88 pointsby ingve6 hours ago9 comments
  • throw0101a3 hours ago
    • lizknope2 hours ago
      I clicked on the post expecting it to be something from T2 and wondered why I was reading something about emulation.
    • armcat3 hours ago
      That movie has aged incredibly well!
      • alecco2 hours ago
        As a story, yes. But Terminator failed on a basic premise: Skynet becoming self-aware.

        The future seems more like Blindsight [1]: hyper-intelligent, completely unconscious systems outperform, out-manipulate, and out-compete human beings purely through automated efficiency.

        [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)

        • BLKNSLVR2 hours ago
          Isn't that Accelerando?
          • speed_spread2 hours ago
            A major difference is that Blindsight is actually readable and enjoyable. Also, vampires in space.
            • schnitzelstoatan hour ago
              I haven't read Accelerando but I found Blindsight really difficult to read and like visualise what is going on.

              It felt like he tried to jam way too many story threads into what is a reasonably short book too. The vampires are a good example of that.

              • layer8an hour ago
                Same, it was a slog and difficult to figure out what was going on.
            • askvictor2 hours ago
              Oof; I loved both books, but Accelerando was much easier to read.
              • warumdaruman hour ago
                That thing is a bastardization of singularity sky for the masses
            • ubermonkey2 hours ago
              Weird. I found Accelerando to be both.
        • warumdaruman hour ago
          "No, nobody forced me to get the rewire. I could have just let them cut out my brain and pack it into Heaven, couldn't I? That's the choice we have. We can be utterly useless, or we can try and compete against the vampires and the constructs and the AIs. And perhaps you could tell me how to do that without turning into a—an utter freak."
        • antonvsan hour ago
          > But Terminator failed on a basic premise: Skynet becoming self-aware.

          A strange claim. Why do you think that?

          > The future seems more like …

          Oh, so Terminator failed because it didn’t match a different fictional speculation about the future?

          • WolfeReader18 minutes ago
            We are in "the future" relative to both works. The current intelligence threatening our planet is an unconscious token predictor, much more like the hostile non-entity in Blindsight (which even speaks to humans via token prediction) than the mechanical persons in Terminator 2.
      • mr_toad35 minutes ago
        > That movie has aged incredibly well!

        Except for the titular event not happening!

        • danparsonson5 minutes ago
          You know that's true of most films, right? "Aging well" doesn't refer to howly closely it matched reality.
      • account423 hours ago
        Resolution-wise it hasn't due to the extensive use of early CGI.
        • kinematikk3 hours ago
          What do you mean? The cgi is great, even today. They obviously put a lot of work and effort into it
        • carra2 hours ago
          Careful! Some of the scenes you would think as CGI are actually using practical effects. Even a couple of scenes with liquid metal on screen were using models.
        • iamacyborg2 hours ago
          The ILM documentary on Disney+ talks about the techniques on that movie, super interesting documentary in general.
        • renegade-otter3 hours ago
          That CGI looks quite OK, and even surpasses much of "modern" CGI. Have you ever seen "Flash"?

          This is considering the effects were done in 1990.

          Edit: a lot of what people think is CGI in T2 is actually NOT.

          https://www.facebook.com/StanWinstonSchool/videos/bullet-hit...

          • b1122 hours ago
            Some confuse style with quality.

            There was a lot of cartoon animation done by hand in the 1930. Frame by frame drawn, far superior to modern animation. However the styles are different, and some prefer one style of animation over another.

            https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1q986...

            I've just noticed in the 'full version' linked to in the reddit comments, it's a poorly done 480i -> 480p, and the interlace fields are reversed.

            If you watch the panning in the original star-scape at the start of the video, you'll see it jittering back and forth as it pans. Sad. If properly converted to 480p, that scene would be super-smooth too.

            (It's less apparent elsewhere, unless there is side-scrolling)

  • Luc2 hours ago
    'PowerPC DRC' appears to be the code in mame that translates PowerPC machine code into native host machine code (Dynamic Recompilation Core).

    https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/devices/cpu/...

  • wiether3 hours ago
    I thought it was about Renaud' song _Laisse béton_

    https://genius.com/Renaud-laisse-beton-lyrics

  • bartvk4 hours ago
    The blog mentions a Graphing Calculator. Not sure if it shares code, but macOS still ships with an app to draw graphs, Grapher.app
    • zweifuss3 hours ago
      The app on your Mac today isn't a rewrite of the legendary Mac OS 7.2.1 Graphing Calculator, but an acquired app based on Curvus Pro introduced in OSX Tiger.

      The first one has a legendary backstory. 2 devs snuck into Apple after their project was canceled: https://www.pacifict.com/Story/

      Curvus Pro: https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/curvus-pro

      • donohoe2 hours ago
        Thanks for sharing the links. Love this part!

        “We looked at each other, took a deep breath, and launched the application. The monitor burst into flames. We calmly carried it outside to avoid setting off smoke detectors, plugged in another monitor, and tried again.”

