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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 2nd, 2023

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  • This could be huge, but we’ll need to wait and see. The economic and ecological footprint of LLMs is problematic.

    That said, will this actually help, or will they just use 3T parameter models to outcompete competitors 1T parameter models using GPUs? Really, this is more about small-scale models competing with midsize models. Like, this could bring a model as big as GPT 3.5 down to be something you could run on affordable hardware, right?

    That would be really compelling for my sector (education) where there’s a lot of concern about student data privacy. I could definitely pitch building a local $5K-cost LLM server that could handle a dozen or so simultaneous users. That would be enough for a small school district.



  • I didn’t like summers or winters where I used to live, so I moved to somewhere where I like both seasons. Then moved again to somewhere that I love all four seasons.

    But I get what you’re saying; you’re describing the summers of my childhood. Hot and humid so you feel like you need a cold shower within 5 minutes of walking outside. Sticky by day, swarmed by mosquitos at night.

    But you lost me at the sand bit. I love the beach and ocean when it’s like 10-30°C out. Colder and hotter are okay, too, but not as nice.





  • I have a lot of devices, but I rarely use most of them.

    1. My desktop is my main device for all my work from home. Work desktop for work at the office.
    2. My work laptop only gets used for client visits.
    3. My personal laptop only gets used when I need a second mobile device for work and Zooming with my family (to bring to where my kiddos are set up playing).
    4. My wife’s work laptop is her main work machine and her personal laptop is our evening TV.
    5. My Android phone is my ADHD dopamine machine most of the time. Some light work use.
    6. My gaming is almost exclusively on my Steam Deck (but I’m working on getting a WiFi mesh network so I can stream from my desktop to my Deck). Used nightly in bed.
    7. My 8 y.o. daughter’s tablet is an audiobook machine, some edutainment apps, and sleep sounds machine. Occasionally a screen for shows/art video tutorials.
    8. My 6 y.o son’s tablet is mostly podcasts and sleep sounds.
    9. My DSi is my wife’s Tetris machine.

    TL;DR: I mostly use my desktop for work and Deck/phone for entertainment. My laptops see use a few times/month when I’m on the road for work or Zooming with family and basically never in between. But we have a lot of devices that have specific use cases for different members of my family.



  • This was mine, but I’m assuming you weren’t referring to the BBC radio play, which is the best version of LotR ever made. The films had major distortions on the themes of the story and completely unbelievable characterization that destroyed all suspension of disbelief.

    Sure, the CG was nice eye candy… but Gandalf getting into a shouting match with Elrond? Really? We’re okay with that?

    Plus, skipping the correct ending of Frodo and Sam coming back to the Shire in industrialized dystopia missed key parts of their character growth and Tolkien’s anti-industrial themes.

    And the massive over-focus on a love story that was barely relevant in the story? And a half hour epilogue of useless wide shots showing how amazing the wedding was and how everyone is doing so great now that they won? What a waste of time. They skipped one of the best parts of the book for that shit.

    I could go on if I had watched the films more than twice and could recall all the other huge problems.

    The books don’t hold up, either. Ain’t nobody got time to read 3-page info dumps of dense descriptive writing about plot-irrelevant details, or dense blocks of ancient history that demolishes any semblance of pacing left over.

    He founded a lot of tropes of fantasy, so I know why he included all those descriptive details, but it just doesn’t hold up. Elf, big tree house, got it. You’ve got me for two paragraphs to fill in the descriptive details, but then let’s move on with the plot, tyvm.

    If you’re a fan of LotR, give the 13-hour BBC radio play a listen. And of you’ve watched/listened to/read all three and disagree with me, I’d love to hear why (out of interest). Full disclosure: you probably won’t convince me, but I’m still waiting to hear someone who knows the source material justifying why the movies are so adored.



  • To add to what the other poster said:

    I’m not an expert, but my understanding is that noise cancellation works by inverting sounds waves to deaden the sound. So, like, if you add sin(x) and –sin(x) you get 0.

    This system is actively adding inverted sound waves to cancel most sounds. What makes this system unique is that it samples the voice and uses the unique “voice print” to selectively not invert the sound waves from the targeted voice.

    Or that’s what I’m getting from reading this, as a layman.


  • The deleted scenes and commentary audio tracks were cool, but idk if I’d actually watch any of it now. I heard years ago that there’s a whole system for “MST3King” a movie manually with community commentary tracks that effectively do the same thing and I’ve never cared enough to figure out how to set it up and try one, so I don’t know if I’d ever actually watch a DVD commentary even if I had the option.

    Maybe it would be cool for Taskmaster, since I’ve seen every episode so many times and continue to rewatch it? But I rarely re-watch anything anymore. And I don’t think TV shows got commentary tracks anyway.

    And deleted scenes could probably just be found on YouTube, I assume? I don’t know because I haven’t cared enough to search, lol.




  • But then you need to know enough about the topic already to know what is stable and what changes with newer versions.

    Like, the “web dev boot camp” course I got from UDemy a few years ago as a guide for building a web dev high school course: I recently went back to to look something up, and the whole thing has been completely redone start to finish. Makes sense, considering that it’s updated to the newest versions of Bootstrap and other libraries (and who knows what else).

    I know nothing about Rust, but I would assume there are at least some libraries that have major new versions in the last couple of years which might change best practices somehow? idk. But the harder part is not knowing what you don’t know.


  • I’ve heard about this one before, but I’m downloading an episode now.

    The one thing I hate about QI is that I’ve already seen it all and there aren’t any more episodes.

    Edit: That was great. It totally scratched the QI itch. Among many other tidbits, I now know how leech treatments were discovered, that there’s a specific frequency that is arousing for badgers and sets off car alarms, and that in one year, over 700 American students were arrested for owning pagers.

    Edit: Holy shit. The author of Goodnight Moon literally died from an overly-enthusiastic “can-can kick”. She did it to prove she was feeling fine… (ironically) but she dislodged a blood clot that instantly killed her.



  • I think that’s a much better way to start. Martin is clearly a discovery writer, but he talks like he’s a plotter, and the intricacies of the political machinations imply he’s a plotter, too.

    He’s written such a tangled mess that it’s impossible to untangle everything. Plus, he’s made his millions, so there’s not much incentive for him to finish.

    I started reading when book 5 was about “due” based on his expected release date he had previously announced thinking that book 5 would likely be out by the time I read up to that point. Over four years later book 5 finally released and I knew in my soul the series would never be finished.


  • Eh, idk. Depends on the person. I’ve been going for a “scruff” look for a few years now. I trim close-ish 1-2 times/week, just before it starts to get itchy from hairs getting long enough. I always have at least 1-2mm facial hair.

    If I go clean-shaven, I have baby face and I look 10 years younger. Not a good look. A bit of scruff makes me look closer to my age, but I don’t like the look of a full beard on me since I can’t grow a decent mustache. It looks like I’m trying too hard.