tauon's recent activity
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Comment on The first multi-behavior brain upload in ~science
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Comment on Is it worthwhile to run local LLMs for coding today? in ~comp
tauon Link ParentInteresting! I’ll have to do some more testing, then. :-) I haven’t really gotten into the details with that yet so far as my hardware isn’t that great, so I’ll generally only play around with...Interesting! I’ll have to do some more testing, then. :-)
I haven’t really gotten into the details with that yet so far as my hardware isn’t that great, so I’ll generally only play around with local models, but not actually try to be productive with them, but I’ll keep this in mind.
I was especially surprised with this recent Qwen 3.5 release as they published both 27B and 35B models, two distillations so “close” together in a range above 10B parameters hasn’t really been usual as far as I can tell? And I might even be able to run them as 4-bit! -
Comment on Is it worthwhile to run local LLMs for coding today? in ~comp
tauon Link ParentI’d like to point you to some of the lengthy, very in-depth industry analyses of Ed Zitron’s blog to re-change your mind again :-) Most recently I started reading his recent NVIDIA analysis....wondering if the current AI boom really is a bubble
I’d like to point you to some of the lengthy, very in-depth industry analyses of Ed Zitron’s blog to re-change your mind again :-)
Most recently I started reading his recent NVIDIA analysis.
Genuine thoughts at the moment: The tech itself in the AI and LLM space can be truly incredible, and these companies’ valuations can be massively overblown currently. Both could easily hold true at the same time.
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Comment on Is it worthwhile to run local LLMs for coding today? in ~comp
tauon (edited )Link Parent70B parameters will probably be a rather tight fit for 48 GB of VRAM at say an 8-bit quantization, based on the model size numbers for the newly released Qwen 3.5 family here. Edit: But that...70B parameters will probably be a rather tight fit for 48 GB of VRAM at say an 8-bit quantization, based on the model size numbers for the newly released Qwen 3.5 family here.
Edit: But that doesn’t mean the smaller models aren’t capable! I mean, I’ve tested both
qwen3.5:2bandqwen3.5:9bon nearly four year old fanless laptop hardware and was surprised at the quality of outputs.
Innovation in the space is going pretty crazy currently, IMO. Even if most any locally-ran models won’t compare to the big guns you can get from cloud hardware… especially once you start to factor in the price of things. Subsidized models like GPT 5.3 (Codex) or Claude as Opus 4.6 are hard to beat in that regard, at least from what I can tell so far. -
Comment on Google quantum-proofs HTTPS by squeezing 15kB of data into 700-byte space in ~comp
tauon Link ParentMan, just imagine the damage that’d be possible if some foreign state actor ever manages to smuggle an asset high up into the Cloudflare chain. They have consolidated so much power over ensuring...Man, just imagine the damage that’d be possible if some foreign state actor ever manages to smuggle an asset high up into the Cloudflare chain. They have consolidated so much power over ensuring the modern internet is, well, in a functional state, within just one company.
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Comment on Bookmark management for non-technical people? in ~tech
tauon Link ParentThis sounds cool! In terms of feedback: At least for me, having some level of “additional notes” field would be nice, although you could probably cover quite some ground with just extended...This sounds cool!
In terms of feedback: At least for me, having some level of “additional notes” field would be nice, although you could probably cover quite some ground with just extended metadata capabilities. E.g. [link] discovered via [other related bookmark], saved on yyyy-mm-dd, Internet Archive version as a related link, etc. etc.
Unfortunately, I don’t actually think I’m in your target demographic, at least for this “just starting out” phase: I tend to browser-hop quite a lot, and that includes non-Chromium based browsers. Currently in rotation alone I have Helium (Chromium-based), Zen (Firefox-based), Orion (Safari/Webkit base), Min (Chromium-Electron-minimalist sandbox), and Orion and Firefox again for mobile.
