Hacker News Reader

chxon Transforming a QLC SSD into an SLC SSD

How do you make sure the empty space is trimmed? Can you trim a portion of a disk?

chxon LLM-generated code must not be committed without prior written approval by core

https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/112006855076082650

> You might be surprised to learn that I actually think LLMs have the potential to be not only fun but genuinely useful. “Show me some bullshit that would be typical in this context” can be a genuinely helpful question to have answered, in code and in natural language — for brainstorming, for seeing common conventions in an unfamiliar context, for having something crappy to react to.

> Alas, that does not remotely resemble how people are pitching this technology.

chxon How Far Are We from AGI

Let me clarify: I am not going to waste my time reading the rambling of someone drunk on the AI kool aid.

> profoundly impacted human society,

So far there are fears, well founded fears but any impact is yet to be measured and "profound" has certainly not happened yet.

> driving significant advancements in multiple sectors.

ROTLFMAO. There's nothing more to be said. What is happening is asshole corporate owners destroying their own companies by firing competent workers and replacing them with a bullshit printer. Not quite sure how that's an "advancement".

chxon How Far Are We from AGI

First sentence:

> The evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) has profoundly impacted human society, driving significant advancements in multiple sectors.

OK this is not serious science.

chxon GDPR: Is It Worth It?

They are the most adversarial implementation of the law. There is no requirement for them. The Do Not Track HTTP header would've been perfectly compliant but of course the ad companies -- and let's not forget Google is one -- did not want it. They want you to be pissed off by the cookie banners so eventually they might go away.

chxon Intel's Thunderbolt Share lets two PCs control each other over a USB cable

That was true in the TB3 era.

This will work just fine with a 40gbps USB cable.

chxon Things I won't work with: the higher states of bromine (2019)

Ah yes the timeless classic which at the end calls out an idiot company for offering something that explodes at -180C in commercial quantities :D

chxon Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

> We don't know if full AGI can be built using just current technology (like transformers) given enough scale,

We absolutely do and the answer is such a resounding no it's not even funny.

chxon Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

LLM is not AGI and there's no way to AGI from LLM. Put down the kool-aid.

chxon Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

All crypto"currencies" with a transaction fee are negative sum games and as such , they are a scam. It's been nine years since the Washington Post admittedly somewhat clumsily but still drawn attention to this and people still insist it's something other than a scam. Despite heady articles about how it's going to solve world hunger, it's just a scam.

This round of AI is only capable of producing bullshit. Relevant bullshit but bullshit. This can be useful https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/112006855076082650 but it doesn't mean it's more impactful than the Internet.

chxon Ilya Sutskever to leave OpenAI

> When the next wave of new deep learning innovations sweeps the world,

that won't happen, the next scam will be different

it was crypto until FTX collapsed then the usual suspects led by a16z leaned on OpenAI to rush whatever they had on market hence the odd naming of ChatGPT 3.5.

When the hype is finally realized to be just mass printing bullshit -- relevant bullshit, yes, which sometimes can be useful but not billions of dollars of useful -- there will be something else.

Same old, same old. The only difference is there is no new catchy tunes. Yet? https://youtu.be/I6IQ_FOCE6I https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-k...

chxon Did GitHub Copilot increase my productivity?

Every time... https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/112006855076082650

> You might be surprised to learn that I actually think LLMs have the potential to be not only fun but genuinely useful. “Show me some bullshit that would be typical in this context” can be a genuinely helpful question to have answered, in code and in natural language — for brainstorming, for seeing common conventions in an unfamiliar context, for having something crappy to react to.

> Alas, that does not remotely resemble how people are pitching this technology.

chxon Leaked deck reveals how OpenAI is pitching publisher partnerships

The right question is "Why would anyone use chatgpt". The answer is https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/112006855076082650

> You might be surprised to learn that I actually think LLMs have the potential to be not only fun but genuinely useful. “Show me some bullshit that would be typical in this context” can be a genuinely helpful question to have answered, in code and in natural language — for brainstorming, for seeing common conventions in an unfamiliar context, for having something crappy to react to.

> Alas, that does not remotely resemble how people are pitching this technology.

Slanting this towards a specific brand doesn't change that much. Some yes, but not that much.

chxon I'm puzzled how anyone trusts ChatGPT for code

Every time...

https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/112006855076082650

> You might be surprised to learn that I actually think LLMs have the potential to be not only fun but genuinely useful. “Show me some bullshit that would be typical in this context” can be a genuinely helpful question to have answered, in code and in natural language — for brainstorming, for seeing common conventions in an unfamiliar context, for having something crappy to react to.

> Alas, that does not remotely resemble how people are pitching this technology.

chxon Road resurfacing during the daytime without stopping traffic [video]

That's cool.

Sometimes... it doesn't work out.

https://www.londonreconnections.com/2015/know-run-story-behi...

chxon “Meta spent almost as much as the Manhattan Project on GPUs in today's dollars”

By 1942 no one really had doubts about that. I mean, the Einstein–Szilard letter was written in 1939 and Bohr mentioned in lectures also in 1939 the bomb is possible but he didn't think it was possible to produce enough weapons grade uranium within the timeframe of the war. He couldn't foresee, no one could, really, what the US could do when determined.

chxon How LLMs Work, Explained Without Math

https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/112006855076082650

> You might be surprised to learn that I actually think LLMs have the potential to be not only fun but genuinely useful. “Show me some bullshit that would be typical in this context” can be a genuinely helpful question to have answered, in code and in natural language — for brainstorming, for seeing common conventions in an unfamiliar context, for having something crappy to react to.

