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eblanshey

274 karma · joined August 15, 2014

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eblanshey··on Using AI to reverse engineer hardware
> but why would someone toil to create a new algorithm to solve a problem if someone else is just going to steal it in hours?

I think it goes deeper than that, in that the AI era will eventually force us to rethink how we value each other. It used to be economic scarcity: I provide a service that very few people can provide, therefore I make a lot of money (supply and demand.) Now we're moving to a place where most anybody can do anything, so our value system needs to evolve, as well. Instead of valuing scarcity, perhaps we should value personal creativity and self-expression. Kind of like paying money for a concert, or for someone's personal painting, even though you can listen online, or you can just have AI generate the same painting. It comes more from wanting to support people than to supply scarcity-based demand.

I think this idea makes many peoples' eyes roll, but IMO that's a testament to where we are today as a society. Most interactions get reduced to just business transactions without the humanity in it, and that's where our problems come from.

eblanshey··on Get your Windows license refund
> Finding it's much easier to migrate to linux with an llm as a troubleshooting assistant.

Especially with NixOS. I would never allow an LLM to make core updates to my OS for fear of breaking it. Now LLMs manage all my packages and upgrades, and because it's all declarative, I can always revert anything that goes wrong.

eblanshey··on Qwen 3.8 27B
I see. Did you see any intelligence degradation between FP8 and NVFP4 for 3.6 27B? You're using vLLM, right?
eblanshey··on Qwen 3.8 27B
Why not just run FP8 on vLLM with that much vRAM? It's plenty fast.
eblanshey··on Epic Games announces Lore version control system
This looks very cool! I maintain a FreeCAD workbench for 3d model version control[0], and it currently uses git as the VCS, simply because that's what I was already using. Thinking long-term, I see it eventually morphing into a broader PDM (Product Data Management) system, perhaps even PLM (Product Lifecycle Management). Lore has a lot of the requirements already built-in, like centralized locking (better than SVN), and it's better suited for for binary files. I implemented the git backend as a protocol/port so it'd be pretty easy to swap it out. I'll be watching Lore closely.

[0] https://github.com/eblanshey/HistoryWorkbench

eblanshey··on GrapheneOS has been ported to Android 17
I use Google Maps on Graphene. It works perfectly. You still get the benefits of the rest of the phone being degoogled. Just allow it to access your location only when you're actively using the app. When it's closed, it's closed.
eblanshey··on Open source AI must win
I don't understand why no labs create dedicated models per industry/expert. E.g. physics, electronics, chemistry, etc. Each model would be much smaller and better suitable for running locally. Everyone is trying to cram everything into a single model.
eblanshey··on On Rendering Diffs
It's cool seeing all the engineering that goes into optimizing performance of diffs. I'm working on a FreeCAD workbench that generates diffs on CAD model trees[0], and although my bottlenecks are a bit different, I can still implement some of your optimizations down the line if needed (such as deferred syntax highlighting).

My main bottleneck is that I do a complete diff on all open + changed documents in the repository up front, because due to how document properties are stored, I won't know if the file has meaningful changes until I compute the full diff (FreeCAD may save the document, but not have anything meaningful change.)

[0] https://github.com/eblanshey/HistoryWorkbench

eblanshey··on FreeCAD v1.1
FreeCAD is really the only serious contender for CAD on Linux. I love how everything is hackable via Python APIs. Every release seems to fix more and more UX issues. I have very high hopes for it to eventually start attracting more commercial usage, much like KiCad and Blender did in their spaces. We need more open software like that.
eblanshey··on Ask HN: How to be alone?
I know what it's like growing up in a religious atmosphere. Since you've been trained to think inside the box, you realize the box is nonsense. The problem is thinking that the only valid alternative is that there is no creator and everything is just random (the opposite extreme.) Look into other philosophies like advaita vedanta, buddhism, or progressive science like another commenter mentioned about nassim haramein.
eblanshey··on GLM-4.7-Flash
There is a new update on HF:

> Jan 21 update: llama.cpp fixed a bug that caused looping and poor outputs. We updated the GGUFs - please re-download the model for much better outputs.

eblanshey··on A guide to local coding models
What hardware can you buy for $5k to be able to run K2? That's a huge model.
eblanshey··on Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state
OTOH I installed it on my elderly mother's computer, and she said that it did everything that MS Office could do. She's perfectly happy with it.
eblanshey··on Switching to Claude Code and VSCode Inside Docker
I do pretty much this.

