em-dash's recent activity
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Comment on AI Coding agents are the opposite of what I want in ~comp
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Comment on AI Coding agents are the opposite of what I want in ~comp
em-dash Link ParentInteresting. I think it's actually the opposite for me: the turning point for me becoming okay with LLM coding was realizing that I don't really enjoy writing code when it's work stuff I don't...Interesting. I think it's actually the opposite for me: the turning point for me becoming okay with LLM coding was realizing that I don't really enjoy writing code when it's work stuff I don't care about.
My personal projects are still all hand-written because those are the things I'm choosing to work on for fun.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
em-dash Link Parent(Haven't played since posting this, so I've gained no new information.) I was already pretty sure it's the Eye I'm warping to, yeah. There's a weird alien input device taking three of something,...(Haven't played since posting this, so I've gained no new information.)
I was already pretty sure it's the Eye I'm warping to, yeah. There's a weird alien input device taking three of something, and I've only seen that kind of thing in one place and there were three of them.What makes me suspect there's more to it is that I don't know much about the Eye itself, what it is or does. I think I've been there while riding on the Quantum Moon (I made it to the living Nomai at the end), but I think you still die if the sun blows up while you're there? Which suggests that "just be at the Eye" isn't the goal in itself, there's either something to do there or that's not actually where I'm going.
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Comment on 3D printers, do you use glue stick? in ~hobbies
em-dash LinkI do not. I kind of didn't realize that was still a thing. My main textured plate is coated with ABS juice, and that seems to last long enough that I don't need to care anymore. I switch to a...I do not. I kind of didn't realize that was still a thing.
My main textured plate is coated with ABS juice, and that seems to last long enough that I don't need to care anymore. I switch to a smooth plate for plastics that specifically adhere better to that.
(In one memorable large ABS print, ABS juice was so strong that it still allowed the print to warp but it pulled the whole steel sheet up off the magnet with it and continued printing on top of the now-taco-shaped bed.)
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
em-dash LinkI picked up Outer Wilds again last night, having gotten pretty far the last time I played but didn't finish it before my I-feel-like-gaming mood wore off. The friend who recommended it to me...I picked up Outer Wilds again last night, having gotten pretty far the last time I played but didn't finish it before my I-feel-like-gaming mood wore off. The friend who recommended it to me started another playthrough, and that got me wanting to continue it.
details on my playthrough, provided for the amusement of those who have already finished it, not a request for hints or anything
I think I know what to do but I don't know if there's more game after this. I found an ending early on but not the real ending, so I don't know if this is another instance of that:
First time: blundered my way into Ash Twin, correctly determined that this was the thing causing the time loop, pulled the warp core to shut it off, then awkwardly waited around for the end of the cycle because I had not even discovered meditation yet. This did not stop the sun from exploding. It did roll the credits afterward.
Now: grabbing the warp core, but using it to power the Vessel and warp away from impending doom. But I have also now learned all the stars are exploding, so there may not be a safe place to warp to?
Meta-ish: I really like this sort of gradual-discovery game, but I seem to have a very narrow window of difficulty between "so easy I don't feel like I've actually accomplished anything and may as well have just read the fan wiki" and "so difficult I am missing too much detail to enjoy the game at all", and that window seems to shift around over time, so it's hard to find games that really click with my brain. It's frustrating, but I can at least embrace it when it does happen, and get the nice fuzzy brain feelings from getting so immersed in something for a bit.
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Comment on Suggest media in which the antagonist is an idea or an abstract concept rather than a person or intelligent entity in ~talk
em-dash Link ParentThe antagonist is an event, which you first become aware of 22 minutes into the game. I tried to provide more detail than that but this game really is that hard to talk about.The antagonist is an event, which you first become aware of 22 minutes into the game.
I tried to provide more detail than that but this game really is that hard to talk about.
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Comment on Introducing EmDash — the spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentI picked this name back when em dashes were still cool and I am NOT GOING TO GIVE IT UP NOWI picked this name back when em dashes were still cool and I am NOT GOING TO GIVE IT UP NOW
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Comment on Introducing EmDash — the spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security in ~tech
em-dash LinkI will not stand for this slander. Seriously though, I've never really understood the "what if we based our site on blogging software but with a bunch of plugins to make it pretend it's something...I will not stand for this slander.
Seriously though, I've never really understood the "what if we based our site on blogging software but with a bunch of plugins to make it pretend it's something else" approach to websites (or worse, web applications). Why did Wordpress, of all things, become the standard for Making A Website, instead of a static site generator (if your company has an appropriate nerd available) or some modernized FrontPage thing (if not)?
