jbarrs

Where is... the vibecoded OS

This perhaps isn't an issue at any meaningful industry as I think there is little room in the space for a new OS to take off, but within hobbyist circles it seems it's becoming a problem. On subreddits such as r/osdev, a lot of interesting-looking projects are being called out for their code having a lot of AI hallmarks: commit history showing an entire OS with a shell and GUI being written in a week, almost exclusively very large, non-atomic commits, comments that randomly include words from a different language, and snippets of code that are blatantly plagiarised from well-known projects in the community.

It's such a strange thing to see, because it's an area of programming that has almost zero practical need these days. We already have three big desktop operating systems that cover 99% of use cases, and there are already projects that fill most other gaps. Unless you have a really specific problem that can't be solved by patching Linux, writing a whole new OS and everything that comes with it is unlikely to be worth the time. IMHO, the only reason to write an OS in current year is for the hell of it; if you're really interesting in programming and computers, you like solving problems, and you like building large, complex systems, writing an OS can be a really fun long-term project. If you do none of the work and simply leave an LLM to plan out the system and solve all the problems, you gain absolutely nothing from it.

I haven't tested this myself, but verifying with a driver's license should be supported [1]. Anecdotally, I've heard you have to fail the automatic Apple Wallet credit card verification, get to the screen where you're asked to input a credit card manually, and there should be something hidden in a corner that you can click to verify by uploading an ID.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/1s2n1yc/psa_apple_h...

This drove me insane a little while ago. Every single "personalised" Spotify playlist that got shovelled my way had a bunch of songs on it from Olivia Rodrigo's latest album, regardless of whether they fit the playlist theme or not. I don't listen to Olivia Rodrigo, and consistently skip her songs when they come up because they just aren't my cup of tea, but Spotify continued to shoehorn them into every playlist I listened to.

Same thing with the AI DJ. There are some days where it just never misses, and I can listen for hours without skipping a single song. Other days, it feels like every other theme is "here's an artist we've been paid to advertise", and I end up getting tired of it pretty quickly.

What's a computer?

This might be wrong, but based on my own experience of Ubuntu effectively uninstalling itself when I tried to remove a single package.

I think most of the default software gets installed as one large package group, rather than as individual pieces of software. Only the group is marked as manually installed, but the individual programs pulled in by that group are marked as automatically installed. If you try to apt install something you already have as part of the default distro software, you'll usually see a message saying something like "marked as manually installed."

When you go to uninstall one program from the group, that one program is uninstalled as requested, but the group itself has to be marked as uninstalled, since you've removed one of that group's "dependencies" and thus can no longer satisfy that group's installation requirements. You now have a load of software that was automatically installed as dependencies of another package, but are no longer dependencies of any manually-installed packages. The next time you run apt autoremove, it'll remove all of those automatically-installed components and leave you with an almost bare system.

I've wondered whether this is connected to the olfactory system. Real books have a discernible smell about them, especially older books, and smell is said to be one of the best senses for memory recall. Do you remember less from an ebook because your ebook isn't smelly?

Posts of unknown authorship have a disclaimer at the top of the page.

Problem is, the posts can contain <script> elements. So it's easy to just write a little JavaScript that removes the disclaimer at the top. See this hastily-made, immature example of mine:

https://joshcsimmons.com/post/H4sIABO8LmUC/3VT0W7aQBB85yu2QV...

As it stands, this really isn't the most secure system. Something much more malicious could be injected into this!

The universe is infinite.

Whether or not this is true, it's somewhat irrelevant, as the observable universe is finite, meaning there's a finite amount of "stuff" that can causally influence us. What happens far beyond the observable universe is not worth dwelling on, as we will never see it or be otherwise influenced by it.

I have a mighty need for something that can quickly render frames of arbitrary pixels. Ideally a line at a time for smoothness.

Dependent on the complexity of your application and how comfortable you are working in C++, you could give CImg [1] a go. I've used it for a handful of projects with a similar requirement. It can be lightning quick, but a pain to get started with.

[1] https://www.cimg.eu/

Not sure if this is the same product, but in my job I've met one of the researchers working on this tech. The screens they were able to produce had refresh rates high enough to watch a movie.

I find it amusing that the table published a conservative cutoff year and an optimistic cutoff year. Based on the trends I've seen, most non-critical software would probably have made the switch in time for the conservative year, whereas anything security-critical like a bank would probably use the optimistic year.

Not the original commenter, but Go programs are all statically-compiled, with everything needed at run time bundled into the executable. Go does use a runtime, but that's incorporated into the exe, so no external libraries required. As such, you can get a program written in Go running on a new machine just by downloading it :)

For machines where you may actually have a Go installation already, the majority of programs now can also be installed from source via Go's built-in package manager, which installs it to your home directory. A lot of dev utils, like go-imports, the language server, etc. are typically installed this way. It's usually just a single command (though the exact command can vary between projects, but is usually signposted fairly clearly).

Because Microsoft almost have a monopoly on the OS market. Pretty much the only alternative for users who aren't tech savvy enough to comfortably use Linux is to buy a Mac, which will price out a lot of people. Even if you are able to use Linux (or can afford a Mac), the popularity of Windows means that you will eventually run into a piece of software you need that isn't available for your OS and won't run in Wine, forcing you to use Windows by some other means.

