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b3kart

720 karma · joined March 22, 2014

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b3kart··on Britain to make salary disclosure in job ads mandatory
You don’t _have_ to give them a P60 though, right?
b3kart··on Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets
I think significantly fewer people would have an issue with this if the profit was socialized. The fact that a company took all of humanity’s data and is profiting from _is_ the issue.
b3kart··on Elastic lays off 7% of employees
What’s written into law is just “contract”, not “social contract”. Your argument is basically “if it’s not illegal it’s not wrong”.
b3kart··on Claude Fable 5
Ah, yes, the Economist, a famously government-controlled media outlet.
b3kart··on Claude Fable 5
It shows the irony of trolling the UK's "authoritarianism" in a thread on a release of a model by a US company, given the US is arguably _more_ authoritarian. (Poland is more of a fun tidbit, as they are indeed tied in the Economist's index.)
b3kart··on Claude Fable 5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon-class_submarine vibes
b3kart··on Claude Fable 5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

Probably tongue-in-cheek, but UK 18th, US joint 34th with Poland

b3kart··on Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left
you know what they say about planting a tree. buy a domain name, set up a forward from gmail, and set a reminder to migrate 1 account per day to your new email address. 1 year later you’ll be in a much better position in case google decides to randomly ban you
b3kart··on Expertise in the age of AI
“education” is not the same as “job training”. there’s more to education than learning skills you can apply at your job. it’s learning how to think critically, study literature, problem solve, collaborate with others, etc. etc. skills that I believe all humans could benefit from, irrespective of their job. yes, trade schools are more immediately valuable in the strict capitalist sense, but I wish we lived in a world where everyone could spare a few years to grow as a person, not immediately start optimizing for salary. alas, could be wishful thinking
b3kart··on Expertise in the age of AI
so universities become trade schools? one concern is where does one get theoretical knowledge required for e.g. going to graduate school and then doing research to push the state of the art. that's one of the reasons universities emphasize theory: it's seen as the first step on the academic ladder, not as a trade school
b3kart··on How will OpenAI compete?
Don’t you think that’s because Google was objectively a head above everyone other search engine for a long time?
b3kart··on AI’s impact on engineering jobs may be different than expected
It’s funny that perfect capitalism (no payroll expenses) means nobody has money to actually buy any of the goods produced by AI.

Re cancer: I wonder how significant is the cost of reading the results vs. the logistics of actually running the test

b3kart··on AI Usage Policy
If this were so, we wouldn’t be seeing such reactions from open source maintainers. The reality is AI makes it cheap to create large PRs with little substance.
b3kart··on Waiting for dawn in search: Search index, Google rulings and impact on Kagi
That's what I am saying: if you had a better search/rec engine than Google, good luck making it useful without Google's search index, acquired to a large extent thanks to their dominant market position. This doesn't sound like healthy competition. ChatGPT had to change the whole game to be able to compete.
b3kart··on AI Usage Policy
This doesn't work in the age of AI where producing crappy results is much cheaper than verifying them. While this is the case, metadata will be important to understand if you should even bother verifying the results.
b3kart··on Waiting for dawn in search: Search index, Google rulings and impact on Kagi
I think you’re proving the monopoly argument yourself: if they only way to compete with Google is an innovation that generations of scientists have been working towards, it does paint a grim picture of competition in this space. Besides, are we ignoring Gemini?
b3kart··on Waiting for dawn in search: Search index, Google rulings and impact on Kagi
…without having advertiser interests to cater to.
b3kart··on Waiting for dawn in search: Search index, Google rulings and impact on Kagi
> Meanwhile, users pay a premium to pretend they're not using Google

My searches can’t be tied to me by Google for their ad targeting: this is worth paying a premium for, and I am glad Kagi are providing this service.

You seem to have a very limited understanding of the value Kagi provides.

b3kart··on ChatGPT Health is a marketplace, guess who is the product?
> you didn't like this product, you can just choose to not use it

This is an over-simplification. I might like the product, but not be aware of the various ways it violates my privacy. Having laws that make it more risky for companies to do nefarious things makes me more confident that if a product is available in the EU market it doesn't do obviously bad things.

b3kart··on The suck is why we're here
> Conversely, we ignored brilliant people simply because they couldn't articulate their complex ideas effectively.

If you can't articulate your complex idea to a human, what's the reason to believe an LLM would understand it better?

b3kart··on The suck is why we're here
Not necessarily: assuming I've been following Nik for a while, I have reasons to trust his summary more than an LLMs summary. I would understand Nik's biases, and understand why he would focus on one thing over another. Nik would have a reputational incentive to do a good job and not completely misrepresent the book. I would also value Nik's personal, subjective view on the material, having an understanding of his background, and, again, his biases. On the other hand, I would have no idea what an LLM would focus on when summarizing, I would have no reason to trust it (LLMs fail in unpredictable ways), and an LLMs "opinion" is some average over the internet's + annotator's opinions.
b3kart··on 2025: The Year in LLMs
The problem is it’s imperfect in very unpredictable ways. Meaning you always need to keep it on a short leash for anything serious, which puts a limit on the productivity boost. And that’s fine, but does this match the level of investment and expectations?
b3kart··on Gifted children are special needs children
Better for whom?
b3kart··on Don't Become a Scientist (1999)
Sounds like you’re describing how things are, while the author is describing how things are ought to be. It’s fine to be obsessed and sacrifice the rest of your life for a job if that’s your choice. If that’s the only option to succeed, however, you severely limit the pool of people who are willing to make that sacrifice, and (I believe) slow down the inflow of ideas and creativity that push science forward.
b3kart··on You’re a slow thinker. Now what?
True depth of thought is often achieved through exposing your ideas to others. It’s scary and uncomfortable, but ultimately you might spend months refining an argument that the first other person to look at will find a flaw in. We don’t see our own blind spots (by definition).
b3kart··on Microsoft is officially sending employees back to the office
> solution is have a shorter commute and live closer to the office

With a short commute, a private office, and environment conducive to both focused work and collaboration as required, I imagine a lot more folks would be happy to RTO. However, this is not the reality for most who are asked to waste hours commuting (or uproot families to move closer) to sit surrounded by noise and distraction.

I suspect “I miss when everyone was at the office 5 days a week” is behind many of these RTO mandates, and I am not sure the sacrifice made by people (like you) who don’t get to see colleagues quite as often is balanced against the sacrifice made by folks who have to uproot their whole lives or waste hours per day commuting.

b3kart··on Amazon reveals first color Kindle, new Kindle Scribe, and more
Why would you leave a Kindle untouched with the light on for 3 days?
b3kart··on I designed a Dieter Rams-inspired iPhone dock
Any advice on starting out in woodworking?
b3kart··on Repair and Remain (2022)
It depends on the type of therapy, I suppose, but I am not sure it’s reasonable to expect the therapist to have experienced all of the circumstances/problems you’re coming to them with. In my view, a good therapist should have the skills to ask the right _questions_, not give you the _answers_. They should help _you_ reflect and problem-solve.
b3kart··on Repair and Remain (2022)
> make sure the counselor has their own kids

I sense a hint of prejudice, the “you’ll understand once you have kids” trope. Surely counsellors training is more important than their personal situation?

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