skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> what makes you think that they would be willing to pay for things they get for "free" today (e.g. paying for search or social media, as the article is implying)?

Nothing. I don't claim that at all. Make web search paid and it immediately becomes "a weirdness only obsessed techies pay for" which is another thing I heard from non-tech people when I explained Kagi to them.

> My point is that most people are perfectly happy with giving up their privacy in exchange for getting a service without paying.

And I agree. They don't care.

> If we want more people to use privacy-focused alternatives, we first need to educate them about the implications of what they're giving up, and even then I suspect that most people would be fine with the transaction.

Forget about it. Educating the wider public never works unless it's something that is hitting them right where it hurts, today. Otherwise they will never pay attention.

Not to mention that if we arrive at a "Minority Report" world -- where your retina is constantly scanned and you will receive personalized video + audio ads in real time as you pass by buildings -- many people will welcome it, as you yourself alluded to.

People like you and me who want to opt out are not welcome in that system.

The way I see it, we are already living in cyberpunk... without all the cool body modification and implants that are prevalent in this form of art. Only the ultra-corporatism is here.

> For example, Netflix's ad-supported tier has been very successful

This is a general critique on humanity IMO. A lot of people are content sitting lazily on the couch and checking their phone and snacking on chips while ads are running. One could easily argue they are fully within their rights to have these preferences -- job is hard, marriage is not perfect, colleague is giving them hard time, or kids are in a difficult stage etc.

---

My broader point was that the very myopic corporate squeezing of consumers will spell their death for the very simple reason that the normal consumer doesn't have an infinite wallet and at one point people sit down and start re-prioritizing expenses (f.ex. I am sure both you and me know people who dialed back their video streaming budget because these services have been getting more and more insolent with time -- increasing prices, playing ads even when you pay etc.) -- meaning that the ideal imagined reality of the corpo executives where they can do whatever shenanigans will make their shareholders less miserable, simply does not exist.

Or in even shorter terms: corpos can increase prices and add hidden fees, but inflation and increased annoyance by all their practices puts a hard ceiling on the regular consumer's expenditures.

This is IMO the natural way out of the current (and very weird) economical situation with the electronic / internet services we see around the world.
The Pirate Bay should consider rebranding as The Dataset Bay.

I am sure there are wild times ahead. At some time it will become outlawed in the way regular piracy is. Not because of book authors or publishers, but either because of Hollywood or AI safety being used by bigtech to limit competition.
Careful, their IQ is slipping https://columns.ai/chatgpt/0qvrhRcljw6Xwh
Other misconception: That we immediately die in space. You can probably survive a minute or two.
The CGI in riven is fantastic and still rivals most of what you see in a modern game engine.

https://darkcephas.blogspot.com/2018/03/twenty-years-later-o...
https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.851/ covers them. If I recall, one use was speeding up search in range trees.
Group Chats Rule the World
This is the internet. DON'T trust anything I've written. Look it up.

You started well, missed the point that the EU commission is extremely capitalistic, protecting "their" own market, pro-immigration TO DEPRESS WAGES (not for any other reason), using money for policy targets, pro-free-trade otherwise (ie. when it comes to anyone but themselves), and generally extremely capitalistic in the usual deceitful way ...

As for "The EEC is related to, but not the same as, the European Union" ... suuure. In the same the the CPC is not China, it's related. The EU commission IS the EEC, and controls the EU. It has overriding power on any and all decision made and controls all 3 branches of EU government (Parliament, itself, and the EU courts)

Look, I get that people generally like the EU commission. On Hacker News, because of their Google and Apple actions. In the EU, because of them forcing democracies to accept the EU border situation and the Euro (both were rejected in democratic votes, both were forced through in less-than-democratic ways). Doesn't change their nature.

Look it up. Decide. Form your own fine opinion.
More interesting? I doubt it.

Linear algebra, probability, and symbolic logic require significant prior work with math that high school students usually don't have exposure to. Getting them through arithmetic and algebra apparently presents enough problems.
The talk of AI exterminating us via paperclips is an annoying one to me that detracts from the real dangers that are currently unfolding:

- scammers are having the time of their lives, and their capabilities are only going to get better and easier

- people are actively getting dumber as they trust the hallucinated outputs blindly

- regular communication is starting to break down because you can't trust that people aren't just copy/pasting some AI bullshit in lieu of an actual discussion

- I've already seen AI girlfriend products which doesn't strike much confidence in our ongoing future as a species considering the numbers I've seen on some of them

And the biggest one for me is all the psychotic C-levels and MBA types who only give a shit about squeezing every single red cent they can by any means possible, including firing off thousands of people en-masse to be replaced by some shitty chatbot owned by a corporation backed by fucking Micro$oft

I don't think AI is going to send out nukes, I do believe it's going to replace every single person's job and make the powerful even more powerful.

