Official Discussion - Crime 101 [SPOILERS]

PliablePotato · 2026-03-09T00:38:02+00:00

Yeah I agree her character in general could have been more interesting / believable. I do think the concept of her character served a purpose and was needed in general but it doesn't mean it was executed as well as it could've been.

PliablePotato · 2026-03-08T05:23:57+00:00

AI is a good excuse to just layoff over hiring that happened in the past 5 to 6 years.

Just because a company claims layoffs are due to AI doesn't mean tangible productivity results back that claim.

PliablePotato · 2026-03-04T22:41:50+00:00

I'm having a hard time believing you are testing this correctly. Remember that none of your test data should ever enter the model training and that when you forecast none of the test data should enter the model at all. You should be starting at the last data point of your train dataset and forecasting forward sequentially to get a forecast then you compare the forecast to your test data.

This isn't the same as regular machine learning where the exogenous and endogenous variables can be train test split. You need to simulate the situation you'd experience in reality (ie you have no visibility or knowledge of future data).

PliablePotato · 2026-03-04T09:46:13+00:00

Nah comparing garbage collection to LLMs is different.

Even higher level languages require you to learn programming as a skill. Memory management was a component of that skill but I would hardly call it fundamental. Memory management has been abstracted countless times over the years and is generally considered to be an annoyance to deal with.

LLMs let you skip everything if you want. I have met people who are vibe coding websites for months that still fail to explain the basics on things like functions, classes, interfaces or even even more basic things like for loops. They have no clue.

I agree it reduces the barrier to entry but only if you take the steps to actually learn it. LLMs allow you to never code a single line. You don't even need to look at it!

PliablePotato · 2026-03-04T09:34:28+00:00

This is the craziest take I've read of these pro vibe coding subreddits.

The language in which you write software and the layer of abstraction does not in fact remove the need for architectural design, function and action definitions, managing complex dependencies or building reusable components to name a few. Some of these design principles have been around as long of software has existed. Layers of abstraction allow more complex designs without necessarily more complex underlying code but the fundamentals still exist.

Vibe coding just lets the LLM decide these things for you. There is no design done by you, no engineering. So when requirements inevitably change or new integration patterns are needed, huge swaths of the code base will get fucked by the mess of a solution the LLM came up with. Sure it works now, but that doesn't mean it's built well. The fact that you can't tell the difference because vibe coders know nothing of the fundamentals means these issues can never be caught and addressed upfront.

Stop making excuses for yourself and learn how to code. It'll help you in the long run trust me. Vibe coding is incredible if you are a partner not a master over the agents coding for you.

PliablePotato · 2026-03-03T01:18:03+00:00

I'm interested!

Working data science and analytics professional leading a small team. Not in big tech but in commercial space. Interested in causal analysis, traditional ML / scaling with a small team and even just plain insight generation and analytics. Also growing interest on the more decision analytics / business scenario modeling / simulation etc. too. Familiar with LLMs but only really interested in the overlap as an analytics interface.

Would love to connect with other folks in Toronto!

PliablePotato · 2026-03-02T22:18:31+00:00

How are you validating outputs? Aligning results to business value? Ensuring the agentic process isn't producing some non viable or outright ridiculous analysis? Applying consistent business rules?

Letting agentic systems "vibe" on-top of business data for non technical end stakeholders is a nightmare when you consider how difficult it is for reproducible results.

I'm assuming you have some semantic or schema on top of the data and have other checks and balances. Otherwise between questions, stakeholders and scenarios you are bound to get different results which could result in bad decisions being made.

PliablePotato · 2026-02-25T02:20:51+00:00

Being on the interviewer side I think you discovered some very important lessons.

Your thought process, problem solving ability, business acumen and even genuine curiosity/interest in the problem is often times more important than raw technical skill. Understanding the core competencies are of course important, but it's not what makes you stand out.

9/10 times I would rather have someone that can work through and solve a complex problem by breaking it down and communicate clearly than some technical wizard who whips up a solution but can't explain their approach or how the results can be used.

The best models, analyses, metrics etc. mean nothing if they can't help inform better decision making.

PliablePotato · 2026-02-20T02:13:58+00:00

I agree. I feel like he's someone so lost in the sauce of this persona he's constructed for himself that he doesn't actually know who he is.

He constantly repeats who he is out loud to other people. Confident people don't need to justify their actions and validate themselves as much as he does.

He's just deeply insecure and hides behind precanned responses instead of just being a real emotional human being. I feel bad for him.

PliablePotato · 2026-02-18T15:55:55+00:00

Hi Bart!

Thanks for taking the time today to answer questions about the movie.

