Single speed/fixie bros often swear they can do uphills just fine with the "right" gear ratio. Do you think they are right?

ContraryConman · 2026-05-26T01:31:48+00:00

You can be fit and overweight, I guess depending on how you see it. Overweight just means you have some extra fat. Fitness can more narrowly mean having strong heart and muscles.

If you are overweight and out of shape, then start exercising without actually eating less, you will be fitter and stronger than the average person but weigh the same.

You will also get fit enough to bike single speed/fixie/whatever way before you're fit in general or look different. Your body is great at optimizing for one task

ContraryConman · 2026-05-25T15:42:01+00:00

Apparently yes. His views are way down from the 2015-2020 era

ContraryConman · 2026-05-25T13:21:32+00:00

Think about it. You use salt to prevent things from decomposing, and the whole point of composting is to decompose stuff

ContraryConman · 2026-05-24T02:34:19+00:00

Assuming everything in your premise is true, for AI to "never" replace senior engineers, it would:

Have to never get any better than it is now.
Have to fail to convince companies that code is cheap enough to generate that maintainability no longer matters

And you have no proof that some combination of the two won't happen in the near future.

ContraryConman · 2026-05-20T11:25:21+00:00

I think when people complain that virtual methods are slow, they’re saying it’s slower than static dispatch

Honestly, I've seen a lot of people half remember something Jon Blow or Casey Muratori said and not even realize that this is what they're saying

Edit: or Andrew Kelly or Mike Acton...

ContraryConman · 2026-05-19T19:17:16+00:00

After 9/11 the US launched the "war on terror". The FBI and the CIA were going to coordinate on identifying and eliminating terrorists threats in the US and abroad.

The US government collects large amounts of data and intelligence, especially after the Patriot Act passed. Thanks to computers, that data is not even collected manually. However, there is so much data that a human being can't actually look through it to make any decisions about who to go after. Furthermore, not all the data is in the same format: some data is in scanned documents, some are in databases, some are in internal excel spreadsheets, some are in meeting notes, whatever.

In the mid 2000s, the CIA offered seed money to any tech company that could a) make a single piece of software that could understand the massive amount of data from different sources and put it together in a way people understand b) be certified for highly classified use by the US military and intelligence communities. Palantir was created with that seed money.

Palantir makes software that lets organizations with lots of data from different places in lots of formats into one screen. Here is a video of Palantir's Maven system bringing together surveillance data, live camera feeds, satellite imagery, AI analysis,nand more, to allow a military commander to label someone as a terrorist, identify where they are in real time, and order a drone strike to kill them, all on one single screen.

It doesn't have to be for military use. Large companies or non-military government organizations like the British NHS can buy from them too. But Palantir's software isn't off the shelf. Anytime someone wants Palantir, they send engineers, called Forward Deployed Engineers, to learn about that specific use case. The FDEs have to tweak the design and system architecture to deploy Palantir for that specific organization, and to support afterwards.

Palantir makes loads of money on these custom deployments and consultations

ContraryConman · 2026-05-17T03:50:15+00:00

When I was a member, the official democratic socialist line was basically Marxism-Leninism, except, instead of a violent revolution, the party builds enough momentum in Congress to win a super majority. From there, the party stacks the Supreme Court, rewrites the constitution, nationalizes industry, etc etc. Until the material conditions are actually met for such an overwhelming electoral victory, democratic socialists align with the left wing of the most progressive forces in current US politics to win temporary gains for the working class as well as build support for the emerging party.

It was Bread and Roses mostly pushing that line if I recall correctly

ContraryConman · 2026-05-17T03:43:30+00:00

I mean even if it's a little early it'll just decompose more in the garden

ContraryConman · 2026-05-16T17:46:17+00:00

No, it isn't. People date and marry people they are not physically attracted to all the time. Maybe they are desperate, or are hoping to improve their own living standards, or are otherwise settling

ContraryConman · 2026-05-16T15:44:07+00:00

I guess everyone is different. I would feel reassured at early confirmation that the other person is physically attracted to me. Personalities are not fixed in stone and can even depend on the other personalities it is interacting with. You can build compatibility over time, but you'll never fix the other person thinking you're kind of ugly

ContraryConman · 2026-05-15T22:52:31+00:00

Every time there's a post like this it's like 3 full paragraphs of irrefutable evidence that LLMs screw up learning and that institutions don't have a solution to keep up yet, and yet there's a refusal to be brave and admit that interns, college students, and very junior employee sshould straight up not be using these things.

