athoun's comments

I agree, from my experience Grok gives superior coding results, especially when modifying large sections of the codebase at once such as in refactoring.

Although it’s not for coding, I have noticed Gemini 2.5 pro Deep Research has surpassed Grok’s DeepSearch in thoroughness and research quality however.

Yes, Grok has become my go to model for general research and targeted coding tasks. Feels like its getting better over time vs ChatGPT which seemed to deteriorate over time.

Claude 3.7 is excellent, and better at coding but I appreciate the context size of Grok and feel like I get better bang for my buck for general purpose research too.

I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong, but Gemini 2.5 pro was substantially worse coding quality than Grok. Which is surprising since I’m working on a Golang codebase which I had assumed Gemini would excel at given that it’s made by Google

The trick I’ve been using is to copy the entire codebase into a text prompt with Repo Prompt and feed that into Grok with a specific request on what feature / change I want.

Then paste that output into Cursor with Claude 3.7 and have it make the actual code changes and ask it to build/fix errors along the way with yolo mode enabled.

The 2-step process is a lot better since Grok can refer to the entire context of your codebase in one shot and come up with a high quality implementation plan, which is then handed off to Cursor to autonomously make the code changes.

I believe it is fairly accurate at estimating the ride time. The first time I took it though, I mistakenly thought it would take the same amount of time to get to my destination as Google Maps estimated since that is usually the case for Uber/Lyft.

So I was pretty annoyed after I got into the car and then realized that the route it selected was going through a bunch of hills and side streets that would take twice as long as the most direct route (via Google Maps) and there's nothing I could do to change that once the ride started.

I could definitely see that. If you're not pressed on time it can be a smoother ride for sure. But if you're trying to get somewhere fast or efficiently like going to the airport, you'd want to get a regular Lyft/Uber otherwise you might miss your flight.

It would be cool if you can configure the ride preferences for how aggressive you'd like it to drive.

In my experience Waymo has been much worse compared to Lyft/Uber for longer rides.

A big problem with Waymo in its current state is how its routes are terribly inefficient.

It purposely avoids freeways and higher speed roads, opting to take more inefficient routes without regards to the number of stop signs, hills, and other factors which will inevitably lead to a longer travel time. It's almost like it's using a worse version of the "Avoid highways" feature on Google Maps, and getting to a further destination can take almost twice the amount of time as compared to a Lyft/Uber.

Another problem is its lack of human intuition and strategies when driving in the city during some kind of event where many of the roads are blocked off. A human driver would have been navigating the blocked roads throughout the day and already know where to go to avoid the crowds, where as Waymo naively follows its navigation system and gets stuck in a bunch of traffic for no reason.

It also drives annoyingly slowly which leads to frustration from human drivers who constantly try to overtake you.

This is incorrect, or misleading at best. The map that you linked contains data about TCE levels in public water systems. It does not imply anything about the contamination of the groundwater supply which exists below many homes and workplaces in throughout the Bay Area. Contaminated soil and groundwater allows VOCs, such as TCE, to enter homes via a process called "vapor intrusion" and which can lead to negative health outcomes for the inhabitants even without ever drinking the groundwater [1].

The vast majority of the Bay Area population gets its water either from the Hetch Hetchy (SF, South Bay, Peninsula) or the Mokelumne River watershed (East Bay). This is surface water that is mostly clear of VOCs which is why nothing shows up on the map for the Bay Area that you shared.

For a more accurate representation of the state of the groundwater in the Bay Area, see this map of chemical plumes (hint they're everywhere) [2].

[1] https://www.epa.gov/vaporintrusion/what-vapor-intrusion

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20141120123953/http://www.nbcbay...

It doesn't seem sensationalist to me. I looked up three different strip malls that I am familiar with and all of them have some kind of PCE cleanup sites from previous or current dry-cleaners.

Here's one example in Santa Clara of a dry cleaner that operated in the 60's and there has been an active remediation project to cleanup the groundwater that has been on-going to this day [1]. In this case a single dry-cleaner which operated decades ago contaminated the water table and the chemicals flowed to neighborhoods even across the street. There is an extensive record of cleanup actions being taken on a nearly monthly basis going years back, including continuous well monitoring and soil vapor intrusion investigation. The map that was sent out to residents shows the extent of how far the ground water plume reaches, it's stunning to see how far one spill can go depending on the water table [2].

There are open remediation cases like this in almost every strip mall across America. This is a widespread problem and most people just aren't aware of the extent of it.

[1] https://geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/profile_report?global_...

[2] https://documents.geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/regulators/d...

If you’re in an apartment building, moving to a higher floor would help as it affects the basement and first floor the most.

If you’re in a house, the same mitigations for radon exposure would likely work to reduce TCE as well.

Regularly ventilating your home may also help keep the levels down.

Lastly, there are typically many years of exposure required before you notice any symptoms. So moving would be another viable option.

It's not supposed to leach into the groundwater, but nobody is enforcing the companies that are handling these chemicals to ensure they don't get into the groundwater supply. Many of the worst contaminations in the area were caused by big tech companies such as HP who didn't realize their underground TCE tanks were leaking whoops.

As of 2023 only two states have banned TCE (Minnesota and New York), and the federal government has yet to do anything to control it. It has and will continue to be used extensively in industrial application such as at electronic assembly lines, dry-cleaners, mechanics, air force bases, coffee decaffeination, textile industry, and the list goes on. The best you can do is live in a highly residential area which is far from the locations where any of these business could operate.

For those living in the bay area, you should know that the groundwater in many areas is contaminated with TCE due to computer manufacturing industry which used it as a solvent. Dry cleaners are another common culprit of contamination to the groundwater. These groundwater plumes can extend for quite a large distance from the original site of contamination and seep into the first story of residences and buildings through vapor intrusion. The TCE solvent is directly linked to Parkinsons [1].

Take a look at where you live on the California waterboard website [2] and look for nearby groundwater contamination sites. TCE / PCE contamination sites anywhere near your residence or workplace would put you at risk of getting Parkinsons. I know someone who got it and indeed they lived near a dry-cleaner that was leaching TCE into the groundwater decades ago. The solvent entires your residence through vapor intrusion, especially on the first floor or basement.

[1] https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/common-dry-cleanin...

[2] https://geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/map/?CMD=runreport&mya...

To add a data point, I recently had a grandparent who died with Parkinson's disease.

After doing research, it turns out their home was located very close to a Superfund cleanup site from a dry cleaner that operated in the 60's and contaminated the groundwater with TCE and PCE. The chemicals leach into the groundwater and can spread hundreds of feet per year. Buildings located over these plumes are exposed to vapors which accumulate indoors over time and expose the occupants.

According to Wikipedia, the PCE solvent which is used at nearly every dry cleaner across the country has been known as a x10 risk factor for Parkinson's [1].

For California residents, you can find out about these groundwater plumes on the waterboards website. They are located all over Silicon Valley and former dry-cleaners around the country [2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachloroethylene

[2]: https://geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/