drewbug01

Your "clever" coworker can't sneak a seventeen-layer abstraction into the codebase because the language won't let him.

Oh boy, the author has clearly not seen some of the Go codebases I’ve seen.

but that’s part of why it is so valuable

“part of” leaves a lot of room for each of us to insert our own definition of “valuable” here.

There is no shortcut to art, but that’s part of why it is so valuable to society and so rewarding to create.

But don’t let that discourage you. If you want to make your own art, keep working at it. You will always get better with time and practice. It takes a long time and even the best artists frequently feel like their work isn’t good enough. But dedication and practice will pay off in time.

EDIT: downvotes - why? - I think this is a good idea (I'd do it for my sites if outages were an issue).

Because that's a monumental amount of work, and extraordinarily difficult to retrofit into a system that wasn't initially designed that way. Not to mention the unstated requirement of mirroring traffic to actually exercise that system (given the tendency of bugs to not show up until something actually uses the system).

Did you come to that conclusion after watching the videos, or just after reading statements from DHS?

Why do you think it’s so important to get in this guy’s head, and to give him this graceful excuse of “maybe he just panicked?”

Obviously someone panicked. We can clearly see they did not line them up and actually shoot them with a firing squad.

But what is the point of this thought exercise? Where does it lead? To more “training” for the agents?

The whole thing is illegitimate and immoral. There is no need to engage with what was going on in the guy’s head. We are way, way too far past that point.

“secession territory”

Honest question: what territory do you think we are in now that is better than “secession territory?”

Honest to god question. Federal agents are executing citizens in the streets!

Do you know how they died? Here’s some reporting on the people who died (the ones listed on that page): https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/10/ice-deaths-assa...

Kinda deflates things a bit, don’t you think? Seems like cancer and COVID are the real killers over the last two decades.

If you say two different and contradictory things, and do not very explicitly resolve them, and say which one is the final answer, you will get blamed for both things you said, and you will not be entitled to complain about it, because you did it to yourself.

Our industry is held back in so many ways by engineers clinging to black-and-white thinking.

Sometimes there isn’t a “final” answer, and sometimes there is no “right” answer. Sometimes two conflicting ideas can be “true” and “correct” simultaneously.

It would do us a world of good to get comfortable with that.

If your metric is an LLM that can copy/paste without alterations, and never hallucinate APIs, then yeah, you'll always be disappointed with them.

I struggle to take comments like this seriously - yes, it is very reasonable to expect these magical tools to copy and paste something without alterations. How on earth is that an unreasonable ask?

The whole discourse around LLMs is so utterly exhausting. If I say I don't like them for almost any reason, I'm a luddite. If I complain about their shortcomings, I'm just using it wrong. If I try and use it the "right" way and it still gets extremely basic things wrong, then my expectations are too high.

What, precisely, are they good for?

you

you can’t, they can. Important distinction.

The more surprising part is the unusual reactions of the other people getting a better picture and context of what I’m explaining without the usual back and forth - which has landed me my fair share of complaints of having to hear mini lectures, but not more than people appreciative of the fuller picture.

It’s not surprising to me at all. People don’t tend to appreciate being lectured at - especially in a conversational context. Moreover, people really don’t like being spoken to as if they’re robots (which is something I’ve started to notice happening more and more in my professional life).

The fact that the author considers these reactions surprising and “unusual” betrays a misunderstanding of (some of) the purposes of communication. Notably, the more “human” purposes.

There is a world of difference between “passing a state law that directly contradicts federal law” and “declining to proactively enforce federal laws in ways that are not required by those laws.”

To drive the point home: federal immigration laws are already enforced by federal agencies. Here in IL, state and local officials cooperate to the extent required by law. There are no federal laws on the books requiring them to do the job of the federal government for them (they could pass one, but they haven’t).

Calling that “nullification” is intellectually dishonest. As you said - “if you don’t like the law, fight to change it.” Don’t pretend it’s something it’s not.

You keep saying “nullification”. Can you explain precisely what you mean by that?

Because as far as I’m aware, immigration law is not a concern of the state, and what folks typically mean when they say “nullification” in this context is “the state isn’t doing the fed’s job for them.”

You also brought up warrants to enter private property. What do you make of the incident a few days ago where an agent hopped a fence to arrest someone, without a warrant? Should we just ignore those violations of our rights?

But this notion that roving bands of assassins are driving down the street looking for browns is likely an exaggeration (made worse by misinformation on social media).

Assassins? Nobody said that.

