Eji1700's recent activity
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Comment on I wonder if years from now hand written code will be antique in ~tech
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Comment on 8BitDo FlipPad in ~games
Eji1700 Link ParentVolume button stopped working quickly and then it got stuck in a boot loop that, at the time, there seemed to be no documentation on how to fix. To memory the fix ironically requires the volume...Volume button stopped working quickly and then it got stuck in a boot loop that, at the time, there seemed to be no documentation on how to fix.
To memory the fix ironically requires the volume button which was also not fun for me but I did eventually get it working again.
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Comment on Linus Torvalds says Linux is not "anti-AI", tells haters to 'fork it' and 'just walk away' in ~tech
Eji1700 Link ParentWhile I roughly agree with the sentiment, I do understand that "oh fucking hell what now" effect of people finding out the hard way that this shit doesn't cure cancer. People are losing jobs and...While I roughly agree with the sentiment, I do understand that "oh fucking hell what now" effect of people finding out the hard way that this shit doesn't cure cancer.
People are losing jobs and companies are failing, not because AI is replacing them (well that too), but because AI is being used in such a way as to cause the company/product to fail.
From a coder perspective, it's even more frustrating because not only do you have the external pressures that this has brought in (oh fuck the C suite is using AI to make decisions) but also the problems it's showing in libraries and core tech.
Github has had more downtime this year than basically EVER. There are a lot of possible culprits for this, and likely all of them are playing a part, but no one is thrilled at the idea that one of the most adopted tools for coding could be unavailable for a bit or god forbid just have a total outage.
Obviously you mitigate your exposure, make backups, do whatever you can, but it doesn't mean you won't catch a stray when its the entire fucking industry juggling these chainsaws.
As a non AI, but "oh shit didn't think that was a risk" example going on right now, look up what's happened with Paizo/Pathfinder because Diamond Comics went bankrupt, and then imagine if you saw that and realized you have 100 Diamond Comics in your dependency chain and they're all huffing AI glue.
We seemed to have weathered some of the worst of the storm (strikes me that there's been some very uncomfortable discussions at some very big companies at very high levels after certain failures), but the OTHER side of this is going to be when you find out that cool new tech you adopted and were happy to use was funded by subsidized AI token costs and if the bubble pops/cows come home it's all going to evaporate overnight because "yeah sure just pummel chat gpt" won't be a viable option anymore.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
Eji1700 Link ParentI've finished book 2 and started book 3. I love his world, and I love that no matter the views of the author, his characters still feel rational and well written. A LOT of evil is being done in...I've finished book 2 and started book 3.
I love his world, and I love that no matter the views of the author, his characters still feel rational and well written. A LOT of evil is being done in the name of greed but it's reasonable in presenting why and how that can happen. For example Quell (so far) is a very real figure in history in that she's not just the perfect "oh woe unto the revolutionary who would've fixed it all" and people have very conflicting views on both her goals and means.
That said I've encountered a feeling in other books where I wonder "is this well written or do I just disagree with the author so much that they think this person is rational and I think they're a great example of a flawed person championing a good ideal?". It's not that strong in this series because I think it's very well written to feel real, but I was sorta conflicted about how I was supposed to feel vs how I did feel about the main female protagonist of book 2....especially some of her speeches.
Book 3 is slow so far although I can guess where things are heading. It feels..odd...since it just kinda drops you in and even more than Book 2 seems to be taking it's time establishing why Takeshi is involved in any of this. He's clearly got some agenda and there's a larger shoe I've been waiting to see drop that's obviously coming, but i'm very.....confused as to why he's involved in most of this right now.
Still so far it's rating quite highly on my personal list (especially compared to some other recent outings in the last year) so it's been nice to burn through something that's easy to enjoy.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Eji1700 (edited )LinkFinally trying Void War as I had an FTL itch I needed scratched. The creator of FTL said they have no problem with the game existing It's nice to see certain things fleshed out (mainly equipment...Finally trying Void War as I had an FTL itch I needed scratched.
- The creator of FTL said they have no problem with the game existing
- It's nice to see certain things fleshed out (mainly equipment for crew).
