entitled-entilde's recent activity

  1. Comment on NYT Quiz: Who’s a better writer: AI or humans? in ~tech

    entitled-entilde
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    I was 5/5 guessing which was AI. But the rules of the game were to pick the one you like best regardless of where it came from, and a few times I thought the LLM did a nice job

    I was 5/5 guessing which was AI. But the rules of the game were to pick the one you like best regardless of where it came from, and a few times I thought the LLM did a nice job

    1 vote

  2. Comment on Is it worthwhile to run local LLMs for coding today? in ~comp

    entitled-entilde
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    Running local models is fun for hobby purposes like building an agent, fine tuning, or digging into text analysis with embeddings. For coding, not so much. Remember if your model makes a mistake...

    Running local models is fun for hobby purposes like building an agent, fine tuning, or digging into text analysis with embeddings. For coding, not so much. Remember if your model makes a mistake in a tool call, or runs out of context, the whole thing grinds to a halt. For me, AI coding should be fun and ergonomic, and this spoils it. If you want to try AI coding just go commercial. Claud code is 20$ a month which is not so bad. It’s possible that 2 years from now a local model is developed that could do great on any task with 32GB, so I get the temptation. But if you run a local model and hate the whole experience, that’s worse. At least have a backup plan for that memory if you do buy it

    4 votes

  3. Comment on Apple announces Macbook Neo, a new budget Mac in ~tech

    entitled-entilde
    Link Parent
    Baseline models of their other lineups had 8GB of RAM until recently as I recall. There are many people still running MacBooks with this limit. So I think it’s not that big of an issue Though I’m...

    Baseline models of their other lineups had 8GB of RAM until recently as I recall. There are many people still running MacBooks with this limit. So I think it’s not that big of an issue

    Though I’m pretty sure the Mac laptop I bought >10 years ago I upgraded to 16GB of ram, so I am of course a hypocrite :)

    5 votes

  4. Comment on Anthropic rejects latest US Pentagon offer: ‘We cannot in good conscience accede to their request’ in ~tech

    entitled-entilde
    Link Parent
    My impression from what I've heard from DOE researchers too is that the government, despite running multiple exascale machines, is actually lacking in compute power compared to industry. There...

    My impression from what I've heard from DOE researchers too is that the government, despite running multiple exascale machines, is actually lacking in compute power compared to industry. There used to be a lot of talk in academia about how we need to build our own LLMs to not be beholden to industry, and I've noticed a lot of that discussion evaporating...

    3 votes

  5. Comment on Chemist Hitler Louis nears three dozen retractions for image duplication, self-citation and more in ~science

    entitled-entilde
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    By my count, all but one of the 35 retracted works are published in journals that require the author to pay. Most of these are fallback journals for when you fail peer review. I don't get the...

    By my count, all but one of the 35 retracted works are published in journals that require the author to pay. Most of these are fallback journals for when you fail peer review. I don't get the motive here, that’s a lot of his own money down the drain for a publication record that says “I fail a lot”….

    9 votes

  6. Comment on ‘A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms’ just made ‘Breaking Bad’ lose its IMDB score record in ~tv

    entitled-entilde
    Link Parent
    You should watch it, it's a nice show. The interesting thing to me is that it's not really what you expect for game of thrones. It's a lot more... wholesome? Black and white? A little bit funny? I...

    You should watch it, it's a nice show. The interesting thing to me is that it's not really what you expect for game of thrones. It's a lot more... wholesome? Black and white? A little bit funny? I think it tracks what I see which is a greater interest in sincerity than cynicism or dark reboots than we had ten years ago.

    I haven't read the novellas and do notice some "that went over my head" moments, but overall it is quite approachable.

    Don't let this review bomb story over set your expectations though. I mean episode 5 is good, but like don't watch it thinking "this is supposed to be the best TV episode ever" or something. Episode 1-6 are basically an extended pilot episode.

    8 votes

  7. Comment on Scott A. on Scott A. on Scott A. in ~comics

    entitled-entilde
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    I also enjoyed it, more for how deep the rabbit hole went than the added commentary. Add it to the dictator book club list? I’m in a good mood a it came within days of quality Manic Monday and Bay...

    Scott Alexander has put up one of his greatest posts ever

    I also enjoyed it, more for how deep the rabbit hole went than the added commentary. Add it to the dictator book club list? I’m in a good mood a it came within days of quality Manic Monday and Bay Area House Party installments (celebratory deaths and good blog posts come in threes?).

    Continuing off topic, the most intriguing thing from the Manic Monday post (on prediction markets) was:

    Strange things happening on the COVID lab leak market, which has declined to 27%. This peaked at about 85% in 2023, declined a bit around the Rootclaim debate and my article on it, then stayed around 50-50 for a year or so. But for the past eight months, it’s been gradually trending downward, with no end in sight. Some of the change probably involves the discovery of a natural bat coronavirus with a furin cleavage site last October, but I’m surprised by the extent of the decline.

    1 vote

  8. Comment on Curl will end its bug bounty program by the end of January due to excessive AI generated reports in ~comp

    entitled-entilde
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    I’m sure at some point their system could get overwhelmed but this seems pretty premature. 7 issues in a sixteen hour period, becomes 20 over sixteen days. It sounds like people were bored during...

    I’m sure at some point their system could get overwhelmed but this seems pretty premature. 7 issues in a sixteen hour period, becomes 20 over sixteen days. It sounds like people were bored during the holidays. Plenty of other open source projects get hit with similar “yes it’s a bug but not a real one” requests. Considering how critical curl is, and its history of real security vulnerabilities, getting rid of the bounty system is bad… I’d prefer they got more money for security people.

    6 votes

  9. Comment on Debunking the AI food delivery hoax that fooled Reddit in ~tech

    entitled-entilde
    Link Parent
    I miss that podcast, they would’ve done a great job with this debunking story

    I miss that podcast, they would’ve done a great job with this debunking story

  10. Comment on US strikes Venezuela and says its leader, Nicolas Maduro, has been captured and flown out of the country in ~society

    entitled-entilde
    Link Parent
    Well as it turns out, there is a strategic reason: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/loud-noises-heard-venezuela-capital-southern-area-without-electricity-2026-01-03/ “Trump says Venezuela's...

    Well as it turns out, there is a strategic reason: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/loud-noises-heard-venezuela-capital-southern-area-without-electricity-2026-01-03/

    “Trump says Venezuela's Maduro captured after strikes”

    Absolutely bonkers.

    13 votes

  11. Comment on What do you leave out for Father Christmas? in ~talk

  12. Comment on What are your predictions for 2026? in ~talk

    entitled-entilde
    Link Parent
    Sora2 maybe already fits the bill here.

    A new social media site whose core functionality is heavily AI powered is launched by a major figure/company in a billion-dollar campaign. It fails to meet investor expectations, but finds a very devout core audience.

    Sora2 maybe already fits the bill here.

    1 vote

  13. Comment on Indie Game Awards rescinds Clair Obscur's GOTY wins over use of generative AI [for now-removed background assets] in ~games

    entitled-entilde
    Link Parent
    People have used automatically generated assets, levels, etc since the beginning of video games. But put the term “AI” on it and people freak out.

    People have used automatically generated assets, levels, etc since the beginning of video games. But put the term “AI” on it and people freak out.

    16 votes

  14. Comment on AGI and Fermi's Paradox in ~science

    entitled-entilde
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    No this would not solve the Fermi paradox, it merely is adding to the premise. If your chain of logic is true, we should have already been wiped out by an AGI developed on another planet. Yet we...

    No this would not solve the Fermi paradox, it merely is adding to the premise. If your chain of logic is true, we should have already been wiped out by an AGI developed on another planet. Yet we don’t, so now we are left with the Fermi paradox in its standard form: if the universe is so big, where are all the aliens (or alien AGIs)

    12 votes

  15. Comment on Is trying to become an author insane in times of LLMs? in ~tech

    entitled-entilde
    Link Parent
    Maybe we’ll all one day read an LLM book for the novelty, but it makes no sense as a genre. Somebody would have to curate it, which means reading thousands of LLM books to find the needle in the...

    Maybe we’ll all one day read an LLM book for the novelty, but it makes no sense as a genre. Somebody would have to curate it, which means reading thousands of LLM books to find the needle in the haystack? That’s not a viable strategy (and having LLMs grade other LLM books isn’t going to work).

    But it’s kind of like worrying that the novelization of space invader play through will kill the sci-fi genre. The competition is not LLM books. It’s people preferring the interactive D&D type experience a chatbot could give to a book. Or if you write nonfiction, that people would rather ask a bot than read a technical manual, etc.

