mawelborn's recent activity
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Comment on The vast majority ~90% of us only consume, never post and never comment. So come on in, leave a tildes-worthy comment, and join the 10% my dear lurker in ~talk
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Comment on The America Party in ~society
mawelborn (edited )Link ParentI think it speaks volumes when cryptocurrency scams are so endemic to your desired demographic that you have to put a disclaimer at the top saying you haven't issued one. (Yet anyway. I'm reading...I think it speaks volumes when cryptocurrency scams are so endemic to your desired demographic that you have to put a disclaimer at the top saying you haven't issued one. (Yet anyway. I'm reading that last sentence as there will be a coin announced for this.)
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Comment on The rise of Whatever in ~tech
mawelborn Link ParentYes? It absolutely is. And if I had an experienced C# dev on my team I would have. In fact it's the kind of narrow, succinct question I'd like to be asked by another developer--already...Yes? It absolutely is. And if I had an experienced C# dev on my team I would have. In fact it's the kind of narrow, succinct question I'd like to be asked by another developer--already interrogated and reduced to its simplest form.
And I did ask in the context of a file, but the rest of the file is just
usingdirectives and the enclosing namespace / utils class. There's nothing relevant to the question; so I didn't reproduce that here.This class of type system question is on the deeper end of understanding and reasoning, and is the kind of question I find LLMs to be the least capable of answering. Hence why I don't think they can do either (unless the pattern of question is common enough it can produce an answer without having to.)
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Comment on The rise of Whatever in ~tech
mawelborn Link ParentRomulan malware that makes the ship's computer confidently lie would be a fantastic episode of Trek!Romulan malware that makes the ship's computer confidently lie would be a fantastic episode of Trek!
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Comment on The rise of Whatever in ~tech
mawelborn (edited )Link ParentClaude 4, "the best coding model in the world" according to Anthropic, failed to answer what I consider to be a relatively straightforward typing question in C# I had not long ago. Given this...Claude 4, "the best coding model in the world" according to Anthropic, failed to answer what I consider to be a relatively straightforward typing question in C# I had not long ago.
Given this generic function:
public T Get<T>(string key) { ... }How do I tell if
Tis nullable in the implementation ofGet?I.E.
Get<int>("id")vsGet<int?>("id").It gave me an answer that works for scalar types like
int, but not for reference types. When asked specifically about reference types, it gives me a more complicated but still incorrect answer.I later found that there is no way to tell for non-scalar types at runtime. C# elides this information at compile time.
But it was very happy to give me pages upon pages of new answers that didn't work and even contradicted previous answers. Because it doesn't understand what it's doing. It's just giving me soemthing that's mathematically likely (for some incredibly complex math I'll grant).
I still see these failure modes regularly in current models like I did in the older ones. I haven't seen that they are "far beyond" what came before in terms of capability as you suggest. They work mostly the same, just with a bigger context window that can fool us more often.
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Comment on The rise of Whatever in ~tech
mawelborn LinkOh man this touches on so many parts of what I feel like is the slow nihilistic death of the 2000's internet I grew up with and loved. Absolutely fantastic read. With respect to AI in particular,...Oh man this touches on so many parts of what I feel like is the slow nihilistic death of the 2000's internet I grew up with and loved. Absolutely fantastic read.
With respect to AI in particular, I love this:
If you told me ten years ago that by 2025 we’d have the Star Trek computer, I would’ve been ecstatic. How fucking cool is that! You talk to your computer and it does things!
But we didn’t really get that. We got, I guess, sparkling autocomplete — a fancy chatbot that can string words together in the most inoffensive people-pleasing customer-service voice you’ve ever heard.
Both because it reminds me of AlbertaTech's wonderful satirical shorts about AI at a sparkling water company, and also because it feels like that's still where the technology really is.
✨sparkling autocomplete✨
Sure the context window can be huge, but at the end of the day it's just giving you a plausible autocompletion for what you entered. There's no understanding or reasoning as we think of it. It's just generating something that sounds reasonable.
If what you ask is common, you'll probably get a good answer. But if it's uncommon, it'll be more than happy to make up an API or nonexistent language features to "solve" the problem. At least with programming, the code won't compile or the tests won't pass when it does that. But for a lot of other types of queries, it's not so easy to identify or invalidate the hallucinations.
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Comment on Stop Killing Games petitions hit the target for both UK and EU in ~games
mawelborn Link ParentUnderstandably so. My condolences to you and your colleagues. As much as it's disheartening to see the art itself destroyed when it no longer makes multimillionaires more millions, it's disgusting...Understandably so. My condolences to you and your colleagues. As much as it's disheartening to see the art itself destroyed when it no longer makes multimillionaires more millions, it's disgusting to see the same happen to the people who created it.
The games industry as a whole and especially its leadership are due a reckoning for the way they treat artists and their art.
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Comment on What is your opinion whenever you see news/opinion that tech companies are relying more on chatbots rather than junior developers/interns? in ~tech
mawelborn Link ParentWhat I fear will happen is an extreme stagnation of software development. I think this had already begun happening with younger generations who didn't grow up having to figure out computers. They...What I fear will happen is an extreme stagnation of software development.
I think this had already begun happening with younger generations who didn't grow up having to figure out computers. They learned to use consumption devices like phones and tablets, rather than traditional computers that have tools and paradigms used to create software. Many college freshmen don't know what a file system is or a command line. Some younger teens don't know how to use a keyboard and mouse.
