Greg's recent activity
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Comment on Hackers expose the massive surveillance stack hiding inside your “age verification” check in ~tech
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Comment on Hackers expose the massive surveillance stack hiding inside your “age verification” check in ~tech
Greg Link ParentThere is a chicken and egg question there though: who/what was the driving force that pushed through unpopular and extremely technically flawed legislation like the OSA to create that liability in...There is a chicken and egg question there though: who/what was the driving force that pushed through unpopular and extremely technically flawed legislation like the OSA to create that liability in the first place?
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Comment on Reuters reveals Banksy's identity in a long investigation in ~arts
Greg Link ParentYeah actually, now that you say it a couple of those do only really make sense if they had someone doing specific searches on their behalf. I'll be honest, I wasn't reading with absolute full...Yeah actually, now that you say it a couple of those do only really make sense if they had someone doing specific searches on their behalf. I'll be honest, I wasn't reading with absolute full focus on this one, and I was parsing "sources told us" as the more casual scenario - I think that still could've plausibly been the case for a couple of things they said - but you're right that "no record" for specific names, and referencing the specific passport details for others, very much sounds like someone was taking the reporter's questions and typing them straight into the main system, which definitely isn't a great look.
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Comment on Reuters reveals Banksy's identity in a long investigation in ~arts
Greg Link ParentI imagine it's a bit more casual than that; I'm sure most immigration officials would rightly balk at sharing actual private records, but I'm also sure that if you're a reporter working locally...I imagine it's a bit more casual than that; I'm sure most immigration officials would rightly balk at sharing actual private records, but I'm also sure that if you're a reporter working locally it's totally plausible to have a conversation like "Hey, Anton, your cousin works at the border post, right? Can you ask him if he saw [notable celebrity] a few weeks ago? I got a tip that he might've visited...".
That said, I'm kinda ambivalent about the article as a whole - I think it's right about the public interest argument in a broad general sense, I think it makes some very fair points about Banksy getting special treatment that other artists don't, and I personally think that Banksy's messaging is pretty trite anyway, but I also think that Banksy absolutely does needle at establishment thinking in a way that seems to resonate with a wide audience. The tone the article uses when talking about him doesn't quite sit right with me in terms of what it suggests about their motivations in publishing it, even though that's more of a broad feeling than a specific fault in what they're saying.
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Comment on The billionaire ‘buccaneer’ braving the Strait of Hormuz in ~transport
Greg Link ParentI definitely got “loveable rogue” from the word choice - I think buccaneer in particular conjures Jack Sparrow at worst, but more likely Dread Pirate Roberts. My split second reaction was an image...I definitely got “loveable rogue” from the word choice - I think buccaneer in particular conjures Jack Sparrow at worst, but more likely Dread Pirate Roberts. My split second reaction was an image of that kind of classic brash protagonist in fiction, doing what it takes to get the important work done because that matters more than your rigid rules, goddammit!
And then I asked myself that very same question as the top comment: is he putting himself in danger to do important work because he believes in it? Or is he putting his employees in danger and taking his cut of the profits?
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Comment on Why do I almost never catch colds anymore? in ~health
Greg Link ParentMuch appreciated, thank you! That was in equal parts illuminating and worrying - it definitely does slot neatly into my experience of the last few years, although I'm trying to resist falling too...Much appreciated, thank you! That was in equal parts illuminating and worrying - it definitely does slot neatly into my experience of the last few years, although I'm trying to resist falling too much into confirmation bias, especially on something I can't actually do that much about here and now. It'll be good to keep an eye on the topic now that I know it's one to be watched, either way - partly because it's good to be informed, partly because it's good to have some indication it's likely not my imagination.
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Comment on Lords a-leaving: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years in ~society
Greg Link ParentI mean... yeah, pretty much with you! I don't know, maybe I'm misreading your tone, maybe we're missing each others nuances, I guess I feel like what you're saying has the sound and shape of a...I mean... yeah, pretty much with you! I don't know, maybe I'm misreading your tone, maybe we're missing each others nuances, I guess I feel like what you're saying has the sound and shape of a disagreement but the things you're saying are more or less the same as what I'm saying and what I think @mat was saying.