> Alas, that does not remotely resemble how people are pitching this technology.

chxon “Meta spent almost as much as the Manhattan Project on GPUs in today's dollars”

Perhaps it's worth mentioning some lesser known big achievements of the Manhattan Project. It's not the scientists. It's Hanford and Oak Ridge. Hanford was not only nuclear reactors but a city of more than 43 000 people out of literally nothing. Oak Ridge had the largest building in the world, K-25. It was only surpassed by the Boeing Everett Factory more than twenty years later. These two sites were also the major cost centers of the project. Science is cheap. Enriching uranium and manufacturing plutonium -- especially when no one did it before -- is not.

chxon AI copilots are changing how coding is taught

> Having an oracle that knows all answers is useless if you don't know what to ask.

But that's not what these LLM systems are. https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/112006855076082650

> You might be surprised to learn that I actually think LLMs have the potential to be not only fun but genuinely useful. “Show me some bullshit that would be typical in this context” can be a genuinely helpful question to have answered, in code and in natural language — for brainstorming, for seeing common conventions in an unfamiliar context, for having something crappy to react to.

> Alas, that does not remotely resemble how people are pitching this technology.

It is exactly what happened to you: it wrote bullshit. Plausible bullshit but bullshit nonetheless.

chxon Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

A modern fridge and washing machine are both vastly more efficient, too.

chxon Lithium-free sodium batteries exit the lab and enter US production

Just install an SMR at every gas station. Problem solved! :P

chxon Borgo is a statically typed language that compiles to Go

There is evil in this world and then there's ... this :D

chxon Resistance Against Git Merge Hell (2015)

git bisect is extremely, extremely powerful.

I have found an almost security hole with it in the dropping of a BC layer which just no one would've expected to do that. And because it was all deleted code tracking down the origin bug any other way is fair impossible.

chxon Deep Dive into XZ Utils Backdoor [video]

While libcurl is an alluring target it is really ill suited for this, Daniel Stenberg is paid to work on it full time and his track record speaks. The situation is really different from xz.

chxon Deep Dive into XZ Utils Backdoor [video]

I thought it is established by now Paul Le Roux is almost certainly Satoshi. He had the motivation (money laundering), the cryptography knowledge and him never moving his coins after they became quite valuable is easily explained by the fact he is in prison. As far as I am aware there is no one else for whom all three would be present.

chxon ChatGPT provides false information about people, and OpenAI can't correct it

Every single time...

https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands/112006855076082650

> You might be surprised to learn that I actually think LLMs have the potential to be not only fun but genuinely useful. “Show me some bullshit that would be typical in this context” can be a genuinely helpful question to have answered, in code and in natural language — for brainstorming, for seeing common conventions in an unfamiliar context, for having something crappy to react to.

> Alas, that does not remotely resemble how people are pitching this technology.

chxon Is it okay to daisy chain a UPS?

my fav real world engineering story is of the first commercial ISP in Hungary

back then running leased lines would've been way too expensive. So what did the kids running the show did? They got wind of a central office in an older part of Budapest have excess capacity so they rented an apartment in the next building and drilled the wall :D no expensive trenching, no expensive equipment to demultiplex landlines, nothing, just a bunch of wires running straight from the CO equipment into retail modems... We had no idea what we were doing, mind you. I was already doing Linux at the time so among the few installers I was the lucky guy who got to install the Internet at a small business who wanted it to be done on a Solaris workstation. That was a fun challenge... Other installs were Trumpet Winsock. The ISP itself ran a custom linux app, you dialed in and landed on a text app or maybe it was Lynx? can't quite remember, it's been 30 years...

chxon Zilog Z80 CPU – Modern, free and open source silicon clone

To save a click

> 160 x 100 um tile + ASIC + demonstration board: The standard price is $300 plus shipping.

> However, Efabless is sponsoring a special early bird offer of $150 (plus shipping), limited to one order per person.

> Each extra tile is $50, and extra analog pins start from $40 per pin.

Unless I am badly mistaken 160 x 100 um is .16 x .1 mm which means the tile is 0.016 mm2 meaning a 0.064 mm2 die takes four slots?

chxon Is it okay to daisy chain a UPS?

Note the last image of the article is not correct, if you want full redundancy you need two independent power feeds. How independent depends on your needs of course. You might just want to run it from a different circuit but the same utility power. If you've got insane needs and megabucks you can talk to the utility about being fed from two substations or at the extreme end you can get one feed from the utility and you can make your own second feed. Traditionally we did this with water turbine working from a river but today I might look into solar and perhaps molten salt.

As an example, way back then when this was a very lucrative business, we placed the servers for a premium number erotic call in an industrial park on the border of two districts in Budapest because that's where we could get two independent power feeds without running our own lines. Internet connection wise, one was a simple leased line the other was a microwave connection to very far away. Short of bombing the entire site it was fair impossible for the installation to go offline and -- for the six years I knew about it, it never did. Note the site served German callers, that's where the big bucks came from.

chxon Visualizing malicious IP addresses

Very much, yes.