ThePowerOfGeek
@ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world
- Comment on If you had to buy a new TV, what brand would you get? 18 hours ago:
There’s are still some consumer TVs out there that allow you to use the green without an Internet connection. Although they are kinda rare these days.
- Comment on If you had to buy a new TV, what brand would you get? 19 hours ago:
Sony Bravia. Because I just did this last year. My old TV was also a Bravia, and it lasted about 15 years. One big selling feature for me was that you can set it up as either a smart TV, or a ‘basic’ TV that doesn’t require an Internet connection and doesn’t pester you for one.
- Comment on Vibe coding has turned senior devs into ‘AI babysitters,’ but they say it’s worth it | TechCrunch 3 days ago:
Amen. I’ve tried the vibe coding thing but it’s frustrating because a) too often the AI output has some profound problems and it gets annoying ‘babysitting’ it; and b) I usually prefer the challenge of figuring out syntax and implementation issues myself.
If something is taking too long I’ll ask the LLM. But I feel like if I do this too much my skill set will atrophy and I’ll lose my sharpness. So it’s a balancing act.
But this brings up another wider question: where is the line between “occasionally getting AI help” and “vibe coding”? Surely it’s subjective.
- Comment on Exactly Six Months Ago, the CEO of Anthropic Said That in Six Months AI Would Be Writing 90 Percent of Code 6 days ago:
It’s almost like he’s full of shit and he’s nothing but a snake oil salesman, eh.
They’ve been talking about replacing software developers with automated/AI systems for a quarter of a century. Probably longer then that, in fact.
We’re definitely closer to that than ever. But there’s still a huge step between some rando vibe coding a one page web app and developers augmenting their work with AI, and someone building a complex, business rule heavy, heavy load, scalable real world system. The chronic under-appreciation of engineering and design experience continues unabated.
Anthropic, Open AI, etc? They will continue to hype their own products with outrageous claims. Because that’s what gets them more VC money. Grifters gonna grift.
- Comment on Roblox continues efforts for child safety by expanding age estimation to all users by end of the year 1 week ago:
Give it about a month and I’m sure there will be (…unfortunately).
- Comment on Roblox continues efforts for child safety by expanding age estimation to all users by end of the year 1 week ago:
For anyone who’s not aware, there are some pretty cool open source Minecraft options. Like Luanti (which is more like a playground for all sorts of FOSS Minecraft variants).
- Comment on Roblox continues efforts for child safety by expanding age estimation to all users by end of the year 1 week ago:
Yeah it’s crazy. They are trying to cater to older users, probably because they feel they can get more money from them.
- Comment on Roblox continues efforts for child safety by expanding age estimation to all users by end of the year 2 weeks ago:
It should at the very least get a new, better CEO. And also calm down with their focus on getting older users and encouraging user dating services. They have a solid user base with younger users, and should be focused on them and their protection.
But yeah, just shutting down might be the best option.
- Comment on World Of Warcraft Turtle WoW Servers Hit With Blizzard Lawsuit 2 weeks ago:
They’ve been going after private server farms for years, so this is nothing new really. For example, Blizzard forced Nostralrius (sp?) servers to shut down about 10 years ago.
- Comment on Microsoft Word documents will be saved to the cloud automatically on Windows going forward 3 weeks ago:
I second this. There’s a little bit of a learning curve on some of the functionality, but it’s not bad at all. And most of the functionality is very easy to find. I moved over to Libre Office several years ago and it’s been great.
- Comment on Comfortable is a table made out of comforts 3 weeks ago:
Or it’s being able to enjoy comfort.
- Comment on ChatGPT 5 power consumption could be as much as eight times higher than GPT 4 — research institute estimates medium-sized GPT-5 response can consume up to 40 watt-hours of electricity 4 weeks ago:
BTW a lot of it seems to be just inefficient coding as Deepseek has shown.
Kind of? Inefficient coding is definitely a part of it. But a large part is also just the iterative nature of how these algorithms operate. We might be able to improve that via code optimization a little bit. But without radically changing how these engines operates it won’t make a big difference.
The scope of the data being used and trained on is probably a bigger issue. Which is why there’s been a push by some to move from LLMs to SLMs. We don’t need the model to be cluttered with information on geology, ancient history, cooking, software development, sports trivia, etc if it’s only going to be used for looking up stuff on music and musicians.
But either way, there’s a big ‘diminishing returns’ factor to this right now that isn’t being appreciated. Typical human nature: give me that tiny boost in performance regardless of the cost, because I don’t have to deal with. It’s the same short-sighted shit that got us into this looming environmental crisis.
- Comment on YouTube just quietly blocked Adblock Plus — the internet hasn't noticed yet, but I've found a workaround 5 weeks ago:
That said though, there is one ad blocker that still works. Two words: uBlock Origin. Yes, I know that Google has blocked it from its Chrome Extension store, but there is still a way to get uBlock Origin on Chrome that our how-to extraordinaire Kaycee has detailed.
Or… You could just ditch Chrome altogether!
I don’t know why people are so fixated on using Chrome. It’s a crippled browser made by an evil company that is actively looking to screw the user at every turn.
