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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 14th, 2023

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  • Please, enlighten me - how do you propose we use the term “AI” in a way that’s more useful than a definition that includes machine learning, large language models, and computer vision?

    I doubt I’ll agree with your definition, but I’m curious to see how you would exclude machine learning, computer vision, LLMs, etc., from your definition. My assumption is that your definition is going to be either a derivative of “AI is anything computers can’t do yet” or based on pop culture / sci fi, but maybe you’ll surprise me.

    To be clear, I’m a software engineer; I’m not speaking in sales speak. I’ve derived my understanding of the term from a combination of its historical context and how it’s used in both professional and academic contexts, not from marketing propaganda or from sci fi and pop culture. I’m certainly aware of the hype machine that’s ongoing, but there are also tons of fascinating advancements happening on a regular basis, and the term “AI” is at minimum a useful term to refer to technologies that leverage similar techniques.


  • it’s not ‘ai’, it’s just a poorly trained voice recognition system that’s trying to decipher any random person’s voice.

    I’m baffled that you can say “It’s not ‘AI,’ it’s a machine learning powered speech to text system” with a straight face.

    Even if we were to agree that ML-powered speech to text isn’t AI (and I don’t agree to that premise, for the record), there’s still the matter of processing the transcription to transform it into something that can be understood by the point of sale system - aka natural language processing. And while that NLP could be implemented without use of an LLM, given LLM’s current level of hype and the ease with which they can be shoved into any given product, I wouldn’t bet on Taco Bell execs approving such an approach, much less asking for it.


  • If you’re a size 4-24, the Gloria Vanderbilt “Amanda” line has a variety of jeans with almost bo embellishments. They come in multiple shades of blue, black, mint, khaki, white, off white, etc… The colors other than blue are a bit stiffer and less stretchy, but they fit very similarly. They also have “Ponte pants,” basically business casual dress pants (though basically only in black), which I also recommend. I’ve worn the black jeans to the office mid-week and could probably get away with wearing the khaki ones, too.

    I get them at Kohl’s, but from a quick web search I see they’re also available at Amazon, Walmart, JC Penny, Macy’s, and Costco. MSRP is around $50, but I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than $30 for a pair. I see some listed at $20 or so right now and I think I’ve gotten some (maybe on clearance?) for as cheap as $15.

    Do NOT buy the “Pull-On” versions! Those either lack pockets entirely or have inadequate pockets. I could fit my phone in, sideways, but it dug into my side (my hipbone, I think, though it’s been a while since I wore those and tried to use the pockets).

    Sizing is split between products (at Kohl’s at least): 4-18 and 16W-24W, with 16W being one size above 18 as opposed to overlapping. There are also Short (or Petite in the Ponte Pants) and T/L variants.

    For reference, I have a standard sized iPhone - specifically the 15 Pro - in a case, with a MagSafe wallet. I often carry a similarly sized work phone in the same pocket, also in a case, so my pockets need to be able to handle both. The top of my phone is basically flush with / right below the opening of the pocket, which I prefer. A taller phone, like a Pro Max iPhone, would fit, but would need angled a bit to not have the top poking out.

    Some other info on these:

    • The fit, for me at least, is comfortably snug, but not tight. The cut is flattering, but not lewd.
    • Durability is better than expected for fairly stretchy jeans. I ended up with a hole in the first pair I bought after a year or so, just from walking around (inner thigh friction basically) - but to be fair at that point I was wearing them twice a week, so that’s like 100 wears, 50 or so washes… I think that’s reasonable. However I don’t think they’d hold up as well if I wore them while doing yard work or something similarly stressful.
    • Sizing down - I can fit into up to two sizes down, but even one size down: the fit wasn’t flattering, they were less comfortable, and they were so tight that my phone barely fit into my pocket (and wouldn’t have fit if I were sitting).
    • Sizing up - one size up is great. I haven’t tried two sizes up. The fit isn’t as flattering, but it’s still fine. I generally wear a belt when wearing a sized up pair, since the waistband ends up a bit loose otherwise, but they’re still snug around my hips, so they stay up well enough without a belt.