It's not about making any excuses for heredity as a system, or suggesting that good kings can somehow justify it as a practice - they obviously can't. It's just an observation that the chances of a given individual who actively seeks power through wealth being the right person to wield it, especially with the preconditions on gaining that wealth and power in our current system, are even lower than the chances of an individual with power arbitrarily thrust upon them being the right person to wield it.
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Comment on Lords a-leaving: Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years in ~society
Greg Link ParentReading this and largely agreeing with both you and @mat, as I think you’re actually more or less agreeing with each other, I read the original line you quoted to mean: I don’t think anyone’s...Reading this and largely agreeing with both you and @mat, as I think you’re actually more or less agreeing with each other, I read the original line you quoted to mean:
Oligarchs are far [more harmful]. They're deliberate. Peers are just accidents of birth.
I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that hereditary rule is anything other than morally abhorrent, and I don’t think anyone’s saying it shouldn’t be abolished - but from a purely practical perspective, the individual you end up with in a hereditary position is kind of a biased random choice. Each person filling the seat is their own individual in a way that’s not directly correlated with any specific set of qualities.
Compare that to the billionaires who influence politics, and there’s an incredibly strong selective pressure towards ruthlessness, selfishness, grandiosity, and a whole bunch of other qualities that are terrible in a position of power.
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Comment on Why do I almost never catch colds anymore? in ~health
Greg Link ParentHuh, that'd absolutely fit with my experience! It's good to know that there's at least some evidence of a link there, thanks for that. I should do some more reading around this, get a better...Huh, that'd absolutely fit with my experience! It's good to know that there's at least some evidence of a link there, thanks for that. I should do some more reading around this, get a better picture of what the current state of knowledge is - don't suppose you happen to have any good article links you've seen on the topic?
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Comment on Why do I almost never catch colds anymore? in ~health
Greg Link ParentSeconding this - I pretty much never used to get whatever random things were going around, had COVID several times (including a really nasty case the first time, even after vaccination), and...Seconding this - I pretty much never used to get whatever random things were going around, had COVID several times (including a really nasty case the first time, even after vaccination), and nowadays it seems like I'm continually getting colds and coughs and generally feeling a bit gross.
It's actually a really frustrating and noticeable change that I've been trying to figure out how best to deal with. Now that you mention it I've also been dealing with a lot of stress, so perhaps that does also have something to do with it, and it sounds like a good thing to focus on improving either way.
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Comment on Meta to acquire Moltbook, the social network for AI agents in ~tech
Greg Link ParentMarketing stuff is how you do it. The most lucrative is rarely the first or the best, and I think that’s a real shame, because if we aligned the incentives better we could have a lot more smart...Marketing stuff is how you do it. The most lucrative is rarely the first or the best, and I think that’s a real shame, because if we aligned the incentives better we could have a lot more smart people focused on quality and utility.
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Comment on Norwegian influencer buys failed property development in Spain to build ‘self-sufficient’ eco-community – Modern Eco Village plans to erect 500 homes, schools and shops in ~design
Greg Link ParentOuch, I can see why you're wary of a 1:5 ratio, in that case! I was seeing numbers around 30% at that ratio but I guess that's gonna depend heavily on mortgage rates in the time and place someone...Ouch, I can see why you're wary of a 1:5 ratio, in that case! I was seeing numbers around 30% at that ratio but I guess that's gonna depend heavily on mortgage rates in the time and place someone buys.
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Comment on Norwegian influencer buys failed property development in Spain to build ‘self-sufficient’ eco-community – Modern Eco Village plans to erect 500 homes, schools and shops in ~design
Greg Link ParentAre you thinking house prices or monthly payment? I've heard 30% of monthly income used as a rule of thumb for housing expenses, although as you rightly say it's kinda the only option for a lot of...Are you thinking house prices or monthly payment? I've heard 30% of monthly income used as a rule of thumb for housing expenses, although as you rightly say it's kinda the only option for a lot of people to go past that with current prices, but it should be plausible to hit that number on the monthly costs with reasonable mortgage assumptions if the house value is 5x salary. Then again, maybe I've just spent so many years in such an insane housing market that I'm seeing 30% as a lofty goal rather than the worst case limit it perhaps should be!
