crabmusket (u/crabmusket)

crabmusket commented on Coding assistants are solving the wrong problem bicameral-ai.com/blog/int... · Posted by u/jinhkuan

slau · 6 days ago

OT: I applaud your correct use of the grave accent, however minor nitpick: crème in French is feminine, therefore it would be “la”.

crabmusket · 6 days ago

There's an interesting aside about the origin of the phrase in Leslie Claret's Integral Principles of the Structural Dynamics of Flow

https://youtu.be/ca27ndN2fVM?si=hNxSY6vm0g-Pt7uR

crabmusket commented on How does misalignment scale with model intelligence and task complexity? alignment.anthropic.com/2... · Posted by u/salkahfi

skydhash · 6 days ago

Programming languages can be a thinking tool for a lot of tasks. Very much like a lot of notation, like music sheet and map drawing. A condensed and somewhat formal manner of describing ideas can increase communication speed. It may lack nuance, but in some case, nuance is harmful.

The nice thing about code compared to other notation is that it's useful on its. You describe an algorithm and the machine can then solve the problem ad infinitum. It's one step instead of the two step of writing a spec and having an LLM translate it, then having to verify the output and alter it.

Assembly and high level languages are equivalent in terms of semantics. The latter helps in managing complexity, by reducing harmful possibilities (managing memory, off-by-one errors) and presenting common patterns (iterators/collections, struct and other data structures, ....) so that categories of problems are easily solved. There's no higher level of computing model unlocked. Just faster level of productivity unlocked by following proven patterns.

Spec driven workflow is a mirage, because even the best specs will leave a lot of unspecified details. Which are crucial as most of programming is making the computer not do the various things it can do.

crabmusket · 6 days ago

> most of programming is making the computer not do the various things it can do

This is a very stimulating way of putting it!

crabmusket commented on Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features macrumors.com/2026/02/02/... · Posted by u/stalfosknight

crabmusket · 6 days ago

Why are there controls to turn off AI features, but no controls to turn on AI features?

crabmusket commented on How does misalignment scale with model intelligence and task complexity? alignment.anthropic.com/2... · Posted by u/salkahfi

smy20011 · 6 days ago

I think It's not because AI working on "misaligned" goals. The user never specify the goal clearly enough for AI system to work.

However, I think producing detailed enough specification requires same or even larger amount of work than writing code. We write rough specification and clarify these during the process of coding. I think there are minimal effort required to produce these specification, AI will not help you speed up these effort.

crabmusket · 6 days ago

That makes me wonder about the "higher and higher-level language" escalator. When you're writing in assembly, is it more work to write the code than the spec? And the reverse is true if you can code up your system in Ruby? If so, does that imply anything about the "spec driven" workflow people are using with AIs? Are we right on the cusp where writing natural language specs and writing high level code are comparably productive?

crabmusket commented on xAI joins SpaceX spacex.com/updates#xai-jo... · Posted by u/g-mork

__alexs · 6 days ago

Solar cells have exactly the same power rating on earth as in space surely? What would change is their capacity factor and so energy generation.

crabmusket · 6 days ago

Solar modules you can buy for your house usually have quoted power ratings at "max STC" or Standard Testing Conditions, which are based on insolation on Earth's surface.

https://wiki.pvmet.org/index.php?title=Standard_Test_Conditi...

So, a "400W panel" is rated to produce 400W at standard testing conditions.

I'm not sure how relevant that is to the numbers being thrown around in this thread, but thought I'd provide context.

crabmusket commented on Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025 wikiedu.org/blog/2026/01/... · Posted by u/ColinWright

crazygringo · 8 days ago

> That means the article contained a plausible-sounding sentence, cited to a real, relevant-sounding source. But when you read the source it’s cited to, the information on Wikipedia does not exist in that specific source. When a claim fails verification, it’s impossible to tell whether the information is true or not.

