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nameless912 commented on Embeddings are underrated (2024)   technicalwriting.dev/ml/e... · Posted by u/jxmorris12
stefanka · 4 months ago
I like that this looks like a very ethical and "fair" use of the LLM technology
nameless912 · 4 months ago
Yeah, the ethics around _training_ models that generate embeddings is still suspect to me, but the use of embeddings as a cheap, efficient way to provide semantic similarity seems very valuable. I've started dipping my toes in doing real, honest-to-goodness "machine learning" at work and it's mostly involved having OpenAI create embeddings for support logs my team generates, and we're starting to get value out of being able to cluster certain types of issues together, which I'm excited by. But this kind of stuff is truly augmentative: representing complex ideas in easily-searchable vector spaces, making connections in datasets too vast for humans to comb through alone, that's actual value.
nameless912 commented on Blue Prince is a roguelike puzzle masterpiece   mssv.net/2025/04/07/a-puz... · Posted by u/adrianhon
nameless912 · 5 months ago
Already contender for my favorite puzzle game of the year. I would compare it to Outer Wilds or Animal Well, but that would do all three games a disservice. Blue Prince is a thoroughly unique game that is worth your time. And like another commenter said, a pad of paper is _absolutely required_.
nameless912 commented on Data centers contain 90% crap data   gerrymcgovern.com/data-ce... · Posted by u/billybuckwheat
nameless912 · 5 months ago
There's another dimension to this, that storage is so cheap that being wasteful with it isn't really disincentivized. I know for example at work of a portal that accepts uploads of large files from external clients that stores both the initial upload and every subsequent transformation of the file (of which there are 4-6) permanently. It's extremely useful for debugging, as one of the bits of metadata we shove on the zip archive is the git hash of the code that was running, so it's trivial to pull down any failed step and diagnose what happened.

We are using 4-6 times as much storage as we need to, and these are often not small files (on the order of 100 MB - 5 GB, several dozen times a day) but fixing this overuse is so far down the priority list that I don't think it survived the great Jira purge of mid-2024.

nameless912 commented on Ask HN: What are you working on? (March 2025)    · Posted by u/david927
nameless912 · 5 months ago
Very slowly working on a prototype for a game where you learn about a deceased relative by using their old (C64-type) computer, reading their files and playing the games they made.

Because I can't fucking stop myself, I created a fantasy ISA and am working on an assembler and basic interpreter for said fantasy ISA.

nameless912 commented on Two new PebbleOS watches   ericmigi.com/blog/introdu... · Posted by u/griffinli
jezze · 5 months ago
I would buy one but only if I am guaranteed to be able to compile the source code somewhat easily and flash it to the device. Anyone knows if they have made any promises around that?
nameless912 · 5 months ago
I can't see why this wouldn't be the case, the firmware will be open source and I have to imagine a developer mode will be part of that.
nameless912 commented on Ask HN: Any jobs that don't force you to always be advancing career wise?    · Posted by u/throwaway929997
nameless912 · 6 months ago
Anecdotally, Netflix is very "settle into your groove and get really good at your job" if you want it to be. There are of course folks that climb the ladder, but I also work with several L5's (Senior engineers) who have been at that level for years. Some of this of course has to do with the introduction of levels being quite recent (within the last 4 years or so) but the majority of folks I know that have been here for 10+ years are at L5 (Senior Engineer, which is like 70% of the engineering staff). The vast majority of folks stay in their hired levels for their entire time at the company, and the salary increases are steady year-to-year. I'm personally trying to push my career forward into either L6 or management eventually, but I also get the distinct feeling that if I decided to settle into my role and not advance that I'd still be here and quite happy 5 years from now.
nameless912 commented on Leaked VA memo calls for up to 83,000 layoffs to reduce workforce to 2019 levels   govexec.com/workforce/202... · Posted by u/araes
WalterBright · 6 months ago
> Just slashing staff left and right is malpractice

All businesses above a certain size do that, because there's no other practical way.

nameless912 · 6 months ago
Sure there is. _Cut initiatives_, and exit the related staff. Don't cut staff without a corresponding cut to programs.
nameless912 commented on Leaked VA memo calls for up to 83,000 layoffs to reduce workforce to 2019 levels   govexec.com/workforce/202... · Posted by u/araes
blindriver · 6 months ago
Citation required that we are losing "experts" or that people can't learn any government job in weeks/months with higher efficiency.
nameless912 · 6 months ago
NOAA just fired hundreds of weather forecasters. World class ones, literally some of the best meteorologists in the world. And they knew how to interact with NOAA's systems to gather data and publish forecasts, issue realtime watches and warnings, and a thousand other things. Realtime forecasts are _vital_ to hundreds of different industries and save thousands of lives a year, and part of that is because they are able to quickly issue new forecasts when the situation changes. We get tornado warnings, fire forecasts, tsunami warnings, and a whole bunch else with enough time to get to safety because of these extremely talented folks.

These people are irreplaceable. And I know one of these forecasters very well, he's an old friend of mine. He is done with the federal government; even if they offer him his job back he's not going back, because his trust that his job as a meteorologist was safe is smashed to pieces. That's irreparable harm.

nameless912 commented on Leaked VA memo calls for up to 83,000 layoffs to reduce workforce to 2019 levels   govexec.com/workforce/202... · Posted by u/araes
WalterBright · 6 months ago
> cutting these jobs cuts spending by .3891%

A billion here, a billion there, soon it adds up to real money.

nameless912 · 6 months ago
But how much extra waste will be generated by losing the experts in these bureaucracies? Of course some of them are redundant, but some of them have the proverbial bathroom codes and are irreplaceable. These cuts are incredibly irresponsible; cutting _programs_, along with the staff associated with those programs, is IMO wrong but at least workable as a long term cost reduction strategy. Just slashing staff left and right is malpractice.
nameless912 commented on Leaked VA memo calls for up to 83,000 layoffs to reduce workforce to 2019 levels   govexec.com/workforce/202... · Posted by u/araes
Raidion · 6 months ago
It's not the hiring people that's the problem. Assuming those people "cost" 300k a year all in (benefits/offices,etc) which is probably high, that's $24 billion. The government spent $6.8 trillion, cutting these jobs cuts spending by .3891%.

Cutting the people without cutting the programs won't do much and is (IMO) a problem in that you should be able to access government services in a way that the writers of the laws (house/senate) have clearly agreed to. When you're cutting this widely, it's hard to believe you're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

nameless912 · 6 months ago
This is the thing that keeps making me so angry when I hear so called "budget hawks" get mad about the number of federal employees. Payroll is _not the problem_!! All of the federal payroll is something like 10-15% of the government's expenditure. Firing _everyone_ would only cut costs by 10-15%. There are plenty of programs (read: bloated defense contracts and corporate subsidies) that we could cut to save costs instead, and we wouldn't crater the federal workforce like we are now.

You can be mad about the government spending money on things you believe are unnecessary, and you can even want to fire the people related to that program! But across the board personnel cuts don't fix the appropriations issues and will waste money in inefficiency, waste and loss as the folks that are left have to pick up the pieces.

Does the federal government employ too many people? I dunno, maybe. Do we fund too many programs? Yeah, probably. But these cuts are _fucking insane_.

u/nameless912

KarmaCake day1677May 20, 2016
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Games Partner Engineer @Netflix doin' Gamey Things
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