    If you’re a size 0 or a size 2 and don’t want to size up, they sadly aren’t an option (I may be wrong - their size chart goes down to 2, but I didn’t see any offered in a 2). If so I can keep an eye open for decent jeans in that size range, but I won’t be able to speak to fit, of course, as I’m nowhere near a size 2 myself.


  • To be clear, I’m not saying most women’s pants have pockets. I’m saying that there are options, and I’m of the opinion that if you care about something enough to complain about it, you should also care about it enough to do something about it.

    I own dozens of pairs of women’s pants and shorts with pockets large enough to comfortably fit my cell phone. Several pairs where I can not-so-comfortably. Probably a dozen each of dresses and skirts with decent pockets, too.

    Would you like some recommendations?


  • This is basically an “I can’t have my cake and eat it, too” complaint. If none of your pants have good enough pockets, it’s either because someone else is buying your clothes or because you didn’t prioritize having pockets when you bought them.

    When buying women’s pants or shorts (and even dresses and skirts), you have the choice between a pair that has decent pockets and a pair that doesn’t, generally because the designer chose to prioritize aesthetics over pockets. If you buy the cuter pair, despite their lack of suitable pockets, you’re reinforcing the designer’s decision.

    Even leggings / yoga pants and short running shorts / leggings have versions with pockets. Not every brand, sure, but enough.

    With men’s pants and shorts, there’s much less variety. You have to go out of your way to find pants without decent pockets, but at the same time:

    • Your pants and shorts are all bulkier and thicker than the equivalent women’s style
    • Your shorts all come down to the knee, if not a bit further
    • You don’t have the option of skirts, dresses, capris, leggings, etc…
    • You don’t get the same options within a given style, i.e., far fewer embellishments, less stretch (in, e.g., jeans), often fewer colors, and most cuts are looser

    Now, maybe the store you’re shopping at or the brand you love doesn’t sell women’s pants with pockets. I’m sure there are many like this. If it bothers you, find another store that does. Buy from a different brand.







  • How is that an assumption at all? If you provide the same amount of infrastructure for bikes as for cars, then you still have half the infrastructure for cars, so people can use both / either.

    And for those of us living in places where we don’t have bike friendly infrastructure, it’s useful to be able to point out that converting car infra to bike infra would have the capacity to reduce congestion, particularly if the area commits to making those changes more widely.


  • I’m a professional software engineer and I’ve been in the industry since before Kubernetes was first released, and I still found it overwhelming when I had to use it professionally.

    I also can’t think of an instance when someone self-hosting would need it. Why did you end up looking into it?

    I use Docker Compose for dozens of applications that range in complexity from “just run this service, expose it via my reverse proxy, and add my authentication middleware” to “in this stack, run this service with my custom configuration, a custom service I wrote myself or forked, and another service that I wrote a Dockerfile for; make this service accessible to this other service, but not to the reverse proxy; expose these endpoints to the auth middleware and for these endpoints, allow bypassing of the auth middleware if an API key is supplied.” And I could do much more complicated things with Docker if I needed to, so even for self-hosters with more complex use cases than mine, I question whether Kubernetes is the right fit.


  • Hey, Claude’s “share” feature isn’t very private, so I didn’t want to post the link to the chat that way, and even though I only sent two messages, it was pretty time consuming to go through and pull out each thinking / code section. I could have fairly easily just extracted what’s in the top level, but that wouldn’t have given you much more information than my original comment.

    Here’s the full transcript, including Opus’s thoughts, the code it wrote, and the output: https://listed.to/p/yPGvoox4M2

    If you copy paste the text from there into Obsidian, the headers should be preserved so that you can collapse by section (with default settings at least - I think it relies on “Convert pasted HTML to Markdown” being enabled). The syntax highlighting will be lost unless you add the languages back in (python at first, then javascript for the rest).

