delphi's recent activity

  1. Comment on I hope you don't use generative AI - an essay about my experience offering an open-source tool in ~tech

    delphi
    Link Parent
    In offence of these terrible tools: So does mine, and it's better at it. There has been good free software and the sun hasn't collapsed

    In offence of these terrible tools: So does mine, and it's better at it. There has been good free software and the sun hasn't collapsed

    13 votes

  2. Comment on I hope you don't use generative AI - an essay about my experience offering an open-source tool in ~tech

    delphi
    Link Parent
    (I have nothing to add, you're spot on, just wanted to confirm that I do in fact use they/them pronouns exclusively)

    (I have nothing to add, you're spot on, just wanted to confirm that I do in fact use they/them pronouns exclusively)

    5 votes

  3. Comment on I hope you don't use generative AI - an essay about my experience offering an open-source tool in ~tech

    delphi
    Link Parent
    It hadn't even occurred to me to think about the frame generation argument, but I suppose, sure. I don't think I have any foundational problems with it, but I do want to point out: If I make a...

    It hadn't even occurred to me to think about the frame generation argument, but I suppose, sure. I don't think I have any foundational problems with it, but I do want to point out: If I make a game, and you run it with frame generation enabled, I don't think that changes my stance on the matter or the piece itself. I've already left the room by the time you're playing it, and with something as inconsequential as inserting statistically probable frames between "real" ones, I can hardly say that my creativity as an original creator is being abstracted away.

    6 votes

  4. Comment on I hope you don't use generative AI - an essay about my experience offering an open-source tool in ~tech

    delphi
    Link Parent
    Frankly, I don't know. And I'm far from alone in this. I do believe what I said - I'd personally prefer if AI was tangentially to not at all involved in the creation of art, but like you and many...

    Frankly, I don't know. And I'm far from alone in this. I do believe what I said - I'd personally prefer if AI was tangentially to not at all involved in the creation of art, but like you and many other scholars put it, what the hell even is an "Art"? Books like 1 the Road by Ross Goodwin and his Markov Chains are unequivocally by volume mostly written by AI, by language models, and I still think it's art. But then as well, if I go to ChatGPT and ask it to "write me a story about a wizard and a talking cat", I don't really think what comes out is art in the same way.

    I guess this is about if it passes the "sniff test"? If I can see authorial intent (and my radar isn't exactly perfect here, I've been wrong about art many times), I can probably rationalise the piece, including AI's role in it. I'm not gonna name names, but a friend of mine is working on a novel that he's co-writing with an AI, and in contrast to 1 the Road, that's not the explicit point of the text. Still, while I have read passages and it's not very good in a quality sense, I can't deny that he himself put love and thought into it, and I can't really deny that it is - in a way - a form of artistic expression.

    Like I said, I don't have the answers. I know that I believe that the artist generally has a say here, and I say that delphitools isn't art, so I don't think it should be treated as such. But of course, there are degrees to this. If someone looks at that book (or 1 the Road for that matter) and calls it soulless AI slop that would be better if a human, a whole human, and nothing but a human worked on it, I'm not gonna get on my soap box and argue. Their argument is as valid as mine.

    5 votes

  5. Comment on I hope you don't use generative AI - an essay about my experience offering an open-source tool in ~tech

    delphi
    Link Parent
    Glad you enjoy it!

    Glad you enjoy it!

    10 votes

  7. Comment on Ageless Linux emerges to protest OS-level age verification laws in ~tech

    delphi
    Link Parent
    I couldn't tell you. Not the guy you're replying too, but AI generated websites have... a smell to them. You learn to spot the patterns, even if I couldn't really name them. The Ageless Linux...

    I couldn't tell you. Not the guy you're replying too, but AI generated websites have... a smell to them. You learn to spot the patterns, even if I couldn't really name them. The Ageless Linux website absolutely does not pass that sniff test, and frankly only some of the text on the page does.

    7 votes

  8. Comment on Recommended beginning soldering kits in ~hobbies

    delphi
    Link Parent
    I've heard criticism of the pinecil in my circles, and while I don't agree, they may have a point: It doesn't come with a stand, and because it gets so hot 3D printing one is out of the question,...

