archevel's recent activity
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Comment on Where do we go from here? (Regarding AI) in ~tech
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Comment on Where do we go from here? (Regarding AI) in ~tech
archevel Link ParentI personally really don't agree with putting this on politicians/lawmakers and them being slow. The pace of change is just so very fast it is hard even as an individual to react. Given that...Mostly at politicians and lawmakers to be so slow to respond to how these big tech firms just go rampant without any responsibility. If your AI starts hacking other systems, then you need to go to prison.
I personally really don't agree with putting this on politicians/lawmakers and them being slow. The pace of change is just so very fast it is hard even as an individual to react. Given that politics is in general fairly slow process, expecting well thought through solutions from that end is too much to ask. I might be a bit biased as I am semi-politically active, I just find the "blame the politicians" to be a bit ignorant. Politicians aren't some special breed of people that sit and wring their hands coming up with stupid ideas. They mostly have some ideological basis for their proposals, which can be fairly understandable if one tries to see things through that lens... Anyway, I think people should mostly just join some political party instead of being mad at "those politicians over there".
As for the hacking bit. I agree. That's a law enforcement issue though...
Just an example of small things, like now birthday party invitations or yardsale flyers are now ugly AI generated.
This will likely pass (I hope). But, I agree it's both annoying and unnecessary.
Edit:
the eternal continuous work on software systems with decades of legacy.
This is where LLMs struggle the most. Give it a greenfield project and you get to a legacy system much faster though ;) Improvement!
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Comment on Where do we go from here? (Regarding AI) in ~tech
archevel LinkThere are two sides to this, it has already taken my job to a large extent, but otoh my job has changed drastically. It has gone from implementing features and carefully building a maintainable...Do you think AI will take your job? Why or why not?
There are two sides to this, it has already taken my job to a large extent, but otoh my job has changed drastically. It has gone from implementing features and carefully building a maintainable system to more of coaching an agent harness to produce the desired features. The code has essentially become assembly (nearly no one read or wrote code at that level before LLMs for the last few decades). The skills I've built up over the years are still valuable in nudging the agent in the right direction and having it avoid traps, but overall being a developer/progrmmer is in my case mostly gone.
Are you considering a career change or any other big life decisions because of the changing world?
Yes, there is less enjoyment in developing software this way if you enjoyed the craft. If you are motivated by the output, then now is really your golden era.
How are you advising your children, regarding schooling and careers?
My eldest is on his last year of the high school equivalent here. He has a penchant for progamming and he really enjoys it, but I think I will advice him to go into some other proffession and keep it as a hobby.
Do you have a subscription to an AI service? If you have one, how do you feel about it?
Via work; claude and via google some gemini (I've disabled all the tracking I could in this one). Gemini is usefull for finding out things and resolving issues and just general advice. I still ask it for references more often than not and it does lie not too infrequently. I asked it what the license was for a project I have on github and it confidently claimed it was MIT. I had not set up a license file for the project yet, and when I challenged it it immediately backed down.
Do you think that this technology will be a net positive or a net negative?
I lean towards net possitive. The economics of working with an agent productivity wise CAN be significant. The issues with energy/water consumption I think can be overcome. There might be some Jevons paradox going on such that we will just increase our use of this tech and the productivity baseline for regular office jobs will be higher... then again I kind of find most office work to be "bullshit jobs", sooo being more efficient bullshit jobs has little real world benefits. In the end we all basically need food, shelter and a sense of being valued. AI as is don't really contribute to any of those in a meaningful way (maybe negatively in the "sense of being valued" part).
How do you think the human race will change, if at all?
Not at all. We haven't changed that much in the last 200 000 years. We've just added more rituals :)
Do you think we will see a serious incident driven by AI in the near future?
Yes.
Does it bother you that humans may not be the dominant intelligence at some point? Do you think this is even possible?
Does it bother me? No. I'm quite secure in my own capabilities (and lack thereof). Other people will be smarter than me, some will be dumber. If these other people are instead AI, it's not that much different. The difference is in speed, not in kind.