- It's the first game in ages that fucking HATES alt tab/when my screen goes to sleep
- Does seem to be pretty unbalanced. FTL isn't perfect, but it feels like there's 0 reason to ever do anything but spam crew in void war. There's not functionally a limit and for 80ish scrap you can get a crew member and some spell/weapon/tool that might just wreck the enemy while also doing repairs/defense/boarding. Unlike systems which often cost way more scrap total, take a system/sub system space, and require power.
It's still fun and I'll enjoy unlocking things, but does seem a shame that I'm still looking for something like an FTL 2 (although I need to check the mods on FTL as I know there's some gold there and I've never done it).
Oh and in relation
5. I just miss FTL's aesthetic. It was perfect. -
Comment on 8BitDo FlipPad in ~games
Eji1700 Link ParentMaybe i'm out of date, but to my knowledge, emulating on iphone is much more restricted/harder to accomplish.Maybe i'm out of date, but to my knowledge, emulating on iphone is much more restricted/harder to accomplish.
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Comment on 8BitDo FlipPad in ~games
Eji1700 Link ParentNot much to actually play. The few games I have on iphone don't need controllers.Not much to actually play. The few games I have on iphone don't need controllers.
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Comment on 8BitDo FlipPad in ~games
Eji1700 (edited )Link ParentYou didn't get a lemon of Retroid Pocket 3+ to make you afraid the tech works (I now have a Miyoo Mini, the fixed RP3+, and a AYN Thor soooooo I'm on the route). However having an iphone obviously...You didn't get a lemon of Retroid Pocket 3+ to make you afraid the tech works (I now have a Miyoo Mini, the fixed RP3+, and a AYN Thor soooooo I'm on the route).
However having an iphone obviously don't see a need for something like this. Curious if it might lead to slightly better mobile games (that's is own hellish industry).
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Yeup i'm out of date, there's more emulation options on iphone these days. -
Comment on Linus Torvalds says Linux is not "anti-AI", tells haters to 'fork it' and 'just walk away' in ~tech
Eji1700 Link ParentHas been for decades. "Oh you code in blah.." or "You use that library...". And as with all these things, it's grounded in proven fundamentals (lang X might be better than Y for the usecase, or a......i guess that's a thing, now...
Has been for decades. "Oh you code in blah.." or "You use that library...".
And as with all these things, it's grounded in proven fundamentals (lang X might be better than Y for the usecase, or a library might be overkill/introduce other problems) and then parroted by people who just want to be dogmatic bullies.
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Comment on More people around the world now favour China over the US, Pew study suggests in ~society
Eji1700 Link ParentI mean...yeah, a "tyrant" can effect change at a faster rate than any non "tyrant" based system. The CCP has a congress but it's autonomy is limited in relation to Xi's wishes (much like how Trump...In China, the housing bubble burst but instead of collapsing, China kept growing except in high tech industry while continuing to massively fund science and continuing their seemingly inexorable tide of industrial domination.
I mean...yeah, a "tyrant" can effect change at a faster rate than any non "tyrant" based system. The CCP has a congress but it's autonomy is limited in relation to Xi's wishes (much like how Trump wants ours to be).
The big question will simply be "what happens when Xi dies or loses power?" (a question the US will be dealing with in regards to Trump in a few years at the latest).
China is very lucky that Xi is, for some obvious value of the word, competent. Putin was, until he wasn't. Trump obviously isn't.
Xi would accomplish less in the US. Trump would do more damage in China. Unfortunately determining the long term vs short term benefit is difficult because the people alive and voting (or threatening other options) right now aren't ever happy to be in a down turn, but what works in the long term is still a very important question.
Maybe at a macro level, nothing has changed. The U.S. continues to backslide as a democracy now falling squarely into the 'flawed democracy' category and continuing its precipitous decline with little positive anything to show to its people in the last 25 years.
I mean..this is a pretty wild take. 25 years is nothing historically and literally if you were in china for most of the last 100 years you'd probably love to be as 'declined' as the US has been for 25 years. It's also hard not to take as hyperbole if you're going to grow it out to 25 years. I'd still think it's hyperbolic but understandable if you at least said last 10, but if you want to lump in all the way back to 2000 as nothing but backsliding it's hard to take you seriously.
