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Comment Re: 4GB has been insufficient for many years now (Score 3, Informative) 109

I have not seen AI code that is *more* efficient than human code, yet. I have seen AI write efficient, compact code when pressed, very, very hard to do so, but only then. Otherwise, in my hands, and those of my developer colleagues, AI produces mostly correct, but inefficient, verbose code.

Could that change? Sure, I suppose. But right now it is not the case, and the value system that is driving auto-generated code (i.e., the training set of extant code), does not put a premium on efficiency.

Comment Re:4GB has been insufficient for many years now (Score 5, Informative) 109

Web browsers are absolute hogs, and, in part, that's because web sites are absolute hogs. Web sites are now full-blown applications that were written without regard to memory footprint or efficiency. I blame the developers who write their code on lovely, large, powerful machines (because devs should get good tools, I get that), but then don't suffer the pain of running them on perfectly good 8 GB laptops that *were* top-of-the line 10 years ago, but are now on eBay for $100. MS Teams is a perfect example of this. What a steaming pile of crap. My favored laptop is said machine, favored because of the combination of ultra-light weight and eminently portable size, and zoom works just fine on it, but teams is unusable. Slack is OK, if that's nearly the only web site you're visiting. Eight frelling GB to run a glorified chat room.

The thing that gets my goat, however, is that the laptop I used in the late 1990s was about the same form factor as this one, had 64 MB (yes, MB) of main memory, and booted up Linux back then just about as fast. If memory serves, the system took about 2 MB, once up. The CPU clock on that machine was in the 100 MHz range. Even not counting for the massive architectural improvements, my 2010s-era laptop should boot an order of magnitude faster. It does not.

Why? Because a long time ago, it became OK to include vast numbers of libraries because programmers were too lazy to implement something on their own, so you got 4, 5, 6 or more layers of abstraction, as each library recursively calls packages only slightly lower-level to achieve its goals. I fear that with AI coding, it will only get worse.

And don't get me started on the massive performance regression that so-called modern languages represent, even when compiled. Hell in a handbasket? Yes. Because CPU cycles are stupidly cheap now, and we don't have to work hard to eke out every bit of performance, so we don't bother.

Comment Re:Please sir (Score 0) 192

Either you lose $200 billion now, or you lose your lives in a few years.
The IR has been actively building missiles, developing better ones and funding various terrorist groups around the world while making money selling oil.
They are stronger now than they were 20 years ago. They openly call for the complete destruction of Israel, and they call the US "The great satan". If they had the capability to destroy Israel and the US right now then they absolutely would, if they ever got that capability in the future they wouldn't hesitate to use it.

The majority of the Iranian population HATE this regime. They also know that this regime is ruthless and will not hesitate to kill, and yet thousands of them stood up against it in january and lost their lives.

The sooner the IR is taken out the better for everyone, $200 billion this year, $400 billion next year, $1 trillion in 2 years time, or in 3 years it's too late and they take you out instead. And unlike western governments, the IR will not hesitate if they have the capability.

Comment Re:Seems pointlessly unsafe (Score 1) 183

A dummy load and some chemistry to use oxygen would do the same job with zero human risk.

If they're not putting boots on the Moon, they shouldn't have their asses in the rocket.

Remember kids, spaceflight is hard. Nature does not like us being in space, at all. She puts up serious, difficult barriers that we need to overcome. Just look how hard it was for a new program like Space X to start from scratch even with all of the existing knowledge developed by NASA, ESA, etc.. How many rapid unscheduled disassembly events did they suffer? I lost count. Even the Russians, who arguably have as much or more LEO experience than the US, continue to face challenges. Heck, so do we, as the current generation of engineers no longer has the direct experience from Gemini and Apollo to guide them. Space is deeply unforgiving of mistakes.

To the GP, if you think that your 5-second considered opinion is better than a fleet of talented folks, I'll wager that if you more time, did some research, you'd change your opinion. I hope you do.

Comment Re: Tax Incentives (Score 1) 101

Well if they buy the nearby buildings and offer you a decent deal on rent then it's not the employee paying, as they'd still need to pay rent somewhere else and would likely be paying a higher rent.

This is exactly what's needed for jobs which aren't flexible on location - keep employees nearby so they don't have to waste time & money commuting. It would also force a redesign of cities so instead of clumping all the workplaces together with no housing for miles around, things would be intermixed.

Comment Re:The God-fearing and the Accountants (Score 1) 162

In the end, the real solution is to be able to grow parts as they're needed, not grow an entire body requiring expensive maintenance that you might have to throw away after you harvest one critical part.

I've been expecting that eventual outcome since the early 2000s when we (as in someone in an academic lab) grew a 3rd kidney in a mouse by grafting stem cells from a donor.

Comment Re:Good advice (Score 0) 101

Most of the warmongering kings cannot be voted away.
The current Iranian regime has long been a problem. Their goal has always been to destroy Israel and western countries, they just aren't strong enough to do so. If the IR had the capability to destroy Israel or the US today they would absolutely do it - it's literally baked right into their core ideology.
If you left them alone they wouldn't suddenly become peaceful, they will spend the time building strength while also funding deniable proxy wars until they're strong enough to destroy their enemies completely.

Comment Re:These guys are morons (Score 1) 101

How? Higher prices are GREAT for the oil and gas guys.
The US is not facing shortages due to Iran, most of the oil used in the US is domestically produced and there's always Venezuela as a nearby source too. Shipping oil from the middle east makes no sense for the US.
However US producers are still reaping the rewards of higher prices because it's a global market. Only the customers are suffering.

Comment Re:Tax Incentives (Score 1) 101

Businesses already have financial incentives for remote work, they still choose to ignore them. Keeping an office open is expensive, reducing it in size or eliminating it entirely can save a significant amount.

The carrot isn't working, try the stick. Make it a burden on companies to have onsite employees.
Give people the right to work remotely by default unless the company can prove why their job needs to be performed in a specific place.
Make commuting time part of working hours, so that employees are paid for that time.
Make commuting costs business expenses so companies have to reimburse employees for those costs.
Require companies to provide relocation assistance for anyone who needs to work in a specific location.

Comment Re:Gulf conflict? (Score 1) 101

Religion is just a method of controlling people.

Thailand and Cambodia are both primarily buddhist countries, despite the supposed peaceful nature of buddhism they still had a war recently.

Myanmar is primarily a buddhist country too which is currently under a military junta fighting a civil war against its own population, as well as being accused of genocide against a muslim minority in the country.

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