christianbryant

Joined 14 years ago

Karma
1,636
Submissions
400
Member since
May 19
View on Hacker News

Recent submissions

Comment · 4 months ago
As an Emacs user since the Nineties and holder of the view that Emacs _is_ my operating system, I simply can't relate to this on any level.

Now, I won't discriminate against the segment of the industry moving in this direction, but ask yourselves this question: Where is my personal power over my environment, over my code, and do I have the freedom to modify my work and the hardware I do it upon as I see fit? The model proposed and the assertion of the inevitable disappearance of the IDE and personal workspace is done with no consideration of those questions, or the psychology and methodologies of the experienced software engineer.

Of course, the points relating to security and environment stability are problems we all face, but they are also problems that have simple solutions within the existing software development ecosystem. And, I must say, if human verification and "fit for use" validation is not part of this process, then the flaws go beyond psychology and the freedom to tinker.

Comment · 4 months ago
Comment · 4 months ago
Reading the article from the perspective of a non-mathematician the line that rang true for me was "I realized they derived joy, satisfaction, and meaning from the long journey toward understanding." My eldest child loves math and her whole life has been chaos except when she is solving math problems. I see that human element in science and I know deep down we need that.

I've been in the software industry for 30 years and I understand that sentiment perfectly on a personal level. However, also having used ChatGPT for the first time this year to help solve a technical problem, I was surprised to learn that feeling didn't go away. In fact, it was because I leaned on my experience and technical understanding to get to the point where I realized I needed help that I decided to try a new tool. I didn't feel any shame or disappointment in myself, rather I felt excited to learn something new that came out of the solution. It sent me on a new path of learning.

Now, that was research and not implementation. While plenty of code options were presented by ChatGPT, I analyzed the solution and educated myself from it. My final fix looked very different from the proposal because I do things a certain way, based on experience and learning from my many mistakes. In this scenario I was the secondary verification. My peers the tertiary. AI made the proposal, humans did the verification and could not have done so without cumulative knowledge and experience.

I have to assume that all fields utilizing AI will remain as they have always been, human education and experience will come first no matter what the tools available, because we are the ones impacted by the data produced by AI. As many math-oriented commenters here have already noted, human verification is a necessity and to do that, you must understand the discipline within which the data is being produced.

Personally, the idea of reaching solutions in math and computing (for example) exponentially beyond human capacity is exciting; I want certain answers before I die! But it still must be human-verified and the solutions should be for humans, not for machines, and not for "time to market". Repositories full of unvetted AI-generated code is bad enough, but once you start engineering structures, spacecraft and medicine strictly with AI, well...

Comment · 4 months ago
I also appreciate discontinuities and while I won't comment on the data in the paper itself without cross-referencing, I will say that a couple of these examples hold true for me from applied observation over the years. When I was old enough to start caring about insurance for health and property, or became a parent and had to begin forecasting costs for college and what loans really represented, I began looking at observable data much differently. Working in the software industry, you begin to see the complicated systems at work at the C-Level, and the seemingly odd relationships with unrelated organizations start to become clear. Being an educated voter, a discerning consumer of products, and turning a critical eye on world news all require the ability to see processes, their patterns and the discontinuities within them. While there may not always be a useful explanation behind all of them, seeing them in the first place is essential to navigating so-called reality successfully.
Comment · 4 months ago
The overall sentiment expressing the growing gap between software needs and hardware capabilities is sound. This is where FOSS projects shine who put deep thought into providing the same features modern users need into an OS that can intelligently utilize older computing resources. I've been in the industry since the Nineties and it still amazes me how many companies invest so little into backward-compatibility and performance during their OS and application design process.

I've had my Panasonic Toughbook (CF31-5) for almost 10 years and while it's a dinosaur to some, it's a major upgrade from what I had before in terms of portable computing. Its max memory is 16 GiB DDR3 SDRAM on an Intel Core i5-5300U. When I first bought it I tried Debian and Ubuntu, but even back then those ran slow. I installed Xubuntu and have run that ever since with no performance issues whatsoever.

Because I primarily use Emacs and TeX tools, writing Elisp and LaTeX, the system is more than enough for me. I've not played graphics-heavy games, run GPU-intensive UI or done any heavy data plotting. However, one benchmark I do have: I am able use the test automation framework required for my day job with ease. I run that software on Xubuntu because on my work-provided systems (Windows 11 and macOS Tahoe) the application crawls and is practically unusable.

Comment · 4 months ago
Bedrock is the only Emacs "customization" project I've actually tried out since my GNU Emacs journey started in the Nineties. I am very simple in my setup and it was only in 2018 I started trying packages that I never used before to create some modes to manage tasks at work that dealt with commercial testing tools. It forced me to evaluate my init.el in ways I never imagined (which was, to be fair, getting unmanageable from decades of use). It was only this year I jumped onto System Crafters and saw the great work being done there by Guix hackers whose work I follow, and discovered Bedrock in the process. I'm still trying to navigate how it will best serve me but it has definitely changed my perspective from blindly updating a single file for all my many custom .el hacks and thinking more responsibly about how I code and how I manage my work environment. I highly recommend Bedrock to first-time or new-ish Emacs users who feel overwhelmed or who need a little organization in their environment. I particularly like the UI enhancements and have been using Avy for the first time. I'm already writing some code around Avy for a new mode and it seems to be the package I've been looking for. Even if you're a greybeard hacker like me Bedrock will be a great addition to your toolkit.
Comment · 2 years ago
This open access study presents an application-specific instruction set processor (ASIP) design for the Kyber, Saber, and NewHope algorithms based on transport triggered architecture (TTA). While PQC algorithms are being standardized, one of the most critical issues is the development of efficient hardware architectures for them. Creating customized instruction set architectures (ISAs) is essential to ensure these algorithms can be used practically, especially in embedded systems.
Comment · 2 years ago
The COVID-19 pandemic shows us how crucial patient empowerment can be in the healthcare ecosystem. Now, we know that scientific advancement, technology integration, and patient empowerment need to be orchestrated to realize future smart health technologies. In that effort, this paper unravels the Good (advantages), Bad (challenges/limitations), and Ugly (lacking patient empowerment) of the blockchain technology integration in the Electronic Health Record (EHR) paradigm in the existing healthcare landscape.
Comment · 7 years ago
Comment · 8 years ago
Even Kurzweil's updated ideas and projections in The Singularity is Near from around 2005 still make assumptions of humanity having a longer technology maturation period than 100 years. I actually have the same opinion as you when it comes to our time left if we can't make some global changes; it bums me out, having two girls who are not even in High School yet.

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton