JarJarJedi
Streamlined derailments and counteridea reeducation
User ID: 1118
JarJarJedi
5hr ago
Putin has many of those palaces and hideouts. And Ukrainians likely don't have minute-for-minute data of his movements. So did they try to hit one of the large building complexes in which at some other point of time Putin may have stayed? I can believe that, the locations are known and getting a drone in there is not much harder than getting a drone into a strategic airfield, which Ukrainians already did several times. Is it enough to call it "attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin"? Not even closely so. Maybe "attempted to assassinate Vladimir Putin's pride" would be more appropriate.
Of course, since the talks are going on, as likely as not the Russians are faking the whole thing to get some PR advantage. But it really doesn't matter too much - Ukrainians can hit stuff within Russia, had been done many times. They can't hit enough of stuff for it to be of any consequence to the overall war, and they don't have operative capacities to pull something as big as hit on Putin personally. But they can hurt Russians' pride and piss them off, and cause them some tactical setbacks. Which is not a bad thing by itself - but better to concentrate of degrading Russia's refining, manufacturing and transport capacities. Unfortunately, that's also not going fast enough to matter on the ground.
JarJarJedi
5hr ago
The first sentence: hmm, sounds a little biased, I wonder whether it's solid science or just a piece of propaganda... further data required. The second sentence: oh, well, that settles the question.
JarJarJedi
6hr ago
PTO cultures, especially in tech startups, are commonly abysmal. Or at least were when I was there. While it is understandable for early founding team, where working one's ass off can literally make one millions (if one's very lucky of course), unfortunately it gets transferred to the wider team where the benefits are much more limited. It takes explicit and conscious effort to counter this dynamics, and I only rarely have seen companies that do it, and explicitly encourage and normalize taking regular vacations and not being "always on call". While being young, childless and untethered, it may not be that big of a deal, but later in life it becomes a bigger deal.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
Could be, I have worked either in California or with companies that have significant California presence, and California requires sick days.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
"Unlimited" vacation is always a scam. I get why companies do it - e.g. tech workers, unfortunately, under-utilize vacations, and the culture, unfortunately, often encourages it - and with "unlimited" vacation you do not have any monetary liability left to cover. And it doesn't even take the supervisor to explicitly deny vacations - absence of defined benefit already creates an expectation that it's something additional to what you're normally owed, so if you're taking more of it, you're more "greedy" than then next guy who doesn't. If you have X days defined by contract, then you taking X days is normal. But if there's nothing in contract and you take X days and the other guy takes X/2 days then clearly the other guy is a better worker than you. That's not a healthy dynamics to be in.
JarJarJedi
1d ago
Which country is this? In the US, I have never seen an employer who groups sick days and PTO. Of course, I'm in hi-tec where the standard of benefits is usually high. Not luxurious - like, I have a pretty decent benefit package now and it has just 5 sick days a year (there's also short-term disability but that's whole other story) - but still a separate benefit from PTO.
Usually if I get sick, I'm out for the duration of the active phase for pretty much everything. The only exception is walking the dog, if necessary - dog's needs trump all. When I had covid, I was so fatigued I barely could make myself get up to go to the bathroom, but I still once a say dragged myself out of bed and dressed up and zombie-shuffled along the dog route because you've got to do what you've got to do. Usually it's no more than 2-3 days of this but when at it, I'm pretty much 100% useless. That also may be because my work involves using my brain, and when sick the brain is useless. But usually also the flu for me results in fatigue which makes me even more useless. That said, once the active phase has passed I am pretty much back to the normal schedule, even if I have cough and sneezing and other stuff (of course, trying to limit contact with other people while expectorations are continuing).
As for medicine, I usually do tried and true home remedies - a lot of hot tea with lemon, ginger & honey, plus vitamin C (it may be overdoing it as lemon already has a lot of it, but I never heard of anyone overdosing on vitamin C) - this year also adding zinc and quercetine, let's see if there's a difference. If I get lingering coughs - which I am prone to, unfortunately - menthol lozenges. Ah, and the chicken soup of course - while called "Jewish penicillin", unlike penicillin, it works for viral infections too.
