bme's recent activity
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Comment on Slate Auto to offer modular electric vehicle pickup for $20k with EV Tax Credit in ~transport
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Comment on Slate Auto to offer modular electric vehicle pickup for $20k with EV Tax Credit in ~transport
bme Link ParentBut $50k is nowhere near the cost of installing a fast charger. A nice model from alpitronics is more like 4x that. Then there is the site cost, and any extras for grid interconnect upgrades. 4...But $50k is nowhere near the cost of installing a fast charger. A nice model from alpitronics is more like 4x that. Then there is the site cost, and any extras for grid interconnect upgrades. 4 stations is multiple millions.
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Comment on Utah's shrinking lake: a scientific asset and a crisis in ~enviro
bme LinkI didn't realise ~enviro was twinned with r/atheistcirclejerk.I didn't realise ~enviro was twinned with r/atheistcirclejerk.
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Comment on ‘It’s shameful’: New York’s elite lash out at Zohran Mamdani’s second-home tax in ~finance
bme Link ParentI think the great beauty of tildes is people disagreeing and it being fine! It is absolutely true that getting capital is harder if you go a different route. In the first instance though most...I think the great beauty of tildes is people disagreeing and it being fine!
It is absolutely true that getting capital is harder if you go a different route. In the first instance though most funding comes from friends, fools, and family, followed by angels. None of these people need to be sophisticated investors, you don't need to give up control or voting rights to them, you just have to work harder at getting smaller cheques. If you want effectively two or three people to bankroll you then sure, they are going to want a big say, but that seems reasonable to me? I think there is a generally a lack of imagination when it comes to building businesses today. I will stick to tech because it's what I know, but I see criminally profligate spending all of the time, from people that could have taken small cheques, grown sustainably, and retained as a consequence significantly more control over their businesses. It generally seems that almost no one wants to start small. Well if you want to start big you either need to accept someone else's terms, or have a bunch of money yourself. See my other comment as to why I think co-ops don't actually work out in practice. Either the overhead of decision making will cause you get lapped by someone more nimble, or there is in fact some hierarchy, someone is calling the shots and the group is in denial.
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Comment on ‘It’s shameful’: New York’s elite lash out at Zohran Mamdani’s second-home tax in ~finance
bme Link ParentPerhaps bully is too strong a word, but I think a lot of people default state of being is sitting on the couch absorbing entertainment. We all know it's "bad" and yet that is where the trendline...Perhaps bully is too strong a word, but I think a lot of people default state of being is sitting on the couch absorbing entertainment. We all know it's "bad" and yet that is where the trendline seems to be inexorably heading. It would be nice to find some way to go back in time, but I don't know how we wouldn't end up in the same place. I enjoyed this article that was linked on lobste.rs.
Also, it is very exhausting and difficult for the brain to maintain cooperative organizations in the modern day.
I think it's always been hard. I think the hierarchy always exists and it is at its peak worst when it tries to pretend like it doesn't. If you break down trying to get things done into mostly a mathematical problem of forming consensus then basically every distributed system either gives up efficiency or basically elects a leader by consensus and the replicates its decisions to the rest of the group (see flexible paxos / raft / VSR for various protocols). Communication has a cost. You can also see those dynamics at play if you look at the mythical man month and ahmdal's law.
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Comment on ‘It’s shameful’: New York’s elite lash out at Zohran Mamdani’s second-home tax in ~finance
bme Link ParentGeneral comments about generational wealth: I am very pro big inheritance tax, fwiw. It is also true that having access to better education, opportunities etc does grant the talent to run shit....General comments about generational wealth: I am very pro big inheritance tax, fwiw. It is also true that having access to better education, opportunities etc does grant the talent to run shit. Not having these things means that you can't. My comment isn't about what's fair it's simply a rail against the general sentiment that leadership / management across the board is contributing nothing, and is preventing the people from living their own unmolested lives and that everything would keep ticking along without intervention.
On computers / merit. People treat you like an expert because you are. You could have chosen to not engage with computers. You didn't absorb this by osmosis. You could have done anything else. You would be worse off.
[I also imagine that we probably have a lot more in common that not. I got my start on computers because my dad managed to convince his boss that he needed a 286 at home which he absolutely did not, and I needed to boot from dos to get quake to run, and so on].
