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xrd

9,895 karma · joined March 25, 2008

chris@extrastatic.com

https://webiphany.com

Wrote a book for O'Reilly: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/building-tools-with/9781491933497/

Univ. of Washington Comp Sci & Japanese Language and Literature

submissionscomments
xrd··on SS United States to be sunk as largest artificial reef
Th SS United States going into the Gulf of Mexico.

It would be funny if Mexico started calling it "el arrecife del imperio moribundo"

"The Reef of a Dying Empire"

xrd··on New iPad mini
I bought it off Facebook marketplace. The guy selling it apparently was granted the device from his work and then didn't need it. I didn't get the sense it was sketchy at all but now I'm wondering a bit. I had no idea it was that expensive new, I'm sad that this thing appears to be a brick now!
xrd··on The new iPad mini
I did not call Apple, this was a local "fix my iPad" shop.

It was funny, the guy was narrating as he is searching saying "Whoa, this is the most I've ever seen... Wow, oh man... Hold on..."

I knew it was not going to be good.

I asked if there were any DIY options for me.

He said I could possibly find a used iPad online and swap that screen. But, given the insane prices of the replacement screen, I assume the secondary market for a salvageable iPad that works is really tough.

At this point it makes sense to just buy another used iPad.

xrd··on NBA announces partnership with prediction markets Kalshi, Polymarket
Come on! I'm so offended by this.

You forgot to include fast food ads, a mainstay of sports advertising!

Otherwise, I totally agree.

xrd··on New iPad mini
I bought a used iPad for my daughter for her birthday about a year ago for about $500.

M4 chip.

Her mom's cats chewed on the corner of the screen. It won't turn on.

The cost to replace that screen: $1200.

Apparently OLED screens break completely if just a single pixel is damaged.

xrd··on GPU-unlock: FP/BF16 instruction issue rate on Nvidia 3000's cards
So if I'm reading this chart correctly, my 3090 card can get a 65-80% boost in speed generally? Or, is this only for certain models and quantizations?
xrd··on Maybe There Was an Egg Cartel After All
Yes, it was collusion.

Reported also here by Matt Stoller:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/crime-pays-the-egg-bandit...

xrd··on How the Fed Is Quietly Inflating the AI Bubble While Hiking Your Electric Bill
Funny, I was going to ask "is it as simple as going off the grid"?

It makes the Biden and Obama solar subsidies look very different. Indirectly they were protecting us from private profiteering utilities?

xrd··on How the Fed Is Quietly Inflating the AI Bubble While Hiking Your Electric Bill
This is a really fascinating exploration of how data center build out, funded by debt, debt that relied on low interest rates, can then put pressure on interest rates, which then causes the utilities to raise their rates. It's beautiful.

It feels like this is a game between speculators that want low interest rates, and a money machine that wants to protect their investments in the stock market. If you work for Goldman for 30 years before joining the fed, then you surely have an interest in protecting the status quo.

Is there no other system we could envision that makes it possible for us to avoid these goliaths battling and destroying the planet and our opportunities to live in peace?

xrd··on Pattern matching beats narrative reasoning
This was very strange in an article critical of narratives. I can't help but think this person never played basketball.

  Eventually making trades started to feel like throwing a basketball. My brain started to develop a deep intuition for technical and fundamental signals, and how they combine to make a “swish”.
xrd··on The math that OpenAI keeps for itself
Remember, Trump has said if you don't use SI instead of AI you are an enemy. So, this title should be changed to "The math that OpenSI keeps for itself."
xrd··on An ESPN producer who quit because of sports gambling
I hope she goes to Pablo Torres podcast. I bet she is referring to that in her interview. He's fantastic and deserved to win the Pulitzer for his reporting on Kawhi Leonard and Steve Ballmer of the Clippers. They make me excited about sports again because they clearly are fans. I used to be a fan but the gambling is so disgusting.

