jkf
13hr ago
Most men can't easily tell the difference between 5'10 and 6' either.
To be fair, most people can put height in about 5 bins -- way taller, a little taller, same height, a little shorter, and really short -- compared to themselves.
Just that to the average woman, "way taller" covers a lot of ground. (and "a little bit taller" from what I hear is mostly fine)
jkf
16hr ago
He's the one who said it was intrinsically boring! If the LLM made something super-interesting super-boring instead, he should definitely not be using it!
jkf
16hr ago
Of course. Have I ever struck you as being not into introspection or lacking self-awareness?
Kind of? You are getting quite a lot of feedback right now that this particular writing is worse than your less-LLM-inflected (infected?) pieces, and are continuing to bluster on about how great it is.
I'm sure someone could make it exciting, that someone might not be me. I settled for accurate journalism with Chinese characteristics.
So why are you doing it? Is there some shortage of actual journalism about China that needs addressing so badly that boring prooompted longposts on the Motte are required?
You could always, like -- write about something that isn't boring?
jkf
18hr ago
Well I can say that this latest post was super-boring to read -- you say that this is not so important to you, which is kind of a weird thing for somebody who wants to be a writer to say. Unless you are writing strictly for your own entertainment, in which case there seems no need to make the product public?
In any case, given that you consider a boring end product undesirable to at least a certain degree, maybe consider the extent to which the LLM's "help" with your writing was actually having the effect of making it more boring to read before "writing" any more of these pieces?
jkf
18hr ago
A rejection by someone that you're really into can mean that you don't ever get to be around that person again -- which is also pretty bad, if you're actually really into that person.
jkf
5d ago
Not really new news, although a real pro would have left the gun behind:
Come on, kid. Don't fool around. Just let your hand drop to your side, and let the gun slip out. Everybody'll still think you got it. They're gonna be staring at your face, Mike, so walk out of the place real fast, but don't run. Don't look nobody directly in the eye, but you don't look away either. Eh, they're gonna be scared stiff of you, believe me, so don't worry about nothing. You know, you gonna turn out all right.
jkf
10d ago
I posted the video frame upthread -- it's very plausible to me that you could ID Mangionne based on it. You prove probable cause by getting the cop who arrested him up on the stand where he says "I went to the McDonalds in response to a citizen tip, and observed a guy who looked just like the picture on the news eating a cheeseburger -- he seemed very nervous when I talked to him and produced fake ID". There's no need to talk about the citizen any further, even if the tip actually came from the NSA. (for whom caring enough to risk burning their surveillance methods in response to a pretty unimportant little crime (from their perspective) seems unlikely)
jkf
12d ago
The images are here: https://petapixel.com/assets/uploads/2024/12/b73a00e1-472a-4bda-9d4e-16efbd624c61_1920x1080-800x450.jpg
I would think that if you are standing talking to this guy you could form a pretty good probable cause based on those? You're not like counting nose-hairs, but he seems pretty recognizable.
And as pusher_robot points out, once the cops have probable cause, the next thing the will do is arrest you! And then they can search your stuff (that you are carrying) without a warrant. (may be some exceptions, but I think a heavy-ish backpack in the possession of a guy who probably just assassinated a dude with a silenced pistol would not be one)
jkf
12d ago
it doesn't appear to me that they would have had any justification to either get a search warrant or detain him based on an identification of a McDonald's employee who had never seen him before.
The police would have also seen the surveillance images of the suspect, and could ID him themselves once they saw him based on the McDonald's tip, no?
jkf
14d ago
It's really the most charitable explanation for the Western response as well -- I've personally settled on the theory that most first-world government agencies are a bitchin combination of evil and incompetent -- but if high-level officials had back-channel (ie. not publicly sharable) information from China that this virus was a potential bioweapon, what they did actually makes sense and might even have been a good idea.
The blackpill theory is that the virus was a bioweapon, designed to make ~everyone a drooling retard -- Mission Accomplished! (source: my lyin' eyes)
jkf
14d ago
Plausible -- I live in a place where nobody disputes that there's ample cougars (also bobcats etc), but I've seen exactly one of each in my (40+, pretty outdoorsy, lives literally in the woods) life.
Up here, anywhere you go that's not 100% paved, you are probably in the territory of some cougar -- but they don't want to be seen, so you don't.
jkf
15d ago
I would think projects done and repositories would be the deciding factor which leaves only "competent but not great programmer in languages X,Y,Z" on your upper level as relevant.
You would think wrong -- indeed you would be missing the entire point. None of the first few circles in the Venn diagram are all that important at all (as you point out, although you are quite mistaken about location/fluency not mattering) -- the important things are the "not typical programmer things". (ie. the opposite of what you will find in the code monkey room) Degrees are helpful here, or hands-on experience, depending on the specific nature of the thing -- but these are concrete skills, not identity groups.
