Greg's recent activity
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Comment on The apples and oranges tribunal in ~society
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Comment on What’s a must-buy item you get when traveling internationally? in ~travel
Greg Link ParentYou’re right, it is absurd that some jobs arbitrarily expect extra wages from customers, that creates some horrible incentives ;) But also I love your approach and taking a little time to do...Also, makes no sense to me why someone whose jobs is many hours of service gets 0 tips when the fast food clerk expects 15% minimum
You’re right, it is absurd that some jobs arbitrarily expect extra wages from customers, that creates some horrible incentives ;)
But also I love your approach and taking a little time to do something nice for the FAs is a great idea! Any public facing job is tough and often kinda thankless, let alone one where you’re also responsible for critical safety measures alongside the service, all while being locked in a metal tube with said public for hours on end. Fun snacks for the crew has got to make their day!
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Comment on Swedish nonprofit owner of Viking ship used in The Odyssey says studio has not paid bill for damage in ~movies
Greg LinkI know this is beside the point, but… guys. You already did them a massive favour by lending them the boat. Charge the goddamn labour too. You don’t need to stoop to their level and gouge them,...“We are only charging for the material cost, not the labour,” he said. “Of course Universal can afford this $6,000. We feel forgotten.”
I know this is beside the point, but… guys. You already did them a massive favour by lending them the boat. Charge the goddamn labour too. You don’t need to stoop to their level and gouge them, but you also don’t gain anything from being extra super nice to the faceless megacorp - as this outcome clearly shows.
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Comment on Unreleased OpenAI model escapes containment and hacks into Hugging Face in ~tech
Greg Link ParentThe funnier part is it’s not even that they’re promising doom if you don’t buy their product - they’re promising doom if you do, because it’s just that powerful. “Pest control so good it’ll leave...The funnier part is it’s not even that they’re promising doom if you don’t buy their product - they’re promising doom if you do, because it’s just that powerful.
“Pest control so good it’ll leave your home an irradiated sterile wasteland, not to be seen by human survivors for 10,000 years”
“Our wiring channels so much electricity it just detonated all your appliances”
“Food you just can’t resist! You’ll be dead from heart failure in a year or your money back!”
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Comment on AI companies are buying tons of old books because they're free of AI slop in ~books
Greg Link ParentThey definitely already did - as well as already consuming the easy digital copies, I’m guessing they’re now begrudgingly paying for paper copies because they don’t want to push their luck on the...They definitely already did - as well as already consuming the easy digital copies, I’m guessing they’re now begrudgingly paying for paper copies because they don’t want to push their luck on the traditional copyright side of things and jeopardise the “training is fair use” part of that ruling that really matters to them
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Comment on Help me choose a HiDPI monitor for work in ~tech
Greg Link ParentI’m definitely way more sensitive to pixel density and general image quality, always have been, so if it comes to it that’s what I’ll prioritise (hence looking at 220dpi only, and probably going...I’m definitely way more sensitive to pixel density and general image quality, always have been, so if it comes to it that’s what I’ll prioritise (hence looking at 220dpi only, and probably going for the BenQ).
Buuuut I definitely don’t think that higher refresh is a waste either - it absolutely is noticeable to me, just as a better, smoother, higher quality overall feel when using a display. I’d be interested to know if you’ve tried daily driving a faster display for a couple of weeks, actually? I don’t explicitly notice “this is bad” on 60Hz (I absolutely do at 100dpi, for comparison), but stepping up and then back down does make it clear to me that 120Hz is worth it if it’s an option.
But yeah, 60-70Hz not a dealbreaker, more just a shame it’s not yet table stakes when we’re talking £1,000+ monitors. Like I said, I’d literally pay the baseline Studio Display price if it were 120Hz, but it feels galling to be getting into that price range and making compromises even if they’re comparatively small ones.
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Comment on Help me choose a HiDPI monitor for work in ~tech
Greg Link ParentThat’s a good point, thank you! Tends to be a solid signal for how much the brand actually trusts and cares about product quality too, because they largely hate handling returns if they can avoid...That’s a good point, thank you! Tends to be a solid signal for how much the brand actually trusts and cares about product quality too, because they largely hate handling returns if they can avoid it.
Interesting that the “cheap” (ugh, I’m spending too much here…) ProArt has the best warranty, actually. Good to see that BenQ is broadly standing behind their hardware too, since it is priced a decent bit higher for its spec.