On shitty companies: yes. Push back: the idea that if that capital swapped hands and went to the public sector it would somehow be immediately deployed usefully and efficiently is also straying into the realms of fantasy, because the same shit heels climbing to the top of the private sector also climb to the top of the public sector. I am currently watching the guardians of the NHS sign away all of our patient data to Palantir.
On the framing that the rich are doing us all a favour: agree. Companies employ people precisely because they believe the people that they employ produce more economic value than they are paying them. This wasn't the framing that I was going for. I agree that they're in it for themselves. What I am saying is that the relation is symbiotic. I disagree with idea that everyone could be be better off if they quit and did their own thing (which maybe you aren't actively arguing, but that seems to be the corollary of your original "they don't add anything" statement).
Thank you for the thoughtful response.
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Comment on ‘It’s shameful’: New York’s elite lash out at Zohran Mamdani’s second-home tax in ~finance
bme Link ParentFirst of all: I applaud extra tax on extra homes. That said The general idea that people just spontaneously produce good outcomes left to themselves is trivially debunked by the lack of worker...First of all: I applaud extra tax on extra homes. That said
These assholes don't "provide" anything. They pay as low of a market rate as they can in exchange for labor. It would be much more appropriate to say that the people who work for him provide a lot of labor to him.
The general idea that people just spontaneously produce good outcomes left to themselves is trivially debunked by the lack of worker cooperatives competing in the market. If zero value was being provided outside the people at the extreme leaves of a company why does anyone work for them? I really don't get it. Nothing is stopping anyone from bandying together. I get that you are going are probably going to point at union busting at larger companies and other egregious anti competitive behaviour in certain markets from large multi-nationals, but there is still a ton of space all over the place for people to do their anarchist vegan co-op thing and control the means of production themselves. People in aggregate are shitty. They need to be bullied and cajoled to get anything done. The average person is simply not that interested in doing much of anything productive, and left to their own devices has no clue whatsoever how to fend for themselves or make anything at all. I realise that's probably a little too cynical a take for most, but that general baseline of incompetence is what allows such a belligerent capital class to exist. We can't opt-out because we collectively lack the skills and will to do it. Having worked at just about every level from mcdonalds, to supermarkets, to investment banking (software), startups, faang, and finally to being on the board of my own thing the most exhausting thing has never been the work, it's the endless stream of shitty selfish behaviour at every level. The communist man doesn't exist. He never has. He never will.
I am the first in my family to have an level of university education at all (dad orphan and mum from solidly working class background), I have paid off the entirety of my student loans myself, I have been working to pay for my education since I was 16, I have given 7 days a week / 365 days a year for 4 years straight to build something interesting and because I am white and male I am regularly told that apparently this was handed to me on a plate, and I don't provide "anything" and that by having the temerity to compensated more highly than the people that we employ I am stealing from them, that the company should be a cooperative. We have an options pool, we'll probably mint a few millionaires out of the early starters. Still I am told that it's not enough, I need to be more generous, as they go on holiday, enjoy dinners with their families etc, while I work.
I'm not saying anyone is a saint, but this idea that there is some morally superior working class being oppressed and abused by the immoral incompetent rich who achieve nothing of their own merit, and who provide nothing is simplistic, boring, and wrong.
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Comment on Linux privilege escalation (CVE-2026-31431) in ~comp
bme LinkFeels good to be able to write a nix expression to assert that the kernel isn't vulnerable and move on with your day.Feels good to be able to write a nix expression to assert that the kernel isn't vulnerable and move on with your day.
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Comment on What steps can the average user do to secure their data privacy? in ~tech
bme Link ParentI am saying that none of this shit pays for itself. It's not free to live a life worried about this stuff, full of little tech rituals that are so easily bypassed. You may as well keep crystals on...I am saying that none of this shit pays for itself. It's not free to live a life worried about this stuff, full of little tech rituals that are so easily bypassed. You may as well keep crystals on top of your computer and charge them every day with incantations. For every hour spent improving your online privacy posture you could have been enjoying your life.
I have multiple yubikeys, self host my own password manager blah blah. Maybe i'm just old, but my phone never stops ringing because one CV had my phone number of it 15 years ago. Multiple credit agencies have been breached with my records on them, my bank force swapping my account to a rewards account, now all my transaction history is fair game according to the t&cs. It's a full time job to try and keep in front of it and you will fail. It's not defeatist to say you can't fly. You've got a better chance of sprouting wings than not having your data bought and sold to the point that you may have well done nothing.
