skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
ey HN,

Introducing synthasAIzer, a developer-centric tool harnessing the power of AI to generate synthetic characters in expansive and dynamic networks. It's not just your standard character generator – it's designed to provide detailed personas and complex relationship structures. It's available at https://patch-synthasaizer.rltyinspctr.repl.co/.

This version demo creates synths and branches networks; we're going to be rolling out module after module, just like an analog synthesizer. Master plan here: https://strange-loop-synthasaizer.replit.app/

Using it is as easy as tweaking a few parameters. Choose the depth of relationships, the number of personas per role, specific character traits, and boom! The AI goes to work. The output? Comprehensive JSON files, ready to be plugged into whatever narrative, game, or simulation you're creating.

And here's where it really shines – we've tuned the AI specifically for character generation. This isn't a vanilla model. We feed it rich character-related data, pushing the AI to avoid generic or repetitive characters and relationships. The characters it creates are unique, dynamic, and tailored to your specifications.

For example, if you request a network of characters set in a medieval realm, synthasAIzer not only provides the individual personas, but also their connections and to some extent, dynamics within the network (https://patch-synthasaizer.rltyinspctr.repl.co/).

We designed synthasAIzer with developers in mind. You could be creating the next big RPG, a dynamic narrative, or just playing around with AI-driven character design - synthasAIzer is built to deliver.

This is just the start, and we're eager to develop synthasAIzer further. Would love to hear what you think, HN.
I sometimes browse my Google Discover feed on my phone, which I've set up to open articles in Firefox (on which I have an adblocker installed), and sometimes I browse my Google News Feed, which opens articles in its internal Chrome browser.

The difference in experience is striking. Random auto-playing videos that are stuck in the corner of your browser. Horizontally it takes up like half of my screen. It has an X button that either doesn't work, OR its hit box is just so tiny that you have to tap it multiple times to get it to actually close. Not to mention cookie banners that take up 20% of my vertical real estate.

Maybe you can get used to that shitty experience, but I certainly can't. I almost always just immediately open Google News articles in Firefox now.
BBB as well
Keep in mind that success at this endeavor means that UBI becomes possible. With UBI we can expect to see more human creativity, not less, as humans are no longer forced to do a robot's job.

Copyright law cannot be allowed to stand in the way of this. If it does, break it. It's that important.
I had a similar answer to another sibling comment, looks like a weird view on studying and legitimizing cheating (or shortcuts if you want to be lenient)

You learn by getting the material, and that makes you pass the test. If you know a few items of the material in a checkbox kind of way, you haven’t learned.
I don't think you understand what I mean. This page describes the difference between "normative" and "descriptive": https://www.miamioh.edu/hcwe/hwac/teaching-support/disciplin...

I'm not making the claim that the conclusion that WWII U.S. governments came to was right (in a moral sense), or correct (in that it was going to reduce the probability of sabotage given their knowledge at the time), I'm making the claim that knowing about Ni'ihau makes their actions make more sense. It is an important piece of context. It allows you to better-understand their state of mind and the state of the world while they were making these decisions.
I know this guy. He's kind of a dirtbag. I'm friends with someone who worked at his hostel in Austin; he was in charge of various events and hanging out with the visitors, along with all the other hostel duties. After a few years of working for less than minimum wage (there was lots of unpaid overtime), he was denied a raise. This was in spite of the hostel turning a very healthy profit every year. He wised up and ended up getting a much better paying gig elsewhere.

He could probably get away with this at the hostel (which is in a popular city), but hiring people for minimum wage in the middle of nowhere is a different story.
So something like Helvetica but every so often you sneak in Arial?
The cloud is renting someone else's computer at a way higher price than it would cost you to use your own.

If it makes things difficult, you shouldn't be using it.

It is overhyped and it sucks for most use case.
That "promising work" was "inventing the Rust programming language," and, yes.
I have learned a tremendous amount about Linux and DNS and general computing from Julia Evans' zines and her blog. She's also a big fan of "programming playgrounds" [0] or interactive teaching tools.

[0] https://jvns.ca/blog/2023/04/17/a-list-of-programming-playgr...
"ChatGPT" is a distinctive brand name for OpenAI's particular chatbot system that is based on GPT technology.

However, "GPT" itself is a type of technology (albeit one that was invented by OpenAI). It involves much more than just ChatGPT...even if we just look at OpenAI's own other offerings (e.g. GPT-1, GPT-2, Dall-E, etc.).

The "GP" (generative pretraining) has been a concept in machine learning for many years. The "T" (transformer architecture) was invented in 2017. Thus, the issue for the USPTO will be whether or not combining the "GP" with the "T" is too descriptive or even inherently generic to be "distinctive" to OpenAI.

