Rudism's recent activity
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Comment on Flu shot: US Food and Drug Administration will review Moderna’s mRNA vaccine, company says in ~health
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Comment on The AI disruption has arrived, and it sure is fun (gifted link) in ~tech
Rudism LinkWhy does this not surprise me?I’ve spent my last few years working with a team to build an A.I. software platform...
Why does this not surprise me?
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Comment on Communities, relationships, and navigating the enshittification of absolutely everything in ~talk
Rudism LinkI jibe with a lot of what you've written here, and have some of the same attitudes and feelings. You mention it's been a long time, but I'm not sure how long we're talking. I've been strictly on...I jibe with a lot of what you've written here, and have some of the same attitudes and feelings. You mention it's been a long time, but I'm not sure how long we're talking. I've been strictly on Linux since the mid-2000s, and I can't remember exactly when I deleted my Facebook and Twitter, but I think it was around 2010-ish (possibly earlier--I know I switched from Gmail to Fastmail in 2012 and I had already been off most social media for a while by that point). The thing that I stuck with the longest was Reddit, finally deleting my account around (I think) 2018. Actually that's not entirely true, at some point since then I created a Discord account because so many god damn projects rely on that as their sole source of documentation and support, but I just deleted that too in the face of the recent face-scanning announcement. I've also been using some variation of de-Googled Android phones or straight-up dumb phones for around 10 years now. I guess the point is it's been a long fucking time for me, too.
I'll still point things out to my wife and kids--like I've convinced them to avoid Tik Tok, and when my wife was considering Ring cameras to monitor the merchandise at some shops that she runs, I convinced her to try some other more privacy-respecting options--but these days I can't really muster up the energy to proselytize the importance of privacy and speaking against corporations with your wallet outside of my immediate family. It just feels so much like a losing battle, like you're trying to go up against all the billionaire-run corporations all by yourself.
I'm also a software engineer, and my approach to AI so far has been limited to treating it as a SearchEngine++. In fact the only one I interact with is the chat bot that comes along with my subscription to the search engine Kagi. Usually it can point me in roughly the right direction, and it provides links to its sources that I can follow up on if I'm suspicious it's feeding me bullshit (which probably happens about as often as not). I don't work for an AI startup, but I do work with other engineers who have consumed far more of the AI flavor-aid than I have. I think that my co-workers might view me as the old-man-yells-at-cloud meme when it comes to privacy/capitalism/AI, and that suits me fine for now. Down the road if the AI hype-men prove to be correct and the job of software engineer morphs into something akin to babysitting AI agents that do all the fun and interesting stuff for you, that will be my signal that it's time to step away and maybe help my wife build up her retail business instead.
I dunno what the point of this ramble of a response is. I guess just to let you know that I see you and you're not alone.
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Comment on An AI agent published a hit piece on me in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentThe tl;dr of his excuse seems to be that he was using AI to generate structured summaries to use as a reference while writing the article, and mistakenly copied part of the AI summaries when he...The tl;dr of his excuse seems to be that he was using AI to generate structured summaries to use as a reference while writing the article, and mistakenly copied part of the AI summaries when he intended to copy quotes from the original source (along with a bunch of tangential rambling about being in bed sick with a fever, trying to use Claude but having to fall back to ChatGPT because it wasn't working, and other non-sequiturs).
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Comment on An AI agent published a hit piece on me in ~tech
Rudism LinkInteresting development in this story, Ars Technica posted a (now removed) article discussing the situation and had a bunch of quotes from Scott Shambaugh's blog post that were apparently...Interesting development in this story, Ars Technica posted a (now removed) article discussing the situation and had a bunch of quotes from Scott Shambaugh's blog post that were apparently themselves AI hallucinations. A top comment on the article was from Shambaugh:
Scott Shambaugh here. None of the quotes you attribute to me in the second half of the article are accurate, and do not exist at the source you link. It appears that they themselves are AI hallucinations. The irony here is fantastic.
As I mentioned the original url for the Ars Technica article just gives a 404 now, but there are a couple snapshots on the Wayback Machine that confirm it has a bunch of made up quotes.
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Comment on AI doomers: What uses of generative AI are you actually excited about? in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentThe thing that worries me about the use of AI in medicine is that so far the tech companies who would be able to best assist in that kind of research aren't really inspiring confidence in their...The thing that worries me about the use of AI in medicine is that so far the tech companies who would be able to best assist in that kind of research aren't really inspiring confidence in their attitudes towards privacy.
