Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

In all the hype and debate and excitement and frustration around AI, I think sometimes the fact that we've achieved something really cool gets lost. I want to talk about that a bit, which I'll try to do in a simple way, without too much math or computer science.

There's a surprising amount of intelligence encoded in applied language. To me that's the most remarkable insight in LLM technology. Except it's not really surprising at all. The whole point of language is to encode intelligence. Communication, at its core, is about sharing intelligence. LLMs agents are a way of turning the intelligence encoded in language, particularly written language, into useful work.

You might imagine that language is just the starting point when building LLMs. That it gets converted into computer stuff and then it's not language anymore. But in a way it's language all the way down. Distill language into math and then run gradient descent on it and the intelligence (for lack of a better term) bubbles out.

Forgive that hyperbole, but there is something a little bit magical about it, and the technology is entirely unmagical. The magic is in the language.

At the core the tech is pretty simple. First you go and get all of the language. Just completely idiotic amounts of applied language. Because there's a threshold: if you don't use enough language you don't get a useful result. The more language you use, assuming it's good quality, the more useful the result.

After you have all of the language, you convert it into tokens, which are essentially pieces of words represented as numbers. You also compute a compressed version of the relationships between the tokens. The frontier labs don't say how much this costs publicly anymore but it's safe to say hundreds of millions in compute are required for this process. Each time you do it.

Once you've determined the token relationships, you've pre trained an LLM. You have the initial weights. At this point your LLM can output credible prose pretty reliably when you run inference on the weights. Meaning that you can take a given set of language tokens (a prompt) and determine which token should come next, over and over again, until you have a response. The fluency of the prose can be uncanny, and there are latent tendencies towards useful output, but you can't really do much with it yet.

The next step, fine tuning, modifies the weights in order to nudge the inference towards useful things like instruction following, tool use and reasoning. Or a simulacrum of reasoning. Fine tuning is a massive, multi step, iterative process that turns your LLM into a useful tool that can do more than output believable prose.

Something that's really fascinating to me about fine tuning is that what you're training is still the language relationship weights, and what comes out during inference is still language. But now it's language that is more likely to result in useful output and behaviors. Language is the substrate that LLMs reason through. A model that's more likely to infer the words "but what if I look at it another way" is more likely to consider multiple possibilities. A model that reliably infers language around tool use in appropriate situations is an agent. The behavior is encoded in the language.

After tens of millions in fine tuning costs, assuming you got it right, you have the core of a LLM that can function as an AI agent. You can put it in a harness and ask it to do things in the language of your choice and it will actually be able to do them a shockingly high percentage of the time. It can even do things that weren't explicitly part of the training. That's something which has never happened before outside of science fiction. Until recently it was one of those computer sciencey things that was probably going to happen someday, after we were all dead.

It sucks that this tech revolution is being driven by the capital class, and that it's happening as a mad dash for market domination and golden IPOs. In a more perfect world technology derived from collective human intelligence would be a public good rather than a profit driver.

But nevertheless, the ability to imprint some part of human intelligence into an autonomous agent is a remarkable achievement. One that we can't yet see the full size of. And it's possible not because we typed instructions into an interface, but because we've spent centuries encoding our intelligence into language.

Not sure where this goes but I am looking for an app to help fill in between other reading practice we do with our 5 year old.

This won't be the main tool to help them learn, just trying to find something fun to help learn a bit. Does anyone have recommendations for fun and educational reading apps?

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Hi
Seems we need to compile jpegli from git.

https://github.com/google/jpegli

I'm not able to do this at present.
Maybe a tildean person here is. :-)

I want to experiment and compare results with my installed mozjpeg.

Anybody know where there is a jpegli precompiled?
Something to drop into Linux usr/local/bin.
Or a windows executable to use with wine.

Blogpost... https://opensource.googleblog.com/2024/04/introducing-jpegli-new-jpeg-coding-library.html

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

I'm feeling deeply emotional today. There's a lot that's happened over the last few months - including a fair bit that I won't bring up here, outside of the relationship woes. Sorry if this rambles a lot, but I'll try and keep it organized.

For those that need background:
Struggling with my relationship
So it turns out I've been cheated on.

