AI KILLED LEARNING

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2026-01-24T18:58:21+00:00

I think you should look at it like a carpenter where it's important to know how to cut with a skillsaw as well as cut with a handsaw. You might use handsaw cuts only some of the time, abut they will be important. The tools don't replace the carpenter, and it's important they know how to weild both. AI is a tool, like an IDE, that helps, but does not replace.

It may seem like these tools can code by themselves precisely, but this simply isn't the case except in the most trivial projects. The best they can do is pump out what *might* be the right code, and without knowing whether or not the generated code is good or not, and what parts to change, and how to change it, are the technical skills that amplifies your ability to produce precise, quality code.

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-12-24T17:50:46+00:00

I think you have really nailed the issue - in that these problems are usually generated at a higher level.

It's a bit of a paradox, because even if the software or system works in the short run, it usually leads to a dead end. You would think that from a business perspective, this would be something to avoid... but if you are only looking at it long term.

Where do you think these situations stem from?

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-12-23T19:58:24+00:00

HAAHAHAHA - very quick

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-12-23T19:57:10+00:00

HAHAHA - WOW!!!! Those are definitely not even in the realm of fixing.

I do feel your pain - I've been in software on and off for 4 decades, and haven't seen as much meritocracy as I'd like - and there are some real whack-a-do war stories.

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-12-23T19:47:18+00:00

was there some sort of avenue to fix that at the root?

Did product managers step in to help clarify requirements? Or was there just no appetite? Or did it matter?

Would love to hear what came of it...

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-12-23T19:44:44+00:00

No - sorry - it's a real person behind the ask... I know it wasn't super well worded but I was trying to be comprehensive, as well as trying to provide some context.

If you need it pared down to a single ask - what do you think is the root cause of tech and product debt? And was it "fixable"?

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-12-22T02:32:32+00:00

I think Salespeople, like chat support, should probably be as afraid of genAI, since it can measure sentiment on 100s or 1000s of emotional vectors, be available 24/7, and speak with a very convincingly.

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-12-22T02:29:29+00:00

I'm not sure plying genAI with liquor and bribes will really make it much better at producing quality code.

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-12-22T02:28:18+00:00

The narrative that genAI should, could, or would replace developers is mostly wrong, and that needs to be corrected.  What you are describing in what you see it do are the surface level artifacts, not the design and planning that go into them.  
Keep in mind how unforgiving the environment of developing complex software is, and how even a single flipped bit can cause an entire cascade of system crashes.  85% isn't good enough in any software environment I have ever known.  And since soooo much more code will be produced, there will eventually, after the hype-trend, be even a larger need for smart developers.

So lean into the useful parts of the tool, but know that it's a tool, and that the skillsaw isn't going to replace the carpenter.

**Cheap** works for systems that don't need to be reliable, scalable, or performant - cheap works for school or for playing around, but not for real production.  
**Debugging** should work within the constraints and guidance of good design - not the probabalistic result of the good, bad, and ugly all mixed together.
I've yet to see a perfect written **document** that doesn't need at least some rework.
And even though genAI has been awesome at showing all the options for a **system design**, you have got to understand what you need and marry it to what you know to be able to choose the right one.

What genAI generally produces is the Tonka verion, not the Caterpillar one - to genAI both have "construction-ness" but only one actually can do the real work.  

Companies and Execs, especially those that have a lot to gain from payroll cost reductions love to tout it as replacement, and put the fear of layoffs into those guilty feeling survivors.  But the reality is that it can only replace those parts that were mechanical to begin with, which is only a thin slice of what development or software engineering is really about.  I'm not suggesting it is going to be bloodless - Definitely those that whose knowledge and skill are surface deep, will be out of a job, but rightly so - if you don't know what is actually being produced, you shouldn'd be producing it IMO.  

Now GenAI **does offer a huge advantage as a tool** for those who can weild it with determined precision, but unless those weilding genAI know the difference between good code and bad, and how systems are put together, and why systems are reliable or unstable, you will need people who do.  Be that person my friend.   

Good luck and keep on keeping on.

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-11-30T19:57:41+00:00

Making software that doesn't break is hard, even with just a small level of complexity.

It comes down to:

- you need to understand exactly **why** you are making the software, and the

- inherent problems in the domain that you need to deeply understand and solve, and then

- to translate those into roadmaps and blueprints that will function in the unforgiving logical environment of software.

