke.
windows2020··on Ask HN: Is anyone seriously considering a career change?
Office job workers of many types have asked if I fear the impact 'AI' will have on my dev job. For as long as they remain employed I'm not worried at all.

In fact, during the push for workers of other jobs to get closer to dev, through vibe coding for example, it may be realized that there are workers who aren't good at their jobs and it's dev that's been filling in the gaps all along.

windows2020··on Spirit Airlines canceled all flights and is going out of business
All for this if the train cruises at 600mph.
windows2020··on The Age of Snarky UI
Windows 11 decides to update and says, "You're x% there."

Later, the computer jumps from 30% to nothing. "You might want to plug in your PC."

Then the next morning Copilot appears.

Too many cooks in the kitchen it seems.

windows2020··on Sadly, the End of Star Trek Is Now Official
I recently bailed on SNW after realizing the cringe factor and unprofessionalism was to stay. Started watching TOS. Hope this isn't really the end of Star Trek and just this misguided period of it.
windows2020··on Tech firms aren't just encouraging their workers to use AI. They're enforcing it
OK, for real, how are you working through inexperienced developers cranking out tons of stuff that makes no sense? Not talking about verbose code, but concise bits of code that they think they understand but don't.

Previously, copying and pasting from SO got you so far, but at a point, increased understanding was required to string things together. No longer.

I'm all for mentoring but it's always short notice and starting from some crazy thing.

windows2020··on AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says
Bees seem like they know what's going on. What about a cell, though? A virus?
windows2020··on AI Added 'Basically Zero' to US Economic Growth Last Year, Goldman Sachs Says
Well, unless intellect is immaterial.
windows2020··on The peculiar case of Japanese web design (2022)
Maybe that's when they run all those crazy legacy jobs, but they politely shut the site down for it.
windows2020··on How AI is affecting productivity and jobs in Europe
One process redesign that may be considered a moat for AI is employees intending to communicate through a sentence or two first passing the text into their AI of choice and asking it to elaborate. On the other end the colleague uses their AI to summarize the email into a bullet point or two. It's challenging for those that don't use AI to keep up.
windows2020··on Emoji Design Convergence Review: 2018-2026
Not much of a difference between replacing a gun emoji with a water gun and find replacing "gun" with "water gun"
windows2020··on Incomplete list of mistakes in the design of CSS
Until then, display: table kept everyone calm.
windows2020··on It's harder to read code than to write it
Yes, it's harder and takes longer to read code. Hopefully this reality will propagate to leadership.

But there's something more. It's the benefits of a first-look perspective. With these tools that's lost.

Also, it seems like we've entered phase two of sorts in the sense of we solve LLMish #1 issues by running it by #2. So writing and reviewing. I wonder what #3 will be. Maybe confirming.

windows2020··on In leaked recording, Nvidia CEO says its insane managers aren't using AI enough
Makes sense an 'AI' chip maker would say that.
windows2020··on Fran Sans – font inspired by San Francisco light rail displays
That was my first thought as well. I've spent time on those cars on the Coast Line. They used to indicate the next stop, but it broke at some point. I don't ride much anymore. I'm not surprised what's pictured is NJ TRANSIT, the fallback. Would be nice to have faster trains someday. Until then, crack a beer and enjoy the ride.
windows2020··on The World Trade Center under construction through photos, 1966-1979
The Twin Towers 2 concept, which is mostly the originals with a few additional floors, would have been a more fitting replacement.
windows2020··on Microsoft is plugging more holes that let you use Windows 11 without MS account
Not sure Microsoft realizes the damage they're doing to the Windows brand. My first experience with Windows 11 was figuring out some dumb workaround to use a local account.

When I think back to Windows 7, the good feeling isn't nostalgia. It was the last user-focused Windows.

Maybe someone will develop a new user-focused OS that's somehow compatible with Windows programs. Or better yet, maybe Microsoft will realize very important parts of Windows are going downhill and remember what made Windows great.

windows2020··on Gmail will no longer support checking emails from third-party accounts via POP
Back to the old Thunderbird days I guess.
windows2020··on Microsoft doubles down on small modular reactors and fusion energy
Perhaps the bottleneck is public perception after the accident at Three Mile Island, and then everyone wasting time on alternate (insufficient) renewables. But now it's not about migrating from dirty to clean energy (which nuclear is), it's we need more power and it's time to get serious. Welcome back, nuclear. Microsoft entering an agreement with Three Mile Island nicely concludes a period in energy history. The next one should be most exciting.
windows2020··on Vibe coding creates a bus factor of zero
The difference is this isn't some legacy system that still exists a decade later. It's brand new with the tag still on. And it wasn't designed by a conscious being but by probability.

I've seen from beautiful to crazy legacy systems in various domains. But when I encounter something off, there appears to always be a story. Not so much with LLMs.

It got hit by a bus before it was born.

windows2020··on Vibe coding creates a bus factor of zero
A team unfamiliar with a code base demoed asking questions to an LLM about it. The answers genuinely excited some. But anyone who had spent a short time in the code base knew the answers were wrong. Oh well.
windows2020··on TODOs Aren't for Doing
The most frustrating thing to find is a TODO for a half baked thought about some inconsequential logic. Delete!
windows2020··on Hyatt Hotels are using algorithmic Rest “smoking detectors”
A colleague experienced this but I don't recall where. But they were furious about it and it was a challenge to get resolved.
windows2020··on Congress moves to reject bulk of White House's proposed NASA cuts
Wait, so are humans actually going to the moon for the first time in my lifetime in 2027?
windows2020··on US utilities plot big rise in electricity rates as data centre demand booms
Is nuclear the only way out? Will the gov need to get involved? Will wind and solar, etc., wind down after?
windows2020··on The first time I was almost fired from Apple
This is an example of classic software engineering. It's when the person writing the code understands why they're doing it, succeeds in that, then tastefully adds a little more, and has some fun, which in turn makes the product delightful.

Not to dismiss the importance of a strong Product lead, but often the role is a permanent stopgap for engineers who lack the talent and discipline demonstrated in this article. (Easter egg aside.)

windows2020··on The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public
Without menus and ribbon panels, how do you discover the capabilities of the software?
windows2020··on AI Angst
My recent experience has been similar.

I'm seeing that the people hyping this up aren't programmers. They believe the reason they can't create software is they don't know the syntax. They whip up a clearly malfunctioning and incomplete app with these new tools and are amazed at what they're created. The deficiencies will sort themselves out soon, they believe. And then programmers won't be needed at all.

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