DrStone's recent activity
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Comment on Any significant changes to Tildes are extremely unlikely in ~tildes.official
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Comment on Any significant changes to Tildes are extremely unlikely in ~tildes.official
DrStone Link ParentThis is what I've read in multiple studies, and have seen it first hand multiple times even within the same individual. Kids that could take a rough tumble and get right back to running with their...This is what I've read in multiple studies, and have seen it first hand multiple times even within the same individual. Kids that could take a rough tumble and get right back to running with their friends as long as any adult response is calm or silly, but later completely break down after the slightest bump if grandma comes running from across the room "oooooh noooo, poor baby! that must have really hurt! are you ok!? let me hold and rock you." The other extreme is "pain is weakness leaving the body" crowd are also messing up their kids coping skills, but it seems most parents in the modern times thankfully don't follow that anymore (at least publicly).
Of course the usual caveats about individual personalities and needs still apply.
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Comment on Why your Amazon order confirmation emails have become so unhelpful in ~tech
DrStone LinkIs this new, or maybe newly more consistent? Looking through my email archive, I see Amazon confirmation emails as far back as 2019 with minimal detail. Just "Thank you for shopping with us. We’ll...Is this new, or maybe newly more consistent? Looking through my email archive, I see Amazon confirmation emails as far back as 2019 with minimal detail. Just "Thank you for shopping with us. We’ll send a confirmation when your items ship." with subtotal/total, estimated delivery date, where it's shipping to, and an order number linked to the status page behind a login. There are some mixed in with more detail, some template changes over the years, and some country/region differences.
That said, I'm torn. On the one hand, as a customer I love the convenience of having all of my order info in emails. A single, "unified" place to search for order history across all vendors, no age limitations, no individual logins, no product data changes reflected. On the other, I've seen how information sitting in inboxes or public "secret" unauthenticated order status links can be found and used by bad actors, and so from a security and privacy standpoint I'm happy to see less information in emails.
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Comment on Browser fingerprinting demonstration in ~comp
DrStone LinkI tried this with a fairly stock Firefox and a fairly stock Chrome. I denied any extra permission popups. Unsurprisingly, Chrome gives away more, and more specifics. CPU: FF gave a family (X, or...I tried this with a fairly stock Firefox and a fairly stock Chrome. I denied any extra permission popups.
Unsurprisingly, Chrome gives away more, and more specifics.
- CPU: FF gave a family (X, or similar) while Chrome gave an exact model
- Chrome included battery percent and that a second display was attached, while FF did not
- FF Do Not Track was off, while Chrome was on
- FF and Chrome reported a different number of text-to-speech voices, though both reported a lot.
- Chrome provides "Idle Detection and Compute Pressure APIs" to detect when you've stopped touching your device, an API that apple and FF have explicitly declined because of the surveilance it enables.
Overall: FF 1 in 135.3 million | Chrome 1 in 146.8 million
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Comment on Suggestions for a LAN party in ~games
DrStone LinkI'm shocked that nobody has mentioned this LAN party classic: Age of Empires II (yes, technically the modern versions require internet connections for private hosted lobbies, but the original...I'm shocked that nobody has mentioned this LAN party classic:
Age of Empires II(yes, technically the modern versions require internet connections for private hosted lobbies, but the original supports true LAN. There are apparently third party / community tools for true LAN with modern versions)
Supports up to 8 people (teams or free-for-all)
Full platform support across Windows/Steam Deck/Mac
Retro - original release in 1999
Strategic and endlessly repayable -
Comment on Any significant changes to Tildes are extremely unlikely in ~tildes.official
DrStone Link ParentI was one of the minority that thought it was great! From what I can remember, a lot of people use vote count as a proxy for engagement with their posts and comments. A vote means at least someone...I was one of the minority that thought it was great!
From what I can remember, a lot of people use vote count as a proxy for engagement with their posts and comments. A vote means at least someone read what they wrote and thought it was worth something. Without some sort of feedback, short of a full comment reply, they felt like they were shouting into the void.
There's surely a way to provide some loose feedback like that without actual votes. If you're willing to accept some tracking (first party only), you could do some clever things like tracking time-on-screen of a post or comment, normalize it by average reading speed, and then provide some aggregate feedback viewable only to the author like "X users have read your post, Y have skimmed it, Z have skipped it, and N have returned more than once". There's all sort of things you could do here.
Of course the flip side to any feedback with a measurement - votes included - is gamification. Some of that can be mitigated by keeping it all private to the author, so there's no contest, but it can still be a useful tool for a scammer, spammer, or anyone else primarily looking to drive up engagement to their own posts rather than just participate in a community and feel seen.