It's been nearly 4 months. I adjusted well to being single again. Went out and restarted hobbies I used to enjoy, took myself out on dates, and generally tried to feel like myself again. Two months after my last post, I had an opportunity to begin seeing someone new. I'm being cautious and careful and the new person is very calm, communicative, and understanding. I recognize it may be early to be seeing someone and this line of thought will be relevant later.

Things were... Copacetic? With my ex. I wasn't terribly happy but was able to move my thoughts along. I got mad at them, said angry things that didn't help, reconciled somewhat and tried to move on. We negotiated financial details a bit, and settled into summer plans. Their new partner was still around a lot, and still refused to ever even talk to me. How dare they, thought I, act like I wasn't even around? At least have the courage to say something, thought I. It irked me. I tried to find out more about this person, search for them online for anything, because they were now around my child more and more and I knew nothing. My searches were in vain, I found not a trace. They were a ghost.

I still kept contact with my ex's best friend - though that's a loose term now. They were equally exasperated and upset about the situation. Their relationship was breaking down because the new partner was - shall we say - incompatible with the best friend. Late in June, I thought to ask a question. One which I had an assumed answer for, but didn't actually know.

"Are they still married?"

The best friend answered. "Yes. It's something they don't like to talk about."

oof.

Here is where some of you will take issue with me, maybe.

That piece of the puzzle was the last thing I needed to find the new partner. I can be very determined when I set my mind to something. I discovered who they were. Their address. Their family. Their partner on Facebook. And I informed them about what was going on. I won't deny it felt good to burst their bubble of secrecy, but I also wanted this partner (let's call them J) to not be blindsided as I was. I wanted to give them the power to make their own choices and decisions with knowledge, not secrecy.

They were completely unaware of what was going on. Long story short, they had been in couples therapy for years. Were high school sweethearts. Together 25+ years. J was livid, of course. They had a family together, with several children (mostly older) involved. My ex found out what happened and blew up at me, claiming that I made a terrible choice and that what I did was wrong, and how could I go "talk to the other side"? They threatened to do what my parents had done. To fight, squabble and argue endlessly. To restrict access to the former stepkids. To limit everything I could do.

Everyone else seeing that situation insists I did the right thing - including J, who was grateful towards me. The house of cards my ex and their new partner had built was now collapsing. Things developed quickly from there. My ex turned everything into my fault. I was the villain in this story of theirs. In speaking with J recently, since after our initial conversation I gave them weeks of space to sort things out, I've learned some things about how my ex has been framing things.

The story New Partner was told was that I'm an alcoholic who abused my ex. My ex claimed that when they were drunk one night I raped them, which led to the pregnancy of our child. My ex said that I tried to force an abortion. That I didn't want our child. There's more details - such as describing the constant debt cycles as being caused by my student loans (nevermind that I haven't had student loans since before we got together) in order to explain those details away and make it all my fault. The more I learned, the more I realized what my partner was describing. It was word for word something that had happened with a prior ex of theirs. A story they'd told many others in their life. The dots are so simple to connect that they might as well be numbered.

Now I am at a juncture. I have had many other things come up this summer which leave me feeling overwhelmed. Professionally and personally. I am seeking legal counsel because claims of rape can and will impact my career and personal life. I am looking for a therapist but the process is excruciating.

In the meantime, I'm doing the best I can to put on a brave face and be there for my child, even when they show up with a shirt saying "X parent is cooler than Y parent".

But today I cried. I cried a lot. I hid it from my child because I didn't want to answer about why I was crying. I sobbed into my pillow until they came asking for pancakes and coca cola and forgive me but I provided.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

He's Canadian and he'll always have the most ridiculous source (see the post title) or the worst, goalpost-moving response ("who said that?" "how?" "well the lady said there was no impact because they just didn't get their $50M payday but they still had all the medicine." "I don't think the number is zero, but it's not what people said it would be.")

I know the easiest answer is just ignore him like most people do. But it is so infuriating when there are hundreds of thousands of people actively dying.

Found myself working a bit too hard lately, started to experience some stress from my pointless busywork white collar job. Remembered this time to wonder why am I stressed about something that doesn't matter?