"Oh but UBI!", an AI sycophant will shout, as if saying the magic incantation changes the reality of the real world somehow.
All people would do better if they are warned first it's a tricky question.

Also, training in this kind of problems will help.
I was not nitpicking, but I could have spent more time on my reply.

What I was hinting at is that it is not simply consciousness that gets us these laws. Laws have been around for a long time, and have many different reasons for existing and persisting to exist. The most rational reason for laws is probably that it helps us to thrive as a species.

IMHO laws do not easily extend to animals or other organisms, let alone AI systems. What is the use of animal rights laws if you can simply get killed to be eaten (cows, pigs), or if you are considered a nuisance (bugs). What would be the reason to provide AIs with protection laws if they have no memory, no emotion, and no pain?
I am not at all convinced that it is really down to the specific communication vs just seizing an opportunity in one of many possible ways.

If they were really super effective broadly, then Trump would have won any popular vote easily.
Be careful for what you wish for. There’s no guarantee immortality doesn’t result in eternal suffering.
I think mnay people believe that consciousness is what consciousness does. That is,

> Every other human, whose brain you have no ability to peer into, could be an unconscious yet sufficiently advanced computer, or a machine built to make the exact motions, words, decisions, etc., that you perceive, and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

Makes no sense, in this conception of consciousness, any more than you can fake intelligence. Basically consciousness might just be what we call the inner workings of the mind of a sufficiently advanced agent, one capable at least of meaningfully interacting with other agents around it.

I'm not saying this is the correct theory, but it's a perfectly valid theory of consciousness, just like all the others.
Even datacenter-grade drives scarcely use SLC or MLC anymore since TLC has matured to the point of being more than good enough even in most server workloads, what possible need would 99% of consumers have for SLC/MLC nowadays?

If you really want a modern SLC drive there's the Kioxia FL6, which has a whopping 350,400 TB of write endurance in the 3TB variant, but it'll cost you $4320. Alternatively you can get 4TB of TLC for $300 and take your chances with "only" 2400 TB endurance.
More like SimTown: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimTown I played it long ago and was pretty simple and fun. More kid friendly for sure but it didn't have traffic from memory.
Yeah, sure, people would be confused for a while, but as "OV" has variations anyways it could then be something like "DeOV", "Deutsche Orginalvertonung".

But honestly, it's not even about that being written there. I just want them to show up when I filter by "OV", as a lot of cinemas have that option on their website.

Luckily in Berlin there are the Yorck cinemas where they play OV's per default, so I ended up only going to their cinemas, only using their website to search what's playing. That's why I've only discovered now what Babylon is playing!
The only reason you get the pop ups about cookies is because the sites you visit that display those popups prefer to do that instead of respecting your privacy.

It’s literally malicious compliance.
Surströmming is mostly only eaten in August and really only in costal communities. In fact it used to be illegal to eat surströmming before the third Thursday in August, and many people still follow that tradition. Even the people who ostensibly like it only eat it once or twice a year at special surströmming parties in the second half of August. So unless you're in Sweden in August and visiting a place with a strong fishing tradition it's very unlikely you'll see it.

The true national dish of Sweden and Sweden's main contribution the culinary world is of course the kebab pizza with all its variations.
I’m confused. How are AI safety and DEI opposed?
VCs and the military are fueling self-driving startups that don't need roads
Stand-Up Solution's Joke-Telling AI
A study of applications targeted by temporary phone numbers
26,000 Days [video]
The largest aggregate benefits go to large landlords though.
OpenAI doesn't give shares or options. They give "profit participation units". They had agreements in place that allowed them to cancel the already vested PPUs if the employer didn't sign a draconian non-disparagement agreement, the contents of which were only revealed to them when they left. (Not when they signed the employement agreement.)

OpenAI has admitted that the contracts really did contain those clauses. They're just claiming that they'd obviously never enforce those clauses, and that the clauses were put in by some rogue employees without the knowledge of the leadership.
How do we increase wages without this happening then? As humans become more expensive the machines become more efficient relatively speaking.

Even if these machines are less accurate than humans doing the same job, it's easier to audit them, they have repeatable and scalable behavior. We're still better off even if many people die from whatever warfare mistakes you can imagine because the humans would be doing something better instead.