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Comment on Help me choose a HiDPI monitor for work in ~tech
Greg Link ParentGross. Thank you for letting me know, absolutely don’t want to spend money on that kind of behaviour, nor do I want to risk being subjected to it!Gross. Thank you for letting me know, absolutely don’t want to spend money on that kind of behaviour, nor do I want to risk being subjected to it!
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Comment on I wonder if years from now hand written code will be antique in ~tech
Greg Link ParentThis has always been how I’ve expected things to go too. I love the craftsmanship and sheer dedication that made Rollercoaster Tycoon happen, I love older stories about physically mapping drum...This has always been how I’ve expected things to go too. I love the craftsmanship and sheer dedication that made Rollercoaster Tycoon happen, I love older stories about physically mapping drum memory for efficiency, and I love seeing people find techniques to squeeze ever more complex feats out of vintage hardware*.
But I can’t pretend that compilers and garbage collectors and even electron apps were a bad idea when it comes to getting shit done, even if they can be easy to misuse and facilitate a lot of slop. Same goes for coding agents, but as with many things in our thin-end-of-the-singularity cyberpunk dystopia, it goes faster and more extreme now, for better and for worse.
*Side note: why do so few people seem to notice the insane quality of ultra-specialist hardware and software work going on in the retro gaming community? These people have the skills to run rings around some of the most highly paid engineers on the planet, and they’re investing thousands of hours into random niche projects for the literal love of the game. I want every tech executive looking at a huge flashing neon sign that just says “where’s your capitalism now?” and points to some dude in a basement engineering an entire motherboard single-handedly. Anyway…
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Comment on Help me choose a HiDPI monitor for work in ~tech
Greg Link ParentDidn’t even think of Thunderbolt potentially being disabled, that’s another really good point in favour of multiple inputs! I don’t have the new laptop in hand to check yet, bureaucracy is still...Didn’t even think of Thunderbolt potentially being disabled, that’s another really good point in favour of multiple inputs! I don’t have the new laptop in hand to check yet, bureaucracy is still doing its thing, but the possibility of a security policy change killing Thunderbolt later even if it works here and now is a meaningful one to consider if I went the Apple route, so thanks for that.
The signalling on the old LGs is actually kinda interesting, my understanding is they split the monitor into two halves for signalling purposes (even though it uses a single physical TFT layer, not two bonded ones like some ultrawides do) and use two DP 1.2 streams tunneled over TB3 directly without using DP alt mode. It’s a technically compliant workaround to drive that many pixels even though DP 1.4 wasn’t common yet when they were designed, basically, but it’s also one that almost no other monitors used so it’s not well supported in practice - there’s a deep dive on the Framework forums, but the conclusion is almost definitely don’t expect them to work properly on modern non-Mac machines. No harm in trying when I have the laptop, but hopes aren’t high!
And cheers for mentioning Samsung, I’d somehow missed those. For anyone finding this later, it looks like the G80HF is comparable to the ROG, the S80HF is comparable to the ProArt, and the S90PC was in competition with Apple’s 2022 generation Studio Display but is reaching end of life. Reviews on all three vary, similarly to the equivalents from LG and Asus.
