skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Karpathy covers this in Makemore, but the tl;dr is that if you don’t normalize the batch (essentially center and scale your activations down to be normally distributed), then at gradient/backprop time, you may get values that are significantly smaller or greater than 1. This is a problem, because as you stack layers in sequence (passing outputs to inputs), the gradient compounds (because of the Chain Rule), and so what may have been a well behaved gradient at the end layers has either vanished (the upstream gradients were 0<x<1 at each layer) or exploded (the gradients were x>>1 upstream). Batch normalization helps control the vanishing/exploding gradient problem in deep neural nets by normalizing the values passed between layers.
I don’t think people understand how cheap people in Ukraine, Poland and other countries are willing to work if companies go fully remote.
There's a lot of circumstantial evidence, and circumstantial evidence is sometimes sufficient to convict people for murder. Circumstantial evidence is certainly enough to suspect murder, if not convict somebody of it. To be pedantic, "proof" is for mathematicians, the rest of us mere mortals have to content ourselves with evidence.
I was talking about the book being reviewed, which seems to be an analysis of the Iliad by Robin Lane Fox, rather than the Iliad itself.
It’s just another example of the white collar class enjoying the benefits of technology and globalization while everyone else gets left behind

There's a lot more to it than that.

WFH has been a godsend for a millions of people who work full-time, but are also poor.

I drove for Uber for a while when I was between jobs. The majority of the people I carted around were people who thought Uber was a godsend because they were too poor to save for a car, and Uber allowed them to have a job that didn't involve manual or skilled labor they couldn't perform. People like call center operators, and medical coders (which is not the same thing as computer coding), and other jobs that aren't suitable for machines, and often done in a cube farm.

The pandemic sent all those people into WFH, and many of their companies found that the price of equipping their people with a laptop and headset was cheaper than paying rent on cubical space.

Now those working poor can put the expense of Uber into saving for a car, or buying clothes for their children, or any of the assorted other things that people need every day.

For millions of people, WFH is a helping hand out of poverty.
Are you talking about the US? 14 million out of a population of 340 million doesn't sound very standard to me.
I was curious too, took a little bit of digging :)

"the original domain of [P]rocessing was proce55ing.net, so people used to sometimes refer to processing as proce55ing or P5 or p5 for short. they still do sometimes. p5.js is a reference to that."

from https://github.com/processing/p5.js/issues/2443
I found the section where they ask "what would happen if Rome didn't fall" and then they speculate on China for a while to be very annoying.

We know the answer. Because only half the empire fell. Constantinople continued another thousand years after the fall of Rome. So there's your answer, you would get something like Constantinople.
> It seems psychologically plausible, but what is your experience?

I am dating a wide range of men, but I avoid engineers, because I don't want to date nerds like myself. Anyways, from my experience, the vast majority of the guys I meet is absolutely shocked and often disgusted by the idea of 100% homeoffice as I have it. "But don't you miss talking to people?", they ALL say. (I don't, I hate people)

So in short, I am convinced you are right.
A single human cell connects us to Carl Sagan's spirituality
The similarities are skin-deep. Managers are typically capital-owners; employees are not. Capital owners get to dictate societal priorities in a way that others will simply never be able to.
It's definitely not only you
How to add monitoring as code to your software development lifecycle
document.querySelector('meta[itemprop=genre]')?.content
I've literally never worked somewhere where people other than upper-management had individual offices. I'm on board with the theory of why its better, but I think it would feel weird to start with. I might grow to love it, but it wouldn't be an immediate enticement.
Proton has unfortunately become incredibly bloated over the past few years. Meanwhile ProtonMail doesn't yet support auto-forwarding or (on mobile) email content search.
It was surprising to me when I went to Italy and found them incredibly accommodating to different dietary needs. How could someone gluten-free survive in the land of pasta?!
Well I was on a week long group tour and of the two Italian guides with us, one was vegan and the other gluten-free.
Turns out their love for food and the ritual of eating means they're going to make you happy, all you have to do is ask. Restaurants advertised specifically as gluten-free or vegan were to make tourists comfortable, but I was told to avoid them and just goto a locals spot and make a request.
JTAG 'Hacking' the Original Xbox in 2023
Why didn't you just say that, instead of posing a hypothetical about software that may itself contain full book text which can be used to display (in this case fair-use) passages to end users? lol

