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vasquez

35 karma · joined May 12, 2013

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vasquez··on How to run Qwen 3.5 locally
It depends on the task, but you generally want some context. These models can do things like OCR and summarize a pdf for you, which takes a bit of working memory. Even more so for coding CLIs like opencode-ai, qwen code and mistral ai.

Inference engines like llama.cpp will offload model and context to system ram for you, at the cost of performance. A MoE like 35B-A3B might serve you better than the ones mentioned, even if it doesn't fit entirely on the GPU. I suggest testing all three. Perhaps even 122-A10B if you have plenty of system ram.

Q4 is a common baseline for simple tasks on local models. I like to step up to Q5/Q6 for anything involving tool use on the smallish models I can run (9B and 35B-A3B).

Larger models tolerate lower quants better than small ones, 27B might be usable at 3 bpw where 9B or 4B wouldn't. You can also quantize the context. On llama.cpp you'd set the flags -fa on, -ctk x and ctv y. -h to see valid parameters. K is more sensitive to quantization than V, don't bother lowering it past q8_0. KV quantization is allegedly broken for Qwen 3.5 right now, but I can't tell.

vasquez··on I switched from Htmx to Datastar
I like the alpine-ajax API. You specify one or more targets and it swaps each of those elements. No default case or OOB, just keeping it uniform instead.

As for Datastar, all the signal and state stuff seems to me like a step in the wrong direction.

vasquez··on A police dog who cried drugs at every traffic stop
Consider supporting some organization working to repeal prohibition, e.g. LEAP.

None of this could be justified without the war on drugs. Plus we'd get rid of the prime motivator for a lot of the world's crime.

vasquez··on Six years of professional Clojure development
I really like Clojure, it's the language that finally made FP "click" for me. It was my go to for hobby/side projects for quite a while.

Dynamic typing is why I eventually switched. Haskell scratches the same itches that Clojure did, but the compiler and type system are immensely helpful, and keep saving me from tripping over my own feet.

vasquez··on Open source projects should run office hours
> Most open source maintainers work in their free time on those projects, and have an additional fulltime job to cover the bills.

Are you certain? I'd think most open source development is done by paid developers, on company time.

vasquez··on Myopia treatment 'smart glasses' from Japan to be sold in Asia
If you're nearing/above 40 this is likely age related farsightedness (presbyopia) counteracting your myopia.

https://www.nvisioncenters.com/farsightedness/and-age/

vasquez··on i386 architecture will be dropped starting with Ubuntu 19.10
For one thing, new games on Linux should no longer be targeting a platform that should have been phased out before Steam even launched on the OS.

And people will no longer need a duplicate set of libraries on their machines, all the way down to the gfx drivers. New software, and old stuff with 64-bit support, should have a lot less compatibility issues.

vasquez··on Nvidia adds telemetry to latest drivers
Actually, AMD's latest design, the RX 4x0 series, measures up really well to NVidia's mid and low end cards, especially for Vulkan/DX12 apps. They're not a contender in the enthusiast market, but will be releasing high-end cards using a refined design in the first half of 2017.

As for drivers, AMD has pledged to open source their Vulkan and OpenCL implementations. While that release has been pending "legal review" forever now, alternative open source drivers are making great progress thanks to Vulkan's simpler driver model. While NVidia's generally had the "better" driver, both from adhering less strictly to the spec and having the manpower to routinely fix application bugs in their driver, that's all changed with Vulkan/DX12 being significantly closer to the hardware.

I'd say things are looking up for market balance.

vasquez··on Why use www?
> And make sure the 3 redirects preserve any request URI parts after the domain as well.

I intentionally break such requests by dropping anything beyond the host name.

If someone are sending data in the open, I don't want their clients to keep working thanks to built-in support for redirects.

vasquez··on Obama to beef up laws on privacy and data breaches
No thanks. I can see this kind of legislation turning any online presence into a horribly expensive bureaucratic nightmare while accomplishing fuck-all security-wise. (At best.. Given current governments' track record, any privacy act would be all about stomping on people's privacy.)

I'd rather not be subjected to (and pay for) more security theater, or see every small business out there drown in a paper mill suitable for the fortune 500s.

We are already liable for any gross misconduct.

vasquez··on Ask HN: How do I learn C and C++ when I love high-level languages?
Why do you want to learn C or C++ if you can't think of something you'd like to use them for? I've written a fair bit of assembler and occasionally still do tiny projects in C or C++, but my language of choice (by far) is the highest level general purpose one I've come across.

IMO you don't need to know either C or asm to be a great programmer. Read a book on operating systems instead and you'll know all you need to about hardware. Add a thorough coverage of algorithms and data structures, and you're in a better position to write effective software than many I've worked with.

vasquez··on Open Source and the Challenge of Making Money
I don't think open source is really about making money for most companies, it's more about improving quality and keeping costs down. At a former employer we did follow the give-it-away-and-charge-for-a-service model, but we also worked on several of the open source libraries and frameworks we built our products on.

