Not CodeWeave either.

Can't remember the last time I saw a reference to Earth Final Conflict on slashdot. Well done.

Just the other day I was thinking that at this point I'd probably welcome the Taelons with their disruptive technology (free energy, transportation, etc), even with their ambiguous and dark motives. Can't be much worse than what the people who've seized power in the three rival empires want to do to us all. Plus all the regional warlords (soon to be anyway) jockying for scraps of power. Eliminate the need for oil as an energy source would really take down their power and pride.

Thought-provoking fiction anyway. Which was what Roddenberry was always about.

At first I was concerned when I thought that CodeWeavers was in trouble. They are a plucky company that's the driving force behind much of the current Wine project development. They do a great job and we all benefit from their work.

Then I realized it was "CodeWeave" whoever they are. Some Cloud/AI company I guess. The only thing that's concerning is that the people who lose their shirts when companies like this one go under are often middle class people like you and me with their retirement money in managed funds. Rich people as a rule never do anything with their own money. They always use and lose other people's money. Especially in the US, the wealthiest and most powerful people always get someone else to pay for things they play with and even pay to work for them.

Ahh, yes the UID checks out. Most slashdotters these days probably don't even know who Bill Gates was.

Yes there's a cost to continue doing business with companies that are increasingly greedy based in a country that is increasingly hostile and an existential threat. I have never on my life seen such brash and naked lust coming from a country that was previously a beacon, a country that built alliances that benefitted more than just themselves. Sad that this has all been destroyed. Hard times ahead for everyone. Sad also because it's so senseless.

Do you ask to AI agent thoroughly document the architecture, APIs, protocols, and data flow as you go? Do you use planning mode in the coding agents?

Personally I have good success with coding agents when I spent significant time with the agent building out a precise specification document that describes in detail what I want to do, how it should do it, how the data is formatted, protocols to use, etc. And then I ask it to establish concrete step-by-step development plans. I'm only working on these projects in my spare time but I might spend 20 hours or more on this. Then after both I and the agent reviewer are satisfied do I start it generating code. Usually code generation is a tiny fraction of the planning time. The more precise the specification is, the faster and more accurate the agent can generate code to fulfill that specification. I review every code change the agent makes and I never let it commit to git without my authorization. Often I'll push back on a coding choice the agent selected and ask it for a detailed explanation, and often I'll tell it to do it a different way (it always apologizes for what it did tells me I'm brilliant for my suggested change when I do that but whatever).

This process may not generate code as fast as vibe coders crank it out, but it's more than twice as fast as I could do it, even with the long planning sessions.

There are some interesting youtube videos by "No Place Like Localhost" on this type of spec-diven agent coding.

Yes very much so. On some ways modern AI coding agents are a bit like the VB6 of our modern era. While they are much maligned by people who think they can code better than them, these agents have really empowered a lot of people with little to no coding experience to build all kinds of vertical applications for their businesses that integrate data from a variety of sources (silos really). If they have an idea for an app that would benefit their business, after some trial and error Claude is able to deliver it to them for a fraction of the cost of hiring a professional contractor. Something that would take me months or years they can do themselves in a matter of weeks in their spare time. Is the code quality good? Possibly not. Security problems? Yes. Does that matter for these vertical apps? Sometimes not. Often this is a huge concern.

Those that pan AI coding should really talk to some of their small business-owning neighbors and see what they are doing with it.

Should agents completely replace human export developers? No of course not. There's plenty of room for human experts to shepherd agents on behalf of these smaller mom and pop businesses and help them develop secure and high-quality bespoke applications.In fact I see it as a real opportunity for many freelance developers.

Not necessarily. I suck at writing UI code, but I certainly can evaluate and test it just fine. I also suck at writing documentation but I can certainly evaluate the AI generated documentation for accuracy and clarity. Those are two areas Claude has just really helped me.

The RAV4 hybrid is way more fuel efficient though, easily breaking even vs the non-hybrid engine and transmission. The hybrid is a way simpler transmission. Toyota has been doing this for decades and it works great and customers actually want it.

Or it just could be the price of fuel! From my own experience, currently a farm worker who commutes to work 30 miles every day spends at $700 CAD in gas (paid for by the farm of course), whereas the EV Lightning truck is probably $100 CAD in electricity per month while still doing daily farm work, sometimes requiring a charge on farm. The farm has a fast charger installed, along with solar so electricity is essentially free if charged on farm (most of the hired guys charge at home overnight, but it's still not more than gas).

When bright headlights cause glare on the eyes of oncoming traffic that means that much of that bright light is not actually going where it would benefit the driver. While bright factory LEDs do cause glare, much of the problem seems to be from retrofitting halogen housings with LED. Such retrofits don't always actually improve things for the driver even if they look brighter. They are going to have to crack down on retrofit LED bulbs is they really want to tackle the issue.

His prediction wasn't silly at the time. From a simple mathematical point of view, given the rate of growth at the time and the understanding of the time of the resources available and the carrying capacity of the world, it was a simple calculation to make. In fact at that time many millions of people (probably more like billions) were facing starvation in the coming decades. Particularly on India and other countries in that area. Many experts thought it was a forgon conclusion, though tragic. The so called green revolution started about this time and ultimate more than doubled global food production and saved billions of lives from starvation. This was just starting about the time of this prediction.

Google says that patent expired in September of 2025, as it was filed in 2005. Yes, we are getting old.

Personally, I prefer the old rectangular Thinkpad charging connectors.

Yes this is what they do in China. The entire country spans several time zones, but the CCP declared that everyone is on Beijing time. So in some parts of the country a business might be open at 8 am, but in other parts it might be 10 or 11. So in the end having one time zone has all the same problems of time zones (have to track what effective time it is in different regions) and no advantage whatsoever.

Yes I also don't really care about the the time changes and honestly I hardly notice them. Most of my clocks change automatically so unless someone reminded me about the time change I'd never hardly notice.

I think people honestly psych themselves out with the time change and amplify all their feelings of tiredness. It's a bit like family members I know that lived abroad and whenever they'd be here visiting they'd constantly be reminding themselves of what time it was back home and then complaining about jetlag. When I travel I set my watch or phone on the airplane to the destination timezone, try to get as much asleep as possible, and never think about what time it is back home.