I think the disconnect between your point of view and mine is that I see "training an LLM on copyrighted text" the same as a person reading copyrighted text, which is perfectly legal. And I see violating copyright as a person or LLM reproducing copyrighted work (illegal). But using other works as inspiration for something novel shouldn't be considered illegal, whether a person or LLM produced the work. I would even be fine with literature being treated more like music, where reproducing the essence of a piece of work (i.e. doesn't have to be a word for word reproduction) is considered a violation. But if the LLM creates something completely new, how is that a derivative work / infringement?
> 1) mean fewer offices (per unit space, since they are bigger)

I think this is rather optimistic. If you give more square feet per employee and expect most/all to come in, the idea that it will mean fewer offices doesn't really add up.
Wonderful! Thank you, this is even better than I hoped for :-)
I tell recruiters I want remote because there's nothing better than seeing my wife or playing with my cat when I need to take a break. Every single recruiter understands completely. Some will push remote, others respectfully end the conversation because they know they cant beat that.
I wonder if they used a nuclear warhead instead of a slug, would there be less material ejected due to maybe the rock being vaporized?
The $50. That's quite a lot of money to most people.
The SEC is working to crack down on SPACs, just takes time.
I'm most productive where I have my workstation. It doesn't matter if that's at home or in office. If you want me to commute 45 minutes twice a day so you can physically see me, I'm going to need my own dedicated space, not some "grab what you can" hotel seating.

Also, companies really should be adding some incentive for that 1.5-2 hours wasted each day.
Talking Heads: The New Science of How Conversation Shapes Our Worlds
This is the effect everyone claims when they try any diet.

Even the faddiest of fad diets might be the first time in decades they've eaten consciously and, what do you know, they are losing weight when they aren't on autopilot filling their gullet. But the weight loss didn't come from a calorie deficit, of course. It came from some magical interaction that seed oils / gluten / MSG / vegetables were having in their body.
>>The next wave of office workers will want it better than this, or it simply won't work.

Workers want lots of things. Eg money. It's a negotiation.

One of the best tactics to learn about negotiations is negotiating on multiple fronts. Did salary negotiation turn sticky? Shift to negotiating for days off, or title... on the employer side.

One reason that this works is that negotiations have their rationale/objective side and partially contradicting other sides.

Case in point, the value of an employee, particularly a specific employee at a particular time... can be extremely high relative to alternatives. The alternative can easily be spend 12 months paying salary equivalent cost without the benefit.

Lots of positions are hard to adequately fill. 12 months of hiring, training, fail, rehiring, etc. That can easily be your mean alternative. It's very common that someone good leaves a team and 12 months later you have not really replaced them.

Yet... That reality rarely translates to practicality outside of executive comp. Investors certainly act this way, but hr doesn't. The rationale of rehiring cost and risk/difficulty of hiring are understood... but there are still limits to the number they are to put on this. It's never 300%. It's 10% or maybe 25%. Willingness to pay correlates to value, but it isn't proportional.

Anyway... WFH is currently an extremely irationale space. No one is being quite honest about it's full benefits, costs, risks, etc.

It's a benefit that neither employee or employer is usually comfortable about outright "negotiating," like offering less money for remote.

So... WFH is not-negotiable-for salary benefit that is #1 or #2 on both parties' priority list, second (often prior) to salary. Unlike other primary benefits, employees know who gets what.

Currently, it's all about perceived negotiating power.
Parsing the UK electoral register cyberattack
Middle management's job seems like the easiest to replace by AI. They don't create any products directly, they only take orders from above and distribute them to below. They take feedback from below, possibly communicate it up, most likely communicate it laterally to another team, etc.

