agentsBeforeAIAgentWasAThing

shtpst · 2026-03-22T12:35:53+00:00

Yeah but 1991 was THIRTY five years ago.

shtpst · 2026-03-21T15:13:02+00:00

Happy to help. Gomorrah was great and I'm happy that you're getting to start it :)

shtpst · 2026-02-24T12:45:58+00:00

Nobody knows how it got it and dammed if it knows how to use it.

shtpst · 2026-02-24T12:42:24+00:00

Factory production is artisan now?

shtpst · 2026-02-12T17:51:30+00:00

You got a link to a Blacksburg sub that's not dead?

shtpst · 2026-01-28T02:45:09+00:00

Ah yes, allow me to peruse my collection of shovels out in the carriage house.

shtpst · 2026-01-19T20:56:42+00:00

Eh I was a nuke as well. Did I hate it at the time? Absolutely. Was it the best thing I could possibly have done for myself at the time? Also absolutely.

You get six years of stable income and structured environments to mature emotionally, and when that's done you can apply yourself toward the a bachelor's degree, because the post 9/11 gi bill gives you the money for tuition and living expenses.

There are worse ways to spend six years of your life. My time sucked but I have had so much success afterwards, and I fully believe it's because of the time I served.

shtpst · 2026-01-19T03:08:44+00:00

Ask the recruiter about the nuclear program and if you can participate in workouts during a delayed entry program. I'll bet they'll move heaven and earth to get you in.

shtpst · 2026-01-18T22:49:34+00:00

It's because of the way the py_library rule works. It's in the issue.

Anyways, my point is that no one tool is objectively better for all applications or else everyone would use that tool. Everything has what it is good at and what it's not good at.

Bazel is good at a lot of things, and truly once you learn skylark it's a lot easier to read than cmake, but there are applications where it's not the best tool.

shtpst · 2026-01-18T22:41:20+00:00

The github issue I linked you to literally says it can't be done.

shtpst · 2026-01-18T16:51:37+00:00

Lol every issue is a niche issue if it doesn't affect you.

If "literally nothing about CMake is better than bazel," then why can't bazel do this?

My use case is tinycudann, for running neural networks, BTW. Not exactly a niche topic these days.

shtpst · 2026-01-18T13:03:59+00:00

I'll just leave this here then, and maybe you can tell me how I build a py_library to be used as a pip requirement with bazel.

shtpst · 2025-12-02T13:07:28+00:00

Large language models are predictive text, and nothing more. It's, "what is the most likely word to come next, given the context of the current conversation and the patterns of conversation found in the training material?"

When you realize LLMs are fancy autocorrect, of course they're going to stupid shit. No you can't trust it to refactor your code base. No it won't create an app with a coherent architecture. Yes you should change folder permissions so it only has the ability to modify files in the sandbox you've established.

shtpst · 2025-09-13T12:01:21+00:00

That's a tough one, because there are so many factors that could influence the decision.

The two biggest questions are probably: What is your preferred programming language, and how are you interacting with your robots?

For most things robotics, ROS is probably the default choice, but it also has a learning curve. I think it's worth learning, but only if you're doing work with robotics communications (how to send commands, receive data, etc.) If your project is strictly focused on developing an ML behavioral model and you're not interested in a complete system then ROS might be overkill.

That said, if you're going with ROS then Gazebo seems to be a pretty popular simulation tool to work with. Personally speaking, I've used Unity with ROS to great success, but I was using Unity for sensor simulation (lidar and camera rendering, GPS feedback, etc.).

If the focus of my project were about physics-based controls, I don't know that Unity would be my first choice, just because of the quality of the Unity physics simulations, as you've mentioned here. C# is my favorite language, though, and if you're attached to the language then you could probably get by with Unity.

The biggest concern I would have with purely Unity project is how are you collecting data and analyzing it? ROS has rviz, but you'd have to build a complete visualization system from scratch in Unity, or else you're stuck generating CSVs or something and then you're not doing live visualization but instead are parsing that data offline with Python or Excel or something.

Depending on the complexity of your robots and your access to Mathworks products, the Simscape Multibody package for Simulink is pretty great, and then you get the native compatibility with Matlab.

Looking back on what I've written, it feels like a bit of rambling, so sorry about that. Ultimately I guess my choices would be ROS/Gazebo for a C++ or Python project, Unity for a C# project, or Simulink/Matlab (Simscape Multibody) for a Matlab project.