      • felixding25 minutes ago
        Just wow! I’m speechless! Can’t think of any other word than “legendary”.
    • amenghra3 hours ago
      Grapher.app is different from Graphing Calculator. It came via an acquisition. All the details are here if you want to read the backstory (assuming the info is correct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapher)
  • sourcecodeplz4 hours ago
    403 forbidden
    • embedding-shape4 hours ago
      Feels like it might be pertinent to share more details than simply the error code. What country? How are you connecting? Anything out of the ordinary with your setup that might be the cause?
      • adrian_b2 hours ago
        I also see that error code, from Europe.

        Perhaps it blocks any non-USA connection.

        • embedding-shapean hour ago
          Works in Spain though, so maybe depends on country. Romania is frequently blocked for example, even if Spain isn't.
          • lthi747an hour ago
            No, not work in Spain, or at least not from cellular
            • embedding-shape16 minutes ago
              Well, maybe more accurate "No, not for me" as I literally just stated it does work for at least me, and I'm in Spain :)

              Seems we can conclude it may or may not work in Spain, maybe depending on the ISP? I'm on Vodafone FWIW.

        • inigyou2 hours ago
          I could load it with Tor Browser
      • slaw3 hours ago
        Singapore - 223.119.20.232
      • dist-epoch3 hours ago
        I also get 403 Forbidden, from EU, nothing special about my setup
    • nashashmi4 hours ago
      Works for me fine
    • franky47an hour ago
      "You forgot to say please"
  • alecco4 hours ago
    A perfect example of a coding agent guided by a human with domain knowledge.
    • ethbr12 hours ago
      Intuition + obsessive detail-oriented execution = results
  • varjag5 hours ago
    It's bittersweet, isn't it. Software is solved, but at a terrible cost.
    • rschiavone4 hours ago
      How is it solved? LLMs cannot think new things, they can only cobble something together if it's in their training set.
      • tock4 hours ago
        New things are made by cobbling together existing things.
      • brookst2 hours ago
        What? This is a massive misunderstanding. It’s easy to get truly novel ideas from LLMs, unless your definition of “new things” is so strict that no human can do so either.

        The training set is about patterns, not facts or specific configurations. Yes, it’s possible to extract (some) of the training set verbatim, but that doesn’t mean it’s all you can do.

      • antonvsan hour ago
        I take it that your training cutoff was early 2023.
      • nashashmi4 hours ago
        I am not sure if claude had powerpc scripts in its training.
      • varjag4 hours ago
        That "only" part used to be the hardest. Getting the ideas was never the hard part. I think someone here even wrote an essay on that.
      • qsera3 hours ago
        It does not think at all. It vibes based on its training and any additional bolted on constraints. It is a quite simple automation that only works by huge amount of existing data.

        Modern man has grown quite dumb. He only seems to be able to "invent" by massive scaling things that are decades or centuries old..

        • brookst2 hours ago
          Out of curiousity, can you share a human invention that is not merely scaling things that were decades or centuries old at the time?

          Fire? The wheel? Archimedes screw, maaaaybe?

          • qsera41 minutes ago
            Electricity, RF communication, LASERS, Transistors....
            • brookst8 minutes ago
              What specific inventions in those areas?

              Electricity runs from simple batteries (600 BCE) to today’s power grids.

              RF was predicted but not demonstrated by Maxwell in the 1860’s. His work built on Faraday’s (1840’s) and Coulomb’s (1780’s). Coulomb built on Franklin and Newton, among others. Or do you mean Marconi and Tesla, who merely implemented what Maxwell predicted?

              The same is true for lasers and transistors but it’s tedious. There was no single “back in the day people invented things from whole cloth” moment.

    • jorisw3 hours ago
      Software isn't solved. 'Coding' is, according to the people of Claude.

      Coding (programming) is a tedious and expensive part of software engineering. There's other parts AI isn't doing, such as understanding and refining requirements, and delivery + accountability.

      • skydhash3 hours ago
        > Coding (programming) is a tedious and expensive part of software engineering.

        Why is that? Coding, for me, is kinda relaxing, and the fun part of developing software. Gathering requirements, especially in a corporate settings, is the tedious part and the most time consuming.

    • alecco4 hours ago
      Why is it bittersweet? Carpenters probably didn't cry when their tools improved.

      It will be bittersweet when there's no human needed at the wheel but IMHO we are far, far from that. These models/agents are just mimicking human text and need guidance because they often get lost or stuck.

      • voidUpdate4 hours ago
        I think carpenters might cry if a company went around shoving every single piece of carpentry they could find into a machine, and then when you press a button on that machine, a chair comes out, and then they go around saying that this machine will replace carpenters forever, and they made this machine with no help from other carpenters, and furniture makers all went "who needs carpenters anymore, lets just use the chair machine"
      • varjag4 hours ago
        Carpenters would have cried if all their work was reduced to shoving the logs into CNC machines.

