Zandikar (u/Zandikar)

Zandikar commented on Gemini 2.5 blog.google/technology/go... · Posted by u/meetpateltech

baq · a year ago

It’s here and it’s called discord.

Zandikar · a year ago

I have bad news for you if you think non paywalled / non phone# required discord communities are immune to AI scraping, especially as it costs less than hammering traditional websites as the push-on-change event is done for you in real time chat contexts.

Especially as the company archives all those chats (not sure how long) and is small enough that a billion dollar "data sharing" agreement would be a very inticing offer.

If there isn't a significant barrier to access, it's being scraped. And if that barrier is money, it's being scraped but less often.

Zandikar commented on Docker limits unauthenticated pulls to 10/HR/IP from Docker Hub, from March 1 docs.docker.com/docker-hu... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

InsomniacL · a year ago

> Can't believe the sense of entitlement in this thread.

I don't use Docker so I genuinely don't know this...

Is the Docker Library built on the back of volunteers which is then used to sell paid subscriptions?

Does this commercial company expect volunteers to give them images for free which give their paid subscriptions value?

Zandikar · a year ago

> Does this commercial company expect volunteers to give them images for free which give their paid subscriptions value?

Yes, to an extent, because it costs money to store and serve data, no matter what kind of data it is or it's associated IP rights/licensing/ownership. Regardless, this isn't requiring people to buy a subscription or otherwise charging anyone to access the data. It's not even preventing unauthenticated users from accessing the data. It's reducing the rate at which that data can be ingested without ID/Auth to reduce the operational expense of making that data freely (as in money) and publicly available. Given the explosion in traffic (demand) and the ability to make those demands thanks to automation and AI relative to the operational expense of supplying it, rate limiting access to free and public data egress is not in and of itself unreasonable. Especially if those that are responsible for that increased OpEx aren't respecting fair use (legally or conceptually) and even potentially abusing the IP rights/licensing of "images [given] for free" to the "Library built on the back of volunteers".

To what extent that's happening, how relevant it is to docker, and how effective/reasonable Docker's response to it are all perfectly reasonable discussions to have. The entitlement is referring to those that explicitly or implicitly expect or demand such a service should be provided for free.

Note: you mentioned you don't use docker. a single docker pull can easily be 100's of MB's (official psql image is ~150MB for example) or even in some cases over a GB worth of network transfer depending on the image. Additionally, there is no restriction by docker/dockerhub that prevents or discourages people from linking to source code or alternative hosts of the data. Furthermore you don't have to do a pull everytime you wish to use an image, and caching/redistributing them within your LAN/Cluster is easy. Should also be mentioned Docker Hub is more than just a publicly accessible storage endpoint for a specific kind of data, and their subscription services provide more that just hosting/serving that data.

Zandikar commented on Why We're Falling Out of Love with Tesla worldcrunch.com/business-... · Posted by u/teleforce

slau · a year ago

And yet, you perfectly understood what they meant, because words can have different meanings dependent on the context.

Luckily, GP made it abundantly clear he wasn’t talking about a beemer.

Zandikar · a year ago

> Luckily, GP made it abundantly clear he wasn’t talking about a beemer

He did not, nor did he make it clear - certainly not abundantly so - what they WERE talking about, which is the core and more important problem.

For example, just because it's abundantly clear they weren't talking about a Boeing 747 doesn't mean I have any idea what they were on about.

Zandikar commented on Passing the Torch on Asahi Linux asahilinux.org/2025/02/pa... · Posted by u/pabs3

SamuelAdams · a year ago

I know Rust might be a better technology for some drivers and use cases, but if they are constantly fighting an upstream battle with merging it, why not bite the bullet and write it in C?

At that point the hard work of reverse engineering and coming up with a spec and a reliable piece of software that implements that spec are done. Don’t let that work go to waste.

Zandikar · a year ago

> why not bite the bullet and write it in C

Are they doing things the way they're doing it just to get it done, or are they doing it because they feel it's the right way to do things and they want to get it done right?

If the former, then fair question. If the latter, then you answered your own question at the start of that sentence.

> Don’t let that work go to waste.

Which is what would happen if they gave up and wrote it in C if they're goal is not just to get it done, but to get it done right.

Doesn't mean there aren't better/alternative ways to do things. Doesn't mean it's not worth asking if a lang other than rust may be better for certain/all parts of this (And yes, that includes C). But it also doesn't mean their hard work is going to waste just because the work is hard.

