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craftkiller

2,728 karma · joined December 27, 2012

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craftkiller··on The last time my family was replaced by technology
What kinds of problems do you think someone will pay you to solve after AI advances for another 10 years?
craftkiller··on The last time my family was replaced by technology
This is my dilemma as well. I can't think of a role that won't be impacted so I don't know what to train for. When I was younger, my fallback was always going to be "truck driver" but that's going to be one of the first dominos to fall.
craftkiller··on The last time my family was replaced by technology
> we will live animals in a zoo

Why would we still be alive? Once we have advanced enough AI inside not only computers but robots, the rich will no longer need us. They will have the robots farm the land, clean their homes, fly their planes, etc. We will then have no income and therefore no way to feed ourselves. Most people do not own enough farm land to keep themselves alive.

In the past, such imbalances of power were resolved because the rich still relied upon the poor for everything (security, food, etc). I think we're approaching the point where even armed insurrection is no longer an option with the advances in automated killing machines. We're not there yet, but it's coming.

craftkiller··on The last time my family was replaced by technology
What makes you think those jobs will still be available?

Uber : Getting replaced by Waymo

Uber Eats : They've been experimenting with ways to replace humans for this. I think the most likely scenario isn't those silly robots on the sidewalks but rather just a Waymo. Have the restaurant send someone to carry food from the restaurant to the Waymo idling at the curb, and have the customer come out to the street to pick up their food from the Waymo. We lose the door-to-door convenience but I think a lot of people would take that trade to eliminate the cost of tips and paying the delivery person.

Security Guard : AI monitoring security cameras and automating calls to police sounds trivial. There are also already "security robots" that move around so they could be dispatched for scenarios which do not warrant a call to the police.

Handyman / physical jobs : While I think these will last longer than the others, I think they won't last much longer. We've already invented all the necessary hardware. The limiting factor was the software. What happens when you take an LLM from the year 2030 and give it a pile of tokens to write the software to drive the robots to do plumbing/building/whatever.

craftkiller··on The last time my family was replaced by technology
Currently we have C-level people saying "I want a website that sells widgets". Then product managers make a plan for all the pages/functionality on that site. Designers style the site. Managers divide up the work into smaller tasks. Tech leads steer a group of software engineers, and software engineers do the actual implementation.

2 years ago AI was a novelty and essentially just "fancy autocomplete". Today a skilled software engineer can use it to mostly one-shot the whole website with a detailed technical prompt and then iterate on it from there.

What happens 2 years from now? If progress continues, I expect we'll start walking up that chain of command. First you eliminate the software engineers and just have the tech leads do the prompting. Then you eliminate the tech leads and have the managers do the prompting. Then you eliminate the managers and designers and eventually you end up with star-trek-esque programming where some C-level person is just telling their computer "I want a website that sells widgets. Good! Now make the navigation bar blue. Could you make the font bigger?"

So what are your plans for when the wealthy no longer need you?

craftkiller··on Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop
That's how I felt before I discovered tiling window managers. Now my flow is very similar to yours, but since I was wrong before, I can't rule out the possibility that I am still wrong and there might be something better out there. For example, Plan 9 had some interesting UX ideas like making the window manager infinitely nestable and mountable over the network. It also had the neat behavior in acme where to execute a command, you middle-click on some regular text. In the end, I'm not a fan of Plan 9's UI because of the reliance on the mouse, but I think it shows there's still room for novel innovation out there.
craftkiller··on Small programming tricks
Here's an example of removing a branch that was posted to HN a little over a month ago: https://www.greyblake.com/blog/branchless-rust/
craftkiller··on Feeling Sad about AI
Assuming you are in the happy camp, what do you intend to do for food after all the software engineers have been replaced? The only people I can imagine as happy are those who are either close to retirement or wealthy enough to live off savings/investments.
craftkiller··on Show HN: Syq – copy files between machines fast (better than rsync)
The iso itself is read-only. When I need to update software I build a whole new iso and replace the existing one. For any folders/files that need persistence across reboots, I store that data separately from the iso, either in a virtual nvme drive or a mounted 9pfs folder from the host. The iso mounts the persistence drive/9pfs via /etc/fstab. So in the end, the software and config files are read-only (until I replace them with a new iso) but my databases and data files are read-write.

Getting into the unnecessary details: in classic live ISO fashion, the root (/) filesystem is tmpfs. Then I have at most 1 persistence drive and/or at most 1 9pfs mount. From there, I use bind mounts to only persist the few folders/files that I want preserved. For example, I'll have my persistence drive mounted at /persist and I'll bind mount "/var/lib/etcd" to "/persist/var/lib/etcd". Then when I reboot, everything outside of "/persist" is wiped out and I'm back to the initial iso + anything in /persist. So it is very similar to running a docker image with a volume mount, or running tails with persistence.

