Omnicrola's recent activity

  1. Comment on AI mania is eviscerating global decisionmaking in ~tech

    Omnicrola
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    Great post, loved this part in particular:

    Great post, loved this part in particular:

    I mean that, over the course of the engagement, these people have exhibited a pattern of behavior that has made it near-impossible to sell to them without incurring reputational and legal risk, and are furthermore crafting management environments that I can only describe as cultish, ineffective, and “please dear God, do not let it be on earth as it is on LinkedIn”.

    5 votes

  2. Comment on Wildfire smoke from Canada will soon spread across the Midwest and East United States in ~enviro

    Omnicrola
    Link Parent
    I'm near Ann Arbor, it was normal on the way home from work, and yes just rolled in late last night like a heavy fog. The Ann Arbor Art Fair starts today and goes to Sat, it's the largest set fair...

    I'm near Ann Arbor, it was normal on the way home from work, and yes just rolled in late last night like a heavy fog. The Ann Arbor Art Fair starts today and goes to Sat, it's the largest set fair in the region, over 300,000 people show up each year. Between this and the heat, I expect attendance to plummet and EMS to have their hands full. They keep fault busy most years just helping people with heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

    Time to go dig out the KN95 stash...

    7 votes

  3. Comment on Control the ideas, not the code in ~comp

    Omnicrola
    Link Parent
    I've run into this a few times in a personal project that I've let the AI have relatively free reign over since the consequences are very low, and I get to learn about the kinds of mistakes it...

    I've run into this a few times in a personal project that I've let the AI have relatively free reign over since the consequences are very low, and I get to learn about the kinds of mistakes it makes. The most egregious example of what you're describing was when built a redundant switch statement in 6 places, where in each case the local function only cared about 1-3 of the 12 cases and the rest after pass through. IMO the reason it happened was that it was an emergent pattern that occurred over a dozen or so sessions. Since each session was focused on a task, the agent started using the first occurrence as precedence and it then compounded. Once I pointed out the reasons why that pattern was fragile and unsustainable it auto recorded a memory and I guided it on how to refactor it, but I'm not convinced it won't happen again.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on Sen. Lindsey Graham dies at 71 after ‘brief and sudden illness’ in ~society

    Omnicrola
    Link
    Let the karmic dominos fall.

    Let the karmic dominos fall.

    3 votes

  5. Comment on US Federal Communications Commission approves test of space mirror to light night sky despite outcry in ~space

    Omnicrola
    Link Parent
    I wonder then if the longer term idea is to have many mirrors all directed at the same ~3 mile area, like the solar concentrators they've built in the desert? Still don't like this idea though. I...

    I wonder then if the longer term idea is to have many mirrors all directed at the same ~3 mile area, like the solar concentrators they've built in the desert?

    Still don't like this idea though. I think I'd rather have them build solar panels and beam the power down via microwave.

    4 votes

  6. Comment on Of course viewers are giving up on Netflix shows in ~tv

    Omnicrola
    Link Parent
    And Silo, For All Mankind, Ted Lasso. Apple is doing pretty great actually (IMO).

    And Silo, For All Mankind, Ted Lasso. Apple is doing pretty great actually (IMO).

    9 votes

  7. Comment on Of course viewers are giving up on Netflix shows in ~tv

    Omnicrola
    Link Parent
    Speaking of authors who produce content on a reliable basis...... It's one of the reasons Sanderson is my favorite author. But also Stormlight is a really great series.

    and am also on the third book of the first Stormlight Archive arc

    Speaking of authors who produce content on a reliable basis......

    It's one of the reasons Sanderson is my favorite author. But also Stormlight is a really great series.

    8 votes

  8. Comment on Papa Johns can predict when your fridge is empty in ~tech

    Omnicrola
    Link Parent
    It all comes down to trust. If a friend thought I might be hungry, and suggested we get a pizza I would be grateful for their thoughtfulness even if they also happened to own the pizza company. A...

    It all comes down to trust.

    If a friend thought I might be hungry, and suggested we get a pizza I would be grateful for their thoughtfulness even if they also happened to own the pizza company. A friend has earned that trust from me by being a good friend.

    If a stranger walked up to me and said "you look like you might be hungry, you should try my pizza place right across the street there" I am immediately suspicious. I do not know this person or their business, and while they might be interested in my well being they also very clearly want to sell me something unsolicited. They have not earned my trust.

    And personally, the best way to earn my suspicion and disgust is to try and sell me something I did not ask for.

    11 votes

  9. Comment on Papa Johns can predict when your fridge is empty in ~tech

    Omnicrola
    Link
    Hiro Protagonist has clocked in for his shift and is ready to deliver.

    Hiro Protagonist has clocked in for his shift and is ready to deliver.

    14 votes

  10. Comment on What AI does to the minds of novice coders in ~comp

    Omnicrola
    Link Parent
    I've noticed the same thing (if I'm offloading more, I should stop for the day). Personally this was one of the things that first made me realize the genuine utility of the LLMs, was just doing...

    I've noticed the same thing (if I'm offloading more, I should stop for the day).

    do find them very useful as a glorified search engine. I don't know if I've lost the ability to search by keywords, but it's so difficult to find anything mildly obscure these days

    Personally this was one of the things that first made me realize the genuine utility of the LLMs, was just doing basic search. Having a tool that can search based on a concept is incredible. It solves one of the inherent flaws of keyword based search - if you're just starting to learn a new topic, you don't even know the correct vocabulary for the things you're trying to learn. On top of that, having the ability to refine the search (eg "that's not quite it, it was more like X and less like Y") feels way more powerful than just trying different keywords.