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Comment on AI doomers: What uses of generative AI are you actually excited about? in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentI guess the spirit of the question falls along the lines of if you think stuff like ChatGPT, Claude, and Sora suck, what are some ChatGPT-, Claude-, or Sora-adjacent uses of that same kind of...I guess the spirit of the question falls along the lines of if you think stuff like ChatGPT, Claude, and Sora suck, what are some ChatGPT-, Claude-, or Sora-adjacent uses of that same kind of technology you could see not sucking? Maybe that's a bit vague, but I do think a lot of people (including myself to some degree) have strong anti-AI biases even without a detailed understanding of the breadth and nuance of the underlying technologies that the big "AI" products and companies are actually referring to when they use that term, which is why I'm interested to see what kind of opinions people have.
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Comment on AI doomers: What uses of generative AI are you actually excited about? in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentGood question. I guess I'm just thinking in very general terms. Deep learning, training generative models on large data sets--basically the underlying technologies that the big tech companies are...Good question. I guess I'm just thinking in very general terms. Deep learning, training generative models on large data sets--basically the underlying technologies that the big tech companies are dumping ungodly amounts of money into right now.
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Comment on EU says TikTok faces large fine over "addictive design" in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentI'm not so sure. If this were true, wouldn't we see a much different power dynamic going on in the US than what we're seeing? Trump's net worth, across all his companies and investments, prior to...The annual budgets of the largest tech companies can be ten times the budget of many national governments. From that standpoint alone, companies are capable of more harm.
I'm not so sure. If this were true, wouldn't we see a much different power dynamic going on in the US than what we're seeing?
Trump's net worth, across all his companies and investments, prior to becoming president in his first term was maybe $1.5 billion (I think it's hard to estimate because he's not exactly known to be honest about how much he's worth, but that's a number that I see thrown around by more than one source).
Today, in Trump's second term, we see Tim Cook (CEO of a company with hundreds of billions in assets and turning hundreds of billions of revenue each year) bending the knee and gifting golden trophies in the oval office, we see Jeff Bezos (personal net worth well over $200 billion) gutting and neutering a 150 year old respected newspaper because Trump doesn't like honest journalism and Bezos needs to stay on his good side, we see Elon Musk (on track to become the world's first trillionaire with a T) grovelling at Trump's feet apologizing for mean tweets...
I agree that companies are capable of harm/evil, but knowing that, how much more harm is the man whom even they fear capable of?
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Comment on EU says TikTok faces large fine over "addictive design" in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentNone of the legal standards, courts, laws, and trials are guaranteed to be based on the best interest of the people. I mean a decade ago I probably would have been saying the same thing you are in...None of the legal standards, courts, laws, and trials are guaranteed to be based on the best interest of the people. I mean a decade ago I probably would have been saying the same thing you are in response to what I'm saying now, but watching the government and rule of law in the country where I live--which at one point not too long ago I would have argued was immune to the kind of authoritarian coupe it's failing to now--completely crumble to shambles, the importance of limiting the scope of things that a government has the authority to meddle with is becoming a lot clearer to me.
Where on that spectrum does protecting citizens from unsafe food or drugs stand? And where does protecting people from addictive smartphone apps stand? For me, the former falls closer to "let them meddle," and the latter maybe less so.
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Comment on How many Hosers are there on Tildes? in ~talk
Rudism LinkI was born in Yellowknife, but grew up in Calgary. Moved to the states and been living here for the second half of my life so far, but not sure how much longer that's going to pan out. It's rough...I was born in Yellowknife, but grew up in Calgary. Moved to the states and been living here for the second half of my life so far, but not sure how much longer that's going to pan out. It's rough when my extended family no longer feels safe coming down to visit. Depending what happens election-wise come 2028 there's a good chance I'll be taking the family back up north.
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Comment on EU says TikTok faces large fine over "addictive design" in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentIn this kind of situation, the better way would be for everyone to recognize that TikTok (or Meta, or X, or whatever) is harmful to society and the consequence should be that TikTok becomes...In this kind of situation, the better way would be for everyone to recognize that TikTok (or Meta, or X, or whatever) is harmful to society and the consequence should be that TikTok becomes unprofitable because everyone stops using and letting their kids use the app. Nobody is being forced to use it, TikTok is providing a service and people are willingly and happily gobbling it up of their own free will. Why does the government get to step in between and declare their authority over that consensual relationship?