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Comment on Others that also have an aversion to onions, when is it OK? in ~food
DrStone Link ParentI also started enjoying coffee in my 30s. I can't speak to @PraiseTheSoup's journey, but mine was having two kids under 2 at the time, and the local coffee in southeast asia being like two thirds...I also started enjoying coffee in my 30s. I can't speak to @PraiseTheSoup's journey, but mine was having two kids under 2 at the time, and the local coffee in southeast asia being like two thirds coffee (high-caffeine robusta), one third condensed milk and evaporated milk, and a scoop or two of sugar. That jet fuel kept me alive. After drinking it near daily for long enough, I started to actually notice the flavor other than SWEET, and from there tried more coffees. I still prefer tea as my daily hot beverage now that I can sleep again, but I do enjoy a nice coffee if we're out for brunch on the weekend.
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Comment on Others that also have an aversion to onions, when is it OK? in ~food
DrStone Link ParentI wouldn't be so sure. There's some things I didn't start liking at all until i was in my 30s, some things that I don't like much anymore, and a couple things I loved and later developed...I wouldn't be so sure. There's some things I didn't start liking at all until i was in my 30s, some things that I don't like much anymore, and a couple things I loved and later developed allergies. I wouldn't be surprised if they change again as I get older. Tastes and bodies are weird.
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Comment on How has climate change affected your life / plans? in ~enviro
DrStone Link ParentThe Opening Ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics isn't a great example. The first segment was a lot of traditional fireworks fired around the entire stadium perimeter, raw and exciting. The drone...The Opening Ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics isn't a great example. The first segment was a lot of traditional fireworks fired around the entire stadium perimeter, raw and exciting. The drone display was really cool, but a very different feel - more graceful, flowing, and beautiful. @chocobean nailed it.
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Comment on Worse on Purpose: a site that tracks which brands are still worth their old reputation and which have been enshittified in ~enviro
DrStone Link ParentDo you have any good alternatives? I bought one a few months ago after the long history of rave reviews and was rather underwhelmedDo you have any good alternatives? I bought one a few months ago after the long history of rave reviews and was rather underwhelmed
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Comment on Control the ideas, not the code in ~comp
DrStone Link ParentYeah, you're right, I do still look at the code a bit, which is what the article advocates completely against. That said, I've been looking at it a lot less than when I started, based on what I've...Yeah, you're right, I do still look at the code a bit, which is what the article advocates completely against. That said, I've been looking at it a lot less than when I started, based on what I've actually seen it produce in my situation. In the beginning I was meticulously reviewing every line of code it produced, far more carefully than I would any human PR, even after our extensive interactive planning practically wrote the thing already. Over time, I've still looked, but substantially less, now more like what I would for a colleague's PR who has done well in the past. Mostly a sanity skim, a high level architecture and organization kind of eyeballing, for complex or critical changes. Just a minute or few. Small tweaks and bug fixes I might let pass straight through at this point.
I think the softening has come down to a few things (not just laziness or complacency). I've figured out a workflow that works for me and spends a lot of time planning the details up front with me driving; I've definitely caught things in this stage where it's planning to overbuild or hedge against impossible conditions. My general trust in the tool has improved after using it successfully on both small and large things for months. I've seen how the large, mature code base gives it a lot of prior art to work with that it usually follows. Auto-memories and, much more importantly, my agents files and design docs have explicitly codified a lot of architecture, convention, and more subtle rules, growing and sharpening over time, which help the agent do the "right" thing more often.
I don't think I'll ever go full vibe (I have trouble completely delegating even to humans), but it's trending in that direction.
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Comment on Control the ideas, not the code in ~comp
DrStone Link ParentAlways comforting to hear people arrived at a similar usages and conclusions. Either we're doing something right, or we're at least in the same wrong boat together! Yeah, memories are a bit goofy....Always comforting to hear people arrived at a similar usages and conclusions. Either we're doing something right, or we're at least in the same wrong boat together!
Yeah, memories are a bit goofy. They seem to be useful short term, helping to bridge the gap between workdays and task switches, but can come back to bite weeks down the line when they're no longer in sync with the current state of the world. I try to get it to write as much as possible and useful to the plan files, and much more rarely to the agent files after hitting the same problem or deriving the same information over and over again.
For skills and the agent files, I had Claude write the prose, but built them with nearly the same flow as the feature flow. Detailed objective scope and requirements, known bits of information or where to gather them from, desired behavior, etc. up front, iterative back and forth, cold reading reviews by both me and Claude, and tweaks over time based on their performance. I think it's important for people to use the AI tools and harness as vanilla as possible for a while to find what fits you personally rather than cargo-culting a bunch of skills and prompts and agent file "hacks".
