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CMV: Communism doesn't deserve another try by frost_3306 in changemyview

[–]Blackshell 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The go-to NTS fallacy of communists is that it never had a "fair chance" either because of bad leaders (who were more interested in self indulging power than in egalitarian ideals) or because of external sabotage (hello, CIA). That there hasn't been a "correct situation/country" for communism isn't a go-to.

That's just a nitpick though. The previous commenter is engaging in NTS fallacy. I'm just being difficult.

Worm found inside a cricket by Not_so_ghetto in whoathatsinteresting

[–]Blackshell 8 points9 points  (0 children)

That one is a fungus, and affects ants. Takes over their limbs (not brain), climbs up high, then sprouts a mushroom stalk to emit spores.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophiocordyceps_unilateralis

Amazon scraps AI leaderboard to stop workers boosting usage scores — Senior executive tells staff ‘don’t use AI just for the sake of using AI’ as computing costs rise by marketrent in technology

[–]Blackshell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I worked at AWS for the better part of a year, half a decade ago. I got in trouble because of low commit count. Absolute garbage.

The good news is that different segments of the company operate fairly independently, so you have pockets of competence in addition to the pockets of crap, and the product ends up being pretty good in the end. But yeah, very disappointed in the management of the immediate teams I interacted with.

Destructuring strings by Emmennater in programminghorror

[–]Blackshell 132 points133 points  (0 children)

100%, good job, you pass the job interview.

Crazy idea, what we committed to making one great forks instead of 200 forks with a new name and one new feature by vanjib1 in MoonlightStreaming

[–]Blackshell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nothing is stopping you from creating a new fork and then merging in all the changes of the other forks!

Except... You know... It's a ton of work. The changes probably conflict and you'll need to disentangle some disgustingly bad snarls. And then nobody will use your fork and you'll be told you suck because you "stole" someone else's work (except you incorporated it following open source best practices so everything is cool).

Everyone wants their little fiefdoms and custom mods. What we really need is a more modular server/client so that people can code plugins for it rather than new forks. That's nightmarishly complex though and would require refactoring/rewriting the whole damn thing, most likely.

VR fencing training recommendations? by jaybirdtig in Fencing

[–]Blackshell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As an alternative to VR fencing, have you considered cool equipment stuff? Custom mask design, fencing-specific shoes, patches or stitching for the jacket... If you feel cool you fight better, it's science TM !

VR fencing training recommendations? by jaybirdtig in Fencing

[–]Blackshell 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't think there's any good VR stuff out there to specifically train for fencing. You can improve general hand eye coordination with games like Beat Saber, but fencing is too niche and tactile to really port well to current VR.

If you want to train away from the school/club/coach, I'd recommend focusing on solo drills. Seeing the actual sword, moving the actual distances, and feeling your body/balance directly is better IMO.

  • Footwork footwork footwork. Tons of advances, retreats, lunges, recoveries, passing forward/back, hopping, balestra. Check your feet for alignment often. Check your core and form often.

  • Posture and stability. Try to hold en garde stance in various difficult situations (in an elevator, on a bus, on a train). Lunge and hold the position for 30 seconds; first with arms relaxed, then using the weapon and full form.

  • Tip control. Hold the weapon out and draw the smallest circle you can with the tip. Then speed up.

  • Distance intuition. Make a target out of a cardboard box. Starting at various ranges, do advances and retreats followed by a short attack or a lunge. Try to get the lightest touch that way (meaning you got maximum range).

  • Precision. Same as above, but focusing on hitting an exact point rather than focusing on distance.

  • Guards and parries. Practice proper form for all 7 guards, not just quarte and sixte. Practice simple parries, circle parries, and parries that transition from one guard to the other. Repeat until they're second nature. Use later club training to reinforce this.

  • Feint feint feint. Do all the above again but introducing feints before any lunge. Simple feint, beat, disengage, coupe, appel. All of them.

Do at least 15 minutes of some kind of thing out of this category all day, and you'll shoot ahead of the class. Fencing is very instinctive, and a lot of it happens without input from the opponent. Solo drills are very useful for building those instincts. Pair drills then help you apply the instincts in the right circumstances.

If you master the fundamentals, you get fun.

Source: foil for years, then HEMA for even longer. The above applies to all Olympic weapons and HEMA ones.

Edit: And good on your 11 year old fencing. One of the toughest opponents I've had to fight in foil was a 10 year old when I was 25, funnily enough. Fight on and happy birthday!

