schmonie's recent activity
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Comment on Using work OSX machine while travelling in ~comp
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
schmonie LinkSunbather - Deafheaven I never really used to “get it” until recently. I really enjoy black metal and it pops up often in those circles as a sort of alternative/adjacent album to take a look at....I never really used to “get it” until recently. I really enjoy black metal and it pops up often in those circles as a sort of alternative/adjacent album to take a look at. The first time I listened to it, I didn’t like it because it felt weird and didn’t have the “darkness” of black metal.
I’ve been giving it a second listen and it’s really growing on me. It’s actually incredible how they can take many of the sounds of extreme metal and give them this sonic brightness. At the same time, this album just feels so sad. I feel it nails so accurately this unique feeling of sadness, loneliness and even quietness while basking in the intense sun, even if that’s not actually what the album is about. This feeling of abrasive brightness and the emptiness of experiencing this brightness and nothing more, is something I haven’t felt when listening to any other album.
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
schmonie Link ParentI’ve always wondered if they own “business.net” or someone somewhere is potentially getting all sorts of joke emails hahaI’ve always wondered if they own “business.net” or someone somewhere is potentially getting all sorts of joke emails haha
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Comment on ChatGPT's odds of getting code questions correct are worse than a coin flip in ~tech
schmonie LinkHas anyone else noticed ChatGPT getting way worse lately? I understand Open AI are very keen on safety, and have written posts/papers (sic) on what they call the “Alignment Tax” (which back in the...Has anyone else noticed ChatGPT getting way worse lately? I understand Open AI are very keen on safety, and have written posts/papers (sic) on what they call the “Alignment Tax” (which back in the ye old days of < 1 year ago we called I think “catastrophic forgetting”) but I find it has gotten consistently worse at programming in particular because over time. Friends and colleagues who use it to validate math proofs also say it’s gotten worse there.
My tin foil hat theory is that they are trying to upsell GPT4 by making 3.5 “safer” and “faster” (meaning probably smaller and less performant)
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Comment on US Education Department readies latest tranche of student debt relief but faces new legal challenges to the program in ~finance
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Comment on AI does not exist but it will ruin everything anyway in ~tech
schmonie Link ParentI definitely agree. I work heavily in this field and one thing that I’ve grown to believe is that intelligence is not an emergent property of humans or even life itself, but an emergent property...I definitely agree. I work heavily in this field and one thing that I’ve grown to believe is that intelligence is not an emergent property of humans or even life itself, but an emergent property of the universe. Highly proficient language models are often conflated with AGI because as people, language captures almost all of what we are able to experience or conceive.
Using neural networks as an example, they do learn novel, intelligent concepts that were not explicitly taught and that we do no understand. This has been the case for nearly a decade—For instance, image models have been shown to exhibit an understanding of 3D space, even though they have not been given 3D information. Recently, LLMs have been shown to exhibit spatial reasoning to an extent, and can lean on language to explain their conclusions and even arrive at better conclusions for doing so. They are also self reflective without being trained specifically to be reflective.
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Comment on Evernote, the memory app people forgot about, lays off entire US staff in ~tech
schmonie Link ParentYou're forgetting one of the most influential ones in the history of computing: Bell Laboratories. If you measure success by profit, then they probably wouldn't count, since they were a strategic...You're forgetting one of the most influential ones in the history of computing: Bell Laboratories. If you measure success by profit, then they probably wouldn't count, since they were a strategic endeavor. Through bad management, they went from one of the most influential institutions in the world (in many areas of science) to a shadow of itself. A string of mergers and acquisitions saw them changing hands constantly, many of their super stars left, some even across the river, to New York, to big tech companies' campuses in the city or founded their own companies.
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Comment on Sound enthusiasts - share your system in ~hobbies
schmonie LinkI mainly use headphones and just recently scored a pair of Campfire Andromeda IEMs off eBay for less than half of what they retail for. I have a little FiiO BTR5 DAC that I used with my phone, and...I mainly use headphones and just recently scored a pair of Campfire Andromeda IEMs off eBay for less than half of what they retail for. I have a little FiiO BTR5 DAC that I used with my phone, and I feel it makes a real difference to the openness as compared to the little Apple DAC. The IEMs themselves sound absolutely incredible and I’ve heard details in songs I’ve loved for years that I have never heard before!