But my friend I can assure you they are, in fact, driving down the street and taking people who “look suspicious.”

(They also are doing more targeted things - both are true.)

In a way, the article understates how bad it is. I live in Chicago, and in my neighborhood every lamp post (and mailbox, and other surface) has a poster detailing your rights. “Fuck ICE” (and related) signs all over. Most businesses and a lot of houses in my neighborhood have signs explicitly stating that ICE is not welcome inside without a warrant. My coffee shop regularly has free whistles to take, so you can help alert others.

Just a few days ago I was working at a coffee shop and got a rapid response notice that ICE was about a block from me. I got a few more that day, all within a few blocks of my house.

It is incredibly stressful. I married people, have kids who are not white - they are a target. I pray every day that the next daycare raid isn’t my sons daycare, that ICE doesn’t stop my husband as he goes to work, that my mother-in-law doesn’t get snatched off the street when she walks to Target.

It’s bad.

probably with the premeditated goal of trying to sue and/or buy time for the likely illegal aliens working for him

My bad. Didn’t realize you already knew his heart, and that this was premeditated. And that you clearly know who his employees were and that they were here illegally.

Whoops. Since we know they’re guilty, I guess all that’s left to do is find the evidence!

Enjoy yourself. I won’t engage in this uncharitable, ugly discussion with you anymore. I hope you find peace in you heart, and I hope others treat you with the charity and dignity you’re clearly unwilling to give others.

We clearly aren’t watching the same video.

What you see as “thrusting” sure looks to me like he was trying to stop himself from a full-on run - why did he grab a door handle on the wall? Why would you grab and pull like that if you were trying to tackle?

And “grabbing his legs”… come on man. That looks a hell of a lot like an old man flailing after getting tackled.

And you think he grappled with the officer before getting arrested outside? It looks like precisely the opposite.

I’m sorry, I just can’t buy what you’re selling.

Here’s a letter from a Senator, asking Kristi Noem to correct the record after it came to light in court proceedings that the DHS lied: https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/murphy...

Here’s an article discussing how Noem recently claimed that “no American citizens have been arrested or detained”, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary: https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/04/homeland-security-bo...

Here’s an article discussing how the recent video published by DHS about their success in DC was in fact composed of footage from different cities and months old: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2025/10/29/tru...

Here’s another article discussing some of the same incidents and others where DHS put out false statements and would not correct them: https://reason.com/2025/10/22/homeland-security-wont-stop-ly...

Here’s another letter from a congresswoman demanding DHS retract false statements made about an alleged criminal, who was later proven to be framed: https://gwenmoore.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?Documen...

So why should I believe anything they say these days? They are blatantly lying, in ways that are manifestly obvious to anyone that is willing to look. We don’t owe the presumption of good faith to people who time and again have been publicly caught lying - and worse, who haven’t even tried to correct the record.

People can and have successfully sued, winning substantial sums of money in the process.

I would be quite interested to know if you can cite sources on that.

And we also live in the social media age where nothing gets more of those sacred likes and other such things (including that sweet sweet GoFundMe money) than framing oneself as a victim.

What, exactly, is your argument here? That it’s all fine because you think people will play victim and strike it rich on GoFundMe? I’m struggling to see what point you’re actually trying to make.

They are actively trying to make a mountain out of every single molehill, yet they are clearly finding themselves annoyingly short of molehills.

Sources? Please list out what molehills were made into mountains. What evidence do you have that they are actively trying to do it because of their “bias”? You’re regurgitating tired, right-wing talking points. Back it up with evidence if you’re so sure about it.

which is probably a higher end ballpark since I doubt they were especially critical of any claims they discovered

Well, sure. Let’s see some evidence that they weren’t critical enough with their reporting. My understanding is that they are a highly respected journalistic outfit. What makes you so sure they were playing fast and loose with the facts?

Instead, you're looking more at tens to low hundreds of instances

…based on what, the independent research ProPublica did? DHS doesn’t even keep statistics on how many citizens they detain so I’m not sure we should be assuming the numbers here are that low.

Because you didn't tell it to make a "professional analytics application" for a while and then switch to nonsensical "unicorns and rainbows" at the end. You forgot to trick it into the "gotcha!" situation that OP intentionally created to make fun of the stupid AI.

Even if the OP initially asked for a “professional” application, this is hardly a “gotcha” situation - our tools should do what we ask!

I’m sure we could come up with some realistic exceptions, but let’s not waste our words on them: this is a pretty benign thing and I cannot believe we are normalizing the use of tools which do not obey our whims.