Sometimes, general terms can become trademarks, by becoming "distinctive" to one company. Microsoft was able to do it with "Windows" (in the field of software, of course). And "booking.com" was able to trademark the word "booking" (for reservation services) in certain contexts. The issue will be whether OpenAI can successfully make the case that they've achieved something similar for the term "GPT" itself. I really remain doubtful of that, given the term's frequent usage as being a type of LLM and a general framework for generative AI.

All that said, I suppose we'll all know for sure soon enough...when the USPTO decides.
People looking this up online aren't cheating, by definition they are studying.

Sure, you could look up previous exams for learning the topic, but you could as well just copy the answers. Given that the answers were [supposedly] obviously wrong and the cheating students still used them pretty clearly indicates that they were not using previous exams for studying, otherwise they would have noticed that the answers are wrong as they contradict what was taught in the lectures and what other sources say.

All that's left is rote memorization. Learn this fact, remember this principle in that scenario.

There is a vast gulf between memorizing stuff and understanding it. The basic goal of every education is understanding existing knowledge and being able to apply it, memorizing stuff is not enough and I guess you should not be able to pass exams without some level of understanding. Being able to go beyond the existing knowledge and having original ideas is not required unless you want to go into research.
Regression discontinuity
When are they going to end the Lambo and Caviar shortages?
Wow, i wasn't aware that there might be a connection between menopause and matriarchal societies—super fascinating! Do you have any sources you can recommend that offer more information on this?

Also i wasn't aware how much culture and collaboration orcas apparently have, thank you for sharing all that!

Edit: also, curious if you are aware of the work of marija gimbutas and heide göttner-abendroth on neolithic pre-patriarchal Europe (which seems to have been peaceful for thousands of years)?
To a certain extent, I wonder if the real problem is the focus on tests and memorization. In the real world, "knowing" something means you can apply it to a project. I "know" guitar if I can play multiple songs well, not if I can easily tell you how to form the first inversion of c major 7 in a specific tuning or something. I could be a savant on tests and not be able to play Wonderwall. I know programming if I can write good working code, not if I can answer trivia about C++ virtual tables.

My point being in the real world people look things up all the time, IE, cheat. Ability to memorize for an arbitrary test is a bad measure of the ability to apply learning.

Also admittedly its been a while since i've been in school, but in my day (like 10 years ago), a take home final was not considered a serious thing. I think that happened maybe once or twice and it was because the final barely mattered.
I'm sorry, what's the advantage to the cloud again?

This just reminds me why I just run (my personal) web apps on the server in my basement: it's actually simpler.

I really think the worst part of programming is dealing with the development environment.
Now everyone knows which font to use to write passive-aggressive notices for the unknown flatmate who keeps leaving mouldy food in the fridge.
Google Books already has a massive archive of the world's books which aren't otherwise accessible. The work was already done and the copyright lobby won.
I do not mind being made redundant by AI. I'll go become an electrician, general contractor, or something else you're not going to automate in my lifetime. The problem isn't the automation, its what happens if the usual Capital subjects capture all the gains vs them being distributed as excess across the populace.

EDIT: We should welcome automation and destruction of work where a machine can do it better. We fear it because of a broken socioeconomic system. Agree we should probably put breaks on anything so disruptive unless people impacted have some safeguards, because if you don't, what good is progress for progress' sake? It then becomes no different than bullshit jobs.
Bluesky user behavior through sequence analytics
This would be interesting to me. There are a few options now, like Judge0, but the language versions are pretty out of date. Self-hosting is not a good time investment at the moment.

Email me at hn at vikas.sh if you have a service. I'd need an SLA for sure, and multi-file support would be nice to have.
I have similar sentiments...

Whatever's happening now seems to work, in that it results in the best we've got for privacy-respecting phones. Obviously Daniel's communication style isn't what most people would like, but we all have our difficulties in life.

I wish him and the project well.
Before we continue our discussion, can you tell me what is your definition of wealth?
I would extend that and say all humans don’t do anything significant with their lives. It seems rather likely that humanity as a whole has had zero impact on an overwhelming majority of all life that exists or will exist, intelligent or otherwise.

Granted nobody particularly cares about the absolute scale but if you’re complaining about significance it’s obviously just personal bias.
Probably yes. It still holds the book inside the model (or parts).
For generative art it spits out watermarks, for example.

If it was just some code, included into a compiled EXE, without permission - it would be a major violation.
But including books inside of an AI model - it is different (not really).
I’m speculating that it is 100% because of that video.
He got called out in a much larger audience this time and is unable to control it like in the project’s forum and matrix channel.
Website is unreadable on mobile
Office NIMBYs
Think of it this way. I use a calculator to do less trivial arithmetic. However, knowing how to multiply means I understand what multiplication is rather than just a number that inexplicably appears on the calculator screen.