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Comment on How far back in time can you understand English? in ~humanities.languages
tauon (edited )Link ParentLike many of the blog post’s commenters, my understanding essentially completely checked out somewhere in the 1200s text. I already knew most of the runic letters beforehand, too. But my first...Like many of the blog post’s commenters, my understanding essentially completely checked out somewhere in the 1200s text. I already knew most of the runic letters beforehand, too.
But my first language is German. I don’t think it’s as much of an advantage as you’d initially think, interestingly.
I’m guessing this has to do with most German speakers not knowing what to do with vocabulary from Germanic speakers/writers of that time in “their” language, either – it’s just too far removed to understand without training, so it doesn’t provide useful knowledge in another related-but-old language either.
Edit: And it’s not like I don’t have experience with other Germanic languages. I can understand some written Dutch, I’ve lived in Denmark, and Danish (or Norwegian) can also be somewhat manageable when it’s “easy” sentences.
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Comment on Apple brings age verification to UK users in iOS 26.4 in ~tech
tauon (edited )Link ParentInteresting question, but I think it’d be impossible to impose that on every internet-capable client. Remember it’s not just browsers, you can just as well curl-download a GitHub build asset. So...Interesting question, but I think it’d be impossible to impose that on every internet-capable client. Remember it’s not just browsers, you can just as well
curl-download a GitHub build asset.So with that in mind, essentially every http-capable library in every programming language would have to implement this in order to actually block everyone not verified, which I… just don’t see happening. And if it did; there’d be new clients popping up that simply don’t care.
Alternatively, they could “just” force the website/remote service, i.e. GitHub, to block any asset download request not associated with a data point from the “age bracket system API”, but that seems equivalent to the internet protocol ending up dead and useless, and software being shared via radio waves or physical media from there on out.
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Comment on Is it possible to live without WhatsApp? in ~tech
tauon Link ParentI’m curious what “staying in touch” looks like these days for a Facebook user? (I’ve never used the platform for that, or intensively in the first place, and not at all for about a decade now.)...I’m curious what “staying in touch” looks like these days for a Facebook user? (I’ve never used the platform for that, or intensively in the first place, and not at all for about a decade now.)
What makes it hard to do the same staying-in-touch outside of Facebook?
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
tauon (edited )Link[Genres: Hip-Hop/Rap (mostly*)] While I don’t really use last.fm, for this week and probably many to come, I couldn’t even properly make a chart if I wanted to: I finally saved, tagged & organized...[Genres: Hip-Hop/Rap (mostly*)]
While I don’t really use last.fm, for this week and probably many to come, I couldn’t even properly make a chart if I wanted to: I finally saved, tagged & organized – and expanded – my local collection of Blaccmass remix songs!
Due to the nature of these remixes (see below), they’re typically not really published on the usual streaming platforms but rather all over the place on YouTube, SoundCloud, and even Instagram, so I downloaded the ones I knew I wanted to have and was still missing, added metadata tags to all .mp3 files for original artists and song title(s), and gave them an album cover image. I’m now at ≈70 tracks and about 2.5 hours of runtime in my collection, and not even done yet! I’ll continue to download and categorize new mixes that I find & like. (At least wherever possible, I don’t even know all of the beats he uses for these songs.)
Typically, a Blaccmass remix will be of the type “new” rap flow over “old school” beat, or vice versa, and it tends to work incredibly well… not the least due to Blaccmass’ unique ability to hear good “matches” in advance
- 50 Cent on the Leon Thomas “Mutt” instrumental
- Clipse "Chains & Whips" on Frank Ocean "Novacane"
- Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) Freestyle on Kendrick Lamar's "Worldwide Steppers" (2nd Beat)
- Pop Smoke on the “Still D.R.E.” beat
- Migos’ Straightenin over Kendrick’s Euphoria beat
Another common theme is genre-crossovers:
- If Future made Jazz music
- R&B Gunna
- Lil Uzi Vert over MJ’s Billie Jean
- Clairo on a Drill beat
- Migos x Fergie
Trying not to sound too much as if I only listen to pre-2000’s music, this works very well due to a lot of rappers making rather, ahem, unpleasant-to-the-ear beat choices at times these days** compared to the more… mellow? instrumentals being used here – and due to Blaccmass meticulously changing the extracted vocal recordings’ tempo, pitching, sometimes even chopping them line-by-line when it’s required to really fit the second instrumental.
