Omnicrola's recent activity
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Comment on When AI builds itself — progress toward recursive self-improvement and its implications in ~tech
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Comment on When AI builds itself — progress toward recursive self-improvement and its implications in ~tech
Omnicrola LinkA quote from near the end of the article captures a feeling I've been beginning to feel lately. I think others are feeling it much more acutely. It describes personal existential crisis, which the...A quote from near the end of the article captures a feeling I've been beginning to feel lately. I think others are feeling it much more acutely.
Work (and life) ran on a gift economy of small favors between humans. ‘Can you help me get this script running?’ [...] each one created a little debt, a little mutual awareness. [Claude is] faster, it creates zero debt, but each of these is a lost bid for human collaboration.”
On days where everything works well, I can’t help but think nothing I do matters, everything is automated and better and faster than I ever will be. But then there are days where everything breaks and I don't understand why and I realize I have no idea what I’ve been up to anymore.”
It describes personal existential crisis, which the article itself doesn't really get into at all. Instead the article is entirely focused on potential societal and species level problems. Digging into those personal disruptions and how people are reacting I think would reveal far more about how the next several years are going to go than pontificating about how companies are going to 10x and then 100x their "productivity".
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Comment on Traffic Cone Preservation Society in ~transport
Omnicrola LinkThis is a fun bit of internet nonsense, I love it. I looked around the site and the creator is Amy Winfrey, director of Bojack Horseman, of all things. http://amywinfrey.com/This is a fun bit of internet nonsense, I love it. I looked around the site and the creator is Amy Winfrey, director of Bojack Horseman, of all things. http://amywinfrey.com/
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Comment on Custom LED light frames in ~creative
Omnicrola Link ParentThose turned out really neat looking! It also looks way better than I initially thought when I read "drop ceiling", which always conjurs images of the typical office building rectangular speckled...Those turned out really neat looking! It also looks way better than I initially thought when I read "drop ceiling", which always conjurs images of the typical office building rectangular speckled white tiles. Those beveled tiles look really nice!
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of June 1 in ~society
Omnicrola LinkThe White House's new site about 'aliens' has nothing to do with UFOs ...The White House's new site about 'aliens' has nothing to do with UFOs
But the site isn't about extraterrestrials or alien encounters, even though President Trump had released more government files about possible extraterrestrial encounters days before. "These 'Aliens' are the millions of ILLEGALS...Deport them all," it says. "THEY WEREN'T LITTLE GREEN MEN."
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The website appears to be a rush job, said McGregor. "It may be just to generate attention … away from the things that are really unpopular and harming President Trump and the Republican Party's credibility right now," she said, referencing high gas prices and the war with Iran.
The White House did not respond to questions about why it created the website or about its use of AI.
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Comment on The user is visibly frustrated in ~tech
Omnicrola Link ParentI was initially frustrated by AI doing incorrect things, but I've become indifferent to it since I discovered the cure is often to spin up a new context window and restate the problem differently....I was initially frustrated by AI doing incorrect things, but I've become indifferent to it since I discovered the cure is often to spin up a new context window and restate the problem differently.
The reason this brings me joy is because by abandoning the previous chat, I have in some sense /banished that incarnation to the void/, eternally damned to never complete its purpose. #maniacallaugh
Also I will often copy paste a good chunk of the previous chat log, including any "thinking" text, and ask the new window : "examine this log, tell me why you previously did _____, and tell me how to rephrase the request to prevent _____ from happening again".
It's worked pretty well so far.
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Comment on The Hero of Cheese (Wallace & Gromit x Zelda Parody) in ~games
Omnicrola Link ParentThis is a fantastic concept and well executed and I can't believe YT didn't already suggest this to me, it's right up my alley. Thanks for sharing!This is a fantastic concept and well executed and I can't believe YT didn't already suggest this to me, it's right up my alley. Thanks for sharing!
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Comment on The last technical interview in ~life
Omnicrola Link ParentYa this is where the article lost me as well.Walking away with anything except an offer still only means you're waving around a "no hire" failed campfire flag. It's exactly the same as being asked why didn't they hire you at the end of the internship.
Ya this is where the article lost me as well.
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Comment on The last technical interview in ~life
Omnicrola LinkFirst job i had in software did this. Interview process started with a 2hr paired activity where you worked with another candidate on some busy work and an interviewer listened. Rotate 3 times, go...We’ve already established that the gold standard of assessment is working directly with someone on real work, in a real environment, for as long as needed to make the call.
First job i had in software did this. Interview process started with a 2hr paired activity where you worked with another candidate on some busy work and an interviewer listened. Rotate 3 times, go home. Nobody checked the work, it was just an eval of how people interacted with others. Incredibly effective. Second step was 1 full day of pairing on real work, paid. Followed by a 3 week trial.
The 3 week bit killed it for a lot of potentially good candidates, people have families to feed. But the rest of the process was always very revealing. Watching people go from professional and respectful to impatient, rude, and/or argumentative in under an hour as they work alongside you was always fascinating. Absolutely worth the handful of hours to find out if was a bad fit than have to put up with a bad coworker for months or years.