I build it all via NixOS and I use Impermanence to manage the bind mounts to the persist drive: https://wiki.nixos.org/wiki/Impermanence

craftkiller··on Show HN: Syq – copy files between machines fast (better than rsync)
One instance where rsync's delta merge comes up for me: For all of my virtual machines, I build a bootable live ISO so that way I can cleanly swap out the full ISO with a new one when there are software updates. This means that every time I want to change a config file inside the virtual machine, I end up building a new ISO and rsyncing it to my server. rsync speeds this up significantly since most (but not all) of the ISO is unchanged.
craftkiller··on Hitachi launches CO2 heat pump water heaters with solar-friendly tariff controls
My last apartment had the overflow drain hole but it wasn't attached to anything. The water just went directly into the wooden cabinet underneath. Madness. Literally worse than not having the hole because it reduced the capacity of the sink. This is what happens when landlords who DGAF hire handymen who DGAF to do all the work on their units.
craftkiller··on Georgi Gerganov on llama.cpp/ggml future after Nvidia acquisition of HuggingFace
Here's the content of the tweet so you don't have to give twitter any more traffic:

  Hugging Face has been acquired by NVIDIA

  It is quite exciting to be a part of this journey! NVIDIA has been an active supporter of the llama.cpp project. For more than a year now, their engineers have actively contributed to the codebase, collaborated with the community and provisioned hardware for development and testing purposes. The local AI ecosystem has largely benefited from our joint efforts.

  Going forward, llama.cpp/ggml will stick to its founding principles. One of the most important  qualities of the project is to be hardware-agnostic. Therefore the development and support of all backends will continue to be done as usual - driven and shaped by the community. Open to everyone who is willing to participate. The existence of such an independent software platform is crucial for the rapid adoption of AI locally and for bringing it closer to the user.

  Now, with such a significant partner as NVIDIA supporting us, in addition to the wider Hugging Face team, I believe that our long-term goals will be easier to achieve. We will remain focused on building one of the most exciting projects based on the most exciting technology of our lifetime and making it truly available to everyone in the most accessible and efficient way possible.
craftkiller··on deSEC – Free Secure DNS
My solution was to self-host PowerDNS and then sign up for the free DNS mirroring from hurricane electric. That way, I can administer my DNS records any way I want (these days I usually just manually edit PowerDNS's sqlite database) and if/when my PowerDNS server goes down, hurricane electric is still serving my records so the domain keeps resolving fine.
craftkiller··on Run Qwen3.8 27B locally: real numbers from my Mac Studio
That seems like an expensive way to block ads considering traditional ad blockers have been doing that with a tiny fraction of the compute for decades.
craftkiller··on Run Qwen3.8 27B locally: real numbers from my Mac Studio
How so? I've had no issues running llama.cpp with vulkan compute on my AMD graphics card (9070 XT). llama.cpp exposes an OpenAI API endpoint, which seems to be the lingua franca for AI applications. Does llama.cpp not work with datacenter AMD graphics cards?
craftkiller··on Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
Ah I didn't know Apple put their repair parts under a different domain. I stand corrected!
craftkiller··on Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
> That sure doesn't apply to this situation though does it?

It sort-of does. Naturally this situation can be resolved much cheaper with a flasher, but in this situation you absolutely have the option to replace the "broken" motherboard, while still keeping your screen, laptop chassis, battery, ram, SSD, wifi card, expansion cards, sound board, webcam. Another commenter said the board is available on Ebay for $270 which is going to be less than just the ram for a new laptop.