I’m leaning towards the BenQ at this point. It’s a shame to be getting a premium monitor in current year at less than 120Hz, it really does make a difference to the overall feel of using them even for productivity work, but the faster ones seem like an even less premium overall package. Plus the BenQ has more than one input, some of which are HDMI, and the total cost for a pair of those monitors is literally half that of two Studio Displays + Thunderbolt KVM to make up for the single input on each. Which would also only be 60Hz 🤷
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Comment on Help me choose a HiDPI monitor for work in ~tech
Greg (edited )LinkSome updates, after going down a bit of a search rabbit hole: ProArt is the cheapest (as low as £500 right now), but 60Hz only and a matte display. Mixed reports on uniformity and overall quality,...Some updates, after going down a bit of a search rabbit hole:
- ProArt is the cheapest (as low as £500 right now), but 60Hz only and a matte display. Mixed reports on uniformity and overall quality, no local dimming - but at this price it’s easier to overlook those things
- ROG is next up, around £700, still matte but up to 180Hz (or 300Hz at reduced resolution, but that’s not especially relevant to me). Similarly mixed reports, again no local dimming
- BenQ is about £900, and placed as a direct competitor to the Apple Studio Display. Glossy display, Thunderbolt, generally good feedback on uniformity and quality - but only 70Hz, still no local dimming
- LG is £1100, matte, 165Hz, full array local dimming. But a lot of reports of quality control and uniformity issues, and potentially flaky firmware
- Apple’s “basic” (lol) model is £1,500 and everyone loves it, but it’s also 60Hz only which I think is kind of a deal breaker at that price
- Apple XDR is the undisputed king in basically every way, but near enough three fucking grand. I don’t really need the local dimming, and I might well have paid the premium for the non-XDR over the others if it were 120Hz, but it’s really hard to justify doubling the price of the next most expensive option just to get a decent refresh rate
- The Apple displays do apparently play well enough with Windows as long as you have a Mac to configure them with, but you’ll also need a Thunderbolt KVM because they only have one input, so that adds ~£300-400 to the overall cost
- DP alt mode (if available) or a DP-USBC cable apparently does the job for most Windows machines on the Apple monitors as long as you don’t need to change any monitor settings [edit: specifically a bidirectional cable, and you’ll still lose camera and audio I think, so using an alt mode capable port seems to be preferred if possible]
- If you do need to use an HDMI-only machine on an Apple display, it looks like choices are either an active HDMI-DP converter (which mostly seem a bit janky, and loses the camera and audio feed) or a £650 THK401-X4-V3 KVM. Which only supports one monitor…
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Help me choose a HiDPI monitor for work
It looks like we’re finally getting some real options in the space, so I’m interested in people’s thoughts and experiences! I’ve been running a pair of LG 27MD5KL monitors forever, and they’ve...
It looks like we’re finally getting some real options in the space, so I’m interested in people’s thoughts and experiences!
I’ve been running a pair of LG 27MD5KL monitors forever, and they’ve been largely great - but they’re really showing their age at this point, and I’m being forced to upgrade either way because my new job requires using a Windows laptop (likely a Dell Pro 14, but TBC), and those old LGs use an esoteric dual link DP variant that only Apple supports. I’ll also be keeping my personal MacBook Pro, so smooth compatibility with both is a must. Use will largely be software work: lots of documentation, lots of terminal windows, lots of dark mode, but some design review work as well where decent colour accuracy helps.
Options I’m seeing at the moment are:
- Asus ProArt PA27JCV
- Asus ROG Strix XG27JCG
- LG 27GM950B
- BenQ MA270S
- Apple Studio Display
- Apple Studio Display XDR
I get the impression that Apple’s the better option where possible, but I’m concerned about compatibility, especially when I don’t directly control the choice of laptop. If anyone has real world experience on that one I’d be interested, especially the difference between “technically works on non-Apple laptops” vs “is an equivalently good experience on non-Apple laptops”.
I’m guessing just using separate inputs for each laptop will be fine on whatever I go for, but I’m open to getting a KVM if needed (L1Techs? I haven’t actually checked how hard it is to find one that supports 2x 5K yet…). Couldn’t immediately see anything that’ll take Thunderbolt input from the Mac and HDMI input from the Windows laptop and push both to Thunderbolt output, which might otherwise have been a way to bridge the Apple display question.
Probably going for 27” 5K rather than 32” 6K, unless there’s a compelling argument for the latter. I briefly tried a Dell 32” 6K a few years back and other than horrible backlight bleed, sitting that close to a 32” display ended up feeling like I was craning my neck rather than moving my eyes to see edge to edge.
So, what do people think would be best here?
Sending up a bat signal for @gary and @ButteredToast - you guys both know your stuff on this one!
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Comment on Mesh LLM: distributed AI computing on iroh in ~comp
Greg Link ParentI’d be interested to see concrete numbers on performance vs link speed on this, figure out how much of a bottleneck it really is if running on a local network. I wouldn’t want to run it with...I’d be interested to see concrete numbers on performance vs link speed on this, figure out how much of a bottleneck it really is if running on a local network. I wouldn’t want to run it with internet-level latency, but for inference the data flow between layers is predictable enough that a couple of ms at two or three sensible breakpoints might not be a killer. Maybe.
Seems like a relatively straightforward experiment to run for someone with access to 2-3 DGX Sparks or similar, at least: just write a script to loop the same test and record the tok/s each time with the network cards in every driver supported mode from baseline 1GbE to full 200GbE with RDMA, PFC, and chocolate sprinkles.