But like I said I realize it's absurd to expect that to happen, hence my conflicted feelings towards it all.
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Comment on EU says TikTok faces large fine over "addictive design" in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentMy problem is that it doesn't feel quite so black and white to me--I have a hard time seeing TikTok as unquestionably evil and I have a hard time not seeing governments with overreaching authority...My problem is that it doesn't feel quite so black and white to me--I have a hard time seeing TikTok as unquestionably evil and I have a hard time not seeing governments with overreaching authority as a really bad idea (and capable of far more harm).
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Comment on EU says TikTok faces large fine over "addictive design" in ~tech
Rudism LinkI always feel an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance when trying to think through situations like this. On the one hand, I feel like if a person or company wants to build a product with addictive...I always feel an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance when trying to think through situations like this.
On the one hand, I feel like if a person or company wants to build a product with addictive qualities (in the context of stuff like infinite scrolling, gambling mechanisms, recommendation algorithms) then they should be allowed to without government interfering and trying to be the "Mom" of their user base. Like how do you even define what should or shouldn't be allowed if you're talking about ubiquitous functionality like scrolling content? Or sending notifications? Or recommending stuff? Where and how do you draw the line between something like TikTok and something like Apple TV or Google web search? It feels very arbitrary, and prone to being abused by those with the power to say something is or isn't addictive.
But that's also predicated on the idea that users are aware enough to know that these things are addictive so they can regulate their use to a level that's not unhealthy for them, and for the actual Moms (and Dads) of children to educate their kids and ensure they're using them safely (or not at all). Which I know full well is a ridiculous assumption. We don't live in an ideal fantasy world where every adult and child is rational and has the self awareness or capacity to know when something they're doing is unhealthy and/or to stop doing it. The studies show that access to social media at a young age does have detrimental effects to those kids (and presumably society as a whole, since those kids are who will make up society as they get older).
It just feels like we're faced with choosing between two evils--governments with the nebulous authority to punish or shut things down at the whims of whoever is in power, hoping that they are incorruptible, actually have our best interests in mind, and are capable of determining the best way to act on that (another ridiculous assumption); or live with the fact that some segment of the population is going to struggle with these addictions, depression, and whatever other negative side effects come with overuse of things like TikTok and other poisonous social media apps.
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Comment on D&D campaign recomendation for solo/two people in ~games.tabletop
Rudism Link ParentI have zero experience with tabletop RPGs (solo or otherwise), but a colleague/friend of mine recently wrote a blog post about his experience with Ironsworn that goes into a lot of detail about...I have zero experience with tabletop RPGs (solo or otherwise), but a colleague/friend of mine recently wrote a blog post about his experience with Ironsworn that goes into a lot of detail about what someone who's interested in it might expect.
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Comment on Any software engineers considering a career switch due to AI? in ~comp
Rudism Link ParentI haven't done a whole lot of digging, but I wouldn't be too surprised if AI tooling will remain wholly unique in the open source world as the only projects that openly embrace and encourage AI...I haven't done a whole lot of digging, but I wouldn't be too surprised if AI tooling will remain wholly unique in the open source world as the only projects that openly embrace and encourage AI generated code.
A lot of the discussions I see around the subject of AI coding assistants (and generative AI in general) feel very reminiscent of the blockchain mania we saw 5-10 years ago, where there were certain echo chambers in which blockchains were the answer to everything, and blockchains were creeping their way into all kinds of products, solving problems that nobody had in ways that they were wholly unsuited for. A really big part of me thinks generative AI is going through a similar hype period right now, and is also due for a drastic decline in enthusiasm where the gap between what it's capable of and what people are using it for gets closed.
I am also fully aware that it could just be my own personal biases coloring it that way for me. I suppose only time will tell.
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Comment on Any software engineers considering a career switch due to AI? in ~comp
Rudism Link ParentThe thing that still gives me a bit of hope is that open source projects aren't seeing a huge increase in useful contributions generated by AI. If LLMs are now at a state where they are actually...I will take at face value the statements, from every major tech firm, that the majority of code will soon be written by LLMs -- if it has not already happened.