Zandikar commented on PostgreSQL Best Practices speakdatascience.com/post... · Posted by u/lemonwaterlime

IgorPartola · a year ago

Wonder if there is a way to use that kind of technique as a filter.

Zandikar · a year ago

General AI on non-objective ("best" is undefined here and for what usecase/priorities?) broadly covered topics like this instance is mostly just a regression to the mean with bias bleed in from other knowledge graphs (eg, trying to use correct grammar/tense (linguistics) in place of endianness(compsci)). As we traverse further into the depths of the dead internet theory, and more AI slop pollutes the internet (and in turn/tandem, poorly curated synthetic datasets), there is some inevitable Ouroboros style reinforcement here too.

So a simple filter in the sense of "omit anything too similar to X" would just omit the mean result within your given deviation. It's effectively asking, "What are some truly insane ways to use PostgreSQL", which is an interesting thought experiment, though if it actually produces useful results then you've basically just written a unit-test (Domain test?) for when AI slop evolves into full on AI jumping the shark.

If you're doing it based on cross-linking (source-citing), you're basically doing Page-Rank for AI.

If you time gate familiarity to posts only up to the NLP/General AI explosion in 2022 or so, well that might still be useful today, but for how long?

If you were to write a "Smart" filter, you're basically just writing the "PostgreSQL Best Practices" article yourself, but writing it for machines instead of humans. And I don't know what to make of that, but frankly I was lead to believe that if nothing else, the robopocalypse would be more interesting than this.

Zandikar commented on Go is a well designed language, actually mattjhall.co.uk/posts/go-... · Posted by u/p4ul

nu11ptr · a year ago

That isn't my argument. My argument is that the features chosen are worse on all accounts, and better on either none or almost none, therefore it is poorly designed language.

A few examples:

Multiple return vs. tuple: tuples can regarded as a single entity OR multiple entities

null pointer vs Option type: impossible to have null pointer exceptions

enums vs integers: no need to roll it yourself or have "stringer" code generator

multiple return errors vs result type: prevent accidental use of value when not valid

The list goes on. Go DID do some really nice things on balance: channels, go routines, etc. I think work quite well. I just think starting from a "C mindset" was the wrong foundation in which to build a language at this point in time.

Also, a good example of what you are talking about would be functional vs. imperative programming. THAT is very much in line with your argument, but that isn't what I'm talking about.

Zandikar · a year ago

> That isn't my argument

That is in fact what I'm trying to get you to understand. You're arguing a different point than what was proposed. What you propose is entirely valid, but is missing the forest for the trees.

Your goals for what a language should be/do and what Golangs Goals for a language should are not equivalent. You admit it yourself in part here:

> I just think starting from a "C mindset" was the wrong foundation in which to build a language at this point in time.

It's why I've entirely bypassed your attempts to discuss the nuance.

You may disagree with the "C mindset" and other design principles, but ignoring the context of why decisions were made is not productive discourse for determining whether something is designed well or not, which again, was your original and very firmly stated assertion up top.

There is more to a language than it's abstractions and syntax/syntactical sugar and paradigm. Learning curve, intuitiveness, familiarity, conventions, devex (creating and maintaining) and usecase and who is intended/expected to use it are all important as well, and inform why certain decisions are made.

In other words, Thinking people need to move on from the C mindset is an entirely valid argument to make. It has no bearing on whether C or C-inspired languages are designed well, as it entirely ignores what those designs were intended to achieve and who they were trying to cater to.

TL;DR: How well something caters to your goals isn't the same discussion of how well it's designed to cater to someone elses/it's own stated goals. So yes, you feel it's badly designed because you refuse to acknowledge it's not trying to cater you, and that it has no duty to.

Zandikar commented on Go is a well designed language, actually mattjhall.co.uk/posts/go-... · Posted by u/p4ul

nu11ptr · a year ago

I'm not sure how making the language more expressive and less prone to errors makes programs more difficult to maintain? I'm not suggesting they keep adding new features and I do think they got that right. Too many languages keep bloating their languages with new features. A small feature set is the right goal, but I just think they picked the wrong feature set. The features are too primitive and put the burden onto their users vs. the lang devs.

There is no inherent correct or not, just opinion. If Go meets your needs, go for it (pun not intended, but still comical lol). I honestly don't think the ideal language exists (and it will look a little different for everyone), but something between Rust and Go with a little bit of OOP would be a sweet spot I think.

Zandikar · a year ago

> I'm not sure how making the language more expressive and less prone to errors makes programs more difficult to maintain

I never said nor contested that it did. I was questioning what the design philosophy or general appeal of the language was. If what you believe it is/should be differs from the maintainers themselves, then naturally you're going to likely have friction with how it solves problems or implements features in the first place, as you have divergent goals/philosophies. That doesn't make it a poorly designed language, it makes it the wrong tool (for you) for the job.