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Comment on Norwegian influencer buys failed property development in Spain to build ‘self-sufficient’ eco-community – Modern Eco Village plans to erect 500 homes, schools and shops in ~design
Greg Link ParentVery fair, and honestly I'd take wired smart home hardware as a significant reliability and security selling point if I were buying it. If it does turn out they're using that with properly...Very fair, and honestly I'd take wired smart home hardware as a significant reliability and security selling point if I were buying it. If it does turn out they're using that with properly shielded cables and that nobody can use their phones inside any of the houses because they've got Faraday cage mesh in the walls and no WiFi, I'll upgrade my assessment of these guys from "run of the mill fools and/or grifters" to "surprisingly well informed but damagingly misguided"!
But I'd also make a significant bet that anyone described as an influencer isn't actually blocking WiFi and phone signals in their newly built community...
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Comment on Norwegian influencer buys failed property development in Spain to build ‘self-sufficient’ eco-community – Modern Eco Village plans to erect 500 homes, schools and shops in ~design
Greg LinkAh yes, the lesser known pneumatic variant of the Zigbee spec 🙄 It’s a shame, I’m all for intentional community building, and starting with clear goals and an architectural plan to support that is...…a community that would be self-managed, with “smart homes, EMF and toxic free.”
Ah yes, the lesser known pneumatic variant of the Zigbee spec 🙄
It’s a shame, I’m all for intentional community building, and starting with clear goals and an architectural plan to support that is an important part of doing so. But that six word quote tells me all I need to know about the people running it and their grasp on those tricky concepts like “objective facts” and “evidence”. Fair play to the journalist for choosing that specific snippet to put it in the article though!
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Comment on Is it worthwhile to run local LLMs for coding today? in ~comp
Greg Link ParentVery strong agree. That doesn’t seem like an inherently bad thing, though? There’s no point doing a task that a computer can do unless you enjoy it or you can do it better than the computer, and I...I genuinely think we do not hate billionaire tech CEOs enough and we shouldn't have to take their shit just because some people have been fooled into thinking they are our friends.
Very strong agree.
We're talking about a technology whose key selling point is the potential to create mass unemployment.
That doesn’t seem like an inherently bad thing, though? There’s no point doing a task that a computer can do unless you enjoy it or you can do it better than the computer, and I don’t really get people’s desire to pretend otherwise. Doing things manually just for the sake of employment seems dystopian to me - it’s like the idea of making people dig holes and fill them in again just so they can be paid for the “work”.
I know (or at least I hope!) that’s not what you’re advocating, but it’s the logical end state when you worry about jobs and about specific technologies. Protecting employment is basically never the answer; structuring society so that people can live by doing only the work that’s actually necessary and contributing is.
And if that sounds depressingly unrealistic? Well yeah, I agree on that too. Like you say, the billionaires are winning, so ultimately most of our anger is probably futile either way. So if I’m going to burn energy on it either way, I’m gonna be angry in the direction of restructuring work itself rather than protecting jobs that don’t need to be done.
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Comment on What I dislike the most about the US in ~society
Greg Link ParentThe other side of this coin is that (ideally, and often genuinely) the line of thinking applies just as much to caring about the impact caused by the in-group. If harm to them is an echo of harm...The other side of this coin is that (ideally, and often genuinely) the line of thinking applies just as much to caring about the impact caused by the in-group. If harm to them is an echo of harm to the individual, and pride in-group achievements - or, more often, achievements of unrelated individuals within the group - is pride shared by the individual, then shame or guilt in the actions of the group reflects back on the individual too.
The difference in emotional proximity may broadly be human nature - although I’m not really convinced that seeing a nation state in particular as the in-group is as universal as you might expect - but either way I sincerely hope that the average person would care just as much if their neighbour’s kid killed someone, or burned down a building, as they would if that same kid were the victim.
The idea that US troops are emotionally close enough to mourn, but that deaths on the other side are just that: abstract “deaths on the other side”, rather than killings at the hands of those US troops who people feel that emotional kinship with, is something that absolutely warrants introspection.
And as with the hypothetical neighbour’s kid, context matters. If they killed someone in the legitimate defence of other innocent people, they would have my sympathy for ending up in such a traumatic situation. If they killed someone in an armed robbery gone wrong, I would be utterly disgusted, angry, and dismayed. But either way I’d care.