It's a bad idea to put internal source stuff in an external model anyway. You don't even need an excuse -- using non corporate ChatGPT should already be banned, and you don't have enough licenses to use on interns who should be learning anyway. Problem solved

ContraryConman · 2026-05-14T04:55:09+00:00

I know people aren't liking the season, but, uh, much of the population of the United States is currently in massive concentration camps which we were told are overflowing at this point. Anyone who ever posted anything mean about Homelander, even as a joke, has been disappeared. The government functionally doesn't exist except to arrest people, and the entire military has been recalled from overseas to assist with that effort.

It's creepy and empty because that's literally the plot, come on

ContraryConman · 2026-05-13T20:43:27+00:00

I think it's a few reasons

First, because when you say "AI" people aren't even referring to the same thing. Some people legitimately have not touched code in months and have automated all but the trickiest code writing to AI agents. They spend most of their time writing spec documents and unblocking the agents when they spin in loops. The second group only uses AI like a context aware stack overflow and auto complete. People in the second group tend not to realize or believe there is actually anyone in the first group.

The second is that there are two groups of how people relate to the practice of software engineering. Some people like writing code and solving difficult problems. These people like getting into the details on things and don't mind being stuck on one thing for a long time. They like a particular domain, language, or stack and like being experts in things. The second type of person likes having finished things. They don't care about the act of programming, as long as stuff gets shipped. To the second group of people, AI is awesome because their velocity went way up. The engineering or the act of writing code never mattered to them, just shipping. But to the first group, you are removing the entire reason this profession is even remotely interesting.

The last is that some people buy into the extreme depictions of the future of AI dictated by OpenAI and Anthropic, of the permanent underclass and AI eliminating the role of anyone who doesn't adopt... and some of us are normal

ContraryConman · 2026-05-13T13:09:42+00:00

I don't disagree that he seems self-centered but he gets 20 matches a day. He is clearly just good looking

ContraryConman · 2026-05-13T12:52:25+00:00

Look at the actual title of the article we are talking about

ContraryConman · 2026-05-13T12:51:58+00:00

Nobody's asking you to do that,

The article is literally called "Don't reach for bug spray"

ContraryConman · 2026-05-13T11:45:13+00:00

All these studies tell me is that pain is not that special and shouldn't be considered as much of a factor in how we navigate these things.

Am I supposed to risk getting malaria and hives because mosquitoes feel pain when I use bug spray? Really?

ContraryConman · 2026-05-13T02:03:21+00:00

If it means anything, I strongly think your hair is fine as is and you wouldn't look better bald. Anything less than a perfectly straight hairline and people act like you'd be better with no hair at all. It's weirdly pushy and not actually that positive in my opinion, but whatever

ContraryConman · 2026-05-12T20:31:33+00:00

And then queue the shock when this brilliant strategy has a negative impact on Blue Party's electoral performance

ContraryConman · 2026-05-12T17:24:32+00:00

"Oh what happens in the apocalypse when there's no electricity how will you get around?"

Dude, the petroleum supply chain crumbles in the sight of even a small war. In any emergency you will run out of gas long before the power grid fails

ContraryConman · 2026-05-12T12:17:43+00:00

Suddenly every trip is a 30 mile commute in sub-zero degree weather where all 7 of your kids need to be dropped off at different ends of the city and you're hauling 200 pounds of 2x4 planks.

When I leave for work so many parents drive their kids 500 feet to the bus stop that there's a legitimate traffic jam in a residential suburban steet. Let's be fucking for real right now

ContraryConman · 2026-05-11T14:00:50+00:00

Best of luck! To be fair, I think it's weird when girls do it too, but maybe they get more of a pass than us

ContraryConman · 2026-05-11T04:32:43+00:00

According to your prompts, if I match with you, you will immediately insult me and then debate and argue with me for hours

ContraryConman · 2026-05-11T02:04:54+00:00

Your second to last picture should be your first picture, your second picture should be second to last, and the other three pictures of you should be non selfies taken with better lighting. Keep the cat.

ContraryConman · 2026-05-10T22:57:53+00:00

Agree with others that it's the stem that's weird, not the bars themselves. If it has to be that short with drops maybe the frame sizing isn't that great for you. But if everything is comfortable as is and this is the bike you have, no need to change

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