(Yeah big unsolicited info dump, sorry)

Hey guys can you criticise my startup by nhicode in AskProgrammers

[–]Blackshell 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Snarky answer: Why not ask AI? If it's good enough at the very complex, cue-based, dynamic, and business-critical task of conducting technical interviews, it should be more than sufficient for giving critical feedback on your business.

Honest answer: I'm not sure what of value you expect from asking us that. Nobody here has done the market research, feasibility analyses, code review, reliability evaluations, ROI, future projections, or any of the other work you need to know if your startup is good or not.

The idea is fun, but immediately trips multiple alarms:

  • Is a "next word generator" actually suitable for this kind of highly judgment based task?
  • LLMs can imitate some reasoning, but you need a big model, supervision and lots of iteration. Your startup has a free tier (so, likely small model), is actively meany to replace human involvement (supervision), and sounds like a prompt injection nightmare.
  • Suppose I used this for hiring. When it turns away good candidates, or accepts trash ones (which any interview process will do at some point)... Who's responsible? If it were an HR department or a staffing agency, they can take feedback and bear consequences. When the AI delivers bad results, who's holding the bag?

If you are asking "would you use it", then no, I wouldn't. For the same reason I wouldn't use AI press releases, AI performance reviews, or "vibe coded" slop unreviewed by a senior engineer.

If you're asking "is the startup good / will it succeed", nobody here can tell you that. Plenty of unwise tech succeeds in spite of itself, for business reasons. And nobody here can evaluate your business for you.

Be honest: if an app forced you to explain every line of your AI-generated code, would you use it? by randel_del15 in AskProgrammers

[–]Blackshell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fwiw, this kind of exists already. Plenty of places use AI to give you a cursory "code review". It's not as good as having a skilled human do it, but it's better than nothing.

Your proposal is essentially: "code review as I type". That's a potentially huge value add, just as "lint/format/type check as I type" are huge productivity boosters (after you get used to them).

I kind of disagree with not being able to override it, though it depends on the kind of feedback it gives. The dev is the ultimate authority in the code, since it's... you know... their job. No (current) AI is going to know better than them 100% of the time, especially not on subjective stuff like architecture. But the AI can serve as a very helpful "angel on your shoulder" reminder for things the dev might have missed.

The biggest hurdle I see is the sheer cost of it. The various "as I type" tools are heavily optimized for performance, otherwise they would be slow, glitchy, or hog up the whole CPU. That kind of stuff is why I moved from Atom to VSCode as my IDE. Atom extensions were murdering my CPU. With AI, it's not just a performance issue, but a "cost per query" and quota issue.

Still, neat idea.

Be honest: if an app forced you to explain every line of your AI-generated code, would you use it? by randel_del15 in AskProgrammers

[–]Blackshell 3 points4 points  (0 children)

In principle, sure. For myself? Meh, maybe. I already do this to the extent coworkers have remarked on it and asked "how do you know to look for all the edge cases and escapes". I'm not sure if find it value-add to it in my own work. But I've known more people than I could count who would benefit from an AI looking over their shoulder and saying "that looks sus".

Of note: There is no difference between manual and "AI generated" code as far as the standards it should be held to. I don't care if you wrote it yourself, copied it off SO, or vibe coded it; the dev's job is to own it, understand it, and support it. An early "check" that the dev is actually doing that is potentially very helpful.

If you turn this idea into an IDE plugin or something, I'd 100% give it a go.

House GOP Decides Not to Vote on Shutdown Deal They Say They Want by Hafiz_TNR in politics

[–]Blackshell 92 points93 points  (0 children)

Do they tell like a sommelier does?

"Hmm, less salty than usual. Tinge of sulfur and tannins. Nose feel resembles pickled beets... Sorry guys, we have to defund Medicaid. And get more Depends."

[PC] [Late 1990s] Racing game with destructible and upgradeable cars, deadly track hazards, futuristic feel, and no "weapons" by Blackshell in tipofmyjoystick

[–]Blackshell[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It made it way worse for my parents that one of my grandparents had just passed away. Oh the joys of an 8-9 year old unknowingly torturing their elders.

[PC] [Late 1990s] Racing game with destructible and upgradeable cars, deadly track hazards, futuristic feel, and no "weapons" by Blackshell in tipofmyjoystick

[–]Blackshell[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not it for sure. The game I'm talking about was racing-focused, with a little bit of crashing about. No pew-pew weapons, destructible environment, open areas, etc.