Relying on GenAI further abstracts away the reality of software development. Write out an idea and delegate the understanding, the handiwork, the craftsmanship to an LLM. Do that too much, and the art of software will be lost to humanity. Machines will iterate over the same ideas forever, at our command. But never innovating. Never creating.
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Comment on Stop Killing Games petitions hit the target for both UK and EU in ~games
mawelborn (edited )LinkIn a world with so much shit going on, it's a delightful change of pace to see Ross's passion project get a swan song such as this. By no means a victory, it's at least a win. And is hopefully the...In a world with so much shit going on, it's a delightful change of pace to see Ross's passion project get a swan song such as this. By no means a victory, it's at least a win. And is hopefully the beginning of some improvement to the state of the games industry.
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Comment on Caravan Palace - Gangbusters Melody Club (Full Album) (2024) in ~music
mawelborn LinkThey've also got some fire music videos. Beautifully animated and trippy. A couple favorites: Mirrors Lone Digger MoonshineThey've also got some fire music videos. Beautifully animated and trippy.
A couple favorites:
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Comment on An LFG for the time-strapped and schedule-cursed in ~games
mawelborn Link ParentAwesome! I haven't seen anything about price yet. But if I had to guess, it's probably in the ~$40 spin-off game category.Awesome! I haven't seen anything about price yet. But if I had to guess, it's probably in the ~$40 spin-off game category.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
mawelborn Link ParentThat's what I've struggled with the most trying to get into it. I love the idea of the game. I watch a lot of Elden Ring speedruns, randomizer runs, and bingo competitions. It's kind of like they...The downside to this is it's fucking fast.
That's what I've struggled with the most trying to get into it. I love the idea of the game. I watch a lot of Elden Ring speedruns, randomizer runs, and bingo competitions. It's kind of like they took that and designed a whole game around it.
But the titular night rain adds so much time pressure. I've been playing it solo since I don't have any co-op buddies to play with. And at least in that context it's been too much for my slow STR himbo brain to keep up with on the fly.
When you're struggling in Elden Ring, you can explore, level up, and keep trying until you succeed. By its very design, the game adjusts itself down to your skill level. It feels like Nightreign doesn't afford that same courtesy. I'm hoping someone makes an offline mod that increases the time limit or removes it entirely for solo runs. It would be nice to have the opportunity to explore, practice, and get familiar without the time pressure.
The boss will usually be right behind the fog gate. This is not possible in Nightreign.
I hadn't thought of that yet, on account of not having gotten past day one. But that is quite the run back to the boss. Seath the Scaleless would be jealous.
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Comment on An LFG for the time-strapped and schedule-cursed in ~games
mawelborn LinkI love this idea! Definitely count me in for Nightreign. I don't have kids, but I still feel like I don't have the consistent time to invest that most gaming groups would expect. Or that a lot of...I love this idea! Definitely count me in for Nightreign.
I don't have kids, but I still feel like I don't have the consistent time to invest that most gaming groups would expect. Or that a lot of live-service multiplayer games require. But there's a number of non-live-service co-op games I'd like to play with a good group.
Availability
- North America (CDT)
- Primarily weeknights, but some weekends too.
Games
- Pretty much exclusively PC
- Elden Ring Nightreign
- I put over 500 hours into Elden Ring and Shadow of the Erdtree. I've been trying to get into Nightreign, but it's so punishing to do solo.
- FBC Fire Break
- An upcoming co-op FPS in the Control universe. They've characterized it as a "game for working adults." No battle pass or season pass; no permanent game progression. Supposedly you can drop in and out of it for weeks or months at a time.
- Payday 3
- I loved Payday 2, but life got in the way for me and my gaming buddy by the time 3 came out. Probably requires quite a bit of time investment though.
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Comment on Smoke to pour into the US as Canada wildfires force province’s largest evacuation in ‘living memory’ in ~enviro
mawelborn Link ParentYou're being paid to provide and maintain a home and its essential amenities for someone else. You quite literally signed up for it. Fulfilling your end of that contract doesn't make you a...You're being paid to provide and maintain a home and its essential amenities for someone else. You quite literally signed up for it. Fulfilling your end of that contract doesn't make you a "nanny."
We're seeing record-setting heat waves and wildfires nearly every year. As climate change progresses, air conditioning will no longer be "greater comfort." For many, including me, it already isn't. Where I live, the heat can be deadly for weeks at a time each year.
If that's not yet the case where you live, then good for you. But I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect landlords to provide air conditioning--even by law.
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Comment on The era of the business idiot in ~tech
mawelborn (edited )LinkHey now, that comparison's insulting! To the Raven. But in all seriousness, this article's a great read. The author discusses thoroughly, vividly, and at length the dysfunctions of "line goes up"...ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott ... chose to push AI across his whole organization ... based on the mental consideration I'd usually associate with a raven finding a shiny object.
Hey now, that comparison's insulting! To the Raven.
But in all seriousness, this article's a great read. The author discusses thoroughly, vividly, and at length the dysfunctions of "line goes up" capitalism. They articulate, much better than I, a belief I've had for a while--that companies whose singular purpose is the pursuit of maximizing shareholder value in an environment with limited resources will engage in a race to the bottom for minimizing costs in maximizing extracted value. And at the bottom is human suffering.
That's an excellent point!
Regarding comments, I can usually explain my lurking with "others are more eloquent, informed, or just earlier to say the thing I was going to say." But I don't have a good reason for not posting links to things I find interesting.
I'm going to make an effort to do that!