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AlexAndScripts

834 karma · joined March 6, 2021

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AlexAndScripts··on Amazon to invest another $4B in Anthropic
Amazon Bedrock supports Claude 3.5, and you can use inference profiles to split it across multiple regions. It's also the same price.

For my use case I use a hybrid of the two, simulating standard rate limits and doing backoff on 529s. It's pretty reliable that way.

Just beware that the European AWS regions have been overloaded for about a month. I had to switch to the American ones.

AlexAndScripts··on Touchscreens are out, and tactile controls are back
And, really, wouldn't a car that had controls like a plane be awesome? Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I'd adore a set of metal physical switches just above the windscreen. Add a HUD while you're at it...
AlexAndScripts··on Touchscreens are out, and tactile controls are back
I'm new to cars - I haven't passed my test yet. I also live in the UK, where manuals are the norm (and that's what I'm learning on). What is it that you dislike about CVTs? When you say a real gearbox, is it manual or automatic?
AlexAndScripts··on Touchscreens are out, and tactile controls are back
I got an email from Microsoft recently with that funny thin font used for headers. It reminded me that that was a trend around 2016 or so. The headers would have thinner font strokes than the body text, despite being substantially larger.

I remember that around that time (I was quite young) I was putting it in all my attempts at websites (all hideous, even at the time) and I thought it looked really cool. Funny the way trends go.

In the case of the email it was clear that it just hadn't been updated with the times.

AlexAndScripts··on James Webb Telescope discovers some quasars that seem to exist in isolation
BTW we all know this is LLM generated. It's really obvious. Please stop (entirely; don't just get better at hiding it).
AlexAndScripts··on AI PCs Aren't Good at AI: The CPU Beats the NPU
It almost makes me want to find some use for them on my Linux box (not that is has an NPU), but I truly can't think of anything. Too small to run a meaningful LLM, and I'd want that in bursts anyway, I hate voice controls (at least with the current tech), and Recall sounds thoroughly useless. Could you do mediocre machine translation on it, perhaps? Local github copilot? An LLM that is purely used to build an abstract index of my notes in the background?

Actually, could they be used to make better AI in games? That'd be neat. A shooter character with some kind of organic tactics, or a Civilisation/Stellaris AI that doesn't suck.

AlexAndScripts··on The first nuclear clock will test if fundamental constants change
Dark matter (matter that has mass but does not interact in any other way) might be the literal solution. But there are also other suggestions (MOND is a big one).

The https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_Cluster is pretty interesting.

AlexAndScripts··on State of S3 – Your Laptop is no Laptop anymore – a personal Rant
My solution to this was to setup my laptop to boot in less than ten seconds. I could generally go from shut down to logged in with Obsidian, Firefox, and Anki open in about 30 seconds.
AlexAndScripts··on Nuclear reactors a mile underground promise safe, cheap power
HS2 is more about NIMBYs and inefficiency than actual technical issues.
AlexAndScripts··on Poetry was an official Olympic event
I'd love to see Olympic capture the flag.
AlexAndScripts··on Fake Paper Generator
I think the prompt should be changed to commit to the joke a bit more. It keeps reminding me that it's ridiculous satire.
AlexAndScripts··on Signs of two gases in clouds of Venus could indicate life, scientists say
Hopefully the Rocket Lab mission can confirm this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Life_Finder
AlexAndScripts··on Small modular reactors: Still too expensive, too slow, and too risky [pdf]
Perhaps it could be underground, either in an excavated area or a natural cave?
AlexAndScripts··on The Lunacy of Artemis
Falcon 9 launches every three days. It's not even fully reusable and it burns kerolox, requiring the engine be cleaned.

I doubt they'll have that cadence ready for Starship within NASA's ambitious timeframe, but if they can get orbital refuelling and full reuse working (which are big ifs) high cadence should only be a matter of time. And when you're just refueling it every flight, rather than building a bespoke new rocket (as with SLS), the cost for twelve launches would likely be significantly lower than one SLS launch.

The internal cost for a Falcon 9 is approximately 15 million, and that's including a thrown away second stage, drone ship usage, fairing recovery, and engine refurbishment.

AlexAndScripts··on Jan Leike Resigns from OpenAI
100%. I see them conflated a lot, particularly outside of HN, and I think it really damages the discourse. Censorship for political or brand reasons (and I'm not making a moral judgement by my choice of language) is very different to aligning for safety reasons.
AlexAndScripts··on Computer models suggest modern plate tectonics due to blobs left by collision
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silurian_hypothesis

Would we know if they went to space? How long would a geostationary satellite remain?