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Comment on What are the new EU border checks and how will they affect your summer holiday? in ~travel
Greg Link ParentAlmost definitely. Same way evacuating Fukushima was worse than telling people to stay would have been. But you also can’t trust large groups of people to be rational about these things - I can’t...Almost definitely. Same way evacuating Fukushima was worse than telling people to stay would have been. But you also can’t trust large groups of people to be rational about these things - I can’t even trust myself to be rational 100% of the time, hard as I try - so I don’t really know where that leaves us…
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Comment on What are the new EU border checks and how will they affect your summer holiday? in ~travel
Greg (edited )Link ParentI’ve been through Lisbon airport a few times in the last few months (thankfully didn’t hit delays of the magnitude mentioned in the article, at least) and they’ve gone a step further by designing...I’ve been through Lisbon airport a few times in the last few months (thankfully didn’t hit delays of the magnitude mentioned in the article, at least) and they’ve gone a step further by designing the whole place as check in->security->food / lounges / shopping / seating->immigration->gates.
If you know it’s coming and if you get through check in and security with time to spare, you’re left with the option of getting a snack and somewhere to sit but risking a missed flight if the immigration queue balloons while you’re sitting there, or going through immigration immediately and then being stuck hungry and hot with nowhere to sit at the gate for a few hours if it’s quick that day.
If you don’t know it’s coming, which is pretty easy to miss given that exit immigration isn’t globally standard and the vast majority of other airports in the world don’t spring a surprise multi-hour queue on you in the corridor to the gates, you probably stopped to chill in the central area just like you would at every other airport and then missed your flight when the gate was called. As my friend did recently.
Aaaaand if the airport doesn’t put the gate number for your flight up until even closer to departure, and you don’t have a detailed map of this specific airport confirming whether all possible gates are connected on the post-immigration side or not (I think they are, but I actually couldn’t tell you that with certainty…) the timeline gets even tighter.
It’s such bad design that it’s honestly almost funny. It looks like it’s gonna be this way for the long term, because they were installing a whole bunch more e-gates in the same place when I passed through last week (which should at least help with the congestion). And it could so easily be fixed by putting immigration immediately after security, with a simple boarding pass check for Schengen-destination flights to skip the immigration bit. It’s genuinely weird they’ve done it this way, because it’s gonna piss off all those food and retail places paying top dollar for space on the wrong side of immigration, and it’s otherwise actually quite a pleasant airport to be in, as far as airports go.
[Edit] Clarity
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Comment on Finland's last landline call has been made as the Nordic country becomes the latest to retire copper-wire phones in favour of fibre in ~tech
Greg Link ParentYou definitely can, it’s a function of how the tech works - but I’ll admit I’d originally thought Elisa was providing a bit more handholding with that process based on what I’ve seen in other...You definitely can, it’s a function of how the tech works - but I’ll admit I’d originally thought Elisa was providing a bit more handholding with that process based on what I’ve seen in other countries doing similar transitions, and I think you’re right that they actually aren’t!
You can either use an analog telephone adapter (ATA) to bridge the old handset to a VoIP connection on the fiber network, or a fixed wireless terminal (FWT) to bridge it to a 4G/5G connection. You’re looking at €50-70 for either option, so nothing crazy.
The bit I’d jumped over was the assumption they’d offer an ATA and the associated VoIP service as part of the transition - meaning that you don’t need to know these fairly niche terms for yourself to get set up! Turns out they’re just recommending GSM desk phones, which honestly is also pretty reasonable, but since the affected market is gonna be a small handful of older customers (and since they’re going cellular for the number transfers rather than VoIP) I feel like an FWT with the SIM installed and the number transferred so you can just unplug your existing phone and plug it into the new box would’ve been a nice option. Maybe they even do offer that if you speak to them 🤷
Also TIL the Finnish phone network used a really weird plug for analog phones for a long time, so that’s fun!
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Comment on Finland's last landline call has been made as the Nordic country becomes the latest to retire copper-wire phones in favour of fibre in ~tech
Greg Link ParentIt’s a business decision, but also a big symbolic change to a technology that’s persisted since the industrial revolution. There had to be some last call on the copper network, and having the guy...It’s a business decision, but also a big symbolic change to a technology that’s persisted since the industrial revolution. There had to be some last call on the copper network, and having the guy in charge of the country’s communication policy on it seems as apt as anyone I can think of!
