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Will my children code?

i’ve also never found a practical use for llms in my software development. the code is too complex, with interactions between the data model and with other services that require careful thought. explaining what to do to the llm would be the same process as writing the code except when the llm produces it i have to parse it all again to figure out if it its correct. maybe if you could train it entirely on your codebase it would be useful for things like: write a test that calls these apis with… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:25 AM on November 20, 2023

sometimes complexity is just a consequence of the domain. that’s the case for the product i work on now. we of course provide interfaces to manage the complexity but at a certain point you just have to deal with it on its own terms, and adding chatgpt just means now i have two complex systems to manage instead of the one i’m working on
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:34 AM on November 20, 2023

A torrid love affair with GPT-5 has not been ruled out

> The Verge: Breaking: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO

if this is even in the realm of possibility the whole board should resign for incompetence
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 4:35 PM on November 18, 2023

complete derail but the basilisk will be torturing “me” in an ai simulation created in a computer to which i say as always: that’s none of my business
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:12 AM on November 19, 2023

why on earth did microsoft not have a seat on the board after throwing 13 billion at them.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:26 AM on November 20, 2023

happy birthday mr freeman

Who would start a 2-4 year project for a target platform that might well be obsoleted out from under you in a surprise announcement in the fall of year 3?

if they had released a 64 bit build for intel macs 10 years ago it would be playable today on apple silicon.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:02 AM on November 18, 2023

"Gaza is Being Strangled"

i think the war framing is itself misleading. this is a large scale response to a prisoner rebellion. no, prisoners shouldn’t kill civilians or even their prison guards in a riot, despite being illegally jailed. the response should also not be the indiscriminate slaughter of every inmate whether they were part of the rebellion or not. the prison should be abolished and the prisoners reintegrated into society. maybe that’s impossible now, but again what people are mad about is an ongoing mass… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 11:57 AM on October 31, 2023

> By your logic, since US money is distributed by the truckload to both sides, we should be equally justified to call on Hamas to release the hostages or allow a Red Cross visitation as we should be to call on Israel for a ceasefire.

this isn't the argument of a serious person. literally nobody here does not want the hostages to be released. not that it would matter if i called for it, but here, i call for it, release the hostages. i'd also call on israel to stop… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:27 PM on October 31, 2023

just take a minute to contemplate the coldness and inhumanity of disincentivizing hostage taking by killing the hostages
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:03 AM on November 1, 2023

obviously both sides view information as one of the weapons in their arsenal. this is the case with all conflicts. so maybe they're lying about hostages being killed there, or maybe not. but unless idf intelligence somehow has exact knowledge of where every hostage is, every time they drop a bomb they're declaring their indifference to whether a hostage might be killed or not.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:59 AM on November 1, 2023

> Far less plausible are Hamas' additional claims they totes only intended military targets and that all the Bad Stuff that followed was totally the other randos who followed them into Israel and not them, they promise.

I'm sure the massacres were by Hamas fighters. I think they didn't expect to get more than a few hostages, and definitely not to overrun any of the IDF bases surrounding gaza. Most probably expected to be shot dead long before they could reach those… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 4:23 PM on November 1, 2023

> Israel has been acting under the norms / rules established for these kinds of conflicts,

If these are the norms, the norms are heinous. As far as the rules go, there's a bunch of them established by the UN, and I promise you that bombing the shit out of a city and killing thousands, mostly women and children, are not in line with the rules.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:30 AM on November 2, 2023

> The major difference between Apartheid and what exists in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank is that Apartheid South Africa was not the occupation of a neighboring country. Apartheid had as its end a single country with equal rights for all. The end of this is going to be the two state solution.

