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citrin_ru

2,255 karma · joined August 1, 2013

FreeBSD Sysadmin

email: citrin+news.ycombinator.com@citrin.me.uk

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citrin_ru··on Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes
I'm noticing some decline of skills I don't practice regularly and LLM is just one of reasons why one stops practicing. Switching to another area of work gives a comparable decline. If you want sharp skills you have to use them.
citrin_ru··on Strace-ui, Bonsai_term, and the TUI renaissance
IMHO peak GUI was in 2000s - on Windows most app used Win32 API and apps which followed "Microsoft Windows User Experience" guide had consistent UI/UX. Since then Microsoft introduced many competing frameworks to create GUI all look slightly different and UX is less consistent too. And then Electron come which brought inconsistency of web to the desktop apps.
citrin_ru··on Strace-ui, Bonsai_term, and the TUI renaissance
TUI returns what GUI lost over the last decades - low latency, low RAM/CPU usage, ability to navigate without a mouse. No one seems to be building nice GUI apps anymore.
citrin_ru··on OpenAI frontier models and Codex are now available on AWS
Nobody ever got fired for buying I̵B̵M̵ AWS. Most corporations already use AWS, used to its legal terms and accepted the risk. Any new provider will be scrutinised by legal more than an existing one.
citrin_ru··on Is AI causing a repeat of frontend’s lost decade?
I'm personally was fine with contributing to open-source without any financial reward. But I'm reluctant to release anything in public now because it will be eventually incorporated into the training set for the technology which will (or at least can) lave me without a job and chances to find one.
citrin_ru··on Sam Altman and Dario Amodei are both walking back AI jobs apocalypse predictions
A significant job loss will trigger a deep recession which will eventually hit most AI customers so they will have too few customers to be profitable. The best (for AI business) scenario is when productivity is increased without mass unemployment.
citrin_ru··on Uber’s COO says it’s getting harder to justify money spent on tokenmaxxing
The problem is that many companies which had reasonable leadership in the past with the advent of LLM AI started to make rushed (and dubious from my point of view) decisions - using token usage to evaluate an employee performance is just one of them.
citrin_ru··on A reality check on the AI jobs hysteria
It's hard to separate impact of workers being replaced by AI from an impact of a recession (or stagnation). It's not obvious how AI impacts employees with various experience: on one hand a senior is better at spotting AI hallucination one other hand a junior using AI can do much more than a junior was able to do a couple years ago for a lower (if adjusted for inflation) than a couple years ago salary.
citrin_ru··on Real wages start to shrink in developed countries
IMHO it's around 4 years: inflation surge in late 2021/22 and following years was not matched by salaries but 2020 was not yet that bad.
citrin_ru··on AI is too expensive
Why we should assume that whoever offers these Chinese models makes sufficient profits and will not rise the prices eventually too?
citrin_ru··on Eric Schmidt speech about AI booed during graduation
At least partially the usage is driven by free plans. I use Gemini and ChatGPT for free. I will not pay for them unless traditional web search will be killed (google quality is subjectively on a downward trajectory for the last few years). My employer pays for AI but IMHO it's driven by a panic level FOMO, not evidence.
citrin_ru··on Overseas fakers using AI videos to push a narrative of UK decline, BBC finds
It seems the more people spend online the more they trust online picture whatever it is (for most people it's an algorithmically generated feed) and less pay attention to what they can see in person. Smartphone addition is harmful in so many ways.
citrin_ru··on Israel's AI targeting system: how data from a phone become a death sentence
Hezbollah at least recently was much stronger than Lebanese army and even nowadays Lebanese army afraid to challenge Hezbollah. Concept of a powerful non state actor is something many people in the west refuse to acknowledge.
citrin_ru··on Spain has become one of Europe’s cheapest power markets
Dependency on nuclear fuel is less of a problem because you don't need to re-fuel a station often. Lack of gas creates a much more urgent problem.
citrin_ru··on Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce
Stock market is up only because investors bet on AI, if you'll exclude AI and AI supply chain at best it would be stagnant.
citrin_ru··on Cloudflare to cut about 20% of its workforce
Many CxO made a decision to spend $$$$ on AI; that's their bet and they're are adamant about it. Money should come from somewhere and layoffs is the easiest way to free some budget in a software company. Was it a good bet only time will tell.
citrin_ru··on Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere just hit a 'depressing' new record
Nuclear is an answer along with other sources. Opposition to nuclear by the Green Party in the UK is a self-sabotage IMHO. They may argue how limited government subsidies should be allocated but outright opposition to nuclear energy is just stupid to me.
citrin_ru··on UK Fuel Price Intelligence – Market analytics from reporting stations
I don't think there is a large intersection between these two groups at least in Europe. Price sensitive people didn't buy SUV. Better-off folks who buy SUV unlikely to be significantly affected by this price increase. In the US it may be different because most cars on the market are SUV/tracks and it's harder to find a small car.
citrin_ru··on Belgium stops decommissioning nuclear power plants
May be base-load is not the best term but in case if batteries and other storages will run out during long cloudy stretch with weak winds nuclear will at least allow to power critical infrastructure. It’s bad that some consumers will loose power but less bad than total apocalypses when the storage is empty and you have no unintermittent power source in the grid.
citrin_ru··on 4TB of voice samples just stolen from 40k AI contractors at Mercor
Data hoarding predates LLMs. There where other machine learning methods which also needed data for training.
citrin_ru··on Plain text has been around for decades and it’s here to stay
It's not only about buttons. A web-app of trading platform I use doesn't allow to copy-paste a fund name (both in web and in the mobile app). I don't think they disallow this intentionally, likely an artefact of GUI framework they use.
citrin_ru··on Plain text has been around for decades and it’s here to stay
One of TUI advantages over GUIs (including modern web sites) - all text can be selected/copied (you may need to use modifies in some TUI). It's a bit frustrating when GUI shows text but I cannot select and copy it.
citrin_ru··on Meta tells staff it will cut 10% of jobs
Because in the current job market many job seekers will accept 1st offer after spending months looking for a job without any offers.
citrin_ru··on IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first
> There isn't really an alternative for jet fuel, is there?