I would rather have expended all that energy somewhere else, possibly in political activism, I dunno.
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Comment on What steps can the average user do to secure their data privacy? in ~tech
bme LinkI hate to say give up, but I don't really see how you can do anything about it. Let's assume you disengage from everything, everyone is still selling everything about you that they can, credit...I hate to say give up, but I don't really see how you can do anything about it. Let's assume you disengage from everything, everyone is still selling everything about you that they can, credit records, property records, renting, mortgages, bank transactions. Unless you want to actually do cash only, and live in a squat or something, it's really hard to have many eyes on a reasonable slice of your life.
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Comment on Interresting Reddit/Discord alternative : surikata.app in ~tech
bme Link ParentMany people are completely off the mark about the skill level of humans when it comes to coding, and completely delusional about most people's ability to reason adversarially and understand...Many people are completely off the mark about the skill level of humans when it comes to coding, and completely delusional about most people's ability to reason adversarially and understand security. I don't know that AI right now is making things net better, because AI is now allowing even more people who have no clue what they are doing to connect code to the internet but I regularly have interactions with claude / gemini that are way more helpful (especially review) than a typical interaction with another dev. Doesn't make me pleased to say that, but it's true.
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Comment on Which Linux distro do you use, and why? in ~tech
bme Link ParentFlake deps: imo flake deps are mostly lies. In order to not have 1000 instances of nixpkgs everyone is using follows. If you do that then morally you may as well have just taken pkgs as an...Flake deps: imo flake deps are mostly lies. In order to not have 1000 instances of nixpkgs everyone is using follows. If you do that then morally you may as well have just taken pkgs as an argument, it's the same thing.
After that you obviously still want some pinning. Well there are loads of tools for that like npins or nixtamal. You don't need to give up pinning if you give up flakes.
Brought to you by the league of anti-flake revolutionaries. Sometimes it is hard to convince claude to join the cause.
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Comment on Which Linux distro do you use, and why? in ~tech
bme Link ParentThat makes sense. I think for nix boilerplate where the only thing you are learning is the names of some symbols LLM efficient.That makes sense. I think for nix boilerplate where the only thing you are learning is the names of some symbols LLM efficient.
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Comment on Which Linux distro do you use, and why? in ~tech
bme Link ParentHa. Only the system hardcode: you know that's a flakes thing? There are some of us that have feelings about flakes. If you use "classic" nix, you just ignore it and builtins.currentSystem just...Ha. Only the system hardcode: you know that's a flakes thing? There are some of us that have feelings about flakes. If you use "classic" nix, you just ignore it and builtins.currentSystem just handles it. Flakes also basically have no story at all on cross compilation which is what got me into nix in the first place (building stuff for embedded).
Anyway, I don't know if this is a useful comment, but I live in the nix repl. You can do so much cool stuff there! Want to explore the source of some some code?
:b pkgs.foo.src. want to read the source of some nix thing?:p pkgs.foo.meta.position. Want to dynamically inspect your options?nixos-rebuild repl -f whatever, and from there you can see both the real configured value of each option, all merged declaration sites, and all options definition sites for your config including your own options, and third party modules etc. The repl is really underrated in the community at large imo. Also a great way to try out a small expression and see what it evals to, and ofc you can always load up a file with whatever you have and play with it.Thanks for replying to my nosey comment! I enjoyed your essay. I also agree that nix lacks many conveniences for programming in the large that make it super annoying.
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Comment on Which Linux distro do you use, and why? in ~tech
bme Link ParentTake a look at nix-ld. You can also get quite far with patchelf / the auto patch hook if you have patience for looking at the output of ldd. Especially relevant with gui tools that link Wayland or...Take a look at nix-ld. You can also get quite far with patchelf / the auto patch hook if you have patience for looking at the output of ldd. Especially relevant with gui tools that link Wayland or whatever.
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Comment on That one study that proves developers using AI are deluded in ~tech
bme Link ParentThanks for the insight (I have some hooks, I wouldn't say I've mastered the art of them yet though!).Thanks for the insight (I have some hooks, I wouldn't say I've mastered the art of them yet though!).
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Comment on That one study that proves developers using AI are deluded in ~tech
bme Link ParentI forgot about this. Do you have a hand off skill you'd recommend? There seem to be a lot floating about. Since this post I have written a patch skill which works pretty well but I always have to...I forgot about this. Do you have a hand off skill you'd recommend? There seem to be a lot floating about. Since this post I have written a patch skill which works pretty well but I always have to activate it manually.
