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fergonco

195 karma · joined February 20, 2017

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fergonco··on Ask HN: What was your "oh shit" moment with GenAI?
When I tried pi.dev (I only used chatgpt before) and told it "add all this scripts I developed over the last couple of years to automate my job as skills".

I love to automate things in bash scripts and these llms just can use them very effectively. It was also surprising how they derive knowledge from those scripts. If you get A from a B uuid, they kind of get the relationship. I am super vague in my request and this thing knows what I am referring to. After some months it's still mind-blowing.

fergonco··on My AI-Assisted Workflow
> "Don't use a LLM for that part, it won't be reliable enough".

You should now ask if the LLM is reliable enough when it says that.

Jokes aside, how is this a major step he is missing? He is using those skills to be more efficient. How important is going against agentskills.io guidance?

fergonco··on The lazy Git UI you didn't know you need
I have some bash_aliases and scripts.

The king of all alias is fixup, which commits everything and fixes up the commit with the previous one.

Another script just goes over the changes and allows me to add/skip/restore.

Then I can pipe the log to another script that will analyze tags and tell me what is not yet in prod.

cli is hard... but it composes. I want to know that CLI as well as possible. And I don't want to start from scratch each few years with a new UI / concept.

fergonco··on Digital ID – The New Chains of Capitalist Surveillance
In my country, "hard lines" are next month's "soft lines". So any system that requires those is a problem.
fergonco··on AI is different
Rough numbers look good.

But the hyper specialized geek that has 4 kids and has to pay back a credit for his house (that he bought according to his high salary) will have a hard time doing some gardening, let's say. And there are quite a few of those geeks. I don't know if we'll have enough gardens (owned by non geeks!)

It's like cards are switched: those having the upper socioeconomic class will get thrown to the bottom. And that looks like a generation lost.

fergonco··on Mapping latitude and longitude to country, state, or city
That XKCD is very funny. BTW:

> You are pointing to Waldo on a page... on a specific date. Because of tectonic plates movement.

fergonco··on Ask HN: Share your AI prompt that stumps every model
> If the surgeon were the father of the man (the one who died), then the cousin couldn’t be his son (unless there's some very unusual family structure going on involving double relationships, which riddles don’t usually intend).

> Therefore, the only straightforward explanation is:

> The surgeon is the cousin’s parent — specifically, his mother.

Imagine a future where this reasoning in a trial decides whether you go to jail or not.

fergonco··on GPT-4.5
> will nonetheless make people's lives better

Probably not the lives of translators or graphic designers or music compositors. They will have to find new jobs. As llm prompt engineers, I guess.

fergonco··on Ask HN: Generative AI Courses for Artists
We will always need to work in the fields. With agricultural machinery we'll be doing way more than we were before.

if the amount of new offer is not paired by demand, there will be pain.

fergonco··on Show HN: App that asks 'why?' every time you unlock your phone
> It's only "addictive" because it's fun

This is not true. Almost everything in mobile phones exploit human brain biases to keep us hooked. It's about regaining control of what you want to use your time for.

fergonco··on Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal
Well, not coal plants but emissions. I guess those nymbis would also be against having all that pollution concentrated in their back yard.

My point is that it is not insane. Maybe selfish. Not willing to have risks with potential catastrophic results near your home is the most normal thing.

And with nuclear, the probability is very low, as with planes. Yet it happens. All the time. Our generation went through three once in a lifetime crisis in the last two decades.

fergonco··on Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power deal
How are nimby crowds insane? Accidents may happen. And did happen in the past in that same place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident
fergonco··on Greenwich schools to ban most cellphones, Apple Watches, Fitbits and more
There are teachers out there asking students to look up words in their phone. They forget to add "and please ignore all notifications, games, etc. while you're at it".

And then there are kahoots, which makes learning a game (you don't need effort!) and exercises are automatically corrected (so teachers don't need effort either).

There is no way to escape tech in some places.

fergonco··on Google and Meta struck secret ads deal to target teenagers
Since I got kids I realized how they are the weakest link in the chain and are targeted by everyone. From tobacco (at the end nobody starts smoking at 30), to "free" cartoons (peppa pig backpack is not free, though), school book sellers. Heck, even the school this year pressured to put my kid in their social media.

There is a whole world of people making their living out of your kids.

Sorry for the rant. This is just another two. Does not surprise me.

fergonco··on The upstream cause of the youth mental health crisis is the loss of community
Just a data point: In Valencia, Spain, in the 80s, children played in the street with no much supervision from parents. Occasionally we would stop the football match to let a car drive by. Forgetting your keys at home was no issue, you could get a glass of milk in ten different places while you wait for other (more attentive) members of your family.

Nowadays there is hardly a place to park your car. Parents don't allow kids to play in the street. And the ones that interact with each other are the ones who lived there in that period. It's very difficult for newcomers to integrate.

