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MrDunham commented on Two things LLM coding agents are still bad at   kix.dev/two-things-llm-co... · Posted by u/kixpanganiban
MrDunham · 2 months ago
> "LLMs are terrible at asking questions. They just make a bunch of assumptions and brute-force something based on those guesses."

Strongly disagree that they're terrible at asking questions.

They're terrible at asking questions unless you ask them to... at which point they ask good, sometimes fantastic questions.

All my major prompts now have some sort of "IMPORTANT: before you begin you must ask X clarifying questions. Ask them one at a time, then reevaluate the next question based on the response"

X is typically 2–5, which I find DRASTICALLY improves output.

MrDunham commented on Every industry is an overcrowded airport lounge now   quoththeraven.substack.co... · Posted by u/walterbell
throwaway2037 · 4 months ago
This comment really hits the nail on the head. Never listen to Internet strangers (who will very likely fall into that 90% bucket) that "service really matters". Sure, but price matters more for normie consumers. Airlines are the ultimate expression of that. The only airlines left that offer amazing service are national airlines with strong state protections or support. In short, you are probably way overpaying for that service.

If I had one dollar for each time an Internet rando said "I will never buy from that store or use that service again because such and such thing happened to me", I would be rich.

MrDunham · 4 months ago
There was a great comedic bit on this:

"Thank you for flying Delta? I'd fly a kite if it was $11 cheaper"

I couldn't find the comedian, but the truth in it hits.

Side note: if I recall correctly Delta listened to their customers a decade+ back, gave more leg room, then nearly went bankrupt because no one wanted to pay more for the service.

MrDunham commented on My experience creating software with LLM coding agents – Part 2 (Tips)   efitz-thoughts.blogspot.c... · Posted by u/efitz
7thpower · 4 months ago
It’s not though, one of the key gaps right now is that people do not provide enough direction on the tradeoffs they want to make. Generally LLMs will not ask you about them, they will just go off and build. But if you have them ask, they will often come back with important questions about things you did not specify.
MrDunham · 4 months ago
This is the correct answer. I like to go one step further than the root comment:

Nearly all of my "agents" are required to ask at least three clarifying questions before they're allowed to do anything (code, write a PRD, write an email newsletter, etc)

Force it to ask one at a time and it's event better, though not as step-function VS if it went off your initial ask.

I think the reason is exactly what you state @7thpower: it takes a lot of thinking to really provide enough context and direction to an LLM, especially (in my opinion) because they're so cheap and require no social capital cost (vs asking a colleague / employee—where if you have them work for a week just to throw away all their work it's a very non-zero cost).

MrDunham commented on Electric cars produce less brake dust pollution than combustion-engine cars   modernengineeringmarvels.... · Posted by u/tzs
jgilias · 5 months ago
Was it that common? Where I’m from that’s “winter driving mode” because it’s safer on slippery surfaces, but rarely anyone would do that in the summer time.

My EV is set on max regen mode though, and I sometimes drive without pressing the brakes, as there’s a paddle I can use to use regen for all my braking needs bar an emergency. It even has a name - single pedal driving.

MrDunham · 5 months ago
Can't speak to if it's common, but it was how I was taught and drove in California... so there was rarely any winter conditions to speak of.

I preferred downshifting VS braking, personally

MrDunham commented on Be My Eyes   bemyeyes.com/... · Posted by u/beatthatflight
MrDunham · 9 months ago
I was lucky enough to help Singularity University launch their startup accelerator back in 2015 and have Be My Eyes as a portfolio company.

I say lucky because they were such good people with such a great mission. Hans (founder) and Christian (co-founder) were really, really fun to get to spend ~10 weeks with.

The new CEO is fairly recent so I can't vouch either way for him. Hans and Christian were an absolute joy with incredible hearts.

MrDunham commented on Magic/tragic email links: don't make them the only option   recyclebin.zip/posts/anno... · Posted by u/gepeto42
8organicbits · a year ago
Magic links breaking my flow is my top issue as well. My inbox is distracting: don't send me there. One affordance I've seen was a site that detected I was using gmail and crafted a link like https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/example.com, which brought me directly to the email I needed, while hiding everything else. I think it did a MX lookup to guess my provider.

I wish magic links would go away, but if they need to stay, that approach was the least terrible.

MrDunham · a year ago
Good point! I've seen this search link setup before and it was... somewhat palatable. Still more bad than good but at least better UX.
MrDunham commented on Magic/tragic email links: don't make them the only option   recyclebin.zip/posts/anno... · Posted by u/gepeto42
MrDunham · a year ago
Adding to the article:

I seriously HATE magic links. My email inbox is barely better a social network's time suck. Lots of urgent, little important, wrecks any flow I had.

Forcing me into my inbox is highly likely to cause me to forget about the reason I was there (to get into your app). Or, at best, it slows me way down and nearly always breaks my flow.

Perhaps this is acceptable for the security boost (?) for the average user, but man, when I get forced into magic links I sometimes just abandon the app altogether.

Disclaimer: 1. I have/pay for a password manager, which helps with the forgotten password problem a lot. It also allows me to have extremely hard-to-crack passwords.

MrDunham commented on How much traffic does a #1 spot on HN typically bring?    · Posted by u/BaudouinVH
MrDunham · a year ago
10 years ago a post from @Bluehat for something we were working on* made #1 and generated about 7k clicks in 2 days.

Would suspect that number is much, much higher now.

* The Hacker Fair reverse job fair at the Hacker Dojo. #2 was "the CIA got hacked". Proud of that one.

MrDunham commented on Porsche's idea for a six-stroke internal combustion engine   motor1.com/news/734156/po... · Posted by u/tempestn
i_am_jl · a year ago
>more fuel means less compression is tolerated before knocking

Generally, no.

Knocking happens from pre-detonation, that's usually caused by heat from compression causing the fuel/air mix to ignite before it's triggered by spark.

To avoid this engines will run a fuel/air mix that is not stoicheometrically ideal, to make the mixture less likely to ignite early.

It is safer to run a fuel rich mix than to run a fuel lean mix as it keeps combustion chamber pressures low (unburned fuel takes heat out of the exhaust). It is more economical and more ecologically friendly to run fuel lean since you paid for that unburned fuel and it's kinda gross.

In general, more fuel than ideal means more resistance to knock. But these things are complex.

EDIT: Knocking happens from pre-detonation. Knocking can also happen from predestination, like in the case of turbocharged Subarus.

MrDunham · a year ago
Friendly correction for others because your auto correct failed you...

"predestination", pretty sure parent meant "pre-detonation"

A.k.a. Autoignition aka "it goes boom before you planned on it"

Only adding this as it's a pretty crucial word for understanding the comment.

MrDunham commented on I pwned half of America's fast food chains simultaneously   mrbruh.com/chattr/... · Posted by u/MrBruh
pge · 2 years ago
American readers may not have noticed that the dates are in European DD/MM format, so they thought disclosure was Sept 1 rather than Jan 9.
MrDunham · 2 years ago
I 100% saw it as MM/DD and was wondering why it took them three months to write up the vulnerability and a month to patch it.

Thanks for the clarification

u/MrDunham

KarmaCake day748December 10, 2010
About
Founder of HeyLois, the superconnector co-pilot that finds deals/biz dev and builds your social capital

Sometimes co-invest with some great VCs (sometimes): melzi.vc

Previously: - founded Prebacked - a startup accelerator for contracts (prebacked.com) - First EIR at Sungularity University, helped launch their first accelerator — Dressed Sir Richard Branson as a pickle

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