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sota_pop

194 karma · joined December 5, 2024

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sota_pop··on Nasdaq Sinks 5% as Investors Retreat from AI Trade After Election
A chat bot with a feedback loop.
sota_pop··on Geoffrey Hinton: it might turn out we were better off without AI
I actually laughed out loud.

I do find capsules interesting though.

sota_pop··on A map of 5000+ midterm ads
This is a really cool idea (and looks nice)! Are the ranges percentages of the total? I am finding it slightly annoying that changing the tab sends me to a new page with another hit to my browser hist
sota_pop··on US boy names that became girl names and vice versa
Most interesting thing that stands out to me is the number of names that appear to be what I would consider an abbreviation of a more traditional name.

e.g. “Pat” is cited, but doesn’t specify whether that refers to Patricia or Patrick.

sota_pop··on Why are Soviet math textbooks so hardcore in comparison to US textbooks? (2017)
Always interesting to revisit the idea of the theoretical role “education” plays in society. One might view the primary objective of school as a sorting machine or one that imparts knowledge for its own sake. These two things aren’t specifically mutually exclusive, but you can have only one “primary objective”.

Only having experience within the US myself, I have always found the idea of “forced ranking” for grades a little odd. Though admittedly, I do skew towards being (perhaps a bit too) idealistic in that sense.

sota_pop··on A lost Schrödinger manuscript reveals a twist in quantum physics
I was under the impression it was already established that the cat is both ginger and not-ginger?
sota_pop··on Can we change an AI model's architecture without retraining it from scratch?
I may be confused.

How is priming different from transfer learning?

sota_pop··on The lamps in my house
As a former lighting designer, we would call this “task lighting” and you are completely correct. Generally speaking, task lighting is MUCH more pleasant that simply relying on overhead lights, recessed or otherwise.
sota_pop··on A brief history of the Bloomberg terminal
Was going to say almost exactly this. Very similar experience in my background as well (CAD interfaces).
sota_pop··on World Labs is Joining AMD
Stopped here to say this as well. While he may be lesser-known than the three names mentioned, I’ve been a fan of Justin Johnson’s work since discovering circa ~2019. I believe he is with the WL crew.

Grats to the team.

sota_pop··on Does Reddit have an astroturfing problem? What the data suggests
Came here to say this
sota_pop··on Introducing System One Models and Jev
I’m struggling to understand how this approach is novel.

How is this different from nearest-neighbor within traditional vector search, used by RAG systems? What am I missing?

1. Compute input embeddings 2. Concurrently compute distance-to/logits-of runtime-specified (sic cached) label embeddings 3. Return greatest/closest label

I do appreciate the Kahneman reference.

sota_pop··on Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence features on Mac
Or is their base assumption that their primary os users are children?

MacOS certainly feels like a toy to me in many regards.

sota_pop··on I am often wrong
Well, sounds like problems and products are largely solved.

60% of the time, the framework works, every time.

sota_pop··on Microsoft patches Windows and Excel – breaks audio, remote access, and paste
For me, it was about the time of the early announcements for the TPM2.0 reqs for windows 11 that I started to seriously consider alternatives (though I consciously accepted many pain points even then).

The initial debacle that was the Recall recall and announcing the level of AI stuffing of win 11 that made me actively try out Linux mint (which has been quite nice and smooth). LLMs help to diagnose and fix items if you aren’t familiar with Linux. You no longer have to scour message boards for up-front answers (only use them as a “confirmation backstop”).

For work I now use macOS which feels like a toy but is ok overall (probably still some personal habit-based things).

If it weren’t for the fact I still develop plugins for a single, very specific windows-only app in my spare time, I would completely ditch windows, with contempt. Outside of Windows I am continually stubbing my toe on every single use of every single MSFT product with which I interact; primarily outlook, teams, and some azure stuff. Their products feel highly “feature optimized” with absolutely zero (perhaps negative) cross-feature cohesion. e.g. it’s as if the various outlook panes and the boxes of content were designed so modularly and independently that they don’t re-size or scale themselves cooperatively.

I perpetually experience stark jamais vu using their products, i.e. I am forced to use them every day and each time feels as unfamiliar, clunky, and unintuitive as the first time I ever touched them.

sota_pop··on Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]
It doesn’t seem this is a question of ToS though. I would hope it is abundantly clear to anyone and everyone:

THEY’RE USING YOUR DATA

As they involve themselves directly, explicitly in the process of scientific research and discovery, it becomes a question of scientific and professional ethics.

sota_pop··on Navier-Stokes – Tristan Buckmaster [pdf]
It certainly does not excuse any actions, but it seems like OAI’s initial and continued intent was to scoop Anthropic. Unfortunate that it seems Buckmaster ultimately became collateral damage within the _battleground_ of his own research project.

