albrewer (u/albrewer)

albrewer commented on Python developers are embracing type hints pyrefly.org/blog/why-type... · Posted by u/ocamoss

Dr_Birdbrain · 4 months ago

I actually don’t like python type hints!

At my work we have a jit compiler that requires type hints under some conditions.

Aside from that, I avoid them as much as possible. The reason is that they are not really a part of the language, they violate the spirit of the language, and in high-usage parts of code they quickly become a complete mess.

For example a common failure mode in my work’s codebase is that some function will take something that is indexable by ints. The type could be anything, it could be List, Tuple, Dict[int, Any], torch.Size, torch.Tensor, nn.Sequential, np.ndarray, or a huge host of custom types! And you better believe that every single admissible type will eventually be fed to this function. Sometimes people will try to keep up, annotating it with a Union of the (growing) list of admissible types, but eventually the list will become silly and the function will earn a # pyre-ignore annotation. This defeats the whole point of the pointless exercise.

So, if the jit compiler needs the annotation I am happy to provide it, but otherwise I will proactively not provide any, and I will sometimes even delete existing annotations when they are devolving into silliness.

albrewer · 4 months ago

Define a protocol[0] that declares it implements `__getitem__` and type annotate with that protocol. Whatever properties are needed inside the function can be described in other protocols.

These are similar to interfaces in C# or traits in Rust - you describe what the parameter _does_ instead of what it _is_.

[0]: https://typing.python.org/en/latest/spec/protocol.html

albrewer commented on AWS CEO says using AI to replace junior staff is 'Dumbest thing I've ever heard' theregister.com/2025/08/2... · Posted by u/JustExAWS

brushfoot · 6 months ago

I read AI coding negativity on Hacker News and Reddit with more and more astonishment every day. It's like we live in different worlds. I expect the breadth of tooling is partly responsible. What it means to you to "use the LLM code" could be very different from what it means to me. What LLM are we talking about? What context does it have? What IDE are you using?

Personally, I wrote 200K lines of my B2B SaaS before agentic coding came around. With Sonnet 4 in Agent mode, I'd say I now write maybe 20% of the ongoing code from day to day, perhaps less. Interactive Sonnet in VS Code and GitHub Copilot Agents (autonomous agents running on GitHub's servers) do the other 80%. The more I document in Markdown, the higher that percentage becomes. I then carefully review and test.

albrewer · 6 months ago

My AI experience has varied wildly depending on the problem I'm working on. For web apps in Python, they're fantastic. For hacking on old engineering calculation code written in C/C++, it's an unmitigated disaster and an active hindrance.

albrewer commented on Code review can be better tigerbeetle.com/blog/2025... · Posted by u/sealeck

epolanski · 6 months ago

> and that isn't something I ever encountered in the wild (in any formal sense)

Because in the software engineering world there is very little engineering involved.

That being said, I also think that the industry is unwilling to accept the slowliness of the proper engineering process for various reasons, including non criticality of most software and the possibility to amend bugs and errors on the fly.

Other engineering fields enjoy no such luxuries, the bridge either holds the train or it doesn't, you either nailed the manufacturing plant or there's little room for fixing, the plane's engine either works or not

Different stakes and patching opportunities lend to different practices.

albrewer · 6 months ago

> Because in the software engineering world there is very little engineering involved.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've been given the time to do a planning period for something less than a "major" feature in the past few years. Oddly, the only time I was able to push good QA, testing, and development practices was at an engineering firm.

albrewer commented on My bank keeps on undermining anti-phishing education moritz-mander.de/blog/my_... · Posted by u/cheesepaint

meindnoch · 7 months ago

I bet it's actually a set of solenoid actuators physically typing into a 90s terminal.

albrewer · 7 months ago

Don't be ridiculous. It's a set of solenoids typing into a punch card machine.

albrewer commented on I will do anything to end homelessness except build more homes (2018) mcsweeneys.net/articles/i... · Posted by u/2color

aqme28 · 8 months ago

I see this take a lot but it's a very static take on homelessness.

Yes, homeless people are often in a mental state where they are difficult to take care of. However, that doesn't mean they're homeless because they're mentally unstable. Often, the reason they are unstable is because they are homeless.

Being on the street heavily exacerbates drug and mental health issues. Plenty of homeless people start out normal and then fall into this state. So if you want to reduce the number of crazy people on the street, then people need stability and homes to cut off the pipeline.

albrewer · 8 months ago

I've housed two sibling that were labeled as "mentally unstable"(raised by mentally abusive narcissists) and "lazy"(has narcolepsy), respectively. Both situations were pretty bad before they landed in our home, but everyone in their lives called us "angels" for taking them in.

Each of them lived with my family for two years. All my wife and I did was let them exist in their own space with no pressure to do anything (other than coexist in our house, but that's purely logistics).

Both of them have gone on to go to college and pursue their respective dreams. The elder of the two lives independently, and the younger just shipped off to college.

The broader point being that most people just need a support network and a stable place to live to start to thrive.

Granted, that's just anecdata on my part, but it seems to line up with moth metal health studies I've read when it comes to homelessness.

albrewer commented on PWM flicker: Invisible light that's harming our health? caseorganic.medium.com/th... · Posted by u/SLHamlet

BoxOfRain · 8 months ago

>My building replaced all the outdoor lights with them, and now it's just too bright to sit on my stoop at night like used to be so common here in Brooklyn.