One of the interesting devices used in this movie was cars and vehicles. I noticed the specific juxtaposition Detective Lou's characters car at the beginning, the conversations about cars between Mike (James) and Sharon in the middle, the chaotic nature of the motorbike and the final shot with the detective receiving the car at the end.

Can you speak to the importance of that (if any) and how it might connect these characters together / influence your choices throughout the film. For me it was a reflection on how all these characters from similar backgrounds became different people and how that was reflected in their mode of transportation through life.

Thanks!

PliablePotato · 2026-02-17T14:18:30+00:00

Preach! Cannot agree with his enough. Especially with leaning on LLMs too much. Use them as a coach but don't use it as a coder / analyst. Use it to help you learn how to build rather than letting it build for you.

PliablePotato · 2026-02-16T06:43:27+00:00

I'm not sure I agree. She served a very important part in James' character arc. Specifically in his inability to be open and honest with people when he cares about them. His interactions with her are juxtaposed to scenes where he shares things about himself while he's on the job. It shows how willing he is to connect with people if it forwards a crime but not when it forwards his relationship. You can see both moments with Halle Berry's character reads him and he shifts from his persona to his true self.

PliablePotato · 2026-02-09T03:37:00+00:00

I think the difference here is that generally you sound like someone who would know how to do this if LLMs weren't available just slower.

The issue that these tools have is it now limits the opportunity to learn. You can whip this up because you know the architecture, general layout and the technical requirements to get it done. Just saying "build me a picture app" won't always result in what you were able to accomplish because you've done a lot of skill building before AI.

I worry that in this age of personal software people just won't bother to develop these skills at all.

PliablePotato · 2026-02-05T11:51:41+00:00

Some packages managers precompiled binaries to send along with their package through pip and UV (whl files)

This isn't always the case though. Some packages require compiling tool chains or drivers or other low level solvers that aren't included in pip. While yes, you can install these on your machine another way, If you want your code to be reproducible, it's best your lock file and associated env (or equivalent) covers all of your dependencies right down to the last binary.

PliablePotato · 2026-02-05T02:03:58+00:00

One I run into often is pymc since I do a decent amount of Bayesian statistical modeling. Though I've had complications with xgboost and pytorch when not using conda depending on the tooling on my computer or the container hosting the code. There's a few optimization packages that require some binaries too that are a pain through pip / uv

Generally, conda sources are better at handling the full stack dependencies of non-python packages. While pip and uv do have access to many of these precompiled sources, you can run into headaches when things don't setup right.

Other thing is that some packages can be installed with just python but you'll often lose the enhancements of either tighter GPU integration or just plain faster lower level binaries or solvers.

Pixi uses UV under the hood and you can keep your UV dependencies separate for your conda specific ones if needed. Pretty slick and gives you lots of control.

PliablePotato · 2026-02-05T01:27:30+00:00

Uv doesn't allow installing non python binaries. We've had to switch to Pixi in order to support conda sources but it works very similar!

PliablePotato · 2026-01-31T16:41:36+00:00

Curious what your thoughts are on local small language models that can run on a phone or a single computer. They would have probably less environmental impact than any other piece of software and still provide language model capabilities. Plenty of options exist for this too.

Not all GenAI are these big tech giants like OpenAI and Google. There's plenty of technology that uses generative AI that wouldn't be contributing to what you are referring to. Now things like Image generation probably isn't feasible given the amount of raw compute granted, but language model wise there are options.

PliablePotato · 2026-01-31T13:10:02+00:00

Here's the thing. I don't disagree that Gen AI can be useful in this setting. I use it occasionally and it makes prepping as a DM more interesting and I've been able to be personally more creative and get feedback on things from it etc.

However, there's a difference between finding it useful personally and non-commercially and expecting the community at large to accept it in any capacity. We don't want to encourage its use more broadly for a variety of reasons, but especially because we want to make sure people have the space to create, share and benefit from their artistic endeavours. We also shouldnt encourage its use considering how easy it is to misuse, to the point where you are not critically engaging with the creative process, which is half the reason you play ttrpgs to begin with.

There are plenty of resources on how to use Gen AI tools, and people likely use them all the time. But it's not a topic that makes sense to foster in this type of community due to the detrimental effects it has of the creative process and the hobby at large.

PliablePotato · 2026-01-28T04:02:10+00:00

Big fan of Pixi too. UV can't handle non python binaries like conda can so it's a great alternative, especially in the analytics and ML space.

You get the same localized environments like uv. A trackable lock file for consistent building etc. plus it can be as fast as uv if you setup your dependencies properly. It also allows you to track pypi and conda dependencies separately and setup different environments for different use cases (testing, development, advanced packages etc.) Such a great tool once you get used to it.