  16. Comment on An AI-generated country song is topping a Billboard chart, and that should infuriate us all in ~music

    entitled-entilde
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    Being told how you should feel about music is basically par for the course in western discourse. This goes across eras and genres. A lot of times the critiques are raising real issues, but it’s...

    Being told how you should feel about music is basically par for the course in western discourse. This goes across eras and genres. A lot of times the critiques are raising real issues, but it’s really about people having their identity tied to yet another commercial enterprise. Sorry for the tangent, it’s just a pet peeve of mine.

    Amusingly, ten years ago if you talked about AI generated music people would probably marvel at how niche and creative of an exercise it is. Something reserved for serious academics.

    Record companies are probably salivating at the chance to cut artists out even further. But imagine the irony if they get their clock cleaned by some TikToker with an AI generated next gen Gorillaz or Hatsune Miku and a well tuned agent system.

    10 votes

  17. Comment on Tips for becoming a tea person in ~food

    entitled-entilde
    Link Parent
    I’m a big coffee drinker, but I also love tea primarily because of the multiple steeping factor. You get to enjoy the drink over a much longer period, taste the differences between steeps, etc.

    I’m a big coffee drinker, but I also love tea primarily because of the multiple steeping factor. You get to enjoy the drink over a much longer period, taste the differences between steeps, etc.

    3 votes

  18. Comment on Can we bury enough wood to slow climate change? in ~enviro

    entitled-entilde
    Link Parent
    Ban cremation and insist on burying bodies.

    Ban cremation and insist on burying bodies.

  19. Comment on What is your 'Subway Take'? in ~talk

    entitled-entilde
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    We should move all the American holidays by one month. Halloween is coming up in just a couple weeks. I'm still wearing a t-shirt outside. Every Christmas I think "wow I sure hope it snows",...

    We should move all the American holidays by one month. Halloween is coming up in just a couple weeks. I'm still wearing a t-shirt outside. Every Christmas I think "wow I sure hope it snows", because it snows in January not December. I should be able to wear white all September. Conversely, I'd much rather be outside grilling on the fourth June. Global warming demands a response.

    10 votes

  20. Comment on What is your 'Subway Take'? in ~talk

    entitled-entilde
    Link Parent
    Let me defend the concept - this can be my subway take. Imagine a young, wealthy aristocrat from an empire. He just doesn't fit in, and wants to break out of the old ways. For his summer holiday,...

    Let me defend the concept - this can be my subway take.

    Imagine a young, wealthy aristocrat from an empire. He just doesn't fit in, and wants to break out of the old ways. For his summer holiday, he visits one of the colonies. It's been years since the brutal war, so things have settled down. He visits one village, and participates in a beautiful religious ceremony. This is exactly what he needed, and he heads home feeling new and fresh. At home, he tells all his friends about the experience. At parties he brings up "well you know, when I was in the colonies...". He uses the experience for analogies in his writings. One day he recalls a flute that was used in the ceremony. He builds a factory to sell them, with an instruction manual on how to play both local and exotic tunes. Half the profits go to build wells.

    Imagine an upper middle class white American. On the internet he reads about the black lives matter protest. He goes out to join several events, and is enthralled by the energy. He tells all his friends about it. At parties he brings up "well you know, African Americans are struggling with..." He decides to start a website selling black lives matter goods, using some cleaned up exotic designs he saw at the protests. Half the profits go to the cause.

    For me, cultural appropriation contains these key elements: 1) Local cache from viewing other cultural as primitively enlightened. 2) Power imbalance. 3) Capitalism. It's a criticism of liberals by liberals, which is why the online discourse (left vs right) is missing the point. Actually, I'm surprised conservatives don't love the concept as a way to critique (1). In general, I like it as a criticism of the first three as ideas, and not of an individual person.

    Now for a more controversial example. An American anime fan buys a Kimono and uploads photos of themselves wearing it to Instagram. That's good, I like that they're enjoying expanding their world view. Almost no Japanese person you ask would have any problem with it. And yet, the use of Instagram shows they're clearly in it to signal to their community how exotic their tastes are. America bombed Japan to the ground, and to this day maintains military bases all over the country to keep them in line (I mean, "for protection"). And that Kimono was probably maybe in a sweat shop in South East Asia. These are good uncomfortable critiques.

    6 votes