@thomasapowell@fosstodon.org
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thomasapowell

@thomasapowell@fosstodon.org

Mostly sharing thoughts on #webdev, #softwareengineering, #retrogames and humanistic aspects of tech. Old tech guy, UCSD CSE Lecturer, Author, pint.com founder, and person behind ZingChart and ZingGrid. 🤓

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thomasapowell, to random
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Star Wars wise I am sure Imperial scientists talked the engineering and physics challenge of high energy lasers using khyber crystals all day rather than discuss what the higher ups might do to Alderann with their innovation.

I think there is a parallel in CS right now …

thomasapowell, to random
@thomasapowell@fosstodon.org avatar

I know some hate this season but some of these lines are just genius

“It’s like Jaws. If everyone in Jaws worked for Jaws.”

"Cat food Ozymandias"

“Bodega sushi? Are you insane?”

"They’re not all crypto-fascists and right-wing nut jobs. We also have some venture capital dems and centrist ghouls. Dad’s ideological range was wide.”

“Congratulations on saying the biggest number, you fucking morons.”

"Greg, do not put any more lemon water or wasabi in his eyes, OK?"

thomasapowell,
@thomasapowell@fosstodon.org avatar

@PaulFranz yeah absolutely it is really tough at times to catch all the nuance. Last episode it had a lot of implied “you know what I mean” kind of stuff.

To be fair the Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Ozark, and Better Call Saul did this too just not as much as Succession does. I agree sometimes it is a bit much

thomasapowell, to random
@thomasapowell@fosstodon.org avatar

Local LLMs leave quite a lot of room for improvement, but the fact that a few months ago that it was unthinkable to run it locally and now I have one running on my Macbook today is quite impressive.

Be interesting to see where we are 6mos to a year from now.

thomasapowell, to random
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So writing helper AIs are dropping everywhere now. You, too, can sound like a Linkedin person with such insightful gems like this

"In a world of complex social media language and trendy hashtags, let us remember the importance of clear and concise communication. 🌟💬 📝"

It even added emojis ... ugh. All socials will be filled with SPAM nonsense like this via these bullshit cannons in 5..4..3...

thomasapowell, to random
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Tales from the future of today.

“Professor this homework just isn’t fair. The assignment is way too ambiguous. I copied it into ChatGPT and it couldn’t even answer it!”

thomasapowell, to random
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I hear the AIs will screw up their metaverse creations a few times before perfecting it so does Zuck’s first metaverse mega flop count as one in that tally ?

timnitGebru, to random
@timnitGebru@dair-community.social avatar

My friend said that Yoshua Bengio is on the New York Times talking about how "AI systems" will be "fully independent" in a decade and such. I don't know what to say at this point. Is it the influence of the bundle that is in full force at this point? The arrogance among "AI" people who want to feel like they're working on a literal god? Do they ever get called out when in 10 years it doesn't happen? Like how Hinton said radiologists will be gone by 5 years (and that was 5 years ago)?

thomasapowell,
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@timnitGebru if only we could place bets we could raise some major capital in 10 years. 😎

thomasapowell, to internet
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So as I scroll and see all sorts of announcements I think to myself truly is as innovator online just indirectly. He has been such a supreme douche bag that he has catalyzed and inspired a truly amazing amount of innovation and creativity…in others.

thomasapowell, to random
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After watching a demo and seeing hallucinations and injection problems, one of my senior engineers is not very interested in said to the team

"...so it's pretty much like any religion: you look at it with fear, it gives you many words to choose from, people twist it to suit their needs, and it doesn't directly or properly answer many of your questions."

🤔🤣

hannah, to random
@hannah@posts.rat.pictures avatar

It gives me hope that people are saying “this looks ai-generated” to mean “shitty”

thomasapowell,
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@hannah add to this idea only an NPC would like this 💩 and I think we have gotten to the appropriate modern way to talk about the things

thomasapowell, to random
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Bye bye . Brighton was kicking their ass whole game anyway. I can’t see any way back from 2-0 but the announcers still suggest it 3 goals in 8 minutes. Yeah don’t think so.

thomasapowell,
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Ok 3-0 💥 cooked at home finally the announcers have stopped the stupid talk.

matuzo, to random
@matuzo@front-end.social avatar

“Eliel Saarinen said:

‘Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context; a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.’