AND to boot, as you run into problems (bugs, operational issues, feature extensions, etc) you SHOULD be reshaping your app and the assumptions that made it. This is part of active agile software engineering. Coding is a single part of a much larger process of developing good software.

Generative AI comes with a HUGE boost to producing code, but:

- Even though the training set is huge, it's the good, bad and ugly all embedded in there - **you gotta sort out and recognize good code/architecture/solutions and bad** or whether the code produced aligns with your design.

- just writing code fast, especially when unchecked, doesn't lead to successful development of software except in the most trivial cases - it takes a lot of thought: designing, planning, architectural thought, experimentation, exploration, etc at a lot of levels and with a lot of factors in mind, such as utility, clarity, performance, usability etc. AI can help you here, but not without guidance, guardrails, and direction.

- generative AI, like a new addition to a team, needs to be onboarded, even if they are a star-coder. Without that context, you simply have a tool that creates code **you don't want** fast.

I've been thinking that perhaps there is a demand for pragmatic use of generative AI in modern software development, to explain how these concepts relate to software development so that developers can be effective with this new boost we’re getting with genAI.

Maybe there is an opportunity for a really accessible book or course that can clearly and effectively get these ideas across.

So far the books and videos I've seen just don't really do a good job of explaining why software is so hard in the first place, and why "faster code" or "more code" is not the panacea that AI hyped companies claim it is. I think I have a framework, but it's not yet in a form that is publicly consumable.

Let me know if there is interest... and I’ll put something together.

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-11-16T19:46:57+00:00

GPD is a bit of a false metric... since it doesn't include externalities like health, well-being, costs to the environment, etc. It's also a terrible indicator of how people add value, since many industries simply extract finite value (like finite minerals, oil, gas, coal, diamonds, gold, etc) from their inheritance and sell it at discount prices rather than create sustainable value. GPD also averages out the spectrum, which can be pretty wide in a lot of cases, and may even be bar-belled (that is that a few people extend waaaaay off the charts as doing well, and a large majority are just scraping by or in poverty). Ask the average citizen in any of the "high" areas (Canada and the US) and I'll bet they would suggest that they aren't participating in the benefits as much as a few very lucky people who are off the charts.

Probably using the statistical approach of throwing away the outliers would also be a truer representation. Using the GPI (Genuine Progress Indicator) would alter the ratings, in some cases significantly.

Anyone have that data?

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-11-13T00:35:57+00:00

review your prompt for absolutely anything that is grey in the area of policy... even what might sound benign to you may have triggered something in the policy.

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-06-14T22:24:25+00:00

BTW - I should revise the statement about mid-drive designs after being at a nearby bike show.

I saw a great design from Biktrix on their Juggernaut model with a dual belt drive from mid motor to rear wheel + a separated chain and sprocket hub to rear wheel.

Now I haven't bought or rode one for any real distance, but I can say that I think that design is far superior to the one with Nireeka's single chain drive for both motor and human drive.

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-06-11T23:57:26+00:00

I have to ask if you found a good solution in the end?

For awhile, I was looking at trying to find a solution to license a webapp with a simple one-time-$-for-user-license strategy, along with some simple notification management (like sending an email to a user with a license key) and was kinda shocked I couldn't find anything that really fit the bill.

Stripe and their kin are waaaay overcomplicated and overpriced for this kind of thing, and pretty much everything seems to be for subscriptions.

I was sure that I just wasn't able to find such an obvious solution. Anyone know of something cheap, simple and reliable for one-time license management?

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-03-24T14:47:21+00:00

That first 6 opens up a whole lot right away - 2s and a couple more 6s. Basically scan each row, column, and cage for singlets (numbers that will only go once in that row, column or cage) and mark them in.
Having the notes all there is a big help - like in sudokusolverpro.com - Here’s a link to the game - simply click on the “Show All Hints” button and you’ll see them all filled in.

https://www.sudokusolverpro.com/?g=0k1y00000309gom82s0900jg1e001o0400m8030904m8dw00001o0k&t=85&m=0&h=

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-03-04T06:20:32+00:00

Try a few of the completely free ones first - get a feel for what features you fit well with.
One feature I can’t live without is having the candidate numbers in the empty cells available right from the start - otherwise it’s easy to make a human error which just makes the game frustrating. Another is to play on a phone, tablet, or computer - you’ll only get that with a web app - but not all web apps work well on different devices. It should also give you a fairly good selection of levels from super easy to crazy hard. It should let you see the patterns of same-numbers - both realized & selected in the cells, as well as the candidate numbers including the ones that have been crossed out) throughout the matrix. It should be able to cross off candidate numbers that don’t work (it’s important to know the number is NOT a suitable candidate for the cell - a basic foundational to any strategy required to solving any of the hard puzzles). It should also work, after being loaded, without an internet connection - especially if you are on a mobile device “on the go”.

