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willsmith72

2,158 karma · joined June 15, 2022

Snowboarding, Denver Nuggets, willsmithte.com
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willsmith72··on It's not just obesity. Drugs like Ozempic will change the world
Or... Non-obese people average better mental health than obese people.

That article is all just correlation. Which cause is more likely?

willsmith72··on Notes on the new Claude analysis JavaScript code execution tool
This is a great step, but to me not very useful until the move out of context. Still I'm high on anthropic and happy gen ai didn't turn into a winner-take-all market like everyone predicted in 2021.
willsmith72··on Why I'm leaving OpenAI and what I'm doing next
I never get it when people say something like "they're leaving because their stock vested".

Every big tech employee I know gets refresher stocks every year. Except for the first 2 years at some companies (looking at you Amazon), every year you are vesting significant stock, and whenever you leave, you're walking away from at least 3 years unvested. 4 years is like 5 which is like 6

willsmith72··on Why does everyone run ancient Postgres versions?
older versions can also mean deprecated packages everyone's too scared to touch, failure to invest in maintenance and tech debt reduction, or use of old technologies which stopped receiving security updates
willsmith72··on React on the server is not PHP
Define "slow". You shouldn't have to cache every page on your website just to get decent performance. Sounds like something else is wrong.

If your site is in any way dynamic, you won't be able to cache much anyway

willsmith72··on React on the server is not PHP
well of course, but no matter what you do a "server" takes increased load as traffic increases (maybe it's just cheaper and simpler if it's a managed cdn)

you always have the option with react on the server of returning a minimal skeleton and client rendering the rest. the point is you can make those decisions case-by-case

willsmith72··on React on the server is not PHP
what do you mean by performance issues like pre-warming caches? you mean with other backend frameworks you wouldn't have the same issues? or with clientside-only rendering?
willsmith72··on Show HN: Open-source real-time talk-to-AI wearable device for few $
I still use text most of the time (technical or complex problems, copy pasting materials...), but for things like language learning or getting answers while commuting/walking, voice is a no-brainer.
willsmith72··on Show HN: Open source framework OpenAI uses for Advanced Voice
That was cool, but got up to $1 usage real quick
willsmith72··on Pivotal Tracker will shut down
I miss it every time I review a behemoth PR, or another engineer proposes a giant design change in a PR.

Those discussions need to happen earlier

willsmith72··on Pivotal Tracker will shut down
Noooo I use tracker for everything. There's no project management software like it in simplicity and function. You'll be missed
willsmith72··on Everyone says Chrome devastates Mac battery life, but does it? 36 hour test
"A representative sample is a subset of a population that seeks to accurately reflect the characteristics of the larger group"

youtube is always in the top 5 for most time spent and visits. "representative" of the typical web user certainly includes youtube

willsmith72··on Tesla has taken down 2016 release noting full self driving hardware capability
Just let them have the land this time.

Surely they'll settle for that, and never push their borders again.

willsmith72··on Show HN: AI Tool Is Now Supporting React, Angular, CSS, Svelte, Vue
Depends on your motive. I enjoy the "art" of programming, but I enjoy even more using it to build cool stuff, make companies happy, start side projects or even businesses.

I've not seen any indication an AI legitimately replacing software engineering, rather enhancing it perhaps resulting in the need for fewer engineers for the same work. Even as an engineer that's a huge win.

The role is less coding, more engineering. I suppose if the "craft" is the coding part, you're right it may need defending, but to me that's not the craft

willsmith72··on Is a 'slow' swimming pool impeding world records?
It is if the only data is lack of world records, and mixed opinions from experts (per the article)
willsmith72··on Alexa is in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions
Why is that so simple? I've had online bank accounts, calendars and emails for many years now, but I still can't do a "text search" across all of them. Isn't the LLM the easy part? How do you link and connect all the different systems you interact with?
willsmith72··on Will Figma become an awkward middle ground?
Exactly. It's a dreamland where frontend styling is completely decoupled from logic and behaviour. Sounds good for a 2005 web designer.
willsmith72··on Will Figma become an awkward middle ground?
That's just bad designing. Good designers use the Figma equivalent of flexboxes and develop responsible designs.

