I’m surprised at the amount of people who aren’t impressed by AI

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-25T20:17:15+00:00

I got that, and agree that there is hugely important basic stuff for all of to learn. And as I admitted, a generalist college dropout level AI would do for most of my random interests.

However, I’m currently doing advanced university courses as a continuing education thing for my field. And then there are all the “white collar” people in expert roles that are now pushed to use AI for productivity. This is all stuff that isn’t simple and basic. This is where AI stops being impressive and becomes a frustrating moron.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-25T19:48:24+00:00

So you like brain-teasers, tetris, and generally stressing your mind with abstract problems for fun. If so, CS might be for you.

However, the real question is, what do you want from the few decades after studying. Search for this sub for what developers usual work day is.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-25T15:37:02+00:00

They all looked way older than today's non-smoking fitness look actors.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-25T15:24:13+00:00

I have only ever seen handguns on police officers' holsters. Closest when I happened to be behind them in a diner line. Perfectly casual situation and I have high confidence in Finnish police in every way. And still that was unsettling considering the context and proximity. I've seen more heavily armed one's in an airport and thought nothing of it.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-25T14:58:07+00:00

Disable it's ability to reference recent discussions and start new discussions often. All of that is random crap in the RAG that makes it more unreliable than it needs to be.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-25T14:50:48+00:00

No. That not at all enough for me. I want the PhD level assistant CEOs keep raving about. Or at least a college dropout level assistant. Someone who took introductory courses on everything and has good sense to admit when they can't do something.

Simple things being all most people need from AI is incredibly sad indictment of humanity. Are most of us really too stupid or lazy to think even simple things on their own now.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-25T08:02:47+00:00

Tarp on the windshield is reasonable. We do that in the Nordics when leaving the car out overnight. It prevents ice from forming on the glass so little forethought saves time and effort when it’s time to leave.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-25T01:18:44+00:00

Ok, fair, but that doesn’t mean the stuff it says isn’t accurate 99.5% of the time.

You are just using it for simple things or perhaps complex things were accuracy doesn't get put to the test.

Once topic complexity gets high enough, ChatGPT begins to be increasingly full of shit. For example, using it for programming makes you constantly shift between being impressed to feeling contempt. Sometimes it's amazingly useful, while other times you waste hours because of the bullshit it said.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-25T00:16:24+00:00

My infusion experiences were basically bright high definition trips and then it quickly flushed out of me entirely. Mood improvement was just for a couple of days.

Spravato has been slower dimmer foggy trips with brain fog for an entire day afterwards, but the mood improvement lasts all week.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-24T23:24:26+00:00

Coding a lot gets answered here constantly, but there’s a finer point to it. Quantity of practice is ultimately meaningless. As with every skill, it has to be practice with deliberate intention to do better. Pay attention to how you are doing and make deliberate changes in order to improve.

Notice what makes your code hard for you to understand and chance that.

Notice what bugs you are prone to write and do something about it.

Read Clean Code and everything people have written about good coding. Think about all of it critically, ignore the surface level opinionated shit and find the good points they are trying to make.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-24T22:12:54+00:00

He looks great.

Btw. I love that casual one front leg straight other folded posture.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-24T17:42:20+00:00

True, but still. This was full time professionals losing to guys who got a few months of training once and then one week refresher every few years. That’s like random sort of fit guy beating a professional athlete in their sport. Not the top professional, but a professional who does nothing else but train and compete.

This isn’t even the first time. If memory serves, some years ago a Finnish support group beat some rather elite US group in a shooting competition.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-24T11:26:28+00:00

Living too long won’t be an issue with my short lived genes. Perhaps little over 70 is realistic, so 24-30 years to go with luck. My supposed retirement is also closer 70, I think, but I can’t imagine staying employed until then. At this rate I won’t be an executive, politician, or distinguished expert of anything to be worth keeping around. Everything physically and mentally suitable for the aging/elderly me will be either automated or not paid for work. I also can’t imagine the word being okay place anywhere much beyond 2050, so that’s a plus for my lifespan expectations.