Does any of this affect your sense of identity or individuality? How do you feel about your skill set and hobbies?
Being a software developer this has already impacted my sense of professional worth, but I am not my work nor my role at work. That is not where I derive my sense of worth as a person. Hobby wise I think I'll just keep playing pen and paper RPGs with my friends aka. the cheapest hobby known to man (maybe excluding singing).
What do you think it means to be human in a machine dominated world?
I don't think this is realistic to be honest... Humans will continue to human with or without machines... I'm not too worried about alignment issues.
Overall, are you feeling optimistic or pessimistic?
Neither. What will be will be, it will likely involve a bit of suffering and adjustment so short term it might be a bit rough. Long term I'm not too worried. On geological time scales we're all dust.
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Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative
archevel LinkNot sure if I should post it here or in the tech/comp topic. Anyway, I've started a new RPG campaign using the Scum and Villainy rules/setting. I wanted the players to have an easy way of creating...Not sure if I should post it here or in the tech/comp topic. Anyway, I've started a new RPG campaign using the Scum and Villainy rules/setting. I wanted the players to have an easy way of creating characters and get a feel for the setting since most haven't played in it before. So I started making a small webb page that essentially started out as an SVG image of the Procyon sector where you could see some small blurbs about each location. You can navigate around the sector zooming in on the animated systems etc... But, then I kind of went over board and set up character and ship creation, tracking of factions, contacts and clocks... Nothing is hosted anywhere, it is all stored in the browser. I also added a nice import/export feature that lets players export a png file with an image of their character and a summary of them. The anyone can then import that image (e.g. drag and drop in the site). The image metadata contains all the associated info! I thought it was pretty nice to be able to share an pc e.g. over discord and everyone can then see an overview! I also made my own localization attempt for names and such into Swedish. It's fun to pick a few tounge in cheek translations that don't quite match the original literal translation. However I think mine captures the essence well in a few cases, e.g. the starship Straylight is called Irrbloss.
The site was built for desktop, but some adjustments have been made to it to support mobile. It can be added as an app via the ... menu in chrome on Android at least.
I'm considering if I shouldake the effort to rework all the artwork (it was promoted via nanobanana and a local diffusion model), but not sure since it's just as tiny hobby project for me and my friends...
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Comment on Valheim | 1.0 release date reveal trailer – 9th September 2026 in ~games
archevel Link ParentSame for me. We played it a lot during 2021. I think we stopped after defeating the plains boss. Still a bit fond of my old blog post about how to enable single player sleep on a multiplayer...Same for me. We played it a lot during 2021. I think we stopped after defeating the plains boss. Still a bit fond of my old blog post about how to enable single player sleep on a multiplayer server by modding the sever binary "manually" (a bit technical, but lots of fun to do).
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Comment on What are your current pain points with Linux? in ~tech
archevel LinkMy only pain point at the moment is that the built-in camera on my Dell XPS 16 doesn't work on my nixos setup. It's an annoyance. I did get it to work before by fiddling around a lot (building...My only pain point at the moment is that the built-in camera on my Dell XPS 16 doesn't work on my nixos setup. It's an annoyance. I did get it to work before by fiddling around a lot (building some drivers from source and such IIRC), but then I updated and it stopped working and I kind of face up on it. Connecting a USB based webcam when I need it just works out of the box. I won't be surprised if everything just starts working one day due to an update, but for now I can live with it.
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Comment on Stop Killing The Internet: No digital ID and no age verification in ~tech
archevel (edited )LinkThe actual objectives text seem at to contradict the title if I'm not missreading: Emphasis is mine, but that part reads more like what I think is actually being worked on; i.e. an age...The actual objectives text seem at to contradict the title if I'm not missreading:
We call on the European Commission to propose legislation ensuring that digital identity and age-assurance systems used to access online services in the Union remain voluntary, privacy-preserving and non-discriminatory. Citizens must not be forced to identify themselves to access lawful online content or services unless strictly necessary, proportionate and provided by law. The legislation should require anonymous or pseudonymous proof-of-age, data minimisation, selective disclosure, open-source implementation, independent security audits, prohibition of cross-service tracking by relying parties, and equivalent alternatives for citizens who do not use a digital wallet.