Political systems have to be judged by power shifts, and China has been riding the same one for only 13 years AND has one of the largest populations in the world but wasn't industrialized. It was well known that China had been "leaving money on the table" so to speak and competent leadership could catapult their geopolitical presence and standard of living. Xi has outperformed even those expectations by a large % and still has quite a lot he can likely do, in part because he's not as limited as a country like the US would be.
So the question again becomes what happens when Xi is gone, and a secondary question of, what happens when the obvious improvements are done?
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
Eji1700 Link ParentI'd love to give a detailed answer, and may just spin up my own thread to discuss depending on how long my response is. I've been poking at things like this forever, and i'm not sure how long the...If you have time, I'd be very interested in what are some of the stuff "discourse" forum style does wrong or not optimal with respect to designing for long and high quality discussions.
I'd love to give a detailed answer, and may just spin up my own thread to discuss depending on how long my response is. I've been poking at things like this forever, and i'm not sure how long the answer will be.
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Comment on US House passes bill to ‘ditch the switch’ and make daylight saving time permanent in ~society
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
Eji1700 Link ParentIt is more than that. Old forum tech has not kept pace with modern issues. I'm active on many older forums, and they're a massive struggle to upkeep because of vulnerabilities and shitty scaling...Whenever I see this sentiment, I wonder how much of it is a deficiency in options versus a nostalgia for being younger. Would effort be better spent in just finding existing forums and starting to post in them, even if they are largely ghost towns?
It is more than that.
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Old forum tech has not kept pace with modern issues. I'm active on many older forums, and they're a massive struggle to upkeep because of vulnerabilities and shitty scaling leading to very large hosting costs, while nice QoL features basically have to be in house developed on a fragile code base.
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A lot of options are "discourse" forum style, which adopts heavily a lot of the patterns from modern social media that leads to ephemeral content in the first place.
There will never be the level of adoption that once was, clearly the world LIKES formats like twitter which are basically designed to limit the amount of useful information you see, but for those of us who care about long form discussion and better long term documentation of data, there's a world of improvements to be made.
What's been somewhat funny to me is watch tools like slack/jira/teams/devops adopt modern social media UI/UX patterns which are so hostile to quick and easy data lookup and discussion (wasted space everywhere and lots of clicking to get to anything). Things have slowly moved better with time but there's a very real dissonance with what people expect to see and what they need out of a professional tool.
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Comment on What did banning Airbnbs in NYC accomplish? in ~finance
Eji1700 Link ParentThis completely ignores that amount of time and effort it takes to get these laws passed, and I heavily disagree with it. You only have so much political capital and time, and it's a fight to do...I know this isn't a popular idea here, but if there is a broadly popular idea that isn't good policy but it has a pretty neutral outcome it can be a win just to make people feel heard by government.
This completely ignores that amount of time and effort it takes to get these laws passed, and I heavily disagree with it. You only have so much political capital and time, and it's a fight to do ANYTHING even if everyone agrees and you mean well. Wasting that flash in the pan where everything lines up on some weird feelgood measure that doesn't actually do anything is at the start a net negative of time wasted, and often worse when voters start to think "well we passed the law that was supposed to fix it, and things didn't get better".
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Comment on Zig creator calls spade a spade, Anthropic blows smoke in ~comp
Eji1700 Link ParentDon't think so, no. A language that has no concept of safe/unsafe isn't going to be easy to port in one shot unless you allow it to write unsafe. Unless you mean "now that they've ported it, they...Don't think so, no.
A language that has no concept of safe/unsafe isn't going to be easy to port in one shot unless you allow it to write unsafe.
Unless you mean "now that they've ported it, they can refine into safe blocks" in which case.....maybe? The trick will be writing safe code that still performs properly and can be reviewed/expanded. It's a lot of tradeoffs and on top of it you'll have the whole "does the AI actually know how" issue.
I would suspect it's possible, but I wouldn't bet on it.
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Comment on US House passes bill to ‘ditch the switch’ and make daylight saving time permanent in ~society
Eji1700 Link ParentI already said something like this to a family member who lived through the first switch. "As a coder, i'd like them to just pick one and stick with it. As a long time coder, I expect them to...I already said something like this to a family member who lived through the first switch.
