breckinloggins

5 ms·

1.
by breckinloggins 2mo ago
Yes. And for the same reason I still write in C or Common Lisp - by hand - in the age of LLMs. It’s a hobby.
2.
by breckinloggins 8mo ago
Interesting question. If the Waymo was driving aggressively to remove us from the situation but relatively safely I might stay in it. This does bring up something, though: Waymo has a "pull over" feature, but it's hidden behi
3.
by breckinloggins 8mo ago
I live in such an area. The route to my house involves steep topography via small windy streets that are very narrow and effectively one-way due to parked cars. Human drivers routinely do worse than Waymo, which I take 2 or 3 times a week.
4.
by breckinloggins 9mo ago
I somehow doubt there is any future version of me that regrets joining The Long Now Foundation, and work like this is the main reason why. If you're in SF you should pay them a visit and buy a coffee at The Interval; I think you'l
5.
by breckinloggins 9mo ago
I am a former student and graduate of this department at Texas A&M. I just called The Association and informed them that I consider this completely unacceptable and will not consider donations to the university unless this policy is rev
6.
by breckinloggins 10mo ago
If it’s part of an otherwise coherent post making a larger point I have no issue with it. If it’s a low effort copy pasta post I think downvotes are sufficient unless it starts to obliterate the signal vs noise ratio on the site.
7.
by breckinloggins 10mo ago
Other resources I like: - Eskil Steenberg’s “How I program C” ( https://youtu.be/443UNeGrFoM ). Long and definitely a bit controversial in parts, but I find myself agreeing with most of it. - CoreFoundation’s create rule ( ht
8.
by breckinloggins 10mo ago
I am happy the author followed her curiosity. I remember feeling much the same “pull” when I moved to San Francisco in 2013. Those of us who really vibe with the place seem to share a desire to get behind the city’s strange magic and discov
9.
by breckinloggins 10mo ago
Holy cow... I signed up to HN 18 years ago. I am more of a behind-the-scenes guy in the tech world so I don't know most of you but I've enjoyed participating in this community over the years. I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgivi
10.
by breckinloggins 11mo ago
Interesting critique. Care to elaborate?
11.
by breckinloggins 11mo ago
Right. So do you flick it at ChatGPT? It's talking to you, after all. (I honestly don't know. If there's any phenomenal consciousness there it would have to be during inference, but I doubt it.)
12.
by breckinloggins 11mo ago
> How does the wand know what I'm flicking it at? Magic! (i.e. not purely part of the thought experiment, unless I'm missing something interesting) > What if I miss? Panpsychism better be true :) > Can I target the wand w
13.
by breckinloggins 11mo ago
Hey not fair! While you're in there I have a few favors to ask...
14.
by breckinloggins 11mo ago
Let's say a genie hands you a magic wand. The genie says "you can flick this wand at anything in the universe and - for 30 seconds - you will swap places with what you point it at." "You mean that if I flick it at my par
15.
by breckinloggins 11mo ago
No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_It_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F One of the primary issues with Nagel's approach is that "what is it like" is - for reasons I have never been able to fathom - a phrase tha
16.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
Likely at least two reasons: - People simply disagree with you, especially this line: “Who cares if you’re still replying to emails at 7pm if you can do this, right?” That might work for you but I imagine it left a sour note for some becaus
17.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
I road trip frequently and it’s astonishing how much space there truly is. Unfortunately our national attitude around population growth would need to change. Adding on to existing cities in any direction other than “up” is frequently denigr
18.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
When this question is asked in person, though, the tone is frequently one of “WHY do you know how to do that? It’s not your job”. The difference is easily discernible. Online, though, I do interpret it more generously.
19.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
My story is similar. I’ve been programming nearly every day for over 35 years and don’t see myself stopping any time soon. Occasionally someone (usually at work) will ask “why do you know that?” or “how did you learn how to do that?” (where
20.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
Thanks for your work on this. I’ve bookmarked several of these videos and used them as reference. Learning assembly with a really good visualizer or debugger in hand is highly underrated; just watching numbers move around as you run your co
21.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
Assembly is one of those things where setting your ambitions higher than is usually advised can be wise. You could try writing a game (perhaps using Raylib) or a pixel art editor. Or maybe a little web application for your Homelab. Simple C
22.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
I can think of several reasons: 1. You are primed to think that it is mysterious because that’s all you usually hear about assembly. (“Roller Coaster Tycoon was written in 100% hand crafted assembly… what an absolute wizard!!”) 2. The langu
23.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
I wonder if some of it is a good old fashioned marketing problem. "Communes" in America seem to be far-left or far-right coded, with little in between (and always - it appears - with a subtle suggestion that you're getting a
24.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
I propose we stop using the term "discourse" to describe what amounts to mobs with ever-shifting alliances shouting at each other. Not really sure what I'd call it instead, but in a perfect world "irrelevant" might
25.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
Didn’t the ancients define “sophistry” as (in part) exactly the kind of writing one does when influence is more important than truth? It might be that it’s hard to create sophistry accidentally in one’s writing, but it’s certainly a possibl
26.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
Maybe we should appropriate the old DOS/x86 memory model names and give them “class-relative” sizes. “tiny” can run on a microcontroller, “compact” on a Rpi, “small” on a phone, “medium” on a single GPU machine, “large” on AI class wor
27.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
I… didn’t say I saw no value in types? I meant that there was a culture shift around program language research that had given advances in syntax a permanent back seat.
28.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
> My counter is that when it comes to language design, semantics—what the types mean—are easily 10 times more important than syntax Sometimes I long for the days before type theory took over programming language research.
29.
by breckinloggins 1y ago
This a highly problematic comment? /s
30.
by breckinloggins 2y ago
I’m not one to promote any form of “cancelling” people for political positions, but as a shareholder I think I could make a very good argument that Mr. Musk abandoned his fiduciary duty to Tesla by making personal decisions that he knew wou

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