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For Computer Science in particular: it's not supposed to be job training. CS is an education closer to math or science (in fact, at my university it belongs to the department of hard sciences and math). If you like that (and I sure did!) it'll be worth your time. If you're just looking for job training, you're looking in the wrong place.

My university CS program didn't even teach programming in any of the major classes, it was assumed you'd learn on your own or by doing one of the optional workshops.

There's a lot of stuff taught in academic CS that you simply won't learn on the job, or if you do, it won't be as rigorous and you'll be missing the fundamentals.


What program was this? It sounds much closer to what I wish my CS degree had been. In my CS program, the courses I actually enjoyed were the math-heavy, but always optional, like computability/decidability/complexity, cryptography, etc.

The mandatory "practical" courses were often much worse. For example, I studied relational algebra on my own, plus a few chapters from Kleppmann's Data-Intensive Applications book, and it was painful to realise how shallow it made the mandatory database course look.

I agree that CS should not be mere job training. I think many CS programs are neither rigorous enough to feel like math/science and prepare you for proper academic work, nor practical enough to be good vocational training. They sit in a bad middle ground, where academics teach industry-lite.


Industry-lite is a good way to describe it. I remember having a 300 level class which was supposed to be about real world application architecture but it was essentially just about making UML diagrams (because the professor happened to be on the board of whoever was in charge of UML.) Nobody serious (even at the time!) uses UML.

> Nvidia on laptops? Insert the famous Linus Torvalds meme here

I have an RTX 5070 (whatever the laptop variant is) and it absolutely rocks with almost everything I throw at it, running Ubuntu+Steam+Proton. I no longer worry whether a Windows game is going to run, because almost all of them do with good performance.


I think things might have changed in the last 6-7 years? That's when I switched away from Nvidia.

Or does your laptop have no other igpu?

My last Nvidia laptop was a Hybrid optimus laptop. I almost always ran it on the built in Intel igpu because of the really bad issues with the Nvidia cards. Video tearing, bad power management etc... I remember even switching the GPU wasn't easy... And performance wasn't as good either ..


> if you are suicidal in part because you live in a dangerous impoverished shithole good luck defending yourself afterwards!

Is realistically "gun ownership" a plus in this scenario?


What if we tell the agent NOT to add ignore annotations (or to ask about them if there's no other reasonable way to proceed)?

You're devolving into the realm of "What if we tell the agent to just get it right?"

Relying on the prompt to ensure the code it writes is correct is where things fail. Types, tests, linting, etc. are deterministic tools the agents tend to respect.


They tend to ignore such instructions on first circular issue - even with Opus you have to kick it really hard, insist on generalization and intervene manually. In my opinion this is not a productive/workable approach for large projects.

Typical failure mode: "I fix pyright error A, it causes pyright error B, pyright is broken, I will exclude both A and B through pyright config and will add ignore annotations for both A and B and will write a couple of idiotic comments about that".


Did you watch The Matrix on cinema, without knowing anything about the movie?

Back when The Matrix first opened, it was still possible to go to the cinema without knowing anything about a movie. I watched it like this and my mind was blown. I thought I was about to watch a techno thriller about a hacker who resisted authority!

I don't think I would have enjoyed the movie in today's hyperconnected internet culture, where we know what every movie will be about months and sometimes years before release.

Wait, I'll make an exception: say what you will about The Force Awakens, but I totally thought -- based on the trailers -- that it was going to be about Han Solo and Chewie. When it turned out to be about a new character, Rey, I was completely and pleasantly surprised. Well done, trailer editors!


"Did you watch The Matrix on cinema, without knowing anything about the movie?"

Yeah, that's what I mean. I went in not knowing anything, never having seen any trailers. And halfway through I went, "oh this is They Live, but the skeletons wear sunglasses."


I don't think it's the same.

I like to think of these supremacist/racist conspiracy theories as another form of control: in many cases these people are right to be upset, since they see things in the world that are truly unfair, but their anger gets redirected to bizarre beliefs and racism. So it's a way of controlling and channeling their anger to a place where real change becomes impossible, just anger and venting and weird beliefs in secret Jewish/Muslim/Woke/Illuminati cabals running the world.

Real change is hard, and involves compromise and dealing with people with different ideas and goals. Anger against immigrants, or some ethnic or religious group, is easier.


Immigrants are very often people from different ethnic and religious groups than you, who you have to compromise and deal with because they are present in large numbers in your poltical jurisdiction in a way they were not previously. Being angry at them for creating the conditions under which you have to compromise with them is normal.

It's normal, but misguided to direct your anger at them. It's so normal it's the usual path the frustration is channeled, often with conspiracy theories such as "the replacement" etc.

Compromising and dealing with people is what life's all about, but it's easier to hate than to build consensus and harmony.

And of course, some people exploit these misguided tendencies because they want people not to focus on systemic inequalities that are the root of their problems, and instead blame everything on some other group of people that's different from them. Or because fanning the flames works as a ladder for them.


> Starship Troopers movie

This movie is so misunderstood. It's basically disliked by Heinlein fans who took offense, and by people unfamiliar with both Heinlein and Verhoeven who thought it was actually Beverly Hills + Space Fascism without irony.

