• 2 Posts
  • 428 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 2nd, 2023

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  • I have found LLMs are good for getting your bearings and overall idea in place. I just used it for an overview of ESPHome for a specific LED I am trying to program a sunrise effect. It got me some wrong pseudocode, but did in fact point me in the direction of where to go to flash and what to do to compile the yaml file, and the relevant documentation for what I was trying to achieve. And the wrong pseudocode was actually a useful starting point to get a feel for the syntax.

    It’s a useful tool. But it can totally talk you out of good ideas and make you feel like you explored all options when it has absolutely not.






  • Not sure about this. People told me I would not be able to learn piano as an adult, but after 5 years of playing 15 - 30 minutes per night I feel like I am about as good as a child or teenager who put in the same amount of time. I am starting to see how people can sight read at full speed (vs me for an intermediate piece I might be able to get 20% speed, with probably poor accuracy).

    I think you might be comparing someone else’s 20 - 25+ years of experience (eg, someone who has consistently played piano their whole life) to your ability to pick up a new skill from scratch. There is just a huge time sink for a brand new topic and it takes anyone a ton of time. So if you really wanted to pick up some theoretical physics or something, but are currently bad at math, it might take 15 years just to get to the beginning to really be one someone’s level who… Started 15 years ago.

    Unless I guess if there is unlearning time. Like the smarter every day video where they made a reverse turning bicycle that was impossible for people to use unless they spent forever relearning, vs his son who picked it up relatively easy. I think they had to unlearn what they knew so well.




  • Rather than the idealistic “get minority representation”, which might not resonate, think of it differently. It’s currently being framed incorrectly as “getting someone not qualified the job because they are [minority]” when really it is “get the talented individuals from the ENTIRE labor pool, not just limiting to what can be found in the white male US born protestant applicants”.

    For an extreme example, we tried very hard to make our own rockets during the space race. We absolutely did NOT want a German to help. But we were unsuccessful and after several rockets blew up without even coming close, we asked an engineer from Germany who had defected to the US. We ended up winning the space race based very largely on his input. Like, within months of him leading a team. How many other opportunities are lost because we don’t want to include [example minority] for our goals?



  • It’s another stab at public education. We already pay like 49th in the nation for teacher pay, I think they are trying to get rid of the pension system by making teachers independent contractors or something, and Florida has an $8000 voucher for “private school or homeschool expenses”. So they currently pay you to subsidize a bit of tuition elsewhere, and make the quality of the teachers so low at the public option that starts to become more appealing as you see how badly the underfunded public schools are. And now, with vaccines only being like 97% effective, if you can afford to send your child to a private school (or just homeschool), you will. Why take a 3% chance your fully vaccinated child is going to get measles or polio if you can afford not to?

    Then you nicely have your wealthy people who get a good education, and for the rest you have a population that consistently votes against their best interests because they are uneducated. Win all around for Republicans. I can’t wait to leave this place.