synicalx (u/synicalx)

synicalx commented on The Generative AI Con wheresyoured.at/longcon/... · Posted by u/nimbleplum40

lukevp · 10 months ago

I’m a little shocked at how much negativity there is around LLMs among developers. It’s a new tool that requires some learning, and it’s sometimes not so great, but if you’ve used an IDE with real coding assistance built in (eg. VS Code in Edit with Copilot mode - NOT Chat mode, using Claude 3.5), it’s honestly not much worse than a junior dev and 100x faster. And if the code is bad you throw it away and try again 10 seconds later. The amount of speed up I see as a very experienced dev is astronomical. And just like 6 months ago it was awful. How great is it gonna be in a year or two? It doesn’t even have access to running unit tests or reading console errors or IDE hints, and it still generates mostly correct code. Once it gets more deeply embedded it’s just going to improve more and more.

synicalx · 10 months ago

I don't really get the hate; work is boring, if some tool can make it happen faster and with less effort I'm all for it. I don't hear the line cooks at McDonalds complaining that they have to use a semi-automated grill that beeps at them instead of an open fire.

synicalx commented on Nostalgia for Physical Media sicpers.info/2025/02/on-n... · Posted by u/ingve

synicalx · 10 months ago

After Netflix et. al. cancelled/didn't renew about a dozen shows I was either in the middle of watching, or really wanted to watch I ragequit and decided to funnel all my streaming service money into physical media.

A few years, lots of eBay auctions, and many bluray and DVD rips later, I've got my own expansive library that's just as convenient to watch but the no missed earnings targets can take away from me.

Next on my list is music. I've built a respectable digital library but I'd like to have that backed by CD's where possible. Vinyl is nice for my absolute favourite albums but it's not an everyday kind of listening experience IMO - bit hard to listen to my records while I'm going for a walk!

For anyone getting into physical media I would highly suggest;

- Buying secondhand. In a lot of cases this is the only option anyway, but you can get bulk lots of CD's, DVD's, and Blurays for about the same price as a month of Netflix or Spotify.

- Backing up your physical copies. An old PC with the appropriate DVD/Bluray drive is very cheap, easy to automate, and you get to have the best of both worlds.

One big caveat is that "older" formats like cassette, VHS, and vinyl are not as simple or cheap. But it's not impossible to obtain and back them up, it just takes a little more time and equipment.

synicalx commented on Amazon ends kindle ebooks "Download and Transfer via USB" goodereader.com/blog/kind... · Posted by u/m463

scblock · 10 months ago

"Why is Amazon doing this? It’s a feature not many people use and those who do, commit e-book piracy."

What one earth is wrong with the people who write this kind of garbage?

synicalx · 10 months ago

They're either brainwashed, or being paid by Amazon.

synicalx commented on Ask HN: Are YC startups *actually* hiring? · Posted by u/logotype

themanmaran · a year ago

As a YC company that is currently hiring, yes! And all of the YC companies I know are also struggling to find engineers. But the job listings (HN, WorkAtAStartup) practically never bring in good candidates.

A few big problems:

1. AI Spam. I categorized the inbound we got the other day from a job post. Out of 172 daily applicants, we got 22 that looked reasonably like a person, and 150 that were primarily AI generated messages. Which are pretty easy to spot because they're 500 words of tech jargon and rehashing the job description.

2. Purely automated applications. There are a lot of "Apply to 1000 jobs with AI" startups out there that just spam job boards [1][2][3].

3. Qualifications. There is a shocking number of engineers applying to work at an AI company who have never made a single API request to OpenAI. After three years of hearing about AI every day if you've never tested a single inference API then why are you applying to an AI startup.

The signal to noise ratio is so bad that it's better to just do outbound. At this point the job listing is mostly there so we can share it with candidates that we reach out to.

[1]https://lazyapply.com/

[2]https://aiapply.co/

[3]https://www.reddit.com/r/GetEmployed/comments/1eo8uyp/i_used...

synicalx · a year ago

> After three years of hearing about AI every day if you've never tested a single inference API then why are you applying to an AI startup.

Devil's advocate; why would I have made an API request if my employer has never used that service? Maybe that lack of interest on their part is why I'm trying to leave and get a job in a field that's of interest to me.

synicalx commented on Pixelfed Hit 500K Users fedidb.org/software/pixel... · Posted by u/doener

synicalx · a year ago

I fully support, including financially, this project. But I worry that it will become what Mastodon has become which is (IMO) a complicated, shrinking, Twitter alternative with HOA's running large parts of it.

synicalx commented on Are Overemployed 'Ghost Engineers' Making Six Figures to Do Nothing? 404media.co/are-overemplo... · Posted by u/Plasmoid

JSDevOps · a year ago

I’ll do even less for 4 x the price. Does this make me a consultant now? Oh sorry I forgot to mention AI

synicalx · a year ago

Yes, but are you also a thought leader?

synicalx commented on Leica Just Recorded the Highest Revenue in Its Entire 100-Year History petapixel.com/2024/11/20/... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

mullingitover · a year ago

Thank goodness for Leica.

Sure they make good cameras, but I think the real blessing they give the photography world is the way they function as a sponge, soaking up a lot of money so it's not going around and inflating the price of the other vintage camera stuff I want to buy.

synicalx · a year ago

> not going around and inflating the price of the other vintage camera stuff I want to buy.

I don't think I've ever seen the vintage camera market this inflated, stuff that would have been <$50-100 5 years ago is going for $400+ and that's if you can even find stock of it. Even film has skyrocketed in price, despite more of it being produced now than any other time in the last decade or two.

synicalx commented on Matt Mullenweg cries foul and threatens me with legal action medium.com/@kelliepeterso... · Posted by u/greyface-

synicalx · a year ago

Yeah a grip on a new CMS

synicalx commented on How CERN serves 1EB of data via FUSE [video] kernel-recipes.org/en/202... · Posted by u/pabs3

synicalx · a year ago

1EB with only 30k users, thats a wild TB-per-user ratio. My frame of reference; the largest storage platform I've ever worked on was a combined ~60PB (give or take) and that had hundreds of millions of users.

synicalx commented on Being Raised by the Internet jimmyhmiller.github.io/ra... · Posted by u/DamonHD

yapyap · a year ago

cute article, whenever I hear about someone “raised by the internet” I usually think of a negative result but glad to hear this is a positive one

synicalx · a year ago

I was fully prepared for a list of image board and ogrish/liveleak related trauma but this was relatively wholesome.