torross

Software Engineer, Kurd, lover of tea

[torross @torossorot]

Here's a map I made some time ago. It tries to show Kurdish rebellions/polities from the 20th century onwards.

[torross @torossorot]

@bryan_johnson @beffjezos If superintelligence comes into existence, you’ll be as important to technological progress as an Orangutan chilling in the jungles of Borneo was to the timely completion of the Manhattan Project 😭

[torross @torossorot]

@rangabdullah The world takes its toll on all of us. Good luck!

[Nechirvan Barzani @IKRPresident]

I fondly recall my meeting with His Holiness @Pontifex in May. Following his recent surgery, I extend my heartfelt wishes for a smooth and full recovery. His Holiness’s commitment to peace, human dignity, and dialogue among peoples is deeply valued. May His Holiness enjoy renewed strength and good health as he continues his important mission of promoting peace, compassion, and understanding around the world.

[torross @torossorot]

@PromptLLM Actually that kind of makes sense

[torross @torossorot]

@yadfarooq Are we sure it’s the persians?

[YadHawrami @yadfarooq]

Those poorsians terrorists broke the grave of iconic classic songs of kurdish - hassan zirak 🤬🤬

[Austin @IamAroke]

Somebody help!

There's something satisfying about fixing a bug you've been staring at for hours.

Claude is depriving me of that joy

[torross @torossorot]

@themishra4402 Network effect

[torross @torossorot]

@boni_dev Agreed. Nothing worse than a badly implemented white or dark mode. Or just make it dark by default and stick with that.

[torross @torossorot]

Great Ziggurat of Ur. Iraqi authorities have installed this… “thing”. No one knows why.

This is what happens when you have no connection with or respect for your heritage. Blasphemous.

#iraq #ur #archaeology

[Anirudh Sharma @anirudhology]

The lack of "doing things by hand" has become a prevalent and structural crisis in software engineering. This is true for both junior and senior software engineers, btw.

Problem solving is hard; you only get good at it by solving enough problems, running into walls, making silly mistakes, making your fundamentals strong, etc. You need to do repeat this process several times to get good at it. Repetitions increase retention of a skill and make learning last longer by physically strengthening the connection between brain cells through neuroplasticity and signalling the brain that this information is important enough to keep.

Combining repetitions with deliberate focus and feedback makes you understand what "good" actually looks like.

Why?

When you first start learning a skill, you can't see your mistakes because the brain is overwhelmed with the new information. Over time, repetitions lower this mental tax, and now you can observe the work objectively. This is what helps in building a mental model where you know what a perfect execution sounds, feels, or looks like. Unless you know what "bad" looks like, you can't claim what is "good".

Now, when you use AI to generate solutions, the psychological + physical friction that forces the human brain to adapt is bypassed. You just accept AI output because it "feels right" without even understanding it deeply. If you do this all the time, how will you build intuition? This is also a type of "brain-rot".

I am not being a Luddite asking you to abandon AI but simply urging you to use it judiciously:

> Ask conceptual questions to AI ("why does this framework use this pattern?")
> Come up with an approach to solve a problem, then ask AI to find loopholes in it. Debate its output with your understanding.
> Use Socratic debugging. Ask it to walk you through the root cause of a bug without giving a solution.
> Write the code yourself and ask AI to generate a few obscure, adversarial unit tests for that code. Fix the failures.
> If you are learning a new concept, implement it 100% manually. Ask AI to only do things that you have mastery of.
> ... so on.

I personally do coding/design by hand everyday for 1 hour at least to keep my intuition strong.

Don't fall to the tech Twitter doom and gloom of "software engineering is dead" and build your learning muscle.

[torross @torossorot]

@Demonbaaaaaaane @Partisangirl Go touch some grass that’s an insane take

[Justin Skycak @justinskycak]

Calculators are for those who have already mastered the calculation. Using tools to bypass understanding is just borrowing intelligence at a high interest rate.

[torross @torossorot]

@drekkz3 @shauseth Have you ever looked at a world map and considered how much more complicated it would be in language? What’s so shocking about human language not being perfect? Philosophers figured this out in the 19th century and tried to create a new language.

[interpretation @materialcritic]

Hegel reportedly attempted to plug a USB into his computer, but it was facing the wrong way so he flipped it over and tried again, but it turns out it was facing the right way the first time so he flipped it and tried to plug it in a third time and then it worked. Dialectics etc.

[Autumn Christian @teachrobotslove]

Being able to enjoy “normie” things is a skill. You can learn how to do it. It doesn’t make you special that you’re unable to enjoy football, children’s birthday parties, holidays or learning new recipes.

It just means you’ve sold your happiness for the lie that you’re special.

[Orel Beilinson @BeilinsonOrel]

No, academia[.]edu. I don't want a full PDF pack for $1. I just want this PDF. In fact, I barely want this PDF. Most likely, it will forever rot in my Downloads folder. Just give me this article without further digging the hole into which it will inevitably fall.

[torross @torossorot]

@simonmaechling I trust hundreds of years of evolution. I don’t trust the shampoo company.

[torross @torossorot]

@Giliumus Always count on leftists to go for the shittiest stand possible - George Orwell (paraphrased)

Funny how if you read the manifesto, it actually anticipates AI

[Simon Maechling @simonmaechling]

We've reached the point where people demand 100% certainty from scientists.

And accept 100% nonsense from influencers.