The thing that still gives me a bit of hope is that open source projects aren't seeing a huge increase in useful contributions generated by AI. If LLMs are now at a state where they are actually good at understanding code bases and contributing in a meaningful way, I would expect to see at least some high profile open source projects begin to embrace them and see benefits. But instead we see the opposite--projects have to explicitly ban AI-assisted code because they become overwhelmed with (let's assume well-meaning) contributions that don't fix anything, break more than they fix, and/or waste the time of real contributors who have to wade through the pools of slop.
Maybe the corporate world is just leagues ahead of the open source world because the actually good AI tools are priced beyond the means of your typical open source contributor, but I'm skeptical. I still think there's a chance that much of the hype over generative AI is a bunch of over-eager C-execs and their cults being blinded to reality by all these dollar signs in their eyes.
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Comment on Any software engineers considering a career switch due to AI? in ~comp
Rudism LinkThe thing I'm afraid of, which will 100% drive me to some kind of change if it comes to pass, is that even if we're not expected to use AI tools to help us code, the vast majority of work that...The thing I'm afraid of, which will 100% drive me to some kind of change if it comes to pass, is that even if we're not expected to use AI tools to help us code, the vast majority of work that we're expected to do may shift from building bespoke applications for humans to use toward building more generic tooling to power AI applications.
Like if you're working with any kind of data management system, instead of getting requirements and making decisions around how the data needs to be manipulated and what kind of reporting you need to support and what the UI/UX should be, you instead get to build more generic APIs and database schemas that get plugged into an MCP server so that users can do whatever they want through an LLM chatbot.
Not only is that less interesting and less fulfilling work, but the end result is going to be such a clusterfuck to support and debug--when users complain that something's not working right, instead of figuring out why and fixing the code, your job will boil down to writing LLM prompts like a teacher explaining to gradeschoolers what they should and shouldn't be doing with all the data they have access to. I don't want to be doing that. If that's where our industry is headed even for the short-to-medium term (until users and, more importantly, the C-level execs pushing all this AI nonsense realize that chatbots and LLMs are the absolute worst way to interact with most applications) I will probably nope out.
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Comment on Notepad++ hijacked by state-sponsored hackers in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentMy guess is because Notepad++ hits that prime target zone of being open source, having a significant user base, and being largely maintained by a single developer. It's the little blibbet in that...My guess is because Notepad++ hits that prime target zone of being open source, having a significant user base, and being largely maintained by a single developer. It's the little blibbet in that xkcd comic that everyone's sick of seeing all the time by now.
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Comment on Catherine O’Hara - legendary actress dead at 71 in ~movies
Rudism (edited )LinkI'm experiencing a bit of a Mandella effect moment here. There's an old Canadian TV show I loved named Maniac Mansion that aired reruns late at night when I was a kid, and I would have sworn up...I'm experiencing a bit of a Mandella effect moment here.
There's an old Canadian TV show I loved named Maniac Mansion that aired reruns late at night when I was a kid, and I would have sworn up and down that Catherine O'Hara played the mom on that show. Like I can recall the TV show's intro and specific scenes from episodes, and she's right there in my memory. This goes way back--my whole life, any time I saw Catherine O'Hara in another show or movie I'd think of her as the mom from Maniac Mansion. But looking the show up now it turns out that wasn't her--it was Deborah Theaker, who I don't recognize or remember at all from looking at pictures.
My best guess is that because Joe Flaherty plays the dad in Maniac Mansion I must have somehow gotten my wires crossed between that show and SCTV, but I never really watched much SCTV growing up (it was a bit before my time, I just caught a few episodes here and there), so it's wild to me that my memory got completely rewritten like this. The kicker for me is, even though Catherine O'Hara never appeared on Maniac Mansion at all (though there was some cross-over with other SCTV alums guest starring), the theme song for Maniac Mansion was written by Mary Margaret O'Hara--Catherine's sister! edit--And!! Theaker's Wikipedia page says she was a member of The Second City, although it doesn't seem as though she ever appeared on SCTV.
Can't help but wonder if that other timeline I came from where Catherine O'Hara was the mom in Maniac Mansion is on as dark a path as this one I somehow got stuck in...
I grew up in Canada where attitudes toward the US have historically been mixed at best.
Then 23 years ago I married an American and moved to the US. At the time she was very much of the America-is-the-greatest-country-in-the-world mindset, so we would often clash when talking about various aspects of American culture and politics.
Witnessing the gradual erosion of her pride and confidence in this country in the time since then sometimes feels like I'm watching an ex-cult-member getting deprogrammed.