The far-right in power in Israel right now is pretty clear on the record that they are against a two-state solution and will do anything to stop it. Maybe a new government, free… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 9:48 AM on November 2, 2023

absolutely insane how many people will defend bombing ambulances and hospitals. i’m out!
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 5:21 PM on November 3, 2023

I'd argue the US has been the sole stabilizing force in Israel / Palestine and their immediate neighbours for the past 50 years

this is impossible to take seriously. we supported the taliban and we destroyed iraq and set the arab world on fire, supported the coup in iran, supported the coup in libya, really the list never ends, actions that led directly to the rise in power and esteem of far right islamic fundamentalist paramilitaries like al qaeda,… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 5:39 AM on November 4, 2023

ah you see this bombed to shit basement may once have been used for boy scouts meetings so actually it’s ok to kill thousands of children
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:47 PM on November 6, 2023

Those chalkings were incredibly immature and I know tempers are high (and kids in college are still impulsive kids) but things like that don't help the case you have to constantly make that opposing the assault on gaza has nothing to do with antisemitism. Hate it!
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 10:03 AM on November 7, 2023

the chances of some number of oct 7 deaths being friendly fire has been brought up in social media posts and some interviews i’ve listened to and while it seems very likely it also seems like there’s no good reason to emphasize it. whether hamas killed everyone or whether some number of civilians were killed by accident by attack helicopters, the relentless assault on gaza is still the unjustified and illegal slaughter of civilians.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:18 AM on November 9, 2023

very nice of hamas to leave a calendar on the wall that says “terror shifts for the terrorism” on the wall (eyes rolling so hard that i give myself a brain injury)
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:53 PM on November 13, 2023

there was a claim made in an earlier posted article (the one from tablet mag) that the reason the idf was so sure about the underground command center at shifa was because the israelis had built it themselves in the 80s. presumably that would mean they know where the fucking place is. there or not, there should be a ceasefire all the same, but surely if it was there they would have more than 5 AKs and some dates
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:11 AM on November 16, 2023

A Kind of Kinky Turing Test

i know you’re not supposed to kink shame but i’m making an exception here
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 4:41 AM on November 14, 2023

Beachgoer videos endangered cassowary emerging from ocean

i love that they took one look at it and were like “prolly was running from a dog”. anyway i’m glad we’re getting cassowary content from the cassowary chariot account
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:28 PM on November 13, 2023

Like samizdat for a sex-positive feminist underground

my girlfriend at 15 gave me a copy of this book and i devoured it, and in many ways it completely changed my life and is probably the first thing that introduced me to feminism. i remember it being funny and sometimes sad but mostly so adult that i felt grown up just reading it. that relationship did not last but the impact of fear of flying did. it made me sure to always wipe my ass clean before getting in bed with someone lol
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:14 AM on November 13, 2023

I was thinking more about the idea of fear of flying being already passé by the 90s and about the impact it had on me as a teen boy. I think an interesting thing about the specific case of exposing boys to feminist ideas is that in the environment boys seem to *still* grow up in, the Andrew Tateiverse you might call it, there is no feminist idea that is out of date and in a way you have to kind of run the historical gauntlet. Like I think going through all the "waves" of feminism in… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 12:43 PM on November 13, 2023

Seeing like a bank

> competent telephone operations were instrumental to bringing equity ownership to the middle class.

Ah yes, the credit card oligopolies get to skim 2-3% off *every* transaction through interchange fees and their revenue has grown 10 fold in the last 20 years but giving real support to cardholders would bankrupt them.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:12 AM on November 8, 2023

The Empire Won That War

This was one of the better sketches last saturday, although when he said "how many yards to the mile" I was yelling internally "1760!!!!" but I guess that's not something everyone just has at the ready and I'm the weird one.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 12:19 PM on November 3, 2023

> How to Measure a Scant Cup of Flour

listen i don't care metric or imperial do what you want but your baking recipes should be by weight not volume for gods sake
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 4:32 PM on November 6, 2023

Humpback whales on Australia's east coast go from 150 whales to 40,000

“save the whales” was an obsession of mine as a kid but as time went on i just assumed that the whales would never be saved but did we do it? did we save the whales? is this what happiness feels like?
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:57 AM on October 28, 2023

Patagonia just designed its warmest coat ever, and it’s made from trash

Patagonia walks the walk in terms of ownership and anti-growth.

