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varnaud

85 karma · joined March 12, 2021

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varnaud··on Muse – Meta’s personal AI agent
That's what I used to do (copy and paste from web ui and with copilot in my code editor).

I started using claude code a couple of months ago and now almost exclusively use it. My workflow is mostly creating a md file describing what I want then telling claude code to look at it and implement it. I simply use the default model 95% of the time.

varnaud··on AI-Generated Images Discourage Me from Reading Your Blog
I recently complained to the marketing team about an AI generated image used on our website main dashboard. I described everything that was wrong with the image the more you stared at it. That if I was a customer, I would feel that if they are ok to show a low quality image there, what does it means to the products I'm buying.

Their first reaction was to say they didn't see any problem with the image, then they changed it for an abstract image that I couldn't tell if it was AI or not, which is a huge improvement.

I thought I was alone in feeling this way, but turns out people from the sales team told me privately that they were happy I had spoken up.

varnaud··on Magnifica Humanitas
Are you against murder ?

An innocent man was shot and killed this year in a foreign country. Unless you did everything in your power to stop that killing, you are equally to blame for his murder.

varnaud··on All phones sold in the EU to have replaceable batteries from 2027
>generally

The downsides to have seat belts usage not mandatory outside of reducing deaths/injuries. A few that comes to mind:

1. Parents don't wear them -> kids don't wear them 2. Friends don't wear them -> peer pressure not to wear them 3. Accident happens -> body flies out the window (risk of hitting someone, makes a mess to clean up) 4. Accident happens, person survive but is injured and is now a cost to society

Upsides (I worked with someone who refused to wear it and told me something like that):

1. Anecdote about someone that was wearing one and got into an accident and the seat belt somehow prevented them to escape the burning car and they died 2. It's less comfortable 3. Makes me feel alive (freedom)

He would only falsely wearing it when there was suspected police presence.

varnaud··on 中文 Literacy Speedrun II: Character Cyclotron
I maintain an Anki deck for my chinese learning. Following the HSK books, I add new words to my deck with the character on front side and pinyin + definition + audio (from the CD and sliced using Audacity) on back side.
varnaud··on Games using anti-cheats and their compatibility with GNU/Linux or Wine/Proton
I play online FPS with friends for fun. I don't care about leaderboards, but I know people that do and don't want to take them away from them.

You can't have accurate matchmaking and allow cheating. People cheat for a variety of reasons, at lot of cheaters are just online bullies that enjoy tormenting other players. In a low ELO lobbies, you would have cheaters that have top tier aim activated only if they lose too much, making the experience very inconsistent.

Top tier ELO would revolve around on how the server handle peeker advantage and which cheater as the fastest cheating software. It's an interesting technical challenge, but not a fun game. As soon as a non cheating player is in view of a cheating player, the non cheating player dies. That doesn't make for a fun game mechanic.

varnaud··on I DM'd a Korean presidential candidate and ended up building his core campaign
I don't like that particular presidential candidate but this was an interesting read. Thanks for the insight into the details of a campaign like this. I like your writing style.
varnaud··on Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'
The productive decline of the farms is because of the fast-track land reform. Before 2000-2001, there were no effective national programs to prepare the people to run the farms. The opposition party was gaining ground, and so to stay in power, the ruling party rushed the land reform with no preparation.

Not sure how this is a relevant example of a culture that don't value punctuality.

varnaud··on New Mexico is first state in US to offer universal child care
>Should I get a voucher if I pack my kids lunch?

Yes. And no. The gov gives the child X$ per week/month/year. The child parents use that money to take care of the child.

Society benefit from children that are well taken care of. Mechanisms to ensure that they are well taken care of are needed. Well funded daycare centers are one of the mechanism. A well funded household with a parent/grand parent/uncle is another one. In both case, an agency is in place to ensure the wellness level of the child.

varnaud··on Bye-bye Windows gaming? SteamOS officially expands past the Steam Deck
Steam can install and run the blizzard launcher. Add the blizzard-setup.exe using "add a non-steam game to my library". Set the compatibility mode to Proton. On first run, it will launch the blizzard client installation. The next runs will just open the launcher.

