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kcartlidge

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kcartlidge
·hace 23 días·discuss
There's a distinction.

- For the AI provider it is a massive money sink due to cost/revenue maths

- For the AI consumer it's not a massive money sink if you arrange things so your ongoing costs are lower than your savings

It isn't a simple yes or no overall, only per side of the fence.
kcartlidge
·hace 27 días·discuss
With agentic stuff there's also a large amount of commits which are not code.

For instance with OpenClaw and similar, they often simulate institutional and short term memory with markdown files in folders. Other tooling that runs companies using agents as staff, for example, do the same - but also with files for inputs, outcomes, handovers etc.

All of this means a lot of extra churn as these kinds of files can be changing with every interaction not just every traditional commit point.
kcartlidge
·el mes pasado·discuss
A 1-2-1 in this context likely refers to the 1-2-1 sessions some leads/managers have on a regular basis with each of their reports. One on one catch-ups on how they're doing.
kcartlidge
·hace 2 meses·discuss
As we're sharing pipelines:

- I write in Markdown files using VS Code and a custom syntax highlighter

- A custom C# tool stitches it together (with YAML metadata)

- It generates reports on chapters, dialogue, character presence etc

- It uses custom code to generate an EPUB (v2)

- It uses custom code to generate a DOCX (validated)

- It uses custom code to generate a PDF (print or with interactive links)

Works great and gives perfect results in seconds (beats Vellum, which I quite like). The only drawback is the yak shaving involved in my totally stand-alone solution leads to more time tinkering than writing.
kcartlidge
·hace 2 meses·discuss
One of my trifecta of 'perfect' DOS software: DataEase 4.53, WordPerfect 4.2, and TopSpeed Modula-2. Given the restrictions of the day, all three were incredible.
kcartlidge
·hace 3 meses·discuss
I'm a fair bit lower than some others as I only use it outside of work hours on my own small projects, but my Cursor account shows (for a random recent date) 12,184,233 tokens in a day. That day feels pretty representative.

That's with 86 interactions spread intermittently over a couple of hours so if I did a full working day like that I'd be looking at maybe 40 to 50 million.
kcartlidge
·hace 3 meses·discuss
If asked, I often name WordPerfect 4.2 as the best software I ever used. And that it was written in assembly is incredible.

The book Almost Perfect [1] details those early times at WordPerfect.

Incidentally, amongst the other best software I'd be tempted by Lotus 123, DataEase 4.53, Turbo Pascal 3, and Elite (BBC).

[1] http://www.wordplace.com/ap/index.shtml
kcartlidge
·hace 3 meses·discuss
Some interesting stuff I wasn't familiar with, thanks.

I really like the book Mazes for Programmers by Jamis Buck [1].

Also, my open source Dungeon generator is a (slightly-misnamed) maze generator [2]. It produces 2D maps, and also 3D files (OBJ and MTL) for use in Blender etc. I like to think it does a more 'reasonable' job than many, but I am biased.

- [1] http://www.mazesforprogrammers.com

- [2] https://github.com/kcartlidge/Dungeon
kcartlidge
·hace 8 meses·discuss
I like how their number one benefit is Order to Seat. In one fell swoop it shows that:

* Their priority is revenue above all else (fair enough; honest too)

* They are either deceptive or stupid

Re the deception/stupidity - if everyone is moving to using the same app, how does everyone "get served first" as per their bullet point?
kcartlidge
·hace 8 meses·discuss
> So, a UK-only advice, and it strangely assumes that any other service in UK wouldn’t be bound by the same laws.

I suspect it's because whilst other services would be affected we only know about Apple currently and, thanks to iOS and Mac, a large percentage of the population will be using Apple by default for the services impacted. Only Google (Android) and Microsoft (Windows) really overlap in that regard.
kcartlidge
·hace 8 meses·discuss
Neither has the UK government.

* It wasn't the general election.

* They offered local councils the chance to request it if they were going through a reorganisation or devolution process.

* 18 councils requested and 9 were accepted as justified.

* And even those are only delayed until May next year (one year after the rest of the UK).

So to be clear the UK government not only didn't postpone the general elections but half the councils who requested the local elections were postponed were denied, with the other half having reasons and still doing it a year later anyway.

And all that is actually covered in the page you link to.
kcartlidge
·hace 9 meses·discuss
Why are we hearing that "studies" have "uncovered the concept of context rot as the number of tokens in the context window increases"? It's obvious, and we've always known this.

Agents are stateless, hence the need for context. This means that all they know about the ongoing session is what's in that context (generally speaking). As the context grows any particular element within it becomes a smaller and smaller percentage of the whole. The LLM is not 'losing focus'; it's being diluted with more tokens. But then I suppose anthropomorphism comes naturally to a company named Anthropic, and 'losing focus' does make it sound more human.

They didn't need a study and article, but it likely contributes towards the mystique. Hence the use of phrases like "this results in n² pairwise relationships for n tokens" to make it sound more erudite and revelatory.
kcartlidge
·hace 10 meses·discuss
Not quite what you wanted, but the Lone Wolf ones are (legally) available online [1]. You may be able to read the downloads, or even the online play versions, with Dutch translations.

[1] https://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Books
kcartlidge
·hace 11 meses·discuss
Thanks for the correction. I never read the spec, just started using it. And as I tend to balance my first and last line indentation I never realised.
kcartlidge
·hace 11 meses·discuss
I much prefer C# 11's raw string literals. It takes the indentation of the first line and assumes the subsequent ones have the same indentation.

  string json = $"""
      <h1>{title}</h1>
      <article>
          Welcome to {sitename}.
      </article>
      """;
And it even allows for using embedded curly braces as real characters:

  string json = $$"""
      <h1>{{title}}</h1>
      <article>
          Welcome to {{sitename}}, which uses the <code>{sitename}</code> syntax.
      </article>
      """;
The $ (meaning to interpolate curly braces) appears twice, which switches interpolation to two curly braces, leaving the single ones untouched.
kcartlidge
·hace 11 meses·discuss
- Some mentions of Lazarus and FreePascal (so basically a cross-platform open source Delphi equivalent). And I'd agree with them.

- For C# I like AOT assemblies using Uno or Avalonia.

- For Go I like TCell (which does cross-platform console mode text GUIs [with cursor positioning, colours, mouse, etc]).

- If you're doing vibe coding I find it tends to work best with Electron.

- The big omission here is anything Python; I don't do desktop apps in Python so can offer nothing. Same for Ruby, though Hotwire Native looks interesting.
kcartlidge
·hace 11 meses·discuss
Reading through the comments there seems to be some misunderstandings leading to issues with a stance that the potential class action is not taking.

The class action doesn't relate to normal training based on legally acquired materials, which US courts have already said is fair use. It is concerned specifically with training on materials obtained illegally (pirated content).
kcartlidge
·hace 11 meses·discuss
Just because something is on a public website accessible for free doesn't mean it is then public domain. Sharing is not necessarily giving.

(Though unfortunately in the Wild West Web of today it seems it does, practically speaking.)
kcartlidge
·hace 3 años·discuss
If you're looking for a GUI editor for your LaTex content, personally I like Lyx [1]. It's featuresome, easy to use, and also includes outline navigation.

[1] https://www.lyx.org/
kcartlidge
·hace 3 años·discuss
> I actually bought this on DVD

Same here. Bought it back when it was released, and still have it.

Thoroughly enjoyed it, but I agree with the article in that it was very much all over the place in terms of scripting.