> The whole reason for computers to exist is to remove burden from humans.
I wish this were more true. I think Baudrillard is closer to the truth: "If men create intelligent machines ... it is either because they secretly despair of their own intelligence or because they are in danger of succumbing to the weight of a monstrous and useless intelligence which they seek to exorcize by transferring it to machines ... By entrusting this burdensome intelligence to machines we are released from any responsibility to knowledge, much as entrusting power to politicians allows us to disdain any aspiration of our own to power." Intelligence itself is the burden :D
I am in this camp but the downvotes are telling -- there isn't consensus in this community at all -- many find such clanker classification valuable. Some of these folks are growing an anti-AI economy that others, like myself, find odd, distracting and even amusing -- particularly with the universal naiveté of the classification algorithms. I have seen downvotes in these comments from similar criticism but I have points to spare.
I lived in Japan for 5 1/2 years. I slept on a futon in a tatami room in my apartment most nights. I have a getabako (shoe cabinet) at my home in the US that I actually brought back from Japan. I understand the depth of the ritual, and the cultural respect for the home, but my American culture runs more deeply I am afraid, and I can't help but say "Please emergency workers, just leave your shoes on and say 'shitsurei shimasu' (sorry for my rudeness) as you enter the home".
The only thing I hate more than “smart” quotes are “smart” TVs. I groan whenever my LG interrupts. Now I have to spend Labor day wading through a “smart” UI I avoid like the plague to disconnect the internet.
The Paperclip Maximizer is only one of Nick Bostrom's stupid and outlandishly far-fetched ideas. In this case, the lack of consideration for geologic, energy and supply constraints is such a massive facepalm. And if I am wrong I guess no one will be here to say how stupid I was in saying this today.
I am much better at listening to Charli XCX than Fable, and much better at driving a Nissan Leaf than Fable (and much better than Tesla at driving a Tesla).
Surprised to see this upvoted to no. 1 on Hacker News in 2026. I used Audacity as recently as yesterday so I joined in and upvoted too. True that it has now displaced many commercial applications in the same niche.
Keyboard driven UIs are easier to instrument by alternative interfaces and has very positive accessibility implications. However, "shoulds" in computing lead toward a "tyranny of compounding responsibilities"; adding interface complexity to a project, particularly the suggested alternative input vectors may cross an upfront and/or maintenance development cost limit for a project.
This reads as bad propaganda. Surprised that they left the "translated from Chinese" disclaimer. There is the false implication here that the AI companies are somehow tracking down all copies of a particular book and destroying it. AI has spawned a global freak-out.
A less bombastic quote from the cited Doctorow: " AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations". I am a big fan of Cory, but as a developer I tend to think that AI will continue to aid us in refining what we shovel as well as what was once already shoveled -- refining it from a carcinogen into a benign and load-bearing :D foundation. The metaphor is catchy, but may not be apt, unless somehow we unilaterally decide that use of AI itself is the cancer and we all act to eliminate it. I think a dismal fate for OpenAI and Anthropic is likely quite separate from the fate of AI itself, particularly for software development.
First of all, 'prune' is French for 'plum' ('prugna' in Italian). Plums which are suitable for drying are named 'prunes' and even 'prune plums' in English. My tree is an Italian Prune (Prunus domestica) as you half mentioned. Notice that the Latin isn't "Plumus" and is "Prunus". I grew up with Purple Leaf plum trees (Prunus cerasifera). They would rot. I haven't seen fermented Italian Prunes in my yard, even the ones that the squirrels and crows have taken bites out of. You may have figured out by now that only in modern English is the fruit name conflated with the specific dried fruit product. This conflation is the point of my original comment on a narrow interpretation of the word 'seam'.
I am not sure that visitors will spend enough time to get the art. I attempted to give the carrion crow its due, noting 18 legitimate votes. But when I tried to add my rank it landed "the democratic process has collapsed".
This reminds me of an engineer that tried to explain to me that my prune tree in my backyard was in fact a plum tree. All prunes are plums but not all plums are prunes.
Load-bearing is a decidedly load-bearing metaphor for Claude. Fable actually used "money shot" the other day which I found much more hilarious and edgy.
I noticed the scarcity a bit in the last few months. I have been giving them to my dog for years for the low mercury omega 3s -- I even had a veterinarian stamp of approval.
While there are bad engineers, I imagine that teams that have evolved alongside AI and have maintained their size and consistency without adjustment may have structural issues. I would argue that team size counts ought to be smaller now than before Claude. Unfortunately this idea could feed an AI-induced layoff trend, but it could instead lead to product diversification instead.
It absolutely does not absolve them of sin. But let's give them credit where it is due. Open models are a really good thing. Hopefully I won't be lynched by a mob in 3 years for once saying this.
While Zuck's contributions are probably overwhelmingly more negative than positive, Meta initiated both pytorch and llama which have had profoundly positive effects on AI research. And I really am not a fan of python :D
ごちそうさまでした。「gochisousama deshita」 This can be said to the cook. I heard "いただきます！"「itadakimasu」more frequently for a variety of reasons. But it is common to shout out to thank the cook when you leave a restaurant. I became comfortable doing it myself.
Money is deep on both "sides". It didn't help Harris to have the most either. But you can't deny that some political steerage toward donor agendas occurs.
Caps Lock is such a tragic throwback. Even after decades of ridicule "Caps lock is cruise control for cool" keyboard designers don't get that we don't want it.
I actually like the number font, the presence, but the loss of visibility for the shifted symbols is a huge loss. I know where the numbers are -- I admittedly need more reminding for the symbols as I never explicitly practiced them. The muscle memory for them isn't quite as strong and in low light I need to see them.