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Comment on What are your experiences with leadership and ego? in ~talk
schmonie LinkIn my experience it certainly seems easier to enter a place of leadership with ego. With ego seems to come decisiveness, which of course is a good quality for a leader. The flipside to that--how...In my experience it certainly seems easier to enter a place of leadership with ego. With ego seems to come decisiveness, which of course is a good quality for a leader. The flipside to that--how good those decisions are--determine how good a leader that person is. We get bad leaders when they make poor decisions, but not poor enough to remove them from leadership. Being a leader means that everyone else suffers/benefits from your actions.
With ego can also come selfishness, which of course is a terrible quality in a leader. If your actions affect everyone, but you give the impression that you're making these decisions for your own interest, how does that affect the trust your team puts in you? If your team doesn't trust you, how can you expect to realize your goals?
A good leader to me recognizes that success is a concerted effort, and that egoism (especially towards their own team) gets in the way. So while egoism often correlates with the qualities we see in leaders, it's not necessary for good leaders to be egotistical.
On being promoted to leadership, I think it has a lot to do with the current culture. For better or worse, people often promote the people they like. If a self-centered egotistical person is in charge, they're probably more likely to promote someone similar to themselves, since they see that as the 'qualities' of a leader. And the cycle continues.
I think the definition of what a 'good' leader is really matters here as well--A good leader to someone who doesn't manage anyone might look different to an executive leader. Finally, I think everyone to an extent functions from a place of self-interest, which isn't necessarily bad. So yes, I do think all leaders function from a place of self-interest, but the degree to which that interest drives their decisions is very important.
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Comment on Pentagon to filmmakers: We won’t help you if you kowtow to China in ~movies
schmonie LinkI had no idea that the DOD would assist private filmmakers regarding censorship of their film overseas. What's the advantage of the government assisting with that in the first place?I had no idea that the DOD would assist private filmmakers regarding censorship of their film overseas. What's the advantage of the government assisting with that in the first place?
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Comment on Air travel is profoundly bad for the environment but one of the hardest industries to decarbonize. Can green technologies make a difference before it’s too late? in ~transport
schmonie LinkThis website seems to suggest the breakeven point for when flying and driving emit the same carbon emissions, is if the size of your travel party is around 2 people. So if your alternative is to...This website seems to suggest the breakeven point for when flying and driving emit the same carbon emissions, is if the size of your travel party is around 2 people. So if your alternative is to drive (as it is in much of the US) air travel is not markedly worse than driving.
29% of US greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation and 83% of that 29% come from cars and trucks.
I am all for doing your part to reduce carbon emission on the consumer level, because it's the right thing to do. The idea that consumers' choices are the largest contributor to carbon emissions and climate change is IMO a bold lie to distract from the industries who are much bigger contributors to destroying the planet.
To me, this is not a problem that is going to be solved on the demand side (i.e.: a consumer choosing between air travel or a train), because you cannot hand-waive away what is ultimately the demand for energy at a certain price. Rather, it will need to be fixed on the supply side, like cleaner electrical grids, oil refinement, agriculture, and energy efficient manufacturing.
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Comment on The small web and minimalist websites - what are your thoughts and experiences? in ~tech
schmonie Link ParentDo you have any gemini sites you would recommend or a BBS site you'd recommend? I've browsed a little bit but it can be harder to find things on Gemini as compared to the normal web.Do you have any gemini sites you would recommend or a BBS site you'd recommend? I've browsed a little bit but it can be harder to find things on Gemini as compared to the normal web.
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Comment on Two authors file a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT unlawfully ‘ingested’ their books in ~tech
schmonie Link ParentMy thoughts too. From what I've heard, the publishers do have a reasonable shot at this. If something like this goes to court, and a ruling is made, it's going to have outsized impact on the AI...My thoughts too. From what I've heard, the publishers do have a reasonable shot at this. If something like this goes to court, and a ruling is made, it's going to have outsized impact on the AI industry. IANAL, but I feel this could similarly call into question much more of the crawled data that modern language modeling datasets are based upon.