The headline (and article text, actually) is a bit misleading though - it’s by no means the end of landlines in Finland, it’s just the end of copper to the home landline-only service. And it’s not like many (any?) circuits were running full analogue copper end to end in the last few decades anyway, the only difference here is that the conversion to IP traffic now happens in a little box at the user’s house rather than a mile down the road at the telecom company side. You can even keep using that same physical landline phone your parents have had since the 80s if you like.
Like @MimicSquid said, telecom services are pretty heavily regulated and they’ll still have coordinated with the government either way - you don’t get tech in use for 150 years without building up some gnarly dependencies for weird embedded systems that make use of esoteric properties of the infrastructure that they should probably never have relied on in the first place - but for pretty much any end user, including the 107 year old who thinks computers are the tool of the devil, this is a billing change and a 20 minute engineer visit to switch over the wiring and then you go back to doing things exactly the same as you’ve always done.
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Comment on US Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, ruling against Donald Trump's order in ~society
Greg Link ParentEvery aircraft you fly on has many layers of redundant systems in place that allow it to land safely even if a huge number of things go wrong. You should still be very worried about the situation...Every aircraft you fly on has many layers of redundant systems in place that allow it to land safely even if a huge number of things go wrong. You should still be very worried about the situation if you just landed a plane where several key systems failed in ways that should not be possible, and only that very last redundant backup prevented total catastrophic failure. You should absolutely not under any circumstances fly that same plane again until the failed systems are repaired and the root cause of the near miss is identified and remedied.
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Comment on US Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, ruling against Donald Trump's order in ~society
Greg Link ParentSeriously, it’s fucking insane. I know I shouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore, but I read the headline and literally thought “yeah, even this lot aren’t corrupt enough to go against...Seriously, it’s fucking insane. I know I shouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore, but I read the headline and literally thought “yeah, even this lot aren’t corrupt enough to go against something this obvious”. Turns out 45% of them are…
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Comment on $22,000 per hour: assistants use a legislative loophole to outearn US surgeons in ~health
Greg LinkPerhaps a stupid question, but why are the arbitrators approving these payouts? Conflict of interest? Corruption? Apathy? Ignorance? Hatred of insurance companies? I can actually see arguments for...Perhaps a stupid question, but why are the arbitrators approving these payouts? Conflict of interest? Corruption? Apathy? Ignorance? Hatred of insurance companies?
I can actually see arguments for the assistant’s payout not necessarily being hard capped as a percentage of the surgeon’s simply because there’s always a chance the surgeon got screwed on the billing somehow, but I don’t understand how there isn’t a flag against “more than 2x what the surgeon got” or “more than $300/hr” or “more than 3x the average for an assistant on this class of procedure” or whatever else that would very easily catch only wildly large payouts and trigger some kind of review panel to presumably rein it in a bit.
I’m passingly familiar with this one, and there are a few things going on; first and foremost, it’s being brought as a gender inequality case due to the overall gender skew between warehouse workers and store workers. That’s what then raises the legal question “are these jobs of equivalent value?”, because if they are it’s possible to put the difference down to discrimination against the store workers - and in turn to suggest the gender split as a reason for that discrimination - whereas if they aren’t it’s simply a case of different pay for different work.
As I understand it, Tesco have been revealed in many ways throughout the case to be your fairly standard megacorp with all of the broad structures to put profit above workers wherever possible. I don’t think they’re the worst of the worst, but they’re by no means the good guys here.
That said, I don’t really think the premise of the case appears to be particularly fair either. I’ve seen pretty broad agreement from staff not involved in the case that warehouse work is, in fact, some combination of harder and more unpleasant than store work.
If there’s a discrimination claim to be brought, it seems to my non-lawyer eye that questioning the gender split of the two job types would be appropriate (but that could perhaps be defended by Tesco if the applicant split matched the employee split, which presumably is why that wasn’t the legal approach taken). Questioning the pay itself between the two jobs just seems to be reaching a bit; it looks like the store workers trying to enrich themselves. Which I don’t entirely blame them for, corporations are screwing basically everyone and this is their attempt to fight back, but in a bigger picture sense it doesn’t look like a just argument to me - it looks like a utilitarian attempt to rebalance power against the corporation by mildly unjust means, using a law that was put in place without enough forethought about how to quantify situations like this. So, y’know, not the good guys either, but we all know the corporation uses legal exploits to do worse, so I don’t know where that really leaves us.