I am currently reading my way thru Ted Chiang's guest column in the New Yorker, about why the predicted AI/Tech Singularity will probably never happen (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/why-computers-wont-make-themselves-smarter). ETA: I just noticed that article is almost 5 years old; the piece is still relevant, but worth noting.

Good read. Still reading, but so far, I find I disagree with his explicit arguments, but at the same time, he is also brushing up very closely to my own reasoning for why "it" might never happen. Regardless, it is thought-provoking.

But, I had a passing thought during the reading.

People who actually use LLMs like Claude Code to help write software, and/or, who pay close attention to LLMs' coding capabilities ... has anyone actually started experimenting with asking Claude Code or other LLMs that are designed for programming, to look at their own source code and help to improve it?

In other words, are we (the humans) already starting to use LLMs to improve their code faster than we humans alone could do?

Wouldn't this be the actual start of the predicted "intelligence explosion"?

Edit to add: To clarify, I am not (necessarily) suggesting that LLMs -- this particular round of AI -- will actually advance to become some kind of true supra-human AGI ... I am only suggesting that they may be the first real tool we've built (beyond Moore's Law itself) that might legitimately speed up the rate at which we approach the Singularity (whatever that ends up meaning).

I just remembered this site from a few years back, maybe during Covid times? Clearly at some point the decision to delete my account history was made...

The state of the internet now makes me so deeply anxious. Scrolling Instagram makes my head feel like sludge. I stopped using reddit about 7 years ago. Never really found my crowd on IRC. So back here I am, hoping to find some signal in the noise and to calm my mind.

Has anything changed much here? What should I check out?

Dear Tildes Team:

I've been a long-time Reddit user, but lately it's been feeling more
and more like Facebook. Suggested posts, hidden comments, and the
subreddits I actually subscribe to are buried under irrelevant
algo-suggested junk. The concept of Reddit is great, but its execution
is done by a public corporation nowadays and its enshittification has
been notable.

I've been looking for a simpler, less commercialized place:
chronological, user-curated feeds, thoughtful discussions as opposed
to endless low-effort memes, and in general, absence of corporate
nonsense to push engagement metrics and ads.

Tildes seems to fit the bill. I like its focus on quality over
quantity, clean and simple interface, and eemphasis on real
conversations. It seems it's the kind of place I'd actually enjoy
spending time on again.

I'd really appreciate an invite if there's any room. I am also ready
to answer any questions or provide whatever info you need.

Thanks for keeping a corner of the internet sane.

Best Regards,

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Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

What's something you grew out of/moved on from/phased out?

How do you feel about it now? Fondness? Embarassment? A nostalgic ache?

Why did you end up moving on from it?

Was it a conscious decision, or was it something that happened over time?

I'm currently running Kubuntu in VMware on a Windows 11 host. I was on Windows 10 but was getting lots of display/graphical issues after pulling my desktop out of storage and I didn't qualify for extended support updates and just felt like I needed to eliminate all driver and software issues by reinstalling OS clean. At that point I figured I might as well go to Win 11, so I used rufus and did a clean install without a Microsoft account.

I feel like I need Windows for gaming, even with Proton compatibility on Linux I still expect I'd have some issues with some games and my desktop is my primary gaming system so I just want something that works. But like many others I don't like the direction Microsoft has gone with Windows so I'd really like to adapt to using Linux otherwise. I considered dual booting but I did have an issue with my system where the motherboard had 30+ second long boot times. Like it had nothing to do with my SSD or OS install, the Asus AM4 TUF x570-Plus motherboard boot time was just excessively long and seems other people reported that as well and there was no UEFI/bios update that fixed it. So I really didn't want to dual boot and wait 30+ seconds switching between OSes, that's just not fluid enough for how I wanted to use them. I really want the Windows install to just be gaming only basically or anything I can't get working in Linux.

So that's how I arrived to running Kubuntu in VMware Workstation Pro. I tried Hyper-V first but had issues and bailed on it. Initially I had audio issues with it in VMware but I found a reddit post that linked to the fix, prior to that, ChatGPT was happy to lead me down rabbit holes to nowhere. I do have a few browser issues with video playback, tried in Vivaldi and Firefox, video and audio are in sync but video is choppy and can't keep up with fast motion. It's otherwise acceptable for basic video playback so it's not really a huge issue for me. I tried playing videos in VLC and did not experience any issues so it is capable of smooth video playback in some circumstances on this setup. I have my own Plex server installed on another system but the Plex Linux application just won't work for me, at best it would produce choppy video if I installed from snap but the flatpak install just won't play anything back properly.