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Comment on Two authors file a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT unlawfully ‘ingested’ their books in ~tech
schmonie Link ParentThe books2 / books3 datasets have been around for a long time, and have appeared in countless published papers on new language models. Up until very recently, most of these models have themselves...The books2 / books3 datasets have been around for a long time, and have appeared in countless published papers on new language models. Up until very recently, most of these models have themselves been open-source and freely available. IMO OpenAI is getting heat for this because (1) they are being deliberately secretive about the sources of their training data (even if the rest of the industry is using the same data in question) (2) they have a direct profit-incentive from their model, and money has now exchanged hands for something that may have been created with copyrighted work (3) it put this sort of situation on the map for book publishers, who probably had little (financial) reason to care when these datasets were just being used for pure research.
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Comment on Two authors file a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that ChatGPT unlawfully ‘ingested’ their books in ~tech
schmonie LinkThere is a bit of a stink going on in the language technology space right now regarding the legality of a very popular dataset called books3, which is a dataset comprised of pirated books from the...There is a bit of a stink going on in the language technology space right now regarding the legality of a very popular dataset called books3, which is a dataset comprised of pirated books from the (I think) now-defunct site "bibliotik."
This dataset is used in open source language models, but probably also used by OpenAI at some point. While the dataset has been around for years now, publishers are now calling into question whether or not it's legal to obtain or even use this data.
It also calls into question the license that model creators can put on their work. Most off-the-shelf language models are pretrained to simply recite their training data verbatim--So if you create a model that does this with copyrighted work, do you have the authority to actually license your model as something more permissible like Apache 2.0?
A popular dataset that uses books3 is called "The Pile" which is a varied collection of training data for causal language models. ElutherAI, the creators of "The Pile" actually address this copyright issue all the way back in 2020 in the original paper. Their reasoning is that the books, even in the training data, are not kept in their original form anyways, so fair-use should apply since the work is transformative (even for the dataset itself, let alone the downstream models(.
The difficulty here is that none of this has even been tried in a court before, so nobody knows for certain what the legality is of any of this.
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Comment on Those of you with standing desks, how are finding them and would you recommend? in ~life
schmonie LinkI use a standing desk at home and I regularly use it to sit and stand. Maybe about 30% of the time standing. I really do feel like it helps me feel less stressed. If I need to really focus on a...I use a standing desk at home and I regularly use it to sit and stand. Maybe about 30% of the time standing. I really do feel like it helps me feel less stressed. If I need to really focus on a task, I will however always choose to sit.
I think it makes you look better in meetings as well since at least for me, you can have better posture standing up than you would while sitting.
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Where to donate used boardgames?
Looking for recommendations or ideas of organizations that might appreciate some well-taken-care-of board games. They range in complexity from classics like catan to more complicated ones. My knee...
Looking for recommendations or ideas of organizations that might appreciate some well-taken-care-of board games. They range in complexity from classics like catan to more complicated ones. My knee jerk reaction is Goodwill but I figured there were other lesser known orgs that might receive direct benefit from them instead.
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Comment on Favorite blogs/publications for metal? in ~music
schmonie Link ParentGiving this a read right now--Loving it so far thanks!Giving this a read right now--Loving it so far thanks!
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Comment on How easy is it to change out parts on a watch? in ~hobbies
schmonie Link ParentDoes it need to be a chronograph? You'll generally have many more custom options for standard 3-hand watches. Check out @cswatches_official on insta if you're interested in some good custom seiko...Does it need to be a chronograph? You'll generally have many more custom options for standard 3-hand watches. Check out @cswatches_official on insta if you're interested in some good custom seiko options.
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Comment on I would really appreciate some help. Looking for moving, thoughtful or observant or interesting songs that aren't metal or rap/hiphop in ~music
schmonie LinkHow about Locket by Crumb? https://youtu.be/xwP8VWogVDA It’s a song that sticks out to me as one that is really excellent at creating a visual through both the mood of it’s tune, and narrative lyrics.How about Locket by Crumb?
It’s a song that sticks out to me as one that is really excellent at creating a visual through both the mood of it’s tune, and narrative lyrics.
Since you have admin privilege on your computer, what I would do is install a separate browser for your personal stuff, then uninstall it when you get back and remove all its other files. If you need your own software, you could download virtualbox and have a virtual machine volume, encrypted which you use for all your personal stuff. Then you can easily remove the virtual volume and virtualbox. I don’t know if this would be disallowed or not, or seen as a way of circumventing certain security features of your device.