Here’s a snippet from a (rather rare) interview appearance of Blaccmass where he talks about his process for creating these mashups/remixes: https://youtu.be/duZ5SvpvLpsCome to think of it, his work reminds me a bit of AriAtHome’s live music production (see recent discussion on here): It’s typically hip-hop, raw, incredibly well-sounding and put-together, made with love and attention to the detail – and not only to maximize the commercialization of music.
Also, just to completely change gears for the end, I’ve been getting into UK-style DnB again. :P
*mostly that means hip-hop/rap vocals, but sometimes it’s “only” the instrumental that’s taken from a hip-hop or R&B song, which also works super well:
- Night Call (Adele’s Hello on Frank Ocean’s Nights)
- Billie Eilish on production from a Miguel track: Wildflower x Sure Thing and Birds of a Feather x All I Want Is You
**Seriously, listen to Future’s or Lil Uzi’s original songs for the examples I gave above. They’re not necessarily bad per se, it’s just that the remixed version is so much more exciting and fresh than a lot of these original beats. Same for this standout of Kodak Black on an old school beat flowing like his life depended on it vs. his feature part in the original Lil Yachty song where it’s just more… forgettable.
Edit/addendum: This is a CarPlay screenshot of what it looks like now with my proper tagging & sorting. Much, much better :D
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Comment on Jon Stewart is our only hope in ~society
tauon Link ParentI don’t disagree with you on that, I’m just saying that ideally this issue could have been tackled at e.g. the primaries level already so you’d have two candidates with meaningfully different...I don’t disagree with you on that, I’m just saying that ideally this issue could have been tackled at e.g. the primaries level already so you’d have two candidates with meaningfully different stances on the topic in the actual election; and that Harris’ campaign shouldn’t have suffered due to this specifically, but very likely did. I.e., the anti-Harris pro-Gazan people (non-)voter demographic helped reelect Trump.
In any case, while all political systems are flawed, I’m thankful to be living in a place with more than two major parties as a baseline. For all the complaining/ranting I could go on regarding national and local elections herr – it really does help to represent a wider spectrum. -
Comment on Reversing the technical interview in ~comp
tauon Link ParentThanks for posting, I read the entire series immediately! The one I’m still laughing about the ridiculousness of two days later (and in turn also shared with friends) was Rewriting the technical...Thanks for posting, I read the entire series immediately! The one I’m still laughing about the ridiculousness of two days later (and in turn also shared with friends) was Rewriting the technical interview for me – it even ends on a good note, with a job offer for the witch. :-)
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Comment on 52 years later, only known copy of Unix v4 recovered from randomly found tape, now up and running on a system — first OS version with kernel and core utilities written in 'newfangled language' C in ~tech
tauon LinkOh man, that’s cool! Truly ancient Unix archeology ;-) I don’t feel like figuring out the download and archive extraction right now, but I wonder how much of the C still drops down to Assembly...Oh man, that’s cool! Truly ancient Unix archeology ;-)
I don’t feel like figuring out the download and archive extraction right now, but I wonder how much of the C still drops down to Assembly because back then, that probably still seemed like the “easier”/more familiar language of the two…?
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft - Get hyped countdown thread in ~games
tauon Link ParentIt’s that many people?! I never knew. I might have to get involved at some point then, too :-) (Always wanted to last season already, but never quite got around to it)It’s that many people?! I never knew. I might have to get involved at some point then, too :-)
(Always wanted to last season already, but never quite got around to it)
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Comment on Jon Stewart is our only hope in ~society
tauon Link ParentThis is not (edit: should not be) a factor in the decision. If the other option – Trump and Vance – does the same, it cancels out when choosing who to vote for. It wouldn’t make a difference, so...She also refused to pay even lip service on Gaza
This is not (edit: should not be) a factor in the decision. If the other option – Trump and Vance – does the same, it cancels out when choosing who to vote for. It wouldn’t make a difference, so you look at all other factors in the decision.
