What it needs most of all, is a fairly complete intuitive model of how the world works. LLMs only have book knowledge. They have no body, perception or experience. I think that’s incredibly limiting.

We need to get the right to privacy and control over our own devices enshrined as fundamental rights, like so many other rights the EU protects.

The main thing that AI has shown, is how much bullshit we subconsciously filter through every day without much effort. (Although clearly some people struggle a lot more with distinguishing between bullshit and fact, considering how much politicized nonsense has taken hold.)

I can live with that.

No MUDs? That’s what I used telnet for.

What web? Gopher and FTP.

Unacceptable. I want to be able to telnet.

Landlines, you mean? I sometimes forget they still exist.

I’ve found it’s pretty good at refactoring existing code to use a different but well-supported and well documented library. It’s absolutely terrible for a new and poorly documented library.

I recently tried using Copilot with Claude to implement something in a fairly young library, and did get the basics working, including a long repetitive string of “that doesn’t work, I’m getting error msg [error]”. Seven times of that, and suddenly it worked! I was quite amazed, though it failed me in many other ways with that library (imagining functions and options that don’t exist). But then redoing the same thing in the older, better supported library, it got it right on the first try.

But maybe the biggest advantage of AI coding is that it allows me to code when my brain isn’t fully engaged. Of course the risk there is that my brain might not fully engage because of the AI.

If you know what you want, its automatic code completion can save you some typing in those cases where it gets it right (for repetitive or trivial code that doesn’t require much thought). It’s useful if you use it sparingly and can see through its bullshit.

For junior coders, though, it could be absolute poison.

Sounds like vibecoders will have to relearn the lessons of the past 40 years of software engineering.

I’ve read that Mohammed even wanted to merge his movement with Judaism, but Jewish leaders rejected him, and apparently that set some bad blood.

Are you sure about that 3000? I thought at the time it was mostly the 6th year of the rule of some king, emperor or governor (Herod, Augustus or Quirinius, most likely), although the Bible doesn’t even provide those kind of dates.

As far as I’m aware, having a single universal reckoning is something that Christianity invented in the middle ages. But still based on the rule of Jesus as king, of course.

I’m a Christian in the Calvinist tradition, but I try to follow Jesus more than Paul. Paul was in my opinion very much a pragmatic who tried to spread Christianity in Greece, and was willing to compromise a bit with Greek sensibilities (which included slavery and misogyny). When in doubt, I look to Jesus instead.

Also, I think Calvin went a bit too far overboard on some things. The reformation was a good thing, but that doesn’t make him right about everything.

Congressmembers are only a minuscule fraction of the population of DC. And the rest of the population never voted for any of them. So the vast, vast majority of people in DC are unrepresented.

Cool. A couple of decades ago I read about former astronaut/physics prof Wubbo Ockels working on something like that but with kites. I’ve never heard of any production version of that coming off the ground. I hope this does better.