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m0llusk

3,500 karma · joined February 15, 2014

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m0llusk··on Postman silently auto-installs AI plugins and attempts to share all API data
Capitalism is a system that needs to be controlled. Setting the kitchen on fire is not late stage food preparation. Crashing a car because you drove fast on bald tires is not late stage vehicular mobility.
m0llusk··on Bones may release proteins that slow aging and extend life span
Actually, this reminds me of how use of mobility devices is closely associated with mortality.
m0llusk··on Mathematics has changed. Let's act like it
Technology has changed and extended the craft, but everything about developing applications and communicating results remains.
m0llusk··on France is getting download tax for content providers (€0.055/GB)
Under Clinton the "PAYGO" rules enforced that all spending had to be covered by cuts or new taxes. This caused a lot of aggressive review and limited eagerness to spend.
m0llusk··on Kentucky man becomes the first humanist granted religious exemption from AI
Which is funny because people who actually work with this tech know well that facial hair is no obstacle to rigorously functional respirator use. This is more of a cultural tradition such as how genital mutilation of infant boys is necessary for health when it really took off as a way of adding value to birth support service invoices.
m0llusk··on ICE Is Running One of the Largest Anti-Left Surveillance Ops in US History
The evidence will remain in ssh logs and such. That is part of why it got posted here. This political struggle has gone technical and we're all involved.
m0llusk··on Solar power is becoming bigger than nuclear
That is false. Temperature moderation is an important issue and in hot locations solar efficiency may be maximized when trees provide partial shade.
m0llusk··on No signs of AI payoff outside the tech sector
What about the flood of LLM generated books on Amazon? Maybe sales of slop aren't being systematically tagged as such?
m0llusk··on It's still ok to enjoy programming
Specifically, LLMs are stochastic creations which as such are strongly mean reverting in their generation. If you want to compose something delightfully new and different then an LLM is extremely unlikely to produce what you want, though it will fail quickly and with complete confidence.
m0llusk··on Dam removals are bringing fish back across the northeastern United States
And the fish bursting in air
m0llusk··on Thinking will become a hobby
This is false. LLMs still make mistakes frequently, especially with content not prominent in their training. And far from working tirelessly, they need frequent reminders of goals and boundaries to stay on track.
m0llusk··on The gap in shared understanding of LLM capability is widening
AI car navigation is here, but driving is a social act. Have you ever tried to keep an automated taxi out of a private driveway or the scene of an emergency? There is a lot of work to do and limited evidence of LLMs raising the bar.
m0llusk··on The gap in shared understanding of LLM capability is widening
That is not how math works. There are reasons why the Riemann integral is pervasive and the Labague integral is rarely used unless needed. Just because you can do something does not mean that you should.
m0llusk··on Ask HN: Why aren't Americans rising up against tipping?
We may be reaching a tipping point.
m0llusk··on Study: Claude, ChatGPT Offer Different Shopping Prices Based on Wealth
It's a banana. How much could it cost? Ten dollars?
m0llusk··on Loss of cell identity drives human aging: Two new papers
Having been involved with development of Internet social media and smart phones it seems like balancing futurist hopes with guarded pessimism might be an enlightened path.
m0llusk··on Finally, A True Blue Rose Exists
Could also be at least in part an epigenetic effect where the gene remains but is deactivated or strongly down regulated.
m0llusk··on The LLMentalist Effect (2023)
That is a bad faith summary. LLM driven proofs are turning out to be hard to verify, often take invalid shortcuts, and may not actually be helpful in getting humans to understand either the proof or related context. Even if one accepts your "insanely useful" statement, which is a huge stretch, that has to be qualified with the results being insanely complicated to actually verify and use. The point of mathematics is to advance understanding, not merely generate some isolated and incoherent results.
m0llusk··on The LLMentalist Effect (2023)
Generating and mastering language are two very different things. Even the best LLMs still have no ability to understand or work with abstractions.
m0llusk··on Two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors contribute to the developing brain
In short, no. The two types of thinking are both forebrain activity. One comes to a quick guess with pattern matching, the other goes slower with reasoning. It could be that some fast thinking is influenced by the hindbrain in some way, but the thoughts themselves are constructs in the conscious mind that inhabits the frontal lobes.
m0llusk··on Most people prefer traditional architecture
Mostly this is looking at architecture as urban sculpture. That is relevant, but the most critical experience of a building is on the inside. Modern designs spearheaded modern interior spaces including spacious corridors, atriums for exposing important views and improving navigation, and other such features. More than that modernist buildings are good at presenting functional spaces with a minimum of details to interfere with usage and customization. Different uses can add decoration or functional features as necessary as there is plenty of space available and no ornamentation to interfere with.

And then there is the issue of construction. Many older designs use materials and methods that are either out of date or expensive to replicate with currently popular building materials. Simply going back to older designs is not a practical option for most buildings. There has to be some balance of old ideas with newer methods.

m0llusk··on Growing proof that autonomous cars save lives
Life saving is a good metric. So also are incidents of blocking traffic or interfering with responders. Navigation is only one aspect of driving which is a social act and requires both sophisticated understanding of context and communication. Looks like progress is impressive but there is still a lot of work to do.
m0llusk··on Flock Wants a Closely Surveilled World with No Exit
Linked cameras everywhere all the time has been coming for a while. Cheap hardware, connectivity, and analysis means who pays is not only not limited to governments and big companies but is barely even relevant. The remaining question is what if any rules there will be.
m0llusk··on Tim Cook Sold Out Steve Jobs (2025)
That isn't true. The original Apple Store proposal by Bertrand Serlet is available and it is pretty clearly driven by the need to polish the user experience of installing and managing applications. Being able to charge a significant premium was just a part of the picture and originally considered to be required to pay for the associated infrastructure of reviews and such.
m0llusk··on Stop Making TUIs
Text is an extremely information dense medium. It makes sense for user interfaces to be centered around text. This keeps the focus on the data and its transformation.
m0llusk··on Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down
It's worse than that. He is so completely off that he thinks this means US builders will chose to buy US lumber instead and that will work out positively for everyone in the US.
m0llusk··on Incident with Github.com
The end of the day is now.
m0llusk··on People are worried about America's solvency
Eisenhower who, despite being exhausted by WWII efforts, ran for presidency because he saw that as the only way to prevent a civil war. Nowadays the American Left is Center Right, but back then the American Right was Center Left. Things change, things stay the same.
m0llusk··on Thanks to social media, canned sardines are a scarcity on the supermarket shelf
And that is what remains of the Pacific sardine fishery. It used to be that sardines were plentiful all around Monterey, but during WWII fishermen used improved sensors to track down and remove all schools of sardines until they were gone. Since then attempts to reintroduce sardines to that stretch of California coast have all failed. This is a really huge loss to the whole ecosystem there.
m0llusk··on My Rules for Using Spreadsheets
Seems like rules for using spreadsheets more strictly would suffice. Call this abstraction TypeSheet maybe?
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