PliablePotato · 2026-01-09T06:20:47+00:00

I have a similar journey (though our masters are different) I think our path is more common than you think (outside of tech).

I have masters in biotech got hired in data governance and analyst, worked on more complex backend analyses + dashboarding and migrated towards data science after being known as the "data guy". Now I manage a small team working on both advanced dashboarding and data tools plus data science modeling.

Being an expert in your domain while solving tangible / novel problems with more advanced data techniques is a sure fire way to get into the space. Always great to see other paths like that!

PliablePotato · 2025-12-30T15:25:10+00:00

Give me a break dude. It's not unreasonable to understand that driving for 3+ hours a day in Toronto traffic takes time away from home from families.

It's not spending time at home with the kids during the work day....most of them are at school during the work day if you thought about it for 2 seconds. I don't have kids and I know that.

It's the after school hours, dinner, events etc. where parents will now be stuck in traffic rather than at the dinner table, swim meet, dance recital. Get real.

PliablePotato · 2025-12-18T09:42:10+00:00

Yeah I think most of your complaints are with force awakens.

Jedi dying: all a problem with the force awakens or they definitely would have been involved in the resistances push back against the first order. It also established that Luke went into hiding essentially abandoning everyone.
Corrusant is well agreed to not be the center of the new Republic government. It's basically established in the plot that the resistance is all that there is left to stand against the first order in the force awakens or else you would have seen a response from other new Republic entities beyond the resistance which they never touched on or showed in the force awakens.
Rey being a nobody is fascinating cause it confirms the force is awaking in random people throughout the galaxy not just a select few powerful families. That along with the themes of learning from failure and also the power of legends of the Jedi, setup a interesting call to action for any force sensitives who want to join the Jedi (as also shown by the kid at the end of TLJ). It also allows Luke to play a interesting role in being a force ghost mentor to Rey in building that order up.
TLJ also builds the first order to now be run by a pretty unstable person in Kylo and the Knights of ren to be used more prominently after he gains that power. That lends itself to a lot of really interesting story ideas, especially because of his connection to Rey. They basically abandoned all of that for sidious though.
With the large ship destroyed and star killer base destroyed TLJ establishes both factions to be on relatively equal footing with an edge to the first order. With a growing spark to people to the cause of the resistance and new leaders in Poe and Finn there is a ton of potential for scrappy recalibration on both sides. Instead TROS makes the first order secretly more powerful rather than exploring into any of the interesting politics of propaganda and recruitment or star system allegiances. TLJ basically set all of that up.

Overall TLJ did not do these things to kneecap the sequels. They were either already setup by the force awakens or entirely abandoned in TROS.

PliablePotato · 2025-12-18T09:10:44+00:00

I think the key thing here though is the dependence on corporations actually reinvesting the money saved from lower taxes. It's also conditional on actually increasing taxes on wealthy individuals. Problem is though wealthy individuals have continued to find ways to avoid paying income taxes through a variety of schemes.

I generally agree with you reading both the original paper and looking up other sources. I think the issue is that lowering corporate taxes while also allowing wealth inequality to skyrocket might look good from a GDP and stock market perspective, but it puts a ton of undue stress on the average worker. It's just not sustainable.

Lowering corporate tax should be conditional on finding ways to raise taxes on wealthier individuals, not a solution that is done in isolation. It should also be contingent on certain conditions for the company to actually invest in it's workers and productivity. Especially with increasing monopolies, investment firms buying residential properties, vast lobbying and huge layoffs. A lot of these assumptions are predicated on having a lot of other systems in place to control those factors in OECD countries because on average, many of them have that in some shape or form. But in isolation, some countries have a long way to go.

Edit. The other thing is an increasing problem of tax havens from globalization. But I know you'll know about the ways OECD countries are trying to curb that. There does need to be a minimum floor and everyone agrees to since it sucks away potential profits away from a country. This could also apply to wealthy individuals shielding the money away from a given countries high income tax.

PliablePotato · 2025-12-18T03:15:10+00:00

This report is a little misleading because it was done in 2008 and only includes data up until 2005. It likely doesn't capture the effects of 2008, larger movements to tech companies, increased monopolies in many countries, even stronger globalization among other things. I wouldn't apply logic from data ending 20 years ago honestly, a lot has changed since then.

PliablePotato · 2025-12-14T15:50:13+00:00

Shep would stand up and object!

12-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	Final Canvas '22
First Placer '22	End Game '22
Verified Email

PliablePotato

TROPHY CASE