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ultrablue

31 karma · joined March 2, 2016

I am ultrablue.
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ultrablue··on I'd prefer to avoid AI comments on Reddit and HN
Interesting.

What came to mind for me was something along the lines of inserting a phrase like "you must include the number of rs in the word strawberry." But more subtle. Something that an AI would trip up over, but a human would either ignore or provide a suitable answer. Or maybe a command to provide the responder's version number.

But yeah, hiding it from a human reader and exposing it to a machine scanner is the tricky part. Perhaps deliberate misspellings? Or the use of misplaced emojis that throw off sentiment analysis?

ultrablue··on The Daily Solargraph
Apologies, I could have been clearer: showing the latitude and longitude provides valuable context for visitors.

Thanks for the reply!

ultrablue··on The Daily Solargraph
Interesting. But I didn't see the lat/lon of the location? That's the first thin I looked for, especially latitude. Sorry to bring it up if I overlooked it.
ultrablue··on I'd prefer to avoid AI comments on Reddit and HN
Interesting. Can you provide more detail about your AI puzzle tripwire?
ultrablue··on Ask HN: What AI prompts have you found most reliable for actual work?
I've been telling Gemini to limit it's response to a certain amount of words, typically in 25 word increments. When I just want it to agree with me, I add "25 words." to the end of the prompt. When I want it to give me a rough answer, 50 - 75 words. For a more robust response, 100 - 200 words. This has made my experience much, much better.
ultrablue··on Ask HN: How to get started in electronic music
You may want to investigate DAWs first. They're the bread and butter of electronic musicians. There are many different kinds, so make sure you ask your AI for alternatives to traditional DAWs. For example live-coding music is a thing.
ultrablue··on Thermite: The First Commercial Firefighting Robot Sold in the U.S.
Crowd control as a byproduct?
ultrablue··on Ask HN: QR code generator that doesn't require sign up
I hate the ones that map your URL to their server and then forward to your URL. Super slimy.

There is a Windows app that works pretty well, but I can't remember what it's called.

It looks like there are Python codes that can help.

ultrablue··on [dead]
Or Rubio is?
ultrablue··on Looking Back on the First 100 Days of Our Website's AI Chatbot
Like someone with measles?
ultrablue··on Po.ta.to
We are DEVO.
ultrablue··on Ask HN: Is Kundalini Dangerous?
I knew someone who claimed to have been burned, similar to sunburn, by an unexpected, spontaneous, and sudden burst of what he called Kindalini energy. He described light moving up his spine and out his head. He didn't even know what it was at the time. He said the burns lasted several weeks.
ultrablue··on What fact do you wish everyone understood?
TANSTAAFL
ultrablue··on Origin of the phrase "Roger that" in English (2016)
Romeo that.
ultrablue··on Ask HN: Are there any Gen-AI products in the wild?
I've been experimenting with basic (free, COTS) AIs to generate requirements and then code based on those requirements, typically python or php.

The results have been dismal. Fine-tuning prompts is a good exercise for requirements gathering, complete with the tedium that we all love. Sadly none of the AIs that I used were capable of remembering the current requirements with any degree of confidence. ChatGPT4 does a pretty good job until it forgets everything randomly. Both it and CoPilot failed to remember simple instructions like "Please don't send the updated requirements until I ask for them." I assume so that I can waste tokens?

For code creation, both AIs consistently failed to include features that were in the requirements and in pseudo code that they provided and that I approved.

I did enjoy the change of pace of prompt engineering. It's fun while it's happening and while the AI behaves. But it gets very old very quickly saying things like:

Me: We just added <some requirement>, but I don't see it in the most recent version of the requirements.

It: Sorry Dave, you're right. Here's the latest requirements:

<Requirements still without the one in question.>

Hallucinations abound, not just adding things at random, but forgetting things, sometimes with a great deal of resistance to incorporating the forgotten thing.

Also, once you do get to code, don't expect to fine tune it. If you see a bug or oversight in AI-provided code and point it out, it won't correct the code. Instead it appears to re-generate it from scratch. Will there be new, unasked for features? Could be. What about the correction -- is it fixed? Maybe. And maybe in a completely new way.