Alas this has now been fixed

I've used LibreOffice Calc for plenty number crunching, with a lot of conditional formatting, dropdown data entry, complex cross-sheet formulae, etc. and I've never run into any issues with unsupported formulae or anything like that. Usually any issues I have are just menu features being in different places, or their usage not being entirely clear, but that's easily resolved with a quick Google search.

iOS does not allow notifications by default. Apps must display a system pop-up to request permission to display notifications, and the option is there to deny permission.

Whether users have already fallen into the same cycle as cookie consent pop-ups and, more recently, GDPR pop-ups, just clicking "allow" by default because it's the easier option, is a different question.

I remember when I first heard about 5D storage back in 2013 [1][2]. The concept isn't at all new; in fact, there's a 5D storage device floating around in a Tesla in space, and Musk has another in his personal library. Nonetheless, it's great to see that it hasn't just dropped off the radar and that developments are still being made. I hope that this technology can one day be as widely available as CDs are; its potential usefulness to archivers/data hoarders really excites me, and (so long as the price is right) who can really sniff at extremely high-capacity, long-lasting storage?

[1] https://www.orc.soton.ac.uk/news/4282

[2] https://doi.org/10.1364%2FCLEO_SI.2013.CTh5D.9

People have expectations going into a game, that it won't be a movie...

As a counter-example, we have series like Metal Gear Solid, which are renowned for the huge use of cutscenes (MGS4 having an ending cutscene that's practically feature-length). Admittedly, this style of in-depth storytelling is not everyone's cup of tea (especially those for whom the second point made by the OP applies), but it is a very effective storytelling tool that works well in the series. The games are predominantly not, however, open-world, unlike the other games you mention. The cinematic storytelling would probably not translate well. Indeed, MGSV, which was open-world, mostly used in-game audio tapes to be played at the player's discretion, with any cutscenes being mostly contained to specific missions. So I think the exact requirements for good storytelling really depend on the style of game and on what your players expect from it. But much of what the OP says about good writing still stands, such as finding a Whedon-esque sweet spot of serious/comedy and using original jokes.

It's got to a point where in games like Skyrim I generally just sell the majority of potions and whatnot, because I know when I get down to it I'll always be thinking there's a better time to use it.

For whatever reason, I still can't let go mid-combat, but when selling it I have no issue.

This is depressingly true. Whenever ITV were hosting the match, I generally just resigned myself to not being able to watch it. Besides that, when it did work, the commentary was absolutely atrocious and did nothing but state the obvious. The BBC's coverage on iPlayer was superb, and I'll admit before I paid for any streaming service I used to comb through iPlayer the same way I comb through Netflix now.

Reminds me of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-time_nuclear_waste_warnin...

Far less than 10,000 years ago, humans likely would've written similar messages on things of importance to deter thieves, and we just ignore them now as curses. How does one warn people of the future about genuinely hazardous, long-lasting materials without relying on language (which will certainly change on that time scale) and without the future generation dismissing it as bullshit curses?

I for one am pretty excited about this. I took a module in medical imaging at university and went looking for real data that I could use in order to experiment with the reconstruction algorithms we were learning about, and I struggled to find much useful data. I'm sure this will be plenty useful to those looking to experiment with AI, but I hope this will also be accessible and useful to students in relevant areas.

Perhaps not automatically, but many cars do save GPS data in their diagnostic data, which could easily be accessed if a case was brought against you.

Don't most messaging apps these days automatically save all photos by default? I believe this is the default setting on WhatsApp and even Telegram. Even if the photo won't be saved until the recipient opens the message, all that's needed is for them to forget about this setting. Then the photos are automatically uploaded to iCloud, also by default.

Amazon in the pursuit of Alexa quality control has most recordings manually reviewed by real people to see whether the response was appropriate. This includes any accidental triggers. It probably does not surprise that these devices have recorded sensitive information like bank details and passwords, or have recorded instances of domestic abuse which employees have been forced to listen to [1]. It absolutely wouldn't surprise me to learn that Apple will have a team of people reviewing everything that gets flagged, who will get to see everyone's private photos and also probably be exposed to real CSAM.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/11/amazon-st...

I've recently been using Habitica again after a long hiatus (as this article predicts) and I have to agree. For those who don't know about Habitica, it tries to address the reward component of the problem by gameifying the TODOs; completing tasks rewards you with XP for your character and gold to spend on items, whilst failing to complete daily tasks or succumbing to bad habits damages your character. The problem is, the reward is meaningless unless you're invested in the game. If the RPG doesn't interest you or, like me, you lack the time to make sense of what exactly you're spending your virtual gold on and why, it doesn't feel like a reward at all.

That said, what does give me a real sense of reward is the streak tracker for daily tasks. Seeing how many days in a row I've managed to do a task _is_ rewarding to me, but as soon as that streak is broken, I lose a lot of the motivation to maintain it (which I believe is, again, a problem predicted by this article).

They probably are, and this bug may already have been known. Many jailbreaks are often held back for as many versions as possible, since that can allow the jailbreak to target more iOS versions with a single exploit without Apple quickly blocking it for future versions.

I wonder whether 4chan is the way it is purely as a consequence of there being minimal moderation, or whether the lack of moderation combined with extreme moderation of such content on other platforms is driving it all towards 4chan. Would all platforms wind up the same way if all moderation were removed? Or would it end up being far less obviously concentrated?

Generally I'd recommend using a filesystem designed for that. Something like btrfs or (I think) ZFS, which have checksums built into the filesystem (and if you set them up in a RAID configuration, these checksums can be used to correct data as well)

why were you even trying to break in

Because you're offering money if a way in is found. I feel like that's most of their hesitance, really, they probably just don't want to pay the bounties.