On one hand, you are right, that Russia got in deeper than they planned to. On the other hand, I don't think Putin minds too much - the expenses of the war are quite tolerable so far, the final power consolidation, which otherwise may or may not have been smooth, went without a hitch, he got rid of pretty much all opposition and a lot on undesirables, and has a mandate to do pretty much anything he wants without any internal opposition. He can maintain it like this for many years. Maybe taking over Donbass will take another three years instead of original three days, who cares? These three years he is an unquestioned war leader, whose victorious army is conquering enemy lands. The economy has not collapsed, the people are not starving. No significant riots or disturbances. As Russian rulers go, it's not a bad showing at all. So I don't think they have a reason to see it as any problem right now.
JarJarJedi
2d ago
I'm old fashioned so for me this situation looks kinda weird. I mean it's one thing if the kid's biological father is unknown (like sperm bank) and the kid grew up with this family and their are the parents and that's fine. That happens a lot and it's culturally inoffensive, out of sight, out of mind, you know. But if the father lives right over there, and you can see him every other day you go to the store, and still he's not your real parent but these guys are, and the real father is not part of anything because he his real kids who he loves unlike you... can you see how it gets weird? I mean I know nothing, maybe it can be made to work, people live with weirder things than that. But there's a huge risk it will be a mess.
And, on top of it, it really doesn't matter what you sign. What matters is what the judge would decide when push comes to shove. What one lawyer says another lawyer can contradict. If a man fathers the child, there's always a potential for this man to be called up to support the child. The judge would decide according to child's interests, not yours.
JarJarJedi
2d ago
So read this court case today. The gist is simple: two fine specimen of humanity from Arkansas sold their baby to a stranger for $1000 and a case of beer (there was a written contract and everything, they are not some kind of savages!). A neighbor noticed and informed the police. The rest is predictable. But then we come to the sentences.
The man:
Urban pleaded guilty to one count of attempted accepting compensation for adoption, but prosecutors dropped one count of endangering the welfare of a minor. A judge accepted Urban’s plea deal, and he was sentenced to three years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections with an additional three-year sentence suspended.
The woman:
Ehlers pleaded guilty to both counts — attempting to accept compensation and endangering the child’s welfare — against her. But Benton County Circuit Judge Brad Karren suspended the charges in her plea deal and placed her on state-supervised probation for six years, according to court records.
So this is where I wonder - they guy pled guilty to just one count and got 3 years inside. The girl - who did absolutely the same thing, they did it together and in concert, and who pled to the same count and one more, worse one if I understand correctly - got essentially nothing, if she manages not to sell another baby within 6 years, she's free. So she clearly got much lesser punishment for at least the same - and formally, by charges, actually more severe - crime. Because she's female, I understand? Nobody think this is wrong? I really hope they don't plan to give the baby back to the "mother" and that's not the reason why she's not in jail.
JarJarJedi
2d ago
OK, I stand corrected, nobody but Argentina (which I am sure prefers Malvinas) cares.
JarJarJedi
2d ago
I don't think the situations are comparable here. For Britain, beating up Argentina and keeping whatever they kept, nobody cares by now what it is anyway, was pointless and meaningless. Britain is not an Empire anymore and has no desire or capability of being one. Heck, they aren't sure they want to be Britain anymore - displaying a national flag is officially deemed to be an offense.
For Russia, however, at least in the concept Putin sees the future of Russia, conquering Ukraine is an absolutely key part. You can not have a Russian Empire without having it's historical core - the three Russias, Great, Small and White. While Belorussia is formally independent, Putin has enough control over it to consider it his. The control of Malorossia is absolutely vital, without it the whole project of recovering the past glory has no sense. It doesn't have to be officially part of Russia, at least not yet, but it has to be under the Moscow heel, otherwise you just can't pretend you are doing anything to recover Russian Empire. Within this concept, the war makes total sense for Russia. So comparing it to British-Argentinian war is not proper, it's very different. It may be meaningless for the US, as a tiny Russian Empire - at least for now - changes little to the US for now - but it is very meaningful for both Russia and Ukraine.
JarJarJedi
2d ago
I just doubt that most apes would intentionally, as a required part of their plan, decide to murder 20 million apes.
That had been known to happen too, but more often no, they just want the paradise. And if a single ape is preventing us from achieving the future paradise, isn't it prudent and wise to remove the impediment, given as the benefit to all outweighs the narrow interests of a single ape by so much. Then we run the same algorithm at scale, and somehow when the dust settles, 20 millions are dead. Nobody intended that, everybody intended to build the paradise, it just happened. But the real paradise has never been tried, so we must try again.