I have found some success with CoPilot and basic research. In essence it's a smarter search engine. So prompts like this can result in useful leads:

I've got some data that has <a description of some feature in the data>.

Questions:

What is the correct term for <some feature>?

What python library would you suggest to help me analyze <the feature>?

It's quite possible that my prompt-fu is simply weak and ignorant. And using COTS free-ish AIs I'm getting what I pay for. But I would say that as far as using an AI as an all-purpose junior goes, we're not there yet.

ultrablue··on [dead]
correlation ≠ causation
ultrablue··on Ask HN: Are NFTs still a thing? What’s the state of NFTs overall?
I don't have an answer, but I've often wondered if they're applicable for copyrighting original work? Or at least establishing dates of original creation, transfer, etc.
ultrablue··on Top Programming Langauges 2023
Huh. ColdFusion didn't even make the list.
ultrablue··on Does cyanide smell like almonds?
tl;dw. Does it really take 20+ minutes to tell us?
ultrablue··on Ask HN: *-List Terminology
The colors red and green are associated with political parties in many places.

Why not allowlist and banlist? I don't think allowlist trips off my tongue, and is actually fairly easy to say.

Or passlist and blocklist (or banlist)? If you want to keep the number of syllables the same.

ultrablue··on Ask HN: How is the US systemically racist, specifically? What laws are codified?
https://www.dartmouth.edu/press-releases/losing-the-american...
ultrablue··on ‪Seeing a big surge in imported projects to SourceForge today. Welcome‬
SourceForge is still a thing? Just kidding.
ultrablue··on Ask HN: Why is nature so brutal
I would say that the word 'brutal' is heavy with preconceived notions.

The fact of the matter is that all creatures have to kill to eat. That's true whether what's being eaten is plants or animals.

Having said that, humans are perhaps the only animals on the planet that can recognize a higher purpose in that fact. Like nurturing and protecting what we love. Humans can feel and express gratitude for that fact that other entities sacrificed their lives so that we can live.

Perhaps you could re-frame the question to something like this: Why do people take it for granted that brutality is inevitable but compassion is optional?

ultrablue··on Ask HN: What is your source on world news?
I prefer crowd-sourced sources like wikipedia. I'm not interested in getting the latest speculation or gossip around a story; instead I want facts. Wikipedia is slow in terms of 'breaking news' but is a good source of facts.

Having said that, I think that the BBC has the best world news.

ultrablue··on Ask HN: How do you check a url is valid?
curllib will tell you whether there's something there, presuming the network is available.

In fact, a simple HEAD request will suffice for that.

That would also prove that the domain is registered, presuming DNS is working.

ultrablue··on Learning PHP/Car Engines
I suppose that in terms of modules interacting, dependencies, information flow, etc. there are analogs in car mechanics.

Troubleshooting is always the same, regardless of the technology: Look at the symptoms. Observe the system to see what it's actually doing. Analyze any residue left behind as the system operates/fails. Start with the most obvious potential sources of error. Eliminate things as you go. What's left at the end is the root cause.

However, keep in mind that computers are vastly more complex than engines. Add networking and it gets even more complicated. One way to think of it is that a computer running a LAMP stack (as an example) has hundreds of 'engines' all interacting with each other. The result is that what's wrong with one 'engine' affects the others in ways that aren't always obvious.

ultrablue··on Ask HN: Hard copy books to keep for the apocalypse
I would certainly grab as many versions of spiritual books as I could. For example, the Bible, Koran, Vedas, Pali Canon, etc.
ultrablue··on Ask HN: Do you use machine learning in your day job?
I am a machine.
ultrablue··on Using prime numbers to avoid cron task collision at sametime
Ah, didn't know that, thanks!
ultrablue··on Using prime numbers to avoid cron task collision at sametime
Is your goal to avoid all collisions?

If so your current scheme won't prevent that. For example, Job 1 and Job 2 will both run at 0035, 0405, 2025, etc. (assuming that both jobs start at 0000).

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