I'm suddenly kind of curious which way the cause and effect relationship goes between this and companies structuring their SEO keyword spam pages specifically as blogs, which has also always seemed weird to me.
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Comment on Welcome to a multidimensional economic disaster - the AI boom wasn’t built for the polycrisis (gifted lnk) in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentCorrect! As I understand it, bitcoin ASICs were the same sort of thing: not actually specific to bitcoin, just optimized for doing the one computationally expensive part bitcoin happens to rely...Correct!
As I understand it, bitcoin ASICs were the same sort of thing: not actually specific to bitcoin, just optimized for doing the one computationally expensive part bitcoin happens to rely heavily on (hash algorithms) over everything else.
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Comment on Welcome to a multidimensional economic disaster - the AI boom wasn’t built for the polycrisis (gifted lnk) in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentBecause if you dig deep enough, it's all just doing simple math on really big arrays of numbers. All of the advancements we've had over the entire lifetime of the technology are just variations on...I was really confused as to how they could do that
Because if you dig deep enough, it's all just doing simple math on really big arrays of numbers. All of the advancements we've had over the entire lifetime of the technology are just variations on "what if we arranged the arrays a bit differently?" or "what if we had a wrapper program that did something relatively computationally easy with the numbers going in or out?"
(Which is why GPUs: 3D graphics is another thing that mostly involves doing lots of math on arrays of numbers, so that's what GPUs are optimized for on the inside.)
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Comment on Reddit will implement human verification to tag and combat bots in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentNot even that. Security Enthusiasts might get mad at you for not using encrypted storage, but there's nothing about the way passkeys work that would stop you from just generating a private key...This does nothing other than verify you have a separate device or service to store the passkey.
Not even that. Security Enthusiasts might get mad at you for not using encrypted storage, but there's nothing about the way passkeys work that would stop you from just generating a private key right there at the top of
spambot.jsand saving it in a text file. The whole idea of using a passkey as proof of humanity is so nonsequitur that it doesn't even qualify as "laughable".(Of course it's all doable in software. What else can they do, demand you compute an HMAC with paper and pencil?)
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Comment on What non-software jobs exist for a newly graduated CS major? in ~life
em-dash Link ParentThe thing it excels at is the sort of code where you can verify it's correct by just running it and looking at what it does. (This is also why people like using TDD with it; it turns lots of...I've had a somewhat hard time integrating it into my workflow just because fiddling with Emacs to make everything gel is one of my many personal hells,
The thing it excels at is the sort of code where you can verify it's correct by just running it and looking at what it does. (This is also why people like using TDD with it; it turns lots of problems that don't fit that description into "verify it's correct by running [the tests] and looking at [whether they fail]".)
That is, if you're going to do AI code, have you tried having it fiddle with emacs for you? (In a separate file that you load from init.el, perhaps, if you don't want it messing with your init.el directly.)
(Saying this makes me wonder if I can get it to beat emacs into working well for me. I love the idea of it but hate the implementation.)
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Comment on Does anyone want to buy an unused Pixel 10? in ~tech
em-dash Linkooh, I've been wanting to switch to GrapheneOS, this sounds grea-- -- oh okay then. Is it not unlockable with the usual fastboot fiddling?ooh, I've been wanting to switch to GrapheneOS, this sounds grea--
This Pixel 10 is boot-loader locked and I use GrapheneOS
-- oh okay then.
Is it not unlockable with the usual fastboot fiddling?
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Comment on Commonly misspelled words quiz in ~humanities.languages
em-dash Link ParentEnglish is defined by consensus, so if enough of us spell "pronounciation" that way, eventually it will be declared correct! (I'm aware of the "correct" spelling but I think it is dumb so I...English is defined by consensus, so if enough of us spell "pronounciation" that way, eventually it will be declared correct!
(I'm aware of the "correct" spelling but I think it is dumb so I insistently "misspell" it on purpose)
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Comment on Your AI Slop Bores Me: Larp as an AI by answering prompts as a human in ~tech
em-dash Link ParentThe last time I saw this making the rounds, a bunch of edgy 4chan types found it soon afterward and ruined the fun, as they do. I am glad to see they've added some form of moderation since then.The last time I saw this making the rounds, a bunch of edgy 4chan types found it soon afterward and ruined the fun, as they do. I am glad to see they've added some form of moderation since then.
