bme's recent activity
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Comment on A24, Sony and The New York Times circle Letterboxd as bidding starts at $300 million in ~movies
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Comment on A24, Sony and The New York Times circle Letterboxd as bidding starts at $300 million in ~movies
bme Link ParentDo you think people that start companies should be blocked from selling them to willing buyers at a fair price? Aside Monopoly/Market consolidation reasons, I don't see how this is close to...Do you think people that start companies should be blocked from selling them to willing buyers at a fair price? Aside Monopoly/Market consolidation reasons, I don't see how this is close to reasonable.
More specifically: how is it morally wrong for someone to make something and sell it on to someone else, even if the new owner won't run it as well?
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Comment on Googlebook revealed and ready for pre-order in ~tech
bme Link ParentSomehow I missed the bit about flying cars lolI am sure you are being a little flippant here but fling to device implies a knowledge in space of where other devices are. That's not easy. Unless you have some kind of always on ble mesh that everyone participates in to do network tomography and generate points in space and the devices are dense enough and diverse enough to make the derived coordinates accurate.Somehow I missed the bit about flying cars lol
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Comment on Where do we go from here? (Regarding AI) in ~tech
bme Link ParentI got my feet wet with this during the pandemic and at one point materially affected the global supply of raspberry pi 3bs! You are correct that supply chain agility, and being able to respin a...I got my feet wet with this during the pandemic and at one point materially affected the global supply of raspberry pi 3bs!
You are correct that supply chain agility, and being able to respin a board is really important when you don't have someone else financing your supply chain 6m to year in advance. The problem you then land yourself in is maintaining firmware for all of your board variants. We have been shipping "universal" bundles covering off 6 different pic micro controllers for 5 years at this point, even though we don't even use those parts any more!
More recent example: we wanted initially to use kioxia emmc. Western contract manufacturer (with global footprint, hundreds of millions in revenue) in 2025: we can maybe get you some towards the end of 2026. Move to manufacturing in the far east and all of a sudden they are just available. Now of course they are available at a price we don't want to pay, so we are looking at drastically shrinking storage to 32mib of external spi nor flash. Argh!
No blog. I'd dox myself so fast.
I wish you all the best with your endeavours, sounds cool!
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Comment on Billing for web hosting in ~comp
bme Link ParentThe thing you want to care about more than uptime monitoring imo is payment method monitoring. My greatest shame (and I think about it all the time), was I set up a website for a friend and my...The thing you want to care about more than uptime monitoring imo is payment method monitoring. My greatest shame (and I think about it all the time), was I set up a website for a friend and my card expired and I missed the email and the whole lot got nuked.
Hosting someone's site is a big deal. The tech is easy but they are entrusting you with the data, and when it's gone it's gone. How good are your backups, can you restore them blah blah.
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Comment on Where do we go from here? (Regarding AI) in ~tech
bme Link ParentThe supply chain has also gotten really weird. I don't procure directly but I am involved with parts selection for the bill of materials for let's say mid-tech consumer electronics. Lots of things...The supply chain has also gotten really weird. I don't procure directly but I am involved with parts selection for the bill of materials for let's say mid-tech consumer electronics. Lots of things can't be bought even though the initial evidence is telling you that you can. The buying is effectively monopolised among the world's largest contract manufacturers.
So even if you have all the will, unless you can fab everything someone else will always have a say in what you can get. Even commodity parts like emmc or non-cutting edge stuff like 30nm chips, low memory ics like 64mb Linux-capable SIPs.
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Comment on It breaks a village in ~comp
bme Link ParentI think the problem roughly is that AI is a multiplier, and plenty of people probably need a divider. I don't think it's additive. The damage of someone bad was limited. The limits are off now (at...I think the problem roughly is that AI is a multiplier, and plenty of people probably need a divider. I don't think it's additive. The damage of someone bad was limited. The limits are off now (at least until companies start getting charged something somewhat connected to the real costs).
I am getting far more done with far more thorough testing than previously, and I've almost got to the point where I've gotten ai generated comments to manageable.
When I hear about people talking about total collapse of projects due to ai, I mostly think they are speed running the fate they were likely to hit eventually.
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Comment on What are your current pain points with Linux? in ~tech
bme Link ParentThis is basically where I am. My Linux problems are externally imposed, mostly by hardware, mostly sleep/suspend.This is basically where I am. My Linux problems are externally imposed, mostly by hardware, mostly sleep/suspend.
