jbloggs777
@jbloggs777@discuss.tchncs.de
Just a regular Joe.
- Comment on Asking the right questions... 1 week ago:
salutes
- Comment on Asking the right questions... 1 week ago:
It’s accelerating trends that have already been well underway in the world, with the US leading the pack, and doubling down on its own demise (and apparently also working toward the active demise of European Democracy and Freedom) under trump and jd vance.
The analogy I always think of is: We’ve got shovels and we are in a big hole … which way are we going to dig? In my experience, most people keep digging down because it seems easier now, and eventually find themselves in a deeper hole.
- Comment on I Went All-In on AI. The MIT Study Is Right. 1 week ago:
That this is and will be abused is not in question. :-P
- Comment on I Went All-In on AI. The MIT Study Is Right. 1 week ago:
While this is a popular sentiment, it is not true, nor will it ever be true.
AI (LLMs & agents in the coding context, in this case) can serve as both a tool and a crutch. Those who learn to master the tools will gain benefit from them, without detracting from their own skill. Those who use them as a crutch will lose (or never gain) their own skills.
Some skills will in turn become irrelevent in day-to-day life (as is always the case with new tech), and we will adapt in turn.
- Comment on I Went All-In on AI. The MIT Study Is Right. 1 week ago:
Indeed… Throw-away code is currently where AI coding excels. And that is cool and useful - creating one off scripts, self-contained modules automating boilerplate, etc.
You can’t quite use it the same way for complex existing code bases though… Not yet, at least…
- Comment on Dead mosquito proboscis used for high-resolution 3D printing nozzle 3 weeks ago:
Interesting fact: You can use an elephant’s trunk as a low-resolution 3D printing nozzle
- Comment on Microsoft says Copilot will 'finish your code before you finish your coffee' adding fuel to the Windows 11 AI controversy that's still raging 3 weeks ago:
Hah, yeah. Vibe coding and prompt engineering seem like a huge fad right now, although I don’t think it’s going to die out, just the hype.
The most successful vibe projects in the next few years are likely to be the least innovative technically, following well trodden paths (and generating lots of throwaway code).
I suppose we’ll see more and more curated collections of AI-friendly design documents and best-practice code samples to enable vibe coding for varied use-cases, and this will be the perceived value add for various tools in the short term. The spec driven development trend seems to have value, adding semantic layers for humans and AI alike.
- Comment on Microsoft says Copilot will 'finish your code before you finish your coffee' adding fuel to the Windows 11 AI controversy that's still raging 3 weeks ago:
Yeah - there’s definitely a GIGO factor. Throwing it at a undocumented codebase with poor and inconsistent function & variable names isn’t likely to yield great revelations. But it can probably still tell you why changing input X didn’t result in a change to output Y (with 50k lines of code in-between), saving you a bunch of debugging time.
- Comment on Microsoft says Copilot will 'finish your code before you finish your coffee' adding fuel to the Windows 11 AI controversy that's still raging 3 weeks ago:
Most code on the planet is boring legacy code, though. Novel and interesting is typically a small fraction of a codebase, and it will often be more in the design than the code itself. Anything that can help us make boring code more digestible is welcome. Plenty of other pitfalls along the way though.
- Comment on Microsoft says Copilot will 'finish your code before you finish your coffee' adding fuel to the Windows 11 AI controversy that's still raging 3 weeks ago:
I have a suspicion that the guy took issue with my use of “one” instead of “you”, more-so than the content. Maybe it comes across as uppity these days.
- Comment on Microsoft says Copilot will 'finish your code before you finish your coffee' adding fuel to the Windows 11 AI controversy that's still raging 3 weeks ago:
It’s a changing world, and there is going to be an ever increasing amount of AI slop out there, and even more potential programmers who won’t make the leap due to the crutch.
At the same time, there are always people who want to and will learn in spite of the available crutches the latest tech revolution brings.
There will also be many good engineers who will exploit the tech for all its worth while applying appropriate rigour, increasing their real productivity and value manyfold.
And there will be many non-programmers who can achieve much more in their respective fields, because AI tools can bridge gaps for them.
Hopefully we won’t irreversibly destroy ourselves and our planet while we’re at it. 🙈
- Comment on Microsoft says Copilot will 'finish your code before you finish your coffee' adding fuel to the Windows 11 AI controversy that's still raging 4 weeks ago:
Hm? Oh, I obviously misread the room. It seems I interrupted a circle jerk? My apologies.
- Comment on Microsoft says Copilot will 'finish your code before you finish your coffee' adding fuel to the Windows 11 AI controversy that's still raging 4 weeks ago:
No, but it can help a capable developer to have more of those moments, as one can use LLMs and coding agents to (a) help explain the relationships in a complicated codebase succinctly and (b) help to quickly figure out why one’s code doesn’t work as expected (from simple bugs to calling out one’s own fundamental misunderstandings), giving one more to focus on what matters to oneself.
- Comment on Firefox is Getting a New AI Browsing Mode 4 weeks ago:
Which they will provide without being asked for it.
- Comment on Enthusiasts bond twelve 56K modems together to set dial-up broadband records — a dozen screeching boxes achieve record 668 kbps download speeds 2 months ago:
This was similar to a trick that a few smaller (less serious) hobby-ISPs did back in the days of 14.4k/28.8k modems to take advantage of the “reasonably priced” business plans for ISDN. They’d register multiple businesses at a single address to qualify for the plans, then balance new egress connections across the pool using squid and other magic. Fun times…
- Comment on Exactly Six Months Ago, the CEO of Anthropic Said That in Six Months AI Would Be Writing 90 Percent of Code 3 months ago:
I find it pretty useful to help get me over mental hurdle of starting something. So it’s faster than me procrastinating for another day. ;-)
- Comment on Firefox Nightly Adds CoPilot AI Chatbot + New Tab Widgets 3 months ago:
I think its popularity as a viable alternative to the google dominated browser ecosystem contradicts this.