Having to choose this way is an unfortunate effect of first-past-the-post voting, because it’s more likely to find similar stances in just two candidates vs. in a plurality of parties/candidates.
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Comment on Five browser extensions to make every website more useful in ~tech
tauon Link ParentIn addition to what @jonah said*, since I believe earlier this year Kagi has offered a “Privacy Pass” which just checks whether you have a search token available, and then consumes it, without...In addition to what @jonah said*, since I believe earlier this year Kagi has offered a “Privacy Pass” which just checks whether you have a search token available, and then consumes it, without tying anything to your account at all. It’s pretty neat, although my trust in them is high enough at this point that I haven’t extensively tested it if I’m being honest. :P
*which also implies that no previous search results affect future ones via opaque “personalization”, unless you specifically want them to do so via e.g. custom page rank/preference tweaking or search lenses
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Comment on How Europe is gearing up to follow Australia's teen social media ban in ~tech
tauon (edited )Link ParentThe APIs for digital age verification based on personal ID cards, which have had chip capabilities for a while now, exist here in Germany, and I imagine in the wider EU too. The issue is it’s...The APIs for digital age verification based on personal ID cards, which have had chip capabilities for a while now, exist here in Germany, and I imagine in the wider EU too.
The issue is it’s slightly more costly to set up than looking at (and then storing forever…) photos of that ID card compared to having the user do an NFC-like scan and then a simple, binary “over/under” age check in the app, where no personal info, not even date of birth, would have to be stored.
That is to say, I also would like to keep using e.g. Discord without uploading photos of my ID, and it’d be possible for them, but I’m not holding out much hope.
Further reading: The online ID card functionality (original in German, Kagi-translated page).
Later edit: Here’s a CCC talk also about this topic, dubbed English version available for free.
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Comment on Trying to bring musicians and listeners together again - FLAPJams.com in ~music
tauon LinkQuick thought + first impressions: If I wanted to upload an R&B track, I wouldn’t know where to put it. :-) Maybe either as another genre crammed into the “Pop+” category, or as its own standalone...Quick thought + first impressions: If I wanted to upload an R&B track, I wouldn’t know where to put it. :-)
Maybe either as another genre crammed into the “Pop+” category, or as its own standalone thing?
Other than that, everything I’ve seen on the site looks very nice!
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Comment on Trying to bring musicians and listeners together again - FLAPJams.com in ~music
tauon Link ParentSo I never knew macjams.com, but its (and flapjams’) five second pitch sounds like it could be “SoundCloud but for-fun and not for-profit”, is that somewhat correct?So I never knew macjams.com, but its (and flapjams’) five second pitch sounds like it could be “SoundCloud but for-fun and not for-profit”, is that somewhat correct?
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
tauon Link ParentIf you want to answer, 1) how do the backups work? and 2) do they resume automatically if you’re away from home and there’s a power loss event? I’ve been thinking about a migration from (in my...If you want to answer, 1) how do the backups work? and 2) do they resume automatically if you’re away from home and there’s a power loss event?
I’ve been thinking about a migration from (in my case Apple) cloud to local storage (NAS) too, at least for the big media files, and that’s the one thing that’s been keeping me off*. Can you actually fully restore from the backup in a reasonable amount of time? If so, I’ll have to look into it too :-)
*I could probably do another backup local-ish to the area by getting either of my parents to set up hardware at their place, but I think I’d prefer cloud, just haven’t properly looked into the options that exist there yet.
100% we are barreling towards something difficult. “Ethically complicated” is the undersell of the decade.
For some reasons as to why, I implore everyone curious enough to check out this thread in the first place to read https://qntm.org/mmacevedo.
It’s essentially sci-fi horror written as a future Wikipedia-style article.