Perfect timing, my boss decided today to let me know that he won't be approving any more vacation for the rest of the year because even though we have unlimited, apparently the limit is 20 days.

We've got a deadline coming up and honestly I'm just gonna take a break for the rest of the week. I need it, I deserve it, I've been busting my ass for no reason cause the end result is the same and no one uses our product, a year from now it probably won't even exist any more, and five years from now I'll have to go back to school and retrain to do some other job.

I was really doing fine until today. I make great money, I work from home, I actually get vacation, I know I can just take a sick day with no planning and that's fine, it's just so fucking stupid that they WANT me to take an unplanned day off or quiet quit for a few days when I need it instead of just allowing me to plan some fucking vacation.

Edit - this blew up, I don't mean to be all doomer. I'm just upset. There's beauty to life outside of my work situation.

I have a work trip to Chicago coming up soon and I was hoping any locals or people who have visited Chicago could suggest some food places I should be checking out.

I'll be staying at a hotel near the Woodfield mall, so ideally places closer to the mall would be best, which I know is not close to downtown Chicago. I'll be primarily working, so I won't have a ton of time to wander around or check out the city.

I will literally try anything so just looking for good or interesting food.

My girlfriend and I will be visiting Toronto for around 48 hours next weekend. We get in late Friday and leave Sunday around 5 to head to visit friends in Montreal. I've been to Toronto a few times as a kid, but long enough ago I don't remember much besides the CN Tower, and she's never been. Does anyone have recommendations on things to do and especially on places to eat? The only real thing we have planned so far is the HHoF, which I definitely want to see again.

I have to travel internationally soon, and I’ve been making a list of things I simply cannot get here (by which I mean Brazil): right now it’s benadryl and maple syrup. Last time peanut butter was on the list, but it’s since become a gym-bro food and is much more accessible. But the thought occurred to me others must have their own lists.

So what’s something you can only buy when in another country that you make sure to pick up?

Hi Tilderinos!

I've recently found myself being less and less interested in posting to Tildes and reading less, which surprised me as it had become a pretty strong habit for me. After giving it some thought, I've realized it's because I have noticed a sharp uptick in negative sentiment being posted about/shared here (largely in the forms of pessimism/defeatism and/or apathetic/indifferent responses to people's struggles and experiences), and so I wanted to actually do something about it rather than simply grumble and let it continue unabated.

This isn't to shame or tone-police anyone - it's rough out there, and I don't think posters are on here trying to put struggling people down. But I wanted to come back with something firmly, boldly optimistic: I believe that we are actively making the world a better place. Yes, even you, random reader who might feel like they're stuck in a rut and/or doing nothing notable. Just by frequenting a website that's explicitly geared towards constructive communication and deeper thinking, you're making the world a better place. I truly mean that!

I think good things are still happening, and I think a lot of really smart people aren't giving up on trying to make the world a better place, one small step at a time. To quote one of my favourite BlueSky Poster's Username: Better Things Are Possible.

Never forget it!

I'll share a few positive trends I've noticed lately in the comments, and hope others will share as well - but no pressure. I hope this brightens even one person's day!

I'm curious how everyone here is coping this summer. Personally I prefer winter, I can always warm up with blankets and hot soup if it gets too cold. But this time of year even with the AC on full blast my brain still feels entirely cooked.

For my room it is now 80F/27C and it feels too dang hot!!
(also about 40% humidity here, which is high for what is normally a desert region)

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

Either because the game itself is still good, or because you think it's able to be appreciated for more historical/didactic reasons (e.g. Game X is the origin for a certain trope).

Or any other reason really -- you're not limited to the two.

Importantly, why do you recommend them? What appeal do they have to modern audiences?

The reason I'm saying "pre-NES" (Nintendo Entertainment System) is simply because I imagine that a good number of us here started gaming with the NES and don't have as much of a pulse on what came before it. I imagine even more of us started gaming well after the NES and would appreciate insight into that period of gaming history.

I sometimes think that I’m a stoplight if I get a good green light, I think that I got good random number generation from the world.