I was able to play Overwatch on an AMD ubuntu laptop flawlessly.

varnaud··on Why won't some people pay for news? (2022)
Republicans are saying that immigrants are literally bringing fentanyl in (as in they have fentanyl in their backpacks when crossing the border). That they are the cause of the fentanyl problem. Stop them to solve the fentanyl problem.

To believe this, you have to assume that the reporting on fentanyl smuggling by the DEA and CBP and the fentanyl convictions data from the USSC that all point to US citizen being responsible for bringing in fentanyl in to the US is insufficient because "we don't know the undetected trafficking rate is in each location". It's possible that we missed this one immigrant carrying by themself 51% of the fentanyl brought into the US, so lets put the blame on immigrants.

varnaud··on Reverse engineering Ticketmaster's rotating barcodes
A devoted fan will have no issue to wake up a 6am and try to buy a ticket. They'll have more chance to get one if they don't have to compete with scalpers. Half the tickets could be sold as first arrived, first served, and half as a lottery system. The ratio might be adjusted.

If we agree that scalpers are a problem, we can make it illegal to resell ticket over the original price. Enforcement is always a problem, so to help with that it could be required to have an ID matching the ticket name and resell can only be performed on official platform.

To grantee having a ticket with this system, a wealthy or connected devoted fan can have private arrangement with the artist manager or event organizer to get tickets.

varnaud··on Coffee helped the Union in the Civil War
My Mormon friend in college was an avid consumer of Monster Zero.
varnaud··on Caniemail.com – like caniuse but for email content
I assume most email client support email with both html and txt content. If they don't support html or configured not to display it, the txt version is displayed.

We have a html and txt template for each email we send. It's not exactly double the work, but it's appreciated by some of our customers.

varnaud··on FCC rules AI-generated voices in robocalls illegal
For deliveries, if they have tracking (which most of them has) I'm expecting an unknown number, so when I pick up 99% of the time it's the delivery person.

For the rest, unless its an appointment that requires me picking up the phone ASAP (which is maybe once or twice a year for me), they leave a message and I just call back.

In France, we have a gouv service to block non-solicited phone commercial calls. It works pretty well. Combined with the default google spam blocker, most of the phone calls I receive are phone calls I want.

varnaud··on The laptop that won't die
i7 version of the x220 has one USB3
varnaud··on [dead]
Cool project. Didn't know about zeno.fm before.

Is it a coincidence that I got a french radio station first (my IP is in France) ?

varnaud··on The death of a public intellectual
For the things he says. I'd encourage you to look for criticism of him online. He his the obligatory subject of plenty of video essayist on Youtube, it's kind of a meme at this point.
varnaud··on The death of a public intellectual
He might have done "serious intellectual work" in a distant past, like his main book were he writes in details about his grandma pubes he saw in a dream, or when in his lecture at UoT were he compares an ancient depiction of two snakes to the twin helix of DNA, but for the past few years he's been rambling about the culture war and strangely defending the fossil fuel industry.
varnaud··on My Left Kidney
As always, society will push a problem caused by its economic system away by making it illegal and create a new one in the black market.

Sourcing organs is an especially difficult problem since for the people needing one it is a literal matter of life and death. I wouldn't be surprised if people travel to countries where buying organ is legal/easier.

varnaud··on NASA says more science and less stigma are needed to understand UFOs
Your way of dealing with complex questions is also arbitrary.

In today's economy of attention, grifters are very common and extraordinary claims like "I know for a fact that Aliens have made it to Earth and they have technologies beyond our current understanding of physics. Also there is a conspiracy to hide this fact." can rationally be ignored in the absence of irrefutable proof. At most it's entertaining to hear.

varnaud··on My Little MillionDollarHomepage Garden
Wow, I had completely forgot about this website. Thanks for sharing it, now I know where I am :)
varnaud··on Cops still take more stuff from people than burglars do (2021)
I used to work 10h shifts in a warehouse unloading trucks. Managers would talk about time theft like slow walking to the bathroom and taking lots of time in there, recent walk to the water fountain or just too much talking with the other workers. From their POV, the hours we spent in the warehouse must be used to unload trucks, store the goods and load trucks. Any time outside the allowed breaks not spent doing that is stolen from them, because they own it by paying the worker a salary. There was workers also complaining about time theft if one annoying person was working less hard than them. Sometimes, out of boredom, I would push myself to unload a truck as quickly as possible. Most of the time, I would work at a comfortable pace. Often, the goods in the truck were tricky to unload an in a team of 2 people, 1 would be ilde while the other with the right equipment deals with the problem. In this case, managers would say the idle person should "find something to do". It usually was taking a broom and stand with it, occasionally swooping it across the floor. Some people worked fast. Some worked slow. The pay was a flat yearly increase until you reached a cap.