"As a coder, i'd like them to just pick one and stick with it. As a long time coder, I expect them to oscillate wildly between both options and then pick an undisclosed third out of no where."
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Comment on What did banning Airbnbs in NYC accomplish? in ~finance
Eji1700 Link ParentIt's another frustrating example of bait and switch for the "obvious" thing rather than the "useful" thing. It pulls attention away from the real problems/solutions. I'm not crying tears for...It's another frustrating example of bait and switch for the "obvious" thing rather than the "useful" thing. It pulls attention away from the real problems/solutions.
I'm not crying tears for Airbnb, but initiatives like this STOP the ones that might actually solve things because "oh well you're just protecting the corporations" becomes the attack.
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Comment on Zig creator calls spade a spade, Anthropic blows smoke in ~comp
Eji1700 Link ParentMainly because people expected it to either: A. Not work Or B. Fail miserably Jury could still be out on B but the fact this is doable at all IS worth discussing. It’s just unfortunate that we’ve...Mainly because people expected it to either:
A. Not work
Or
B. Fail miserablyJury could still be out on B but the fact this is doable at all IS worth discussing. It’s just unfortunate that we’ve got less than ideal candidates on both sides to give data on it. However that is how things often happen. We over romanticize perfect intelligent people making rational evidence based decisions when a lot of progress has been made from ego, greed, spite, and lust.
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Comment on Zig creator calls spade a spade, Anthropic blows smoke in ~comp
Eji1700 (edited )LinkI'm reading the article, but one of the things that annoys me about this whole discussion (and wider discourse in the modern age in general) is spending time refuting marketing/bullshit claims....I'm reading the article, but one of the things that annoys me about this whole discussion (and wider discourse in the modern age in general) is spending time refuting marketing/bullshit claims. "Anthropic claims AGI will solve everything and that's bullshit, so everything they say is wrong" is, unfortunately, not true, and I feel like this entire article frames it's argument like that out of the gate. No doubt the marketing IS bullshit, but that doesn't mean there's 0 value (although that may also be true).
Explaining the direction beforehand would have been more traditional in an infrastructure project like this, but meanwhile the delay conveniently allowed the story to be carried by sexy headlines like The Register’s Anthropic’s Bun Rust rewrite merged at speed of AI. Much invest. Very wow.
Annnd i'm already kinda doubting the authors ability to present unbiased facts and let us draw our own conclusion. The story from Bun's dev, which yes was hidden in HN comment threads, is that they didn't expect it to go this smoothly, so it was more of a "well fuck it lets see what happens" followed by "oh shit its already done? uhh didn't plan for that".
That may not be true, but you can see those comments on HN, first where they said it was unlikely to be merged, and later the exact explanation above (I don't have it word for word and unfortunately don't have time to do a HN search like last time but it might be in one of the two linked threads from that comment (and there are good tools to search HN comments out there if you just search it, not that anyone really should want or need to).
Still, as I read Andrew’s piece I found myself cheering out loud. I may have briefly jumped around the room. Some called his take a “meltdown”, all I can say is he’s gained a new fan today.
Yeah okay i'm just not going to vibe with this author am I. Even if you are, I wish we could save the editorial for after the facts.
Who to believe
Okay it's mild, but I hate headings like this halfway through an article that has clearly already demonstrated bias. That said I do agree mostly with their summation here.
Running at “crunch time” all the time is bad for health and bad for productivity. That is a robustly established fact about knowledge work
I...hate this whole discussion when it comes up. There are MASSIVE success stories from this kind of nonsense, and they tend to get ignored. There is 0 doubt it's unhealthy and 99.99% of the time outright stupid, but it has produced results (not always great), but it reminds me a lot about musical/sports training and how that should all be done (see the dramatized thesis of Whiplash).
To be clear, I agree, fuck that. Red flag, I'm out, good luck, maybe you're the next Microsoft, I can live with missing that boat.
The rewrite rationale is fluff/All pros no cons
I basically agree with these segments, and have said as much about providing actual data points, but I have more on that later.
