> please have some humanity about the homeless

In the US, the homeless population exploded, in the 1980s, when they closed down all the mental institutions. Before that, there was a far less pervasive homeless population in urban areas.

Being "on the spectrum," myself (but highly functional), I can attest to how easy it is for an autistic person's life to go sideways. Many autistic folks have very specialized and advanced skills, which can sometimes be applicable to making a living (like programming, or visual design).

However, we're "different," which often leads to being shunned/traumatized by neurotypicals. I got used to folks eventually walking away from relationships, for no discernible reason. Used to really bother me, until I figured it out. Now, I just take it in stride, and appreciate whatever time I get to spend with folks. If anyone has seen The Accountant (the first one), there's a scene, near the end, where Ben Affleck's character is considering putting the moves on Anna Kendrick's character, but remembers his father, admonishing him that people will always end up being frightened of "the difference," and he sneaks out, instead. That scene almost brought me to tears, I could relate so well.

For some folks, it's much worse. They can be relentlessly bullied, abused, locked up, or shunned, which leaves psychological scars that manifest as antisocial behavior, so they are never given a chance to show what they can do.

(Also: "Kid outsmarts stuffy professionals" is an evergreen journalistic subject, and don't dismiss the political angle of sowing distrust in "establishment" scientists in favor of a younger person using AI)

Not that young people can't do big things but it's probably got less rigor than a graduate-level project.

Don't get me wrong, this is a really cool idea and it sounds like he did a great job. I don't want to be unjustly dismissive. These stories come up all the time and they usually don't amount to a whole lot- like most research.

    diff --git a/server/channels/app/limits.go b/server/channels/app/limits.go
    index b13103898a..a8be8dd908 100644
    --- a/server/channels/app/limits.go
    +++ b/server/channels/app/limits.go
    @@ -36,17 +36,6 @@ func (a *App) GetServerLimits() (*model.ServerLimits, *model.AppError) {
                    limits.MaxUsersHardLimit = licenseUserLimit + int64(extraUsers)
            }
     
    -       // Check if license has post history limits and get the calculated timestamp
    -       if license != nil && license.Limits != nil && license.Limits.PostHistory > 0 {
    -               limits.PostHistoryLimit = license.Limits.PostHistory
    -               // Get the calculated timestamp of the last accessible post
    -               lastAccessibleTime, appErr := a.GetLastAccessiblePostTime()
    -               if appErr != nil {
    -                       return nil, appErr
    -               }
    -               limits.LastAccessiblePostTime = lastAccessibleTime
    -       }
    -
            activeUserCount, appErr := a.Srv().Store().User().Count(model.UserCountOptions{})
            if appErr != nil {
                    return nil, model.NewAppError("GetServerLimits", "app.limits.get_app_limits.user_count.store_error", nil, "", http.StatusInternalServerError).Wrap(appErr)

For example "No interpreter startup" is not specific to Rust either.

I share these sentiments. I’m not opposed to large language models per se, but I’m growing increasingly resentful of the power that Big Tech companies have over computing and the broader economy, and how personal computing is being threatened by increased lockdowns and higher component prices. We’re beyond the days of “the computer for the rest of us,” “think different,” and “don’t be evil.” It’s now a naked grab for money and power.

- the lab PI has a friend who’s kid needs to put together a college application

- PI asks their postdoctoral to tee up a project for the kid.

- kid does the last 2% of the project but gets all the credit while being unaware of how much background legwork was needed to get them there. Postdoc gets nothing.

Many years ago, I had a technical manager who never felt any pressure to be the first to come up with the answer to a question or the solution to some problem. If I was having a technical conversation with him, and we arrived at a particularly subtle or complex issue, he could go completely silent, just staring straight ahead with his fingers to his lips. I would find it very uncomfortable, and I would start blurting out half-baked ideas to fill the silence, but he would either raise his finger or (usually) just ignore me. This could go on for 30-60 seconds, at which point he might shrug and say "I don't know" or, more likely, have a pretty well formed idea of how to move ahead.

