That’s been my biggest problem with the current state of affairs. It’s now easier to research newer tech through an LLM than it is to play search-result-wack-a-mole, on the off chance that what you need is on a forum that’s not Discord. At least an AI can mostly make sense of vendor docs and extrapolate a bit from there. That said, I don’t like it.
When writing code, I don’t let AI do the heavy lifting. Instead, I use it to push back the fog of war on tech I’m trying to master. At the same time, keep the dialogue to a space where I can verify what it’s giving me.
About 20% of the time, it’ll suggest things that are entirely plausible and probably should exist, but don’t. Some platforms and APIs really do have barn-door-sized holes in them and it’s staggering how rapidly AI reports a false positive in these spaces. It’s almost as if the whole ML training stratagem assumes a kind of uniformity across the training set, on all axes, that leads to this flavor of hallucination. In any event, it’s been helpful to know this is where it’s most likely to trip up.
Edit: an example of one such API hole is when I asked ChatGPT for information about doing specific things in Datastar. This is kind of a curveball since there’s not a huge amount online about it. It first hallucinated an attribute namespace prefix of data-star- which is incorrect (it uses data- instead). It also dreamed up a JavaScript-callable API parked on a non-existent Datastar. object. Both of those concepts conform strongly to the broader world of browser-extending APIs, would be incredibly useful, and are things you might expect to be there in the first place.
The genius of launching an attack of this scale from an address space that is already jam-packed full of hackers, should not be understated. Id say that, if not for doing it live on stage, law enforcement now has a giant haystack of needles to sift through.
I have a USB-bootable thumbdrive with Ubuntu 24 on it. Two home systems down, two to go.
My chief concern is that this wave of enshitifiation will eventually make it to Microsoft’s security support. Historically, at least recently, the weekly updates and response to critical vulnerabilities and virus scanning have been pretty good. But now that they’re attacking their own flagship products - Office and Windows itself - I think it’s only a matter of time before they fumble Windows security in a big way.
I’ll also predict that Non-pro Windows will eventually be “free” (as in beer), but will be useless without a live internet connection and cloud services. So now really is the time to switch. IMO, all the money points in that direction.
The answer is: binary, sometimes with electrical switches.
As late as the very early 1980’s, the PDP-11 could be started by entering a small bootstrap program into memory, using the machine’s front panel:
You toggle the switches to make the binary pattern you want at a specific location in RAM, then hit another button to store it. Repeat until the bootstrap is in RAM, and then press start to run the program from that first address. Said start address is always some hardwired starting location.
And that’s a LATE example. Earlier (programmable) systems had other mechanisms for hard-wired or manual input like this. Go back far enough and you have systems that are so fixed-function in nature that it’s just wired to do one specific job.
Real, honest question here: how are they defining “hardship”? That’s a huge range of subjective circumstances there.
To be clear, I’m not going to fire back by saying “well, that’s justifiable”. Rather, I’m curious where said “shitstains” are coming from and how they frame their choices. I only have the broad strokes here, and would love some more nuance to this story, however anecdotal. Cheers.
I blame the system.
There are parts of the country that prop up a rather sinister dichotomy: live here and flirt with the poverty line, or enlist and better your economic prospects (and maybe take a bullet). You can see these outcomes in the faces of the homeless, the working poor, and veterans that are functional members of society. Our society does the rest by having almost no social safety net, lavishing the wealthy with praise, and vilifying poor people, all at the same time. Lastly, recruitment targets 18-22 year olds, which are people whose brains are in the final years of their developmental cycle, and have not yet begun to understand how the rest of the world works. This all operates together to push people towards putting on a uniform.
Solve any of the problems above and the comic will start to look like a thing of the past.
Edit: While we’re on the topic, the IT industry has a tidy white-collar equivalent: You can make more money and get more job security, but you have to be indifferent about how your work is used. Usually, the more ethically grey (or outright evil) the job, the more it pays.
Goddamn. That might actually be worth it.
Well, now I wanna know. How much money is worth life-altering injuries, including a concussion?
Yeah, all I know are the occasional bits and pieces that wash up here on Lemmy. I knew he was bad news, but I didn’t know he was a trumper. Wow.
IMO: pack as much of your day with “active novelty” as you can. Even if it’s small stuff.
Kids experience time more slowly because everything is new to them. As adults, much of our world becomes familiar and, frankly, forgettable. It’s the lack of newness that lets time just pass by in our minds since the day’s memories get pruned to hell, letting entire days just get black-holed.
So my advice is do more than just touch grass; live life fully. Don’t just follow your favorite streaming programs, engage with other fans. Get out and join a club. Go to more parks, museums, live shows, craft fairs, summer festivals. Invest in the people in your life. Host and attend more movie nights, cocktail mixers, holiday parties. Listen to new music, listen to new podcasts, read new books. Double-down on hobbies or take on new ones. Finish projects on that todo list. Engage with nostalgia, but mix it up with new things too. Find new challenges and try new things to make sure that is or isn’t for you.
Every time.
I have left this as an exercise for the reader.
Fixed:
These are the same ppl I drive down the highway with
PSA: it’s now practically Winter here in the northern hemisphere. Be aware that everyone you see driving with their front, side, and/or rear windows covered in ice, is someone that thinks that full visibility in those directions is optional. If you’ve ever wondered why it seems like you’re sharing the road with crazy people, take a moment to observe the portion of the population telling on themselves. Stay safe out there.
I feel like there’s room for a youtube series about how this is all around us.
“Good Enough: how engineering works in the real world.”
Honestly, I kind of needed this. Thanks, OP.
FTA:
Many of the passages are longer than 600 yards (550 meters) and tall enough for an adult to walk through without bending.
Checks out.
I cannot overstate the impact the mid-nineties had on GPAs across the board.
This picture doesn’t even show the full depth and breadth of the PC market at the time. Arcades had some strong offerings at this time, too.
I’m kind of amazed that even works. I’ll have to try that. Then again, I’ve asked ChatGPT to “respond to all prompts like a Magic 8-ball” and it knocked it out of the park.
I do this as well, and totally forgot to mention it. Yes, I keep the context small and fresh so that prior conversations (and hallucinations) can’t poison new dialogues.
Oooh… straight to my toolbox with that one. Cheers.