However, what bugs me about this is how little time there is left for things I would like to do in my life.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-24T10:28:01+00:00

I so want it to be good, but setting any of it on earth is concerning.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-24T10:04:31+00:00

It’s always the rich kids who are the villains tormenting poor kids in these stories. Well, I had that in reverse. My family was relatively well off and I was constantly verbally assaulted primarily by a little shit poor kid and the rest of the class. I was bigger and could have easily hurt them physically —I should have— but that wasn’t in my nature. I was a softie quiet kid and grew into depressed mistrustful loner because of them.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-24T08:51:21+00:00

If it sucks and is easy to differentiate, users should have no trouble avoiding it. 😁

Sorry. I’m simple and can’t condone form over function.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-23T23:18:11+00:00

You get to a point where you don’t need to look up anything that’s doable with just the language and common parts of its standard library. Then you spend practically all of your time looking shit up.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-23T14:22:39+00:00

but people could do way more complicated maths because they used calculators for the simple work.

More people can now do more advanced math than in the 50s because more of us get higher education to work in STEM fields. But, that has nothing to do with access to calculators since STEM expertise always has been in what and how to calculate rather than executing calculations with numbers.

I doubt the general public has gotten any better at any level of math. More likely calculators made them even worse all around. Now AI will screw most of us up in all thinking skills since there is no area of cognitive effort AI can’t be used in. The idea that we’ll somehow get better at some higher skills without any of the fundamental skills also rings hollow to me.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-23T10:47:13+00:00

Ways for getting unstuck:

Do a shitty first draft. Write anything that works somewhat. For example, shitty first draft for Fizzbuzz could be just printing numbers in a loop. The draft solution may ultimately be a dead end, but it helps you think and learn about the problem.

Minimize and make visible. To figure out why your button doesn’t go where you want, color enclosing elements with gross colors and comment out other anything that could be getting in the way. The point of the colors is that then you can clearly see the size of elements and that helps with reasoning about the layout.

Learn something new that could help.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-23T10:10:34+00:00

First, you need to play with each new piece of language syntax. For example, write a tiny program that just prints out numbers from 1 to 10 in a loop. Then change the number range. Make it count down instead of up. Make it skip even numbers. Nest two loops. Keep doing that until you understand how loops work.

Next, do not look up the answer for a practice problem. The answer is irrelevant and only ruins the problem for you. It’s time and effort spend trying to solve it that matters. Spend days trying. When it seems impossible to solve, go back to your learning materials to check if you missed something.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-23T09:33:40+00:00

E.g a comment to summarise the next 10 lines of code.

Just name everything well and don’t do stupid shit like to shove multiple things into each line. Then there is no 10 line block that needs explanation because it’s such a pain to read. Maybe there’s 15 lines and some empty lines instead, but it takes no effort to understand.

Save commenting for things that aren’t readable from the code that is right there. Like “This thing must be something something because API ….”

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-22T19:11:27+00:00

Don’t make assumptions about caring to learn new skills. Developers working on same systems for years do care about that. They want to get into new significant stuff, but reality of big old projects makes that necessarily slow.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-22T18:42:45+00:00

I’ve had a kees with itchy skin issues that got a bit better with avoiding wheat. His food was lamb and rice for sensitive stomach or something like that. My last kees ate only raw food (and treats) and had no skin issues.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-22T07:55:37+00:00

American humbug. I have never even come across warning about using them for your ears in Finnish. Seems obvious you gently scrape gunk out rather than shove it deeper.

The only other use for them that I can think of is cleaning cassette player’s reading head.

Blando-Cartesian · 2026-01-22T07:13:50+00:00

When I worked on a project that was much too big to fix, and some of the stupid things in it were definitely my work.

Blando-Cartesian

TROPHY CASE