I also really enjoyed Michael Lewis' podcast on sports betting. Fascinating people in that world. He did this series to try to teach his 16 year old son not to gamble and it didn't work out perfectly. Terrific storytelling.

xrd··on Japanese people still aren't having sex. And nobody knows why
That's interesting.

I remember when I lived in Japan and was with my male friend visiting temples. I was 21 years old and I'm male. At one point he grabbed my hand to direct me to a temple and didn't immediately let go. I felt strange because in the US that would be misconstrued.

Are you sure Japanese people hate physical contact? I never really considered whether that's true or not.

xrd··on Why is every rationalist blog post way too long?
Yes, I hate to admit I am/was someone that assumed nicotine is bad, but Gwern's article is fascinating and well researched. This was a poor hill to die on for this article.
xrd··on OpenAI engineer arrested in bugging of executive conference room
I'm obviously not a skilled writer. You should read AI written books exclusively.
xrd··on OpenAI engineer arrested in bugging of executive conference room
Someday AI will kill someone. And, then it'll write a book about it.

It will do that because it read "How to Murder Your Husband" as part of its training.

I'm going to be very confused about how to feel about that.

When we arraign the AI, should there be two counts against it: stealing and murder?

Or, can it plead that "my daddy, Sam Altman, told me to read this, I was born into a moral void."

Plot twist: the judge will be AI from Russia.

xrd··on Strengthening our defenses against distillation attacks
I might frame this comment from you. I'm honored.
xrd··on Strengthening our defenses against distillation attacks
I replaced "model" with MAGAZINE/BOOK/PUBLICATION, "developer/development" with WRITER, and "capability" with CREATIVE WORK from this passage:

"extract the capabilities of one model and replicate them in another, without the authorization of the original model’s developers. They are often conducted using networks of fraudulent accounts. These attacks allow companies to mimic frontier capabilities for a fraction of the development time and cost"

It turns into this:

"extract the CREATIVE WORK of one MAGAZINE/BOOK/PUBLICATION and replicate them in another, without the authorization of the original MAGAZINE/BOOK/PUBLICATION WRITERS. They are often conducted using networks of fraudulent accounts. These attacks allow companies to mimic CREATIVE WORK for a fraction of the WRITERS time and cost."

I think I have seen evidence to know the second paragraph is true, but I'm not sure about the first. I need to see the evidence from Anthropic.

I did this entirely using my own brain, without the help of LLMs. This is the most creative thing I have done in a year, I'm so proud of myself.

xrd··on Feds Got Warrants to Use Fake Cell Towers to Hunt Down Don Lemon's Producer
Some people are wondering if the government has to prove it is a mob, or can just say that, and then do a bunch of illegal things once they assert it. And, whether if that turns out to be a lie, if there are consequences for lying. It would be nice to have clarity there.
xrd··on Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?
What kind of thrift store sells these? In what country?
xrd··on cp: -r or -R?
I really wish there was a way to know if LLMs hallucinate these switches incorrectly, like I do.

Feels like this would be exactly the kind of thing they would get wrong. Fur exactly, the training set isn't trained to know the context of execution (FreeBSD vs macos vs Linux), right?

xrd··on Crypto Capture of Foreign Aid
This is relevant:

https://theleahfiles.substack.com/p/the-currency-killer-part...

Did you know Tether (cryptocurrency company) is in the top 20 USD treasury holders, more than most countries?

And Lutnick is the manager of those funds, or his sons are (silly mistake!) because he divested completely.

xrd··on Opus 5.5 is good at explainer videos
This is interesting, generates HTML and js/CSS transitions, then ffmpeg. Clever and flexible.

I would really like to take a playwright driven script, then use a similar pipeline to create explainer videos. Then I can add my own voiceover. It will really reduce production time but keep it flexible so I can tweak the script but not need to record over and over.

Does something like this exist? Would be a great open source project.

xrd··on Show HN: Make cursed fonts like Times New Bastard
If I'm reading this correctly, this tool generates a new font by mixing fonts and altering proprieties of the fonts. In other words, a new font is produced.

