the_snooze

6 ms·

1.
by the_snooze 2mo ago
Proper engineering requires observing and working with real-world constraints. Ignoring constraints is a form of magical thinking. One real-world constraint is that end-users won't always do what you intend for them to with the thing y
2.
by the_snooze 3mo ago
>Decapitating the regime and degrading their military capabilities was the primary objective. Those are tactical objectives, not strategic aims. The US is very good at winning tactically, but losing strategically. This is yet another exa
3.
by the_snooze 4mo ago
Bringing on new fabs takes many years and billions of dollars. You're exposing yourself to a lot of risk if you build now and find that the gold rush is over by the time your new capacity is online.
4.
by the_snooze 4mo ago
That kind of inevitability rhetoric is a big reason why people dislike AI. It's an impressive technology sure, but impressive doesn't automatically mean operational. It's got serious issues with reliability today, and appeali
5.
by the_snooze 4mo ago
We're going back to the mainframe model. Client-side general-purpose computing is an impediment to recurring subscription revenue and vendor lock-in.
6.
by the_snooze 4mo ago
>Absolutely agreed. It feels like tech companies forgot that they are supposed to add value to users. They lost the plot long ago. They're firmly in extraction mode now: how much value can they get from end-users?
7.
by the_snooze 4mo ago
I'm of the same mind. Money is simply a means to an end. The workplace is just somewhere to exchange your time and skills for money, which you use to pursue priorities outside of that. No job will ever tell you you've done enough
8.
by the_snooze 4mo ago
You don't. You accept that social bandwidth is a real-world constraint that you work with, not magic away. That's real engineering.
9.
by the_snooze 4mo ago
This is why I asked: >And why not take the alternative approach of identifying the subset of people who have indeed found solid uses and spread their best practices around? A bottom-up approach has a far better chance of finding those pa
10.
by the_snooze 4mo ago
My questions for that approach are: Why treat AI as a special technology that needs enterprise-scale exploration to come up with a useful application? And why not take the alternative approach of identifying the subset of people who have in
11.
by the_snooze 4mo ago
>I do agree that it is still a tool to keep in touch with some people, yes, but… Are there no alternatives that require a lower price to pay? The sustainable alternative I've arrived at is private group chats with notifications disa
12.
by the_snooze 4mo ago
These benefits make sense up-front, but we have 15+ years of direct experience with "democratizing" technology that ultimately end up ensnaring people. Unless you get these benefits from a local model, you're establishing a d
13.
by the_snooze 4mo ago
Too much of modern consumer-facing software think they're the ends, not the means.
14.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
altek has been given a number of off-ramps and alternatives to proceed. His continued resistance to take those isn't a sign of naivete, it's a sign of bad faith.
15.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
I gave up on Spotify when they did their push into podcasts and audiobooks. It became clear that they weren't really interested in serving their core customer base of people who just want to listen to music.
16.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
This is really the heart of it. Understand what matters to you, and align your finances (and decisions as a whole) with that. If you optimize for some external metric without examining your own values, you're basically adrift.
17.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
I wouldn't necessarily say "idealistic," but certainly constrained. Microsoft has always been scummy in one form or another, but always-on internet connectivity has allowed them to be scummy in persistent ways long after your
18.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
They got way over their skis on this one. There's a difference between "impressive" tech vs. "operational" tech. That difference usually boils down to prioritizing engineering rigor over marketing.
19.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
Exactly, these are highly-paid professionals with very broadly applicable skills. They have the means to uphold professional values.
20.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
>It's restricted because it's genuinely good at finding vulnerabilities, and employees felt that it's not a good idea to give this capability to everyone without letting defenders front-run. It's a possibility, but it
21.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
>Even searching for specific topics is hard. It's the tyranny of the marginal user. How I wish YouTube (and generally other platforms for user-generated content) would have fine-grained search and filtering controls that let me spec
22.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
Yeah I'm of the same view. If you're driving, the least you can do is take the responsibility seriously and give your surroundings proper attention. An automated fine is the least painful way to enforce that.
23.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
> being able to be "present" without the time cost can mean (possibly significantly more) presence at the same cost. This is magical thinking. "Presence" and "time cost" are inextricably linked. You can&#x27
24.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
That sounds like straight up scammer behavior. "Yes, this is Microsoft calling. We need to confirm your info with the local authorities."
25.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
>I stress test commercially deployed LLMs like Gemini and Claude with trivial tasks I did exactly what I said I did. I'm using these systems the way they're designed and advertised. I'm following the happy path with tasks
26.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
I did this in one attempt just now: https://gemini.google.com/share/b4e016be1f69 #8 has an incorrect answer (3 appearances according to Gemini, 2 according to reality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
27.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
There's nothing in these models that say its purpose is software development. Their design and affordances scream out "use me for anything." The marketing certainly matches that, so do the UIs, so do the behaviors. So I take
28.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
Two things can be true at the same time: The technology has improved, and the technology in its current state still isn't fit for purpose. I stress test commercially deployed LLMs like Gemini and Claude with trivial tasks: sports trivi
29.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
That's how I do it too. I'll tap bell once (and let the ring sustain) when I'm about ~5 seconds from overtaking them so people know there's something coming up behind them, and the sustained sound tells them how fast it&
30.
by the_snooze 5mo ago
I'm not a fan of the "something better" phrasing myself. It's very much anti-systems-thinking. Engineers should be honest that everything is a tradeoff. For the up-front convenience you get with phone tickets, you impose

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