So, I think we'll see 5 middle managers replaced by 1 or 2 middle managers + AI. It doesn't have to be all or nothing.
brain activity
Justifiable, yes. Expected, certainly not.

What does "committing the entirety of humanities resources" even look like? Anyway, this is certainly something that will never happen.

But committing a lot of resources, yes, we'll do that if it's 1% too.
First of all, a properly insulated house won't need a huge warming up. And for that, there are timers or these days there is this thing called internet, which allows you to control your home devices from afar.

Actually, I think most transitions to a cleaner future are going to increase our quality of life. EVs beat combustion engined cars in most aspects. Cleaner air benefits everyone.
How do you mail files that are several hundred megabytes in size? Also, you need to store these somewhere, which costs money. I might be wrong, but it seems you missed a few critical parts of why people use Gumroad. You should take a closer look at their audience, there is a sizable segment of people that sell 3D models, textures, etc.
Yup. If I had a 10 minute or less commute and decent coffee at the office, I'd have no major objections. But I have a 45 minutes with zero traffic (1.5hr+ with traffic) commute and Seattle's Best essence of ashtray coffee.
I don't think there's anything wrong with people writing down their own thoughts about great works of literature like the Iliad. What I really do appreciate are the people who review such writings-down so that I can make an informed decision about whether their thoughts are worth my time to read.

In this case, I imagine that any book analyzing the Iliad is intended for readers who have already themselves read the Iliad at least once.
You're right, but there's a large difference between your brain doing the analysis and a template or computer wizard telling you what to "create".

[Link picked at random]
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/three-act-structure/

Do you really think this did wonders for movie originality?
shrug when I ran it the first time, the default GUI is a menu bar, entry area and history. Like: https://qalculate.github.io/images/qalculate-qt.png
Yep, I was looking in YouTube settings instead. I wouldn't have thought to leave YouTube to change a setting that affects YouTube, but it's a reasonable-in-hindsight design decision to collect all the privacy stuff for various google apps in one place.
I can tell what stage a project is in by which desks on my floor are empty. I go in to the office when I'm doing planning or review, but when I'm building I stay home where it's quiet and I won't be interrupted. Pretty much all of my department is the same way. I'm glad I have that freedom (and privilege) and from here on I probably won't consider jobs that don't give me that freedom.
I would 100% come into the office if I didn't have to work in an open office environment like a child.
> unless perhaps the office is a 5 minute walk from home

WFH for 2012-2023 here.

With our first home purchase in 2018 being on the smaller size, and the introduction of our first child to the family in 2021, I started keeping an eye on nearby options.

In March of 2023, a perfect little spot opened up that could support me and another employee in the same town. Pitched it to our small company, and now I have a dedicated office that is a 4 minute walk away.

Cannot stress enough how impactful those few minutes are (or more, if I need to decompress more than normal) are for separation of concern between home life and work, especially with young children in the picture.

Still get to enjoy lunch with stay-at-home wife and kiddo almost everyday.

It also shares property with a great pizzeria and one of the best taproom/bottleshops in town, which is a great perk beyond my waistline and liver... looking forward to taking the new bike to the nearby bike trail when it isn't 110° everyday.
Four hours of knowledge work a day is actually a lot. The average corporate worker probably does far less. Meetings, small talk, answering emails, etc. feel like work, but most of the time it isn’t. Four hours of focused knowledge work can produce exponential more value that four hours of meetings.

The thing is, this has always been the case for the white collar world. Lawyers, executives, etc. The real change is that ICs that aren’t playing politics are able to live that life now. The reversion to the mean isn’t happening until those people stop producing massive economic value.

Personally, I will work in a warehouse before I go back to the office. Do twenty hours a week temp work while I work on setting up a side business. It’s never been easier to start your own business, and we don’t need big companies to make a living anymore. The real reversion to the mean is cutting out the rent-seeking middle men that extract value from our economic output while contributing little themselves.
Certainly not an argument I'm making. But if you're making UBI at bare minimum you won't have to iron your polo shirt and khakis every morning.
I don't see any flagged comments that aren't low-effort flamebait. Those are exactly what the "flag" feature is for.
The final straw was their stalking/bullying some teen(s?) into suicide, IIRC. That said, I disagree with an ISP making that decision for users, even if it was a hate-filled pit on the internet.

Anyone in support of this action should by extension support the removal of their favorite politician's/religion's/hobby's website by an ISP at a future date.
Weird. Every job I've had has asked for my passport (UK) or work permit (US).
It is no skin off my back if you believe “the other guy” but you do yourself a disservice.
Show HN: PC Builder AI
Hey HN!

You know when you wanna build a new PC, and need to watch a bunch of videos to find the best parts, and then tweak your shopping cart to fit your budget? Well, this new app can help you.

It recommends the best hardware for your usage (gaming or work), and considers your budget. It's really helpful, even when you got expertise on hardware. Check it out, and feel free to suggest stuff! Hope you like it!

https://www.pcbuilderai.com/
Title is misleading, they still have their main accounts there and it doesn’t look like it’s changing. Four accounts that actually matter are left.

Shame they didn’t set up an account on Mastodon and mirror content like EU did. They could bring some people there.
AI for the Poor
Rivian actually had a really good quarter. They're still losing $32K per vehicle but this number has been coming down substantially every quarter so the margins are improving and they're almost at a break-even. Nikola secured a grant from California Transportation Commission for $42M recently. This one was very shocking because they were basically a scam company a couple of years ago.
To anyone else who is not north-american: SPAC has nothing to do with PAC, the political tool/org/whatever it is. My brain for some reason confused the two.
> Honestly, this is the really offensive part of the article.

I would argue that "Offensive" is either hyperbolic or you've used the wrong word.

> the idea that it's, in any way, shape, or form, useful is bafflingly laughable.

I don't know if it's useful because I never tried it. I might harbour my doubts but I'd like to find out. This is how I approach new things.
Introduction to LLMFlows – Building Explicit and Transparent LLM Apps
> in the US, 2.4 million people just vanished from the labor force

Not certain what you mean by vanished and where the 2.4M number came from. CDC says 1,136,473 died in the pandemic [0], although a significant portion were not likely members of the labor force. As it stands the number labor force members caught up to pre-pandemic numbers in August of 2022. [1]

Feb 2020 164M
Apr 2020 156M
Aug 2022 164M
Jul 2023 167M

0. https://covid.cdc.gov/

1. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CLF16OV
I mentioned this in another post but here's my take.

Background: I graduated from school in Spring 2020 and started at my first full time software in Aug 2020. I've began going to the office about 4 days a week since Feb 2023. Prior to that, I had only been in an office twice ever (excluding my 2019 internship).

Here's some points that make in office tough for me to enjoy.

* When I'm in office, stuck on a problem and need to just think, what can I do? I can stare at other people. I can hear other conversations, others typing, etc. When I'm at home, I can do basic home chores like fold laundry.

* When I'm in office, my lunch options are more limited. I either need to buy lunch, bring it, or select from what work has catered. Bringing a lunch limits options and takes time at home to prepare. When I'm at home, I can eat whatever, whenever. No pressure to sit with people I with with. No comments about why am I eating what I'm eating.

* I typically feel more isolated in the office than I do at home. In the office, I can see others walking around having conversations. I don't know anyone outside of my direct team. Even then, collaboration is very low. With no meetings, I'll talk for maybe 15-20 minutes in the day. At home, I am alone, but I'm not watching others actively socialize. This is more of a me problem than anything.

There are also things I don't like about being in the office in general. I don't like that others speak in languages I don't understand. The monitors, chairs and lighting are worse than at home. The office is in a not great area, and I walk so it's not a nice commute.

Overall, I've come to really enjoy and be excited for my work from home days.
Prices are absolutely changing and the used car market for EVs is ramping up.

Family member was looking for an electric car, but found new ones still a bit too expensive. There have been discounts from manufacturers. They decided to go for used. Bought a VW ID.3 for 23k Euro with 16000km. That's a car from 2 years ago. No crashes, battery still at 97% capacity.
No. That’s going to be extremely difficult to deflect due to the momentum. You’d have to catch it much earlier.

As for smashing “other asteroids” into it, that’s likely not feasible due to the vast distances between asteroids and the masses involved.
Gaining and losing body mass has to do with all kinds of complex biochemistry beyond calories in.
Precisely what we did, with coordinated WFH days. We're still experimenting, but I'm pretty happy with it and it seems to work for a lot of people.
Yep, it's just a backdoor layoff.
You produce the content and provide the marketing. They provide almost everything else for you: the storefront, the billing, the invoicing, charging sales tax/VAT, etc. If you wanted to do it yourself, you'd be in for quite a lot of work, even if you happened to host your own software.
The wouldn't, and a journalist is wrong on the internet.
I see white collar evolving to more virtual workspaces than physical. These will get more functional and productive, right now they are crude and clunky.
If your job involves communication in some form, it's reasonable to want to see an example--though I'd generally be pretty open to seeing previously written or recorded examples rather than something created specifically for the interview process.
The "cold" aspect is one I really do not miss. During the summer (in Austin where it gets to 100F regularly), I had to wear a sweatshirt and long pants, and I was still cold.
This is a modern requirement of having to talk to people other than your family and friends. If you were a farmer or shepherd or fisherman or … 50 years ago, to whom would you talk during the day and work? Probably noone. You would just talk to your family when back at home.
UPS has a lot of fixed costs and doing less business could hurt them more than making less profits. They have to start paying higher wages now because of the deal they made. Their customers likely can't absorb higher prices as quickly and like you point out will cause a decrease in business as people ship less. It's a balance for UPS and it very likely isn't "just raise prices to match".
> Yes, also the typical career cycle in HCOL areas is you are 22 and live in a dumpy apartment with roommates but close to work. You maybe couple up with someone by 30 and get a nicer place a bit further, but still within a 20-40min transit commute. Finally you maybe decide to start a family by 40, and move out to somewhere 40-60min commute, if not further.

I found this to be a depressing quality of life trajectory my coworkers were on when I worked in NYC. It was fun in my 20s without kids, but after that, it seems miserable.
Is it already rolling out?
For what it's worth, I discovered a baseball cap to block the obnoxious overhead lights and some Sony noise-canceling headphones were a godsend for focus.
Quite right - you can't infer performance from pricing.

We did some assessments of how well our applications ran on ARM and x86 based AWS instances, and quite simply it costs us less to serve the same quantities of end user traffic using Amazon's ARM instances compared to the x86 ones.
I see you’re basically trying to “No True Scotsman” a definition where anything which isn’t RISC-V is too complicated. That’s a shame as the time you’re spending on counterproductive RISC-V advocacy could have been spent learning about this class of attack and how it has nothing to do with the ISA.

When a CPU implements speculative execution, this class of attack becomes a concern. If it doesn’t, it’ll be too slow for most applications. Fortunately, the people who are - unlike you - actually helping RISC-V are working on efficient countermeasures:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.04507
Emulation is very close to 100% cycle accurate for many, many machines. You would practically not deal with this problem anyway. Now, I may want to tinker with my computer on a board level, making a period-accurate hardware-tweaks for the machine, how exactly I'd accomplish that, if everything is just a big FPGA?
Now, having IC'level FPGA substitute for big chips on the original board is a bit better than one big flat fat IC, but it still a different machine and cannot be called C64, as much as a Ford-T is not a Ford-T if you put a modern electric motor to it, even if you tweak it to sound and handle exactly like T does.