I used to joke to my co-workers that during those silent interludes, he was swapping in the solution from a remote disk.

This manager also typed with one or two fingers, and pretty slowly too. But he wrote a lot of good code.

Day two we looked at each other, had an adult beverage with breakfast, and relaxed for the rest of the trip.

Tapping the Rust community is a decent reason to do a project in Rust.

more so especially since the very act of "hacking" is a political statement because it involves redistributing power over information.

Code is law, remember?

That would be like complaining about "too much law" at a constitutional convention.

I try to keep a balanced perspective but I find myself pushed more and more into the fervent anti-AI camp. I don't blame Pike for finally snapping like this. Despite recognizing the valid use cases for gen AI if I was pushed, I would absolutely chose the outright abolishment of it rather than continue on our current path.

I think it's enough however to reject it outright for any artistic or creative pursuit, an to be extremely skeptical of any uses outside of direct language to language translation work.

No different than an CEO telling his secretary to send an anniversary gift to his wife.

So, 2026 is going to be the year I'm going to run this experiment on myself and see what I can accomplish with this way of working.

A ship for transatlantic shipping might have first cost 100,000 maravedí to build and equip before the treasure fleet expeditions, but afterwards with so much gold flowing into the economy and lots of competition for a limited ship building industry, the costs would inflate to 1 million maravedí (number roughly from memory). Same with the canons and shot, animals and sailor salaries, and so on.

Meanwhile, shipbuilders with all their newfound money are competing for blacksmiths, the outfitters are competing for livestock and horses, and so on. This puts lots of pressure on the rest of society which might need the iron for farming tools and the livestock to survive the winter, which they can no longer afford since the conquistadors and their merchants can pay a lot more in gold. In the end the maravedí accounts look bigger but represent the same amount of physical goods or labor.

Repeat this process across the whole economy and it throws everything into chaos. Some people here and there get rich, but economy wide it’s a total wash. Any wealth created for the state mostly just went into paying for wars because the inflation worked its way up through salaries.

The Open Source movement has been a gigantic boon on the whole of computing, and it would be a terrible shame to lose that ad a knee jerk reaction to genAI

Maybe the author could add a small note that this is not about that, and refer to something official about NixOS?

Anyway, I like the idea of the project!

In my 25 years in tech, there were no meritocracies. I came from a simple working class upbringing and experienced upward mobility into the white collar class.

I differentiated myself by always finding ways to solve problems, that others weren’t willing to do. People expected things to be done a certain way, I expected nothing and did everything myself my own way.

I never had mentorship that taught me “how to play the game”. People saw me as a threat, some would copy my work and take credit for it. I don’t have the mentality to fight with people over a game, so I let people win, to my detriment.

I never had hunger for title or compensation, so it was never offered to me unless I voiced my desire to exit.

My friends who played the game are sitting on a fortune, where they have more material possessions, but their kids are struggling and they are struggling, to find peace and happiness, because they are “owned” by the game. They have no substance in their life and compare themselves to others who play the game. A endless cycle of jealously.

I sit here with peace and very high life satisfaction, understanding I have skills that help people, that fulfill a purpose, that comes with healthy integration with my unbreakable values.

Learning to think independently while ignoring superficial reward signals with focus on self concordant goals is the recipe to life satisfaction.

This approach even allows the manufacturer to correct design flaws after the fact -- and let's face it, there will always be design flaws. For instance, my FW13 originally came with a very weak hinge for the screen. It was perfectly usable for most daily usage and most people probably wouldn't care, but it meant I couldn't hold it up without the screen tilting back. Well, FW corrected this for those customers who really did care by just selling a new hinge for $24, and so $24 + 10 minutes with a screwdriver later, I had a substantially more refined device! (And to clarify -- there was a defective hinge version in the early batches, and those were replaced free of charge. Mine was a slightly later version that, beyond lacking the level of stiffness I preferred, was not defective.)