What I miss are the old low-pressure sodium street lights that used to be ubiquitous in the UK. Not everyone's cup of tea but they were highly efficient (outperforming LEDs for a surprisingly long time) and had this cool property of being so monochromatic they ate the colours out of everything. This made them useful for astronomers because their light was easily filtered, and reduced their impact on wildlife relative to harsh blueish LEDs. The main reason I like them is aesthetic though, they made night look like night rather than a poor approximation of day.

Thankfully my local area have given up trying to use the really harsh white they put in initially, and have at least starting putting in warmer LEDs.

albrewer · 8 months ago

> This made them useful for astronomers because their light was easily filtered

The wavelength is so specific that it can have all kinds of cool applications:

https://youtu.be/UQuIVsNzqDk?si=R4VUDCfC6zcHd4XC

albrewer commented on What methylene blue can (and can’t) do for the brain neurofrontiers.blog/what-... · Posted by u/wiry

Aurornis · 8 months ago

> Yeah there's functionally no good solution besides occasional stimulant use and staying off them the rest of the time.

This is literally the misunderstanding I was talking about.

The startup euphoric effects are a side effect, not the main ADHD therapeutic function. This is the confusion that leads people off track, especially when they’re prescribed too high of a starting dose.

Taking the stimulant every day and acknowledging that it’s not supposed to be euphoric is the only way to use them for actual ADHD treatment. The attention-enhancing effects largely remain.

This is also where the “stimulant medications affect ADHD people differently” myth comes from. The real reason is that the ADHD patient has taken the med for years and doesn’t get a stimulant rush when taking it. The college student who borrows the fully-titrated dose from their friend is speeding around because they are stimulant naive.

> Direct dopamine regulation is just a crappy target for this. TAAR1 agonism may be a better target.

Amphetamine (Adderall) is a TAAR1 ligand. Guanfacine (non-stimulant ADHD medication) is as well.

> I've heard some sketchy reports that things in the class of bromantane might be good options, as it acts to epigenetically upregulate dopamine synthesis rather than altering clearance,

Bromantane is thought to upregulate expression of some genes related to dopamine, but it also might have some effects on the sigma receptor, act on a potassium channel, and it does have some dopamine reuptake inhibition though the exact amount is up for debate.

Anyway, people often equate ADHD and dopamine, but norepinephrine is actually the common thread among all ADHD medications. Like you said, there’s a lot of “dopamine deficiency” broscience on the internet that doesn’t really match the science.

albrewer · 8 months ago

> but norepinephrine is actually the common thread among all ADHD medications

Anecdata, but my ADHD (and depression!) didn't significantly improve until I was on both lisdexamfetamine and buproprion. Both drugs lift production of both neurotransmitters, but they "specialize" in dopamine and norepinephrine, respectively.

albrewer commented on The Rise of the Japanese Toilet nytimes.com/2025/05/29/bu... · Posted by u/Kaibeezy

unhappy_meaning · 8 months ago

In almost all of SE Asia, especially Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, all of the toilets come with a hand-held sprayer. They also had this in the Doha airport and I'm not sure how common this style is outside of SE Asia but I'm guessing it's common. Japanese style bidets are very common in Korean households as well and I'm sure its easily a billion dollar business.

It is nice but the functionality is quite difficult for a person who's not used to this whatsoever. After you're done sh*ing, you grab the handheld sprayer and turn it upside down and reach behind you toward your butt and try as best as you can to aim it into your anus to wash as best as you can. People who have been doing this their whole lives can probably aim with a precision of a Marine Corp Sniper but to us, we look at it as alien technology. It's is quite difficult to use for a first timer and there are factors that worry us.

If its not aimed correctly, where does the splash go? If you're lucky it stays in the toilet boil. However if your aim is off, you can completely miss your anus and either shoot to much under or over which will shoot the water outside of the toilet bowl.

Also when I was using the bathroom in the Doha airport, the handheld sprayer had a soap dispenser next to it. I was curious what it was for so I YouTube'd and searched for instructions on what the soap dispenser was for and (kind-of) to my surprise it was soap to lather and clean your anus with your other free hand. After you lather and clean, you basically rinse your hand with the hose as well.

albrewer · 8 months ago

> People who have been doing this their whole lives can probably aim with a precision of a Marine Corp Sniper but to us

I bought these sprayers for my house when people lost their minds hoarding toilet paper during the initial COVID lockdowns in the US. It only took a few days to start getting it right the first time, every time.

albrewer commented on Human coders are still better than LLMs antirez.com/news/153... · Posted by u/longwave

Buttons840 · 8 months ago

I'm probably suffering undiagnosed ADHD, and will get stuck and spend minutes picking a function name and then writing a docstring. LLMs do help with this even if they get the code wrong, because I usually won't bother to fix their variables names or docstring unless needed. LLMs can reliably solve the problem of a blank-page.

albrewer · 8 months ago

> LLMs can reliably solve the problem of a blank-page.

This has been the biggest boost for me. The number of choices available when facing a blank page is staggering. Even a bad/wrong implementation helps collapse those possibilities into a countable few that take far less time to think about.

albrewer commented on A thought on JavaScript "proof of work" anti-scraper systems utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/spa... · Posted by u/zdw

DaSHacka · 8 months ago

Surprised there hasn't been a fork of Anubis that changes the artificial PoW into a simple Monero mining PoW yet.

Would be hilarious to trap scraper bots into endless labyrinths of LLM-generated mediawiki pages, getting them to mine hashes with each progressive article.

At least then we would be making money off these rude bots.

albrewer · 8 months ago

There a company awhile back that did almost exactly this called CoinHive