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Psyonic

1,372 karma · joined June 3, 2007

Software engineer working to perfect his craft and improve the world.

psyonic (at) gmail (dot) com

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Psyonic··on Is A.I. Above the Law?
There's already examples of this in driving though. When Waymos do weird things they often don't give Waymo a ticket (even though they probably should). A recent example: https://www.9news.com/article/news/community/transportation/...
Psyonic··on We rewrote JSONata with AI in a day, saved $500k/year
Also don't miss that he had to do this work on the weekend...
Psyonic··on LLMs can get "brain rot"
well played
Psyonic··on Aluminum batteries outlive lithium-ion with a pinch of salt
While most cars are not LFP, your claim that you won't find LFP batteries in cars is incorrect:

Rivian switched to LFP: https://insideevs.com/news/720396/2025-rivian-r1s-r1t-lfp-ba...

Some Teslas use LFP: https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/2464/tesla-lfp-batteries-c...

Psyonic··on We can now fix McDonald's ice cream machines
That’s interesting. I’ve gone to chipotle around once or twice a month for two decades now, and with the exception of their lemonades I’ve only had something unavailable maybe 3-4 times. Regional variation I guess.
Psyonic··on Beeper Mini is back
Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram

maybe Discord, FB Messenger

Psyonic··on Things I've learned about building CLI tools in Python
Using Python with Bazel is fairly common at big SV companies -- they use rules_python with it (https://github.com/bazelbuild/rules_python). It does rely on pip for grabbing dependencies but handles building modules and can integrates well with rules_docker/rules_oci for building container images from your code.
Psyonic··on The NSA Invented Bitcoin?
This is a bit racist. So they cite a source with a Japanese name that sounds a bit like Satoshi Nakamoto, so he must be the same guy?
Psyonic··on Ripple notches win in SEC case over XRP cryptocurrency
Didn't EOS sell $4B worth? https://decrypt.co/80144/4-4-billion-eos-token-raise-fueled-...
Psyonic··on Spanish climber emerges after 500 days in cave
I'm probably just feeding a troll but why would she need to look presentable if she's living isolated in a cave?
Psyonic··on ESPP Calculator
Not all ESPP's can be sold instantly. At Asana we have to hold ours for a year before selling, so it's not risk free money.
Psyonic··on Coinbase’s chief product officer will leave with a $105M payday
yes, but "android founder." What great product innovation did this guy pioneer at CB? Any justification at all for a $100M payday?
Psyonic··on Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office
I think it's both -- I do think he's against remote work (remember his remarks at Tesla "pretend to work somewhere else": https://www.forbes.com/sites/annakaplan/2022/06/01/musk-says...) but also it's a great way to cheaply get rid of a lot of employees who were told they could WFH forever.
Psyonic··on Code Design Decision – Always throw custom exceptions
I don't see how an exception type defined at the throw site would be significantly different than using the text of the exception to convey the type. Callers wouldn't know to expect it either way, so how would they be able to handle it effectively?
Psyonic··on Why is every layoff 10-15%?
yeah I think Twitter isn't useful here. Having a dramatic change of management + a layoff + serious product upheaval is definitely different than just a layoff.

Now Elon is ending a policy literally called "Work From Home Forever" and with no flexibility -- back to the office 5 days a week.

Why would an employee feel safe when literally everything about Twitter changed overnight?

Psyonic··on Theory of what’s going to happen next at Twitter
You really think Tesla and SpaceX have accomplished as much as they have with no one good at the company? Why is Twitter different?
Psyonic··on Against Effective Altruism
So Thanos was an effective altruist?
Psyonic··on I love my GPD Micro PC
lol, fair enough.
Psyonic··on I love my GPD Micro PC
"Better not hop on a city bike with it in my backpack, ’cause what if I fall?"

How often do people fall on bikes? I biked for years in SF with my work laptop and never had an issue.

Psyonic··on BART’s excursion fare: Agency earns millions from passengers not riding trains
"Though I guess people would just tap in, tap out immediately but don't exit the turnstiles, then just get on a train and exit through the emergency exit at whatever station you want for free."

Sure, or just jump the turnstiles and exist through the emergency exit on the other end, which I already see people do frequently.

Psyonic··on BART’s excursion fare: Agency earns millions from passengers not riding trains
Assuming anyone is there, sure. I've changed my mind about BART late at night (next train was delay 30m, going to take an Uber instead) and had no one there to talk to.
Psyonic··on We Halved Go Monorepo CI Build Time
that’s not actually what happens at Uber. They use bazel for the go monorepo which can accurately determine what modules are affected by a given change and only runs those tests.

They also use mostly homegrown CI tools alongside phabricator for code review, or at least they did while I was there.

Psyonic··on We Halved Go Monorepo CI Build Time
Uber was the opposite. In ~2017 after years of hyper growth they had over 10,000 repos supporting nearly as many micro-services. The move to monorepos (technically two, one for jvm stuff, one for go) came as a solution to the maintenance issues of this sprawl. I was there when a mandate came down to move your service into the monorepo.
Psyonic··on As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick
I have seen this, but on the flip-side, the most successful person I know (and they are quite successful) is also the biggest stoner I know.
Psyonic··on The Villains in the Gentrification Story Are Wealthy NIMBYs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DGNZnfKYnU
Psyonic··on Fast Is Shutting Down
Not a $120M valuation -- they raised $120M (https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/26/fast-raises-102m-as-the-on...) at an undisclosed valuation that must've been at least 500M. And spent it all in a year.
Psyonic··on [dead]
As a parent I’ve had to do this more than I’d like, and the answer is soap, water, and scrubbing of some kind. Just spraying a little water on it is definitely not sufficient.
Psyonic··on Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4
This year, the smoke from the California fires was actually much worse in Colorado & Utah than the bay area proper. You can't necessarily escape this by moving.
Psyonic··on Freud's nephew and the origins of public relations (2009)
I am very suspicious this is a Just-So story. This BBC article seems to agree (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20171027-the-magic-cakes-...). Also interestingly credits the marketing aspect to Ernest Dichter instead of Bernays.

Quote: In later years, many would portray this as a pivotal moment in the history of cake mixes, the inflection point of a dramatic upward curve.

The truth is, though, that the cake companies already knew about the egg problem. In fact, as early as 1933 Duff had introduced a mix that had bakers add eggs themselves. “The housewife and the purchasing public in general seem to prefer fresh eggs and hence the use of dried or powdered eggs is somewhat of a handicap from a psychological standpoint,” reads the patent application (read more on Duff's cake patents in this lovely Bon Appetit story about cake mix). And actually, the mixes worked better that way. “The fact was one of the reasons cake mixes didn't taste good was they tasted like dried eggs,” says Shapiro. The companies performed surveys and asked women which version they would buy – the results were contradictory – and in the end, they just did as they pleased.

Psyonic··on Normalized crash data shows Autopilot is much less safe than Tesla claims
Is there actually a "normal" style? I've only done a test drive but it seemed like there were various levels of automatic braking, but none that actually allowed you to coast.
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