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Comment on What are your current pain points with Linux? in ~tech
bme Link ParentIncredible comment sent from my NixOS laptopIncredible comment
sent from my NixOS laptop
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Comment on Your executable is a SQLite database in ~comp
bme LinkRidiculous work. So good. Honestly love it, and very on brand. I would absolutely love to see a persistent sqlite process, write lock held by a nix Daemon, readers able to enjoy lighting fast...Ridiculous work. So good. Honestly love it, and very on brand. I would absolutely love to see a persistent sqlite process, write lock held by a nix Daemon, readers able to enjoy lighting fast access to the database. It does seem like not being able to share memory is lame but if statically linked distros exist then it's at least practical if not efficient.
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Comment on Elixir Is All You Need in ~comp
bme Link ParentThe beam ecosystem is nice. I recently wrote a small sidecar to do something very boring but quite challenging to do well, and chose elixir: OTP Libcluster Nicer language than Erlang Reasonable...The beam ecosystem is nice. I recently wrote a small sidecar to do something very boring but quite challenging to do well, and chose elixir:
- OTP
- Libcluster
- Nicer language than Erlang
- Reasonable memory footprint
All of this ended up being true, but I did not leave a fan of elixir. I'd say decidedly mid as a language. Not sure what the fuss is. I think gleam looks much more pleasant, but it currently enjoys the advantage that I didn't have to do anything with it.
The thing I had to do: we run at work a couple of stateful HA systems that can tolerate loss of VM and will re-replicate the lost state. However, this is expensive in time and bandwidth. Better if you separate compute from storage (we are on Aws). So I wrote a small sidecar that scans for ebs volumes and attaches them if they exist such that a fresh VM can assume the identity of a departed VM. This gives you a stateful set on steroids. Libcluster gives you a cluster with no effort, erpc gives you instant native rpc, OTP gives you a great framework for resiliency. I am sure go + go-discover + serf probably gives you a similar-ish base, not actor mode baked in, and for a collection of simple stateful endpoints actors are perfect.
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Comment on I'm starting a small business: any advice? in ~finance
bme LinkGeneral advice: winning mostly means not losing for long enough. Avoid over extending. Almost everyone I know that has lost their shirt did it because they over-extended on a deal that went sour....General advice: winning mostly means not losing for long enough. Avoid over extending. Almost everyone I know that has lost their shirt did it because they over-extended on a deal that went sour. You can be 100% right and still get squished if you can't ride it out.
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Comment on Honey gets terminated as lawsuits proceed in ~tech
bme Link ParentIt's not (just) that. It's that they charge the retailer a bunch of fees (significantly above regular card fees). Which of course is eventually reflected in the price if enough people do it.It's not (just) that. It's that they charge the retailer a bunch of fees (significantly above regular card fees). Which of course is eventually reflected in the price if enough people do it.
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Comment on The machines are fine. I'm worried about us. in ~science
bme Link ParentI spend an embarrassing amount of time talking to Claude and the whole essay screamed Claude to me. I didn't want to say anything because it felt like turning the discussion into a bun-flight...I spend an embarrassing amount of time talking to Claude and the whole essay screamed Claude to me. I didn't want to say anything because it felt like turning the discussion into a bun-flight about authorship was less interesting that the discussion about the underlying arguments themselves.
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Comment on The machines are fine. I'm worried about us. in ~science
bme Link ParentThe reason I am phrasing it this way is because no matter what educators produce, the commercial/freemium models and harnesses are not going away. This is like sending alcoholics to hangout at the...The reason I am phrasing it this way is because no matter what educators produce, the commercial/freemium models and harnesses are not going away. This is like sending alcoholics to hangout at the bar. It will take tremendous force of will to restrict oneself to making life "harder" for themselves now for a payoff later. I cite the entirety of the brain-rotting internet as my evidence.
I think it's great though that schools are looking at building better tools though!
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Comment on The machines are fine. I'm worried about us. in ~science
bme (edited )Link ParentRight: and this is exactly the genre of argument that I say I don't agree with in my opening paragraph. I am saying that all of it is bad. It's also bad by degrees. It is not hard, even for...Right: and this is exactly the genre of argument that I say I don't agree with in my opening paragraph. I am saying that all of it is bad. It's also bad by degrees. It is not hard, even for someone with middling intelligence to follow that many liquids stain, and that many surfaces can be stained. This the basis of the preservation of human knowledge is learnable with much effort. It's not going to be as good as modern inks, or industrially produced paper, but it can sustain knowledge transfer. Try explaining even an 8bit full adder and the physical circuitry for that to most people, and that's not even the beginning of doing anything useful with a computer.
LLMs and other sufficiently complex systems are bad in the sense that responsibility becomes diffuse to the point that no one will take accountability. LLMs are not special in as much as they lie on a spectrum. We've all effectively been told "computer says no" for years. Before computers decision makers hid behind their lackeys to avoid accountability. LLMs are special in the sense that they currently represent for the tip the same shitty spear, and a step change in capability for continuing this trend. Where I think they differ from what we have seen before is the function that is being outsourced: thinking itself. In this regard I do think the medium is the message and the medium is having a profoundly negative effect on people.
