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Comment Not a "senior coder", I use it "sometimes." (Score 1) 57

The big thing for me is that AI doesn't "write the code I put in production" - it provides guidance on techniques to use, or solves bugs I have written.

The same as StackOverflow for me. Just more personalized to my exact situation.

"I'm writing a shell script to ssh into a remote system and run some commands, I have to use some environment variables defined locally on the system I'm executing the script on, and other environment variables that are defined on the remote system I'm connecting to, and I can't remember how to escape things properly to pass through correctly." I can just feed an LLM my exact command that isn't working right, and ask it to rewrite it. It takes 2-3 further prompts ("That produced this error message, please try again") but it generally bug fixes it.

Or "I need a python script to integrate this company's API, as documented on this url with this other thing, and do this task, what would be a good sample?" I don't take it exactly as it spits it out, but use it as a basis for my own code.

I would say that in the last four years of using LLMs to assist, maybe 10% of my actual deployed code is "directly from an LLM, because it produced clearly functional code" - usually only short snippets. One short function in a Python script, for example. Maybe another 20% was "came from an LLM prompt, then heavily rewritten, because I didn't want to feed potentially proprietary data into the LLM."

Comment We *HAVE* them, they're just pointless. (Score 5, Insightful) 92

They exist now. They're either small toys, or large horrendously expensive limited-purpose things.

The problem is that they're pointless. Anything a humanoid robot can do in an automated manner, a specialized non-humanoid robot could do much cheaper.

I don't need Rosie the Robot to use my regular stand-up vacuum cleaner. I have a Roomba.

I don't need a humanoid robot to sit in the driver's seat of a car to drive me around, Waymo exists.

I don't need a humanoid robot to stand in a factory using a spray can to paint a car, automated industrial robots that can do tasks like that (or welding) have existed for decades.

Comment Re:What happens when kindergarden write a paper (Score 2) 195

My Toyota Prius, at 300,000 miles, only got ~250 miles on a tank of gas.

Did I pay to get it fixed? No. Because it was still perfectly usable. Just as a Hyundai Ioniq 6 that gets ~50% of its original range at 300,000 miles would still be perfectly usable.

And ultra-high-mile older EVs are getting better than 70% at 200k miles.

Comment Re:What happens when kindergarden write a paper (Score 1) 195

"Less maintenance but more expensive to maintain"?

o.O

In a decade of EV ownership of multiple models by multiple manufacturers, I've never had to perform a battery replacement. I've never had to perform any "regularly scheduled maintenance" other than tire rotations. I've had a couple fluid changes on a couple vehicles, both were about the price of an oil change at a high-end carmaker's dealer. I haven't had to replace the brake pads on any, including multiple that went over 100,000 miles by the time I sold them. The only tires I've replaced were winter tires that are notoriously short lifespan, or tires that had physical damage from road debris.

Yes, maintenance on expensive brands is expensive. An oil change at a BMW dealership costs more than an oil change at a Toyota dealership. Parts for a Mercedes cost more than parts for a Ford.

Parts for a Tesla cost more than parts for a Hyundai EV. "Regular maintenance visits" for a Rivian cost more than regular maintenance visits for a Chevy Bolt.

They're *LESS* expensive to maintain, not more. And as for insuring? A Hyundai Kona EV costs the same to insure as an ICE Hyundai Kona, assuming both have the same MSRP. Yes, a Tesla costs more to insure than a Honda Civic. But so does a BMW 3-series.

Comment Re:What happens when kindergarden write a paper (Score 1) 195

And you're quoting just the one *WORST* longevity model of EV. The problem is that "mainstream EVs" are still so new that there are very few that have even *POSSIBLY* hit 200, 300, 400 thousand miles to have many data points on. At this point, nearly all "modern EVs" that have left service have done so "prematurely." There are Tesla Model S with 300,000 miles on their original battery. The fact is, the only two models of EV that sold in reasonably large numbers starting over 10 years ago are the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S. And both of those, at least in the earliest years, have design issues that limit lifetime more than models shipping now.

You're also not actually doing any research, you're relying on Google AI results.

Comment Re:I don't believe it (Score 4, Insightful) 61

Okay, I have. I agree nuclear has an important place in "space-constrained power generation" and in areas where solar may not be the best solution (high latitudes,) and I would absolutely prefer nuclear to coal or natural gas.

But it definitely shouldn't come at the expense of the *VASTLY* quicker and cheaper to build and deploy solar.

Develop the newer better nuclear plants for where it makes sense, but keep displacing CO2-emitting sources with solar in the meantime.

Comment Re:I don't believe it (Score 4, Insightful) 61

Solar works. The economies of scale that the computer industry has worked decades to build finally has made solar ridiculously cheap to build. It's relatively simple to deploy at scale, and has near-zero maintenance costs.

Yes, nuclear has a place as a green energy source, for "constant base load", but solar is the future.

Even if all safety and environmental regulations on building a nuclear power plant were lifted, it would still take over a year to produce a high-capacity power plant. The largest nuclear power plant in the world has an output of about 8GW. China deployed that much new solar every *WEEK* in the first half of this year. It is simply impossible to deploy new nuclear power generation capacity at the rate we can deploy new solar. And nuclear costs far more.

Add to that improvements in energy storage (not just batteries, although that is primary,) and China is poised to very rapidly increase their power grid.

Comment Re:are you serious? (Score 2) 81

Trump could sign a peace treaty with Russia tomorrow and /.ers and other American leftists would still bitch about it. "Ooh, of course Agent Krasnov would broker a peace deal with Putin!!

OF COURSE everyone sane would bitch about it - the only "peace treaty" Trump is capable of signing is the utter capitulation suggested by Russia.

Comment Re:Time to Think (Score 1) 82

I agree it sounds like a bad idea. The stock markets already have tools they deploy during crises that pause trading to give people time to stop and think rather than just react. Having trading stop at the end of the day and other markets around the globe take over gives everyone an automatic long pause to regroup and plan for whatever crisis the markets may be looking at..

Just one problem. Not everyone around the world lives in the same timezone.

Comment Re:It's not "late stage capitalism" it's the NYSE (Score 1) 68

Stupid take. The stock market is always forward-looking. If you want your company stock to command a hefty premium, you need to be able to show a believable roadmap to riding major trends into making a lot of money. it's okay if you can't, but still make a lot of money right now and tomorrow. Just don't go Pikachy-face that this is indeed reflected in your stock valuation.

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