How is this react related? You could always write crappy css. A team creating non responsive react apps would not create responsive non-react apps

willsmith72··on Will Figma become an awkward middle ground?
Hard disagree here. Are you writing production code, or are you building mockups/prototypes?

I don't want non software engineers touching production code. It's too hard, and the depth of skillset for a product/UX designer is already huge.

If you find css and js faster for prototyping and mockups, then sure. I'm doubtful and still yet to see that work in the wild.

willsmith72··on Why Llama 3.1 is Important
This is competing with 4o not 4o mini, right?
willsmith72··on How fast can a human possibly run 100 meters?
\_(ツ)_/¯

the writer of the article could have just as easily predicted an epic slowdown as infinite growth. that's how much evidence and reasoning they provided. it's the monkey throwing darts

willsmith72··on How fast can a human possibly run 100 meters?
> Things like economies can't grow like that

says who?

if i were born and living in the 1500s, how could i predict the economy would soon grow 10%/year for over a century?

you're just stating things like facts which have never been predictable. nothing about our current growth was inevitable, neither is a gigantic slowdown.

i think these kinds of predictions are:

1. far more difficult than we realise

2. so difficult that there is almost no value in making them.

willsmith72··on How fast can a human possibly run 100 meters?
I was reading this carefully looking for the reason of "why this can't go on", and seemingly this is the reason

> if the economy were 3*1070 times as big as today's, and could only make use of 1070 (or fewer) atoms, we'd need to be sustaining multiple economies as big as today's entire world economy per atom

What kind of argument is that? Sounds like someone had an idea and went looking for evidence to support it.

> mathematically we can prove that it must happen eventually

Please explain, and not using a reasoning comparing dollars to atoms

willsmith72··on Show HN: A source-available billing system I've spent 18 months building
My German friend's recommendation:

We can read english quite well.

willsmith72··on Parse, Don't Validate (2019)
this reminds me of a team i worked in which had very few unit tests, and compensated with in-depth complex type systems

comprehensive test coverage meets the same goal, and TDD looks a lot like "type-driven design", only easier to read and maintain.

willsmith72··on Why is Sweden paying grandparents to babysit?
i love it. i know many grandparents who do at least 1 day of babysitting, and of course they love it and would never take money from their kids. in saying that, it's tiring work, especially depending on their age/mobility/condition. if this is what gets an extra parent working a couple more days, i love the idea of keeping the money in the family.
willsmith72··on Ask HN: Struggling with poor memory and executive function. What to do?
I love this one. The outrage I would feel reading people's extreme tweets (not political necessarily, just hyper argumentative) was addictive for me, and simultaneously kept me wired. I thought it was worth it to keep up on the latest of tech, news, sports, whatever, but cutting it out helped my mind get to a FAR slower pace. It's crazy what fomo can put you through
willsmith72··on Just Be Rich (2021)
yes, philosophically and by the vibes, we are in complete agreement. clearly inequality is growing, clearly that is bad.

but you're doing a disservice with completely bogus claims like "incomes for lower and middle-class families have fallen since the 80s". it only makes it harder to talk about the real issues and facts, because why would the other side stick to them now? the trust between sides gets further eroded and the gap widens

there's enough real data that we don't have to start making stuff up. the author could have easily pointed to housing instead like you. i think it's actually extremely important to get these facts right. enough to argue about on an internet forum on a sunday evening

willsmith72··on Just Be Rich (2021)
let's just do away with any attempt at sticking to the facts, and stick to the vibe of the thing.

to me, you are doing the nitpicking. picking 2001 was generous, the growth is far greater if you look back to the 80s.

willsmith72··on Just Be Rich (2021)
Is this the best example? It looks like France's dept to gdp is significantly lower than the US (110% vs 122%)
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