HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

VMG

8,992 karma · joined September 17, 2009

submissionscomments
VMG··on Honesty gets Emacs patch rejected
Is it possible to tell slop from non slop if you were not there when the tokens get emitted? Somebody can just lie and pretend that they were not generated
VMG··on Upcoming breaking changes for npm v12
I must admit I don't really understand what the point of the post-install script concern is.

Usually, you run the actual packaged dependency code at some point anyway, and usually with the same permissions as the install process.

So all of these setup scripts (good or bad) can just move their entrypoint from npm to wherever the `import` or `require` happens.

It seems to me that this is a small stumbling block at best, unless the whole ecosystem moves to a deno-like sandboxed environment. Maybe that is the plan?

VMG··on Websites have a new way to spy on visitors: analyzing their SSD activity
I don't know, maybe something about backwards compatibility, maybe nobody can agree on how to do it correctly. It hasn't happened for decades, so I'm not going to hold my breath.
VMG··on Nvidia announces new AI chip for personal computers
most crypto mining has moved to specialists, even where there were deliberate attempts to make it ASIC-resistant

SETI@Home is a very niche use case

and web browsing still happens by connecting to data centers and server farms, not by connecting to another laptop

VMG··on Websites have a new way to spy on visitors: analyzing their SSD activity
Unfortunately, real apps and native tech stacks can not only write data to your SSD, they can usually write data to the user directory however they want and they can read it as well!

Browsers are at least somewhat sandboxed

VMG··on Nvidia announces new AI chip for personal computers
> if there end up being useful workflows where you keep stuff running in the background or overnight that's one advantage

That is not how LLMs are typically used though in my experience

> Think of it like having a graphics card at home versus using a cloud gaming stream?

Latency seems to be much more important in that use case

VMG··on Nvidia RTX Spark
Convince me

1. in order to run LLMs, especially the best ones, you need complicated devices which are expensive

2. if you buy one for your personal use, you are probably not going to utilize it all the time and it will be idle a lot

It seems to me that it will always be more economical that the LLM-running devices are in a datacenter where it is easier to make sure they are always utilized

VMG··on Agents need control flow, not more prompts
The problem is that often the program runs into some edge case that requires interpretation, at which point one is tempted to let the LLM deal with the edge case, at which point one is tempted to let the LLM deal with the whole loop and let it do the tool calls
VMG··on jj – the CLI for Jujutsu
... unless you actually want to edit a change!
VMG··on jj – the CLI for Jujutsu
I've had mixed results.

Most models don't have a 100% correct CLI usage and either hallucinate or use some deprecated patterns.

However `jj undo` and the jj architecture generally make it difficult for agents to screw something up in a way that cannot be recovered.

VMG··on Samsung Magician disk utility takes 18 steps and two reboots to uninstall
blast from the past - peak of UX!

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Partition_Magic#/media/...

VMG··on Bringing Clojure programming to Enterprise (2021)
503
VMG··on What podcasts are you listening to?
Skeptics Guide to the Universe
VMG··on Ladybird adopts Rust, with help from AI
developers with good taste like Andreas Kling will be able to design entire OSes with coding agents
VMG··on The path to ubiquitous AI (17k tokens/sec)
Not at all if you consider the internet pre-LLM. That is the standard expectation when you load a website.

The slow word-by-word typing was what we started to get used to with LLMs.

If these techniques get widespread, we may grow accustomed to the "old" speed again where content loads ~instantly.

Imagine a content forest like Wikipedia instantly generated like a Minecraft word...

VMG··on [dead]
> Base64-encoded secret in URL Prevented Detected (entropy scan) Logged

Ok so how does this "Entropy scan" work?

Apparently by defining "bits per character"

https://github.com/luckyPipewrench/pipelock/blob/3021f023b0e...

So I guess converting the secret to pure binary will evade the "entropy scanner"?

VMG··on Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC
> Because if it’s worth your time to lie, it’s worth my time to correct it.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/if-its-worth-your-time-to-l...

VMG··on Claude’s C Compiler vs. GCC
> and I expect within the next ~2 years AI tools will produce a better compiler than gcc

and the "anti" crowd will point to some exotic architecture where it is worse

VMG··on A new bill in New York would require disclaimers on AI-generated news content
Step 2: outlets slap this disclaimer on all content, regardless of AI usage, making it useless

Step 3: regulator prohibits putting label on content that is not AI generated

Step 4: outlets make sure to use AI for all content

Let's call it the "Sesame effect"

VMG··on Did a celebrated researcher obscure a baby's poisoning?
have you read the linked page?

> However, since immunizations are given to about 90 percent of children less than 1 year of age, and about 1,600 cases of SIDS occur every year, it would be expected, statistically, that every year about 50 cases of SIDS will occur within 24 hours of receipt of a vaccine. However, because the incidence of SIDS is the same in children who do or do not receive vaccines, we know that SIDS is not caused by vaccines.

VMG··on Amazon closing its Fresh and Go stores
the Kaufland ones where I live still have weight sensors which for me completely eliminates the appeal
VMG··on A list of fun destinations for telnet
Telnet is "sandboxed" in that it can only output characters to your tty, however that in itself is quite a powerful primitive.

The ANSI control characters wield power of a huge stack of not very robust code

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2024-56803

VMG··on A list of fun destinations for telnet
Do you believe that it is impossible to advertise, spread fake news or propaganda via text?

Do you know what the letters in LLM mean?

VMG··on A list of fun destinations for telnet
Note that this is much more dangerous than visiting a website. ANSI escape sequences can seriously mess with your system, RCE included.
VMG··on Pocket TTS: A high quality TTS that gives your CPU a voice
> Ask a German whether their system language is English. Ask a French person. I can go on.

I'm German but my system language is English

Because translations often suck, are incomplete or inconsistent

VMG··on Sampling at negative temperature
is that what tourette syndrome is?
VMG··on Opus 4.5 is not the normal AI agent experience that I have had thus far
> Claude is very useful but it's not yet anywhere near as good as a human software developer. Like an excitable puppy it needs to be kept on a short leash.

The skill of "a human software developer" is in fact a very wide distribution, and your statement is true for a ever shrinking tail end of that

VMG··on The mineral riches hiding under Greenland's ice
High-res versions of the map

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/f40c2c69-b...

another map

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/7658bbc3-7...

source

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL10...

VMG··on Java Hello World, LLVM Edition
The thing that gets installed, if it is an executable, usually also has permissions to do scary things. Why is the installation process so scrutinized?
VMG··on Anthropic acquires Bun
and JavaScript even anywherer!
← PreviousPage 2 of 34Next →