Bristol

@aral "We've got a machine that can make the tea
Why not build one to drink it as well?"

https://mastodon.social/@rgarner/113826851660416456

@jamiemccarthy @jrose @inthehands @RuthMalan so far, my experience is: they may have seen the discussion, but they don't "remember" it, and they certainly have no idea which are the salient points. Sometimes even when you ram said points down their throats.

In short, I'm fine asking them to show me a depth-first search, but I would trust them with architecture and logical design decisions about as far as I could comfortably spit a rat.

@inthehands @RuthMalan every dev wants a greenfield project. LLMs shade even greenfield projects brown.

But then it's not the devs that are asking for this* so much as a managerial class looking for the sort of silver bullet that brings down both pay and the amount of time dealing with a type of worker they find difficult.

*not the ones who are any good, anyway

@floppy it's the best current option *to me*, and I do contribute from time to time.

However, I cannot find up-to-date info on where they currently host.

@urlyman @aral

I felt a disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices screamed out "Democracy dies in darkness is a mission statement" at once and were suddenly silenced

@aral I'd sign it, but you know, we got confidence-trickstered out of *those* rights

@aral *sigh* I shouldn't speak about this stuff to be dispirited before I've even had my toast

@aral not entirely. I know a data scientist for a large charity for example – they're a proponent of "responsible", and there are more like them.

Absolutely not the same crowd in those kinds of cases, though I see why you see it in your post

What the "responsible AI" crowd appear to be overlooking is that they have to use the infrastructure provided by the "irresponsible AI" crowd

Hyphenation is important

@KydiaMusic I got some great advice from my late father — also a drummer — on these types of people.

"Fuck 'em."

Have you noticed that these days when time travellers grab you by the shoulders and ask what year it is, when you reply "2024" they no longer say "Thank God. I'm not too late"?

Muting, Tusky can't cope

Musician: someone who puts £5000 worth of gear into a £500 car to drive 100 miles to a £50 gig

I have a near-4yo Pixel 4a 5G which I love. I just got a Pixel 8, because the 4a is no longer receiving security updates and has a worsening screen crack.

It is heavier. The camera colours are muted by default. It seems barely faster, and despite 120Hz still has frame rate drops. It gets hot. The battery life seems worse *and I haven't even put a SIM in it yet*. No headphone jack. It cost a lot more.

It has some AI gewgaws, but seriously. Seriously!

The LLMperor has no clothes, but the no clothes are *very* expensive

https://www.swebench.com/#

LLMs are not AGI and will not become so in my lifetime. Water shortages will be here soon, however, and LLMs use a *lot* of water. Would you like all your art to be generated, all your code to be subtly incorrect, or would you prefer to eat and drink? This is not a false dichotomy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/04/water-world-run-out-planet-hotter-looming-crisis

Someone over on BSky mentioned that they'd like to see Ricky Gervais's redemption arc involve a trebuchet. Someone else asked how far we could get him. So I ran a simulation on his claimed 13st weight and we can yeet him over half a kilometre with a 4000Kg counterweight.

https://virtualtrebuchet.com/?lengthArmShort=30&lengthArmLong=60&lengthSling=38&lengthWeight=10&heightOfPivot=42&massArm=30&inertiaArm=20250&pivotToArmCG=15&massWeight=4000&inertiaWeight=1&massProjectile=82.55&projectileDiameter=1.25&windSpeed=0&releaseAngle=45&units=metric&projectile=custom&uniformArm=true&distance=643.7597383265363