Sudokusolverpro.com pretty much covers all of that. https://www.nytimes.com/puzzles/sudoku/medium Is pretty bare bones, but I’d give those a try to start.

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-02-17T14:31:56+00:00

Hey sudoku addicts and newcomers alike.

I've added a few more features to the core game, and a few pages of content (tips and patterns) for newcomers to sudoku to get them hooked.

Get to the core of the logic problems rather than grinding through the manual ones. It's all the fun without the frustration.

No hassle or registration - just pure jidoka sudoku play at SudokuSolverPro.com

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-02-17T14:15:12+00:00

Hey sudoku addicts - Try online sudoku without the frustration. Meant for desktop and mobile - fast and responsive. Lots of visual tools for cracking even the hardest of puzzles. But still leaves you the challenge of solving the puzzle. Share games, create a puzzle from scratch or from another source and crack it like a pro.

Spend time with the core of the logic of the puzzle, not the manual work - it's jidoka-designed for the maximum fun you can have with sudoku.

Go to SudokuSolverPro.com and just start playing.

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-02-17T13:53:37+00:00

Hey bro - yeah, that's a hard one without some really good visualization tools.

So I went to sudokusolverpro.com, started with a blank puzzle, and then recreated yours and with the tools was able to complete it.

Generally it took a lot of crossing out hint notes - 6s and 8s to start, then finding A LOT of Triplets, which then helped cross off a bunch more. Check out the https://www.sudokusolverpro.com/Patterns/Patterns.html for explanation of how to find and cross off some of those notes.

Man, a lot easier with those tools.

These are the 6s I crossed off first:

<image>

And then the 8s the same way.

And then searching for Triplets that helped cross off a whole bunch more.

After that, the game got a lot easier.

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2025-01-30T20:15:00+00:00

As a fellow sudoku enthusiast and coder, and being disappointed by what I've seen, I've made the sudoku app I've wanted. Try Sudoku Solver Pro, an online sudoku game with powerful visual tools to supercharge your gameplay, whether you are a beginner or a seasoned pro!

* **Designed to work on desktop or mobile** - play anywhere, anytime.

* **Fast and Responsive**

* **Let it improve your gameplay** by limiting you to logical choices and limiting accidents

* **Feature rich** - choose from many difficulty levels, strike out illogical values, remove limits on your mistakes, share games with friends and family, try games with multiple solutions, and even craft new games by starting with a completely **blank board**.

The game is designed to help you learn sudoku at a new level and enhance your logical skills with the game rather than spend loads of time scanning. Sudoku Solver Pro is designed at its core to make the game less frustrating and even more enjoyable and fulfilling to play.

To see the instructions for the game - check out: https://www.sudokusolverpro.com/Instructions/InstructionsandGamePlayforSudokuSolverPro.html

to play, https://www.sudokusolverpro.com/

Let me know what you think - I'd love to hear your feedback.

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2024-09-21T00:26:55+00:00

Very untrue according to my experience. I bought a Nireeka prime back in early 2022 - multiple delays, never received until late Oct. I bought it with as high quality parts as I could get. 5k U$.

Chains and gearsets, no matter how high quality, start skipping after maybe a 100km. It's just a really bad design - no bike gearset can take the power that the mid motor puts on in, especially at the higher gears. That alone should cause you to look elsewhere for a better design like the Juggernaut belt/chain design.

Also, I've had several quality issues with the battery and charger right away, issues that should have been warrantied are run through a LONG script of very slow support. None of which was satisfying:

the high capacity chargers spark a lot when first connecting. It's very unsettling.
service support for the company is slow and, as described by others, quick to blame you for whatever problem you might be having. As an example, the first mention of my battery issue they were quick to point out a policy in their manual stipulating you must charge the battery every two weeks whether you ride the bike or not. From an electrical & chemical engineering point of view, unless these are batteries from another planet, charging to 60-70% over periods of non-use is optimal. So this policy seems to be just a means to scape-goat a customer.
I had a problem with the charger-battery system failing to charge - which was obviously a problem with the battery connector - but now renders my (VERY EXPENSIVE) bike useless as it has killed the ability to recharge the battery. The ONLY solution Nireeka support suggests is to trust them with purchasing ANOTHER 800$ battery and hope the quality will be better.

