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slavik81 commented on It’s not wrong that "\u{1F926}\u{1F3FC}\u200D\u2642\uFE0F".length == 7 (2019)   hsivonen.fi/string-length... · Posted by u/program
deathanatos · 2 days ago
> which are a stable representation that can be converted to a bunch of encodings including "proper" utf-8, as long as all codepoints are representable in that encoding.

Which, to humor the parent, is also true of raw bytes strings. One of the (valid) points raised by the gist is that `str` is not infallibly encodable to UTF-8, since it can contain values that are not valid Unicode.

> This also allows you to work with strings that contain arbitrary data falling outside of the unicode spectrum.

If I write,

  def foo(s: str) -> …:
… I want the input string to be Unicode. If I need "Unicode, or maybe with bullshit mixed in", that can be a different type, and then I can take

  def foo(s: UnicodeWithBullshit) -> …:

slavik81 · 2 days ago
The Python language developers themselves thought that their code only needed to operate on str and later realized that it needed to handle arbitrary bytes.

It's a common mistake. A lot of code was written using str despite users needing it to operate on UnicodeWithBullshit. PEP 383 was a necessary escape hatch to fix countless broken programs.

Deleted Comment

slavik81 commented on Ozempic shows anti-aging effects in trial   trial.medpath.com/news/5c... · Posted by u/amichail
nosignono · 19 days ago
Adderall produces a very, very different experience and is prescribed to address a very, very different root cause.
slavik81 · 19 days ago
However, amphetamines such as Adderall were also sometimes prescribed for weight loss. I'm surprised it was done so rarely before Ozempic was a thing. They were quite effective.
slavik81 commented on Read your code   etsd.tech/posts/rtfc/... · Posted by u/noeclement
js8 · 20 days ago
I used to work with a guy who double-checked the machine code generated by assembler (he was an old mainframe programmer, and allegedly used to work on a linker for ES EVM).

So, clearly, almost nobody does that anymore. So according to Karpathy's definition, we have all been vibe coding for quite time now. (An aside - if AIs were any good, they would just skip human languages entirely and go straight to binary.)

So I think the "vibe" in vibe coding refers to inputting a fuzzy/uncertain/unclear/incomplete specification to a computer, where the computer will fill in details using an algorithm which in itself is incomprehensible for humans (so they can only "feel the vibes").

Personally, I don't find the fuzziness of the specification to be the problem; on some level it might be desirable, having a programming tool like that. But the unpredictability of the output is IMHO a real issue.

slavik81 · 20 days ago
Compiler Explorer (godbolt.org) is quite popular. It's not uncommon for anyone working on performance sensitive code to give the compiler output a quick sanity check.
slavik81 commented on Tesla withheld data, lied, misdirected police to avoid blame in Autopilot crash   electrek.co/2025/08/04/te... · Posted by u/Hamuko
goosejuice · 20 days ago
In both cases, they are driver assistance. A pilot is responsible and must monitor an autopilot system in a plane. We license drivers and pilots and the responsibility is placed on them to understand the technology before using it and putting themselves and others at risk.

Would Boeing or John Deere be responsible for marketing language or just the instruction manual. We know the latter is true. It's there any evidence of the former? Intuitively I would say it's unlikely we'd blame Boeing if a pilot was mislead by marketing materials. Maybe that has happened but I haven't found anything of that sort (please share if aware).

slavik81 · 20 days ago
While technically an autopilot might sometimes be as simple as maintaining a heading, the actual practical consequence is quite different for a boat or an aircraft than for a car. There is simply not much to crash into when you're in the air or open water. The result is that a much simpler mechanism is required to achieve the same result for the pilot.

When I worked on unmanned vehicles, you could have one operator control multiple speedboats because you typically had minutes to avoid collisions. Splitting attention would not be feasible with a car on cruise control, because you are never more than a few seconds away from crashing into something solid.

slavik81 commented on Australia’s gains in wheat-farm productivity   reuters.com/investigation... · Posted by u/tiarafawn
pseudo0 · 22 days ago
A bit ironic to quote that considering how the speech was 55 years ago, and the green revolution is going stronger than ever. If anything the crisis of the next 50 years will be the economic and societal pressures crushing the childbirth rate in Western countries.
slavik81 · 22 days ago
It's terrifying that 96% of all mammalian life on Earth is now human beings and our livestock. We might be able to feed more people, but habitat destruction is already the greatest threat to most wild species. Humans are doing fine, but the toll on everything non-human has been enormous. We are living through one of the greatest mass-extinction events in Earth's history.

I don't fear famine, but I worry about what we're doing to our planet.

slavik81 commented on The natural diamond industry is getting rocked. Thank the lab-grown variety   cbc.ca/news/business/lab-... · Posted by u/geox
owenversteeg · a month ago
Again, I'm all for lab grown diamonds for both consumer and industrial use.

I think "lab-grown" is a pretty neutral term, and it is also scientifically accurate in the case of CVD and other diamonds where the process really is "growing" the diamonds. There are certainly other terms for them that sound more derogatory such as "synthetic" or "artificial" diamond.

slavik81 · a month ago
On the radio, they advertise them as artisan-crafted diamonds.
slavik81 commented on Proxmox Donates €10k to the Perl and Raku Foundation   perl.com/article/proxmox-... · Posted by u/oalders
ZiiS · a month ago
I am sure we are all grateful for Proxmox's generous donation; but if €10k is newsworthy for a Foundation with Perl's historic profile, I would be very worried.
slavik81 · a month ago
Proxmox were also a platinum sponsor at DebConf25 last week, which is at least €20K.
slavik81 commented on UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US   arstechnica.com/tech-poli... · Posted by u/azalemeth
aydyn · a month ago
Yes lmao. You think those are literary classics in the same vein as Shakespeare or something?
slavik81 · a month ago
No, but the films made a billion dollars in box office revenues. I know of Alan Moore's V for Vandetta because of the blockbuster movie.
slavik81 commented on UK backing down on Apple encryption backdoor after pressure from US   arstechnica.com/tech-poli... · Posted by u/azalemeth
aydyn · a month ago
Yes and regardless the point is its some extremely niche author. The vast majority of anglophones aint gonna know him.
slavik81 · a month ago
The author of V for Vendetta, Watchmen, 300, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?

u/slavik81

KarmaCake day7209March 4, 2014
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I work for AMD, but all opinions are my own.
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