There are only two hard problems in computer programming:

1. Naming things 2. Cache invalidation 3. off-by-one errors

Length 3 lists always feel better, and my favorite formulation of this is,

  There are only three hard problems in computer science:

  1. Naming things
  2. Cache invalidation
  3. Off-by4. Multi-threading
  -one errors.

My favorite version of this but is like "An engineer has one problem he decides to solve with multi-threading. Now problems. has two he"

there are actually 10 problems: naming things, cache invalidation, base conversions, off by one errors, and cache invalidation

Base conversions are easy, but which off by one is it? base 4 or base 6?

10 base 2 is 2 base 10. i gave four unique hard problems. and now typing this out i see that I was off by 1 (or two)

Off-by-two is a subset of all possible off-by-one errors.

All off-by-one errors can be reproduced by producing an off-by-one error of some other off-by-one error.

> Markdown files are slightly annoying to read/preview

Maybe I’ve missed the intentions of markdown, but the ability to easily read the plain text version has always been the killer feature.

Rendering as html is a nice bonus.

I understand there are plenty of useful things to say “but what about…” to, like inline images, and I use them. But they still detract from what differentiated markdown in the first place.

The more of that you add, the more it could have been any document format.

I feel like things have changed as the main interface for code has (for some) become an agent running in the cli. I feel like we (certainly I) check my code editor way less frequently than before. Because of that (for me) easily reading/rendering Markdown files has become more of a pain than it used to be.

If you problem is that you don't have a text editor open...just open it to read the file? When I click on a Markdown file, it opens in my code editor with the preview pane already open. Then I close it when I'm done. How is that different from any other file on a computer?

If your problem is that you don't want to use a text editor, there are many markdown viewers out there, both dedicated (MarkLite), as part of a larger tool (Obsidian) or even in an office suite (LibreOffice Writer).

If your problem is that you don't want fo leave the terminal, there are many command line markdown "renderers", at least as far as that is even technically possible (glow is markdown-specific, bat is more of a general fancy text file viewer).

I fail to see how any of these problems are even partially solved by a web app and a CLI tool that launches it, let alone any better than the existing solutions.

Keep going! The idea has merit. But it is US centric.

I tried the example with my local post code and of course it didn’t work as I’m not in the US.

> You can now spin up five agents to implement five different versions of the thing you're building and simply pick the best one.

Or you end up with five different mediocre solutions where the best parts are randomly distributed amongst all five.

The described SDLC is a recipe for rigorously and predictably building the wrong thing.

Does anyone actually work like this? Have they ever?

At the least it misses all the feedback loops between the stages. Even the actual waterfall model isn’t as linear as the one given as an example.

AI is like electricity. It may be the “product” you think you are selling. But it isn’t the product people are buying.

People are buying what these things facilitate (lights, tvs, air conditioning, etc in the case of electricity)

I think the AI folk have generally done a terrible job of connecting the dots to show people what they are actually getting.

It’s worth noting that some things mentioned above already existed before electricity. So people needed to be shown that electric light is in almost all ways better, cheaper, more convenient than existing alternatives.

> I think the AI folk have generally done a terrible job of connecting the dots to show people what they are actually getting.

Confusion and fear are much better for stock prices than clarity

If what they are getting is "not much, plus a side order of hallucination", then connecting the dots is exactly what they DON'T want to do.

Yes! I have a similar reaction.

I often think of Jack Vance’s “Eyes of the Overworld”. They hid the reality of a decaying world behind a fabulous facade.

Interesting read. Given what was covered and tradition notwithstanding, I think “Trump Class” (apart from being an oxymoron) is a perfect designation:

- oversized

- completely lacking in style

- not technically capable for the role it finds itself in!

I believe the designation you are looking for is “all-round fucking stupid”

As you are in Australia you might get somewhere if you lodge a complaint with Consumer Affairs

https://www.accc.gov.au/

And there are also separate bodies for each state.

It’s because their thoughts are Roman while they are always Russian to Finnish things.

Kenya believe it!

Anyway, I’m done here. Abyssinia.