I've known engineers who did not understand the analytical tools they were using. They misused them constantly.
> Eyes melt, skin explodes, everybody dead. So immoral, working on the thing can drive you mad. That's what happened to this friend of mine. — JFP
By all the notes you mean, _all_ notes on the fretboard? My experience has been that showing all the notes on the fretboard makes it an unreadable mess. Kindof like this: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/535140c0e4b0ae...
Make 90%+ of your neighbors get vaccinated, then bask in your glorious herd immunity.
Visitor was trying to help and to be fair it seems it's specific to Bison biology.

"Myth buster: Mother birds won't reject their babies if you touch them" - https://www.reconnectwithnature.org/news-events/the-buzz/myt...
In the sense that the big model _effectively_ stores a lot more information than it directly contains? Of course it doesnt actually store it, it just has lots of logic that can generate it.

Thats an interesting notion but isnt this just as true of any generative logic, provided the size of the set of results is larger than the code size? Like a random number generator. Can you compress infinity?
Yeah, something similar to "Killed by Google". Maybe we need a template on Github for such sites to catalog bullshit, lord knows there's a lot of categories of bullshit we can catalog...

Oh actually they do have their source available: https://github.com/codyogden/killedbygoogle
This is informative, and unfortunate…

Hope the dude finds some peace.
The vaccine reduces the likelihood of future flare-ups as well as their severity.
Anything someone wants to sell for it, just like any other currency.

I know youre getting frustrated with the vague responses, but that's really how it is, with all money, and Monero people are very hell bent on reminding anyone that asks about this.

You can check out https://monerica.com/ for a resource that lists services and goods and websites that accept it, not including the darknet ones, if youre into illegal drugs you'll have to find those yourself. Obligatory reminder that most illegal drugs are purchased with US dollars.
Bolt was a placeholder until the unified EV platform (Ultium) was ready to go. They're start to launch Ultium cars this year.
All big tech platforms make their riches mostly this same way over the last ~40 year: solve 80-90% of the problem in a super simple, slick manner that is priced competitively. Then as customers build out the unique parts that match their needs (the last 10-20%), bleed them dry with features that are more expensive and establish lock-in.
It's a good point, I'll find a good way to start earlier with cross-plat deployment management. Between the two of us we have strong fullstack skills in web and iOS/Apple ecosystem. Apple App Store distribution and IAP are a strong part of our typical app strategies (I'm able to drive huge user growth via App Store) but this approach for this idea needs more thought because the deploy-manager person for this app wouldn't be the one we'd charge IAP to. I'm not actually sure how to make money off this idea yet.

It's also potentially linux-runnable (the management tools) with a native apple frontend, then later can explore bringing to win/web

I've been moving more of my iOS app core biz logic to JS and exploring cross plat Swift for running more across web and windows, while still leaning hard into the nice parts of Apple ecosystem, so that whatever solution I find for this is easier

We're also doing an app using https://github.com/live-codes/livecodes to move a lot more languages/envs capability into the client which might enable some good web and ios cross plat capabilities.

Anyway besides the platform question, interested in any other feedback from anyone
It's also explained further down in the article why the software was programmed the way it was:

>One major contributing factor to this design issue was a decision to modify the landing site after critical design review completed in February 2021. This modification influenced the verification and validation plan despite numerous landing simulations carried out before the landing. ispace as the mission operator maintained overall program management responsibility and took into account the modifications in its overall analysis related to completing a successful mission. It was determined that prior simulations of the landing sequence did not adequately incorporate the lunar environment on the navigation route resulting in the software misjudging the lander’s altitude on final approach.

TL;DR: Plans were modified after the software was programmed, software was not sufficiently reprogrammed due to overreliance on old, pre-modification simulation data.

As human errors go this looks egregious. One hopes their subsequent missions don't run afoul of the same screw ups.
This is a critical distinction. Like 'toomuchtodo, I can go pick up a nailer and build a house if the computery jobs go away. But I cannot effectively participate in the governance of the society of which I am in theory an equal member if the benefits of automation continue inexorably to accrue to a very small group.

(e: and his edit says it as eloquently as I can!)
I thought the same thing, although I think of the meme as being used to avoid feds and legal problems, like saying you'll kill someone "in Minecraft" to make it not a realistic-sounding threat.
As GP indicated, the important thing is that Comic Sans doesn't appear handwritten because it lacks variation. Just like good Calligraphy doesn't appear handwritten. In genuine (non-Calligraphic) handwriting there will be minor variations in each letter (say, the letter "s"), even though in general all instances of the letter will be more similar to each other than the same letter in someone else's handwriting.
This reminds of what happened to a Mars lander when one software team was doing calculations with the metric system and another team was using English measurements.
The pirate bay might describe itself as a software sharing website, it’s kind of a moot point what they describe themselves as in that sense.

