Prompt enginnering is underrated in terms of the enginnering part and we should not be ashamed to enginner out prompts the way a developers work with code
Nobody knows how the whole system works
181–190 of 226 posts
Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Example: Our banks have endless painful papercuts yet most of us don't change banks just because of one pain. One bank pissed me off due to an extremely dishonest thing they did. So I overdrafted the account to the max ($500) and left them the bill. (Not the first time I've done something like that to someone who deserved it. I've done much, much more in some cases. Endless painful papercuts? Nope, I do not accept…
> I overdrafted the account to the max ($500) and left them the bill I think theft is a poor answer - although most society accepts your rationalisation when dealing with government or big business. Even worse is that you can't know what it may cost you in the future. My friend couldn't open a business account the other day. After many phone calls he was lucky enough to find someone that told him it was because he le…
> I think theft is a poor answer
Theft? HA! Nope, they attempted to rob me, on multiple levels. Categorically refused.
> Even worse is that you can't know what it may cost you in the future. My friend couldn't open a business account the other day. After many phone calls he was lucky enough to find someone that told him it was because he left a bank account $67 overdrawn when he was younger.
Oh no! How will I ever conduct business without the government or bank's permission? I guess the only alternative is slavery to some giant corporation, or death! What should I do?
As an American, I would probably like to consult with Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Smedley Butler, Lysander Spooner, Mark Twain, etc and get their thoughts on this matter.
While looking something up just now, this old saved quote from years back popped right into view. Couldn't have said it better myself:
"Why work at all? Just live off the system. The aristocrats do it lavishly. The welfare rats do it slovenly. Both know that working for an 'honest dollar' in this empire of lies is for suckers. This is why they set up artificial barriers of entry such as needing a 'college degree' for so many jobs so you have to wade through all that propaganda bullshit they spew these days. It's also why they have to make sure property prices stay high to keep the cheese dangling in front of the mouse. The system is designed to keep you churning the wheel while the others sit back, relax, and enjoy a life of leisure at your expense."
Ah! Found a serious problem. Not the problem, mind you, but a problem. There's a reason the self-described "elites" like to hole up in that place.
(It would be a shame if they never emerged from those holes. What would the world do without their 'leadership'?)
> I strongly suspect he never would have found out the reason in many countries.
Yes, I agree, there are many shithole countries in the world. I live in one, too. One learns to adapt.
> His only recourse was to use a more expensive provider (maybe $600 per year).
Yes, this corrupt country tried to screw me in a similar type of way, years back. I refused to play ball and just did what I wanted instead, very carefully and quietly. Now that problem is permanently resolved, for a fraction of what it would have otherwise cost.
> Please don't assume I am tolerant of abuse. I vindictively avoid some brands (and even all products from some countries).
One time, I went to the local Wal-Mart a couple days before Christmas. I parked at the back of the lot as the place was packed full. No problem, I don't mind walking. But then imagine my displeasure to observe that some complete asshole in a giant lifted pickup truck has double parked near the front of the lot.
That guy was way more important than anyone, in his own mind, clearly. Someone just had to educate him about how so very wrong he was. The job fell to me, as I was the closest warrior at hand.
So I sent a shopping cart sailing at warp 11 into his truck. ("Engage!") It just so happened to impact right on the corner of the cab, behind the door (the worst spot possible--thanks, God), and fucked it all up. Mission Accomplished. I returned home and celebrated.
I know of another funny incident where a similar type of person was similarly unimpressed by some douchebag in a Maserati (this is hillbilly country, home of Chevys and Fords) who likewise felt entitled to take up two parking spots on a busy main street where parking was limited. In this case the guy dumped a tractor bucket load of wet hay into his open convertible top.
The "victim" of that incident was raging on Facebook, offering a reward for whoever turned the guy in, etc, but everyone was just laughing at the SOB.
You'd be surprised what you can get away with, when everyone around you is quietly wishing somebody would do just that thing.
Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works
#183Long ago I was working for a programmer writing an accounting system for a client (I wrote the user docs). The machine we were replacing was an old NCR plug-board system. Programmed by wires plugged into holes on a board. One person left at the client knew how the machine worked. No one knew how the programming worked. If the wires fell out of the holes it could not be put back together again. At one time someone knew that, but the knowledge was lost. This is the system we are building again today.
Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
> that's a whole different level of ignorance, that's much more dangerous. Why? Is it more dangerous to not know how to fry an egg in a teflon pan, or on a stone over a wood fire? Is it acceptable to know the former but not the latter? Do I need to understand materials science so I can understand how to make something nonstick so I’m not dependant on teflon vendors?
You do need to be able to understand nonstick coating is unhealthy and not magic. You do need to understand your options for pan frying for not sticking are a film of water or an ice cube if you don't want to add an oil into the mix. Then it really depends what you are cooking on how sticky it will be and what the end product will look like. That's why there are people that can't fry an egg, people that cook, chefs,…
> You do need to be able to understand nonstick coating is unhealthy and not magic.