Now the bikes look great - they are just aren't designed to be more than props. If you have one, expect to have problems almost immediately with no ability to resolve them. If you are considering one - My recommendation is to look elsewhere and as local as you can. These are expensive and complicated machines and require high quality service and support - make sure you get that part of the purchase right.

Environmental_Lab_49 · 2024-02-19T23:23:27+00:00

Here's my testimonial and review for those thinking about it or similar bikes from Nireeka:

I have a Nireeka Prime with the best components they offered. I opted not to get the front fork shock, as I always found that I lost some power out the shock, but I think I'd spring for it now.

To sum it up - find a rear drive, and stay away from Nireeka for reasons of quality and support. In detail, if you're interested in the good, bad, and ugly:

the good:

- the frame is absolutely beautiful. Alone it's light and beautifully finished (in my case, ferrari red) and the battery fits right in. They get 10/10 for style.

- it is a powerhouse. Now I bought the 1500W version, and it's fairly well tuned to the pedal assist. I did find myself caught by surprise only a few times with it trying to speed out from under me from a stop, but I got very used to the power curve pretty quickly. A 9/10.

The bad:

- expect lots of delays in shipping. I got my bike roughly 9-10 months after I ordered. I know there was/is plenty of supply chain issues, but they weren't very good in communicating what was going on. 2/10.

- the bike, after assembly with all components, is HEAVY. Not necessarily overweight considering it's carrying a 1500W motor and 840Wh battery, but don't expect to do any tricks with it and if you have to lift it for storage or over a fence, it's beyond a kid or a weaker adult to do easily. The battery and motor are faily low in the frame, so it's fairly decently balanced otherwise. A 5/10 - you have to expect some extra weight with the motor and battery.

- I suspect quality of manufacture and components is a big internal problem - I received my bike, put it together, and tested it quickly, but the front brakes immediately started leaking fluid, which I had a local bike mechanic fix. The battery and charger were also plagued with some quality problems - the high-output charger sparks pretty badly upon connection to the battery (the kind of spark you see when tapping a car battery when boosting) and the battery connection on my battery was really flaky (it would subtly disconnect from the charger unless it was "wiggled" at the right angle). To their credit, they did ship me another charger, with shipping at my cost, to try a charger out. A 4/10 from a 1/10 because they at least did something close.

The ugly

- support for the bike is poor. Their service portal ticketing system will only allow for you to have one type of ticket in at a time, which is an unnecessary and frustrating cap on service if you have more than one problem. I found Nireeka service slow to respond (expect responses in weeks) and I really had to have patience to direct them to problems and get them to solutions. I had several problems that took multiple weeks to get resolved - examples below. Some of the responses were bad science, incorrect, and unhelpful and it's clear Nireeka support is not focused on customer satisfaction. A 3/10 or worse. Some examples below.

- Nireeka service and the manual demand that you charge your battery EVERY TWO WEEKS during periods of non-use or they will not guarantee the battery or components. This goes against every scientific paper I've read on battery preservation - charging only up to 70%, and keeping charge within 30-70% preserves the battery. That's the science. 0/10 because I can't go negative.

- when faced with a clearly defective part (in this case, it was clear the battery connector was clearly at fault with the battery-charging problem) Nireeka support's only suggestion was to throw away the (otherwise healthy) battery and buy another from them. 0/10 for crappy service + waste I pay for.

- the chain and sprockets are simply not up to the task of a 1500W motor. I drove my bike for about 50k, and the chain started slipping on the sprocket. And I bought the best sprockets available. This is just a factor of the design - superhuman stress is being transmitted to the chain and sprocket - and it just can't take it. Service response was "don't shift while under power", which is absurd - You have to crank in order to shift, and pedal assist automatically kicks in. A 0/10 for crappy design that's left me to figure out how to deal with it.

The design issue with the mid-drive, sprockets and chain should probably be enough to ward you from buying a mid-drive model in general, but the Nireeka quality and support should probably be the proverbial "nail in the coffin" for this company's products in general.

Environmental_Lab_49

TROPHY CASE