    13 votes

  11. Comment on How do I keep my dog from fearing water sprinklers? in ~life.pets

    Omnicrola
    Link
    Disclaimer: I'm normally a cat person. Only recently starting living with a dog. I've a theory i haven't tried yet for my partner's dog who is incredibly reactive to delivery trucks. My theory is...

    Disclaimer: I'm normally a cat person. Only recently starting living with a dog.

    I've a theory i haven't tried yet for my partner's dog who is incredibly reactive to delivery trucks. My theory is to break it into visual and audio. I want to try small pictures of trucks (real ones, taken from our own yard, and printed in varying sizes) and see if she reacts. If she does, I want to see if I can build positive association with pictures (or maybe video?) that would translate to real things. Same for audio, by playing the sound at lower volumes and quickly offering treats for positive behavior. The theory being this would build the association faster since I have direct control over the timing, intensity, and duration of the thing causing distress.

    I wonder if using the sound of your irrigation system, played back at lower volume for short durations would help? Again, this is all theoretical.

    3 votes

  12. Comment on AI job grief in ~tech

    Omnicrola
    Link Parent
    I think they're will be a market for it. Just as there is for hand crafted furniture, it's just utterly dwarfed in comparison to how much factory made furniture is consumed. And I think it will be...

    Though, there may be some difference in that I doubt there will end up being a market for “handcrafted code”

    I think they're will be a market for it. Just as there is for hand crafted furniture, it's just utterly dwarfed in comparison to how much factory made furniture is consumed.

    And I think it will be less about "every character was typed by a human" and more about achieving a certain level of quality. Quality is admittedly subjective, but people who know a craft know when they see it. If I'm looking for some apps to amuse my cats, the code quality is not something I really care about. However the software running the radiation treatment machine for my cancer, that I care about a lot.

    3 votes

  13. Comment on AI job grief in ~tech

    Omnicrola
    Link Parent
    Im glad you posted this, it was interesting to read, even though I agree one is it's central arguments falls flat. It has some good points, but i didn't see any that were particularly new or...

    Im glad you posted this, it was interesting to read, even though I agree one is it's central arguments falls flat.

    It has some good points, but i didn't see any that were particularly new or novel. In particular I agree with it's assertions that the AI change is different because of the shear speed of change, and because the benefits have not yet proven themselves to be concrete.

    1 vote

  14. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of June 29 in ~society

    Omnicrola
    Link Parent
    Who are also definitely not fae either?

    Who are also definitely not fae either?

    3 votes

  15. Comment on Should the plural of "milf" be "milfs" or "milves"? in ~humanities.languages

  16. Comment on Nvidia announces liquid cooling system that promises to reduce electricity consumption and cut water use by up to 100% in ~tech

    Omnicrola
    Link Parent
    The design isn't particularly novel, however I suspect it's just the cost that prevented it before. Existing cooling was sufficient for data centers and the hardware they had. Upgrading massive...

    The design isn't particularly novel, however I suspect it's just the cost that prevented it before. Existing cooling was sufficient for data centers and the hardware they had. Upgrading massive swaths of racks to all-GPUs changes that cost equation about how much X$ investment is worth it to gain Y% in cooling efficiency.

    4 votes

  17. Comment on Nvidia announces liquid cooling system that promises to reduce electricity consumption and cut water use by up to 100% in ~tech

    Omnicrola
    Link Parent
    I make this reference (without stopping to explain) IRL sometimes just to watch people's confused faces.

    I make this reference (without stopping to explain) IRL sometimes just to watch people's confused faces.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on Bevy 0.19 in ~comp

    Omnicrola
    Link Parent
    I am! I've had an idea for a voxel based RTS kicking around for over a decade. I started a prototype in LWJGL but never got it to a playable state : https://github.com/Omnicrola/voxel-cascade So I...

    I am! I've had an idea for a voxel based RTS kicking around for over a decade. I started a prototype in LWJGL but never got it to a playable state : https://github.com/Omnicrola/voxel-cascade

    So I decided to use that idea as a motivator to learn Rust as well as learn how best to use Claude in a large long-running project. It's been helpful to learn how to scaffold the AI and keep it focused, and where it's blind spots and limitations are. It took several steps to ensure it stopped relying on it's own training data for how Bevy works and instead always go check the current API in the crates. It also tends to get stuck thinking when trying to reason about geometry until it hits context collapse. I had to give it very explicit and redundant instructions to instead make a guess and show me the visual result and I'll tell it if it's correct or not.

    Anyways, the game itself is a fairly standard Starcraft inspired 3-faction RTS where the defining feature is you can alter the terrain. So builders can build buildings, but also excavate and construct the terrain. Sufficiently powerful weapons will also destroy terrain. Specific units specialize in tunneling, and others have subterranean countermeasures.

    So far I've got the terrain system working, as well as unit pathing and basic combat. Currently working on the basic UX for designating areas of the terrain for builder units to construct/deconstruct without the player having to select voxels 1 by 1.

    2 votes

  19. Comment on Nobody clicks your share buttons in ~tech

    Omnicrola
    Link
    Further evidence, is that I constantly gripe at friends who share links that have tracking URL bits on them. The average user is savvy enough to just copy-paste a URL, but the technobabble that...

    Further evidence, is that I constantly gripe at friends who share links that have tracking URL bits on them. The average user is savvy enough to just copy-paste a URL, but the technobabble that are tracking URL params is indecipherable to them, and they just leave them.

    18 votes

  20. Comment on Bevy 0.19 in ~comp

    Omnicrola
    Link
    Some real solid improvements to the engine in this update, can't wait to try some of them out. @hungariantoast are you working on something using Bevy, or are you just following it's development?

    Some real solid improvements to the engine in this update, can't wait to try some of them out. @hungariantoast are you working on something using Bevy, or are you just following it's development?

    1 vote