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Comment on The machines are fine. I'm worried about us. in ~science
bme (edited )Link ParentThe problem I see with LLMs for teaching though is I think it takes an exceptional individual to wield an LLM and use it to increase their own understanding instead of letting it carry them. Ofc...The problem I see with LLMs for teaching though is I think it takes an exceptional individual to wield an LLM and use it to increase their own understanding instead of letting it carry them. Ofc someone could design an LLM experience/ harness explicitly around the learning loop so that it would take significant energy to hold it wrong, but that's not where the money is so I find it unlikely to be as widespread on the same timeline.
I say this as selfishly I use LLMs to do my work more efficiently and pull the ladder up behind me. We aren't hiring grads. We aren't hiring apprentices, we aren't hiring juniors. I don't know who is supposed to replace me when I go. Weird to see my generation (elder millennial) gap those below them just as hard as the ones they were complaining about 10 years prior.
EDIT: on discovering the mechanisms via which LLMs work, I agree there is progress there, I'm just not that bullish on what the possibilities are, and certainly don't think that we will bind our usage of them by our understanding of the underlying mechanics.
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Comment on The machines are fine. I'm worried about us. in ~science
bme LinkI guess the problem is that there is a very specious rebuttal that says that plato objected to writing, people flipped out about calculator usage, and computers etc and we are all fine. But we...I guess the problem is that there is a very specious rebuttal that says that plato objected to writing, people flipped out about calculator usage, and computers etc and we are all fine.
But we aren't fine. I am deeply embedded in high tech stuff and it makes me exceptionally uncomfortable how specialized our thinking has become and how disconnected we are from almost everything we use. LLMs are the next rung on the ladder of delegation, and instead of saying "it's fine, look at all the runs we've already climbed, this the natural progression of things" I feel like we should be saying "we should maybe descend a little?" It is nuts how many things your average Joe interacts with that they have zero understanding of, and it's allowing for all kinds of nasty consequences (algorithmic feeds, dynamic black box pricing with real consequences, i.e. insurance). AI labs can't really explain why models do what they do, and while they are chipping away at the problem, we are sprinting towards using them everywhere.
I feel for the young'uns. I have no idea how they will navigate this without the grace and generosity that was afforded to me when I was a teen to make mistakes without something ubiquitous and available and way smarter than me whispering answers in my ear.
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Comment on Why contacting customer service might not be best in ~life
bme (edited )Link ParentYes to a degree. But also it's very easy to say "companies should plan for contingency" and completely ignore the economics of those contingencies. Customers are price sensitive and generally...Yes to a degree. But also it's very easy to say "companies should plan for contingency" and completely ignore the economics of those contingencies. Customers are price sensitive and generally unsophisticated and so if you go out of your way to invest in contingency planning, insurance, better quality components, extra r&d, whatever. it is very hard to convince a customer to part with their money now for a benefit later (I.e. a staffed up call centre that doesn't keep you waiting with onshore staff).
There is no free lunch, and where a real market exists (I.e. multiple participants, lack of cartel behaviour) customers preferences are towards the bottom unless regulation raises the minimum bar, which is also typically not done unless the thing is safety critical. We get what we vote for, whether it be by ballot or wallet.
EDIT: on rereading your comment I'm actually not sure I'm understanding the spirit of it. So if you feel like I am responding to something you didn't write I beg forgiveness. Leaving the post up anyway.
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Comment on Control the ideas, not the code in ~comp
I can see that argument. I think where it runs into difficulty is that, the owner of a business can cease trading for any reason. Money doesn't need to change hands. Is that immoral? I don't mind the idea of trying to steer sales towards the better new owners and that money shouldn't have primacy in all things.
What if the only buyer is say a PE company, or some other company that some people might feel will make the service worse? What if the service as it stands today is unprofitable and it will require new management with the will to squeeze it more to keep it above water? Should the business just go under? Who is deciding which owners will do the right thing? To be able to brand a sale immoral requires a prediction of behaviour. I guess I'd rather than adjudicate on the character of the buyers I'd be more interested in trying to legislate or regulate the behaviour we would like from companies. We should have more b-corps.
It also seems to me that dependency is also doing a lot of heavy lifting in this argument. Letterboxd for instance seems to me like a thing that doesn't need to exist. I don't think restrictions on its sale should be given much thought at all.
Anyway, if you find any of this tiresome or obnoxious, that's not my intent. Feel free to tell me you don't find it an interesting conversation :)