sonofhans

7 ms·

91.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
Not OP, but 40 years in software, so here’s your answer — abstraction is the essence of programming. Get good enough at this, with a poor moral compass, and you can justify your code doing anything with no accountability whatsoever. Corpora
92.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
> tapir with a trumpet stuck in their nose Oh, that’s hysterical. I’ve seen drawings exactly like that, in illuminated manuscripts, and your description is perfect :D
93.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
Is this a bot account? Most of your replies are vague, anodyne, and self-promoting.
94.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
Pure speculation, of course, but I would say so. The hump in the back; the small, high, tail; dominant forehead — those are all things missed by people who mis-draw elephants. I think this artist got them right, which is hard to do from des
95.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
To build what, though? I’m truly curious. You talk about researching and developing ideas — what are you doing with it?
96.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
Same answer, though — if you don’t want to get hung by an Internet mob, don’t poke one with a short stick.
97.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
I’d expect this to be down-voted too. It has nothing to do with the article and makes no concrete claims. It’s easy to slag anything in vague terms, but it adds nothing to this discussion.
98.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
> Algorithms serve what Users engage with, if the Users were to no longer be interested in ragebait, clickbait, focused on thoughtful content -- the algorithms would adapt. Algorithms have been adapted; they are successful at their goals
99.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
Does your defense extend to others? Do you believe that anyone should be able to avoid consequences if they’re clever enough to stay anonymous? Avoiding consequences for unethical actions is, itself, unethical. If you don’t want the time, d
100.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
False equivalence; a hammer and a chatbot are not the same. Browsers and operating systems are tools designed to facilitate actions, not to give mental health opinions on free-text inquiries. Once it starts writing suicide notes you don’t g
101.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
My guess is that you’ve not had your house egged, or have some poverty of imagination about it. I grew up in the midwest where this did happen. A house egging would take hours to clean up, and likely cause permanent damage to paint and fini
102.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
I don’t treat literature like tech books. A new novel doesn’t supplant an old one. New expressions of old ideas don’t make old ideas obsolete There are always better books, but how do you know? Do you take my word for it? “Hey, I’ve read AL
103.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
The core ideas are only mainstream in extremely modern and extremely liberal contexts. I bet the majority of teachers in this country would get shit for assigning this book, even at a college level.
104.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
Funnily enough, at the time (50 years ago) one common criticism of LeGuin was her lack of space battles and ray guns. Science fiction has always had those tropes and always will. Luckily, LeGuin brought more to it.
105.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
“Anymore?” After 40 years in software I’ll say that validation of intent vs. outcome has always been a hard problem. There are and have been no shortcuts other than determined human effort.
106.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
In a veritable ocean of opinions it is excellent to see a detailed, first-hand report. Many thanks!
107.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
Honestly, I love this comment, and I’m going to save it. You’re so convinced that money is more important than human dignity you use the word “generosity” as invective. It can be hard to remember that this point of view exists, so thank you
108.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
I remember reading a golden age science fiction story where an engineer is angry because he dropped his slide rule as he was getting into his backyard moon rocket. We’ve not always been good at predicting the future, that’s for sure.
109.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
I think that’s a fair take. A lot of his stuff is straight fantasy, some is very nearly realism; a lot of time he seems to enjoy ignoring the lines while he colors. Try “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” perhaps; almost zero science to it :
110.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
He was a fucking genius, and seemed never to stop writing books. Good qualities all told.
111.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
FWIW it’s not that I don’t find the worlds logical, just that Bradbury doesn’t explain them. E.g., have you read Seveneves (Neal Stephenson)? At one point he spends about 30 pages describing in loving detail the tech behind a high-atmospher
112.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
I totally agree. I wouldn’t recommend Asimov to anyone much over 12. After that point I’d hope kids to have outgrown him, like the Hardy Boys.
113.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
Of course. And since they truly need it, we may as well make it as cheap and abusive as possible, right?
114.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
Because you’re not the audience. Clearly, in 2010, many people were still angling for Epstein introductions for the obvious reasons. The “warning” is a signal.
115.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
He captured childhood in a way that perhaps no one else has. His children have dignity and purpose and seriousness and are still absolutely full of joy and randomness. William Wordsworth, maybe, revered and portrayed childhood as well as Br
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by sonofhans 8mo ago
Yes, that is one of my very favorite books. My life is measured in part by how often I allow myself to read it.
117.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
I’ll always upvote Bradbury; what a master. Isaac Asimov used to talk about “the big 3” of science fiction of his era: himself (natch), Arthur C Clarke, and Ray Bradbury. The more I read of all those cats, and boy have I read them, I came t
118.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
Ironic. The frequency and predictability of this type of response — “This criticism of new technology is invalid because someone was wrong once in the past about unrelated technology” — means there might as well be an LLM posting these repl
119.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
When Elon Musk talks about benefiting humanity, remember that the one time he had unregulated power (DOGE) he used it mostly to cut benefits for poor people, and to push ideological agendas. His only agenda is self-aggrandizement, and this
120.
by sonofhans 8mo ago
Wow, that’s a lovely analysis. I have nothing to add but thanks.

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