[stub for offtopicness]
(in this case, thinkiness)
This article doesn’t really show anything near what the title assets.
Readit Newskenjackson commented on Using secondary school maths to demystify AI raspberrypi.org/blog/seco... · Posted by u/zdw
kenjackson commented on Has the cost of building software dropped 90%? martinalderson.com/posts/... · Posted by u/martinald
How can I learn this skill? Past Me is usually just this idiot who made work for Present Me.
Turns out, that is also past me. In fact, often the incredible code that brilliant me wrote, which I don't understand now, is also the code that reckless me wrote that I now need to fix/add to -- and I have no idea where to start.
kenjackson commented on Has the cost of building software dropped 90%? martinalderson.com/posts/... · Posted by u/martinald
Does that mean you don't think you learned anything valuable through the experience of working through this complexity yourself?
I'm not advocating for everyone to do all of their math on paper or something, but when I look back on the times I learned the most, it involved a level of focus and dedication that LLMs simply do not require. In fact, I think their default settings may unfortunately lead you toward shallow patterns of thought.
I wouldn't say there is no value to it, but I do feel like I learned more using LLMs as a companion than trying to figure everything out myself. And note, using an LLM doesn't mean that I don't think. It helps provide context and information that often would be time consuming to figure out, and I'm not sure if the time spent is proportional to the learning I'd get from it. Seeing that these memory locations mapped to sprites that then get mapped to those memory locations, which map to the video display -- are an example of things that might take a minute to explore to learn, but the LLM can tell me instantly.
So a combination of both is useful.
kenjackson commented on Has the cost of building software dropped 90%? martinalderson.com/posts/... · Posted by u/martinald
If I haven't looked at my own code in 6 months it might as well have been written by someone else.
The most brilliant programmer I know is me three years ago. I look at code I wrote and I'm literally wondering "how did I figure out how to do that -- that makes no sense, but exactly what is needed!"
kenjackson commented on Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros cnbc.com/2025/12/08/param... · Posted by u/gniting
That's a shitty gamble when online media is where it is at now a days. These big media networks are dinosaurs hanging on by a thread.
It might be. But if you're doing a short-term political power play (rather than a business investment), it could be a good tactical spend. And it might be a smart business investment if the political power play works in such way that you can politically bend the business environment in your favor.
kenjackson commented on Has the cost of building software dropped 90%? martinalderson.com/posts/... · Posted by u/martinald
But in the past, you knew the codebase very well, and it was trivial to implement a fix and upgrade the software. Can the same be done with LLMs ? Well from what I see, it depends on your luck. But if the LLMs can't help you, then you gotta read the whole codebase that you've never read before and you quickly lose the initial benefits. I don't doubt someday we'll get there though.
I've hit this in little bursts, but one thing I've found is that LLMs are really good at reasoning about their own code and helping me understand how to diagnose and make fixes.
I recently found some assembly source for some old C64 games and used an LLM to walk me through it (purely recreational). It was so good at it. If I was teaching a software engineering class, I'd have students use LLMs to do analysis of large code bases. One of the things we did in grad school was to go through gcc and contribute something to it. Man, that code was so complex and compilers are one of my specialties (at the time). I think having an LLM with me would have made the task 100x easier.
kenjackson commented on Has the cost of building software dropped 90%? martinalderson.com/posts/... · Posted by u/martinald
Had the cost of building custom software dropped 90%, we would be seeing a flurry of low-cost, decent-quality SaaS offering all over the marketplace, possibly undercutting some established players.
From where I sit, right now, this does not seem to be the case.
This is as if writing down the code is not the biggest problem, or the biggest time sink, of building software.
It has dropped by maybe MORE than 90%. My sons school recently asked me to build some tools for them -- I did this over a decade ago for them, for free. I did it again using AI tools (different problem though) and I had it mostly done in 30 minutes (after I got the credentials set up properly -- that took up more time than the main coding part). This was probably several days of work for me in the past.
kenjackson commented on Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros cnbc.com/2025/12/08/param... · Posted by u/gniting
The article bullet point referencing WB Discovery could mislead some into thinking that this takeover is only for the Discovery portion, but that's not the case. $30 would not be for Discovery only (as Netflix's bid is $27.75), it's for the whole kit and caboodle. Yes there are two entities, but/and Paramount wants it all, and the takeover intent is for both.
I've heard that what Kushner wants is CNN. If they could make CBS+CNN lean conservative like Fox, they pull off a potential to swing the country via news media.
kenjackson commented on How I discovered a hidden microphone on a Chinese NanoKVM telefoncek.si/2025/02/202... · Posted by u/ementally
> But what additionally raised red flags was the presence of tcpdump and aircrack - tools commonly used for network packet analysis and wireless security testing. While these are useful for debugging and development, they are also hacking tools that can be dangerously exploited.
Must be another AI slop article. Stop feeding your writings into GPT & co to turn into extra long nonsense.
What was wrong with the above paragraph?
So companies are really trying to deliver value. This is the right pivot. If you gave me an AGI with a 100 IQ, that seems pretty much worthless in today’s world. But domain expertise - that I’ll take.