I expected the next sentence to discuss Bun’s style guide, why it wasn’t working, perhaps how it evolved over time… nope. They seem to just pay lip-service the primary way the community addresses their problem, shrug their shoulders and move on. Did I miss something?
Bun chose Rust’s borrow-checker because AI isn’t enough.
Okay so, "the big point" that I think is somewhat missed in this discussion.
Lets start two weird examples:
Automated Cars:
An interesting criticism of automated cars is that they're designed to work on roads and infrastructure for humans. If you could just spin up automated level 5, no human needed, vehicles tomorrow and design with that in mind you wouldn't need stop signs, lanes, lights, or basically anything but smooth surfaces. These are tools for humans, not automated systems.An indie darling:
VVVVVV is a game that did very well. Lots of good reviews, probably made a lot of money. So you as a potential game developer find out the dev has open sourced the code and look under the hood.To explain to the non-coder inclined, this would be like being an engineer today, and everyone LOVES this new car that came out. Good metrics across the board, does all the right things, so out of curiosity you look at one in a shop to see what they did. You notice they're using a lot of screws...like a LOT of screws...like holy shit wait they don't have a single weld in this vehicle ITS JUST ALL BRACKETS AND SCREWS OH MY GOD.
The fuck is my point:
My belabored point is that I feel like this is roughly where AI is kinda heading. Coding languages are tools to people put ideas/solutions into production. VVVVV was a person who didn't know all the tools they had, but they still made it work, and current automated solutions like AI are running on "roads" built for humans when they could probably do quite a bit more with something more tooled for them. That does not mean AI is a solve all, or even long term profitable.However when you consider people like the Bun dev, who yes, ignore obvious and potentially easy solutions like "just follow the style guide", "just tell the AI to do it in Rust" IS a viable answer, and a potentially lucrative datapoint. It sounds like, yes, AI writes worse Zig code, and that code is harder to review when it breaks. But perhaps because of its popularity or perhaps because of features like the borrow checker, AI might write better Rust code. And that code might be easier for a human to review in the cases it's needed (i find the article to be pretty pedantic about that point. "Oh you said it's AI only" yeah yeah we know humans still have to check but we're not looking for 87.73% or whatever. Again marketing vs reality issues)
IF THAT'S TRUE which nothing we have at this point says it is, that's a strong argument for what the Bun dev did. They don't explain it well (in part because it'd take more self reflection than has been shown), but the real argument here is "hey if you're going to be an AI shop, use languages AI likes ,then it works even better".
There's a very legit argument around the rest of this, but it's worth pointing out that most of that doesn't matter if the Bun dev is right (and, ironically, Bun probably doesn't matter in the long run if the Bun dev is right...). Why care about style guides when there's an option to throw it at an AI and let it crunch through? The answer will be "how much does that cost vs talented devs". However I don't think it's a bad thing that "worse" coders like the Bun dev can output better products if AI helps, it's only a question of if it can do it cost effectively.
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Comment on Microsoft PowerToys in ~tech
Eji1700 Link ParentYeeeeup. A side note for those just learning about it, there's a couple ways to use it, but it's worth learning the basics of Regex. These days AI can help, but sites like https://regexr.com/ are...Yeeeeup. A side note for those just learning about it, there's a couple ways to use it, but it's worth learning the basics of Regex. These days AI can help, but sites like https://regexr.com/ are still VERY helpful, as AI is shockingly bad at regex.
Doubt it. Depends on your definition of "years from now" but I don't see it being financially viable at this time, both in quality and cost.
As a datapoint, I sorta follow this blog.
They'd probably agree with you, as they claim:
but they also point out that:
$200-4k a month is NOT nothing, especially PER PERSON on a team. Tell me I can spend $50k more per person on salary and I'll get you a fuckload of results as well, and this is still probably a subsidized cost.
I don't doubt that AI is going to be a tool used for all code going forward, but there's still going to be a lot of handwritten stuff.
There will be a collapse of "uniqueness" as coding will help people settle on a similar style, but that's 99% a good thing, and I have 0 doubt I'm still going to crack open billion dollar company production code and see an IF statements that run identical code on each branch.