- /home/me -- 660 default permissions

- /home/me/project -- owner "claude", add "me" to "claude" group

- symlink /home/claude/project to /home/me/project

- Run claude in different user session

- Use CTRL+ALT+F2 to immediately switch between my main and claude sessions. Claude continues working in the background.

eblanshey··on Blender 4.3
Like others have mentioned, Blender has become quite the successful open-source story. They used to be riddled with bugs and UX issues, much like FreeCAD was. Yesterday FreeCAD released v1 of their software, and they seem to be on the same redemption path as Blender. It's too bad their v1 release didn't gain much traction on here, as more people ought to give FreeCAD another whirl. The improvements there are massive. And it's the only proper parametric CAD software available on Linux.
eblanshey··on Linux 6.12 Features Super Real-Time, Sched_ext, Intel Xe2 and Pi 5
I'm not sure, I've never used it. But I think the issue is that the number of MCUs that support micropython is very small.
eblanshey··on Linux 6.12 Features Super Real-Time, Sched_ext, Intel Xe2 and Pi 5
I would think the portability of, say, a Python application running on Linux is a nice benefit. Try switching from one MCU to a totally different one and you may have to start from scratch (e.g. try going from Microchip to STM.) Can you describe why embedded Linux is still a slog? And what do you think it would take for the issues to be addressed?
eblanshey··on Linux 6.12 Features Super Real-Time, Sched_ext, Intel Xe2 and Pi 5
So Linux now officially support RTOS capabilities, without patches, which is pretty cool. I wonder, realistically, how many applications that were originally designed to use microcontrollers for real-time purposes, can be migrated to use Linux, which vastly simplifies and lowers the cost development. And having the ability to use high-level languages like Python significantly lowers the barrier to entry. Obviously certain applications require the speed of a MCU without an operating system, but how many projects really don't need dedicated MCUs?
eblanshey··on Daylight Computer – New 60fps e-paper tablet
I'd buy a framework laptop just for that.
eblanshey··on Show HN: Wonkypedia - Wikipedia from an Alternate Timeline
How long before AI crawlers start picking this up and start including it in their training data?
eblanshey··on Skydog Sports – photos, videos, and stories from an old-time hang glider pilot
An old-time hang glider pilot has been keeping his website up-to-date since the very early 2000s, complete with rotating gifs, hidden SEO keywords, index pages, photo albums, and more goodies!
eblanshey··on Show HN: Memories – FOSS Google Photos alternative built for high performance
Wow, the state of self-hosted photo libraries has gotten way better since I last settled on Photoprism a few years ago. Both Memories and Immich seem very polished. The timeline features look great. I may need to play around with these.
eblanshey··on GrapheneOS finds Bluetooth memory corruption via ARM MTE
Most mobile bank websites have 100% functionality already, including depositing checks. The bank app isn't needed.
eblanshey··on US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission
But they don't allow alternate app stores.
eblanshey··on Raspberry Pi 5 vs. Orange Pi 5 Plus vs. Rock 5 Model B
Any idea what to similarly search for for a cheap, low power server but has at least 4 bays for hard drives to use as a NAS?
eblanshey··on Goodreads is terrible for books – why can’t we all quit it?
Obsidian has a book search plugin that people use to create a library of notes: https://github.com/anpigon/obsidian-book-search-plugin

I recently came across it in a youtube video but haven't used it myself.

Edit: video I came across: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PFFJlyiv28

eblanshey··on Show HN: Obsidian Canvas – An infinite space for your ideas
Drop these quick notes into a folder (can be automated with Templater). Create another note that uses the DataView plugin to show you a table of all the files in this folder sorted by the creation date.
eblanshey··on SvelteKit 1.0
I'm looking at the frontend source code, and the Svelte components look almost the same as VueJS single file components using the composition API. Can someone who has used both comment on both their pros/cons?
eblanshey··on Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health
Do you have a link to the lightbar you have?
eblanshey··on Raspberry Pi 3 Fastboot – Less Than 2 Seconds
Anyone know of something like this for a beaglebone black, with Qt/QML as well?
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