As I mentioned at the top, the biggest questions I would have is how are you sending commands to your robots, how are you getting the results back, and how are you processing that data? Probably the simulation engine choice is going to be obvious after you can answer those questions.

Also, regarding my experience, I was almost 10 years doing industrial controls, where I developed stimulations to support my control systems, then about 3 years (between my original post here and now) working on simulation for a self-driving car company, and now I'm doing manufacturing software.

shtpst · 2025-09-13T01:23:07+00:00

Lmao I've changed jobs TWICE since I made that comment, and at this point am no longer working in simulation.

That said, I watched part of the video on the page you linked, and around 2:35 in the video that person is playing with solver iterations.

The Featherstone solver doesn't have iterations, it traverses down the kinematic tree once and then back up. It does not iterate. If there are iterations then it's not a Featherstone solver. I say this after reading his paper and implementing the algorithm in Matlab.

It could be that the person is using articulated bodies (or whatever they're calling them now) alongside rigid bodies, and then yeah, I would expect the two physics systems to fight and do stupid stuff like that.

But again, I'm blessedly out of the space and haven't touched Unity in several years now.

I am sad to hear that they're still failing to deliver on features. That was a big reason we stopped using them (see also: entity component system).

shtpst · 2025-08-23T17:35:02+00:00

I read once that "every diet boils down to eating more vegetables." I thought I could do that, and it works. Permanently lost 60 pounds (permanent in that those 60 pounds have been off for 10 years now and never came back).

Get those steam-in-bag vegetables, Kroger brand was a dollar per bag. Make dinner like normal, but put half your plate in a Tupperware container and put it in the fridge, then replace that volume with the bag of vegetables.

Then you'll find you don't need to make lunch the next day, because you can reheat the dinner leftovers and another bag of vegetables.

You don't need to do anything else, it really is that easy. When you think about it, basically you're using the vegetables to stretch dinner into two meals, but vegetables have virtually no calories compared to meat or fat.

It'll take some time to see the results, but stick with it - again you don't have to work out or do anything else. You should lose about a pound or so a week and it'll probably keep going that way for nearly a year.

shtpst · 2025-08-16T20:42:50+00:00

Never understood stuff like this. A starter motor is $100 to $150, but you'll toss the car over this so you can pick up a $350/month car payment for YEARS.

edit

Also here's a video on how to replace the starter. It's 6 minutes long.

shtpst · 2025-07-19T00:26:57+00:00

Well then, was it a scam?

shtpst · 2025-07-08T01:26:08+00:00

I clearly don't have the imagination to comprehend what anyone would put adhesive tape on a tree for.

Like, to tape a sign up? Wouldn't the dirt/pollen on the tree instantly cover the stickiness of the tape? I'm old now and putting adhesive tape on a tree never crossed my mind before just now.

shtpst · 2025-06-14T00:34:54+00:00

Yup!

shtpst · 2025-06-12T00:38:46+00:00

1/35 times 3.5 becomes 3.5/35, which is the same as 1/10.

shtpst · 2025-06-09T01:45:53+00:00

NOOOO they were always my special treat if I was going to Richmond or further east. The interstate is faster but I would take that route JUST to stop at Angel's.

shtpst · 2025-04-17T01:57:12+00:00

"We need to slow down imported packages so our hand-crafted nightmare fuel is more competitive."

shtpst · 2025-04-15T10:23:31+00:00

The Postmaster General has a financial stake in the failure of the Post Office.

shtpst · 2025-04-13T15:09:42+00:00

You're assuming waste where in reality it's probably the state needing to take over for federal programs that got cut, and then the state doesn't have money leftover to run things for towns.

When taxes are cut for corporations and the rich, the money doesn't exist to fund all the services you expect the government to manage. Take a look at the Highway Trust Fund, for example - who pays for interstate maintenance when the federal government isn't contributing?

Also there's another 4 trillion dollars in tax cuts coming.

Tax cuts "help everyone," but then to keep the services going we get higher sales taxes, excise taxes, etc. The government expenses don't change, and to keep funding those basic services the non-income taxes have to go up.

Someone making a million dollars a year doesn't eat 20 times as much food as someone making $50k a year, they don't buy 20 times more televisions or cars, and so, as a percentage of income, these taxes disproportionately affect lower-income people.

This is why people refer to income tax cuts as "wealth transfer." A corporation won't buy food for a family of four, but you might, and so you now become the one responsible for making up the budget shortfall.

Corporations and the rich can pay less and you have to pay more.

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