do they though? they transferred voting shares to a trust they control, then transferred the rest to a non profit they control. they gave up nothing, really, can draw big salaries from the non profit and can dispose of the assets as they please. what this non profit does or will do is anyone’s guess. besides get absolutely incredible pr for the patagonia brand.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:17 AM on October 26, 2023

Feel Free To Insert A Predestination Pun Here

Compatibilism (the philosophical position that free will is compatible with determinism) has always seemed fundamentally incoherent to me. Either the universe is a causal chain, and everything is determined by its antecedents, and we have no free will, or it's not, and there's something magical going on with humans in particular to give us the ability to intervene in the chain of causes and produce an outcome that is not predetermined. Until someone can explain how the latter can be the case… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 12:20 PM on October 20, 2023

If you know someones desires and a bit about how they've reacted to similar situations in the past you can guess pretty well how they're going to react to a particular situation (if you have that prior knowledge about them). Not 100% reliably, but we overestimate how often people deviate from typical behavior.

Non-determinism in physics just means that certain things at the quantum level behave probabilisitically. It's an open question whether that means there isn't a… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 12:39 PM on October 20, 2023

Dispensing with the idea of free will sounds great because you won’t be held responsible for anything.

i find it far worse. we’re cursed to make choices we have no influence on. we cannot escape the illusion that we have the power to change our fate, but that fate meets us inexorably. it’s a greek tragedy. we’re all oedipus
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:27 AM on October 21, 2023

i’ve taken and taught classes that had free will as their only topic. yes, there’s lots of philosophical squirming to try to refine the idea to make it work, to find a place for it. it’s all a kind of emotional reaction to the obvious conclusion that it’s fundamentally incompatible with our basic notion of cause and effect. you see this in religious views (like augustines silly idea that everything that happens is caused by god but we can choose whether we think it’s neat or not and that’s our… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 5:46 AM on October 22, 2023

> What’s my point? If even under controlled conditions we cannot predict an outcome with certainty, I’m not sure it’s worth worrying about whether our own outcomes are fully determined. If god is in the gaps — we are always going to have gaps. There will always be variance left over for the self, however constituted, to claim.

A completely reasonable position, a kind of Kantian pragmatism about causality. But I think what it amounts to is the claim that maybe we don't… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:55 AM on October 23, 2023

> No, see I think what a lot of people are thinking about when they consider the idea of free will is stuff like, "Should I take ADHD medication? Would I be more free if I took ADHD medication? Will I still be me if I take ADHD medication? Am I more authentically myself with or without the ADHD medication?" A lot of what people are talking about in this thread is useless for answering the questions people actually care about regarding free will.

I mean… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:25 AM on October 24, 2023

Arguably the funniest McCarthyist purge in US political history

> McCarthy NOT running for Speaker again, in a shock to his allies.

Honestly this is the only thing McCarthy has ever done that indicates the ability to think rationally. But really who would ever want to be the speaker of a GOP majority house. EVERY republican speaker since the Obama era has resigned! You could not pay me 10 million dollars to do it for one single congress. It's the worst fucking job in the world, trying to bring to order a party of morons who think… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 5:31 PM on October 3, 2023

I'm kind of in love with the brazenness of asking "why do we even need a House Ethics office?". If they wanted to be ethical they wouldn't be GOP house members. QED
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 9:43 AM on October 5, 2023

Most House Republicans recognize that the kind of shutdown / burn it down politics that is red meat for their base, but in reality becomes quickly unpopular when it happens.

do they? they don’t care about electoral consequences because they don’t plan to abide by the results of any election that they lose. it’s a mistake to think of them as electioneering. they’re not interested in democracy, they want christian dominion. they didn’t want abortion as… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 9:29 PM on October 7, 2023

The nytimes ticker for this has the names abbreviated as "JJ" for jim jordan and "HJ" for hakeem jeffries. Truly a shame there is nobody in the GOP caucus named like Bob Jones or whatever to really add another layer of comedy to the proceedings
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 9:34 AM on October 18, 2023

> willing to accept some form of punishment

get the fraternity paddles out, i guess
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 12:00 PM on October 20, 2023

It's about to become easier to die

I believe everyone has the right to die on their own terms, when they want to, ("sound mind" is not something I really think exists), no questions asked. I really believe that if you persistently want to die, you should have a right to die.