It's just trade offs.
No, it's a case of if we presuppose the existence of Dyson spheres, here are 7 objects whose EM spectrum matches what would be expected of such an object and who have no other verifiable explanation.

It's not saying we don't know what causes lightning therefore it must be gods. It's saying we have expectations of what lightning looks like and this looks a lot like it.

There is a significant distinction between "we've found a Dyson sphere" and "we've found an object that has the characteristics we would expect of a Dyson sphere".
I suppose the bug has, but the bacteria doesn't. I'd assume that some kind of memory is required for consciousness.

I'd even go so far to say that consciousness is nothing more than having a memory of the state you were in.
There is lots of research saying that vitamin D deficiency causes problems, and the deficiency is more common than you'd expect. Other health conditions and habits can lead to a deficiency.
I really don't think it's an equivocation.

Training is a high level word, and because we engineered LLMs we know more specifics about how their training works, so when used in context with LLM, it can mean something more specific.

I don't know the full mechanics of how training/learning works in the human brain, but it's I've been studying casually for 30 years. It's possible that parts of our brain work very similarly.

What I'm trying to say is, regardless of underlying mechanics, I don't understand why using copyrighted works for training (anything) is a against some legal or moral framework.
Presumably I'd be able to buy it back at $0.60 on the dollar since that's what the market value of a low interest mortgage would be on today's market of 7% mortgage rates.

I'd want to do it so I could sell my place and move. No doubt if I sell my place now, the bank is just taking that money and lending it out again, making a profit on the difference in rates.
Can’t speak for Europe, but the US used the same ineffective playbook they’ve been using for decades. I believe more creativity and more “Is this working?” strategy assessment could have been effective.

As a few examples, what if Putin specifically was targeted with information warfare? Leak information on his health, finances, etc to his rivals. Fire up the meme factory to influence the military. Disrupt oil production via cyber attacks. Threaten to give Ukraine a couple nukes back.

The US doesn’t do aggressive (effective) things like that because “What if they do it to us?”
Many people use politics to generate profits. :)
> sometimes for example having my forearm lying in front of the keyboard.
But you can still reach space or right command key with your middle/ring finger? That would allow you to use 1 finger to drag, not worry about lifting your dragging finger while dragging and get more range

> What doesn’t make sense?

You listing that gesture as some kind of alternative while the default is already 1-handed

> I don’t see the downside either.

The downside is that scrolling with two fingers might misfire when you change your mind and cancel scrolling right away, so place 2 fingers and lift them up, thus triggering a right click

> so far I don’t see a strict ordering that applies to everyone or even every situation.

And you'll never see it with your eyes closed. You need to actually try this stuff to be able to judge it, to see whether you drink coffee often enough as a % of your computer time to make the worse gesture better because it frees up your hand and the other one-hand alternative is not as convenient, or whether the mistakes of breaking a drag gesture on a bunch of files/objects in a graphics app leaving them in the wrong place are bad enough
I think that’s because glyphosate is used agriculturally not because people were mad about weed control for their lawns.
This might be sufficient, but it wouldn't be necessary. A lot of humans (though not all) believe that at least some mammals, like dogs or chimps, are conscious, though we know for a fact that they don't discuss their qualia.
Yes but they don't have Amazon links. :)
Thanks for the amazing childhood memories.
They're mean because there aren't the same kinds of consequences as there are for being mean to someone you know IRL. If you and I actually knew each other, consequences could range from a "Yo, dude, not cool" to some rather illegal escalations because you would know enough about me to actually find me.

On the internet, you have my username and that's about it. You might be able to piece together enough info to come after me, but you'd have to be really motivated.

Being mean is cheap, effective retribution isn't.
I like the design but not sure how to run this.
So to all who are wondering what model I had: it was the Sharp Carousel II. I don’t think it’s the exact same model as the technology connections video, but it’s from the same family line. His had this big library of foods to cook, but mine was I think the model before that one.

In fact, I liked mine better. Its standout feature was basically just the “reheat” button. You push this, and come back when it’s ready. The microwave keeps adding time and changing the power level according to some algorithm, but the result was super hot food.

The same effort at home would have required to keep checking it or accidentally burning it. With that level of effort I’d rather just use the oven or stove. However with this microwave, it really did work.

There was also defrost but it didn’t result in the food being piping hot, just defrosted. That was also automatic.

To all who say popcorn, potatoes, et. al. I’m sorry, but I respectfully disagree. They don’t work and to make good popcorn you just need to follow the directions of the package. Most packages say don’t use the button anyways.