This comes from the speerunning ppl that they gauge a good cycle of events to be good when the random number generation gives them a good “cycle”

Hungarian Grand Prix
Hungaroring
July 24-26, 2026

Next race:
Dutch Grand Prix
Circuit Zandvoort
August 21-23, 2026

Spoiler discussion for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey

I have a dispenser style Brita filter (link) that I keep in my fridge. I noticed a few weeks back it was dispensing water slower and at a slight angle, and figured maybe the plastic bits had gotten worn down and it might need replaced soon.

Today, I noticed it was even slower, so I emptied it and held it up to try to look at the nozzle. Couldn’t really see anything, but I did notice the nozzle appeared to be removable so I did that to get a closer look…

Looked like maybe there was some biofilm or mold or something at the nozzle tip. Cleaned it with soap and water and a straw brush, but honestly I’m horribly grossed out.

I’ve been drinking most of my daily water dispensed by it. I haven’t been sick or anything over the past month so like, presumably I’ll be OK but…ew.

I've been slowly convincing myself that I want to go to Africa, mostly because I haven't done a solo trip in a while, but also because I haven't been to Africa at all yet! Some of my team members are in Ghana and they sent me pictures of it, and it looked amazing. I definitely would love to go! I'm thinking of going during the week of Christmas only because it's probably my only time I'm available for the rest of the year. Any tips or places that I should be looking at?

(I also have some Scandinavian countries, Prague, or Scotland/Ireland on my docket, but I've been to Europe so much these last couple of years and I figure I'd need something new)

So the Mrs. and I are planning on a trip to Japan for June of this year. I received a tip to take a look at the deals found on said travel agency and I was impressed. I made a cursory research on the legitimacy of the service and found that it does deliver. I took the dive and got myself booked--with an additional fee to cancel and have my deposit fully refunded. Since then I've been looking more and more into their services and find that way too many reviews are overwhelmingly negative. The corresponding Reddit board screams "don't do it!" (though most of the posts there are a bit dated, admittedly)
And now that I'm finally a member of this fine community at Tildes, I figured that I'd ask you kind people for your feedback and discussion. What do you all say? Is there any consensus on any particular travel agency? Or is it best that I engage in the grunt work to book all the hotels ahead of time? We're looking to hit Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto at the very least. My total cost so far is less than $5000 for 9 days, FYI. And travelling from USA, if that makes any difference.
This is my first post on Tildes prompting discussion, btw. Glad to be here! 🤞

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Particularly interested if it has already impacted your life, or scrapped any plans or influenced where you decided to live.

Anybody else chose their current/ next home because of lower natural disasters risk or climate change resilience?

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like trafficking.sex, pyrex and shitposts. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was observant.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

The survey has been closed and the results are in!

Thank you to all the 166 people that responded! Check out the dashboard for the full results!

I was initially thinking of making a custom visualization with all the game covers in a big collage together, but I ended up not having the time to do it. :'( If anyone is interested in trying to make that though, please do! I think it'd look really cool.

• ZIP download of the data

Thank you all again for participating! Hope to see you in the next survey! :)

Hopefully the Tilderen aren't completely sick of the topic of AI writing.

To summarize my take: I think LLM agents are profoundly useful. And problematic. And I really really dislike AI writing when I encounter it outside of documentation. It's not only that it usually has a poor signal to noise ratio and a lot of annoying tropes, it also breaks a contract that has existed since writing was invented. And I dislike that it displaces human writing. Human writing is beautiful, we need more of it, not less.

By breaking a contract I mean that human writing implies an investment. The author invested time in creating it and has (sometimes) invested their reputation by publishing it. Whereas LLM prose requires minimal effort and thought. One great summary is:

"If you didn't take the time to write it, why should I take the time to read it?"

But it's not just about time or preference. We rely on signals of investment and competence to judge the value of information both personally and professionally. LLMs short circuit that completely. They incorporate signals of effort despite there being no effort involved. Signals that we could once rely on that someone has a deep understanding of a subject, or did extensive research, or is reasonably intelligent, or interesting, don't have any meaning when it's LLM prose.

Recently, while investigating Fable failure modes (while working in Claude Code), it outputted a summary that I think captures the situation really well: "My polish costs nothing".

