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Tadpole9181

1,785 karma · joined September 27, 2023

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Tadpole9181··on U.S. Debt Hits $40T as America's Borrowing Binge Continues
Are we living in the same reality? The US can't even keep a single strait safe right now against a fairly "weak" state. We don't have the political willpower for American servicemen to die in defensive wars like Ukraine or to hold back ISIS in Afghanistan.

How, exactly, are we going to demand sovereignties like China or the EU give us trillions of dollars?

Tadpole9181··on Feature Request: Support AGENTS.md
This issue was linked in the recently-front-page issue on Opus 5 using astronomically hard to understand manners of speaking. Someone must have just noticed it and decided to post it here.
Tadpole9181··on Meta Files Patent for Facial Recognition, Automatic Recording of People
My idea that adults can understand other people's ideas is mistaken because the average consumer is a hedonist that doesn't care about ideals? Not exactly sure how that tracks, but okay, bud.
Tadpole9181··on Meta Files Patent for Facial Recognition, Automatic Recording of People
Ray-Ban is choosing to produce these in a partnership. They don't have to participate and by doing so they're guaranteeing they exist and profiting from the bad behavior. And even making them more stylish and therefore more appealing.

A "reasonable adult" would have no trouble understanding why someone who thinks the existence of these glasses is a moral and privacy nightmare would also seek to punish Ray-Ban.

Tadpole9181··on 'Buy Now, Pay Later' Lenders Pitch Loans for Needs Like Electricity and Rent
Until, of course, tens of millions of people are taking BNPL loans with 20% interest rates willy nilly. Then when they default, it triggers an economic crisis that affects every single person in the country.
Tadpole9181··on Colorado River plummets as lakes Powell and Mead drop to record lows
And how much foreign-owned Alfalfa? Because people are something like 10% of the water use here.
Tadpole9181··on Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months
Memory manufacturers have gone through several cycles of lawsuits for market collusion at this point. It's gone from an open secret to just outright flaunting in our face.

Until the penalties involve actual jail time or a fine 10x larger than the profit they made from doing it, they couldn't care less.

Tadpole9181··on GPT-5.6 Sol Pricing Cut by 50%
It just looks like OpenRouter is doing a 50% sale on some models right now? Until OpenAI makes an announcement, I would assume no.
Tadpole9181··on Stop sending me huge PRs; a rant
Sure, for FOSS. But at a business I'm not sure you'll stay employed long if you do this regularly and don't try to find ways to adapt to the new world we live in.

To be clear, I don't have an answer either. Reviews have definitely become a bottleneck, and the agent-created code has absolutely not reached a "broadly trustworthy" state for complex problems and maintainable contributions.

Tadpole9181··on Taxi drivers rarely die of Alzheimer's
Would this not be closer to saying Arnold Schwarzenegger should have tried exercising more?
Tadpole9181··on US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects
And because I love the game of explaining direct costs: every single taxpayer just paid $10 for this.

Of course, since our government is flat broke, it's going to be more from interest on the debt.

Tadpole9181··on US beef prices have soared but farmers aren't making more money
Because those are our only two options?

We ar perfectly capable of intelligently changing how we calculate inflation. And the current administration's idea that if an American stops buying something because they cannot afford it anymore, means inflation went down is delusional.

Tadpole9181··on US beef prices have soared but farmers aren't making more money
Its a good thing that we didn't start a war for no reason that caused the price of fuel to skyrocket.
Tadpole9181··on U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
In several states we have moved well beyond "fixable". For instance, in Texas, where they are outright saying that they are redrawing districts with the explicit goal of preventing Democrats from being represented. Not only that, they're saying they campaigned on the promise and are therefore obligated by their constituents to institute a single party state through the denial of representation of their political opponents.

I genuinely don't believe the US can be fixed anymore. We're on a slip-and-slide and far too much damage has been done to stop it. There aren't even adults left at the table to try.

Tadpole9181··on U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
Are you pretending that political losses are not losses? Getting into a war you cannot fund, fuel, or staff and having to retreat is called "losing".
Tadpole9181··on U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
Read the rest of my comment, I get there eventually.
Tadpole9181··on U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war
Until there is.

We have thus far been supremely lucky that irrational actors have not acquired a nuclear bomb. But the reality is that throughout history most leaders have been irrational.

