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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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  • How do such people program?

    They don’t. They used to copy and paste stuff they found on the internet, then when it doesn’t work they made a barely coherent post on Stack Exchange, or maybe the issue tracker of one of the packages they think they’re using. I suppose that nowadays they copy and paste whatever they get out of the LLM de jour, then try to tell it that it didn’t work, copy and paste the answer and repeat until it either compiles or they finally give up and post to an issue tracker.


  • Seriously. Can you imagine, you’ve had this process running quietly for years, and it’s getting you round some awkward tax or import restriction somewhere, you’re making a tidy extra profit, and you don’t even feel too bad about fidfling the paperwork a bit, after all, who’s going to notice, a bunch of flightless birds? Then along comes the orange idiot and his cadre of fascists and accidentally expose you because they don’t understand how to rationally calculate tarrifs and just get an intern to copy and paste from the nearest LLM.

    It’s laughing at this sort of thing that’s jeeping me sane right now.




  • Even in cases like this justice must not just be done, but be seen to be done. It seems her guilt has been established, which is good; her sentencing comes next. It seem unlikely that there are any mitigating circumstances to reduce the punishment, but that judgement must be seen to be fair. The French citizenry are not renouned for their forebearance in the face of injustice, so I would be tempted to trust their system for now.

    ETA: In fact, it seems like the punishment has already been decreed: five years ineligibility to run for office, four years in prison (two suspended), and a fine. That puts her out of tbe running for president, and likely tarnishes her enough to keep her down even after 2030.





  • From the article:

    The 10-person team is trapped at the remote Sanae IV base, which is on a cliff edge about 105 miles inland from the ice shelf, by encroaching ice and weather as the southern hemisphere winter sets. Teams overwintering at the base are typically cut off for 10 months at a time. Sources told South Africa’s Sunday Times that the only way to leave the base now was via emergency medical evacuation to a neighbouring German base about 190 miles away.

    As far as I can see it’s currently the end of the Antarctic summer, winter is just starting, and will likely last until October. It sounds like something went badly wrong with both the psychological screening of the team members, and the decision for the ice breaker that delivered them to leave before the situation was resolved.



  • I have a strong suspicion that if I was suddenly attacked, my brain would dump all ideas of fighting back and just freeze, which of course allows the violence to happen.

    Find, and take, local self defence classes. Not necessarily martial arts classes (though they may be involved), but real world self defence. It’ll be grittier, nastier and much better practice. Get used to grappling and fighting in a controlled environment, and you’ll be much less likely to freeze if you need it in an emergency.

    You’re right that’ll it’ll take a long time to change at a cultural level, but that needs to start somewhere, and obe person doing it and then encouraging others could be a local catalyst.