geph2021 (u/geph2021)

geph2021 commented on How Deep Can Humans Go? mcgill.ca/oss/article/stu... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

A kid at my high school, who was on the swim team, died from swimming underwater. They did informal competitions to see who could swim the furthest underwater. He was practicing that by himself, and overextended himself, passing out underwater. There were other people in the pool but no one noticed until it was too late.

I'm sure that's not the only case. Between the risk of drowning, and the difficulty for a lifeguard to tell between someone holding their breath underwater vs actually drowning, I'm not surprised a lot of pools have "don't hold your breath underwater" signs.

geph2021 · a year ago

wow, that's terrible. I was a competitive swimmer in my youth, and we did similar competitions from time to time (very rarely). I've never seen or even heard of a swimmer passing out underwater.

A more common drill we would do in practice were called "hypoxic" sets, where we would do one length of the pool breathing every 3 strokes, then the next every 5 strokes, then 7, 9 etc.. until you were going across the whole length (25 meters) without breathing. Not everyone could do it towards the longer distances without breathing, and the coaches would look out for "cheaters", but never once did anyone pass out. Maybe most swimmers, by way of the typical training and exertion in the pool, just don't develop a very good suppression of the "breath signal". I also never remember seeing anyone purposely hyperventilate so that they can stay under water longer.

geph2021 commented on Programmers Don't Read Books – But You Should (2008) blog.codinghorror.com/pro... · Posted by u/rspivak

minkles · a year ago

I don't read programming books any more because they are mostly shit or expensive or expensive and shit. The hit rate of finding a good one is so low it's easier to just fudge your way around a problem using some idiom you're already experienced with.

Just ambling around the book store earlier I saw a 3 inch think tome around Go programming called Pro Go or something. I opened it and it was a whole book of instructional copy and paste recipes that span 10 pages for a simple problem. Urgh. This is the status quo now and it has been for a long time. I walked out with a book on pure mathematics instead - probably more useful in the long run...

geph2021 · a year ago

That's exactly the author's point:

  Most programming books suck.

Yet he has some recommendations:

   But I do have this call to arms: my top five programming books every working programmer should own – and read.

They are:

  Code Complete 2 [1]

  Don't Make Me Think [2]

  Peopleware [3]

  Pragmatic Programmer [4]

  Facts and Fallacies [5]

1 - https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0735619670/codihorr-...

2 - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321965515/codihorr-2...

3 - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0932633439/codihorr-2...

4 - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/020161622X/codihorr-2...

5 - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321117425/codihorr-2...

geph2021 commented on Is running a more efficient way to travel than walking? joehxblog.com/is-running-... · Posted by u/freediver

Mistletoe · a year ago

I'm a runner and have had a weird question, could a runner defeat a larger human in this way? Like if I found myself in mortal combat with The Rock at 260 lbs after his steroids cycle, could I just repeatedly run away and follow him (while staying out of range) until he tired out and then bonk him on the head with a rock, like a tired antelope? (No offense to The Rock, seems like a great guy)

Might explain why we aren't all musclebound and huge? Although I'm sure food availability had more influence.

geph2021 · a year ago

I think this sort of technique is used in boxing and MMA: play a good defense, stay out of trouble, and let the aggressor exhaust themselves until later rounds when you feel you may have a fitness advantage. I think there were good examples of this in the early days of MMA, when there was much less, if any, specialized training, techniques and strategy. It's probably much less effective now, since a well trained aggressor will know how to pace themselves too.

geph2021 commented on Breaking my hand forced me to write all my code with AI for 2 months erikschluntz.com/software... · Posted by u/eschluntz

geph2021 · a year ago

   Our motor controller had a 100 page datasheet that was overwhelming and dense - but uploading it to Claude and then asking questions let us quickly resolve one of our issues!

That's interesting. I've tried exactly this with chatGPT (enterprise install), and it failed pretty miserably when asking it basic questions about configuration/control. Although, I do have to add that the datasheet in question was a lot more complicated than a motor controller, and included a Firmware API guide.

geph2021 commented on Jeff Bezos' management rules are slowly unraveling inside Amazon fortune.com/2024/07/31/am... · Posted by u/ecliptik

codingwagie · a year ago

I'm a long time Amazonian. The big problem is legacy employees run every part of the company. Almost any manager of managers has been at Amazon a long time, in that same job for a long time. There is no upward mobility at the company, unless you have been in some org 5+ years. In Alexa, the people running the core ML teams have been in Alexa since it started. Most people in decision making positions just got there first (10-15 years ago)

The software engineering paradigms used within the company create brittle rube goldberg machines of events flowing everywhere in the company. Almost all of them are on maintenance mode, where the oncall burns out the engineers and prevents them from creating new products. There is no knowledge sharing between team members. Legacy team members guard their technical platform knowledge to solidify their place on the team.

The engineers themselves are not students of computer science, but just crunch out tickets.

If Amazon wants to change they need to remove a significant amount of tenured employees, and actually promote young engineers into decision making positions.

AWS hasnt released an innovative product in a really long time

geph2021 · a year ago

   There is no upward mobility at the company, unless you have been in some org 5+ years.

I think that's true of most large organizations.

geph2021 commented on AI's $600B Question sequoiacap.com/article/ai... · Posted by u/fh973

2OEH8eoCRo0 · a year ago

Why is there such an effort to hitch current AI to cryptocurrency? They have nothing in common, not the tech, and not the way people interact with it.

geph2021 · a year ago

People have been comparing and contrasting successive technology innovation cycles for a long time. OP mentions railroads, but that doesn't mean there's an "effort to hitch" AI to railroads. It's just a comparison, which may or may not be useful in understanding how the latest innovation cycle may impact the world.

geph2021 commented on AI's $600B Question sequoiacap.com/article/ai... · Posted by u/fh973

ryandrake · a year ago

Others are saying this article is bearish, but then...

> A huge amount of economic value is going to be created by AI. Company builders focused on delivering value to end users will be rewarded handsomely.

Such strong speculative predictions about the future, with no evidence. How can anyone be so certain about this? Do they have some kind of crystal ball? Later in the article they even admit that this is another one of tech's all-too-familiar "Speculative frenzies."

The whole AI thing just continues to baffle me. It's like everyone is in the same trance and simply assuming and chanting over and over that This Will Change Everything, just like previous technology hype cycles were surely going to Change Everything. I mean, we're seeing huge companies' entire product strategies changing overnight because We Must All Believe.

How can anyone speak definitively about what AI will do at this stage of the cycle?

geph2021 · a year ago

When you think about the promise (or hype) of crypto/bitcoin/blockchain 10 years ago, in some sense it augured equally, if not more, transformative change/disruption than AI.

Crypto portended drastic and fundamental changes: programmable money, disintermediation, and the decentralization of the very foundations of our society (i.e. money, banking, commerce). Suffice to say that nothing close to this has happened, and probably will never happen.

So I can see how many people are equally skeptical that AI, as the next hyped transformative technology, will achieve anything near the many lofty predictions.