We shared all of this work with the upstream projects, as we had no interest whatsoever in maintaining private forks and because better quality infrastructure attracts more users, which again leads to further improvements or at least ensures the project stays maintained.

vasquez··on Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday
There's no extreme right in Norway (at least not in the parliament). The so-called "extreme right" progress party are left of the US Democrats in all(?) matters.

With only 16% of the votes they also lost 1/4th their seats from the previous election, which was won by a labor/left coalition.

vasquez··on Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday
Norway is the same.

The norm is 37.5 hour work weeks. We're entitled to a 0.5 hour lunch break every day, but that's unpaid unless you're required to spend it on-site.

vasquez··on What does GCHQ know about our devices that we don't?
4) They were on a power trip and looking to destroy things for the sake of it, just to make some point. 5) Extending their "field time" for personal reasons, e.g. because it pays really well. 6) The people in question were just completely clueless about hardware.
vasquez··on Clojure 1.6 released
I like Clojure, but this looks rather painful.

If you're dead set on adding type declarations, perhaps you'd be better off with Haskell or something?

vasquez··on Openssl: uses only 32 bytes (256 bit) for key generation
4096 bit keys only make sense if they're asymmetric and those won't capture anything close to 4096 bits of entropy.

As for the strength of 256 bits, the Wikipedia page on brute force attacks should tell you how infeasible attacking even a 128 bit key is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brute-force_attack

vasquez··on Bootstrap 3.1 released
I like it this way. Less intrusive, but easy to find when you want it.
vasquez··on Functional Programming 101 with Haskell
Thanks. I did fix it soon after posting, but guess the incorrect one could be cached for a while.
vasquez··on Functional Programming 101 with Haskell
I think this 13-part series by Erik Meijer is great: http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/C9-Lectures-Erik-Meijer-Func...

More material here: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Video_presentations#Intro...

vasquez··on Slackware 14.1 is released
Personally I use Xmonad for my desktop (all servers are headless, of course -- running screen but tmux looks interesting). It's a no-nonsense tiling WM for managing all your xterm windows. I also have dmenu installed, launching apps directly from the WM is more convenient than you'd think.

I guess the two of you refer to not having X installed at all, but while it does provide some distractions, I can't see myself getting shit done (i.e. procrastinate on hnews) without a real browser.

vasquez··on Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2013: Trendspotting in asset markets
This prize was created by bankers to celebrate their own pseudo(mostly)-science.

Everything I've come across suggest that Alfred Nobel detested their ilk, and wouldn't want his name associated with the prize in any way, shape or form. That's why the title matters.

vasquez··on LASIK 6 months later
I had Lasek done about 5 years ago. The first days after surgery my vision was 100% perfect and light sources were completely crisp and well defined.

However, as my eyes healed, vision degraded a bit and the halo and starburst distortions came back. Nine months later I got a free followup surgery, but that didn't improve matters any.

It's still improved my life a lot, but it sucks going back to distorted vision after seeing perfectly. Also, Lasek sucks. Lasik wasn't an option for me but reading about procedures now I think PRK would have been a better choice (or some laser-only surgery, but I wasn't given that option either), and I certainly wouldn't have gone through a second surgery if I knew it wouldn't help.

vasquez··on Valve CEO: Why Linux is the future of gaming
Valve and Ubuntu might have popularized Linux gaming, but they also screwed us over.

Every desktop CPU sold in the last decade, at least the ones capable of running games, supports x86-64. The only reason 32 bit installs exist in the wild is because Ubuntu (still) makes it their default download.

Enter Steam for Linux. Targeting 32-bit Ubuntu, it makes this the de facto platform for Linux games. My desktop OS is now cluttered with multiarch libraries, and the top-end games I want to play won't take advantage of either the better instruction set or all my ram.

Linux gaming could have been a fresh new start, a break from the 32-bit instruction set, but instead we're now stuck installing, maintaining and supporting 32-bit libs forever..

vasquez··on Nanomsg – MIT-licensed ZeroMQ alternative
I'd say crossroads IO is dead, and would start porting my stuff to nanomsg (or ZMQ).
vasquez··on Scientists develop 'superwheat'
I'm not saying that metabolism has no effect, I'm saying the effect is small relative to calorie intake. I'm well aware of how a keto diet works, and that it can be useful for people looking to lose weight. It's no guarantee, though. There are actually people out there bulking on keto as well.

As for the parent poster, I haven't seen any evidence of calorie tracking. To me that means he doesn't really know how much he's eating, and I think you're just encouraging his flawed metabolism theory when you should know better.

vasquez··on Scientists develop 'superwheat'
Have you been tracking calorie intake, both before and after the diet change? That's the deciding factor for your weight. Metabolism, wheat/yeast sensitivity or even normal exercise only has a minor impact.

I would think dropping something as common as wheat would have significant impact on your diet, or?

vasquez··on Scientists develop 'superwheat'
A simpler explanation is that his new diet contains less calories than the old one. Achieving ketosis by accident is pretty far fetched, even among ignorant people on some crazy food group diet.