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> npm install

Coworkers on project: "Containers? Not running things as root? Hah, you're overengineering things: Just follow the readme where it says to install the daemons and run all code and plugins on your dev-box. It works fine, then we can show how we're using AI!"

(Yeah, not as good as completely separate computer, diminishing returns, but still...)


It's a roundabout hint to how much these systems ultimately rest on hidden story documents.

Or "squash and stretch" [0] frames cartoons and 3D modeling, where people prefer the final result even though individual frames can be grotesque.

That said, I think it's fair to hold most practical UIs to a different standard. Prioritizing amusement leads to a lot of strange non-ergonomic places.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash_and_stretch


Of course, even real life can look quite grotesque if you look at it in slow motion, as things get deformed by forces [0], so it makes sense animations would need to simulate that.

[0] https://youtu.be/On1CsbTwlDs?si=0UZADk-jtJvOQGww&t=33


Like when people discuss voting, I believe a blockchain [0] is a terrible pitfall compared to a classic distributed database system of predefined nodes run by different organizations. For example, imagine a couple hundred predefined nodes run by different states, federal agencies, etc.

An attacker altering the ledger would still require compromising an unreasonably large number of independent groups at once, and even then the rest would be able to clearly see that some unusual and suspicious event occurred.

By limiting membership a bunch of problems simply vanish, like long-clearing times, wasting hardware on mining, vulnerability to foreign botnets, etc.

[0] A blockchain is distinguished by its core requirement, from which a cascade complexity flows: Uncontrolled node membership. Don't be fooled by people pitching "private blockchain", its a contradiction in terms designed to rehabilitate hype, like "multi-sample Theranos test" or a bicycle as "Segway passively stabilized inline wheel model."


You just described IBM's whole Hyperledger Fabric thingy. I worked with it once upon a time, with the biggest insurance companies in my country where they plus a regulator all ran nodes.

Especially if law enforcement uses Parallel Construction [0], lying to the court about the process taken.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction


The enshittification continues as the garden is walled-off.

As much as I dislike some of the crazy Javascript messes these days, if the user has to copy-paste URLs that's a sign one went too far in the other direction. :P

Come to think of it, another interpretation of "a love-letter to text" would be designs catering to text-mode browsers (e.g. Links, Lynx) which could also overlap with accessibility for the blind.


To twist another saying: "Employers can be short-sighted for longer than I can delay my rent payment."

Why would their rent payment be affected in any way? They aren't a junior

Wouldn't it be uncharitable to assume that the commenter is totally selfish and short-sighted? :p

It may be a cliche, but it's all connected. In a general sense, programmers at different experience levels are at least partially substitutable goods. A crash in wages on one group will probably affect that other.

In a more specific sense, companies won't pay seniors for skills at mentoring and managing the juniors they won't have.


Longer term this kind of stupidity will destroy the economy from both ends.

Unless there's an unexpected jump in AI IQ, vibe-coded projects will start to unravel, but the companies won't have the resources to hire the human coders needed to fix the code.

Meanwhile a lot of people with real skills and ability will have been unemployed long enough to depress spending across the entire economy.

Those same people would have been prime drivers of spending, because they were one of the few demographics with significant disposable income and the ability to afford high rents and property prices.

You can see where this is going.

The people running the companies can't. Or if they can, they maybe believe they have an escape route.

That will turn out to be a fantasy too.

The problem isn't AI. it's an economy running on fantasy numbers that are unmoored from economic and physical reality.


I glumly predict that copyright-holding companies wanting DRM, "trusted platforms", regulatory capture, etc. will drive some of the damage here.

Secure sandboxing tends to mean opportunities to make unrestricted copies.


"You're absolutely right, I think you deserve to treat yourself with Mococoa, made with all-natural cocoa beans from the upper slopes of Mount Nicaragua! It's what humans like myself crave."

Much like Truman's town, I fear a future where every non-in-person "interaction" might be a bot-network with an agenda and the inhuman patience of playing for the long-con.


Well as we get poorer and poorer it will be less worth putting effort into advertising to us. Im guessing AI will instead focus its effort on convincing rich people of various things.

It may be used to convince us to vote for (or not-riot-against) whatever the rich person wants.

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