I like the finetuning aspect to it quite a lot. It makes sense to me. What I achieved now is a very streamlined process of autonomous work of an agent, which can more and more often be simply managed than controlled on a code review level basis for everything.
I agree that this level of finetuning feels overwhelming and might let yourself doubting whether you do utilize Claude to its optimum and the beauty is, that finetunging and macro usage don't interfere, when you stay in your lane.
For example I now don't use the planing agent anymore instead incorporated this process into the normal agents much to the project's advantage. Consistency is key. Anthropic did the right thing.
Codex is quite a different beast and comes from the opposite direction so to say.
I use both, Codex and Claude Opus especially, in my daily work and found them complementary not mutual exclusive. It is like two different evangelists who are on par exercising with different tools to achieve a goal, that both share.
I lost it when looking at the commit message(s) which scored an all time record maximum on the notorious WTF/minute scale - preemptively, by maxing out the ratio.
This is a brilliantly clever homage to the WTF/Minute concept as proxy for code quality metrics and therefore is used among others as an indicator for maintainability where a high count inevitably leads to frustration and bugs.
Skills are essentially boiling down to distributed parts of a Main Prompt. If you consider a state model you can see this pattern: Task is the state and combining the task's specifics skills defines the current prompt augmentation. When the task changes, another prompt emerges.
In the end, it is the clear guidance of the Agent that is the deciding factor.
Yes, interesting shift in perspective that hackers now kind of use blackhat-techniques to do forensic analysis in regards to ownership. In the earlier days we cracked games to hypocritical free them of their perceived handcuffs. Hence "Free Software". Code was free and can be used and reused by anybody.
Of course due to litigation and legal implications the statements in Masters of Doom are intentionally vague. The same goes for the founder's talks. No one lied or portrayed themselves in a ubermensch fashion, it was just talking in corporate language speak when you are not allowed to provide more details in public. There seems to be serious legal risk and maybe it got solved or not, but judging from the book's perspective, I believe that they solved the issue in combination with a non-disclosure agreement.
I think that the "Great artists steal" mantra is especially applicable to ID's early days. And code reuse is simply a variance - stealing from yourself.
In no way does the usage of third party libraries damage the ID myths. For example, owning IP and authorship is not the same. Also: one can use a programming framework for a below average app while another one builds an awesome app.
And this is what's MoD underlying theme: going your own way because you see a chance while staying in the current context. In the end, ID did what Softdisk did: developing and publishing games. One only with moderate success while the other conquered the world.
Latin alphabet epitomizes this day by day. 26 letters which seem laughable, but a fool with a great tool is still a fool. ;)
It is a gimmick, not anything users as a spectrum might find favorable. And the sad thing is, that Apple is the only one with such a laughing stock of UX/UI.
I am totally annoyed by the animations in Apple Notes. The icons have considerable increased in size and everything screams what a mess to me: the shadow as part of "the experience", partly rounded icons which talk more space than rectangles, hidden functions or multi function menus.
There is absolutely no spirit in this update. The animations show no variations, always the same most boring ones (the s curve in Apple Notes).
Lately I found die settings menu in Safari especially disastrous, the tab menu icons when pressed look so ridiculous, I lost words.
I walked through a tech store recently and I saw the new iPhones with the liquid gimmick. I opened the camera app on one of their pro phones and it was lagging. I was shocked, I found it mind-boggling. Brand new phone, up to date OS, marketing material BS and for it to lag just feels unprofessional. I’d understand it if it was a Pinephone or whatever but from Apple? My expectations are reaching lower and lower depths.
Imagine what macOS is on an Intel Mac nowadays without dedicated GPU. Not the latest version either.
I'm pretty sure they do it on purpose with their Metal APIs. There is no reason the same computer can become laggy doing the same exact things a few years later because of simple OS updates that adds very little actual functionality.
My mother use an old Mac Mini that is stuck on an updates from eons ago. It is slow as fuck, even though the softwares have barely changed since it was first used.
She'll buy a new Mac because that's what she is used to. But I feel like a pretty bad deal considering where Apple is going.
People always rave about how long Apple computers last. I bought my first personal Mac in 2004 and I have to hard disagree. They last only if you buy the most expensive model and even then it still is going to be a miserable experience towards the end. Meanwhile, cheapo Windows PC get 10 years OS support, mostly trouble free. Reality distortion field is massive indeed.