Definitely agree about the design docs for large areas of the code base, as well as the boundaries and interactions between code bases if your project has multiple repos/applications. Before I did that, anything non-trivial would either get confused if I didn't tell it explicitly where things lived, or would spend time and tokens poking around every time. For the same reason, I keep a database schema dump on hand so it can do some quick grepping to find most things.
Oh, and I just remembered another tidbit, agents are great with CLI tools. I rarely need to reach for some feature-subset MCP when the thing has a mature cli tool I can install. Plus I don't have to keep authentication info in some plaintext MCP config.
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Comment on Control the ideas, not the code in ~comp
DrStone (edited )Link ParentI'm a software engineer with 15+ years in the industry. Over the years, I have occasionally tried AI through whatever the Intellij IDEA Ultimate IDE offered when I was really stuck on something...- Exemplary
I'm a software engineer with 15+ years in the industry. Over the years, I have occasionally tried AI through whatever the Intellij IDEA Ultimate IDE offered when I was really stuck on something fairly self contained (e.g. sql query optimization). Every time I was disappointed and wondered how anyone got anything worthwhile out of AI.
Earlier this year, my boss got us all a 1-month trial to Claude Code (Opus 4.6 I think), and told us genuinely no-pressure "give it a shot, see if it helps". I went in very skeptically, with a baseline zero trust for the AI output. The first few tasks were self-contained, dead simple, and easily verifiable - stuff like "translate this legacy Twirl template to React". I reviewed every line it produced and tested every result. It did pretty well, so I started using it a bit more.
It's been a few months now and I find that I use Claude Code (now Opus 4.8, thinking high) for the majority of my work. I've created some tight agent files for the projects and a short global one based on actual usage and results. I've heard my process called "architecture driven development", though I don't really participate in the AI industry? culture? fandom? Detailed design docs / plans vastly improve the AI implementation results and subsequent review, like @stu2b50 mentioned. Anyway, here's what's gotten me good results:
- Personally draft as detailed of a requirement set as I can, with high level design/architecture. Reference local code precedent where possible.
- Give that to Claude and prompt it to draft a plan. Anything beyond a known simple fix, always draft a plan. It'll ask me various questions during the planning, and state any assumptions or decisions it made at the end.
- In a clean session (so it's a cold-read), prompt Claude to critically review the plan it just wrote. I created a skill for this after a while based on how I would usually prompt it, refined with Claude itself. This digs in to everything from verifying all claims against live source / data, reviewing high level architecture and cost, preemptively looking for contradictions and ambiguities and edge cases, etc. It'll come back to me with a list of findings, organized by estimated severity. Giving it a read-only user for the database and several other key integrations has helped a lot here, and sometimes even surfaced bad assumptions on my part.
- Manually walk through each point in the plan review findings with Claude, prompting a resolution or further investigation, until all are resolved.
- Depending on the nature of what was found and how much the resolutions altered the plan, repeat step #3 as many times as reasonable.
- Manually skim the final plan. At this point, I'm pretty familiar with it from the drafting and reviews, so it's mostly a sanity check.
- In a new session, have Claude implement the plan and check against whatever automated verification the specific thing might have (compile, linting, the rare tests, etc.)
8 - 10. Same as step #3-5, except for the implementation. In a clean session audit the implementation. I've got another skill for this based on what I'd usually ask it to do. Faithfulness to plan, trace impacted code flows, etc. Walk through findings, rinse and repeat as necessary. - A skim of the actual code diff. Working with a large, mature codebase gives Claude a lot of precedent to follow, so it usually organizes and writes things consistent with our existing code. Sometimes I don't like exactly how it organized things, or the specific implementation of something, and I'll either directly change it or prompt Claude to redo that bit.
- Manual end to end testing. Usually some adjustments fall out of this.
Note that the various clean sessions are important, or having claude run the review skill with subagents in clean sessions. Aside from growing large contexts eventually degrading results, a cold reading of the plan and the implementation are key. They don't let old assumptions skip over investigating potential faults, dropped branches from investigation get brought back in, or anything like that.
If nothing else, it's a good way to force yourself to articulate and record all of your requirements, all of the desired flows, and account for "all" edge cases. Like extreme rubber-ducking.
