@simontatham I find that in general, I can solve things a lot better when not also having to communicate. But once I get *stuck*, explaining it to someone - which forces me to put it into coherent sentences that someone else will understand - helps a lot.

This is *not* the same as solving a problem together, though, which can also be useful. The 'rubber duck' approach isn't so much about communication (with a lot of brain cycles taken up by listening to the other person's input and processing it), but more about ordering your thoughts in such a way that someone, both your listener and yourself, can more easily make sense of it. A good human 'rubber duck' does not actually offer input (other than 'hey, I don't get that bit, can you go over it again') until you're done explaining, when 1. The 'rubber duck' stage is over and you possibly move on to pair solving, and 2. You more often than not have already found the answer.

@simontatham I think you first need to have come to a point where you basically have all the pieces in your mind already to some degree before the rubber duck effect works.

It seems to work best for cases where you're stuck on something and you're going in circles, at that point if you need to write down or talk out loud about the problem to make sure you're not missing some critical step or piece of the puzzle.

In a sense it's like writing out the formula for a complex equation to find X

@simontatham have you ever done pair-programming with someone on a similar level as you, where you don't need words, they can see your thoughts just by following your cursor on the screen?

@simontatham This feels familiar. Thanks for putting it into words!

@simontatham

I dunno that 'the problem becomes harder', more like with limited capacity for cognitive load, some problems will overload the solver/explainer.

This is a really important distinction: I don't know that the effect you have described makes the problem subjectively (ever-)harder to understand, in a mirror way that rubber duck debugging makes it ever-easier, and your wording seems to posit this symmetry.

@simontatham The advantage of the rubber duck is that if you explain vaguely or garbledly, it doesn't object, so you can explain clearly if it helps and vaguely if that helps :)

I think there's also the level where if the problem is *too* big to fit in my mind at once, I need to track "where I've got, which part I'm trying to understand now" in writing.

@simontatham Interesting!

@simontatham in the first case I would describe the extra room being taken up by the needs of the other person rather than by explaining which would suggest the advantage of rubber ducking is that you don't worry about the duck's needs.

@nina_kali_nina Fortunately most of my friends and acquaintances are anti-AI, but the few that aren't, whenever it comes up it gets incredibly awkward.

It never happened with any really close friend (yet), thankfully.

@nina_kali_nina The especially galling one for me is something that would, in a normal world, be done purely for fun or technical achievement. Like a tool or a demo for a dead computer system. You’ve taken a joyful activity and outsourced it to a machine. I am supposed to be impressed by this?

@nina_kali_nina Sadness.

In the words of late Jim Morrison: "I need a brand new friend who doesn't bother me.".

It makes me sad when I can't convince friends or acquaintances to stop using the slop machines as well. It's a very isolating feeling.

It's hard to maintain friendships like that, when you look at all the harm LLMs are unleashing upon the world, and the plethora of ethical problems surrounding them, and people insist on using them anyway.

Not like they are unaware, because we told them about all the issues!

In the end I can't help but conclude they put their own self-interest ahead of the greater good. For varying reasons and to varying degrees.

For instance, some have to use it at work, and they feel like they can't quit because there's no other jobs, and they might have dependents to take care of.

But some use it in their private time as well, and in those instances, the excuse is usually because they don't have the time or skill to do the thing they were looking to do, and if you dig deeper into that, it boils down to the fact they don't value or respect the thing they are looking to accomplish.

As such, most people who use it for code, don't understand the value of writing good, maintainable code.

Even then, i find it a hard pill to swallow given that you've literally just explained to them all the harms caused by these things, and often they look at you like you're the crazy one. Sigh.

Sometimes this feels like dealing with MAGA family members all over again. Between social media, fascist propaganda, and now ai techbro lies, there's been too much divisive brainwashing going on lately, making it very hard indeed to make and keep meaningful connections with people. In the end, it's the billionaires that win out, because there's no way we're ever going to unite for a common cause if we can't stand one another. :( But on the flip side, how the fuck am I supposed to sit at the table with fascist enablers and people who'd rather see the world burn so they can ask a chatbot dumb meme questions.