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Comment on The secretive company filling video game sites with gambling and AI in ~games
em-dash Link ParentAh, you're also in that channel :) I am fascinated. I read their paper, and it makes sense, in much the same way as the proof that you can sum all the positive integers and get a negative...Ah, you're also in that channel :)
I am fascinated. I read their paper, and it makes sense, in much the same way as the proof that you can sum all the positive integers and get a negative fraction: none of the intermediate steps are obviously wrong, but the conclusion goes against my priors so hard that I still have trouble accepting it.
I have resolved the cognitive dissonance for now by accepting that I have no fucking idea what sentience even is, and therefore no idea whether any of these bots have it.
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Comment on Swedish heavy metal band Avatar cancel London concert mid-performance after the stage at Exhibition White City became electrified, shocking two crew members in ~music
em-dash Link ParentThey're generally grounded (through the bridge) so they don't function as giant antennas. This does depend on whatever you ground them to being... actually grounded, though.They're generally grounded (through the bridge) so they don't function as giant antennas. This does depend on whatever you ground them to being... actually grounded, though.
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Comment on Any software engineers considering a career switch due to AI? in ~comp
em-dash LinkI am so very tired of this nonsense. It has crossed my mind to leave the field, but I don't know what else I'd do. I got lucky in that I am very good at something that people will give me lots of...I am so very tired of this nonsense. It has crossed my mind to leave the field, but I don't know what else I'd do. I got lucky in that I am very good at something that people will give me lots of money for. I don't expect to have high chances at doing that for a second career.
It's frustrating to watch, because I empathize with the boosters. I like the idea of a development tool so high-level that non-engineers can use it effectively. But every time it's been tried, the result has been another thing engineers use, and usually don't particularly like using: COBOL, UML, low/no-code platforms, and now this. I like the idea of a tool that automates stuff I don't feel like doing, but it has to actually effectively do that. If I wanted another tech stack I had to babysit I'd just spin up another homeassistant instance.
I try again every few months, but I still haven't gotten results out of any of these tools that reach my standards of "I am comfortable submitting this as finished work". The most I'd trust them with is scripts I run once, verify the output, and throw away. The quality of the fully-vibe-coded software I've seen suggests that other people aren't getting significantly better results, they just have lower standards.
So I am optimistic that the fad will last just long enough that when the bubble pops and it's no longer cost-effective to run these things, I'll be one of the relatively few who remembers how to write code the normal way. Until then, I shall suffer through it.
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Comment on Any software engineers considering a career switch due to AI? in ~comp
em-dash Link ParentMy company is... more optimistic about AI than I would like, but isn't forcing it on employees who don't find it useful. These jobs still exist, at least for now. I have heard horror stories from...My company is... more optimistic about AI than I would like, but isn't forcing it on employees who don't find it useful. These jobs still exist, at least for now.
I have heard horror stories from friends, though. Several of them have AI tool adoption as a metric they've been told to optimize for, which is maddeningly backwards. Some of their bosses have "engineers don't read code anymore" as an explicit goal.
I miss when blockchains were the hot new thing everyone was trying to shove into their products.
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Comment on Passing question about LLMs and the Tech Singularity in ~tech
em-dash LinkThe problem with that is LLMs don't have source code in the way that would be meaningful here. You have a program that provides an interface, of course, but the "running the LLM" part of that...The problem with that is LLMs don't have source code in the way that would be meaningful here. You have a program that provides an interface, of course, but the "running the LLM" part of that program consists of loading a really big array of numbers and doing math on them. The array is just data, not code, but that's the part where the "thinking" happens, to the extent these things think.
You can (and people definitely do) use the LLM to generate increasingly fancy wrappers around this process, but it doesn't make them smarter.
My job is the thing I do to make people give me money, which I then spend on doing the things I actually want to do. I optimize heavily for low (time+stress):money ratio‚ and seek enjoyment and fulfillment elsewhere.
I do prefer certain types of work (interesting puzzles > arguing with CSS) but that's a secondary goal within a job, not something I would switch jobs over.
on burnout, depression, and how I got here
The shortest tenure I've ever had at a job was also the only job I've actively cared about beyond this purely transactional mindset. I left finance tech and moved over to education tech. But that care led me to accept far more of a time and stress commitment than I would have for any other job, and I did not handle it well. By the end of the one year I worked there, I burned out hard. I quit and took a few months off, and now I'm back to relatively boring business-y software. There's only so much emotion I can put into it, and that limits how badly it can hurt me.
This is, of course, a terribly depressing way to look at things. I certainly don't claim anyone else should actively try to feel this way. If you don't, I'm legitimately happy for you and I hope you stay that way.
But for me specifically, it's a mental health self-preservation thing.