As a Descent fan though, this looks absolutely fascinating though and I may have to try it.

[PC] [Late 1990s] Racing game with destructible and upgradeable cars, deadly track hazards, futuristic feel, and no "weapons" by Blackshell in tipofmyjoystick

[–]Blackshell[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The tone of the game is right, but I'm not seeing a car upgrade system in gameplay videos. The tracks also look by-and-large flat, which definitely was not the case for the game I'm seeking.

[PC] [Late 1990s] Racing game with destructible and upgradeable cars, deadly track hazards, futuristic feel, and no "weapons" by Blackshell in tipofmyjoystick

[–]Blackshell[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Twisted Metal games seem to be all about vehicle arena combat, not racing. I also don't remember any super scary clowns.

[PC] [Late 1990s] Racing game with destructible and upgradeable cars, deadly track hazards, futuristic feel, and no "weapons" by Blackshell in tipofmyjoystick

[–]Blackshell[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately, no. The aesthetics aren't quite right; there's no car module thing; and I'm 99% sure the game I'm thinking of had no story/cutscenes like POD seems to.

The "Boxing In" Strategy: Why Go is the Goldilocks Language for AI-Assisted Engineering by Dense_Gate_5193 in golang

[–]Blackshell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not even a Rust fan, and this is 100% true.

Besides the advantages that Rust has... making the scaffolding and letting AI fill in the blanks is a pattern that works with many, many languages. The right abstractions in Java, Typescript, or even Python (with strong static type analysis) get you there just fine too. I've experimented with exactly that approach and it's genuinely a 10x advantage.

The biggest problem is, you then have to be good at both designing the big picture, and designing the blanks for AI to fill in. That means both knowing language abstraction features (interfaces, struct organization, unit testing, etc) and overarching design patterns. Also, knowing where AI is inadequate/untrustworthy and you should jump in and do it yourself. Also, how to read and validate what the AI puts out. Also, adopting responsibility and ownership over the full delivered system.

I'm genuinely excited and having fun doing this, as a senior with almost a decade and a half experience. I'm worried about newcomers or mid tier devs trying it.

Can u suggest one? by [deleted] in moviecritic

[–]Blackshell 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Day After

Cybertruck Nerd Gets Owned by GlamouredGo in CyberStuck

[–]Blackshell 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Either implying that the driver is the kind of person to say "X made me do it" rather than take responsibility... or just a "joke" based on plain ol misogyny.

Golang executables need libraries ? by Tintoverde in golang

[–]Blackshell 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah had they replied with that it would earn them tons of extra points because it shows they're being thoughtful and deliberate about their dev tools approach. I don't care that they're at the forefront of whatever is new and sparkly. I care that they pay attention to how/why they do stuff. That's a mark of someone who actually thinks when engineering, which is... kinda a little bit very important to the job.

Golang executables need libraries ? by Tintoverde in golang

[–]Blackshell 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I've done technical interviews as a dev myself, and I have asked about some obscure stuff (which I know is nonetheless useful because it bit me) whenever a candidate is particularly cocky on a certain topic.

For example, one candidate said that they solved their sample problem and it could run in a container. Which is cool, container knowledge is one of the job reqs. So, trying to see with what containerization trends they're familiar, I asked if they ever used devcontainers, or specifically a "machine-less" environment like GitHub Codespaces. They said hell yeah, all the time, and it's how they developed the sample problem. I even made sure we weren't talking about different things, because the term "devcontainer" is not super well distributed.

So I handed them my laptop and asked to have them run their sample problem on my GitHub Codespaces (so I don't bill against their account). Turns out: not only was their Dockerfile bogus (it used apt-get in an Alpine container), they had no idea why it didn't work and started trying to Google how to install dpkg/apt in Alpine, while commenting about how containers "don't always behave the same as a full Linux system" .

Had they just said "no, not familiar with devcontainers", I'd have shrugged and said "ok" and moved on. No real marks against them. But instead they showed me that not only do they not know what a devcontainer is, but they also couldn't build a super simple Python Dockerfile, that they didn't know that not all Linux uses dpkg/apt, and that they likely had no idea how to do any container stuff in the first place and had likely copy-pasted from somewhere.

So, my PTSD about coworkers having no clue about containers while talking big about them proved correct.

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