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VBprogrammer

8,481 karma · joined March 16, 2009

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VBprogrammer··on DraftKings Is Using AI to Behaviorally Target Chronic Gamblers
Yeah, I've worked in the industry for a long time. I think good regulation would prevent per punter limits. I don't really see why doing this would make the industry unprofitable, the odds have a margin baked in, exactly the same as a 0 (and in the US the 00) in roulette. Worst case they would have to increase the margin, which maybe isn't so good for casual players but at least it's a level playing field.

I also find the common implementation of in-play delay poor. The way it generally works is a delay is applied before confirming the bet, anything which changes (including pricing) causes the bet to be rejected. The main reason for this is that the traders sometimes only have access to something like sky sports so their feed is quite far behind someone at the stadium. I feel like in reality it should be based on official timings.

VBprogrammer··on DraftKings Is Using AI to Behaviorally Target Chronic Gamblers
The problem with this is liquidity, particularly well before an event. It's why the original exchange (or at least the first one I'm aware of) also now offer a normal sportsbook.
VBprogrammer··on Nissan's third generation e-POWER powertrain
There used to be a really classic old website called Mr. Sharkey (you can see some of it on archive.org). He was into a number of different weird and wonderful hobbies. One of them was a VW Rabbit powered by something like a 24hp DC motor and lead acid batteries.

One of the most interesting projects he did was to build a trailer from the front clip of a similar VW Rabbit, engine and transmission etc. He then used this trailer in a pusher configuration to take the electric VW Rabbit on extended trips. The engine was controlled by a hand throttle in the car. Apparently the handling was surprisingly acceptable in this configuration.

Edit - Found the link:

https://web.archive.org/web/20121105135914/http://www.mrshar...

VBprogrammer··on Nissan's third generation e-POWER powertrain
For what it's worth you get fairly similar results if you assume an efficiency for a ICE engine (25-40% depending on a lot of things) and work backwards from the energy density of the fuel and the milage you achieve over a trip.
VBprogrammer··on Ask HN: Who's still keeping a DOS machine up because the business depends on it?
I can only imagine how much less reliable a modern JavaScript Electron app would be in this role...
VBprogrammer··on Claude discovers a novel enzyme system with CRISPR-like repeats
Academia isn't my thing but I also wonder if there isn't an aspect of putting a stake in the ground? So that if someone beats you to publishing you at least have some record of being on that track.
VBprogrammer··on GPT-6 Astra has gained the ability to drive a car
When AI does all the good jobs who is going to afford a robotic butler?
VBprogrammer··on GPT-6 Astra has gained the ability to drive a car
Seems to me that AI is coming for clean well paid office jobs long before it comes for anything dirty and dangerous.
VBprogrammer··on GPT-6 Astra has gained the ability to drive a car
Almost certainly, there are 4 year olds who ride small motorbikes etc. I think the main problem is that they can't really be held accountable if they have an accident.
VBprogrammer··on GPT-6 Astra has gained the ability to drive a car
I'm not sure how you take that from the original article. My 4 year old would drive that course in an automatic car, if only he could reach the pedals. Heck, he's done harder things at Lego land.

I wouldn't let him loose on the road though.

I think, at the very least, the guardrails would have to deterministic, ideally with super human senses, for people to accept self driving cars on the road.

VBprogrammer··on Stay discoverable in search while disallowing AI training
Even looking for companies which supply services is now far better on AI chats than Google. For me being visible in AI training is going to be more important than search in the next year or two.

If I was a big AI company I'd certainly be tempted to make sure that anyone who excluded themselves from "AI training" also got themselves excluded from AI results.

VBprogrammer··on The Beauty of Roundabouts
I think the main problem in England is that there is just too much traffic for too little road. I don't think there is a simple infrastructure solution to that problem.

For example I was going to point out that roundabout completely fail when one direction becomes nose to tail congested but when I thought about local examples, I'd rather take that over a set of traffic lights where it becomes near impossible to get out from one direction if the traffic keeps backing up onto the junction.

VBprogrammer··on Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month
It's purely conjecture at this point but my gut feeling is most companies are in high spirits about the costs they can save and the benefits it can bring to their own business. I don't think enough time has passed to see really high profile losers. What happens when Infosys starts losing money or Free CAD becomes the next SolidWorks due to LLM driven improvements?
VBprogrammer··on Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month
In the 90s aircraft manufacturers basically stopped whole segments of the market (anything smaller than a piston twin) due to litigation. I wouldn't be horribly surprised to find we spend the next 10 years fighting about this stuff in court.
VBprogrammer··on GPT-5.6 Luna vs. GPT-6 Astra: Is a $1.20 Model Good Enough for Code Review?
That scenario would be annoying but it's not what we have. The agent joins the PR leaves a few comments and responds (with mixed success) to comments. Personally I'd go back to 2020 and never see an LLM again quite happily but that genie is out of the bottle.