I often feel hopeless and sad, and scared for what is to come.

When the world's gone collectively mad, and if sanity is defined by that which is determined by society as normal, only the insane and fools remain as beacons of reason.

Oh crap pardon the wall of text. :s

@heyheymomo
I really, really enjoy your drawing style. It’s so warm. Huggable.

Always makes my day.

@eniko I am okay with any, as long as its not made by genAi because I am not going to play your game then.

@eniko whatever fits your creative vision best

@eniko Designed by hand every time, duh!

@eniko it's a good question hiding plenty, in my opinion.
If level are simply space filling corridor, this force the player to farm exp (or flee a lot).
Lot of skippable area can let the player be underleveled if they choose to or farm too much and be overleveled (unless mitigated like kess exp or less encounter).
if they need to explore and find the next stair, if they don't farm they'll have random exp. This can be mitigated by numerous floor but 🤷‍♀️

@eniko I'm struggling to answer because each has its benefits. If it's all handcrafted, there can be meaningfully rewarding secrets. If it's all proc gen, it makes for the most replayability since you never know what to expect. If it's hand crafted sections stitched together randomly, you get a jack of all trades that can cover both styles, but tends to lack enough for either style to be fully satisfied. Think Spelunky is the only one that had made room + random uniquely satisfying.

@eniko all the same for a story mode, with fully procgen for ng+

@jwz hah, are these gonna live at the bar for whoever?

@jwz "My Do Not Talk To Me About AI card has people asking me a lot of questions already answered by my card"

@jwz Top notch, added to my NoToAI.org page

@jwz really great. Thank you.

@jwz these look great! I’ll def print some up and hand them out around our neighborhood.

@jwz please someone do the conference badge ribbon version of this

@jwz yes but local LLMs on your own computer is not as bad. the models were already trained so the worst possible crime you commit is adding a +1 on that hugging face download counter.

@jwz Probably should specify wtf you mean by ai.

@jwz I'm very seriously considering producing these in a French version.

@jwz can I get this on a tshirt (to go with my "please stop putting AI in everything, everybody hates it nobody asked for it" tshirt)

@jwz is it so tedious? Everyone hates it, yes, but humans are herd animals, we need common things to talk about. Weather, ai, russians...

@jwz
I don't get it. Is this like a big chunk of your identity or something?

@jwz I love it. Now I need to translate it to Spanish

@jwz perfect, thank you !

@jwz There are an absolutely incredible number of blockables in the replies to this post, amazing really given the point about consent.

#ALT4you A table with red colored stickers with white colored text : Do not talk to me about "AI"

The backside of the stickers show : There is no ethical use of AI and The machine is digusting and must be destroyed.

@jwz thank you!

@jwz *chef's kiss*

Need to cook up some or my own that say things along the line of "if I ever had respect for you, that has past", or "you having goven me carte blance to rant about AI at you for 30 minutes straight", or "you sound gullible, and if you don't think AI is a bubble, I have some tulip bulb futures to srll you"

@jwz It's like demonizing MySQL app, maybe it runs at some datacenter, and it can do video editing too. It's actually not much useful application if you notice it just takes wiki pages and
google links at face value.

@jwz Thank you!

@jwz Ai's are going to become the biggest waste ever. China will be making a box versions of them all within 20 years, when particle memory is achieved.

@uhhuhthem let's get some made

@jwz

@jwz
Propz 4 the text on these cards and 4 the sentiment that it expresses.

@jwz naaa this is another bad joke…

@jwz The replies to posts stating that AI stans are tedious motherfuckers invariably demonstrate that AI stans are, indeed, tedious motherfuckers.

@jwz You are awesome. Thank you.

@jwz May I suggest an alt ? Adding it to the image would make it accessible to everyone.

Two stacks of red cards with white writing.
On the front : Do not talk to me about "AI"
In a smaller font : you make me long for the sweet embrace of death.