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Comment on Which Linux distro do you use, and why? in ~tech
bme Link ParentCurious about the LLM aspect of it. I probably am on slightly deeper than most to nixos (commercial codebase, hundreds of instances 10s of kloc supporting nix code). I got my start with the...Curious about the LLM aspect of it. I probably am on slightly deeper than most to nixos (commercial codebase, hundreds of instances 10s of kloc supporting nix code). I got my start with the project documentation ~ 3 years ago via the nix pills guide + nixpkgs manual. It seemed really comprehensive at the time and since then we got nix.dev which basically seems to answer 90% of the questions I see on the subreddit complaining about the docs.
I think i'm firmly in the minority of people that think that the docs are any good. Do you ever use them or is it LLM all the way?
Feel free to ignore, I'm just being nosey. NixOS 4 lyfe gang sign.
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Comment on I miss technology that was meant to be used as a tool in ~tech
bme Link ParentI hope my response didn't come across as thought-terminating, I was trying to be empathetic :) It's something I think about a lot. There does seem to be a big paradox. Everyone has their gripes...I hope my response didn't come across as thought-terminating, I was trying to be empathetic :)
It's something I think about a lot. There does seem to be a big paradox. Everyone has their gripes about technology, but I know basically no one that will cede an ounce of convenience for anything!
For instance, many gamers hate the way gaming is, but they do nothing but feed the industries worst excesses. Why tf is anyone spending even one penny on cs or valorant skins? People complain about the endless treadmill of modern warfare games, but buy them nevertheless. EVERYONE, complains endlessly about windows, but will not consider for a second that the fact that they will not countenance running Linux at all (because then they won't be able to run some live service dollar extraction machine with kernel level anti cheat) is the very reason Microsoft continues to treat them like rubes.
Phones continue to be be massive persistent privacy violations, but suggesting to anyone that they take a hit on specs or battery life to get some of the spyware out of their pocket is met with derision.
I don't have an answer, because when I see something is bs, I don't buy it, especially if it is a luxury. I opted out of windows around windows 7 because even then it was too much. I really believe in voting with my wallet in favour of user choice / freedom and sadly it seems to be a bit of a rarity.
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Comment on I miss technology that was meant to be used as a tool in ~tech
bme (edited )LinkThe problem is that most people could not care less (to your point about user acceptance), and so you are actively punished by your competitors and audience if you spend extra money on making...The problem is that most people could not care less (to your point about user acceptance), and so you are actively punished by your competitors and audience if you spend extra money on making something better.
The cream does not tend to rise to the top. There is also the other aspect which is that when you make something user serviceable then users try to service it. Unless you spend significant effort on making this foolproof then they will screw it up and then you are in a warranty fight potentially. AI has made this all worse. Service teams are being overwhelmed with AI slop on every communication citing non -applicable law, and it costs the author nothing, but is a huge distraction away from customers with actual problems.
It's even worse when you have to interoperate with something else. For instance the standard for AC charging your EV at home is really simple, but car OEM firmware is largely full of bugs that I have spent way too long working around. They don't answer the phone, we do. We supply telematics and detailed diagnostics, they typically don't. Who is punished? Whose CS reps get yelled at? Customers on the whole have no sense of taste or smell or technical ability and are ruled by black boxes they don't understand and the current market is a direct consequence of that.
(Work in manufacturing a b2c hardware product with a significant software component)
Most charging should take place at home (assuming you have a driveway / dedicated parking). Where I live that's absolutely true. No grid upgrade required, it can all happen over night at a rate that's kinder to your battery and can be coordinated with your energy provider to allow the most amount of charging to happen on the limited infra that we have, allowing for a smoother and more realistic grid upgrade cadence.
It isn't feasible to stick fast charging everywhere. It's bad for the grid, expensive, and leads to worse outcomes for the vehicle. Most people (again UK, but average commutes in the US while longer are typically not more than the range of an EV) can use an L2 charger at home just fine. I monitor a fleet of hundreds of thousands of L2 chargers, most people are charging twice a week overnight. 90% of the fleet is idle at any given time. If you are doing hundreds and hundreds of miles a day I would say an EV is currently the wrong fit, and at most a hybrid makes sense.