craftkiller··on Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
In addition to no longer charging off 5V chargers (their first laptop could literally charge off a USB type A with no USB-PD), on the AMD 7040 I've got ~10% chance every time I plug it in to my dock that it will simply not start charging. Everything else will connect (display, USB) but power won't flow. Resolving that is as simple as unplugging and replugging in my laptop but if I don't notice until I'm in a video conference then it is a problem because my webcam, microphone, and headset are also going over that cable. Oh how I miss the OG 11th gen framework charging.
craftkiller··on Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
Strain relief would be nice, but framework has been shipping laptops for 5 years. Has this hypothetical happened to anyone? It sounds unlikely to me.
craftkiller··on Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
As far as I can tell, Apple doesn't sell the daughterboards so you have to go spelunking for salvaged parts with your macbook. I can get all my first-party brand-new replacement parts at https://frame.work/marketplace .
craftkiller··on Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
That specific issue, but they didn't get the other benefit of expansion cards: being able to "change" the ports on your laptop without needing some external dongle. Also, your fists must be tiny.
craftkiller··on Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
But in that situation, you know the damage _wont_ be to the USB ports on the motherboard. The motherboard is screwed to the case, and the expansion cards are locked to the case, so they won't move relative to each other. You expansion card might get damaged by the initial tripping over the cord, and some other parts might get damaged from the fall, but you can trivially buy first-party replacement parts for anything you broke. MagSafe would be nice, but the expansion cards are doing their job to protect the motherboard.
craftkiller··on Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
The ports on the motherboard are soldered, but you don't use them directly. You attach "expansion cards" which slide into a slot on the laptop case which locks them in place. So those ports seldom see any forces applied to them. All your day-to-day wear (plugging/unplugging, twisting, yanking) is going to be on the port on the expansion card which you can replace for $10. It's basically like a daughter board that is trivially user-replaceable rather than a daughter board that you have to open up your laptop to replace.
craftkiller··on Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
> If you are inserting/removing cables like a gorilla

You've never moved your laptop without realizing it is still plugged in? I've done that a couple of times. My framework gives me peace of mind because I know the only port that will be damaged from that is the one on the $10 card because the card is firmly attached to the laptop body. Your suggestion of a 3" dongle doesn't have that benefit so yanking a plugged-in laptop could still cause a loose or broken port on your motherboard.

craftkiller··on Fixing a bricked Framework laptop
Yeah, I started with their first laptop (11th gen Intel DDR4 ram) and upgraded to the 7040 AMD board with DDR5 ram. Now there's even newer boards available with desirable features like LPCAMM. Framework has absolutely delivered on the "upgradable mainboard" promise.

There's also 3rd party ARM and RISC-V mainboards, but I'd recommend the average user sticks to the x86_64 boards.

craftkiller··on Fairphone is now officially available in the United States
DisplayPort Alt-Mode is important for when you smash your phone but you _need_ to access data that is on it. Maybe its your photos, text messages, or access to a banking app. Without DP Alt-Mode you're going to be waiting for a screen replacement to ship, with DP Alt-Mode you're just plugging your phone into your dock like a laptop.

Personally I would have seriously considered this phone if it wasn't for the lack of DP Alt-Mode. It would be a tiny portable Linux computer with an unlimited internet connection available anywhere. It would be the perfect thin-client. My cellular plan limits my tethered bandwidth so using the phone as my computer rather than as my computer's modem has real benefits.

craftkiller··on Pixel 11 Pro Fold
An official OEM battery for the Pixel 7 along with all the tools you need is $50. It is not expensive. The process to replace it is easy. Certainly nerve racking the first time but I've opened up my pixel phones at least 6 times now and it is pretty trivial (on the non-folding pixel phones).

https://www.ifixit.com/products/google-pixel-7-battery-genui...

craftkiller··on A viral mosquito-killing laser device could be coming to the U.S.
While I don't have a remedy for house flies, I do have a remedy for fruit flies! Take a cup, fill it with 25% water, 25% monster energy drink original flavor, and leave the other 50% air. Put one small drop of soap in it. Then cover with plastic wrap and poke holes in the plastic wrap the size of pencils.

Fruit flies will be attracted to the monster, fly in expecting to land on the water's surface tension but the soap broke the surface tension so the flies end up drowning. It is surprisingly effective.

craftkiller··on My server is a phone now
Cool project, but slightly better: before the rampocalypse I bought one of those aliexpress fanless linux boxes designed to be a router. I put a 32GB stick of ram in it and a 250GB SSD. I run opnsense in a virtual machine to serve as my home router and then I put the rest of my home server stuff on other virtual machines on that same box. It's still fanless/silent. It takes up zero additional space because it is my router. It would already be running 24/7 because it is my router so the additional energy usage of an additional VM is likely minuscule. The latency to my router is basically zero since it is on the same physical box. And it is using a real SSD so it has faster storage with almost certainly better endurance.
craftkiller··on Parsers don't have to be complicated
The parsers doing this in the first place is the problem. The JSON spec doesn't specify how numbers should be stored/interpreted, so theoretically you could have a 2,000 bit integer in JSON. The lack of clarity around that could also be considered a flaw in the JSON spec. But from a practical standpoint, the most common JSON parser is in web browsers running javascript, and they'll parse to double-precision floats. So from a practical standpoint, if you don't want your numbers distorted, you need to be defensive about it and encode your numbers as strings (or use something other than JSON).
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