rectang

13 ms·

241.
by rectang 8mo ago
I talk politely to AI, not for The AI’s sake but for my own.
242.
by rectang 8mo ago
You think only non-citizens are under assault? Are you familiar with “Kavanaugh Stops”?
243.
by rectang 8mo ago
> I wish more of the web was like this. A devious genie maliciously interprets your wish, and… Poof! This website’s content is now regurgitated across dozens of AI slop websites.
244.
by rectang 8mo ago
On the modern internet, there seems to be less money in selling advertising to legitimate businesses than in helping scammers connect with and take advantage of the vulnerable. > These fake “going out of business ads” have been around f
245.
by rectang 8mo ago
And yet, many people perceive a difference between “getting hacked” and “not getting hacked” and believe that certain precautions materially affect whether or not they end up having to deal with a hacking event. Are they wrong? Do gradatio
246.
by rectang 8mo ago
There's a subtlety that's missing here: if your threat model doesn't include the actors who can access those backdoors, then computer security isn't so bad these days. That subtlety is important because it explains how t
247.
by rectang 8mo ago
It's not open source, but up until a few years ago I used whereby.com for videochats. Unlike the alternatives at the time from Google, Apple, etc., it didn't require an account for participants — I could just give them the meeting
248.
by rectang 9mo ago
When working at a desk I put my 16-inch MacBook Pro on a stand and use an external keyboard and trackpad. I don't like adapting my monitor layout when moving between working environments. Instead of an extra monitor, I have an iPad Pro
249.
by rectang 9mo ago
Right now, distributors have to compete with each other in terms of the content they provide — if your competitor offers Taylor Swift or AP News stories or Marvel movies but you don't, your consumers care and may flee. Take away copyri
250.
by rectang 9mo ago
Cutting back the power of creators dramatically increases the power of distributors. Do we really want the vast majority of economic benefit for human creativity to flow to middlemen?
251.
by rectang 9mo ago
I saw that passage, which addresses that durability doesn't degrade through recycling cycles. But what I was curious about was whether this epoxy is more susceptible to weakening when exposed to heat in working environments, perhaps a
252.
by rectang 9mo ago
The ASF, chartered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity which serves the public good, has a budget a fraction the size of those of orgs chartered as 501(c)(6) nonprofits which serve the common business interests of members.
253.
by rectang 9mo ago
There are two recycling mechanisms: > After use, the material can simply be ground into powder and pressed into a new shape while heated, causing the bonds to rearrange themselves. This is known as thermomechanical recycling. > it
254.
by rectang 9mo ago
OT: It's difficult for me with my imperfect vision to read this web page because of inadequate contrast between body-text and background. Firefox dev tools measures a 3.52 contrast ratio — WCAG guidelines recommend 7:1 (AAA rating) or
255.
by rectang 9mo ago
> Refusing the vet AI output is the kiss of death to velocity. The usual rejoinder I've seen is that AI can just rewrite your whole system when complexity explodes. But I see at least two problems with that. AI is impressively g
256.
by rectang 9mo ago
Can semi-technical people replace developers if those semi-technical people accept that the price of avoiding developers is a commitment to minimizing total system complexity? Of course semi-technical people can troubleshoot, it's part
257.
by rectang 9mo ago
Databases and search engines have different engineering priorities, and data integrity is not a top tier priority for search engine developers because a search engine is assumed not to be the primary data store. Search engines are designed
258.
by rectang 9mo ago
I had one manager who got extremely excited about whatever you were working on. It was infectious and motivated most of the team including myself. He’s an innately curious person, but also whip smart and surely developed this skill delibera
259.
by rectang 9mo ago
I give the agent the following standing instructions: "Make the smallest possible change. Do not refactor existing code unless I explicitly ask." That directive cut down considerably on the amount of extra changes I had to review.
260.
by rectang 9mo ago
I think that’s unnecessary waffling. Of course there are exceptions, but the prejudiced negative views that the old and the young hold of each are generally wrong. For example, the constantly recurring critique that the music of the young
261.
by rectang 9mo ago
And the elder generation is always convinced that the young generation is degenerate, incompetent, and destined for ruin.
262.
by rectang 9mo ago
I think you are wrong to see this as purely political. Women being portrayed as nude, battered, covered in semen, and so on are genuinely horrified. Such images would not be tolerated if they were sourced from a political ally. Furthermo
263.
by rectang 9mo ago
The solution I like best is to "pin" issues that would cause the meeting to run long, with select personnel needing to stay late to address the pinned issue but everybody else leaving on time.
264.
by rectang 9mo ago
There's no substitute for leadership establishing a culture of meeting discipline. By and large, every org will follow the example leadership sets. If leadership blesses this cutesy little five-minutes-late maneuver, implicitly accept
265.
by rectang 9mo ago
Seeing the code that the LLM generates and occasionally asking it to explain has been an effective way to improve my understanding. It's better in some ways than reading documentation or doing tutorials because I'm working on a p
266.
by rectang 9mo ago
… and trollish to boot. Y U gotta “lol”? But since there’s grey in my beard, I’ve seen it several times: in every technological move forward there are obnoxious hype merchants, reactionary status quo defenders, and then the rest of us doin
267.
by rectang 9mo ago
Thanks for this insight-dense comment — and for all the efforts you have put into Trusted Publishing.
268.
by rectang 9mo ago
That’s a fair point — I agree that LLMs do a good job predicting the documentation that might accompany some code. I feel relieved when I can rely on the LLM to write docs that I only need to edit and review. But I’m using LLMs regularly an
269.
by rectang 9mo ago
Here’s a story about productivity measured by lines of code that’s 40 years old so it must surely be wrong: https://www.folklore.org/Negative_2000_Lines_Of_Code.html > When he got to the lines of code part, he thought a
270.
by rectang 9mo ago
Time will tell. I’d bet on Spolsky, because of Hyrum’s Law. https://www.hyrumslaw.com/ > With a sufficient number of users of an API, it does not matter what you promise in the contract: all observable behaviors of your

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