On the back :
By using AI, you have given a pass to :

• The staggering climate and ecological impact
• The outright attack on labor by capital
• The systemic disregard of consent
• The basis in wholesale theft and plagiarism
• The assault on the very concept of objective truth
• The enrichment of the most cringe billionaire fascist motherfuckers the world has ever seen

There is no ethical use of AI
If you ignore all of that, you are trying to negotiate what level of harm to others you find acceptable for your personal, selfish benefit. You advance the agenda of these hollow-eyed, joyless money-ghouls who resent art, creativity, and life itself.
The machine is disgusting and must be destroyed.

Edit as this prick blocked me because this snowflake was offended I tried to help : this was the work of my brain and fingers : no AI nor OCR were used to write this text.

#alt4You

@jwz

mine say: "NEVER talk to me about AI"

@jwz Luddite

@jwz

"It's nothing but RAM, Nvidia and a cache."

@jwz

Alt text for anti AI card.

Alt...

BY USING Al, YOU HAVE GIVEN A PASS TO: « The staggering climate and ecological impact + The outright attack on labor by capital + The systemic disregard of consent + The basis in wholesale theft and plagiarism * The assault on the very concept of objective rights + The enrichment of the most cringe billionaire fascists THERE IS NO ETHICAL USE OF Al If you ignore all of that, you are trying to negotiate what level of harm to others you find acceptable for these hollow-eyed, joyless money-ghouls who resent art, creativity, and life itself. THE MACHINE IS DISGUSTING AND MUST BE DESTROYED

As with any post that escapes containment, the race is now on to see who can be the most completely insufferable:
• Butthurt Slopfondlers
• Mastodon HOA Alt Text Scolds https://jwz.org/b/ykho

@jwz somehow these cards remind me of a guy I met on a shared trip around the corner from the DNA, around 2015ish. He was a developer who'd been forced to attend some tedious "networking" thing and had entertained himself by pitching an app that would allow people to rent extra space in their refrigerators - "The Uber for your fridge!" and then timed how long it would take for his interlocutors to figure out he was bullshitting them. Naturally, some never did.

@jwz

@jwz cringe

Tonight at the bar: "How many of those cards do you have on you right now and can I have them all?"

Crazy how most of the time I'll post about, like, the ICE torture taser gloves, and people will comment, sometimes their jokes won't land but clearly we're on the same horrified page. Then something like my "AI" post escapes confinement and these absolute lunatics show up saying taser torture gloves are good actually if you use them locally, I need to seek a moderate middle ground with the taser torture gloves, taser torture or get left behind, I don't know who the Luddites were. Wild.

@jwz extreme positions go viral in #socialmedia and #Mastodon is no exception. I am more for shades of grey since this fits my experiences better. For me a #bot creates #Alt text. My server (NRW.social) provides translations via #Deepl. Ai also helps me to use #linux and the command line. I use #birdnet and @FloraIncognita_DE to identify species for #natureconservation. Everything on the card considering bad impacts is true at the same time.

@jwz oh those are absolutely fantastic

@jwz Shut up and take my money.

@jwz
With "AI" you mean the generative bullshit machine?
As machine learning has been used since dozens of years, and can actually do useful stuff (and not kill the planet by doing so).

@jwz is that FOS?

I might need a version of that for Teams call background. 😆

@jwz Not even "Algorithms are Not Enough"? 😀

@jwz I'd love the follow up from this experiment, if you care to share later. I'm intensely curious whether this is news to the average Joe, or whether they know it and choose to ignore it.

@jwz Recreated and sent to the printers thanks (can ping but can't seem to reach your website from the UK right now)

@jwz Today on "something that I occasionally deeply want to post on LinkedIn, even though I probably shouldn't."

@jwz Oh, the irony...

@jwz

Alt text

Two red cards, about the size of a business card, have white text.