This has been a rampant problem on Wikipedia always. I can't seem to find any indicator that this has increased recently? Because they're only even investigating articles flagged as potentially AI. So what's the control baseline rate here?

Applying correct citations is actually really hard work, even when you know the material thoroughly. I just assume people write stuff they know from their field, then mostly look to add the minimum number of plausible citations after the fact, and then most people never check them, and everyone seems to just accept it's better than nothing. But I also suppose it depends on how niche the page is, and which field it's in.

crabmusket · 8 days ago

There was a fun example of this that happened live during a recent episode of the Changelog[1]. The hosts noted that they were incorrectly described as being "from GitHub" with a link to an episode of their podcast which didn't substantiate that claim. Their guest fixed the citation as they recorded[2].

[1]: https://changelog.com/podcast/668#transcript-265

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eugen_Rochko&diff...

crabmusket commented on New books aren't worth reading? atlaspress.co/p/new-books... · Posted by u/speckx

borroka · 11 days ago

The comment I am responding to is referring to their own experience, which, at the population level, does not appear to be largely shared, as, at the population level (i.e., people in general, not intellectuls, not academics, all of them), it is evident that people consider tv shows, games, and tiktok superior (i.e. revealed preference) forms of entertainment with respect to books.

How was it not clear? I would prefer to engage with more substantive comments.

crabmusket · 10 days ago

What's not clear to me is how aggregate preferences about entertainment media should affect my choice of entertainment media. TFA is worded to suggest that because "nobody" reads fiction, it should be dismissed when considering what to read.

I'm perfectly willing to accept that most people prefer Netflix to Umberto Eco. However, I don't. And that is one reason I reject the analysis in the article.

crabmusket commented on Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app macrumors.com/2026/01/28/... · Posted by u/pier25

silvestrov · 11 days ago

You could make the argument that Patreon isn't much more than a banking app.

It just focuses on the receiver of the money than the sender.

I think Apple is slowly killing apps with this policy. Everybody will slowly move to "web only" as 30% would kill their ability to compete with anybody else. This will likely be much stronger in countries where iPhones do not have the same market share as in the US.

crabmusket · 10 days ago

Imagine seeing a popup banner in an app each time you open it that interrupts whatever you're trying to do to say "open on our website!"

(Apple's censorship notwithstanding)

crabmusket commented on New books aren't worth reading? atlaspress.co/p/new-books... · Posted by u/speckx

borroka · 11 days ago

The problem is that you are talking about your experience, and not about the distribution of experience of people, which is why I wrote "at the population level".

For the more intellectually sophisticated person (does not mean "better" person, to be clear), "entertainment type" is not fungible (movies as art, advertisement as investigation into the psychology of the masses, etc.) but for the vast majority of people, it is just a way to spend time.

You are referring to critically acclaimed movies and tv shows, but for the majority of people, leisure time in front of the tv is not spent bouncing between Fellini, Von Trier, PTA, Kubrick, et similia, but binge-watching the latest terrible Netflix tv show.

It is the same with food: we like to think that what prevents the masses from enjoying fine dining is the cost of the experience, but in reality, to many (myself included, most of the time), French fries with mayonnaise, a burger, and some ice cream is just a better proposition.

I disagree myself wiht the statement that paper is inferior, entertainment-wise, to tv, games, and tiktok--they all overstimulate me, I feel dirty after being on tiktok for 20 minutes and I feel as clean as a whistle after reading for 3 hours, in addition to the subtle intellectual stimulation I get from reading-- but in terms of choices made by people, books are certainly the losing party.

crabmusket · 11 days ago

How are population-level aggregates relevant to the discussion in TFA and the comments?

crabmusket commented on That's not how email works danq.me/2026/01/28/hsbc-d... · Posted by u/HotGarbage

adastra22 · 11 days ago

“We need to confirm you are receiving our emails, please click this link” is a phishing setup. That is absolutely not what they should do.

crabmusket · 11 days ago

Agreed. What would be a good way for a bank to do this? What about "reply to this email"?