merc
@merc@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on After outages, Amazon to make senior engineers sign off on AI-assisted changes 6 hours ago:
In my experience, LLMs suck at making smart, small changes. To know how to do that they need to “understand” the entire codebase, and that’s expensive.
- Comment on After outages, Amazon to make senior engineers sign off on AI-assisted changes 10 hours ago:
Amazon saves the wages of a senior dev by doing that, but then they get outages costing them the wages of that senior dev for decades. I doubt the goal is to blame senior devs. If they wanted them gone they could easily fire them.
- Comment on After outages, Amazon to make senior engineers sign off on AI-assisted changes 10 hours ago:
What is AI good at? Creating thousands of lines of code that look plausibly correct in seconds.
What are humans bad at? Reviewing changes containing thousands of lines of plausibly correct code.
This is a great way to force senior devs to take the blame for things. But, if they actually want to avoid outages rather than just assign blame to them, they’ll need to submit small, efficient changes that the submitter understands and can explain clearly. Wouldn’t it be simpler just to say “No AI”?
- Comment on funny number 10 hours ago:
Putting young-person slang in a movie has been a bad idea since before Gen Z existed.
- Comment on funny number 10 hours ago:
Nature is healing.
- Comment on Valve Sued By The Performing Rights Society Over Music Rights in Games Valve Doesn’t Make or Own 20 hours ago:
My hate of the copyright-ownership side of Hollywood / Nashville / Atlanta, etc. has been burning white hot since the days that the RIAA was suing people using P2P networks. But, I had to admit that at least they could probably make a valid claim for copyright infringement. But this?!
It’s interesting how it’s the “Performing Right Society” (which I’ve never heard of). The “performing” part of that suggests that maybe they have an issue with people sharing clips containing music, or live streaming games where they share music. But, again, why Valve? Sure, people can share clips with friends. And, occasionally you see developers streaming their games. But, nobody is really “performing” live streams on Steam. I suspect they just think Valve is rich and so they can strong-arm them and Valve will settle to make them go away. I hope they bit off more than they can chew. Valve is indeed rich, and they have a tendency to be stubborn. I think they might well fight, and fight hard.
I wish a possible outcome was that the PRS ceased to exist. But, I suspect they’re like a flea or something, and even if you knock them off from this attempt to suck someone’s blood, you can’t kill them, and they’ll just find another victim.
- Comment on funny number 1 day ago:
To adults? Or teens? Or 6-year-olds?
- Comment on funny number 1 day ago:
The number 69 has staying power. It was hardly new when it was used in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and that was in 1989, 37 years ago.
How long will 6-7 last? I’m guessing not more than a year. I bet even now it’s being included as part of a script for a kids’ movie, and by the time the movie comes out the kids will all think it’s “cringe” (or whatever term replaces cringe).
- Comment on I was on social media before web browsers existed. I am Legion. 4 days ago:
I still don’t think that would be enough for me to remember it. It would mean I’d have to give it out to people. But, I didn’t do that so often that I’d have memorized the number and remembered it for 30 years.
- Comment on I was on social media before web browsers existed. I am Legion. 4 days ago:
My steam account dates from the release of the Orange Box. That was a few years after launch, because back at the beginning Steam was only for Valve games and those weren’t really my jam. But, the Orange Box was a great deal. So, I bought it (retail version) and then I had to register a Steam account.
- Comment on I was on social media before web browsers existed. I am Legion. 4 days ago:
I can remember mine too, 4170129. I just can’t remember why I remember it. The numbers I tend to remember are the ones that I actually had to use often. For example, I remember some phone numbers because to call someone I actually had to punch in (or dial) their phone number. But, did we have to type in our IDs from memory when logging in or something? That seems like it would be a terrible UI, and surely by the mid 90s nobody was still doing that.
- Comment on I was on social media before web browsers existed. I am Legion. 4 days ago:
I remember my ICQ number, 4170129, but I don’t remember why I know it.
Surely I didn’t have to type it in every time I logged in, did I? That would be a really stupid UI.
- Comment on simpler times 5 days ago:
They’re still the stupidest thing I’ve heard of.
- Comment on simpler times 5 days ago:
No, they’re stupid.
- Comment on Highguard will permanently shut down on March 12th. 1 week ago:
Whenever a game like this flops it gives me hope. Why? Because this kind of game isn’t something that interests me at all. I keep hoping that these companies are going to learn from getting burned, and switch to a style of game that I like more.
- Comment on Highguard will permanently shut down on March 12th. 1 week ago:
No, it’s a flop.
It’s hard to believe that a company would spend hundreds of millions to develop a game, only for it to flop. But, that’s how it works with live-service PVP only games. They depend on network effects. People want to play what their friends are playing. If a company gets this right they can be like Minecraft or Fortnite and it’s the game everyone plays, bringing in billions of dollars. If they miss, it can be a complete flop that nobody plays.