JarJarJedi
3d ago
https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study/
Keep on keeping on, though.
JarJarJedi
4d ago
Well, in this case it's clearly not genuine - the guy just used the lawsuit as a pressure tactics to get freebees from the resort. What is astonishing here he actually admitted it on record - and still went for jury trial instead of settling (and then spent money on appealing it). Looks like a person with much more money than sense.
Thank you, I was never going to see it anyway, but now I know why.
I am still a bit confounded of how behind the times all that is though. Colonial wars are at best 20th century, though many resolved in the 19th. For the 21st century, we need Na'vi coming to Earth and teaching the earthlings the true meaning of Christmas diversity and inclusion. A quarter of 21st century has passed and the art still can't catch up?
JarJarJedi
6d ago
Ah great, so I am not the only one annoyed by this. I had been looking for a decent small phone for years, and looks like they just died out. Really, if I want to enjoy iMAX-sized cinematic productions, that extra inch is not going to help me. But they make it heavier and less convenient to carry in my pocket. I'd gladly support manufacturing smaller ones with my money, but there seems to be no market at all there. Maybe those newer flippers though, have to check them out. I used to have a flipper phone for years, before modern mega-bricks became the standard.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
I'm pretty much the same height, but not sure what's my advantage here. I feel like Red Stapler Milton a bit - "I was told there would be an advantage?" I am not complaining, I am just curious what's the advantage. Maybe I am just blind to it, fish/water situation?
I mean I might have some advantage in physical fight but haven't been in one since my teen years. And sure, my wife can ask me to take stuff from the top shelf and I can do it without using a footstool. But I am pretty sure she'd be ok with me even if I had to use one. And I know many people who are shorter than me happily married.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
"Intelligence tends to be positively (if imperfectly) correlated with wisdom."
I actually start thinking the opposite - there's a weak anti-correlation between high intelligence and wisdom at the top ranges. I observe too many obviously highly intellectually capable people falling victims to various mind viruses, fallacies and fads. It's like there's a car and a driver, and the car - the IQ power, what we call "intelligence" - could we awesome, but if the driver is not skilled and you put them into a race car, they'd likely hurt themselves pretty badly, and may not survive the experience even. And I am not sure what constitutes being a "good driver" yet, but I am pretty sure it has nothing to do with the car power. Of course, if the car is a child's pedal car (very low IQ) you'll never get anywhere far, regardless of driver skills. But if it's in a normal range, or especially - slightly above normal - something else comes into play.
if the smartest apes amongst us were not also generally aware of their own limitations and were trying to make good decisions that considered more than just short term interests.
Sounds great, until some apes try to build a future paradise and murder 20 millions of other apes in the process, because not being murdered is just a short-term interest that can be sacrificed for the greater good of the future.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
People want freedom and deserve it. At least most of the people most of the time. (It also kinda implies free will is a thing that exists, I guess)
But I admit it's a hard belief to hold onto sometimes.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
I tried to watch the first one, but everybody wearing masks annoyed me too much. Based on reviews, likely won't watch this one either - I mean, why give my mindspace to people who repeatedly were on record telling me their art is not for me and they hate me? There's enough art in the world for a hundred lifetimes, I have a choice.
If your point is just "I haven't had success getting them to do simple tasks",
Did you even read my posts? Honestly, I described how I used it for simple tasks, and explicitly said it's good for some simple tasks, even though not others, and you are like "so, you're saying you haven't had success getting them to do simple tasks?" At least LLMs, when I catch them doing something like that, say "you are absolutely right, I messed up, let me correct myself!". That's one thing they definitely have over people now.
You're describing LLMs failing at a sub-junior-level coding task (calling an API),
That's not what I described, but I am starting to see why a lot of people think of LLMs as more brilliant than they are. I mean, compared to the multitude of people that literally have written text in front of them, can spend arbitrary time at looking at it and figuring out what it means, and still are making absolutely basic mistakes in understanding - well, that's not a very high bar to be measured against, is it? I said - and repeated in another post - that the task was combining two APIs to work together, not calling a single API. The LLM btw understood this (even though it couldn't make it work correctly) but looks like you did not. Sad.