Companies will not pay big bucks for being a bald chinese canadian -- they will however pay big bucks for somebody who writes acceptable code and already knows everything about their particular business niche. Because there are a lot of niches, and not many programmers who even realize that there's more to their job than "proficiency in the language and ability to parse tasks."
jkf
17d ago
Literally anywhere in Canada (OK, maybe not Winnipeg) would be nicer that those two places, so yeah, if you work in O&G you would go to Calgary. Or you realize that Ottawa doesn't give a shit about you anyways (unless you go to Montreal I guess) and just move out to the country somewhere.
jkf
17d ago
That would be pretty obvious doxxing, now wouldn't it?
I would say that there's actually multiple in which I could be plausibly the best available person in the world, if I were available.
The Venn diagram starts with things like "located in North America", "speaks and writes excellent native English", "formal degree", "competent but not great programmer in languages X,Y,Z" -- this is still a pretty big set, but much smaller than "literally everyone in the world".
Now add "deep knowledge of areas X,Y,Z that are not typically things that programmers are into" plus maybe "experience solving problems in these domains with code" and the set shrinks dramatically -- for patio11 as I recall X,Y,Z were "finance blogging", "corporate Japan" and "bingo card generators"; last I looked he's some kind of emeritus with Stripe, so it seemed to work with him.
Niche areas are niche, of course -- so the intersection of "people who want to hire somebody with these skills" and "people who don't already have such a person on payroll" may be unhelpfully small -- that's where the networking comes in I guess.
jkf
17d ago
Eh, IDK -- yes it's easy to understand some gang-banger bringing his phone on a driveby under the assumption that he'll never be caught and anyways needs the phone in case somebody calls about some crack -- or just general dumb-criminalness.
But when you get to the point of planting bombs in the vicinity of the seat of government of the US of fuckin A in the year of our Lord 2025 -- this is pretty cloak & dagger stuff! The guy was obviously somewhat concerned about being tracked given the way that he structured his pipe-bomb purchases -- "don't take your phone on your anarchist bombing mission" seems like an implausibly low bar not to clear?
jkf
17d ago
you, you have to be the best in the world.
Not actually as hard as it sounds, given patio11's "narrowing your professional Venn-diagram" thing -- it's hard to be the best software dev in the world, but "best available English speaking dev with deep domain expertise in X and track record of Y" is eminently acheivable.
jkf
20d ago
Try it on a scrap of anything with old paint and you'll see what I mean -- it's not like a normal paint scraper, there's a burr on the edge so you hold it almost 90 degrees to the work and pull towards you with both hands. It does make shavings, but very very thin ones -- less than a thousandth of an inch I'd say? Much thinner that what you see in those Japanese planing contests, and easy to control by how hard you bear down.
jkf
20d ago
I know that Trump's been saying this, but I'm pretty sure it's mostly wrong -- mainly because it's approximately as hard to get precursors into Canada as it is to get them directly into the US; also while we do have our own homegrown gangs their capacity is pretty limited compared to the cartel scene in Mexico.
You are certainly wrong about the real estate <-> drug money pipeline; this is rare enough to be negligible (mom & pop stuff) -- the main laundering going on (in the western part of the country anyways) is people trying to hide money from the Chinese government. Maybe you have real estate confused with casinos?
jkf
20d ago
It's not abrasive -- depending on the nature of the veneer I bet it would work fine. Very little material is removed per pass, but once you get under a layer of finish it comes off like magic. I've mostly been using mine to get the 70s varnish off some gun stocks; you need to sand a little in the crannies in that case, but with a table it should be very little.
You can get expensive ones at Lee Valley and such that I'm sure are better steel, but I bought something like these guys, and it's fine:
https://www.amazon.com/HERMIT-TOOLS-Burnisher-Multi-Shaped-Rectangle/dp/B0CJRW4C66/
(More like 20 bucks I guess; inflation, amirite?)
jkf
20d ago
For a flat/regular-ish surface like a table, you'd be frikken amazed how fast a steel cabinet scraper will definish -- you can get a pack of them for like ten bucks on Amazon and never have to deal with goo or environmentalists again.
jkf
21d ago
eh, it's got it's charms -- every time it's different, it's a little puzzle you need to figure out. (without breaking your legs)
jkf
21d ago
You'd need to watch the film (or read the book) to get it -- it's sort of a joke that can't be a joke, or else it's not funny.
People who grew up skiing in the East are often really good -- at going fast on bulletproof ice. This is kind of a niche talent though -- something like being awesome at plucking your own nose-hairs. Maybe you can find somebody else to go to some Western mountain with?
I'm pushing 50 and still have mine -- they are... not particularly straight, only partially emerged and conventional dental advice is certainly to remove them.
I haven't got any solid impression of the consequences of not doing so though, and therefore haven't -- seems fine. YMMV.
More options
Context Copy link