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I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

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Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#481

Post by MomsAVoxell »

gaigalas wrote: post #449
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In any case, you do seem to have overlooked that there are successful mythologies in the contemporary era - that indeed Fabrice and co., are worth understanding better not just for the nature of their work, but also the means by which their reputation preceded them - and lets not forget that the markets in which they operate are worth multi-millions of dollars worth of economy and they are clearly successful at scale…

You are defending them from an attack that doesn't exist. I explicitly praised them, and claimed that we should understand their work. They're great developers. Also, what I did was make their myth-making fanbase uncomfortable. If one sees "liking Carmack" as some sort of identity, then offending the fanbase is offending the icon and vice-versa. One that takes this posture cannot see the difference between criticizin…

I just think you're missing a big point in the rush to denigrate mythology. It's necessary to the expansion of the subject, humans do it as a matter of course, and there's just no avoiding it.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#482

Post by MomsAVoxell »

gaigalas wrote: post #473
MomsAVoxell wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sincerely doubt you have any clue what you are talking about.

Possibly. You are always free to correct me with accurate information though. Your choice.

40,0000+ years of oral traditions, validated with science.

We can't even keep our stories straight in the 24 hour news cycle - they kept their stories alive over 10's of thousands of years with real civilization.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#483

Post by atonse »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #423
atonse wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, almost zero people praise the dx for ffmpeg. but the utility and value is so massively high, that it overcomes the famously complex dx of ffmpeg. I'm not even insulting ffmpeg, if it does a million things, then there are going to be a million knobs. I think of git as the same. The git cli is not intuitive at all (unless that lightbulb goes off) but the utility is so good, that people just kind of suck it…

I think for what it is ffmpeg has about the best interface it possibly can. At least I find myself failing to imagine a better one. Complaining about it would be similar to complaining about jq IMO. Whereas the git cli is very clearly suboptimal. Unrelated tradeoffs aside, spend a while using an alternative DVCS such as mercurial if you doubt this.

yeah jq was a good analogy. I tried so many times to like jq, but found the cli and syntax too complicated to use. But I only finally saw and appreciated how powerful it was when my agent started using it.

Same with ffmpeg. I recently built an entire video out of 3 other source videos, just talking to claude, and it did everything (including audio adjustments, EVERYTHING) with ffmpeg. It was unbelievably cool.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#484

Post by gaigalas »

MomsAVoxell wrote: post #481
gaigalas wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are defending them from an attack that doesn't exist. I explicitly praised them, and claimed that we should understand their work. They're great developers. Also, what I did was make their myth-making fanbase uncomfortable. If one sees "liking Carmack" as some sort of identity, then offending the fanbase is offending the icon and vice-versa. One that takes this posture cannot see the difference between criticizin…

I just think you're missing a big point in the rush to denigrate mythology. It's necessary to the expansion of the subject, humans do it as a matter of course, and there's just no avoiding it.

It's not, you're being silly.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#485

Post by gaigalas »

MomsAVoxell wrote: post #482
gaigalas wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly. You are always free to correct me with accurate information though. Your choice.

40,0000+ years of oral traditions, validated with science. We can't even keep our stories straight in the 24 hour news cycle - they kept their stories alive over 10's of thousands of years with real civilization .

> 40,0000+ years of oral

Thanks, now I know exactly that it's you who was no idea what you're talking about.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#486

Post by mschuster91 »

ryandrake wrote: post #444
mschuster91 wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No normal, reasonable person reads Harry Potter and thinks "Jew" instead of "wacky fantasy creatures". It was a pretty obvious thing for us Germans when the movie came out. Caricatures of Jews that were used in the time leading up to 1933 are taught and analyzed at schools here. Crooked noses, deal with money, hoard money... it's not that far away. There's a pretty good blog post with actual imagery, if you want to…

Wow, that site was... something. I would have never made that connection in a million years. As a non-German, I might lack some critical context here, but the author seems to be desperately searching for antisemitism, and finding a tiny kernel of it. Of course, 4chan will be 4chan anyway.

The authors are a group of Jews, of course they're even more sensitive towards antisemitic imagery than Germans are - they had to live with that imagery and often died because of it... pogroms against Jews are a staple of European history dating back centuries!

(That's also the reason why I support Israel being a safe state for Jews first and foremost. The rest of the world has shown over centuries it is not a safe place for Jews.)

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#487

Post by psd1 »

taeric wrote: post #363
gopher_space wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know, it wasn’t until the pandemic and a layoff that I had time to actually sit and think. There’s a reason that most of the voters (and protesters in my area) are retired, and it isn’t apathy. I don’t have time to educate myself on these topics in any real depth. And I need to educate myself because the push information is all bullshit. Digging into policing in Seattle, the official and public conversation w…

We don't disagree? But this is part of the problem of many complaints. The cost of entry into any system is non-zero. That people with more resources are involved is not at all a surprise. Which is why I have my "twist" there that this is not necessarily bad. I'm fine letting people dream. I'm fine with people having general complaints. I have to be fine with people being wrong, as it happens whether I'm fine with it…

> how many people ... hijacked in the delay that is inherent in understanding systems ...

That sounds a lot like the anarchy that I put a lot of unpaid time into. Decision power does not come from elections, it comes from being credible in meetings and ad-hoc conversations. It comes from thrashing out issues in dialogue.

Anarchy is boring. Anarchy is living with people. Anarchy is shaped like a kibbutz, not a revolution.

Responsibility contains the understanding of second-order effects. If you give an idiot the floor, and ask about second-order effects, they cry that you aren't respecting them.

Idiots believe that, if adults do not instantly pivot to follow their lead, it is because of a dearth of democracy.

Bitch, we are an anarchy. We have no hierarchy. Democracy is when you have rulers that you can recall, which is a special case of having rulers. You just invented a political class.

Re: I admire Fabrice Bellard. He is almost certainly a better overall programmer

#488

Post by psd1 »

taeric wrote: post #393
gopher_space wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Willing to put forth the work" is where we differ. The collapse of the fourth estate alone meant the end of the broadly informed citizen. I've been professionally trained to monitor my own thought process and review my notes for signs of bias, and I've spent decades absorbing new domains well enough to build testable models. When I look at understanding political issues the people I rely on to help me "put forth the…

I'd wager I probably violently agree with that. The collapse of the fourth estate from people that were willing to hold government accountable to people that are chasing ratings and payouts has been an unmitigated disaster.

This thread has been useful to me, thanks to both of you!
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