I mean I don't care if you think LLMs can do half of the work of senior developer, or 80%, or 100%, or 500% for that matter. If you actually try to pull this off, you will fail, and if you ask somebody who actually does this job day to day, they will tell you so, but if you don't listen it's no skin off my back. I'm just telling you my experience as somebody who has been in the industry for decades. If you choose to think I am an idiot and LLMs are brilliant and everybody who says it is not so are just holding it wrong - be welcome to it.
JarJarJedi
6d ago
I think it's more precise to say AI is good to generate coverage. E.g. if I have a big code surface, and I know how to test it, but I need like 50 different tests, which look pretty similar, AI can help. If I need a script to generate a bunch of randomized data with certain properties, to cover a bunch of corner cases, AI can help. If I need to figure out how to test some complex feature that nobody tests before - AI would be useless.
An LLM could absolutely do 30-40% of this, assuming it's being directed by a senior programmer and has said programmer on hand to do the other 60-70% of it
Nope, unless by 30-40% you mean "a lot of large data files for integration tests", which yes, LLM could do - moreover, it could write a serviceable code to generate those. But something like production-quality code for database backend? No freaking way, 10% would be too generous to be honest. I kinda know what I am talking about, I do this for living.
a "senior" programmer would still be doing a decent amount of coding
Like, all of the substantial coding, except some very corner-casey boilteplatey pieces that don't really do anything complex but are needed anyway.
LLMs are also fairly decent at answering design questions like this
No they aren't. Not when these questions actually matter - i.e. when you need to think about it with human brain. If it's a question like "what is in fashion this season" or "do I need to rewrite my little app in Rust" or any other question that does not have any technical depth - sure, LLM will duly regurgitate all the accumulated wisdom of thousands of stackoverflow posts to you. But that's not thinking. Last time I seriously needed a deep choice like this, it took 2 months work of 3 highly qualified engineers to just collect preliminary data to start approaching the decision. And then it took another month to actually make a decision. I agree that most choices in everyday life are not deep. It usually doesn't matter whether you use mysql or postgres or oracle or some cloud doodad - 90% chance your app will never hit the limits of either, and if it does, you'll rewrite it 5 times on the way anyway so initial choice does not matter. When it does matter, regurgitating stackoverflow at you is not going to cut it. Don't get me wrong, SO is a great resource and helps a lot, and properly regurgitating it on request is a very useful function, which I personally enjoy using almost daily. But that's not "design questions", at least not ones I am talking about.
did you give the LLM enough context for what a correct API call should look like?
Yes I did. I was not born yesterday. As I mentioned, I do this for a living. For over 30 years now. Shit, I just realized it's closer to 40 than 30 by now. If there's an article about "how to prompt your LLM" I probably either read it, or read some version of it.
which still happens sometimes, but there are solutions to that. Usually just telling the LLM to break the problem into smaller chunks,
There's no smaller chunks, what's less that two APIs? One API? I already had one API, I needed two of them working together. I'm not sure what could be "smaller chunks" in this case - that's like saying to jump over the ditch in two leaps. Either you jump to the other side, or you fall into the ditch, there's no "smaller" here. And yes, that happens all the time. Because LLMs do not actually understand anything but just try to guess what you could want to hear, if I have no idea what I want to hear (that's why I asked it in the first place) and there's no place where the answer already exists then it very often fails. The sum of human knowledge is very vast indeed, and just rearranging it you can indeed get very far. But there's a limit to it where you just can't get this way. The specifics of this case don't even matter - I found the solution already and I had many such cases before, LLMs just don't do well with certain class of tasks. That's fine, all instruments have their advantages and their disadvantages, but if somebody tells you they invented the instrument that would do everything for everybody - it's very likely you are talking to a swindler.
It's right over the bay from Yemen. Guess how Houthis would feel when Israel has a foothold right at their door. That's only one of the angles of course, Israel has been working on making friends with minor Muslim powers for a while now. Eventually converting "all Muslims oppose Israel" to "some Muslims oppose Israel" then maybe "opposing Israel has nothing to do with being Muslim" then maybe "a lot of Muslim countries have ties with Israel, why shouldn't we do it too?". Israel has a very long history of dealing with various small African and Asian countries on the down low, whether Muslim or not.
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