    I've heard criticism of the pinecil in my circles, and while I don't agree, they may have a point: It doesn't come with a stand, and because it gets so hot 3D printing one is out of the question, and you're expected to just lay that 400 degree iron on your work surface while you're not using it. Yes, it has a gyroscope to shut itself off, yes, the tip never touches the surface when you just put it down, but it's still a point worth making.

    2 votes

  9. Comment on Digg has shutdown (again) in ~tech

    delphi
    Link
    That's funny. Especially considering I did add it to my daily scroll rotation, and while it was never reddit at it's peak, it was pretty good in terms of engagement. Let's see if they want $4...

    That's funny. Especially considering I did add it to my daily scroll rotation, and while it was never reddit at it's peak, it was pretty good in terms of engagement.

    Let's see if they want $4 again when they reopen it.

    12 votes

  10. Comment on Living human brain cells play DOOM on a CL1 in ~tech

    delphi
    Link
    I for one think this is really neat. This is the research we need to better understand our own brains and how they work. I don't share a lot of the other commentator's reservations about how this...

    I for one think this is really neat. This is the research we need to better understand our own brains and how they work. I don't share a lot of the other commentator's reservations about how this is "evil" and how we should stand in horror of what this laboratory has created, but be so for real - we have no idea what consciousness is, how it works or why it does. This technology - reading neural spikes and logging their interactions with a, for lack of a better term, "controlled body", is probably the closest we'll get to a debug harness for the human brain. I really don't get why everyone's so negative about this. Are these cells conscious? If they were, what are the ethical implications? Hell, we don't know, and that's why we're doing this.

    11 votes

  11. Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative

  12. Comment on Cassini, a spiritual successor to Microsoft Paint for the iPad in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    App Review told me I had to implement finger drawing, so it's there now. Build should be on the TestFlight in an hour or so. Thought I should let you know

    App Review told me I had to implement finger drawing, so it's there now. Build should be on the TestFlight in an hour or so. Thought I should let you know

    1 vote

  13. Comment on Cassini, a spiritual successor to Microsoft Paint for the iPad in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    Well, App Review slapped my fingers with a ruler and told me to implement finger drawing. It'll be on the Testflight in an hour or so.

    Well, App Review slapped my fingers with a ruler and told me to implement finger drawing. It'll be on the Testflight in an hour or so.

  14. Comment on Looking for vibe-coding guides (best practices, etc.) in ~tech

    delphi
    Link
    In the underwater survival video game Subnautica, you can eventually get access to the PRAWN Suit, a mecha that lets you go far deeper into the ocean than you could before. When you first...
    • Exemplary

    In the underwater survival video game Subnautica, you can eventually get access to the PRAWN Suit, a mecha that lets you go far deeper into the ocean than you could before. When you first construct it, the in-game computer tells you that it's normal to feel a sense of limitless power when first putting the suit on, and that the months of training suit operators usually get is not to learn how to pilot the thing, but to understand that you're not invincible in it. Claude Code works the same way.

    Boris Cherny, the creator of Claude Code, was on a podcast the other day and said that Claude Code had "largely solved coding". He's not wrong. It has. The code Claude writes is better than the code I could write, in a fraction of the time. But that doesn't mean it's good, or better than me, at software engineering. It isn't just telling the computer what to do, it encompasses design, figuring out what needs to be done or what you'd like to do, thinking about problems abstractly, laying out possible ways to solve those problems, learning why some solve attempts don't work, and taking all that knowledge with you to the next problem. This is largely conceptual, and it's what STEM education tries to impart.

    If you sit down with Claude and tell it to make an app, you probably won't have a great time. Like every tool, you need to know how to use it properly, and in the case of an agentic tool that writes code for you, you need to know (in broad terms) how to solve the problems you present to the agent.

    Specifics here: Plan, plan, plan. I mean this literally. I have great success in taking paper and sketching out my app, figuring out what should go where, what features it should have and most notably why it should have them. Claude is best when it thinks like you do, and you have to get it to that place of understanding. If possible and you know enough about the platform to do this yourself, write the plan, pitch and claude.md files yourself, in as much detail as you can, including your reasoning, and of course you have to (name drop) show your work.

