One thing I wonder with your `git diff` example—doesn’t it need more context on your code? A super simple way to give it slightly more would be to use `git diff -U` to simply include more context lines. I often just take an entire subtree I’m working on, use a bash for loop to put each file between backticks with a filename: on top, and ask O1 to review the entire subtree, and it works pretty well for me. But I’m still trying to refine this workflow myself.
You admit that you’re getting older, and I think that’s part of the disconnect with emojis. OK does not convey the same thing. You’re talking about having to zoom in to see the emoji, and the younger crowd already has every one memorized. The reactions may not help you but I’d say for most of us, they do help.
A law? As an engineer, I really don’t want a bunch of technologically-inept congressmen telling me how I have to build software, firmware, or hardware.
The right way to include all of this context would be to start with the lead and then back it up with the context. I can’t read stuff written like this.
That’s really the reason for my comment—there’s a fine line, and the person I responded to said something (IIRC) along the lines of “take my money, I don’t care, I just want good government services”, and that can’t be the message. Everyone should be in favor of reducing waste and increasing accountability, and where and how our tax dollars are spent _does_ matter. This just isn’t the way we should be doing it, and the way we were doing it before wasn’t the best answer either. I’m scared that people are going to start being anti-waste-reduction simply because we hate Trump and he’s (claiming to be) pro-waste-reduction.
In the case of one of my examples, it took someone dragging a bag of bushings to congress. And though these specific examples may have been addressed, the point is there are likely many more in every corner of the government. It needs to be systematically reviewed and prevented; waste like this should never have happened and should never happen again. I’m not at all saying I support DOGE’s methods here, but I do want to eliminate government waste, and I don’t think the existing methods have worked. The national debt is out of control, and I think the reality is 25% of government spending could be eliminated without anyone even noticing a reduction in service.
I feel like people lose sight of exactly how ridiculously much money a trillion dollars is. You’re mentioning a bunch of desirable things you’d like the federal government to do, while ignoring the millions wasted on everything from a $90,000 bag of bushings to $1,300 coffee cups to $150,000 soap dispensers to billons on empty government buildings. You can simultaneously want the government to reduce waste and provide these services. Lately it feels like folks are getting too carried away and becoming “pro government waste” as some type of political flex. Really, the problem is _who_ is doing the reduction and _how_, not _that_ we’re doing it.
That’s not how chemicals work. It’s not “methylenedioxy” mixed with methamphetamine, it’s an entirely distinct molecule. MDMA is an enpathogen, an aspect which contradicts OP’s key point.
I think defense _spending_ could be cut dramatically without changing our defense _posture nor preparedness_, simply by modernizing inefficient systems, reducing waste, renegotiating contracts, etc. Our defense spending is relatively insane. We should look at Medicare and Medicaid in the same way. I wouldn’t want to see benefits reduced, but we certainly should be optimizing costs. I really hope the idea of reducing government waste hasn’t become a partisan thing just because the folks doing it right now are doing it very badly.
“Uppers”? I thought the leading theories were MDMA and Ketamine (and recovering from neck surgery), neither of which are best-described by the word “uppers”, nor is that behavior an effect that “uppers” generally have (e.g. cocaine, (meth)amphetamines).
> The app is owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
It’s not. It’s 60-something percent owned by international foreign investors outside of China. TikTok user data in the USA is held under TikTok USDS and managed mostly by Oracle as far as I know.
So, are the exchanges connected? Would there be any difference for me buying and selling stocks on “normal NYSE” vs “NYSE Texas”? What benefits would companies see from listing on NYSE Texas vs the other NYSE?
Well, the assumption is that an acceptable divestiture is going to happen, but these things take time. And yes, TikTok is pretty special to me and has positively impacted my life in a variety of ways.
I don’t think the national security concerns have been well asserted. What’s the specific national security issue, and the evidence of TikTok doing it?
Though most of the comments are about Trump, I’m happy to see TikTok back (for now). I don’t think Trump ignoring the law is the answer or the right way to go about this, but I’ll take it for now if it keeps TikTok around. What’s most shocking to me, whether you think TikTok should be banned or not, is that Congress was so willing to act directly against the interests of more than half of Americans.
You should look at what’s going on in Cancun Mexico with Uber and the taxis right now. Your description in the first sentence is quite accurate.
Your comment also points out the power that regulation has to enforce and protect monopolies. I’m not saying all regulation is bad obviously, but I think we can see exactly what effect it had on the taxi industry, and I’m sure glad that Uber managed to disrupt it.
