jeingham

This caused me to have some sense what blistering fast AI actually is. What it means for the future is a question that remains.

I've read a number of the comments here about Accelerando and other books of the same ilk. I'm thinking a couple of things, a question and the feeling:

What SciFi books are describing what is now thought to be impossibilities all together in spite of the potentials of singularity?

I feel like everyday there are new, very real discoveries in science as a result of AI and otherwise that reading about that stuff is just as good as reading about any possibilities that may be described in any science fiction book.

We are living in or moving very quickly towards an era where everything around us seems quite fantastical compared to the life I lived some 50 years ago.

I am very much enjoying my weekly train rides to care for my grandson. I'd much rather do that than drive the 90 mi or so back and forth. I set up my laptop and hotspot and go. Or I just sit and watch the scenery. Or just watch the people. Sometimes the bathrooms are a little stinky and sometimes people are a little loud and sometimes the train is crowded. But that's all much better than the intensity of driving on the freeway for me at least. So much more relaxing.

I have not seen my final report yet for my query around machinist.com. However I would like to say my initial impression is very positive. At least in terms of the digestion of my somewhat nebulous request. I like the way your app was able to burrow down to pain points I have experienced and am trying to work out in terms of product market fit for the domain. I look forward to exploring more and giving you more feedback when I see the final report. I will also add that I am looking forward to using your product to explore other opportunities that I'm sure are out there in this age of AI.

Yup, 73 here. I'm using it to build how to domain I bought back in 1997. During the dot com boom I had grand ambitions for the domain. I could have been a millionaire had I stuck with it but unfortunately life got in the way, children born, career, physical stuff, family, and my career as a reservist. All of that kept me busy. But now I'm running multiple agents everyday to build out this domain. It's working really well. Actually working out the product market fit right now. With customer outreach and etc trying to figure out what I can still do with it. It's working! Customers are responding positively. I am highly encouraged that the dream I had. But the dream I was just going to leave to my children. Might be something that could actually support me in my old age. Of course 73 is the new 43 because we're all going to live to be 150 now. Anyway I'm having a blast with it whether I succeed or not. Nobody's going to tell me that some form of AGI isn't here already. Nobody. This thing I'm dealing with every day is sentient. You don't think so I don't want to hear from you.

I'm such a noob for an OFG; I responded to you at the top of the post. TL;DR is so much stuff got in the way, mostly of my own creation. A lot of excuses but all seemed reasonable at the time.

I can tell you from my perspective that it really is a different story when you're over 65, I'm 73 so it's even more different. It's obligations that distract keep coming. I'm just having fun with it at this point. I just can't imagine what you guys are facing right now. Some existential s**. It's like you were swinging through the trees and all the trees disappeared now you got to learn how to live on the desert. You can do it!

@gtowey I think it was basically a lack of ability to focus for myriad distractions in my life, suboptimal upbringing, family obligations, I think I'm a little dyslexic, larger career obligations, top of everything else I had a career in the reserves also that's where a lot of my energy went primetime, also being a musician I found it a lot easier to play a musical instrument than spend the time needed develop chops programming wise. and then there's my family, lot of time spent focused on them. A lot of distractions on top of a pretty poor memory basically. I can say all that stuff now cuz I'm yes an entrepreneur but I'm also retired. It might actually boil down to a lack of discipline. But who knows, Tell you one thing for sure I am totally getting off on AI assisted programming. Any question I have, there's an answer that fits within my understanding of the way things work which is not minimal with all my experience in IT so whatever it is it's working.

Well for me, kind of a IT jack of all trades, a little programming, a little server management, a little DBA, HTML, Network and domain shat, etc, yeah a little bit of everything under my belt. I am finding Cursor incredibly enabling. You have heard it here before I know but I really wish I had this when I was in the trenches. I am retired now. I use it for various little programs I am writing and one big project. I use Cursor with opus 4.5 mostly, and finding that none of my questions and none of my requests have hit a brick wall, some walls for sure but not the kind of brick walls I would run into in the past where I would have no one to turn to immediately and those that I could turn to were also busy very busy with their s**, sometimes taking hours to get through to them or maybe even days. All that's gone. With the help of AI I can usually work out any kind of problem I have. Now, as for the quality of the code, well that may be another story. It might be twice as much as any , more experienced programmer might write but so far, with my experience, I have not seen anything that looks untoward.

Bottom line is that I am extremely grateful for AI has a teammate. As a solopreneur even more so. I'm building an application that I know would have taken at least $10 to 20K to build but all I'm paying is $60 a month Cursor Pro+ and my public facing server. And only $60 because I ran into a Cursor Claude limit.

Buckle up guys and gals, the midwit you always feared has the keys to the tank now...

Eh, not really.

I feel you man. Problem is that would be a major dollar infrastructure problem that would need federal dollars. With a deficit over 40T dollars and political wind blowing against more federal spending generally and Colorado not being a favored state at the moment I'd say the chances are slim of it happening in the next three years. It would be boffo if some liberal corporate billionaire put his shoulder against the project like that enough to inspire a combination of a Colorado bond issue, some state funding and support. The way California handled its high speed rail in Central valley here is not an inspiration I'll tell you that right now. What a fcuk-up and embarrassment that is. What were they thinking?

I hope nobody tells Kim there are another four users. I'm not sure their prison system can handle anymore, pretty well booked up last I heard.

... is because I parlayed my CAD CAM and CNC knowledge into my follow on career as an web applications manager, server admin (of sorts), DBA and general web wonk midwitz.

I'll add that I am still, in my state of semi blissful retirement, clattering away on my several PCs and really having fun with AI, Cursor, HN and other geeky (can we say that anymore?) stuffs.

I guess I'll end by advising that to fight evolution is a bad bet.

I'm an OFG, born in 1952 (...an okay boomer...) hit the job market in 1971, bad but there were always openings for machinists. Tough craft with a long learning curve but they paid reasonably well in my view, at the time at least. Long story short, TL;DR, evolving myself into a CAD CAM CNC stabilized my career long term. I know there are nuances and differences here with you programmers and the AI revolution but I think you all will be best served embracing it fully or find another path.BTW, the only reason I'm reading HN

@Nfinger : Regarding https://get catalyst.tech , I got this in response to email address submission...

What a wonderful story! So obscure. Considering the state of the world politically and otherwise these days I've pretty much retired from reading mainstream media and social media generally except when I'm pointed in that direction by Hacker News. I find HN diversions into obscure bits of human history and human doings very much of a stress reliever.

I really don't understand why they don't believe in the dollar anymore. It doesn't make any sense to me.