It's both haunting and brilliant to think about the idea of entire other intelligent species and civilisations having lived on this planet without us ever knowing. Fire and iron and cities and empires and "great people", cultures and religions and stories and families... Civilisations and species rising and falling throughout the eons. It feels a little reminiscent of Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot", but on the scale of time, not space. I wonder if they might have considered this too.

AlexAndScripts··on Most of Europe is glowing pink under the aurora
I'm near Bristol. It's still absolutely stunning. It's not just to the north, either - it's everywhere.
AlexAndScripts··on Does light have an infinite lifetime?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology

It seems the paper made mistakes, using a non-standard model of the CMB that failed upon replication. It's an interesting theory thoughb.

AlexAndScripts··on Researchers find a new organelle evolving
Wrong post?
AlexAndScripts··on With Vids, Google thinks it has the next big productivity tool for work
I'm 18. I suspect this is related to attention span: Videos capture your attention far better and are more addictive. Additionally, while people can read, they're worryingly slow and they are so out of practice that the very act of extended reading tires them out - even if the subject itself is trivial. I think my reading speed is slightly above average among adults, and I can read text at my normal speed three times in the time it takes my peers to read it once. That's with brain damage.

These are very intelligent people, it's just that my generation is moving away from reading.

I've had discussions with friends who think academic papers should be replaced with videos. They find writing so time consuming and difficult that they think that an informative, animated video could be made with the same amount of effort as an academic paper. They also say that they're frequently distracted from the content due to the effort of reading itself.

I've been surprised by the extent to which people use "person talks to camera" style videos for revision and re-learning, rather than reading condensed notes. They are significantly slower, you can't scan through until you find something you're unfamiliar with, and they're just plain dull. Despite that, they're one of the most popular ways to revise. Perhaps it's because you can zone out of videos, convincing yourself that you're learning without actively engaging with the content. Again, I don't mean 3b1b style animated lectures, I mean someone essentially paraphrasing the textbook to the camera.

An similar phenomenon that also worries me is the lack of distinction between how people speak and how people write, and not in the "use straightforward language, not purple prose" way. People comma-splice entire paragraphs (if they use paragraphs at all) in a stream of consciousness rather than organising their thoughts.

AlexAndScripts··on US Government funds pilot project for heated sand energy storage
This seems like a really cool technology that also doesn't need much engineering to make it viable. Why isn't it already widespread?
AlexAndScripts··on E-Bikes Overtake Buggies for Some Amish (2021)
I've had a serious head injury, though not from cycling. Hurting your limbs is painful and may cause you to lose mobility. Brain damage affects your very ego and ability to experience the world - permanently. I have a headache and fatigue as I write this comment, my eyes aren't quite focused on the text like they used to be, and I am considerably less intelligent than I was. This will probably last for the rest of my life - for most of my existence.

It's difficult to put into words just how soul-crushing it is to have your inner monologue disrupted, slowed, and impaired. To sit in a class and listen, just as you used to, yet not comprehend or learn. To sit in front of your IDE expecting to accomplish a once-trivial task, yet feel nothing but overwhelming nausea and your working memory being overloaded.

It hammers home that consciousness is not special and that we're nothing more than biological machines.

Protect that consciousness. It is precious and it is vulnerable. Wear a helmet.

AlexAndScripts··on I'm an idiot. I just gave money to kinda-scammers, not the US government
uBlock Origin. Make sure it's origin, not base uBlock.
AlexAndScripts··on I'm an idiot. I just gave money to kinda-scammers, not the US government
uBlock Origin. Make sure it's origin, not base uBlock.
AlexAndScripts··on Firsty.app – free 300kbit/s eSIM for US/EU
Thanks for the explanation, that's really useful. I'll keep it in mind when travelling.

I'm curious, why Israel and Poland? Are a lot of eSIM providers from there?

AlexAndScripts··on Firsty.app – free 300kbit/s eSIM for US/EU
What is local breakout?
AlexAndScripts··on It's OK to abandon your side-project
Interesting. I was wondering why my recent show HN posts were significantly less successful than a (imo not as good) post on a similar topic the day before.
AlexAndScripts··on Show HN: Categorised eBay GPU Prices
Weird. Ah well, there are plenty of other projects to work on.
AlexAndScripts··on Show HN: Categorised eBay GPU Prices
Do you have any idea why this post died while the other one (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39477848) was quite successful? I'm curious. Also, what's the login/signup for on your site? It doesn't really explain it.
AlexAndScripts··on Satoshi – Sirius emails 2009-2011
I'm curious, what is the stylistic difference between Unix and Windows c++? I don't know it.
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