SoftTalker (u/SoftTalker)

SoftTalker commented on The AI boom is causing shortages everywhere else washingtonpost.com/techno... · Posted by u/1vuio0pswjnm7

WarmWash · 5 hours ago

Consumer spending is strong and growing, don't listen to dregs milking upvotes on the internet, people will easily come up with 4-5 hours of minimum wage pay in a month to cover the cost of the thing they use many times a day.

SoftTalker · 4 hours ago

I don't use AI for anything in my private life, only at work. And I can't really imagine what it could do for me. In no scenario am I paying a monthly subscription for it.

SoftTalker commented on The AI boom is causing shortages everywhere else washingtonpost.com/techno... · Posted by u/1vuio0pswjnm7

manwe150 · 10 hours ago

But think about it this way: something simple like Slack charges $9/month/person and companies already pay that on many behalf. How hard would it be to imagine all those same companies (and lots more) would pay $30/month/employee for something something AI? Generating an extra $400 per year in value, per employee, isn't that much extra.

SoftTalker · 4 hours ago

They will pay it but lay off the number of employees needed to balance it out, and just expect the remaining ones to make up for it with their new AI subscriptions.

SoftTalker commented on We mourn our craft nolanlawson.com/2026/02/0... · Posted by u/ColinWright

Ronsenshi · 12 hours ago

I don't think 5 years is necessary. I think after two years of this agentic orchestration if you rarely touch code yourself skill will degrade to the point they won't be able to write anything non-trivial without assistance.

SoftTalker · 12 hours ago

Depends how long you've done it, and how much the landscape has changed since then. I can still hop back into SQL and it all comes back to me though I haven't done it regularly at all for nearly 10 years.

In the web front-end world I'd be pretty much a newbie. I don't know any of the modern frameworks, everything I've used is legacy and obsolete today. I'd ramp up quicker than a new junior because I understand all the concepts of HTTP and how the web works, but I don't know any of the modern tooling.

SoftTalker commented on We mourn our craft nolanlawson.com/2026/02/0... · Posted by u/ColinWright

zamalek · 12 hours ago

This article isn't really about losing a job. Coding is a passion for some of us. It's similar to artists and diffusion, the only difference being that many people can appreciate human art - but who (outside of us) cares that a human wrote the code?

SoftTalker · 12 hours ago

I think this is really it. Being a musician was never a very reliable way to earn a living, but it was a passion. A genuine expression of talent and feeling through the instrument. And if you were good enough you could pay the bills doing work work for studios, commercials, movies, theater. If you were really good you could perform as a headliner.

Now, AI can generate any kind of music anyone wants, eliminating almost all the anonymous studio, commercial, and soundtrack work. If you're really good you can still perform as a headliner, but (this is a guess) 80% of the work for musicians is just gone.

SoftTalker commented on Google staff call for firm to cut ties with ICE bbc.com/news/articles/cvg... · Posted by u/tartoran

BugsJustFindMe · 15 hours ago

It kinda does. Not completely, but close enough that it leads to certain people complaining about the wrong things being on their hacker news.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."

I also think it's a dumb rule.

SoftTalker · 15 hours ago

It's not a dumb rule, you can go to reddit or facebook or a dozen other places if you want to read endless low-effort, kneejerk commentary by people spouting their side's talking points.

SoftTalker commented on Coding agents have replaced every framework I used blog.alaindichiappari.dev... · Posted by u/alainrk

exe34 · 15 hours ago

my problem with frameworks has always been that the moment I want to do something the framework writers aren't interested in, I now have three problems: my problem, how to implement it in the underlying platform and how to work around the framework to not break my feature.

SoftTalker · 15 hours ago

Yes this happens in every framework I've ever used. My approach used to be to try to work around it, but now I've got these local exceptions to what the framework does and that is inevitably where problems/bugs pop up. Now I simply say "we can't implement the feature that way in this framework, we need to rework the specification." I no longer try to work against the framework, it's just a massive time sink and creates problems down the road.

It's like designing a kitchen and you don't make all the spaces some multiple of three inches. Now, standard cabinets and appliances will not fit. You will be using filler panels or need custom cabinetry. And anyone who later wants countertops or different cabinets will be working around this design too. Just follow the established standard practices.

SoftTalker commented on Coding agents have replaced every framework I used blog.alaindichiappari.dev... · Posted by u/alainrk

geophile · 15 hours ago

The article gets at this briefly and moves on: "I can do all of this with the experience on my back of having laid the bricks, spread the mortar, cut and sewn for twenty years. If I don’t like something, I can go in, understand it and fix it as I please, instructing once and for all my setup to do what I want next time."

I think this dynamic applies to any use of AI, or indeed, any form of outsourcing. You can outsource a task effectively if you understand the complete task and its implementation very deeply. But if you don't, then you don't know if what you are getting back is correct, maintainable, scalable.

SoftTalker · 15 hours ago

> instructing once and for all my setup to do what I want next time.

This works up to a point, but eventually your "setup" gets complicated, some of your demands conflict, or have different priorities, and you're relying on the AI to sort it out the way you expect.

SoftTalker commented on Start all of your commands with a comma (2009) rhodesmill.org/brandon/20... · Posted by u/theblazehen

JamesTRexx · 20 hours ago

Whenever I see "my" as a prefix, it feels like such a childish "my first Sony" thing. I hate official sites using that.

SoftTalker · 15 hours ago

This was actually the same feeling I had when I tried to learn perl. I just had a visceral dislike for "my" as the keyword to declare a local variable.

SoftTalker commented on British drivers over 70 to face eye tests every three years bbc.com/news/articles/c20... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

FigurativeVoid · 16 hours ago

Especially in the US. In countries with more robust public transport, you can get away with not having a car. That's basically impossible in the US.

SoftTalker · 15 hours ago

Not impossible, with uber/lyft being available. And yes public transit is not good everywhere in the US, but in high density cities it generally is.

SoftTalker commented on How to carry more than your own bodyweight (2025) bbc.com/future/article/20... · Posted by u/1659447091

stuffn · 2 days ago

Unless of course you’re training practical, useful strength. Which requires intense bursts of weight training, and balance between tempo runs, rucks with 35-40% of body weight, and slow run/jogs. Weightlifting is a small part of a larger picture of strength and being able to put it to use. Cardio is the single most important thing you can train because without a gas tank you’re just a fat, slow, strong slob.

You don’t need to be elite nor on juice to do this. All you need is a purpose. I do this all the time, am over 35, and not on juice. My fitness is great but no where near elite.

Rippetoe is an obnoxious jackass and you can venture to his forums (cult) to see it. He’s great at making fat, out of shape, strongmen. He’s not great at producing a fighter, tradesman, or operator. When you want to know what works look to the people actually using their fitness not morons like him who proselytize and look like the hardest thing they do all day is eat a pack of bon Bons.

SoftTalker · 2 days ago

Rippetoe gives good advice on lifting form and programming especially for novices but I'd look wider for diet and nutrition advice.