I recently asked ChatGPT to generate some boilerplate code in C to use libsndfile to write out a WAV file with samples from a function I would fill in. The code it generated casted the double samples from the placeholder function it wrote to floats to use sf_writef_float to write to the file. Having coded with libsndfile over a decade ago, I knew that sf_writef_double existed and would write my calculated sample values with no loss of precision. It probably wouldn't have made any audible difference to my finished result but it was still obviously stupidly inferior code for no reason.

This is the kind of stupid shit LLMs do all the time. I know I've also realized months later that some LLM-generated code I used was doing something in a stupid way, but I can't remember the details now.

LLMs can get you started and generate boilerplate, but if you're asking it to write code in a domain you're not familiar with, you have to understand that — if the code even works — it's highly likely that it's doing something in a boneheaded way.

The Republicans are absolutely committed to the lie that the shutdown is because the Democrats are demanding the government pay for illegal aliens' health care. It doesn't matter how many times they get corrected; they'll just keep repeating it.

It's an interesting experiment in just how brazen a lie they'll be able to get away with. I'm hoping this is the one that finally breaks them, and they lose credibility for good, but the right-wing media bubble is sewn up pretty tight, and so far it seems they'll believe pretty much anything they're fed.

For those who haven't seen it this is the video (or at least, the version I know about).

This is a hideous mis-meme-ing of the original XKCD comic. The tiny pillar is supposed to represent something we all actually need -- since we have built so much on top of it -- but barely think about. Like curl or ffmpeg.

Trump and Hegseth are not the sharpest tools in the shed, for sure, but they're also not the ones really making decisions. Stephen Miller is possibly in charge? JD Vance's vassalage to dystopian surveillance tech titan Peter Thiel is another influence channel.

At least when I'm cleaning up after shit devs who used Stack Overflow, I can usually search using a fragment of their code and find where they swiped it from and get some clue what the hell they were thinking. Now that they're all using AI chatbots, there's no trace.

I'm convinced that the real purpose of this meeting was to gauge the willingness of top military officers to support a coup. I would be surprised if their private conversations in response to this spectacle were not spied on.

Fortunately, at least in public appearance, they don't seem thrilled with this administration.

The ICE campaign of terror is not a distraction, in the sense that it is meant to draw attention away from something else. It is a primary ambition -- perhaps the primary ambition -- of this administration. Remember those "MASS DEPORTATION NOW" signs people were holding up at the Republican National Convention?

It is also unsympathetic to those being abused by ICE to call their plight a "distraction". No! It's something we need to pay attention to and put a stop to!

If I had to guess, I'd say there are probably many in the military's high ranks who believe that blowing up random fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela is a violation of international law, and would refuse if ordered to do so. Maybe everyone who has such a conscience will be fired?

This could be a real thing: at each turn, you can either make a standard chess move, or slide one of the board tiles ... who wants to code it up?

Beehiiv is an option.

In all previous instances, the agents of the ruling class were totally in control of the media landscape. Mainstream media has finally ceded enough to the internet, and the influencers they rely on to deliver a single message are all off their leashes, with fully half of them unwilling to get back in line.

I'll concede that it's probably still wishful thinking on my part, but the current situation is significantly different that what has happened before.