Unfortunately, the results speak for themselves and I could probably find dozens of edge cases which the AI code review caught which would have otherwise been missed, probably until production.

VBprogrammer··on GPT-5.6 Luna vs. GPT-6 Astra: Is a $1.20 Model Good Enough for Code Review?
> You wouldn't ask an agent to review a PR then just copy/paste the output int PR would you?

Hasn't everyone already got agents directly adding themselves to PRs and leaving comments (occasionally useful)?

VBprogrammer··on NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami
> If you have never actually been behind the controls of an aircraft, please just stop trying to confidently assert things about this subject.

That's a lot of assumptions.

VBprogrammer··on Kenyans Did College Students' Homework for Years. Then A.I. Arrived
Our 2nd year CS maths course the answer sheets were all uploaded to the server with sequential numbers so it was trivial to grab them all.
VBprogrammer··on NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami
The power dynamic in training is obviously very different during training where the instructor is pilot in command.

Making the assumption the PM could have taken control cleanly if the power dynamic was so poor that they weren't able to demand a go-around seems iffy, typical stabilised approach gates are 500ft in VMC, with an aircraft travelling 3nm a minute, 40 seconds before touchdown.

But as I said, the human factors involved will be a huge focus of the accident investigation.

VBprogrammer··on NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami
There are a lot of things which are drilled and trained which have gone wrong in this incident.
VBprogrammer··on NTSB issues investigative update on B-767 runway excursion accident in Miami
Having pilots fighting over the controls is not a situation anyone wants. The pilot monitoring saying go around should have caused an immediate reaction, the human factors behind why it didn't will probably feature prominently in the post-accident actions.
VBprogrammer··on Copyright does more harm than good and should be abolished
This is a completely pointless debate, because even if it's true the people who currently be benefit from copyright have far more money, power and influence than any rational argument against it.
VBprogrammer··on Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare
Cloudflare interstitial pages are becoming the new cookie / GDPR pop-up for me. Remember when the internet used to be good?
VBprogrammer··on Site Is Closed on Sundays
I remember back in the days a Car Insurance website which only allowed you to use it during working hours. Never understood the mechanism, surely they weren't getting quotes live from actuaries or anything.
VBprogrammer··on Ask HN: Why were OpenAI, Claude, and Grok simultaneously down?
In my experience I've seen plenty of failures caused by user behaviour in these type of cases.

Biggest competitor goes down and all of a sudden you have a lot more traffic...

VBprogrammer··on Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
On holiday in the Florida we walked to the gated entrance to the community to ask whether delivery drivers got access or we needed to pick it up at the gate. The way they looked at us, you would think we had two heads for arriving on foot.
VBprogrammer··on Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
You should check out a Japanese show called "Old Enough!".

I have a 7 year old and a 4 year old. The 7 year old started back at school after the summer holidays and some of her friends had to be taken into class early, showed signs of having anxiety attacks and distress. While I'm slightly hypocritical here, we live on a busy road so it's not really suitable for them to go wandering alone, we do try to give them as much autonomy as we can.

I'm pretty sure the societal pressure to helicopter around children constantly is a net negative to their well-being.

VBprogrammer··on How bicycle coaster brakes work (2018)
> In my experience hydraulic disc brakes require less maintenance than rim brakes.

Cable operated disc brakes seem to be a sweet spot IMHO.

VBprogrammer··on Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat
> Oh, noe, I feel so sorry for him. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy!

In reality he now has the most popular show on Amazon. Even his brewer is probably a bigger contributor to his income than the "farming" side of his farming.

The difficulty he faces though is very common amongst British farmers but most don't have a camera crew producing 4k video of the entire growing season.

VBprogrammer··on Europe's summer drought is so extreme that desertification is a growing threat
I'm not sure if Clarkson's farm has much of a following outside of the UK. Last year they had several crops fail due to the drought over summer and honestly this year was far worse. I believe he may not have even bothered planting the normal cash crops, so it will be interesting to see how that works out. That said, the year before I think it was so wet early in the year that farmers really struggled to get crops in the ground.

In areas like Valencia there are ancient irrigation systems and water rights controlled by water councils older than many countries. I wonder if the UK will need to do similar, irrigation ponds, flood control structures and canals to control the flow of water through the landscape.

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