It’s funny, I’ve never actually used Gemini and, though this may be incorrect, I automatically assume it’s awful. I assume it’s awful because the AI summaries at the top of Google Search are so awful, and that’s made me never give Google AI a chance.
This is super super cool. I’ll tell you the single barrier to me actually using this regularly—it needs an algorithm. It would be so cool (and a good learning project) to even build the simplest of recommendation algorithms behind it based on my likes, dislikes, bookmarks, and whether I click “read more”.
But, the need for reproducible and auditable code will remain. If I take your idea full circle, first we’ll have this committed set of English prompts, then we’ll need to evolve some type of very explicit structure around the prompts to ensure the LLM interprets it exactly in the right way, then we’ll want to make the instructions more efficient and easier to type than a long paragraph of English text, so we’ll create a more condensed markup syntax, and then we’re right back at… a programming language.
In no particular order:
- I learned a new language and moved to a new country, as a direct result of what I saw and learned from TikTok.
- I learned about countless new cultures from all over the world.
- I learned new perspectives about domestic and international politics.
- I met a variety of real, online friends and 3 real life friends who I actually spend time with in person.
- I was able to learn how to express my emotions in better and more constructive ways.
- I learned a ton of random things about every subject matter I can think of—from AI and programming, to psychology, to cooking, to mechanical and electrical engineering, history, medicine, science, etc. As a generalist it’s very important to me, as I’m able to connect information well across diverse subject areas.
- I discovered the majority of the music I listen to these days.
- I started traveling the world, learning how to do it safely and finding new destinations I didn’t previously know anything about.
The list really goes on and on, but these are some of the quick highlights that come to mind. Thanks for asking!
If there’s a genuine interest I’m happy to explain. Reels and shorts are severely different, even from a purely technical and feature-focused standpoint. They lack lack the ability to pause (I think YouTube allows it but reels no) or save to device, and (reels) lacks the wide music catalog that TikTok has. Neither product has a comprehensive video editing platform like TikTok does. Both lack the ability to push timely content and maintain freshness. Reels is fundamentally based on the social graph for recommendations, with some additional signals for things like hashtags. TikTok learns from content itself and recommends based on content. TikTok has a good mix of discovery content as well (I think it’s approximately 10% discovery? Meaning, pushing you things it has no signal on to see if you like it or not, rather than only showing you things you like). Sharing and interacting are incredibly smooth and easy. The ability to stitch videos and do face to face replies, or easily do a video reply to a comment, encourage more face to face two-way conversation.
Aside from the technical features and algorithmic superiority, the community on TikTok is completely different. Have you seen the comment sections on the apps you mention? TikTok has created a beautiful community, and it’s a community that cannot be reached on the other two apps, regardless of their feature set.
Not a content creator, but a TikTok user for several years. I really feel like the app changed my life. It opened my world to new cultures and ideas, brought me out of my comfort zone, introduced me to several real life friends. I made big changes in my life as a direct result of TikTok and have improved my life and health significantly as a result. I’ll be really sad to see it go.
It’s really not, not even close to the same. The algorithm is really, really bad compared to TikTok. You can’t pause videos, can’t download them, can’t use copyrighted music, the comments are awful and full of bullying and hate and anger. It doesn’t have the powerful tools to actually edit your videos. It doesn’t have the community. Instagram reels just feels like a bad copy of TikTok. It’s also not timely; on TikTok you see things as they happen. News arrives instantly. Stitching enables two way conversations. Everything on Instagram is just recycled crap from two weeks ago on TikTok. I only use instagram to talk to people really; the actual content doesn’t do anything for me.
These days I wonder if Google is really the example to follow. There was a time 10 or 15 years ago where Google seemed to be leading the industry in everything, and I feel like a lot of people still think they do when it comes to engineering culture. These days I tend to see Google as a bit of a red flag on a resume, and I have a set of questions I ask to make sure they didn’t drink too much of the koolaid. Perhaps more importantly, when I look at Google from the outside these days, I see that their products have really gone downhill in terms of quality. I see Google Search riddled with spam, I see Gemini struggling to keep up with OpenAI, Google Chat trying to keep up with Slack but missing the mark, Nest being stagnant, I could go on and on. All this to say that I don’t think Google is the North Star that it used to be in terms of guiding engineering culture throughout the industry.