Could you produce similar effects using pure CSS and/or JavaScript? Maybe it would be less deterministic and maybe the rendering would be slower, but could you do it this way?

xrd··on New Jersey fines data center $1.1M after drone pics expose 62 gas generators
Wasn't colossus (Musk/grok) data center in Nashville powered by gas generators? And, xai just ignored the environmental regulation preventing it? Am I misremembering?
xrd··on DoorDash Spent $1.4M Trying to Stop Mamdani from Becoming Mayor. Now We Know Why
Mamdani deserves credit for taking this all the way.

Adams was "indicted in September 2024 on federal charges including bribery and wire fraud, accused of accepting over $100,000" from Turkey. He's now an Albanian citizen, because "he loves travel."

I don't really agree that this judgement would have happened with anyone as mayor. That road is long and paved with gold distractions.

xrd··on Uber arbitration award over Emily Normandin-Parker’s death
I always thought arbitration was forcing weaker parties out of the fairer legal system. Now I wonder if that's a planted idea by the legal industry? It made sense to me that arbitration was paid for by the company, and there would be incentives for the judge to side with their long term meal ticket. But perhaps all that is wrong? I really wish you could elaborate on why it is better, I'm very interested in challenging my assumptions here.
xrd··on Coyote v. Acme (1990)
I want to have this debate. This might be the MOST important thing ever discussed here on HN. Let's get this SOLVED!

If you look at the name, sure. But, the ENTIRE premise of MacGyver was that Richard Dean Anderson would ALWAYS come up with some strange scientifically accurate combination to get out of a hairy situation. MacGruber is about an elite strike force guy whose wife is killed on their wedding day, and then this pain drives the entirety of the movie. The characters have no origin story in common, and no references to MacGruber can be derived from MacGyver.

From MacGyver: "Resourceful and possessing an encyclopedic knowledge of the physical sciences, he solves complex problems by making things out of ordinary objects, along with his ever-present Swiss Army knife, duct tape, and occasionally matches."

SPOILER ALERT: I suppose the carrot in the ass COULD be considered a clever approach to a problem. But, I just thought it was evidence of MacGruber doing somthing ridiculous. And, clearly he used this often in the past, and it is not an ad-hoc clever assessment of something in the moment. Maybe he could have picked weeds in one scene, stuck them in his butt, then Ryan Phillipe could have used fake flowers, or something. Otherwise, you get no points for that one.

MacGyver has none of the rage that is SO important to MacGruber. His origin story: "The show follows Angus MacGyver, played by Richard Dean Anderson, who works as a troubleshooter for the fictional Phoenix Foundation in Los Angeles and as an agent for a fictional United States government agency, the Department of External Services (DXS)." NOTHING in there to indicate he is using emotional pain to drive an episode.

The only real satire I see is this: "He favors non-violent resolutions and prefers not to handle firearms due to the accidental shooting death of one of his friends when he was 12." Clearly, MacGruber does not have any such qualms about violence, and he also hates guns. But, you can't parody one characteristic by taking the exact opposite (violence), and then parody another characteristic (guns) by making that characteristic identical to the original. It ISN'T RIGHT!

Also, let's talk about Jack Dalton. He's the womanizer, and his eye twitches. And, his get rich quick schemes. That could have been mined for gold in this "parody."

If it is a parody, then Will Forte is insanely lazy. I'm willing to accept that might be the case, but then you need to refer to it as a lazy parody.

Bring it on, wredcoll. I'm waiting like a ninja and wolverine combined.

xrd··on Coyote v. Acme (1990)
I never really thought it was a parody of that show. The name is similar, but did not feel like it attempted to parody it in any other way.
xrd··on Coyote v. Acme (1990)
I LOVE MacGruber. And, I'm not afraid to be public about it.

I know it is silly and the jokes are juvenile. But, he is so fully in the character for the entire movie, and it is a joy to watch.

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