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johnecheck

456 karma · joined September 8, 2024

Game Dev (https://stargamb.it)

Sucker for epistemology, systems, and languages.

@7hird.dev

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johnecheck··on Clef: our open-source decision models
Wow, Cloudflare is definitely buying some goodwill from me. Just consistently interesting new releases alongside and solid products at great prices. Seems nearly too good to be true.
johnecheck··on Windows 11½
Missed opportunity to have that say "365 Microsoft apps installed"
johnecheck··on Claude Opus 5.5
Search is different as a service provided for free. When cost isn't in the picture, trust/convenience win.

But two products that provide essentially the same benefit, and one is significantly cheaper? Corporations maximize profit, my friend. What the model has to say about Tianammmen Square doesn't matter when we're using it to write code.

johnecheck··on Claude Opus 5.5
This is one explanation. However, if Xi Jinping believes that whoever reaches superintelligence first becomes the next global hegemon, doing this (and more, cough cough Taiwan) suddenly looks very sane solely as a way to kneecap the competition.

The goodwill/propaganda are convenient, sure, but my guess is that they aren't the primary motivation. Another possibility is that if no takeoff happens, pressuring OpenAI/Anthropic on profitability would exacerbate any damage overinvestment has done to the US stock market/economy.

johnecheck··on Claude Opus 5.5
It's the Chinese open source models. They're barely behind the frontier, making AI a commodity, forcing openAI and Anthropic's margins downward.

I'm hardly a fan of China/Xi, but I do appreciate and benefit from this.

johnecheck··on Artificial intelligence now beats some of the best human forecasters
The markets are a highly complex dynamic system. There are many instances of it exhibiting disastrous behavior, especially in response to changes and shocks.

AI trading and investment advice meaningfully changes the system and its dynamics. It seems highly probable that this will result in it failing in new ways.

johnecheck··on The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week
Web apps can run offline. Google could figure out web app android launchers if they wanted to. The performance overhead exists but is slight. It doesn't matter to 90+% of applications, including many games.
johnecheck··on Introducing System One Models and Jev
This makes me think of Expressions of Change [1], a project that aimed to make updates to a program a first-class primitive in a programming language. A model like this can't output code directly, but perhaps it would be well suited to select from the small set of discrete operations on code envisioned by the EoC author?

[1]: www.expressionsofchange.org

johnecheck··on 216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video]
How much time, money, and human effort has been spent on the Pepsi/coke advertising arms race?

All for what? To maintain the same market share they've had since the 80s? What a waste.

johnecheck··on Scrap (2006)
Usually? Dude, you're implying that most impoverished people deserve it without providing a shred of evidence. You saw it, huh? Sorry, idk what you saw, but your anecdotes are no basis for making such a sweeping and important claim about one of the most complex problems humanity faces.
johnecheck··on St Lucie Nuclear Reactor Unit 1 manually shutdown, 3 control rods drop into core
I'd imagine the operational capabilities of nuclear submarines are somewhat confidential.
johnecheck··on My server is a phone now
Depends on how well the canister insulates it. Steel conducts heat fairly well; it'd get hot inside but I'd guess some airflow around the canister would probably keep it from getting hot enough to cook the electronics. (definitely don't take my word for it lol)
johnecheck··on U.S. Department of Energy Launches the Genesis Open Models Initiative
Given that his company has already released open models, I find it funny that, as you described it, his remark communicates absolutely nothing whatsoever. Not sure what the question was, but this was an artful non-answer.
johnecheck··on Superlogical
Better be using ghostty ;)
johnecheck··on Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
> Are they actively working against PWAs, or are they refusing to spend resources supporting another technology?

What difference does it make? I'm hardly surprised that they won't dedicate engineering resources to tech that threatens their bottom line. But it is a choice, and it's to the detriment of their users and I. For that, it deserves criticism.

johnecheck··on Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
We don't actually disagree, our definitions of 'web app' and 'browser' just differ. Personally, I find it absurd to say that PWAs (progressive WEB APPs) cease being web apps when installed, but whatevs.