    Claude won't do a good job at graphic design most of the time since that can't really be done with just text, so use images to your advantage. Wireframe and mock up the app you want, feed it screenshots, inspiration. Remember: To work correctly, your thought processes must be in sync with the "thought processes" of the LLM.

    If you encounter nasty bugs, I've had great success with asking Claude to tell me how I can help. It'll then put in debug logging, which might mean little to you but gives it proper context, especially because it can't access things like a browser console or a debugger in most cases.

    Documentation is of course your friend. Ideally, write the docs yourself, but if that's not practical, ask Claude to use its Memory system to save insights about quirks in the code base or sturdy bugs.

    On a new platform this might be difficult, but it's generally best practice to at least understand the code it generates. Not line by line, necessarily, but roughly have an idea of what parts are where and what they do. Again, being in sync with your agent works both ways.

    If you don't have much experience in software engineering as a whole, I suggest reading about it. You don't need to have a CS degree, but reading the basics and maybe playing games that gamify programming (like Shenzhen I/O, EXAPUNKS and TIS-100 by Zachtronics) will help you sharpen those logic skills. Yes, no programming language will work like those games do exactly, but they will help in the conceptualisation of a problem, how to split it up, and how to (generally) solve it.

    And please, don't jump into a large project. Make a wordle clone first or something, just to dip your toes in. Start slow. PRAWN Suit Claude Code operators receive weeks of training to counteract the feeling of invincibility that comes with the tool. You will have to make do with self-discipline.

    46 votes

  15. Comment on Cassini, a spiritual successor to Microsoft Paint for the iPad in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    Using a bunch of exclusive SwiftUI methods that require 26, but I could conceivably port it to macOS. No promises though

    Using a bunch of exclusive SwiftUI methods that require 26, but I could conceivably port it to macOS. No promises though

    2 votes

  16. Comment on Cassini, a spiritual successor to Microsoft Paint for the iPad in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    I might add a toggle to the setup menu, but it's really a pencil first app. I'll let you know when/if I do

    I might add a toggle to the setup menu, but it's really a pencil first app. I'll let you know when/if I do

  17. Comment on Cassini, a spiritual successor to Microsoft Paint for the iPad in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    Even then there's sometimes very odd edge cases, like apps that don't scale properly or act weird on larger displays. Not that the iPad way of forcing an iPhone simulation for unsupported apps is...

    Even then there's sometimes very odd edge cases, like apps that don't scale properly or act weird on larger displays. Not that the iPad way of forcing an iPhone simulation for unsupported apps is necessarily a better idea, but it's definitely not as janky as some screens i've seen on android (Instagram on folding displays, anyone?)

    2 votes

  18. Comment on Cassini, a spiritual successor to Microsoft Paint for the iPad in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    High praise! Thank you, it means a lot. I gotta be honest - the indie app scene is the main reason I switched to the iPhone in the first place. Android tablets are just hateful, the app situation...

    High praise! Thank you, it means a lot. I gotta be honest - the indie app scene is the main reason I switched to the iPhone in the first place. Android tablets are just hateful, the app situation is awful and I can't fault developers for not wanting to support such a badly fragmented platform with unique and beautiful apps when every skin of android can break that easily.

    3 votes

  19. Comment on Cassini, a spiritual successor to Microsoft Paint for the iPad in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    It was, even apps like DPaint on the Amiga had variable canvas sizes, but the fixed canvas in Cassini is 1. I think a fun limitation to work around and 2. makes the design of the virtual "device"...

    It was, even apps like DPaint on the Amiga had variable canvas sizes, but the fixed canvas in Cassini is 1. I think a fun limitation to work around and 2. makes the design of the virtual "device" more consistent

    7 votes

  20. Comment on Cassini, a spiritual successor to Microsoft Paint for the iPad in ~creative

    delphi
    Link Parent
    Thank you very much! Yeah, Pencil support is mandatory, mainly because I want to encourage precise pixel placement - I feel like the pixel tool and the brushes at 1x or 2x would be unusable with...

    Thank you very much! Yeah, Pencil support is mandatory, mainly because I want to encourage precise pixel placement - I feel like the pixel tool and the brushes at 1x or 2x would be unusable with the finger.

    3 votes