The chances of a citizen being targeted by ICE is low.

You can’t start with this premise, though. Recent rulings allow stops based on “probable cause” such as a combination of “speaks Spanish”, “is brown”, and “is in a place where we think illegal immigrants might be”.

So like: any Latino US citizen, who happens to be working someplace like a landscaping company. Or a kitchen.

The idea that citizens aren’t likely to be targets is now laughable. And we have ample reporting indicating that in fact, citizens are being detained, for hours and hours (if not longer).

Why do you believe DHS is speaking honestly here?

Available reporting indicates that judge ruled on Thursday, and that DHS deported on Friday. Moreover, available reporting also indicates:

DHS and ICE did not respond to questions from The Associated Press seeking additional details on the timeline and how officials receive federal court orders.

So they aren’t clarifying anything. Odd.

And don’t forget back in March, when the administration publicly asserted that oral orders from a judge carried no authority and that they would only heed written orders.

When you put those two together, one wonders: perhaps DHS is playing fast and loose with timelines again.

Why on earth would you treat anything they say as if it were truthful or reliable? They have lost the right to be treated as trustworthy by default.

If someone is taking the time to refute ChatGPT’s output and telling you why the answer isn’t applicable in a given situation, it certainly implies that ChatGPT wasn’t “correct enough” at all.

What situations do you think it’s fine to be “correct enough?”

And we're talking about 170 citizens who were definitely protesting and interfering with police duties

How, exactly, do you know they were interfering?

So you are truly convinced that out of hundreds of thousands of interactions with ICE

What time frame are you thinking of here? It’s very easy to minimize problems if you’re defining the time frame to be years, or something. It’s better to focus on the stark changes in enforcement behavior more recently, I would think.

those 170 people who were actually arrested, didn't meet any of these criteria for arrest? Are you really that far gone?

For starters, as the article notes - 170 was just the number of US citizens that were arrested, and specifically the number that ProPublica could verify independently, since the government does not keep the statistics themselves. I think that’s important to call out, since the scale of the problem is important.

But the bigger problem is that you’re defining the “typical” behavior - and the “typical” behavior is not what’s happening. Just yesterday, for instance, a judge in IL stated that she was extremely concerned that ICE was not following her orders regarding tear gas - that it was being deployed with no warnings.

And moreover, a different district court judge in IL and three different judges on appeal held that the stories coming out of DHS appear to be completely unreliable!

So - yes, I actually feel pretty good about asserting there likely wasn’t a reason for those arrests. Perhaps there were in some cases, but the lies from the administration make it nearly impossible to tell.

This doesn't work anymore. If you're this committed to being a victim, and claiming racism whenever you experience cognitive dissonance, that's your problem. But I'm not going to lose sleep over it anymore, and it would probably do you and others like you a benefit to read the room.

What doesn’t work, exactly? And when you say “others like you” - what do you mean by that? What kind of person do you think I am? Why do you assume I experience cognitive dissonance?

The people elected the politicians who appointed the Supreme Court justices (the governed giving their consent).

I seem to recall a recent instance where a Supreme Court seat was stolen from the politician with the right to appoint them. But, sure, we all consented to these specific justices. Sure.

We overwhelmingly voted

Ah… that is not at all how the vote went. The popular vote, as I’m sure you know, was a difference of less than 2%. The electoral college ensures that it looks “overwhelming,” but you and I both know that this administration was not elected with an “overwhelming” in any sense of the word. It’s propaganda.

The middle of your rant is just kinda filled with dog-whistles and half-truths, so I’m not going to bother with that.

Suddenly this admin is no longer "within the strict bounds of the law," and the biggest issue you take with all of this is that your rioters, activists, and misfits spent a day in jail for civil disobedience, and that the cops are wearing masks?

They’re arresting citizens on the street with no probable cause, and publicly lying about why the arrests were made and the circumstances around them. Yes, it is a huge issue. And yes, the masks bother me: accountability matters in law enforcement.

The reason you don’t care is that you think somehow this cruelty will benefit you and people who look like you.

It won’t.

If the protests truly were as violent as the administration claims, if ICE agents were truly out there fighting for their lives, etc … then they would prosecute. It wouldn’t be “not worth it” to prosecute if things were really that dire.

When you step back far enough, ultimately the governments power is derived from the consent of the governed (as the Declaration of Independnce puts it).

SCOTUS can decide what the “strict bounds of the law” is, within our current system of government. But it is wise to heed what the people want the law to actually be - since their consent is truly what matters. Any government is ultimately powerless if the people decide it is so.