- Comment on Dear Faith I 1 week ago:
The other thing to know about this is that it’s normally a good partnership. The driver has to trust the copilot to know what’s coming up and to tell them in time. The co-driver has to trust the driver to drive fast without crashing. It takes a while to develop a partnership like that, and when it’s working well it’s amazing. The driver is basically driving what he can see plus what he’s told is ahead. If the co-driver says the road opens ahead, the driver will accelerate into a turn even if he can’t yet see that it’s straightening out trusting that by the time he runs out of road the curve will be ending.
The Samir commentary sounds like two drivers paired for the first time, with the co-driver being the one who owns the car. Compare that to a team that knows what it’s doing.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
I’m not sure what the right way to link to these other ones is so that they show up on someone’s own instance.
- Comment on Just one more square bro 1 week ago:
- Comment on Yay, milkshakes! 1 week ago:
People who know: Blueberries create purple juice.
- Comment on according to sugar daddy’s net worth actually 1 week ago:
Which influencer’s fleeing Dubai?
- Comment on A modest proposal 1 week ago:
Can you imagine how horrific it would be for the sergeants to wrangle a squad or platoon of boomers and actually get anything accomplished?
- Comment on The script is mysterious and important. 1 week ago:
It has been a while since I saw it, but you’re right. I mostly remember it as drama, not comedy.
- Comment on The script is mysterious and important. 1 week ago:
Point Break? I think Keanu was a heart throb who could do action, but who had started in comedy. Will Smith was more a comedic actor who could do action, but was mostly doing action-comedy.
- Comment on The script is mysterious and important. 1 week ago:
Yeah, he was huge. Stallone and Schwarzenegger were bigger names for purely action movies. But, Keanu and Tom Cruise were the action stars who the teenage girls wanted to watch.
I think it’s all the years of Fresh Prince of Bel Air that makes me think of Will Smith as primarily a comedic actor at that point. Because, he and Keanu really had a similar path. They started with comedy and then proved they could do action. I guess Will Smith’s action movies were a bit more action comedy. Men in Black is definitely a sci fi action comedy. Bad Boys was an action comedy. Independence Day wasn’t really a sci fi action comedy, but he did punch out an alien. But, Will Smith did do Enemy of the State, and I don’t remember much comedy in that. For Keanu, Speed isn’t an action comedy, but there’s some light-hearted stuff in it. But, Point Break (from what I remember) was a more serious tone.
But, I think by 1999 if you were hiring Keanu Reeves for a purely serious action role, that wouldn’t be seen as strange. And, if you were hiring Will Smith for a purely serious role, it would probably be seen as wasting his talent.
- Comment on The script is mysterious and important. 1 week ago:
It would have been a very different movie. So, maybe people couldn’t picture Keanu in that forgettable action comedy called The Matrix. But, Keanu did show he could do comedy. His first big movie was Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. He’d also done Parenthood. In addition, he’d shown he could do action movies / thrillers with a bit of comedy when he did Speed, and fairly serious action movies with Point Break.
Will Smith has done plenty of action movies, but all of them are at least somewhat comedic. He’s shown he can do serious roles too, like Happyness, 7 Pounds, etc. But, I don’t think you’d hire him for a science fiction action movie without having him do some comedy. I’m sure Will Smith could do a straight dramatic science fiction action movie with no comedy, but AFAIK he’s never done it.
IMO Keanu is a much more limited actor than Will Smith. But, The Matrix played to his strengths.
- Comment on The size of Portugal compared to Spain 2 weeks ago:
This Azores erasure will not stand.
- Comment on YSK Your smoke detectors should be replaced every 7-10 years 2 weeks ago:
Aaaaaaaand let me tell you, I had a sleepless night last night knowing there were no detectors installed.
This seems really weird. Smoke detectors are important, but the odds of a fire any given night are incredibly low. To me, replacing a detector would be a chore I’d get to within a week, and I definitely wouldn’t lose sleep over it.
- Comment on Car Wash Test on 53 leading AI models: "I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?" 2 weeks ago:
I’m pretty sure Google’s AI is fed by the same spider that goes out and finds every new or changed web page (or a variant of that).
As soon as someone writes an article about how AI gets something wrong and provides a solution, that solution is now in the AI’s training data.
OTOH, that means it’s probably also ingesting a lot of AI generated slop, which causes its own set of problems.
- Comment on Car Wash Test on 53 leading AI models: "I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?" 2 weeks ago:
It’s not literally guessing, because guessing implies it understands there’s a question and is trying to answer that question. It’s not even doing that. It’s just generating words that you could expect to find nearby.