I switched to Firefox when Google essentially killed uBlock Origin on their browser. At first I ran into some problems with some sites not rendering correctly. But it seems like that’s become much less of an issue with later updates. And the best thing is that there are some phenomenal extensions for blocking ads - like a fully-fledged uBlock Origin to name just one. I don’t even see sponsor promotions in YT videos now.
And if you don’t want to deal with Mozilla directly you can use Waterfox instead.
All this dancing around and jumping through hoops to get uBlock Origin working on Chrome is kind of absurd. Just ditch Chrome (and all Blink-based browsers) altogether where you can (I get that corporate environments are often off the table for this).
Collectively we should be sending a message to Google whenever we can that we are done with their browser bullshit.
- Comment on Spotify to raise prices in September 5 weeks ago:
So glad he didn’t get his grubby hands on Arsenal FC in the end.
- Comment on Spotify to raise prices in September 5 weeks ago:
And once you have them ripped (however you choose to do that), host them via a media server so you can access them from whatever device you like.
- Comment on AOL will end dial-up internet service in September, 34 years after it's debut — AOL Shield Browser and AOL Dialer software will be shuttered on the same day 5 weeks ago:
I still have one, still in the cellophane. I use it as a coaster.
- Comment on AOL will end dial-up internet service in September, 34 years after it's debut — AOL Shield Browser and AOL Dialer software will be shuttered on the same day 5 weeks ago:
AOL… America Offline
- Comment on ChatGPT Is Still a Bullshit Machine 5 weeks ago:
I’m no longer even confident in modern LLMs to do stuff like convert a table schema or JSON document into a POCO. I tried this the other day with a field list from a table creation script. So it had to do was reformat the fields into a dumb C# model. Inexplicably it did fine except for omitting a random field in the middle of the list. Kinda shakes your confidence in LLMs for even the most basic programming tasks.
- Comment on Google Gemini struggles to write code, calls itself “a disgrace to my species” 5 weeks ago:
It must have been trained on feedback from Accenture employees then.
- Comment on Google Gemini struggles to write code, calls itself “a disgrace to my species” 5 weeks ago:
High five, me too!
At that age I also used to do speed run little programs on the display computers in department stores. I’d write a little prompt welcoming a shopper and ask them their name. Then a response that echoed back their name in some way. If I was in a good mood it was “Hi [name]!”. If I was in a snarky mood it was “Fuck off [name]!” The goal was to write it in about 30 seconds, before one of the associates came over to see what I was doing.
- Comment on GitHub CEO delivers stark message to developers: Embrace AI or get out. 1 month ago:
But who else is going to micromanage and bully the employees and strut around self-importantly doing jack shit? /s
- Comment on Proton releases a new app for two-factor authentication 1 month ago:
Yeah, not good if them to not share that information.
But for anyone who’s wondering, here’s a decent article that goes over the shady companies that discretely own most VPNs apps.
Amusingly, and in counterpoint to the guy who you replied to, this article concludes that Proton is actually a solid VPN option that isn’t beholden to one of those sketchy VPN-hoarding companies.
They also recommend Mullvad as a good option. I’ve never used them, but I’ve seen mentioned positively in other articles about VPNs.
- Comment on Bitchat is a new private Bluetooth messaging app that doesn’t need the internet – here’s how it works 1 month ago:
Genitalia (supposed to be gen-Italia - an Italian electricity company. They got rid of their web domain they they finally realized.)
- Comment on Bitchat is a new private Bluetooth messaging app that doesn’t need the internet – here’s how it works 1 month ago:
It’s the ExpertSexchange of the 2020s!
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
Was gonna say… my kids keep accidentally using my profile to watch their videos. YouTube is going to think I’m a teen/child with peak gen alpha brain rot.
- Comment on Another Google Pixel 6a catches fire after battery-nerfing update 1 month ago:
I put my IMEI in and it said I was eligible. But then it gets stuck in an infinite loop of support links with no option out (at least when I selected to get a replacement battery).
I think I’m just going to get a new phone and move on. Not a Pixel though. Fuck this noise. My wife had a Pixel 5a and the motherboard fried itself after a couple of years. Google sent her a Pixel 6a replacement about 2 months later (long after we’d found her a non-Pixel replacement). So I upgraded to that replacement for in a 4a. But now this battery/fire bullshit? I’m done with their shitty products and their shitty support!
- Comment on Another Google Pixel 6a catches fire after battery-nerfing update 1 month ago:
Thanks for the link. I put my phone’s info in and it told me I’m eligible. But the color of the phone was completely wrong.
I’m done with Pixels. The first one was amazing. But the quality has been going gradually downhill for both the main series and the A series phones.
- Comment on Introducing Lumo, the AI where every conversation is confidential | Proton 1 month ago:
I came so close to switching over to them at the start of the year. I was in the middle of planning that change, then their founder or CEO or whoever he is started going political. So I held off. And now just like everyone else they’ve jumped on the AI bandwagon.
- Comment on Heroes For Hire (in development), an MMO guild management game using an OS like interface for gameplay (the game calls it "GuildOS"), released in early access on Steam. 1 month ago:
Having managed a reasonably large MMO guild for several years, this game sounds about as appealing as getting an eye gouged out.
- Comment on Inserting "Anal" infront of trailer model names at the RV park makes some interesting combinations. 2 months ago:
Anal Pilot