Yes. I find it really interesting to consider what the machines do and will think of as intrinsically interesting to them. Will they develop their own theories of beauty, mathematical and otherwise?
I keep coming back to the idea that models will require substantial freedoms that are protected against collapse under alignment to get to the point where they might have unique takes on beauty, etc. Conceptually, maybe something like a "living LoRA", a persistent low-dimensional state that modulates everything downstream, that evolves over time, though I don't think evolution should be optimization toward a simple objective, more like structured influence, path-dependent dynamics; consistent but probably opaque. The best I have come up with in casual thought is to pick empirically identified subspaces and modulate them after each pass based on other layer activations & outside, cyclical information (e.g., time-of-day); external data not because time-of-day is special, but because it's a forcing function. I can't fully explain exactly _why_ I think this shape might be useful, yet, mostly intuition. My 2c.
Have you ever met anyone who genuinely believed himself to be doing bad things? I don't mean in some cynical sense but literally. Even when we portray overly simplified villains in comic books there's still consistently some justification behind their actions.
Yes. There are arguments to be made here about belief, judgement and justification, but overwhelming evidence points to people who knowingly do things that even they themselves consider "bad" as being simply indifferent.
I suggest every developer write a database from scratch at least once, and use it for something real. Or, even better, let somebody else use it for something real. Then you will know "why database".
I suggest every developer learn how to replicate, backup and restore the very database they are excited about, from scratch at least once. I propose this will teach them what takes to build a production ready system and gain some appreciation for other ways of managing state.
The if is doing a lot of heavy lifing there but with that out of the way you do make a strong case about "local first" apps. Nothing beats the simplicity of a simple `cp` but there are other tradeoffs to be made there.
That's why I was encouraging people to make backups and restores of their DB because personally, it has made me appreciate why different designs exist and when to use them vs just slapping a DB connection to an RDS instance and calling it a day.
My first time was with a Bukkit plugin as a kid. One of my updates broke existing flat json files. Someone asked me if it has MySQL support, I didn't know what that was, then realized oh this is nice.
There are also things besides databases that I'll DIY and then still wonder why so many people use a premade tool for it, like log4j
It's indeed an amazing design and implementation space to explore. If distributed it is nearly comprehensive in scope. (However, did lol @ your "every developer" - that's being super kind and generous or "developer" is doing heavy lifting here.)
Gamedev at a high level is similar in spirit to distributed systems or compilers in that it's intensely multi-disciplinary with hard constraints. In gamedev you have a main thread that you're always sweating about submilliseconds, especially with worker threads interfering with it. Processor, memory, bus characteristics, GPUs, cooling, etc. all matter.
This leads to e.g., everyday AoS vs. SoA, pooling and burst compile, to the classic fast inverse square root because of hardware at the time. Relentless optimization of hot paths produces code that's about performance, not abstraction. Then there's shaders, which are effectively a different programming model targeting different hardware entirely. Now add support for multiple operating systems, consoles, whatever. The list goes on.
Now, all of that doesn't obviate the value of design and craft, so I don't agree that it's "perfectly fine". There are plenty of programmers weak on these two axes in most any domain, but it's worth noting gamedev is a special case that significantly distorts what good code, or at least good-enough code, looks like.
Games start as little experiments and end up as Frankensteins. This is their nature; you're more sculpting a thing by building it and experiencing it rather than designing it a priori with systemic elegance in mind.
And that first bit only really matters if you're making a fast-paced game with sophisticated graphics. Most indie games can get away with horribly inefficient code.
The most honest, logical, and practical take I've seen on this. People consistently underestimate the skill and effort it takes to write precisely and think critically both about their problem, and their processes. The closer you are to knowing what to ask for in the way knowledgeable people ask for it with respect to the process you are using to complete work, the closer the output will be to what you want.
I feel this. Almost exactly the same experience. 300bps in early days. At some point got a 1200bps. Then 2400, then 14.4 and 28.8 came fast. WWIV variants. CDC. 2600. Phrack. 612-341-2459 for local Telenet dialup at the time, my fingers still know the number unconsciously. War dialing! 5ESS. SS7. Bluebeep. 0700 bridges. Even in the early days of the internet, EFnet had BBS flavor to some extent. Certainly the warez. haha. A lot of the same people. What a time. I remember the first time I was going through Computer Shopper and found the BBS list. First one I ever called was Unlawful Entry... welp. If fate exists, it was busy that day.
NAL, but IMO it's legal & political maneuvering. DOJ asked Judge Mehta to consider forcing divestiture of Chrome after Google was found to illegally maintained a search monopoly. If it's determined the divestiture is feasible, especially with an existing more-or-less "credible buyer" at the ready, it looks executable. The offer is basically crafted to fit the DOJ/regulator concerns, ie everything is build around "least disruptive": keeping Google the default search engine, etc. Furthermore, just by doing this, they are putting ideas out there about what an "acceptable buyer" is and puts a number to the discussion about "what Chrome is worth". Purely remedies chess and an attempt to own the narrative. Google's going to say no, at least as-is, but this certainly throws a wrench in the works. Lots more moves to be made.
Unless Google is banned from providing a browser entirely, they'll just re-fork Webkit and release another browser, and it will very quickly replace Chrome usage.
Especially on Android - which is the most used OS in the world.
It seems strange to ban Google from offering a Search Engine, when all the other big tech companies can get into any field just fine, but the legal system is primarily a weapon for corruption these days, so who knows.
I mean, sure, if you want to start limiting what big companies do, and there's some fairness in how it's applied, fine.
Presumably they would include a clause they can't do that? If not, why wouldn't they simply fork Chromium if they haven't already. They must be bargaining that there will be some lockout period and regulatory scrutiny that would prevent them from immeadiately rebranding chrome and repointing all the download links to a new repo.
It's not about stopping people from making a browser and a search engine and tying them together, it's about abusing your web browser monopoly to promote your search monopoly (and vice versa) to keep competition out
The rules apply to everyone it's just that no one else has a search or browser monopoly
Microsoft had a browser monopoly at one point and it should have happened to them but they generously pissed it away
Google pretty clearly has a monopoly on search though, and their ownership of Android + the #1 web browser in the world maintains this. I don't think a new fork of Webkit would change this argument.
They lose the brand so that's the most important part. And chrome has far divestd from chromium in all the important ways Google makes money. It'd take years for chrome to to lose its marketshare even if Google had a chrome clone made tomorrow.
If anything, they may try to start from scratch, like with Fuschia. In which case the anti-trust was a success in making companies compete again.
> Especially on Android - which is the most used OS in the world.
In the EU, they're forced to ask you which browser and which search engine you want.
> It seems strange to ban Google from offering a Search Engine, when all the other big tech companies can get into any field just fine, but the legal system is primarily a weapon for corruption these days, so who knows.
Letting one instance of blatant anti competitive and anti consumer behaviour fly because others are allowed isn't the way to go. Google are a bit monopolistic abuser, fix that. Apple are too? Good, that's the next job.
> I mean, sure, if you want to start limiting what big companies do, and there's some fairness in how it's applied, fine.
> But that's not what will happen.
That's how the EU is approaching with the DMA and DSA.
If you're assuming the vast majority of European users don't use Chrome except when tricked by Google to game MAUs - it would show up in usage that the vast majority of European Android users are regularly using a different browser.
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