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istjohn

3,843 karma · joined May 17, 2010

hello@isaiah.st

https://isaiah.st/john

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istjohn··on Genie 4
Yeah, I think that sentence was supposed to be: Genie 4 is natively multimodal, enabling audio--like music, ambient noises, and interactive dialogue--to be simultaneously generated with the world.
istjohn··on eMudhra to exit global SSL/TLS certificate business
Opus 5.5 will happily decompile .apk's and strip out the ads.
istjohn··on OpenAI CLI
Yes
istjohn··on Ofcom concedes defeat in 4chan case
You're forgetting that a perfectly serviceable truce was established with the JCPOA until Trump tore it up to satisfy Israeli interests.
istjohn··on Ofcom concedes defeat in 4chan case
This whole war is happening because after his easy coup in Venezuela, Trump thought he could just do it again in Iran, and now he can't extricate himself without losing face. And American politicians on both sides of the aisle are subserviant to Israel.
istjohn··on There's never been a better time to go into math (by: 3blue1brown) [video]
It does? Standard of living increases in the last 300 years have made leisure time more accessible to more people than ever.
istjohn··on Claude Haiku 5.5
According to Epoch AI:

> The cost of achieving a given level of AI performance has fallen about 47% per quarter since 2023, or 13× per year. [0]

0. https://epoch.ai/publications/the-plunging-price-of-thought

istjohn··on Sharing AI progress in mathematics
> It’s possible that these problems were lower-hanging fruit (in relative terms), such that they could be resolved simply by throwing a ton of compute at the problem guided by an intelligence that is not itself remarkable in comparison to a human.

See:

> The average result used the equivalent compute of roughly three hours of ChatGPT Pro thinking. (TFA)

istjohn··on Federal judge calls Flock 'indiscriminate mass surveillance'
There's also: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
istjohn··on Getting the most out of Opus 5.5 in Claude and Claude Code
Look up the grilling skill[0]. To make it even better, tell Claude to modify it to use the AskUserQuestion functionality. It's so much better than plan mode.

0. https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/blob/main/skills/produc...

istjohn··on Getting the most out of Opus 5.5 in Claude and Claude Code
Otoh, I've had it push back against my false assumptions when I was confidently incorrect, finding proof unasked.
istjohn··on Plan mode is dead
I've found Opus 5.5 is quite good at surfacing and clarifying these issues using Grilling[0]. Often I find that I want to expand the scope of work much larger than Claude would consider based on my original request.

0. https://github.com/mattpocock/skills/blob/main/skills/produc...

istjohn··on The Year of Internal Tools
Cost per intelligence-adjusted token has been in free-fall since GPT-3 landed five years ago [0]. I see no compelling reason to think we'll see that trend suddenly stop, much less reverse.

0. "The cost of achieving a given level of AI performance has fallen about 47% per quarter since 2023, or 13× per year." https://epoch.ai/publications/the-plunging-price-of-thought

istjohn··on GPT-6 Sol and Luna
You meant Astra, not Sol, I think. But Opus 5.5 is slightly better than Fable and Astra now.
istjohn··on Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)
But the US supplies most of Israel's weapons imports, and 99% are supplied by just the US and Germany.

> The USA was the largest supplier to Israel in 2021–25 (accounting for 68 per cent of Israeli arms imports), followed by Germany (31 per cent). [0]

0. https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2026-03/fs_2603_at...

istjohn··on Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)
If your country's defense department is conducting itself ethically, and the contracts are for equipment or technology that is not inherently ethically fraught (like autonymous weapon systems), then one might consider that acceptable if you aren't a pacifist. An enormous amount of US military technology and weapons have been recently used to perpetuate a genocide, so the US is certainly an outlier in the global landscape.
istjohn··on Is mathematics about to enter the conservatory?
Reality encompasses more than the physical universe. Abstract mathematics describe an aspect of reality, too.
istjohn··on Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise
If I recall correctly solar panels are already so cheap that to halve the installed cost again will require most of the efficiencies to be found in other costs like manufacture of associated hardware and equipment and installation. I don't know if those costs will be so easy to reduce.
istjohn··on Smaller reactors bring nuclear power closer to fulfilling its promise
It is if the nuclear industry pays for it to be. See the disclaimer at the bottom of the article.
istjohn··on Bill Gates: The turbulent AI era is here
I believe there's a controversy filter that down ranks items if the ratio of comments to item upvotes is too high.
istjohn··on Manabu Kosaka's Handmade Paper Sculptures
One of his YouTube videos[1] has a couple freeze frames showing him carving a three-dimensional shape to form a shoe upper.

1: https://youtu.be/M8YMUMmFbFs?t=9

istjohn··on Manabu Kosaka's Handmade Paper Sculptures
I would imagine wheat or rice paste.

Edit: He has a lot of footage of him cutting out and placing letters and wires on his YouTube channel, but it doesn't show him applying any adhesive. Now I really want to know how he does it.

istjohn··on uBlock Origin is giving up the fight to keep ads off Facebook
I recently perused Marketplace, and it appears to be so thoroughly infested with barely disguised scams, bogus prices and other garbage as to be usable by only the most intrepid and determined shoppers.
istjohn··on Tiny black holes may be exploding stars across the Milky Way
According to physicist Sean Carroll, "hypothesis" and "theory" are interchangeable as the words are used by practicing scientists.
istjohn··on AI companies spend record sums on Washington lobbying
First, the inability to coordinate with the candidate on marketing doesn't strike me as much of an obstacle to SuperPAC effectiveness. Second, the Supreme Court ruled this summer that political parties cannot be prevented from coordinating campaign spending with candidates in NRSC vs FEC.
istjohn··on US citizen charged after GrapheneOS phone wipes during airport search
Perhaps a way to avoid this would be to have the duress pin trigger not a device wipe, but a device encryption with a long, pre-set key that you would store in a safe place when setting up the duress pin. Then you haven't destroyed the evidence, but the data is irretrievable without your cooperation. Also, if you don't actually have the key saved, it would in fact be destroyed, but the prosecutor would have to prove that you don't have the key saved somewhere.
istjohn··on A better way to tie gym shorts (or any drawstring) [video]
Bowline isn't great for safety-critical applications, especially when not under constant load.
istjohn··on Mexican government unveils a prototype for a new homegrown, ultra-affordable EV
"The car is designed for urban settings and has a top speed of 50 kilometers (31 miles) per hour."
istjohn··on I Stored a Website in a Favicon
I found the writing engaging and enjoyable to read.
istjohn··on EU-banned pesticides found in rice, tea and spices
It's the saying, "It's easier to ask forgiveness than get permission."

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/06/19/forgive/

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