When I was making gears, there was an un-networked PC that I was given access to, to develop a program to track gear hobs.
I used git to sync it with a usb thumb drive so I could keep a copy in sync at home.
Edit: sadly it seems I've lost the source to that program 8(
In the long ago, we used PKzip to archive our source code on 1.44 mb floppy disks.
Before that, we didn't have hard drives, so we made copies of our 5 1/4” floppies with tape over the write protect slot. We also had multiple "good" copies of our boot disks, write protected, just in case.
Having programmed back in the days when source control involved 1.44mb floppy disks with paper labels stating the version of the pkZipped source code and the date....
git is still freaking magic. We used to comment out the old version of code but leave it in the source as our sole undo strategy. git brings sanity to the world.
Computer security is a solved problem, and has been since the 1980s.
Unfortunately adopting it requires us to abandon the ambient authority model of application development and our operating systems that support it. Currently when you tell an application to open a file, it can actually do almost anything. There are operating systems that enforce your choices, not many, they're very niche, for now.
We're at the point where the power grid would be if nobody ever used fuses or circuit breakers. All power could rush to any fault. The same is true with any application a user might run under Linux, Windows, etc.
To save a lot of grief: I'm not suggesting we use Windows UAC, AppArmor, or any other administratively driven security measures. Think power boxes[1] that replace file dialog boxes, and the give file capabilities to the application per the users will, in a secure, transparent and easy to understand manner.
A calculator uses known deterministic algorithms to compute an answer. As long as you stay within the precision bounds, you'll get reliable and correct answers 100% of the time.
An AI is the result of randomness put through a simulated evolution, each one is different. We tend to expect them all to be the same, but that would be like redoing the big-bang until present, and expecting the dominant beings to be human, live in the same countries, speak the same languages, and believe all same cultural norms.
what does an internal process matter if the input to output transformations are acceptable. there are many many different ways of writing a software calculator, or a protocol stack, or codec modules; internally they may be wildly different, but as long their function mapping is identical, one's understanding does not play a role.
as a more extreme example: do we all understand how our brains work? we use it every day and interact with other brains.
ive noticed a real uptick in people trusting AI for stuff like medical advice because it always seems to make sense but when it comes to a specialist topic they know a lot about they can go on and on about all of the subtle and often quite dangerous mistakes it makes.
this has existed for centuries -- scientists who are religious, folks relying on quack doctors, astrology, tarot reading is nothing new. for every person willing to risk their lives by playing doctor, llm amplifies their belief, and it is not the fault of llm that the person lacked basic critical thinking skills. i don't believe technology invents human gullibility.
I'm old and retired, so I don't have to use it at all. I've got a github and ChatGPT subscription, and I've used both from time to time.
I think it's important to disclaim AI generated content, as a matter of courtesy.
The Github CoPilot proved interesting, but when I tried to use it to create a simulator for my BitGrid project, it just created a massive pile of slop that kept growing and getting worse. On its own, it does nothing to curate code, it is strongly biased towards adding more patches.
ChatGPT is interesting for exploring ideas, but you can't trust its math, you have to check it. It easily gets itself off by 3 or more orders of magnitude when things get interesting.
Nope. I think that Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Mark Carney are both doing a great job as the new leaders of the free world.
You really don't understand how alien an AI truly is. There's no way you should trust it. It would make even the orange turd seem rational by comparison.
I find it hard to justify any conclusion other than we're about to repeat the crash of 1929 in terms of stock prices. Back then, stocks dropped 90% over 3 years. We'll be lucky if 10% actual value remains after the bonfire that's about to happen.
This isn’t financial advice, but Defense contractors seem to be a solid hold in a winter economy with this insane and hawkish “war department”. This administration’s primary means of distraction from issues at home appears to be “start a conflict somewhere”. We’ve dropped so much ordinance in the Middle East at this point, buy whoever has the multi year contracts to replenish the stockpile.
This is a sarcastic answer, but I’m only half joking.
Gold has dropped every time the US does something stupid with Iran, the opposite of conventional wisdom. I think that countries are having to sell their most liquid asset, their gold, in order to buy oil from sources outside the gulf.
I'm not a financial planner, and my gut instincts have been wrong far too many times for me to give advice. I'm just noting the odd thing going on right now.
That's up to you, but if there is a crash it's very unlikely to be before a major hyperscaler decides to reduce or stop their infra expenditures (which isn't happening, like, quite the opposite). That's what I would personally see as the top signal, but it's pretty dumb to exit the whole market because of a possible crash at some point in the future, without anything you see as a catalyst. Also, gold is completely overrated, it's not at all a safe place where to put your money and you have no idea how it would correlate with an AI bubble burst
No. You most definitely should not. Do not under any circumstances try to beat capitalists at their own game. The rules are always against you, and you will loose.
The only winning move is not to play. Go to your local instrument library and grab your self a guitar. If your 401k vanishes, at least you know how to play the guitar and can entertain your self through the collapse of the system.
Fiat money sure came in handy when 10% or more of the trees in my entire county were blow over toward the east.
Long term, you're getting eaten by inflation, but when the power grid, and most cell sites are down, cash is still king.
The real lesson I've learned is that a small generator consumes about 10 gallons of gasoline per day. There's no way to store enough of it to last through a total collapse, even if you could keep it from being stolen.
That's about 25% of all the money raised in their IPO! The circular financing here should give everyone pause. We're at Enron levels of financial engineering, and the outcome is likely going to be worse.
The "widely debunked" theory that I find explains a lot is that Trump is Agent Krasnov[1], one of the hardest working KGB assets in history, with 39 years of experience!
Then again, never attribute to malice that which can be more then adequately explained by incompetence. In this case it's massive, unchecked, sane-washed incompetence.
The more hands off they are, the more likely they are to survive the trigger for World Depression II
reply