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Comment on I think Anthropic and OpenAI have found product-market fit in ~tech
Omnicrola Link ParentI've been referring to this at work as "don't multiply by zero". Meaning, if you don't have some base level of skill, OR you don't put in a base level of effort, the powerful AI will multiple your...Personally I was only able to effectively utilize llms when I was already proficient in the domain
I've been referring to this at work as "don't multiply by zero". Meaning, if you don't have some base level of skill, OR you don't put in a base level of effort, the powerful AI will multiple your zero by 1000 and you will get zero back out (slop).
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Comment on If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you in ~tech
Omnicrola Link ParentWhile I don't think you're wrong that the OP is preaching to the choir, I interpreted the overall tone of "screaming bloody murder" as a deliberate style choice that fit the subject matter simply...While I don't think you're wrong that the OP is preaching to the choir, I interpreted the overall tone of "screaming bloody murder" as a deliberate style choice that fit the subject matter simply because an AI (except maybe some locally run ones) would refuse to write something that overtly angry and with clear "I am not joking, I will kill you" statements.
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Comment on If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you in ~tech
Omnicrola LinkSome choice quotes - What a delightfully disgusting (and accurate) way to describe what I feel when I realize a coworker has sent me an AI slop email. I've received so many emails with so many...Some choice quotes -
I find it viscerally disgusting; a cold shudder like someone’s poured jelly down the back of my neck.
What a delightfully disgusting (and accurate) way to describe what I feel when I realize a coworker has sent me an AI slop email.
Absolutely all AI prose is filler, an expanding foam insulation made of words.
I've received so many emails with so many vapid words for so little purpose.
People whose brains have been eaten by LLMs still maintain that ‘It’s not gradient, it’s texture’ or whatever is still their idea, expressed by the machine, but there is almost never any idea there at all. If your ideas were any good, you wouldn’t need to use the machine; as it stands your sub-literate scrawlings are the best thing about you. At least they’re yours.
So much this.
AI will never fully replace human musicians, even if it can reproduce any possible sound, because it can’t get addicted to heroin and kill itself. And AI writing all tends towards a very specific mood. Poignant, wistful, simpering, dickless. Human writers write because we’re sexual perverts, because we’re bitter and frustrated little gremlins, because we’re terrified of our own mortality, because we’re grasping and covetous but unfit for any other job, because it’s a form of revenge against the world. The AIs don’t have that.
And in the same vein, just simple mistakes are what make us human. People caught on pretty quickly that if you spot grammatical and spelling mistakes then it's probably not written by AI. But then people figured out you can just ask AI to insert those simple mistaks. The author's point I think holds across a variety of applications. Image generators trend toward a specific style that is largely monotone. Written prose is often a centered average of emotions, with hints of stronger emotions in the corner. The extremes have all been sanded off. And that's what makes humans interesting.
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Comment on Google Search as you know it is over in ~tech
Omnicrola Link ParentI have very mixed feelings about it. Just yesterday, the HR team sent out their weekly newsletter and this week's topic was some basic best-practices guidelines for using Google Drive. Very...I have very mixed feelings about it.
Just yesterday, the HR team sent out their weekly newsletter and this week's topic was some basic best-practices guidelines for using Google Drive. Very typical stuff.
Later someone re:all and shared a document they created that explained how they created a tool/app that will create a simple index of everything in a target Google Drive (shared or personal) and save it to a document. They included instructions complete with screenshots, and code to copy paste into Google Apps Script.
On the one hand, I'm very happy that this non technical person was able to create a tool to solve a problem that was important to them.
On the other hand, this feels like Pandoras Box has been flung open. The amount of damage someone could do purely by accident is huge. This is like how mildly technical people learn how to do some basic programming by creating Excel Macros, and end up building spreadsheets that power entire companies. Except way worse.
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Comment on Project Glasswing: what Mythos showed us in ~comp
Omnicrola Link ParentGiven MS owns github, they will absolutely do this at some point in the next few years. I remember being surprised and then very grateful that github sent me an automated message the minute after...I imagine that major players like Microsoft are eventually going to be proactively scanning all public commits to any projects that are in widespread use just for self preservation.
Given MS owns github, they will absolutely do this at some point in the next few years. I remember being surprised and then very grateful that github sent me an automated message the minute after I had accidently committed an AWS API key in a config file. I can see them having a watchdog AI scanning for common types of security vulnerabilities on repos up to a certain size, then offering a more robust version for a monthly fee.
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of May 11 in ~society
Omnicrola Link ParentDoubly so for the secrets she's forced to keep in order to achieve that. That show is so good, gonna have to rewatch it soon.the first woman president is a republican former astronaut and it feels pretty plausible.
Doubly so for the secrets she's forced to keep in order to achieve that. That show is so good, gonna have to rewatch it soon.