My country (America) is behaving increasingly irrationally. I've been hearing fringe conservatives calling for nuking the middle east since the early 2000s, but the rot has spread and became deeply religious.

Now I hear talk of the end times from the most powerful people in the country, actively building bunkers. Groups of Republicans openly talking about the US being allowed to take whatever we want from anyone we want through war (Venezuela, Iran, Greenland, Canada).

Almost all of our leadership has been replaced in every branch of government. SCOTUS is clearly compromised and bought. The legislative may as well be dead. Almost all executive agencies have been purged, what remains have had their heads swapped with sycophants. Something like half of the military generals have been turned over. The DoD was renamed to the DoW with cheers, as an alcoholic prison guard was put in charge and has started touting hypermacho religious warrior catchphrases and openly advocating for war crimes.

The other day we testimony from judges before legislature who refused to say if Presidents can run for three terms or that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Under oath, just simply refused.

And that's before getting into how the President of the United States started a war to distract from his involvement in the highest profile sex trafficking ring in human history, and has continued to use his position to perform insider trading on oil prices repeatedly for weeks.

If you said any of this would be happening in 2005, I would have laughed at how "that would never happen in the US". And now it's just... reality. Like Russia. And it seems to have no end in sight. So what actually happens if Trump gets so deranged he hits the red button? And if not him, who will the loonies pick tomorrow - someone who actually believes in "the cause", who doesn't understand it's a grift?

And what are the external long term consequences of Trump's actions in countries like Iran and Venezuela and Ukraine? The US is not to be trusted anymore, every country has a clear signal to build their own nuclear arsenal ASAP. We have a river of blood behind us, so are we just expecting to get lucky that no one in Iran, for instance, who gets to a position of power leverages an irrational hate for the US and just... Does it in a religious or hate-driven Armageddon?

Tadpole9181··on Schools are adding pepper-spraying drones to help combat active shooters
From your own link, there are 12,000 injury related deaths. Of those, over 1/3 are firearms related and 1/3 of those are homicides. They may not be school shootings, but damn does that seem related to the second word.

Anyway, to answer your question: because we already do a lot to stop the other causes. Cars have oodles of safety regulations, for instance. Home pools have rules on covers in many states, lifeguards are placed at water features. But we can't just snap our fingers and stop all car deaths, or cure all disease.

Meanwhile shooting deaths are an entirely artificial problem, which we actively do less than nothing to solve. Both by avoiding root cause fixes - not only avoiding addressing mental health, but actively encouraging bullying of minorities like trans students - but also avoiding regulation of the most effective tools (guns).

And, just a final point, humans are human. A kid dying in a tragic accident or disease is heartbreaking. But a dozen kids being eviscerated on Live TV repeatedly for someone's entire adult life, with tens of millions of people having the audacity to say "get over it, we refuse to talk about this" or "even "it's a hoax"? That's enraging.

We are emotional animals, but I'm more than happy that we try to leverage our empathy to make the world a better place. We can do more than one thing at a time, after all. For instance, under your argument, nobody should have bothered inventing amber alerts because it doesn't save hundreds of kids per year.

Tadpole9181··on Schools are adding pepper-spraying drones to help combat active shooters
Beyond the obvious fact nobody really uses the cold war definition anymore, are you really insinuating those countries are socialist?
Tadpole9181··on Italy Blocks Reproductive Health Websites Women on Web and Women Help Women
This logic never made sense to me.

The woman is clearly a human life too, and every western country has a right to self defense. A fetus is an imminent danger to women, their health, and their property. They have a right to remove it from their own body to stop that.

Or am I allowed to unconsentually put myself inside anyone for months, eating the food from their blood like a tapeworm, causing chronic pain, permanently changing their hormones, potentially risking death, just to come ripping my way out of their body and then demanding 18 years of pay and attention?

Am I entitled to an unconsenting healthy person's blood or organs or marrow if I'm going to die without it and we know they're "probably" going to be fine?

Tadpole9181··on Canceling "Hey"
If multiple people are confused on what you're saying, you should probably clarify with better wording.
Tadpole9181··on Scriptc by Vercel: TypeScript-to-Native compiler, no JavaScript engine in binary
So you don't actually have real criticisms of the architecture at all...?
Tadpole9181··on The new rules of context engineering for Claude 5 generation models
I mean, insult me all you want, but you'd be pissed if your mechanic didn't use code readers or your carpenter used hand drills to pad their hours.