EDIT:
Oh, and one other thing that I don't think people often consider: Maybe once every few months, ask the AI to review all of it's memories and agent files for consistency, redundancy, verbosity, and organization (different project memories, memory vs agent file, project agent file vs global agent file). Over time, especially if you've got multiple related projects, it'll accumulate a lot. Cleaning up can make a difference in result quality and context token usage. -
Comment on Why does WhatsApp drain so much phone battery? in ~tech
DrStone Link ParentiPhone 11 Pro here, with poor battery health at 72% capacity, living in a country where WhatsApp is the communication tool for people and businesses. Normal battery usage for WhatsApp at 2-5% over...iPhone 11 Pro here, with poor battery health at 72% capacity, living in a country where WhatsApp is the communication tool for people and businesses. Normal battery usage for WhatsApp at 2-5% over the past week. I also have a second device (macbook) logged in to whataspp, if that impacts the phone app at all. I am not in any large groups, just a few small family/friend groups.
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Comment on Give me your culture clash stories in ~travel
DrStone Link ParentDon't forget that the Buddhist vegetarians also avoid alliums (garlic, onions, etc.), so you might want to specify which subset of no-meat vegetarian you are. Allowing alliums will open up more...Don't forget that the Buddhist vegetarians also avoid alliums (garlic, onions, etc.), so you might want to specify which subset of no-meat vegetarian you are. Allowing alliums will open up more options on the menu.
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Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts
DrStone Link ParentThis is the point where the human intentionality as a key factor breaks down for me personally. If their intended message is lost or completely different for a reasonable observer, and the piece...And it's also not to say that I'm sure to pull the same things out of art as were put into it.
This is the point where the human intentionality as a key factor breaks down for me personally. If their intended message is lost or completely different for a reasonable observer, and the piece is too abstract to have at least an agreed upon foundation to derive from, I don't see the human creator's intentions as being relevant.
I know art, like many things, has boundaries nearly impossible to pin down, but I'd like to push a bit further since you've clearly spent a lot of time reflecting on art. Do you get anything out of art made with intentional techniques, but unintentional results? Like arranging some basic unhardened clay outside before a heavy storm arrives to naturally alter and erode it. Or intentionally selecting the state of something already occurring to preserve identically (unstylized). Is it simply the intention to create art that matters, or the techniques, or must the intention flow through to the result (even it it doesn't make it to the observer)?
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Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts
DrStone Link ParentWhat do you think the difference is, if there is one, between looking at and pulling meaning out of (abstract) art and doing the same with nature (pareidolia). Finding everything from simple...What do you think the difference is, if there is one, between looking at and pulling meaning out of (abstract) art and doing the same with nature (pareidolia). Finding everything from simple shapes to elaborate scenes and figures in clouds is a common leisurely pastime. Seeing faces in things is especially common.
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Comment on Modern, abstract art makes me angry in ~arts
DrStone Link ParentI think seeing the Mona Lisa has even less to do with the historical context, the artist, and the techniques for the vast majority of the masses at this point compared to simple FOMO and momentum...I think seeing the Mona Lisa has even less to do with the historical context, the artist, and the techniques for the vast majority of the masses at this point compared to simple FOMO and momentum because millions of people go to see it. No different than many of the most famous tourist attractions. Taken to a more depressing extreme, it's like how there are some celebrities that continue to be famous and popular primarily for being famous popular.
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Comment on Give me your culture clash stories in ~travel
DrStone LinkPrevious discussion: What's a culture shock that you experienced? (January 13)Previous discussion: What's a culture shock that you experienced? (January 13)
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Comment on Cambria, California banned fireworks. Then came the dogs. in ~society
DrStone Link ParentProbably for similar reasons that some people use white noise machines when sleeping. It's really easy to notice, and relatively jarring to hear, noises in an otherwise quiet environment. The...Probably for similar reasons that some people use white noise machines when sleeping. It's really easy to notice, and relatively jarring to hear, noises in an otherwise quiet environment. The white noise evens things out a bit so that loud noises don't stand out as much, and quieter noises are drowned out completely. Fireworks are exceptionally loud and sporadic, so regular white noise would have to be really loud. A bunch of tennis balls providing a consistent "thump boom thump" in a dryer maybe could smooth over the booms of fireworks better.
Either that, or maybe part of some lower volume similar-sounding conditioning before the actual big day. (I don't know if this would work)
Re:Tangent - Totally agree. Now that you've called attention to it, I realize we do this in our own family and household. Seems to work nicely. Keeps things light unless they're serious, encourages proactively checking on each other and offering help, and shows the kids that even adults have these problems.
Re:Non-Tangent - "Pain is weakness leaving the body" is a common military and fitness mantra, possibly originating in the US Marine Corps. I was using it here to encompass all of the toughness-is-superior philosophies - no pain no gain, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, suck it up and toughen up, don't cry or whine, feelings and fear are for the weak and you should be ashamed, your pain is not real and is not an excuse, just pick yourself up and push on.