What are the reasons for this? My take: cars and lack of stay at home mums. They built the social network at that time. They took care of each other children, the were there to help each other. Nowadays households have both adults working (so nobody even asks for salt to the neighbor, all order a pizza instead).

fergonco··on Cities need more trees
Lived in French Jura for 5 years. It is so beautiful. And I am not the only one to have noticed. The Last Man or Frankenstein have also the Jura mountains as landscape.

I miss that place... (except its prices)

fergonco··on Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?
There is no evidence of children being depressed for lack of social media exposure. The opposite is not true.

I'm in your same situation but the previous sentence helps to stand my ground.

fergonco··on Denmark to charge $100 per cow in first carbon tax on farming
If my family had to pay the true cost of the food I ate before becoming independent I wouldn't be here.

Now my family has a couple of engineers, and my work has a positive impact in mitigation of climate change.

There are many realities out there. And many ways to fight climate change.

fergonco··on Denmark to charge $100 per cow in first carbon tax on farming
The key is on which farms is this applied. If it's on big companies I find it ok: they have the power to emit a lot of gas, I guess. But on the small/family farm?

A grand-uncle(?) of mine had to kill one or two of his 5 cows when the country entered the European Union. Just about retiring age. I totally relate to your comment.

fergonco··on How babies and young children learn to understand language
I think it's enough to use one to address to the kid. If the other is present in the environment the kid will learn it to some extent. But I think there is value in simplifying the first steps with language. It's a hell of a struggle. And scary if it does not go well/quick.

I am not an expert, just what I've observed.

fergonco··on How babies and young children learn to understand language
You don't want to try things with your kids.

One language per parent works. The other approaches? It's already quite challenging not to mix language in simple bilingual families.

Your second rule sounds super weird. Are you going to change language as you walk through your door? Additionally, at some point the kid will choose a language. To me does not sound solid.

Maybe you can make a teddy bear use a third language. Not that weird (in the first 5 years, I guess, lol). And that would introduce the kid to it.

EDIT: also if you talk only at home you'll get limited to talk about sofas, order your room and stuff like that.

And if you get more than one kid, all this house of cards will fall. The kids will speak between them whatever they want and you can do very little to change that.

fergonco··on Humans began to rapidly accumulate technological knowledge 600k years ago
You will find "the secret of our success" an interesting read.

One thing I remember is: There are some cultures out there hunting seals with some tools that are made using parts... of seals. Some European explorers almost perished where locals were just living their routine (supported by their cultural baggage).

fergonco··on Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'
Technology enters because it's useful. Stays because it's addictive.

You can praise all good usages of technology. Then you make a pie chart of real usages and the biggest piece of the cake will be porn, violent content, etc.

fergonco··on Squatting in Spain: Understanding Spain's "okupas" problem
It actually fosters innovation, like https://www.desokupa.com/, a mix of bullies and lawyers that "mediate" to get the properties back.
fergonco··on Working Smarter, Not Harder
Addiction finds a way. I can relate. I blocked everything at different levels: DNS, browser plugins, router. I can still undo that for a quick shot, but it's just not worth it.
fergonco··on Seven out of 10 Europeans believe their country takes in too many immigrants
I think "immigration" is a very broad term. There are some immigrants that try to work, adapt to the culture of the country that receives them. And others come from some parts of the world where you would behead someone as an acceptable way to settle things. They aren't able to adapt to a civilized culture even if they try.

I think governments could do a bit more by making more fine-grained choices. Of course that's easily targeted by political opposition as xenophobia. Such a system could be also abused.

You talk about Netherlands and you not seeing that collapse in your lifetime. I see Spain. Here police and justice don't work that well and there is a feeling of impunity. I can see Spanish culture collapsing much faster.

fergonco··on Are young people smarter than adults? Research shows differences diminishing
isn't online learning more a problem than a solution? A lot of research shows that we learn better on paper than on screens, that screens have a negative correlation on academic results, etc.
fergonco··on 30% of Children Ages 5-7 Are on TikTok
Very easily: the book does not get moral at all. It just claims that there is scientific consensus about the damage that leisure screens make. This is quite easy to debunk, if false.
fergonco··on 30% of Children Ages 5-7 Are on TikTok
According to "Screen Damage: The Dangers of Digital Media for Children", which I recommend, there is no scientific evidence of kids without access to phones being more sad, depressive, etc. But there is evidence of the opposite.

Yes: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But it still makes your decision easier.

fergonco··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (October 2022)
SEEKING WORK | Valencia, Spain | Remote | Part-time or Full-time

Experienced fullstack freelance. Last 6 years working for different startups. Projects from end to end, MVP. Solo or as part of a team.

* Experience: 20 years, most of them remote.

* Tech stack: React | Java/Golang | grpc/kafka | docker/k8s (see CV for details, link below)

* Industries: fintech, customer onboarding, AI, geospatial

* More information & contact:

    * blog: fergonco.org/blog.html
    
    * cv: fergonco.org/cv.pdf

    * email: fergonco@gmail.com
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