Prove it. Please, show me a method by which polytetrafluoroethylene is going to kill me. Because if you're like everyone else moaning about "plastic bad" online, you'll be wrong, and if you have some secret insight that no one else has, I'd love to hear it. But a basic understanding of chemistry reveals that PTFE is functionally inert. It doesn't react with damn near anything, it needs heats well in excess of anything you should be exposed to cooking to melt or burn, and even if you were eating the stuff straight, the whole "inert" thing applies to just about any digestive process your body could apply to it, too.
Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nearly every time I attempt to tell people how much understanding fundamentals matters, it’s dismissed as being unnecessary knowledge. I can’t make anyone want to know how things work, and it’s getting tiring being continuously told “no” when I ask.
My daughter who is studying CS (unexpectedly) actually listens most of the time. Which is surprising. But then she tells me her classmates used AI to cheat on assignments so much that the prof had to change the weighting of the assignments to be 0. I just don't get paying to "learn", and then using AI avoid learning.
Some fraction of "students" are not, in fact, paying to learn. They're paying for a credential that claims they learned. Degrees tied to lucrative jobs tend to have a higher proportion of these people than ones that are less directly applicable.
Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works
#186This also applies to other things. No one person knows how to make a pencil. Three minute video by Milton Friedman: https://youtu.be/67tHtpac5ws?si=nFOLok7o87b8UXxY
That's false, I know exactly how to make a pencil. I know because I look it up in case I'm mysteriously transported back to the Roman Empire times. The hard part is finding graphite (somewhere in Wales? looks like lead, but softer and leaves traces on sheep's wool). Then suitable clay to make the lead. Then some kind of glue to glue the two parts of the pencil (boil some bones and cartilages?).
What about the eraser? What about the machine that mills the pumice that goes in the eraser? What about the yellow paint? Are you gonna go with cadmium pigment or something that won’t kill children, and if so, what? How to you plan to refine the bauxite ore to make the aluminum ferrule that attaches the eraser to the pencil? Were you aware that they are aluminum, or called ferrules? What about the machine that makes the pierced holes through the ferrule that retains the eraser?
I know a shitload of trivia about both manufacturing and pencils. But I could not possibly recreate all the processes needed to manufacture a pencil.
I learned a lot about pencils from this article. It is also applicable to jet engines.
Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most people have no idea how to hunt, make a fire, or grow food. If all grocery stores and restaurants run out of food for a long enough time people will starve. I doubt people would starve. It's trivial to figure out the hunting and fire part in enough time that that won't happen. That said, I think a lot of people will die, but it will be as a result of competition for resources.
People would absolutely starve, especially in the cities. It’s just not possible to feed 8 billion people without the industrial system of agriculture and food distribution. There aren’t enough wild animals to hunt.
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Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works
#188Not knowing is still better than being wrong. I'd prefer neither.
Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Now you could say a piece of software completely written by a coding agent is just another abstraction You're almost there. The current code-generating LLMs will be a dead end because it takes more time to thoroughly review a piece of code than to generate it, especially because LLM code is needlessly verbose. The solution is to abandon general-purpose languages and start encapsulating the abstraction behind a DSL,…
I agree. Additionally, a company can own and update a business language of their own design at their own pace and need. Then they can use AI to translate from their controlled business language to the DSL needed (translation being an area it actually does well). In this way the LLM would only ever be going from General -> specific, which should keep it on the rails, and the business can keep its business logic stored…
> I agree. Additionally, a company can own and update a business language of their own design at their own pace and need.
Yes, although I was more thinking of this being in most cases a SaaS offering because the implementation of the DSL needs solid non-LLM engineering. Larger companies will be able to afford an internal platform team, but most won't.
> Now that said, there is still the actual engineering problem of leveraging the capabilities of the underlying technology. For example, being able to map your 4 core program to a 16 core system and have it work is one thing, actually utilizing 16 cores is another.
I see this more of an extension of existing trends, for example Wordpress themes with limited customizability. Most DSLs won't allow full utilization of the underlying technology, on purpose because that's the only way to keep it simple. I do see this leading to a split into two classes of developers: those who only target simple DSLs using an LLM, and the "hard" engineers who might use LLMs every now and then, but mostly not.
Re: Nobody knows how the whole system works
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Now you could say a piece of software completely written by a coding agent is just another abstraction You're almost there. The current code-generating LLMs will be a dead end because it takes more time to thoroughly review a piece of code than to generate it, especially because LLM code is needlessly verbose. The solution is to abandon general-purpose languages and start encapsulating the abstraction behind a DSL,…
I like this direction, but I worry about developers involvement in the design of the DSL becoming the new bottleneck with the same problems. The code which becomes the guardrails cannot just be generated slop, it should be thoroughly designed and understood imo
Sure, that's why I think that it will mostly be SaaS businesses doing the DSLs, because the business contracts allow for more accountability than having employees do poor reviews, accumulating tech debt, that will only become visible down the road.