But I don’t really eat popcorn so idk. Anyways, same applies for all the other buttons. They’re gimmicks. Reheat and defrost are the only ones you need and should be the baseline of all microwaves in the 21st century.
It's about keeping your options open, and being the one holding the cards. The fact that he could speak out is itself incentive for OpenAI to be less evil, even if he's not actually saying anything yet.

85% net worth is huge, but I'm sure that 15% was already more than enough to ensure a comfortable lifestyle for him and his family. It's a whole lot easier to take strong ideological stances when your foundational needs are already met.
Apple Needs to Evolve to Compete in the Artificial Intelligence Era
I'm not sure they intended flow meters to be an analogy for mortgages. But rather flow meter factories to be an anology for banks that create mortgages.

Flow meters or any other widget are needed by many different industries but probably not by flow meter manufactories. Mortgages are useful products for pensions etc. but not so much for banks.

Otherwise I don't really understand the analogy either.
A decent rule of thumb if that if a drive uses TLC, it will probably say so in the spec sheet.

If it's left ambiguous then it's either QLC, or a lottery where the "same" model may be TLC or QLC.
> Still, the institute’s research has some potentially useful findings. Jackson’s research on seeding milkweed (the host plant for monarch caterpillars) in road ditches with existing vegetation showed abysmal results without applying herbicides, such as Roundup, prior to planting. “You get precisely no plants,” Jackson said. “You use Roundup once, you get a few more, and, if you round it up a couple of times, you get a few more.”

Yeah right. People are doing no dig gardening now by simply putting a layer of cardboard over grass or whatever below you want to get rid off, and placing a layer of compost on top and guess what it works fairly well.

But sure, we need Roundup for everything so spray it liberally for "nature". And it's "science" based. Horrific.
Ntfy.sh: simple HTTP-based pub-sub notification service
I sort of cover that in "SkyNet is not coming to kill you": https://renegadeotter.com/2024/04/22/artificial-intelligence...

AI can generate a lot of automated output, that is true, but my argument is that it's almost always mediocre at best.

There is a LOT to be said about the dangers of AI coming from the people running and funding it - not the AI itself. That stuff is complete bullshit.
Around 250GB, several terabytes once uncompressed I assume.
My mum is a shrink, and very old, and smart, and hates technology. I was talking her through how some primitive "AGI" could happen with 4o (basically just explained this: https://b.h4x.zip/agi)

That got us talking about consciousness, and at the end, she thought about it for about a minute and then said "if I can't give it lysergic acid and make it see god, it's not conscious" and went back to making her dinner.
It was the “Sharp Carousel II”
Agreed on this to a certain extent. Right here on earth in the present day and without taking into account innovative technological advances in AI, we have examples of highly sophisticated intelligence (at least in a functional way) belonging to things that have little or no known consciousness.

First example, large hive insect nests, such as those of termites and certain ants. Their internal construction is extremely complex and often built in useful (to them) ways that would challenge even the abilities of smart human engineers trying to do the same with similar tools (sharp digging instruments, organic cementing liquids, raw scavenged building materials and nothing else) Yet any individual termite in a nest of millions shows only, maybe, the most minuscule and debatable signs of consciousness. They instead act like biological, physical pieces of an algorithmic process.

Second, obvious example, evolution itself: Here we have a process that produces organic, biological systems of such complexity and self direction that we with all our cognition are barely capable of grasping them robustly let alone emulating any major part of them, yet it's entirely mindless. Sure, it has billions of years to do its thing through the imperatives of brute survival mechanisms, but it's still incredible how on a macro scale none of it involves the least bit of known cognition.
Nissan Pajero, VW Polo GT
Unlikely to happen any time soon as the planet will continue to have multiple climate zones (just different ones than now).

And it won't take a planet-wide crop failure, just a wide-spread one or other major disruption. Arguably we (or rather the poorer nations in Africa) came close, when Ukraine found it difficult to ship their harvest.
It seems pretty different.

People in a number of professions know (or should know) that they either have a limited shelf life or at least could find their career trailing off at any time.

A lot of people in professional jobs, on the other hand, very optimistically assume their current salary at its current level or multiple thereof will always be there. This is especially true of anyone whose experience in tech is the last decade.
It's funny how I'm close to the opposite. I use the microwave and air fryer extensively because they are very convenient for cooking and reheating unattended with minimal oil and cleanup.
A startup's "tablet" gears up to take on Apple's iPad
Having senior leadership and rank and file publicly proclaim their love for each other in identical ways, as happened during the leadership debacle, read cult-like to me.