> The changes introduced by Windows Aero encompassed many elements of the Windows interface, with the introduction of a new visual style with an emphasis on animation, glass, and translucency; interface guidelines for phrasing and tone of instructions and other text in applications were available.
For those of us who want our mobile devices to just be there when we need it...thank god there are no new animations. I don't need a shot of dopamine every time I open the Mail app. I just want to know that I successfully pressed the icon. Which is what micro interactions (aka small animations) are for. Feedback.
I hope the phone get's even more boring and uninspired next go around. Apple can afford to go back to the 'it just works' motto.
My macOS display system is pushing megapixels and with some good exceptions it feels like many apps have not much more visible information or options than an 80x25 VGA display. This is not to trash VGA displays which were often very well-designed. Some web pages now only show a single paragraph at a time on screen because of cumulative pop-ups, borders, and rounded corners.
We thought the same thing, and they made pretty significant changes to it based on that pushback. Also the flat redesign didn't have basic problems like white text on an white background all while Apple is saying they spent obscene resources on it.
You trust it more than your government. Which stands to reason at the moment if you are in the US. But there are competent, more trustworthy governments in other parts of the world. And other companies people might trust more than Meta.
Decentralization allows people to choose who they trust. Or rather requires them to really
So Kassel, Germany, may have hope to be less harassed in the future?
FYI, Kassel kinda is the so-called capitol of raccoons. 30k+ raccoons life there, according to estimates.
I certainly would not want to live there. It is crazy how these animals flock together and invade properties. And they aren't shy anymore due to the reverse positive reinforcement they receive by not killing them.
Yes, it is of course in Germany forbidden to kill an invading predatory species - even on your property. This is Germany 2025.
Toronto, Canada is hands down the raccoon capital of the world. Something like 100k raccoons live in the city.
I can’t get my head around how such big animals manage to live all around us in such densely populated place. I suppose it helps that they are cartoonishly adorable.
But they are increasingly getting really, really big. It’s just a matter of time before the chonker living in my neighbour’s shed bullies me out of my house.
All you need to know about Toronto is that the generational effort to build a raccoon-resistant trash can has failed every time. They're unstoppable beasts!
Kassel is under 200k people, with ~100 raccoons/km² though!
Curiously, that raccoon population was established legally and intentionally in the 30s to bolster local fur production; later efforts to eradiacte the animals (for being pests from an agriculture perspective) have been given up.
Damage to local ecosystems seems fortunately pretty limited, even though the raccoons are highly successful and spreading.
The second link parent posted literally explains it, which makes their "oh no, German in 2025 so broken" quite puzzling:
> Es gibt viel zu viele Waschbären, um mit den erlaubten jagdlichen Mitteln im städtischen Umfeld eine nachhaltige Bestandsreduzierung bewirken zu können, denn Waschbären können hohe Verlustraten durch vermehrte Fortpflanzung ausgleichen. Je mehr Waschbären getötet werden, umso mehr Jungtiere kommen nach. Die vielen Jungtiere machen aber unter Umständen mehr Probleme als die Alten, und die Gefahr einer Ausbreitung von Krankheiten und Parasiten wird durch die abwandernden Jungtiere erhöht statt vermindert.
> There are too many raccoons for permitted hunting methods within an urban context to have a sufficient effect on population numbers as raccoons react to high death rates with increased breeding. The more raccoons are killed, the more young are born. The large amount of young raccoons can create more problems than older animals, and the danger of spreading disease and parasites is increased as young animals roam from established territories.
tl;dr: you're not allowed to just randomly shoot shit in urban areas because duh, the population is too large for trapping, and the raccoons are just gonna fuck more and then go a-wandering, making everything worse.
> Yes, it is of course in Germany forbidden to kill an invading predatory species - even on your property. This is Germany 2025.
Raccoons can and are hunted in Germany, what are you talking about? The federal laws regarding hunting don't mention them and thus allow states to decide. I haven't checked every states local laws and executive orders, but I'm not aware of any that don't allow hunting raccoons.
I agree that this level of finetuning feels overwhelming and might let yourself doubting whether you do utilize Claude to its optimum and the beauty is, that finetunging and macro usage don't interfere, when you stay in your lane.
For example I now don't use the planing agent anymore instead incorporated this process into the normal agents much to the project's advantage. Consistency is key. Anthropic did the right thing.
Codex is quite a different beast and comes from the opposite direction so to say.
I use both, Codex and Claude Opus especially, in my daily work and found them complementary not mutual exclusive. It is like two different evangelists who are on par exercising with different tools to achieve a goal, that both share.
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