Emphasis is mine, but that part reads more like what I think is actually being worked on; i.e. an age verification system where e.g. a website can ask the user to prove that they are an adult (not their exact age mind you) and the user has a way to provide that via a trusted party. The trusted party also doesn't receive any information about who the user is trying to prove their identity too.
If that comes to pass I'd think that would be a fine balance to strike. You kind of have to trust someone and better if this isn't being controlled by some corporate entity and that retaining information and tracking is a strict non-goal.
I might be wrong, but I think eIDAS has something along these lines going?
edit: I think I found the link to some info regarding this: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/sites/spaces/EUDIGITALIDENTITYWALLET/pages/930450954/The+Age+Verification+Manual
So essentially what the initiative is striving for is already happening? -
Comment on Why normal people aren’t using AI agents in ~tech
archevel Link ParentThat has been my general experience with diffusion models. In my cas with the porch I used a base photo and it fairly consistently was ble to add a fence to it in various styles. So I think this...That has been my general experience with diffusion models. In my cas with the porch I used a base photo and it fairly consistently was ble to add a fence to it in various styles. So I think this depends a bit on the model you use and probably on Gemini's surrounding tooling.
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Comment on Why normal people aren’t using AI agents in ~tech
archevel Link ParentTangentially related, as I actually found a nice use for stable diffusion models the other week. Generally, I think they've saturated the web with bland imagery. In short, I need to build a fence...Tangentially related, as I actually found a nice use for stable diffusion models the other week. Generally, I think they've saturated the web with bland imagery. In short, I need to build a fence for my porch. So I took a picture and asked Gemini to add a fence. I did this a few times with various descriptions of the fence to get an idea what it would look like. Some were really bad, e.g. making the fence where the current stair is thus blocking the entrance, but some were nice examples. I could show them to the rest of the family and we could pick a design that seem nice. Doing it by hand would be impossible for me at least and hiring someone to draw them (photorealistically) would be prohibitively expensive.
Other than that in the case of image generation I'm at a loss.
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Comment on Browser fingerprinting demonstration in ~comp
archevel Link ParentI wonder if I should just build a "be an iphone" extension for Firefox with a whitelist button to disable it if I absolutely need to. Better to hide as something very common rather than become...I wonder if I should just build a "be an iphone" extension for Firefox with a whitelist button to disable it if I absolutely need to. Better to hide as something very common rather than become fairly unique based on running various blockers etc.
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Comment on Browser fingerprinting demonstration in ~comp
archevel LinkNo one likes tracking technology. No one likes registering an account at various sites. No one likes the forced age verification being foisted on various websites. What if we combine all these...No one likes tracking technology. No one likes registering an account at various sites. No one likes the forced age verification being foisted on various websites. What if we combine all these things? Something horrible or something potentially amazing?
Imagine a site where your browser fingerprint along with your site interactions become your identity score for the things you post? It could be presented as the likelyhood of the author being the same as the author of other posts. Essentially you'd get a network of disparate posts with a degree of confidence that they were made by the same person/entity. You could weave in multiple fingerprinting techniques, various browser based JS checks, text analysis for style, interaction history (tracked client side and sever side with timings ought to be very unique).
I imagine this probably wouldn't be immune to age verification laws, but an accountless service seems like a nice possible use of this tech. I imagine stopping spam messages might be the hard problem here though.
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Comment on Dark Sun and World of Warcraft in DnD in ~games.tabletop
archevel LinkSo apparently Dark Sun is making a return as a mature rated product for DnD. I never played in the original setting, but it does seem to have some interesting twists on e.g. species like the...So apparently Dark Sun is making a return as a mature rated product for DnD. I never played in the original setting, but it does seem to have some interesting twists on e.g. species like the halflings. It is a rather twisted setting, so I get why they'd go with a mature rating on it.
Also interesting to see them doing a WoW setting. WoW does have some fairly deep lore and pretty much everyone who plays DnD will at least be familiar with the world at least a little bit.