I do hand programming for myself now and use the right tools in my office, because I'm a responsible adult who understands that I am not paid to have fun or feel special and smart - it's to produce a product for my employer.

Tadpole9181··on The new rules of context engineering for Claude 5 generation models
Why? I'm an "artisanal programmer" at heart, but for the past year I've been using these to great effect. A car that needs to be started with a hand-crank and occasionally stalls is still a car.
Tadpole9181··on The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border
Let's be clear, there is no underlying crime at all as far as we are aware. So the appropriate hypothetical is:

You ate a grilled cheese in your home and wipe the crumbs into the bin. The police arrest you for destruction of evidence for robbing a bank that never even got robbed. Then they hit you with qualified immunity and high five each other.

It's utterly ridiculous that police seem to just have infinite powers now. All they have to do is say "I suspect" and they have boundless ability to arrest anyone (potentially losing their job or missing key life events), declare any object as evidence (which the department can conveniently keep for themselves even if you're found innocent), or use mass surveillance systems (to stalk women).

EDIT: Finding another article, it's even worse. He didn't do it at all - he was interrogated, was never allowed his lawyer, never read rights, with no warrant. And after having the device seized an agent triggered the device wipe themselves by trying to get in under this duress.

So in this case, the the cop eats the grilled cheese and throws out the crumbs and then arrests you for destruction of evidence.

Tadpole9181··on The US is charging an American citizen for wiping his phone at the border
ICE has openly murdered multiple US citizens in broad daylight and on camera, hundreds of miles away from any border, with zero consequences.

You're starting to perceive us as totalitarian? We are! For 30% of us, proudly, apparently. Our president attempted to violently overthrow our government for God's sake!

Tadpole9181··on The Strongest El Niño Ever
Something like 90% of US residential buildings have AC. For Europe, it's around 20% (for good reason, mind you). It's not a meme if it's an actual fact that many European homes are not prepared for these kinds of increasingly common heat waves, and I got the impression that the parent was showing genuine concern.
Tadpole9181··on The new rules of context engineering for Claude 5 generation models
I disagree, this is all because it's understood.

You need a system promot because an LLM is fundamentally a token predictor. It needs to be primed for the work it's going to do, otherwise it's next token prediction has too little to go off in the beginning and goes nuts.

You use a separate AI to review the code, because it's a token predictor trained mostly on accomplishing tasks in a cost effective way - we haven't made AGI here. The first shot that actually makes the code will have rationalizations in its memory as well as prior research, which bias token prediction to accepting that as true (remember how they had to train our sycophancy?). Then because of the desire to be cost effective, they're slightly lazy, and so it won't always do the research to find new edge cases and problems and missing tests the initial research didn't find.

So spin up a separate, clean slate, and ask for it to review from scratch. Or have that one spin up multiple smaller ones to have them specialize in specific concerns or domains (security, data model corruption, code quality), then have the orchestrator validate those concerns and stitch them into a cohesive response.

I can't help you on your last question. Saying they are degrading in quality is not even close to my experience. 5.6 and Opus/Fable 5 are have been a huge step up. Though I do need to adjust memory rules as these new models come out, since ground-up retrained models often come with their own quirks that replace old ones - causing old, specific memories to have unintended side effects.

Tadpole9181··on Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding
First of all, this is actually how this part of the conversation started:

> If the US companies need trillions to barely beat Chinese companies spending billions, despite a multi year head start...

Because they're talking about the cost difference of distilled model development and ground-up trained model development.

And second, the answer is that OpenAI and Anthropic had to do all the research into how to train models. Then they had to acquire all the data, curate and filter it. Then they had to design all the ways to iterate on training and antagonize it to be better - because there's not actually an enormous corpus of aligned, human stream-of-thought data. Then over half a decade they've been refining these methods.

There's no way you don't understand that if it was not easier and cheaper to distill a model, the institutions in question would be training their own models from scratch.

Tadpole9181··on Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding
Can you please stop being coy and intentionally obtuse? Just have a discussion in good faith, I'm so beyond sick of this kind of rhetoric.

Yes, AI training uses human data and a lot of it was not compensated. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the thing this thread is about.

Distilling models costs less money than a really procuring quality data and training a model yourself. If you disagree, debate that.

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