But real compassion would be offering solutions to the poverty and social despair that is at the root of many people's addiction. Sure, not all addicts are poor and live in hopeless circumstances, but for many of them,… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:26 AM on October 20, 2023

From the high desert and the great American Southwest

It's sad that Art Bell was in the end just a right wing crank a few steps from Alex Jones (who was not uncommon as a guest on Coast to Coast in the early days), and would 100% be a Q-anon/Trump guy today. Because man I loved listening to this show, especially before the George Noory days. Phone calls from Satan. Ghost stories. Aliens are real. To me it was obvious how much of it was bullshit, but it was entertaining bullshit. I think for a lot of the audience it was a beacon of truth.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 12:02 PM on October 13, 2023

Someone asked where to find similar kinds of stuff without the right wing nightmare attached today, and I think two of the best resources are the QAnon Anonymous and Oh No Ross and Carrie podcasts. Both of them dive into the worlds of unreality that plague our modern media landscape with skeptical and critical eyes (Qanon Anon focuses more on following Qanon cranks but has episodes about things like the resurgence in belief in ancient Giants and alien related stuff as well). You get to hear the… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 9:20 AM on October 18, 2023

The plastic eating bacteria that could change the world

it’s going to be interesting when you have to start replacing plastic goods in your home because they’ve got an infection. putting my tv remote in the fridge to extend its lifespan. house flooded because the pex plumbing was eaten by bacteria. there’s massive plastic waste, yes, but that’s because plastic has become so central to our lives. the plastic bacteria is kind of scary
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 5:07 AM on October 9, 2023

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature goes to Jon Fosse

interesting, i just preordered the paperback of Septology yesterday without knowing much about him but finding the idea of 600 pages on the meaning of life intriguing for some winter reading.

I do wonder if Cormac McCarthy had survived a little longer if he’d have been in the running. Always seemed like the most likely next american winner to me.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 5:31 AM on October 5, 2023

> i just preordered the paperback of Septology

> The hardcover is the way to go with this book

Transit has a paperback coming out on Halloween (🎃). I was not able to find the hardcover edition. Or at least, my local bookstore said it was no longer in stock or available for order (I guess it was a limited run) and to pre-order the paperback.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 7:25 AM on October 5, 2023

> Something either is unique (singular, one of a kind) or it's not. If you feel compelled to say something is very or completely unique, you're either being needlessly wordy or you really want a different word, or words.

A great deal of 20th century philosophy is concerned with the problem of the particular and the universal. It's not cut and dry. If something was in fact so particular that it could not be considered general in anyway, some might argue that while it… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 11:05 AM on October 5, 2023

Americans Are Still Spending Like There’s No Tomorrow

Increased spending is the expected rational economic response to high inflation. If the money is worth less tomorrow it's better to spend it today. You see extreme examples of this like in the recent inflation crises in Argentina with people eating out every night since if they wait until tomorrow the meal will be even more expensive. We're just seeing a smaller variant of it here in the US.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 8:10 AM on October 2, 2023

> IMO Fed policy should not be lowering & raising mortgage rates like they have. Too much gasoline / Halon application.

The fed funds rate definitely impacts mortgage rates but they're not federally regulated in the US at all. The banks set them to whatever they want. Inflation leads banks to hike rates because inflation makes loans easier to pay over time because it makes every dollar of the loan worth less in the future. Inflation is great for debtors if you… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 3:00 PM on October 3, 2023

Dianne Feinstein (1933-2023)

I do not like to see that a former union organizer and then SEIU president was hired by Uber to advise it on its union busting efforts in California. But she's not exceptional among powerful democrats I guess.
posted to MetaFilter by dis_integration at 6:41 AM on October 2, 2023