My DnD group might do a one shot in these settings, but we do tend to get stuck on philosophical things in the world like debating if one of the PCs is still the same person after coming back from the dead due to wild magic + rebirth (he went from gnome to orc). RPGs truly make the best stories (no matter the system used).
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Dark Sun and World of Warcraft in DnD
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Comment on The magic is in the language in ~tech
archevel Link ParentJust a couple of days ago I used to think that the models are basically "just" predicting the next token. I.e. if I feed it "Happy birthday to" it is highly likely to output "you" as the next...Just a couple of days ago I used to think that the models are basically "just" predicting the next token. I.e. if I feed it
"Happy birthday to" it is highly likely to output "you" as the next token. However I saw a short YouTube clip that made a persuasive argument that models are infact doing at least something more advanced. If I feed an LLM:Add these numbers. Only output the answer. 3 Five One hundred 25 999 3 000 006It will likely output:
3 001 138. The argument is that the LLM hasn't learned this is the likely answer to the sequence of input tokens. If that was the case they'd often produce garbage answers for this type of input (older and/or smaller models do struggle with this). But, since newer models often seem to get it right, it is in my view now more likely that they have some form of concept of addition embedded in their weights. So they don't "just" predict the next token, they do seem capable of mental arithmetic.Perhaps there's some other explanation. Perhaps this breaks down on larger input sequences. I do however find it intriguing.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
archevel LinkMy first contribution to hermit os was just merged! I've improved the vsock support which is something I'm using for my security oriented webbapp hosting project. I still have some additional...My first contribution to hermit os was just merged! I've improved the vsock support which is something I'm using for my security oriented webbapp hosting project. I still have some additional patches that fixes issues with running hermit os based applications on firecracker; kvmclock support and some other stuff.
Next focus is to figure out a solid path for postgres replication to backup nodes. I have backups based on the WAL working (all encrypted outside the guest vm), but I think a replication solution and filesystem base backups might be nicer. Needs more work either way.
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Comment on A friend showed me another "learned a new language" site in ~comp
archevel Link ParentMany years back at university we had a semester where we learned programming in Erlang/OTP. To this day I think Erlang and the BEAM has the best ergonomics w.r.t. its actor system. The functional...Many years back at university we had a semester where we learned programming in Erlang/OTP. To this day I think Erlang and the BEAM has the best ergonomics w.r.t. its actor system. The functional nature of Erlang with the pattern matching just meshed well my mind. Writing recursive functions starting with a base case and then adding the other cases was great! I think Elixir borrows a bit of this due to it running on top of the BEAM (but I never liked Ruby for some reason so never got into Elixir). Anyway, main point if you want to get a solid grasp of actor systems I'd recommend actually working with Erlang/OTP. Setting up a supervision tree and using gen_server and gen_fsm based actors is great. Understanding how this works under the hood by building a smaller version of ORP; creating processes and linking them and trapping their exit messages; could be a good exercise. The language's constructs generally makes it hard to mess up completely and the "let it fail" philosophy let's you avoid defensive programming and focus on more important things.
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Comment on I wonder if years from now hand written code will be antique in ~tech
archevel Link ParentNot entirely. My goal when making software haven't been overly focused on the craft. I focus on solving problems. The analogy with the craftsman never sat entirely right with me. A furniture...Not entirely. My goal when making software haven't been overly focused on the craft. I focus on solving problems. The analogy with the craftsman never sat entirely right with me. A furniture carpenter finishes a table and then that table is done. For a software developer the work is continual. Maybe more like a gardener where the garden is in a continuous flux. So a gardener that goes from tending the garden to sitting in a tower far away with binoculars and a megaphone screaming at the robots to "prune the trees and make no mistakes"... I don't know. Not great at analogies.