To abstract the concept: Nails and Screws are both perfectly valid approaches to fastening things in general, but if you expect a hammer to turn screws effectively, you're gonna have a bad time because your approach/philosophies are misaligned, not because the Hammer is poorly designed. That also doesn't mean there isn't merit in the discussion of the pros and cons of nails and screws and when/how to use them, but that's fundamentally a separate (if adjacent, and still valid) discussion.

EDIT: also, just want to clarify, I don't know Golang, so have no skin in the "is it better/worse/correct". I've long been a supporter of "the best tool for the job is the one you know", with perhaps the only exception to that being Brainfuck[0], unless your intended goal is just to fuck with people lol.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck

Zandikar commented on Go is a well designed language, actually mattjhall.co.uk/posts/go-... · Posted by u/p4ul

nu11ptr · a year ago

I would argue Go is a poorly designed language, though people are free to their opinions. Keeping things like null pointers when other languages got rid of them entirely (or used union type proofs to ensure they could not be referenced). The lack of tuples, pattern matching, enums, return ADT, etc. make it unwieldly to use in practice and verbose in nature. Sure, it is "simple", but that isn't the goal... the goal is to make it "easy" for the users to write correct programs.

The article also highlights explicit errors vs. exceptions. Sure, I would agree, but that isn't the only comparison. The best comparison would be via "return ADTs" ala Rust (and they could have been special cased for a return type as Go's designers did for special generic list/maps) which make it possible to disambiguate errors from valid return values without risk of error.

Zandikar · a year ago

> the goal is to make it "easy" for the users to write correct programs.

I've only ever dabbled in Golang, but isn't the goal of Go ultimately to make it easy for devs to maintain programs with their hyperfocus on non-breaking changes and backwards compatibility (With previous versions)? It's less about being easy/nice to write the first time, but that you don't have to re-write it again and again with each version change, no?

I'm not saying the OP Article is correct, again, not familiar enough with the language to comment on that, but the whole reason I keep wanting to adopt it (just don't have the time) is everyone I know that uses it always sings its praises for the above features. Seems to be the defining point that drives it's adoption, at least among those I interface with.

Zandikar commented on Ergo S-1 – An open-source ergonomic wireless keyboard github.com/wizarddata/Erg... · Posted by u/arcanemachiner

dotancohen · a year ago

I see, thanks. Do you double up on your modifiers? For instance if A is Ctrl, then how do you type Ctrl-A?

How do you handle triple buckies, e.g. Ctrl-Shift-A?

Zandikar · a year ago

You can change the behavior of your layer activation key(s) so that you aren't n+1ing your buckies, and can also customize the keymap of all layers (including the baselayer) so that you don't have Ctrl and A sharing the same physical key between layers to avoid that exact issue. Though, if you do choose to do that, there is still a way to send Ctrl-A (using one shot keys [2] for example). I've listed a few options you have for your layer activiation key behavior from the qmk wiki [0] as it's more succinct than the zmk wiki [1], but QMK and ZMK (which the Ergo S-1 uses) both share similar functionality in this way. Non exhaustive list of layer-activation behavior from the QMK wiki:

> MO(layer) - momentarily activates layer. As soon as you let go of the key, the layer is deactivated.

> TG(layer) - toggles layer, activating it if it's inactive and vice versa

> TT(layer) - Layer Tap-Toggle. If you hold the key down, layer is activated, and then is de-activated when you let go (like MO). If you repeatedly tap it, the layer will be toggled on or off

You can also use Macros if you'd prefer (but not required) to handle triple (or more) buckies, which both ZMK and QMK firmwares support.

I will note that this Ergo S-1 seems to be missing at least 8 keys that most other Ergodox keyboards have (the 3 keys of the inner column on each side and the bottom right and left corner keys) so total physical keycount appears to be closer to a 60% kb. So in that way, you're going to be more dependent on using layers (or Macros) in general than even other ergodox (such as the Ergodox-ez [3] style keyboards of this type.

EDIT: Apologies, I wasn't paying attention to usernames when responding to comments and basically gave you this answer twice across two different comments. Deleted the other as this one is more complete/to the point.

0: https://docs.qmk.fm/feature_layers

1: https://zmk.dev/docs/keymaps/behaviors/layers

2: https://docs.qmk.fm/one_shot_keys

3: https://ergodox-ez.com/