But in many cases there is an alternative to air travel, at least for short distances. I don't really understand why railways (at least in the UK) such ridiculously expensive. Return flights from London to Edinburgh start at £30, train tickets between the same cities start at £100. A return ticket from a station in 50 miles from London is more than £65 (peak times).

citrin_ru··on Quantum Computers Are Not a Threat to 128-Bit Symmetric Keys
The current state (no real threat to RSA) ≠ plausible but not certain future state (RSA and EC are broken).
citrin_ru··on IEA: Solar overtakes all energy sources in a major global first
In a long run - hopefully but in a short run big oil (outside the gulf) collecting windfall profits and Asian countries returning to coal.
citrin_ru··on New bill would let New Yorkers hang solar panels from windows
That's how traditional (not plug in) panels are connected. The problem is - you need to route a cable from window/balcony to the panel (which may be located outside an apartment in a hall) and if you want to hide the cable in walls it becomes expensive. With plugin you can use closest to the panel socket. En easier solution is a clamp power meter on a socket circuit connected to the inventor via z-ware / zigbee so the inverter can see total socket circuit load and limit own power as a protective measure (at which point a circuit breaker likely will be tripped).
citrin_ru··on How to make buffet breakfasts less wasteful
May be still cheap in the US but in the UK all this almost 2x more expensive than before COVID while salaries nowhere near 2x higher. It's a small fraction of cost of saying in a hotel but not a negligible one.
citrin_ru··on New bill would let New Yorkers hang solar panels from windows
There are some safety concerns at least for relatively powerful panels - e. g. if a circuit breaker is 30A you can draw up to 30A from the grid in absence of panels. If you connect a panel which can provide another 30A then a device in theory will be able to draw 60A from the socket not triggering circuit breaker which will overload the socket circuit.
citrin_ru··on Helium is hard to replace
> eat the rich, and try to build something more sane

The tragedy is that right wing parties are sponsored by the rich snd serve primarily them. Economic grievances of ordinary people are exploited to make them vote agains their interests.

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