The students are still responsible for what they take in outside of the materials provided. Wikipedia is even at the best of times not always correct. I see lot of people waving the responsibility of students away.

The students took a chance, knowing fully well what the site is and does, and they got burned. Own it and take the burn.
I agree with you that an automatic default implementation is far better than leaving it to a human. I also agree with your examples on where and when it could be done. Lamentably, security is not free. Input sanitization is required because programs exhibit data-dependent behavior (which is what makes them useful), that can cause them to do weird things when working with weird data. We mostly tend to "forget" to ensure our programs exhibit "correct" behavior for all data, but sadly no one else can do it for us.
> Keep in mind that success at this endeavor means that UBI becomes possible.

UBI is always possible. The achievable minimum support level might be higher with this, but also, with this occurring without UBI existing first, so will the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of entrenched interests who would want to prevent UBI (since it would be redistributing resources outward from them.)
I see your point about a student attempting to pass the exam, studying the incorrect material, and failing the course. However, I see that situation as morally equivalent to the following scenario:

Sam has been having trouble understanding their evolutionary biology coursework all semester. It's coming close to the final and they are frantic to find any help they can get. Finally, they encounter the Answers in Genesis website and use it to make a set of flash cards. They drill those flash cards relentlessly in their best effor to learn the material. Come the final, Sam answers every question with "God did it and evolution is a lie".

I will agree with you that Sam has not behaved unethically and has not cheated on the exam, just as you believe that some students did not cheat on the ethics exam. That said, I do not believe that Sam should pass the final, as they have no understanding of the material. Even though Sam has put hard effort into studying, they have studied the wrong material and put zero effort into vetting their sources, so they deserve to fail the course.

Do you believe that Sam deserves to pass the course or am I missing an important difference between my hypothetical and the actual events?
I use BastilleBSD, it has a simple template system which I really like and decent docs.
https://github.com/BastilleBSD/bastille

Bastille also has a sister project 'rocinante' which allows you to use Bastille templates on
the host. I converted my ansible scripts to bastille templates and it works a lot better for *ME*. I found I spend more time updating ansible scripts whenever I needed to use them, it costed more time then just using a setup.sh script, which rocianate basically is.
https://github.com/BastilleBSD/rocinante

Another new kid on the block for jails is AppJail, it has some interesting features. I have not played with it enough to say how stable it is.
https://github.com/DtxdF/AppJail
Did you told her that she got a card from a digital Cyrano de Bergerac?
It sounds like you possibly aren't that interested in the field and have some doubts about the PI. What about suggesting a small research collaboration first, like a summer project or paid as a summer research assistant?

It is very common for incoming PhD students to have research ideas that don't perfectly overlap with their advisor -- so the goal is to find some overlap that works for both. That said, if you come in hoping to research X but end up stuck on Y for five years, that likely will not result in a great experience. I would also be open about your other research interests -- in fact many advisors love PhD students who seek out collaborations. Otherwise, this might end up a point of contention.

As for independent research without a PhD, that is certainly possible and many people do it as a hobby. However, a PhD would help a lot if you want to professionally be a researcher. Grant money will often require a PhD-holding PI, as will many research jobs. Some people might be successful without one, but I'd place my bet on those already publishing a lot pre-PhD.

Regarding a business, people commonly start one type of business (e.g. consulting) with the real goal to fund something else -- a product/research/etc. This seems to rarely work out, since the business itself is typically more time-consuming than expected.
I am a native speaker, and I've never heard "white cane" before.
> In case you never heard of it: The bullet time effect was famously introduced with the movie “The Matrix” from 1999.

actually I think one can already see it in this ad from 1996: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbOGJy3P6rA
It's the rise of naked self-interest, and a complete lack of shame over it and rationalization of it in the information age. Previous ages were more ignorant, and this "evil" operated not as in plain sight. Final result: we are losing trust in each other.
https://archive.is/fFD5b
Your phrasing and word choice is very peculiar. It’s a bit difficult to follow what you’re saying to me. For example, you say you’re an AoEII ultra. Is this an ultra fan? Or ultra what?

> People feel so strongly about bugs and clunk in their social media YouTube drip. The same ADHD personalities love clicking around villagers! I mean what a "something" piece of gameplay.

If I had to rephrase this section based on my understanding, I would interpret it to say something like:
Often, people are bothered by bugs and other issues that happen in commonly-used apps like Facebook or YouTube, but when these bugs manifest in video games, it’s viewed as part of the character of the game. For example, the micromanagement of villagers that’s required due to bad pathfinding in AoE II (to prevent them from running under turrets and such).

Is that correct? Any ideas why your phrasing would seem so foreign to me? I’m very curious why.