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Comment on I wonder if years from now hand written code will be antique in ~tech
archevel Link ParentI enjoyed coding and solving issues with code. I've been doing this professionally for about 20 years soon. With an LLM I am certainly able to churn out more, both in terms of lines of code and...I enjoyed coding and solving issues with code. I've been doing this professionally for about 20 years soon. With an LLM I am certainly able to churn out more, both in terms of lines of code and actual features. I've mostly settled into validating the output of the code; not the code itself. Design and QA is taking a larger portion of my time at work. Downside is that, while it is still satisfying to ship features and improve the product, it isn't as enjoyable a craft anymore. I no longer have a deep understanding of the underlying code.
I know that, in general, I am still able to produce code at a higher level of quality than an LLM, but that doesn't matter that much to me. Something ineffable is missing now. I tend to think this is similar to how artist feel about gen ai in general. They can see the flaws produced by e.g stable diffusion, but does it diminish the sense of creating? Is the process tarnished in some way? I think it is for me.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
archevel LinkI've started to build a secure hosting platform. The goal is to provide an environment that helps devs build secure systems by locking down what's actually accessible and make foot guns hard....I've started to build a secure hosting platform. The goal is to provide an environment that helps devs build secure systems by locking down what's actually accessible and make foot guns hard. Currently it provides a postgres instance running in a vm without a shell and without network access, a way to host apps that handle https requests, and apps for background processing. The postgres instance is running on an encrypted filesystem decrypted with an ephemeral key that's only held in memory (derived from a master key + tenant secret held in a control plane). Daily backups are also encrypted so nothing is ever stored as clear text. Additionally, there's also a key rotation system inplace in case a key or a disk becomes compromised.
On top of the db sits an arbitrary number of the tenants' apps. These can talk to postgres over a vsock channel relayed by the host. The apps are all based on hermit os which boot in microseconds when a request comes in. The host doesn't decrypt the traffic, instead it peeks at the incomming encrypted tcp stream to determine the sni and use that to route the request to the correct app. The guest app hold the certificate and decrypts the request (not the host). In addition the apps, like the postgres instance, has no network access by default. It is possible to green light specific domains for an app if it needs some external access. But, even this is fairly locked down. All outbound connections are mediated by the host which blocks connection attempts to non green listed domains, but crucially the host only sees the domain the guest tries to connect to. Apart from that it just relays the bytes (likely encrypted) to the IP resolved by the domain name.
Why would anyone want this? Well, the limited capabilities severely reduces the attack surface. Even if someone managed to get arbitrary code execution in one of the client apps (unlikely unless you royally screw up) they are still running under a hypervisor and would need to perform some vm escape in order to be able to set up a permanent foothold. Since the apps are unikernels there is no shell to escape to, there is no disk drive to access and no network devices attached to the guests.
The host manages the tenants' VMs and suspends the DB instance when nothing is running against it (after a ~5min delay). When a request comes in it is handed off to a running app instance. If there isn't one the VM is booted. At most, on my local laptop, this takes a second or so if the tenant is completely cold with the DB never having been started. If the DB is running, but the app is not, it takes a few microseconds to boot. Understandably one of the aims is to keep resource utilization and startup times to a minimum.
I'm preparing to open source the setup and possibly run it as a service here in Sweden. Sovereign hosting solutions out of reach of American interests seem to be talked about more and more. I need to sort out a few final issues; PTR for postgres is needed essentially to handle graceful failover and tenant load balancing. I've sketched out a way to handle the PTR, but I'm still weighing the options for how to do proper tenant assignment (and failover) to physically disparate host nodes.
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Comment on No WebGL, no AI, no bytes to spare. My new game is a 3D 90s fever dream in 1024 bytes! in ~comp
Fair enough. I don't think they are just sitting tight though. I think they are genuinely worried about AI and, like most people, not sure exactly what the right move is. That doesn't mean we should do nothing, just that it takes some time for parties etc to formulate their plans, agree on those internally, star to communicate those goals externally. Here where I live a party is divided into regional districts that are further divided into local districts. A discussion of any topic takes time to percolate through that machinery. That is partly by design, people need to get to wrestle with ideas a bit. Committing to an agenda shouldn't be up to individual politicians (though individuals can certainly champion some ideas), it ought to be done as s mandate of the party's members. Getting that mandate tend to be slow by the very nature of the organizations. This might be completely different elsewhere of course.