        Yes there is still human input but it requires comparatively no skill or depth and it gets easier by the month. If I were lobotimized today I'd still be able to function as half-assed architect to AIs anyway.

        When was the last time you read fighting distractions/getting "in the zone"/complaint about open space offices thread or comment? They used to be a weekly feature on HN frontpage.

        • embedding-shape3 hours ago
          > Yes there is still human input but it requires comparatively no skill or depth and it gets easier by the month. If I were lobotimized today I'd still be able to function as half-assed architect to AIs anyway.

          Hard doubt, software engineering is so much more than just literal coding and typing. At least for many of us, the coding/typing part is the easy stuff, everything around that is where the actual engineering happens. If I were lobotomized, maybe I'd get ~10% done today as the day before, if I'm lucky. Even with my full mental capabilities, the agents end up on wild goose-chases unless I'm very specific with what I want, and even sometimes ignoring things if they're too complicated/takes too long, so a bit of thinking is still required to get the right prompts.

          And considering how subjective programming is, since it's a creative endeavour after all, I'm not that worried somehow all programmers will be unemployed in just some years.

          > When was the last time

          Frequency of something doesn't tell you how big of an issue something is, for all we know, HN community (or even the moderators) could have been tired of all the circular conversations where nothing new is being said, and downvote it. Doesn't really tell us much.

          • varjag3 hours ago
            Honestly conflating coding with typing tells me your idea of coding is very different to what I used to do.
            • embedding-shape3 hours ago
              Use whatever labels you want, apply charitable reading and I'm sure even you could understand what I mean here. Clearly there are at least two sorts of tasks (or used to anyways) in "software engineering" as a whole, one more mechanical and one more about thinking.
            • skydhash2 hours ago
              Coding is literally writing code, instructions in plain text that control the behavior of computer. That implies knowing which instructions to write.

              But creating software is much more than that. Just like writing an essay involves more than just typing words. Other activities include: Architecture, Requirements analysis, Debugging, Testing, Integration,…

              • 2 hours ago
                undefined
        • alecco3 hours ago
          But it's not like "shoving the logs into CNC machines". You have to understand what they are doing and point them into the right direction. LLMs very often lack common sense once you move out of easy things.
          • varjag2 hours ago
            Yes you have to understand when the log stuck in CNC machine, if you want to put the carpentry analogy to its extreme.
            • brookst2 hours ago
              I love programming CNC machines; I am a terrible carpenter. Someone still has to tell the LLMs what to build, specify design constraints and goals, etc
              • varjag2 hours ago
                Yes, the easy part is still there.
                • brookst16 minutes ago
                  Funny, working in product I think designing the right thing is far more difficult and interesting than just typing in source code.
      • pjc502 hours ago
        The real problem is we built the genie in the lamp or the monkey's paw: it's a machine that gives you what you ask for!
    • an hour ago
      undefined
    • antonvs41 minutes ago
      This reminds me of the Go champion who announced he was giving up the game after a computer beat him.

      It’s as if a runner were to give up running when beaten by a horse or a car. It suggests they may have had unexamined and perhaps somewhat strange reasons for doing the activity in the first place.

      People have difficulty accepting just how significant their limitations actually are. We design our world to hide those limitations. As an example, it would be easy to make computer games that are unwinnable by humans because of our slow reaction times, low speed in general, and our cognitive limitations. But no-one makes such games, because few people would want to play them for very long.

      The “terrible cost” in this specific case seems to be related to discovering that we were fooling ourselves about how good we were at software development.

    • boxed3 hours ago
      The cost is not terrible, calm down.
  • jansan4 hours ago
    "I does not boot and it makes me sad"

    I actually write prompts like that when I'm not under pressure. Claude will sometimes completely ignore your feelings, and sometimes give a little comment, which I just find refreshing in the middle of otherwise often boring sessions. And it does not have an effect on the actual result.

    • Tade03 hours ago
      Codex overuses the word "quickly". I'm tempted to check what happens if I tell him to do it slowly.
  • Calgaryp3 hours ago
    Asta la vista baby
    • mplanchard3 hours ago
      Hasta* (it’s spanish)
      • echelon_musk2 hours ago
        [flagged]
      • latentsea2 hours ago
        It doesn't sound like it has an H at the beginning. Shame it hasta be like that.
        • dredmorbiusan hour ago
          Spanish:

          - "ha" sound -> J

          - silent -> H, sometimes LL

          - "yu" sound -> LL

          - "v" sound -> B

          La Jolla -> "Lah Hoya" (English phonetic).

          Vallejo -> "Baiyeho" (phonetic), though the north-bay California town is often pronounced "Valayho" by locals.

          I have it on good authority that mail addressed to "La Hoya, CA" will in fact reach its intended destination.

        • ethbr12 hours ago
          The H is silent in Austrian-Spanish.
          • mr_toad32 minutes ago
            A number of English and French speakers will drop their H’s.