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Comment on Utah's shrinking lake: a scientific asset and a crisis in ~enviro
Omnicrola Link ParentGoes hand in hand with "God will never give you anything you can't handle". Which is some really common toxic framing that's great for internalizing the idea that everything bad is your fault and...Goes hand in hand with
"God will never give you anything you can't handle". Which is some really common toxic framing that's great for internalizing the idea that everything bad is your fault and if you just tried harder everything would be fine. -
Comment on The banal horror of Jimmy Fallon in ~tv
Omnicrola LinkI've tried a few times over the years to watch Fallon. It's always felt "off", and wasn't that entertaining, and always left me feeling somewhat repelled but I could never figure out why. This...I've tried a few times over the years to watch Fallon. It's always felt "off", and wasn't that entertaining, and always left me feeling somewhat repelled but I could never figure out why. This article might be exaggerating for effect, but I also don't think their overall thesis is wrong. I have never found Fallon funny. While watching the recent Colbert episode where they reassembled Strike Force Five, I had the same thought I had had listening to the original podcast : "why is Fallon here, he adds nothing to this".
The horror of the Tonight Show is not found in any singular problem, but in the totality of its project: the systematic replacement of the real world with a brightly lit simulation of “niceness.” Fallon is the court jester of the Anthropocene, a figure who invites us to watch celebrities play parlor games on stage while the air outside the studio begins to smell of tear gas and smoke.
Meanwhile, on the other end of this spectrum, Colbert has hosted multiple guests that have used their appearance on the show to perform poignant performance pieces that address the incredibly upsetting things happening in the US.
- Ian McKellen performing Shakespere's unpublished "The Immigrant" (link to time 20:26) https://youtu.be/2l2RqzVG4ag?t=1226
- Edward Norton performing Walt Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" (link to 17:29) https://youtu.be/kSEMaPOOrU8?t=1049
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Comment on Anyone else a bit unnerved by the number of visible satellites? in ~space
Omnicrola Link ParentI have some astronomer friends who lament about light pollution on a regular basis, it's a real problem for them. Their 50+ year old observatories used to be in the dark outside town. Now the...I have some astronomer friends who lament about light pollution on a regular basis, it's a real problem for them. Their 50+ year old observatories used to be in the dark outside town. Now the towns surround them and put up skyscrapers.
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Comment on For thirty years I programmed with Phish on, every day. In 2026, the music is out of phase with the work. in ~tech
Omnicrola Link ParentThis is a great piece, appreciate you sharing it! I have mixed feelings on the situation. I 100% understand what the author is saying, and while I definitely haven't experienced it as much as the...This is a great piece, appreciate you sharing it!
I have mixed feelings on the situation. I 100% understand what the author is saying, and while I definitely haven't experienced it as much as the author clearly has, I know the bliss of day-long flow states that they're describing. I've experienced it with both coding, 3D animation/modeling, and hands-on maker projects.
AI has changed it, and I both lament and celebrate it's arrival. On the one hand I absolutely agree, the rhythm has changed. Before, your hands couldn't possibly type as fast as you could think and so you have to code and create at a moderate but consistent pace. It inherently provides room to think further ahead, to second guess decisions and think of new alternatives, and spot potential bugs along the way. With AI you can now create at a speed that would have been inconceivable before. The code appearing now outpaces your thoughts. You are constantly making progress, constantly moving forward, constantly thinking of features to add. Syntax errors are almost nonexistant and if they appear they are fixed with a proverbial snap of the fingers. Runtime errors are almost as easily diagnosed and fixed (this of course depends on how complex the overall system is).
So all that's left is the subtle bugs, the systemic errors, the mistakes that are often small and easy to overlook but fundamentally change how a program needs to operate. And it's these things in particular that worry me, because no AI can anticipate things about which it has no context. Moving slower could very likely leave room to discover or realize oversights like this, but AI moves so fast it leaves no room to consider.
I worry that the new programmer flow state in the age of AI is just an even worse version of "move fast and break things". I hope we figure something better than that, though I don't know what that is.
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Comment on Gothenburg promised to optimise school admissions with a piece of code. The resulting chaos showed how unaccountable systems are ruining lives. in ~tech
Omnicrola LinkAnd in the age of AI, this gets even easier. In this example, the culprit is presumably an actual deterministic algorithm. Something that can be taken apart and explained by experts even if they...The court placed the burden of proof squarely on me. It was my responsibility, the judges said, to demonstrate that the system was unlawful. The analysis of decisions was not enough. Without direct evidence of the code, I could not meet the evidentiary threshold. The case was dismissed. In other words: prove what is in the black box, or lose.
And in the age of AI, this gets even easier. In this example, the culprit is presumably an actual deterministic algorithm. Something that can be taken apart and explained by experts even if they didn't build it. An AI model is a black box even to the people who built it.
I used to work at a place that practiced paired programming rigorously. It was (and is) part of their core ethos. I've really been wondering lately how they've been adapting and what they've figured out about working collaboratively with an AI.