I like it for what it does, but I'm more of a fan of Robocop.


Unfortunately most Heinlein classics like Door into Summer or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress can't be adapted visually for various reasons.

I admit to my shame I've never read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (I know, I know) but I have read Door into Summer and I think it could be easily adapted. I mean, they adapted All You Zombies and that was truly a challenge visually (for reasons I won't spoil here). In comparison, Door is a more straightforward time-loop + betrayal story of the kind that can be adapted to the big screen...

Edit: unless you're referring to an icky age-related situation, but that could be fixed in the movie adaptation to make it less icky.

Edit 2: wow, and it was made into a movie... by the Japanese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Door_into_Summer_(film)


Heinlein meant the book literally and not as a farse or satire.

Yes, that's what I'm meant, I just worded it ambiguously. Let me make it more explicit:

The movie was disliked by:

- Fans of Heinlein, who took offense at what they thought was a mocking and misunderstanding of the source material.

- People unfamiliar with Heinlein, and also with Verhoeven, who failed to understand the movie was satirical and thought it was actually endorsing a weird mix of Beverly Hills 9210 and fascism.

In case you wonder, I have read Heinlein (not just Starship Troopers) and know what he meant. I also appreciate Verhoeven!


Agreed about Odersky, the Scala course and the Scala Functional Programming course were solid (the latter a bit less so, a blemish was its insistence on Akka, but the concepts were interesting).

There was also a very interesting introduction to Programming Languages (by Dan... something? He was from the University of Washington I think) which covered multiple paradigms and had interesting things to say about the ML family.


Yes, Programming Languages by Dan Grossman! The course was later split up into three parts, with each part focusing on a particular language/paradigm: SML, Racket, and Ruby. Definitely one of the higher quality offerings on Coursera.

Yes, that's the one. I forgot that I discovered and played with Racket because of this course. Really cool language (and course).

I hear you, but isn't the human in the loop precisely the one who should be putting their foot down and saying "no, the AI shouldn't be writing the tests to begin with", which would bring us full circle?

I have to say the Bambu A1 Mini has been a game changer for me. I wouldn't own a 3D printer otherwise. While it doesn't really "just work" as the hype would have it (I believe this is impossible with current tech), it comes pretty damn close. Probably the printer that does it best.

I didn't want another hobby, fiddling with settings and materials, and generally going down the 3D printing rabbit hole. I just wanted to print stuff for my actual hobbies. And the A1 does this, with little fuss, for which I am forever grateful.


I have the A1 Mini as well. Mostly having sat unused since I bought it a few years back, I'm now wondering if the thing will function normally again. Any advice on basic "cold boot" maintenance? It's been a year since I last turned it on.

Shouldn't require much. Very light oil (ideally the oil that came with it) on the rails, wash the removable build plate with basic soap and water (may be dusty from sitting), and then run a test benchy to clear out any filament in the hotend.

You might want to run a tension adjustment process. It’s in Bambu’s highly useful documentation.

I've had it paused for some months, and just a bit of WD40 and re-running the auto calibration was enough maintenance in my case. Maybe I was lucky?

Have you owned any other printers?

So much of this opinion sounds like a Bambu ad read from YouTube, as if they're the only ones making printers that just work now, like a Prusa can't crank out perfect first layers without breaking a sweat.


The A1 Mini was my first printer, which is of course biases my opinion of other printers.

I've bought many, many other printers since then, and every time I've gotten something other than a Bambu Lab printer I've been disappointed, and ended up returning them or selling them.

Creality's K1 Plus was great, but regularly needed the extruder disassembled to get broken filament out.

Anycubic Kobra 3 Max regularly failed to keep prints on the bed. I bought 2 Elegoo Centauri Carbons. The first has been out of commission since the extruder went haywire, and I couldn't get replacement parts without going through some random support chat app, and the 2nd one's build plate delaminated the first weekend I had the printer.

The Snapmaker U1 I'm pretty happy with, but when I first got it, I learned you have to be very gentle with how you put the spools on, as it can pop an internal plastic panel off with interferes with the Y-axis.

Prusas are good, but price and availability are issues (I bought all the above new at my local Microcenter). I do have an older Prusa MK3 that I bought for an pellet extruder conversion, but for a printer with no online capabilities and a need to manually level it via paper, it cost more used than a new Bambu Lab P1S. I'm okay with putting your money where your ideology is, but imagine if the only alternative to an iPhone's walled garden was a $2000 Android.


As I said in my comment, the Bambu is the printer that made me try. Every other video or review I've seen, from multiple enthusiasts who use other brands, makes it clear any other printer (at least ~2 years ago when I bought it) was "a hobby into itself", most definitely what I did NOT want.

I do not want a hobby, I already have way too many. I wanted something plug and play, zero fuss, and the A1 Mini delivers.

If that reads like an ad to you, I don't know what to say.


This is part of the reason their attempts frustrate me so much. I love my A1 Mini but I do not want to support this kind of behavior so I will probably go to another company if I ever upgrade.

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