Which is to say that LLM prose folds in signals of authority, competence, rigor and insight without any of those things needing to be present in the content. A fluent human is often worth listening to while a fluent LLM is just the default, the fluency carries no information. I think that's part of the reason for AI psychosis, I think it effectively uses, now outdated, expectations to hijack perception.

The reason that I sometimes take the time to investigate why an agent went wrong is partly to refine the scaffolding and partly to remind myself how dumb they are. Each generation is a little bit better, confidently right a little more than it's confidently wrong, so I make a point not to let myself fall into the trap of trusting their output too much.

I suppose I'm just posting to pass on the reminder.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

I’m thinking of ways to live in better simplicity and with more intentionality. I find this deeply challenging in practice, so I’d love to hear what works for you!

I’m thinking about this from three angles:

• Psychologically, I’m trying to be more satisfied with what I do have rather than wanting to make more money. When I spend on a luxury, I’d prefer that it feel meaningful. I’d like to better control my impulses.
• Financially, I’d like to have lower expenses so that I can save more for meaningful purchases. It also provides some comfort to know I’m living beneath my means.
• Ethically, I’d like to use less electricity (environmental reasons) and also donate more to useful charitable initiatives in my community. Years ago I was influenced by Peter Singer’s essay “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” and still take its principles seriously.

So I’m looking for two categories of advice:

• Ways to spend less money on anything in particular, sacrificing (yes) some luxury.
• Substitutes for expensive activities/experiences/objects that provide the same or more emotional value.

My current lifestyle is relatively simple except that I enjoy traveling a bit too much. I used to fly a lot, which was pricey and bad for the environment. I miss my foreign friends though!

I live in a bustling part of a large city, which is amazing except it means I’m constantly presented with expensive temptations. I like this place and don’t wish to leave, so I’m relying on habits/systems & willpower here.

Examples of things I do already:

• My city is pretty cheap for its amenities. My building is more affordable than most in my neighborhood. (I originally planned to move to New York, but…) It has various comforts, but I’m trying to use the appliances less. It’s hard to keep the AC off in the heatwaves though! And the dryer is so convenient.
• I live in an apartment with a roommate. I enjoy the companionship. It also cuts most living expenses in half. I’ve thought about buying a small condo, but that seems hard to do without raising my monthly payments. I’m getting attached to my neighborhood/area, limiting my options somewhat.
• I ride a bicycle instead of owning a car. I take the bus to work, or sometimes bike (about 25 miles each way). I walk a lot, which lets me see the city up close. I only use ridehailing services once or twice per year. I was thinking of buying a folding bike to cut the commute time in half (train -> bike), but I hesitate to buy a budget one; I’m afraid it’ll break.
• Meals lately are mostly staple ingredients (rice, beans, frozen vegetables, canned fish) and cheaper ready-made meals. I try not to buy anything over 25¢/oz ($4/lb). I think my grocery runs average 15–20¢/oz ($2.40–3.20/lb) at Walmart or Aldi. I have a bunch of bougie preferences I’m trying to get over—fancy pasta sauces and such. I prefer cooking on intuition rather than recipes (impatient). I love restaurants for the experience more than the taste of the food. I kinda miss eating out more often, it’s just so wasteful.
• I love socializing, but the drinks and coffees and lunches and dinners add up fast! Much of my social activity is community organizing and dancing, which is itself inexpensive/free, but that often involves regional train trips and business lunches and miscellaneous weird expenses, so I’m slowly doing less of that in some ways, which is both good and bad.
• Importantly, I’ve been working on being more satisfied with doing less. Not going to every event. Not buying the snack I want. Not seeing faraway friends as much. Not going back to Paris another time. 🙄 Finding ways to frame these changes positively (“going to the things I care about most,” “living with intentionality,” “making friends closer to home”…) is possible but something I continually struggle with.

Whatever your financial station I would be very interested to hear what you do to maximize your happiness on your income and be more satisfied with life’s simple pleasures!

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

I prefer physical buttons and something that does not have a large screen and looks simple enough that it could be OEM. Does anything like this exist? All options seem to be cheap and ugly with flashing lights, or a giant touch screen.