So long as it’s an optional feature that doesn’t impact core functionality, who cares?
- Comment on Steam payment headaches grow as PayPal is no longer usable for much of the world: Valve hopes to bring it back in the future, 'but the timeline is uncertain' 3 months ago:
Hmm. You are right, but they might not need it for every region. Steam is probably big enough that existing regional companies would come to it and be eager to form partnerships. They could become more of a payment processor aggregator, focused on a low risk market segment. And of course they can do CCs directly too - that’s the easy part.
The challenge will be to get consumers on board. I know that I groan every time I need to enter my CC details online these days.
They would face anti-competitive behaviour from Peepal though. So it’s a risk.
Internally, they are probably already working on ways to appropriately segment their catalog based on payment provider. “Sorry User, you cannot purchase title X using Paypal. We recommend $Competitor instead.”
- Comment on Steam payment headaches grow as PayPal is no longer usable for much of the world: Valve hopes to bring it back in the future, 'but the timeline is uncertain' 3 months ago:
It sounds like some payment processors are treating mastercard’s contractual requirements as a hard risk in this case - maybe it’s justified, maybe not. Try getting corporate lawyers to be risk averse in the finance world. Mastercard doesn’t seem to want to soften their wording but talks platitudes in public statements. Shrug.
- Comment on Steam payment headaches grow as PayPal is no longer usable for much of the world: Valve hopes to bring it back in the future, 'but the timeline is uncertain' 3 months ago:
They could do it with significantly fewer people, for themselves and even for GOG, Itch and potentially others. Their use-case is digital payments for games, which is limited in scope and risk. PCI and compliance is a PITA, but manageable.
- Comment on Cybercrooks use Raspberry Pi to steal ATM cash 4 months ago:
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hacker
“The media’s definition of the real term malicious cracker. A hacker used to be a well respected individual who loved to tinker with gadgets.”, plus a few other definitions.
- Comment on Mastercard release a statement about game stores, payment processors and adult content 4 months ago:
It’s time for Steam to launch their own payment processing company, and apply pressure directly on the card networks and the future competition.
It won’t be nearly as profitable as their current business model, but sometimes industries need a shakeup.
- Comment on Supreme Court to decide whether ISPs must disconnect users accused of piracy 5 months ago:
They could. The protocol also supports IP spoofing, so doxing could also be a thing.
For individuals, it is a time consuming and costly legal process, whether justified or not. For the law firm, it costs a few cents per letter, but they get a few hundred (or more) euros when some sucker pays.
- Comment on Supreme Court to decide whether ISPs must disconnect users accused of piracy 5 months ago:
In Germany and no doubt some other countries, private law firms can (on behalf of the copyright holders) request people’s identity based on residential IP addresses and then send extortionist legal threats. Apparently an IP appearing on a public tracker can be enough to trigger it, without any confirmed data transfer.
VPNs are common and usually sufficient.
- Comment on I have a Sanni Open Source Cartridge Reader (OSCR). Does anyone want their games and saves backed up? 5 months ago:
What are your geography constraints, if any?
- Comment on Why do people like Mario Kart? 5 months ago:
Heh. Tax returns and music should have been the giveaways, although I know someone who takes great satisfaction in taking every tax deduction they legally can, down to the last cent. :-P
- Comment on Why do people like Mario Kart? 6 months ago:
TV and games sure, but embrace music - (try to) learn to play an instrument, and you will appreciate listening so much more!
- Comment on European Union funding an obfuscator 6 months ago:
Not everything will be open source. For whatever reason, they decided to make this obfuscator open source. It might also just be an interesting side project that someone got permission to release.
Obfuscation can make it harder to reverse engineer code, even if the method is known. It might also be designed to be pluggable, allowing custom obfuscation. I haven’t checked.
We also know that obfuscation isn’t real security … but it’s sometimes it is also good enough for a particular use case…
- Comment on Meta is now a defense contractor 6 months ago:
Except my crazy relative (just 1, thank dog) also has telegram and feels the urge to forward every damn whackjob conspiracy theory reinterpretation of truth that they find to me and my wife, despite us never replying except to ask them to stop. eg. Cloud seeding, windmills and electric cars are responsible for destroying the atmosphere (not co2 and other greenhouse gases); Bill Gates etc. are spreading microchips through vaccinations; judges ruling that measles doesn’t exist; Ukraine is full of nazis; and yes, even regurgitated feelgood fairy tales and random cat pictures from Facebook. So glad they are in a country far far away from me. They “do their own research”, of course.
So bloody sad that so many people are in a similar situation of avoiding friends and family for their own sanity (and sometimes safety).
- Comment on Plex now will SELL your personal data 6 months ago:
But not Fire tablets (kids profile) or Samsung TV or many others that Plex currently supports.
JellyFin android phone app’s UI is a little weird at times, but does work pretty well for me.
…
What I would adore from any app would be an easy way to upload specific content and metadata via SFTP or to blob storage and accessible with auth (basic, token, or cloud) to more easily share it with friends/family/myself without having to host the whole damn library on the Internet or share my home Internet at inconvenient times.
Client-side encryption would be a great addition to that (eg. password required, that adds a key to the key ring). And of course native support in the JellyFin/other apps for this. It could even be made to work with a JS & WASM player.