The other thing I couldn't quite resolve but mostly resolved is that in my Win 11 host, I have resolution set at 2560x1440 but I can't get that option in my Kubuntu VM. I currently have it as 2048x1152 which is as close as I can get while keeping 16:9 ratio. It will offer resolution options above my host system but not 16:9. I then stretch this to fill screen and run it in exclusive mode so it's basically like my primary desktop interface, but it would be nice if the resolution was better as I can tell it's slightly stretched, text isn't as crisp as it should be.

I will say, I'm quite impressed with how far Linux has come from when I last tried it as a daily driver 10-15 years ago. I added flathub as part of the app discovery repository so I can get many applications through that. I've had a few that I couldn't, scrcpy was outdated there so I had to follow some command line copy/paste script to install that and Vivaldi wasn't available either. Vivaldi did have a .deb file which I guess works like an .exe in Windows, because I just had to click to install, so that's nice. I still think I had to run something to add Vivaldi to app repository so it would keep it updated if I understand how that worked anyhow.

The Kubuntu VM does seem to destabilize quite a bit over time, it's already locked up on me a couple times, but I think it could be a RAM issue, so I've dedicated 12GB of RAM to it right now (it was at 8GB before). If it continues to happen then I guess that reinforces I'm doing something wrong or need to go in a different direction.

I've noticed my boot times have improved, I don't know when this happened, but now the boot times are about 15-20 seconds (I check the BIOS boot time in Startup tab on Windows task manager, but I've timed it and it matches actual time). Still seems kinda long to me but maybe it's fast enough to dual boot now, not sure.

I guess before I commit to anything too heavily, I was curious if what I'm doing now is not very wise or if there's something better I should try. With my bios boot time where it is now, I'd possibly consider dual booting as then I could probably just set up games that work in Linux. At that point, I wonder if I could/should use SteamOS or stick with Kubuntu or something else? Is SteamOS capable of being used as a daily driver OS or is it better just to use for gaming machines?

Also my PC specs are
Asus AM4 TUF x570-Plus motherboard
AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor
32GB RAM
AMD RX-580 8GB

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

February 2026's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games.

Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play?

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Sometimes it can be cathartic to both get these things off your chest and to hear what others have struggled with as a reminder that no one is perfect.

Hello Tildes travelers,

I'm sure questions like this get asked often, but I'm having a hard time cutting through the SEO spam and AI BS about travel and feeling a bit overwhelmed at the options.

I digress, as the title states, my wife and I are heading to California in early June for a wedding in the bay area. Neither of us have been to California and wanted to make a big trip out of it, roughly eight-ish days with two being dedicated to wedding activities. We both are from the Midwest and really want to see what California has to offer. Ideally we would love some help with making an itinerary of things to do and places to see since its such a big state and with so much to do. A Few things we'd love to try and do: see Palm Springs (wife is an architect), explore LA, drive the coast, explore the bay area and finally see some giant sequoia trees. It sounds like a lot so I'm not sure how that all might shake out, or even if its possible in the given time frame. Which is why I am appealing to you all for some help.

Roughly, and I mean roughly our plan is this:

• Day 1: Fly into California
  • Arrive in Palm Springs (if we can) spend evening and the next day exploring the city
• Day 3: Drive into LA
  • Explore the city for the day and spend the evening in LA
• Day 4: Drive up the coast
  • Spend the day driving up the coast and end the evening staying in a coastal town (Stopping in Santa Barbra and staying Arroyo Grande or some similar town halfway to San Fran)
• Day 5: Arrive in San Fran
  • Spend the morning driving the rest of the coast and arrive in the bay area
  • Spend the early part of the day exploring San Fran then drive to Pleasanton (location of wedding)
  • Spend evening doing wedding things
• Day 6: Day of the wedding
  • Wedding stuff (woo!)
• Day 7: Drive from Fremont to Calaveras Big Trees State Park
  • Spend the day exploring some of the inner portion of California and get our big tree fix
  • Spend the evening driving home
• Day 8: Flyout of San Jose or Oakland

Does this seem doable? Is this stupid? Any thing you would change? Really we don't have anything done yet minus the RSVP and the dates specifically. I'm not looking for anything crazy specific, minute by minute to hour by hour. That is asking a lot for a random internet stranger but any help would be really appreciated.