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Comment on Is it worthwhile to run local LLMs for coding today? in ~comp
Greg Link ParentThe 27B model is monolithic, and it'll fit on higher end consumer GPUs at reasonable quantisation (should be able to run on a 32GB card at 8 bit and a 16GB card a 4 bit, I think) - and I'd bet...The 27B model is monolithic, and it'll fit on higher end consumer GPUs at reasonable quantisation (should be able to run on a 32GB card at 8 bit and a 16GB card a 4 bit, I think) - and I'd bet they were very specifically considering that when they chose the parameter count. If you ignore overheads a parameter is one byte at 8 bit quant, half a byte at 4 bit quant, so you're looking at nominal 27GB or 13.5GB VRAM for the model itself and then that leaves a sensible amount free for context window etc. on a 32GB or 16GB card, and lets you do long context and extra caching on a 24GB card at 4 bit.
The 35B model is MoE rather than monolithic - the full name is 35B-A3B, meaning "active 3B", so it'll run on hardware that's too small for the 27B altogether or run much faster on the same hardware by offloading inactive parts of the model. Basically the 27B model is "what's the best quality we can get within the bounds of current consumer GPUs?" and the 35B-A3B is "what's a reasonable balance of quality and performance with the fewest possible active parameters?". They're using more parameters total (which they couldn't do on the 27B version without pushing it out of reach of most users) to somewhat compensate for the fact that fewer will be active at any given time.
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Comment on Electricity use of AI coding agents in ~enviro
Greg Link ParentI’m speculating here, so apologies in advance if you’re basing that on info I don’t have, but I’d always assumed that pushing the cost onto the business affected their supply chain and process...I’m speculating here, so apologies in advance if you’re basing that on info I don’t have, but I’d always assumed that pushing the cost onto the business affected their supply chain and process decisions far more than it affects consumer behaviour.
I wouldn’t expect most people to notice a 1% price difference in most products they buy, for example, but to a major manufacturer that’ll add up to a pretty significant difference in profit. They’ll absolutely build their process around coal furnaces and grinding up endangered species if solar power would be 1% more expensive, and you could even argue they’re incentivised to do so because if they don’t their competitors will, but a carbon tax gives both options something closer to the true price and all the companies rationally choose solar on a level playing field instead.
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Comment on UK supermarket chain Iceland has abandoned its decade-long trademark battle with Iceland and instead promised a “rapprochement discount” for shoppers in the country in ~finance
Greg (edited )Link ParentYou've got me reminiscing on the tech of years gone by now - I did a little bit of digging to make sure the cobwebs in my memory from back then weren't playing tricks on me, and it's been a fun...You've got me reminiscing on the tech of years gone by now - I did a little bit of digging to make sure the cobwebs in my memory from back then weren't playing tricks on me, and it's been a fun little blast from the past!
"App Store" was definitely popularised by Apple, the average person wasn't really talking about smartphones at all before then, but you could've made a fairly reasonable argument for it already being a generic term among early adopters even at the time - the word "app" for mobile applications wasn't too unusual by the time the iPhone came out, and there were definitely app-store-like services long before then even if they used different branding.
AppForge, a mobile app development company with their own download portal, had already lived, died, and been bought out by Oracle before the iPhone was even announced in late 2007. The Sony Ericsson P800/P900 had a download client that was branded as the "Application Shop Client" way back in 2003 (at least in the UK - I wouldn't be surprised if that was "store" in the US, but the search term is so flooded that I couldn't find anything definite on that). I found a few more general uses of the word app predating the iPhone on that site too, but nothing as interesting as those first two.
[Edit] Side note that I forgot to mention - that last link is one of the most accurate predictions I’ve seen for a 20 year horizon in any context! I’m genuinely impressed how close he got it, from terminology to functionality to user needs to the impact on other device markets.
It’s a confusing one, because the same people simultaneously say they support age checks, say they don’t think they’ll work, say they’ll lead to data breaches, say it’ll lead to government censorship, and say they’re not willing to go through the age verification process themselves: https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/britons-back-online-safety-acts-age-checks-are-sceptical-effectiveness-and-unwilling-share-id
The vast majority of the conversation I’ve seen around it is on the age verification side, too, not really on curtailing the power of foreign big tech in the same way that, say, GDPR is seen. Maybe that’s partly my bubble, but the polling does seem to focus that way too.
Perhaps calling it unpopular was oversimplifying, but I do still think the broader question stands: people are at best confused, and more broadly somewhere between sceptical and hostile to what they understand of the OSA - so what’s driving the spike in very similar laws in multiple countries right now when that confusion and/or hostility suggests it’s not a matter of the people demanding it?