One side of the card had very large text:

DO NOT TALK TO ME ABOUT "AI"

In small text below that:
You make me long for the sweet embrace of death

The other side of the card has smaller text:

BY USING AI, YOU HAVE GIVEN A PASS TO

• The staggering climate and ecological impact
• The outright attack on labor by capital
• The systemic disregard of consent
• The basis in wholesale theft and plagiarism
• The assault on the very concept of objective truth
• The enrichment of the most cringe billionaire fascist motherfuckers the world has ever seen

THERE IS NO ETHICAL USE OF AI

If you ignore all of that, you are trying to negotiate
what level of harm to others you find acceptable for your personal, selfish benefit. You advance the agenda of these hollow-eyed, joyless money-ghouls who resent art, creativity, and life itself.

THE MACHINE IS DISGUSTING AND MUST BE DESTROYED

@jwz would love to pass these out at my upcoming gathering - http://gelconference.com - are they available for purchase anywhere?

@jwz well said!

That has been a lot of plonking @jwz

@jwz Thank you! Will be printed later this day.

@jwz You talk about changing minds. Are you willing to change yours?

@jwz
You misspelled AltText I think.

Crawford Tillinghast Appreciation Post

@jwz I'd rather call it "There is no ethical use for gen-AI". As this one is the problematic part, beside the ones for mass surveillance.

As for pattern recognition in science "AI" has proven to be life saving by recognizing cancer patterns before human eyes can.

People sadly hardly can separate the different tools which are just called "AI" these days while they could have their very own name.
Even pen stabilizers or normal non-generative programming tools are just called AI these days. <_<

@heyheymomo polished

@heyheymomo Oh, scribbly!

@heyheymomo i think i like the scribbly more

@heyheymomo Polished

@heyheymomo scribbly

@heyheymomo squibbly gets my vote ☺️

@heyheymomo Polished, so the viewers can focus more on the fun shapes. I think if it gets too squiggly/scribbly it will turn out as "visual noise" in the worst case 🤔

@heyheymomo scribbly, it's such a vibe

@heyheymomo scribbly

@heyheymomo Scribbly feels like a better fit for the style

@heyheymomo for the 3 first panels, love the composition and look of polish, foe the last one though squiggly has more warmth to it (I think it's mostly the table, computer and such looking so straight, but I'm not an artist really so I wouldn't know)

@heyheymomo Scribly but the compy setup from polished.

@heyheymomo
Scribbly. It feels warmer that way and makes comic look alive.

@heyheymomo polished (do a poll)

@heyheymomo I really like both, but I prefer scribbly because it feels warmer and more full of life.

@heyheymomo scribbly 🥰

@heyheymomo It concerns me that although I can see they are different, it took me quite some time to see which one is scribbly. I see it now.

@heyheymomo scribby

@heyheymomo Scribbly forever!!!

@heyheymomo scribbly, by a large margin.

@heyheymomo I don't care which you choose. If you prefer to do one (or the other) so less people will say your work is done by AI, then that's ok with me.

@heyheymomo when there is both we can play 'spot the difference'...

@heyheymomo Team Scribbly for me all the way

@heyheymomo Scribbly!

I prefer:

@heyheymomo I think the scribbly one here is better. It has a human touch. The polished style feels more mechanical. There's something about the more open artistic choices made in the scribbly one that I prefer as well (tree density, layout of bottom left panel, desk of bottom right).

@heyheymomo I like polished

@heyheymomo I'm a polished.

@heyheymomo Whichever works best for you. Really. Really really really. They don't look identical to me but I had to stop and think about it. Imagine your life with one or the other, assuming it's only your efforts that change and not how they're received. Which do you like more?

Also:
You can just flip-flop based on how you feel each time!

Also also:
Which one makes you feel the most like how your comics feel?

Also x3:
What would forg do?

TLDR: The one I prefer is the one that you like.

@heyheymomo I voted scribbly but I do like them both a lot

Thanks for all the feedback everyone 🙏

@heyheymomo
Amd once again I still can't decide. Maybe polished? In between?

@nina_kali_nina that last blueish one is so good.

@nina_kali_nina On the note of xfce, I assume you've heard of one of the main devs of it being an AI ghoul?