I think the same could apply to making the case for web performance. Don’t stop at the obvious benefits. Go wider. Show the big-picture implications.”

https://adactio.com/journal/20154

thomasapowell,
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@matuzo @adactio I have been saying accessibility can’t happen unless performance is good, poor performance can discriminate, poor performance isn’t green, etc. for a few years now in my webdev courses. Let’s just say my reviews quickly became mixed -very poor & very high. A keep it neutral & just talk about code is a strong coping mechanism for many who simply don’t want to know that dev choices aren’t just personal preference as they may effect people & the world. Love this stuff @adactio 👏

thomasapowell, to random
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From @Edent a fun observation of some unintended consequences of a new top level domains (.zip). You see text like something.zip is it a file or is it a domain ? If we used URLs well it wouldn’t be an issue, but broadly we don’t and instead lots of inference happens.

https://mastodon.social/@Edent/110361162845448780

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

It's been clear for a while, but it's obvious now. Google has no clue about how most people search on the web and what they use search for.

And Microsoft is, if anything, worse.

Finding anything useful on the web is getting harder and harder

thomasapowell,
@thomasapowell@fosstodon.org avatar

@baldur @trevorflowers I’ve being using Kagi intermittently for quite a few weeks now. It is often better result wise, but not always.

I had a student this quarter do an experiment with a custom SearXNG https://github.com/searxng set up using a defined set of sites & found that if you have domain expertise with trusted sources to restrict it to the results were promising. Given that outcome I am surprised we haven’t seen domain based search plays as it wasn’t that hard to test the idea.

thomasapowell, to webdev
@thomasapowell@fosstodon.org avatar

I think we need some sort of agreement in that you are just not ready to use a JavasScript framework to emit and until you actually understand more than <div> tags and slapping a bunch of utility classes on things. Otherwise you are just automating the emission of 💩

glennf, to random
@glennf@twit.social avatar

Still reading and hearing takes that Mastodon has “failed” as a Twitter alternative. Listen, it’s ok if it doesn’t work for someone—unlike Twitter, I think Mastodon requires more effort and cultivation to produce an experience that feels meaningful. It’s been worth it for me. But there is definitely a smell of…not sour grapes but people making broad assumptions based on their own experience while ignoring millions of other people. Will Mastodon top 100 million? Who knows. Who cares?

thomasapowell,
@thomasapowell@fosstodon.org avatar

@glennf masto really doesn’t do main character, void shouting, and retweet dunking as well as old Twitter and likely whatever new Twitter will be … if that is part of the fail sign me up for a scoop of extra fail please.

thomasapowell, to internet
@thomasapowell@fosstodon.org avatar

I know how we beat

We should just remind everyone that our top Masto instance shitpost.social is powered by the Web5 BS protocol running on a quantum computer backed by the blockchain.

Users who have an exclusive invite to this instance get a welcome air drop of some ElephantCoin and a chance to buy an exclusive @donmelton NFT.

Elite users who had more than 50k followers at the birdsite qualify for an exclusive meet and greet with

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

“Web3’s fake version of Web history - by Dave Karpf” https://davekarpf.substack.com/p/web3s-fake-version-of-the-history

thomasapowell,
@thomasapowell@fosstodon.org avatar

@baldur as an older web person. (Actually worked in space pre Mosaic at one of the original NSF funded regional ISPs) Chris Dixon is 100% making shit up to suit his narrative. I appreciate this alternative take and while I don’t agree with it exactly it is closer to what feels correct. Baldur many thanks for boosting.

brianleroux, to programming

frontend twtr is currently debating whether polluting global variables is a good idea or not in case you needed more reasons to not go there anymore

thomasapowell,
@thomasapowell@fosstodon.org avatar

@brianleroux
Cool 😎

var console = false;

did I do this right ? 😬😜

thomasapowell, to space
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Seeing people suggest Elon’s is right & is wrong is so reductive. Do we honestly believe politically speaking our country would allow explosions over & over of NASA rockets ? NASA head sacked, budgets cut, President lose approval points, etc.

NASA is not filled with idiots nor is SpaceX. Their approaches are both complex & driven by many aspects. Rarely is engineering aiming for some single perfect solution, but rather a hunt for a condition satisfying acceptable solution.

thomasapowell, to programming
@thomasapowell@fosstodon.org avatar

Yesterday I learned from that I didn’t write one of my webdev books that rather “James P. Mueller” did.

I then asked what books he did write. I got 4 books back & he wrote zero of them per Amazon. Huh. 🤔

Yes I know how this works so statistically old web dev guys who wrote HTML or JS books or more likely named James P. Mueller than Thomas A. Powell?

People are gonna believe this tech way too much until they have this type of experience personally.

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