    If you start by collapsing everything #### and under, then that’ll hide everything that is collapsed by default in the Anthropic chat interface.





  • You have it backwards.

    • Day 2 Purchase
    • Day 1 “Theft”

    Chronologically, the “theft” comes first. And you can easily purchase something you previously stole.

    Theft is in scare quotes because piracy isn’t theft and I’m assuming OP isn’t going to actually steal someone’s Steam Deck, Switch, or Switch game cartridge… but maybe I’m wrong.

    (Also you could “steal” it after purchasing it by buying on one platform and pirating it on another, but that’s a separate matter.)


  • This is technically accurate for me.

    I was asked to use Claude Code more at work, but the project is on a tight timeline and I was concerned it would just slow me down… so I set it up with a different git worktree (basically the same git repo, but a different directory, and I can access its commits without needing to push its changes to a remote branch) running in a Docker container with the volume mounted to minimize possible system impact, and instructed it to make commits as it goes.

    I did a few things to largely automate this and allow me to focus on my own work. I use conventional commits and have a post commit git hook that shares tests and specs I’ve written with it (basically branching off its latest commit, cherry picking from my own branch, then sending Claude a message telling it to merge my changes in). When all the tests are working, I do something similar but with my committed to-do file. I normally wouldn’t commit that file but I would be updating it anyway, so it’s not much extra work to add an extra commit now and then.

    Otherwise I basically let it do its own thing. I think it’s up to 15 sub-agents, nearly a thousand commits, and tens of thousands of lines of code changed.

    Compared to what I’ve written, that’s definitely 90% of the total code, in terms of lines changed, number of commits, etc…

    To be fair, I’m not using any of the code that it writes, but my metrics are fantastic.

    They might be too good, honestly. I gave a talk internally last week about my Claude Code workflow (it went well, but I did have to repeatedly mute one guy who noticed that my branch visualization only had merges into the Claude branches and they never made their way back into main) and I got a bonus (nothing huge, just some RSUs worth low six figures that vest in two years), plus my boss’s boss’s boss was impressed and suggested I be promoted to CAO. That stands for “Chief AI Officer,” and yes, it apparently is a real thing - or will be, once the board approves my requested eight figure annual compensation package.

    (If you’ve gotten this far and are upset that I’m wasting tons of energy and water, you should be aware that 1. The statistics about water and energy usage on an individual level, even in cases like this one, are largely speculative and over-inflated; the most reliable statistics I’ve seen suggest that my usage is on par with driving to a restaurant once per month and eating a single cheeseburger, so to compensate I’ve cut one cheeseburger and one trip per month out, and 2. This is satire.)


  • While police may resent offensive words, they cannot use their authority to punish individuals for lawful, protected conduct.

    Factually incorrect.

    First, consider that regardless of whether they are prohibited from arresting people for insulting them, they do. Those charges are often dropped or thrown out, sure - albeit with no consequences for the police officer - but I would consider having to deal with that hassle “punishment” that they can inflict purely because of their authority.

    But there’s also institutional support for an officer to punish you for lawful, protected conduct. If you upset an officer and in response, he cites or arrests you for a minor but legitimate offense that he’d have otherwise not cared about, you’re very unlikely to get that technically legitimate charge thrown out of court. It may be that police are technically prohibited from doing this, but in practice, “He only arrested me for — insert random crime here, let’s say jaywalking — because I called him a pig, said I’d engaged in coitus with his mother the previous night, and asked if he’d like to watch next time or if he had a night in with his partner’s nightstick planned” isn’t going to suffice to get the charge thrown out, even if the judge believes you, if you were actually breaking the law in question. And since pretty much everyone is breaking laws all the time, this means that as long as the police officer can find one that you’re currently breaking, you’re fucked.