Strange times.

sota_pop··on Solving the Jane Street reverse engineering challenge
Are you me? EE, always manage to go the hard route (inadvertently)…
sota_pop··on Fastpotify
Kudos, I have been carrying exactly this on my personal “to do” projects list for quite some time. Looks really nice!
sota_pop··on Decompiling a Nintendo 64 game in 84 days
- super smash bros

- LoZelda Ocarina of time& majora’s mask

- starfox 64

- Mario party

- extreme G racing

- jet force Gemini

- golden eye

- conkers bad fur day

- Mario 64

- Tony hawk

Man… so much nostalgia

sota_pop··on Nvidia agrees to acquire Hugging Face for $13B
I think you mean Dodecahedrillionaires
sota_pop··on Why Sal Khan't: On Learning by Making but Teaching by Telling
This article is a classic straw man. It supposes a simplified and trite intent of KA then goes on to explain why THAT intent is doomed from the start.

I mostly used KA between 2010-2015, and received immense benefit. These were the years it was MOSTLY “just videos”. Having revisited more recently, I found the gamification, quizzes, etc. simply distracting.

My understanding is that he started KA as a private YouTube channel to tutor his own family members, made it public, and it grew in popularity organically.

I haven’t used khanmigo, but given the climate and evolution of LLMs over the last 6 years, it is a completely reasonable goal to attempt to employ them in learning (though it sounds like it was not as effective as planned for.. reasons).

KA never pretended to be “all you need” for learning. It was always at least an excellent supplement to a given curriculum, and Sal’s genuine interest in the videos he narrates always sounded (to me) as palpably genuine which also goes a long way. There is a reason most textbook chapters have an initial section called “motivation”. The primary job of a teacher is to incite interest, and potentially direction at strategic points…

As the adage goes: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

sota_pop··on How does IKEA come up with names for its products?
It’s not load bearing, it’s a way of life.

The names just hit different.

sota_pop··on The TEMU-Fication of Software, Digital Goods and Services
I think what you call “TEMU-Fication” is more widely and classically known as “commoditization”.

The article was a nice read, but I was having a hard time understanding why attempt to coin a new word when the exact phenomenon is already (very very) well known.

sota_pop··on CEO who fired 900 people on Zoom just before Christmas wants his job back
> It bounced back by training AI models to quickly process mortgages…

Between the years of 2018-2025, I led very many professional discussions and educational presentations regarding the theory and application of AI/ML in the org I worked (a ~120 person org lacking in any substantive expertise or awareness of the field).

One of the most important topics within those conversations was demystification. Several times I was asked (in earnest, by adults, in public fora) about “terminator/skynet scenarios”, sometimes intended metaphorically (related to the profession) and sometimes literally.

My response every single time:

I don’t fear “skynet”. My biggest fears surrounding the continued proliferation of AI are the mundane, boring, and nascent uses that completely bastardize the world as we know it. Uses like mortgage/loan approval, healthcare coverage approval, hiring, legal adjudications etc., etc.

Uses where the decision outcomes have a direct, major, intimate impact on people’s lives.

I am generally pro-AI/ML (when applied thoughtfully), but my greatest fears are and have ALWAYS been in knowing just how much easier it enables these kinds of decisions to inevitably be outsourced or made in an otherwise (more) thoughtless, dehumanizing way.

While it’s easy (and at times cathartic) to criticize big corp leaders, the CEO and company described in the article gives me a visceral reaction deeply within the uncanny valley that is actually difficult to describe.

sota_pop··on OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining
“Ethics is largely solved.”
sota_pop··on Lost my phone at the office. Claude suggested tracking Bluetooth signal strength
Interestingly, I have personally felt this way about projects in which I was involved in the past(written both by me and by others)…

sometimes starting from scratch just faster and/or easier.

sota_pop··on Show HN: I'm a 15 Year Old Wannabe Engineer, This Is a Cycloidal Gearbox I Built
Impressive work for someone of any age!

- any project that involves hardware or physical objects (especially ones you are manufacturing!) is impressive

- the craftsmanship

- references to established standards

- documentation

- actually publishing

As others have said here you can drop the “wannabe” tag (or don’t, we’re all wannabes at heart :))

Nice job and keep up the good work!

sota_pop··on Yes you can measure engineering
Skimmed quickly and seems like a nice system.

I would have liked a comparison to something like Kanban which tries to aggregate to a (seemingly?) similar metric but is a more prominently known system.

sota_pop··on Meshdiff – visually compare two STL versions in the browser, client-side
Very cool work! Nice job. Road-map looks good too! I always appreciate client/local-first emphasis. I have been seeing a lot of great in-browser apps coming out via 3js,wasm,etc (THANK YOU LLMs)

With interest in this space you may be interested to check out:

- That Open Company in the BIM industry (not personally affiliated, but admirer). - Fovea ArchVision (also not directly affiliated, but can attest that the team are great people.)

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