rpdillon

Joined 19 years ago

Karma
6,780
Submissions
2,274
Member since
Aug 14
Here for all the curious folks I can chat with about the latest news! I love programming, manage software teams by day, and stay close to the tech by night because that's what I love.

Feel free to email me (spam armored): [email protected]

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Recent submissions

Comment · 7 hours ago
Yep, trash headline.

> The free version, called Subvox, doesn't read speech muscles. It reads the head-motion data AirPods already collect, then matches your jaw and head movements against words you have trained it on. The instructions suggest five words, ten times each. It has no language model and it publishes no accuracy score.

> So it won't take dictation. One critic said it "would fall apart with open vocabulary," and that sounds right to me.

Comment · 7 hours ago
She was explicitly repositioning herself to stay in the way of the robot and prevent it from making forward progress despite its efforts to move around her. She's not just standing there.
Comment · 8 hours ago
Dang has spoken about this at some length in interviews, but the critical element is whether or not we're all seeing the same thing or not. HN is special in the world of social media because the front page is the same for everyone. That makes it quite a bit different than other social media sitesfolks mention (Twitter, Bluesky, Facebook, Insta). It means the algorithm can be tweaked for engagement (like demoting stories that have more comments than upvotes), but that you can't optimize per-visitor, but instead across the whole population. That one simple feature makes a world of difference, in my opinion.
Comment · 1 day ago
This is such an interesting take. Upthread, there's a discussion about how the policy isn't really what the policy says, and that if you read between the lines, it really does allow AI use. And here's the opposite take, that the policy really does mean what it says, and if you're "reading between the lines" you're being anti-social. This is why making the CoC very clear is a good use of time!
Comment · 1 day ago
A Code of Conduct is a communication tool to align a community around expected behaviors. Having to "read between the lines" to understand the real policy behind a CoC is a serious bug. I agree with sibling comments that say this is a case where clarification is needed.

I care, because my personal policy is "Do whatever, but if you submit the code, you own it, and you better be able to act like you own it." And that's what you're saying their policy means. But that's not what it says, and I in fact strongly disagree with what it says. So the shear between what the words say and the "read between the lines" version is quite literally the difference between a policy I reject outright and a policy I strongly endorse.

Comment · 1 day ago
This is a lot of words to say "The policy doesn't mean what it says". But since they bothered to write a Code of Conduct and commit it to version control, I'm inclined to believe what they wrote. What they wrote is that if you use an LLM to think about a feature, bug, or problem with the project, they don't want to hear from you, regardless.
Comment · 1 day ago
> thoughtful message

The author's tone here is very mature and measured. But the policy is not, and it doesn't seem particularly thoughtful, either. The Code of Conduct says that even using an LLM to explore a problem or idea, and then typing up a comment about your thoughts after doing so is "unwelcome". So it's not dictating where code comes from, or just code and prose, it's dictating how you process your own thoughts and ideas if you want to engage with the project.

Comment · 1 day ago
I doubt this will age well.

> No LLMs for brainstorming and then sharing the results of that brainstorming, even if you create the prose. If you use a chatbot to give you advice on a comment on the issue tracker, that comment is unwelcome.

> No LLMs for finding bugs.

Comment · 1 day ago
There is that streak in American culture, but this particular group seems to think of themselves as our guides ("Elder Brothers").

> Like many other Indigenous tribes, the Kogi honor a holy mountain which they call "Gonawindua," otherwise known as Pico Cristóbal Colón. They believe that this mountain is "The Heart of the World" and they are the "Elder Brothers" who care for it.[12] They also say that the outside civilization is the "Younger Brothers" who were sent away from The Heart of the World long ago.

There's a vaguely Avatar-esque "wisdom of those connected to the planet" vibe to it.

Comment · 2 days ago
Power and responsibility go together. The power to edit needs to be attached to the responsibility of having your name next to those edits. That person's point isn't about ownership at all, it's about attribution.
Comment · 2 days ago
That isn't irony. Paying $200 for a service voluntarily is different than being forced to pay $100 because they made a rule that says you have to pay them $100.
Comment · 2 days ago
> Posts like yours are made, IMX, because people had a bad experience asking a question. If that describes you, feel free to provide a link to the question and I'll be happy to give a detailed explanation of why things went as they did and what the site wanted you to do better in asking it.

This is what killed SO. People were going to the site to get problems solved, not to add to their list of problems.

Comment · 2 days ago
You'll need to examine the timeline to understand that AI didn't exist when SO started declining. SO's decline is entirely self-inflicted.
Comment · 2 days ago
He just explained that that question didn't have an answer. Redirecting people to a question with no answer isn't helpful.
Comment · 2 days ago
> This is wrong.

This is exactly what drove me away. It's basically Pournelle's iron law of bureaucracy. SO got so overrun with people that were dedicated to Maintaining Order that the site itself stopped being useful. I feel like at least half the time I would go visit, the question that brought me there had been marked as a duplicate or closed. Pointing out that the fire hose is mostly low quality doesn't change this.

All those people fighting to keep SO pristine now preside over a kingdom of nothing.

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