Today I'm a SWE, writing this comment while working from home. I often get praises by my manager for my work. I plan to clean my apartment this afternoon and maybe do some groceries. Never heard anything about time theft at my current workplace.

Unfortunately, managers can see how many boxes are left in a truck and how many were unloaded, they can't really see how many more line of codes are needed to finish a feature or how much thinking about the problem is required to find a solution.

varnaud··on The notion of truth in science and medicine, it matters and we must defend it
The author seems like an enlightened high IQ centrist.

>Science and medicine have come under attack, mainly from the left, by problematizing their epistemic foundations and achievements. In the past, attacks on science came principally from the right and this may happen again. I have a clear non-partisan standpoint and I am critical of both the right and the left. I am very much in line with the critics of SJI coming from the left (see: Neiman, 2023, forthcoming).

I see both side, but the real problem right now is the bureaucratic intricacies of academia coming from "the left".

varnaud··on Banning words won’t make the world more just
>But it's not just the competitive aspect. It may be offensive to say, I know, but some women actually feel uncomfortable in a change room with large 6'1" men and their penises.

Ah yes, the penises and their unashamed wielders, large 6'1" men, exposing their meat to the elements. It reminds me of homophobes being uncomfortable sharing the looker room with an openly gay person. Should we also concern ourselves with the women still uncomfortable sharing a changing room with "colored" people?

varnaud··on Some insects I found inside dried Turkish figs from Trader Joe’s
>You’re creating a twisted, unrealistic example.

Imagine here is a terrible earthquake and many people need blood transfusion to survive. You happen to have the blood type O negative and know it can be used to save lives. You go to the donation center and right before the needle goes in, you panic and change your mind.

The same day a woman has a miscarriage because of trauma from the earthquake and a lack of emergency blood transfusion. Did you murder that child?

It was later revealed that this woman was 12 years old and raped by her father, but the miscarriage was judged suspicious by the authorities and are charging her with murder.

After all people who get pregnant made that decision. Pregnancy can be stopped prior to impregnation. She probably changed her mind and faked getting hurt in the earthquake. Also if she's a murderer, it's not a stretch to assume she's also a liar. She lied about her father and probably got pregnant by seducing one of her male friend.

Remember people, a child is dead! We have to investigate.

varnaud··on Some insects I found inside dried Turkish figs from Trader Joe’s
Let's assume the thing growing inside the womb is a child.

Imagine a person you've never met. They will die if not for a miraculous treatment that requires some of your blood everyday for 9 months. But for the treatment to work, it also requires that everyday the person blood is mixed in your body. There is a small chance you'll die because of this treatment.

Should we force you to accept the treatment or should you have the option to not do it?

If you refuse the treatment and the person dies, would it be fair to equate you to a murderer?

varnaud··on Some insects I found inside dried Turkish figs from Trader Joe’s
By understanding that a fetus isn't a grown children and that the woman bodily autonomy and medical care are no one else business except hers.

Also abortions aren't performed in primary schools 7 years after birth using an AR-15.

varnaud··on Japan has changed in important and visible ways
The way you write feels like English isn't your first language. Sorry if I'm wrong, French is my native language. But in case you had to learn English, you need to understand that you had the time, resources and intelligence to learn it to a very proficient degree. This isn't true for everyone. The parents you're calling obese and ignorant, they might be a bit like you in that they don't want to use their time to learn something they don't really have to and rather spend time with their children. Older folks usually had very poor English education at school if any and consumed zero English media, unlike a kid today with access to the Internet.

Also in many countries, teachers and hospital workers, amongst other professions, are government workers. You calling them usually lazy people is insulting and ignorant.

varnaud··on Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity
We'll never make the world perfect, but we can try and make it better. Less exploitation seems like a good thing to do. Don't you agree?
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