The important point is that how OSs should (with user consent) grant installed PWAs access to system APIs like notifications. I'm just trying to condemn Apple's preferential treatment of native apps in this regard.

johnecheck··on Gleam Is Now on Tangled
Wow I had no idea, thank you for your well-reasoned critique! I can tell you're very capable of evaluating the merits of complex socio-technological systems. Your wisdom is unparalleled; now I see we all should just keep using X and GitHub.
johnecheck··on Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
Installed PWAs still run in a browser, they just don't show you the address bar so it looks and feels like a native app. (UX)

To all your points about a 3rd party intermediary, fair! Such an intermediary can be valuable. But whether we go through an intermediary is orthogonal to whether our app is running in a browser. Native apps can be installed without intermediaries (if your OS isn't evil) and there's no reason you couldn't build an intermediary for web apps.

As for your ProtonMail example... you got pwned. They just handed you some new code to run and you ran it. You could have ran the old code instead. You could have gotten a message saying "would you like to update?". You could compare the hash of content you received with others, tipping you off if you're being targeted.

To that, I imagine you say "but there's no reasonable way to do that stuff!"

And you'd be right. None of that is practical. Why is that? Is it some inherent difference between native code and code running in a sandbox? I think not.

johnecheck··on Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
> If you do it like this, then I count it as a mobile app, not a webapp.

This is pretty funny distinction to make. It's hardly a surprise you find web apps inferior if you define them so.

Whether through a store or browser, your computer is downloading code from the internet and executing it. A browser adds cross-platform ease for devs and a sandbox for security at a slight performance cost. A store adds gatekeeping (for better or worse) and a 30% tax. The other differences are UX choices from browser makers and OS designers, nothing more.

johnecheck··on Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
Why?
johnecheck··on Your 'app' could have been a webpage (so I fixed it for you)
There are many reasons to prefer an app, most of which are ways OS makers have crippled web apps for reasons that TOTALLY HAVE NOTHING TO DO with the fact that they get a 30% cut if the user chooses the native app.
johnecheck··on ActivityPub over ATProto
Is there a relevant recent HN discussion or is this comment just in bad faith?
johnecheck··on I think Anthropic and OpenAI have found product-market fit
Not saying you're wrong, but I'll note why inference might dominate despite everything you mentioned.

A given model is trained once but applied N times. A large enough N will dominate training, no matter how complex and costly it was.

But how long is a model useful for? How often will labs need to train new models? Time will tell.

johnecheck··on Turning chess into a roguelike via design first principles
Huh. What are the odds two chess-themed roguelikes launch the same day?

I haven't played either yet, but I assumed this was about Gambonanza when I read the title. (https://store.steampowered.com/app/3509230/Gambonanza/)

I just might have to give both a shot.

johnecheck··on LinkedIn scans for 6,278 extensions and encrypts the results into every request
sifa.id aspires to that.

Wishing Guido (gui.do) the best.

johnecheck··on Bluesky CEO Jay Graber is stepping down
Seems like the solution is to either not incriminate yourself online or get plausible deniability with a pseudonym.
johnecheck··on Bluesky CEO Jay Graber is stepping down
Personally, I really like that my feeds aren't getting that level of granular detail. I prefer the explicit control I have with 'Show more like this' and 'Show less like this'.
johnecheck··on Polis: Open-source platform for large-scale civic deliberation
You're describing Liquid Democracy[1]. Seems challenging to implement but definitely an interesting idea.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy

johnecheck··on A Social Filesystem
Trust is subjective! Let's establish trust in each other rather than rely on one-size-fits-all solutions.

Personally, I trust my friends, family, and some public figures and institutions to varying degrees. I want to see social experiences that reflect that.

johnecheck··on A New Year's letter to a young person
It's X, not twitter. That system is directly controlled by a single man for his own benefit; we should use the name that reminds us of that.

He openly promotes himself and those that pay him. If you think Musk doesn't have an admin dashboard where he can demote accounts he dislikes and promote his friends, I have some... unkind words for you.

It's about control. Control over your information intake is partial control over you.

We can do so much better than ceding that power to the highest bidder.

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