4 ms·

Maybe I'm just getting old but the "if you don't spend $20,000 on a workstation you're going to be left behind like a dinosaur" at the top of this article is a

by khuey 5mo ago

Maybe I'm just getting old but the "if you don't spend $20,000 on a workstation you're going to be left behind like a dinosaur" at the top of this article is a huge turn off to reading any further. And I say that as someone who owns a workstation with more cores than the author's.

toast0 5mo ago
If we're being overly generous, they're saying you need at least a raspberry pi? You can see a 3x improvement there, which shows the pattern works, and that's good enough for a dinosaur (this interpretation is easier to justify if you just skim the article... Which I did the first time) But agreeing with you, I've done big optimization stuff for multicore servers (not as many cores, but same kind of work) and my workstation was something small with not even the same os. I don't need the big machine on my desk to understand the concepts. I just need the big machine to check my work. For me, that's always been a production machine, sometimes a production machine taken out of rotation for pre-validation before running on production load. I guess I should mention, I work on applications specifically, and libraries and kernels as it relates to making whatever my application is work better. I also don't have a problem with pinning threads to cpus... but my applications are usually one big program that fills the system. Someone writing a general purpose library has a harder time. Of course, if you want to do this kind of work and you don't have your own production load, you're going to have to borrow, rent, or buy a big machine. It doesn't need to be your workstation though. I hate working with cloud nonsense, but if your tests are short, and you do the upfront work to make your images start fast, you can probably save a lot of money by renting spot instances when testing ... I don't know if you can do spot instances of bare metal though, so you're probably stuck with vm overhead.
- khuey 5mo ago
  Yeah, you can rent an equivalent workstation from AWS for under $10/hour (and that's the on demand price) so I don't think cost is a huge barrier to doing this sort of work. The language and listing the prices of the workstations down to the penny just strikes me as a rather unprofessional way to communicate.
  - eff-nix 5mo ago
    [dead]
lpapez 5mo ago
Except that is not what the article says and you clearly missed the sarcasm.
Avicebron 5mo ago
The author was also asking for money to buy a house in SF and travel on private planes like a few days ago..the donation must have really showed up if they are using 20k machines at home.
- blauditore 5mo ago
  Do you have a link?
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - insamniac 5mo ago
    https://web.archive.org/web/20260529122658/https://justine.lol/animus/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260529122658/https://justine.l...
    - blauditore 5mo ago
      I was wondering if the author is joking, but after reading a bit more about the attribution drama, it seems rather a lack of reality check and reflection. If you plagiarize work, get called out on it, and then call this "harrassment", I don't know...
    - nick__m 5mo ago
      That's reads like an egotic cocaine fueled rant mixed with a PBS pledges drive. I understand why the author deleted it !
- nutjob2 5mo ago
  > I have nothing against this person. Your bad faith reading of that article says otherwise. It's bleedingly obvious that it's satire. Do you think people seriously ask for donations to fund a private airplane? $20K of gear isn't that much if you're an independent developer, and if you're working for others as such in the US, and you're not a financial basket case, it's doable. She even says "It put me in the poor house for a few months" so she made sacrifices to get there. You can too, if you want to. Why the envy? To the contrary, so you really seem to have a problem with her. [references https://web.archive.org/web/20260529122658/https://justine.lol/animus/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260529122658/https://justine.l... ]
nutjob2 5mo ago
She's clearly making a point about taking advantage of the optimization/algorithm she's pitching, and doesn't seem very serious. Alternatively, someone reading that as a serious claim is rather naive.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
kitd 5mo ago
Go to the end. Those machines were provided by the companies discounted so she could continue her llm research. She's not saying "anyone who's anyone" has a 1024-core workstation these days.
loeg 5mo ago
I wouldn't read it too literally. I read it as jokingly rationalizing an obviously overkill self-indulgent purchase.
- camgunz 5mo ago
  I gotta think people are working pretty hard to not see it's a joke.
keybored 5mo ago
Yep. The consolation is I guess that it might be better if developers with such modest means as “splurged on” two 20KUSD~ work stations (and left in the “poor house” for a few months, oh my) are competitive instead of absolutely all of us becoming compute renters. But then they go on to take a Gemini job[1] so I dunno, more consolidation than consolation perhaps. [1] TFA says “job offer” but another comment[2] says that they work there. [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48348919 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48348919

by khuey 5mo ago

toast0 5mo ago

If we're being overly generous, they're saying you need at least a raspberry pi? You can see a 3x improvement there, which shows the pattern works, and that's good enough for a dinosaur (this interpretation is easier to justify if you just skim the article... Which I did the first time) But agreeing with you, I've done big optimization stuff for multicore servers (not as many cores, but same kind of work) and my workstation was something small with not even the same os. I don't need the big machine on my desk to understand the concepts. I just need the big machine to check my work. For me, that's always been a production machine, sometimes a production machine taken out of rotation for pre-validation before running on production load. I guess I should mention, I work on applications specifically, and libraries and kernels as it relates to making whatever my application is work better. I also don't have a problem with pinning threads to cpus... but my applications are usually one big program that fills the system. Someone writing a general purpose library has a harder time. Of course, if you want to do this kind of work and you don't have your own production load, you're going to have to borrow, rent, or buy a big machine. It doesn't need to be your workstation though. I hate working with cloud nonsense, but if your tests are short, and you do the upfront work to make your images start fast, you can probably save a lot of money by renting spot instances when testing ... I don't know if you can do spot instances of bare metal though, so you're probably stuck with vm overhead.

khuey 5mo ago
Yeah, you can rent an equivalent workstation from AWS for under $10/hour (and that's the on demand price) so I don't think cost is a huge barrier to doing this sort of work. The language and listing the prices of the workstations down to the penny just strikes me as a rather unprofessional way to communicate.
- eff-nix 5mo ago
  [dead]

lpapez 5mo ago

Except that is not what the article says and you clearly missed the sarcasm.

Avicebron 5mo ago

The author was also asking for money to buy a house in SF and travel on private planes like a few days ago..the donation must have really showed up if they are using 20k machines at home.

blauditore 5mo ago
Do you have a link?
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- insamniac 5mo ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20260529122658/https://justine.lol/animus/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260529122658/https://justine.l...
  - blauditore 5mo ago
    I was wondering if the author is joking, but after reading a bit more about the attribution drama, it seems rather a lack of reality check and reflection. If you plagiarize work, get called out on it, and then call this "harrassment", I don't know...
  - nick__m 5mo ago
    That's reads like an egotic cocaine fueled rant mixed with a PBS pledges drive. I understand why the author deleted it !
nutjob2 5mo ago
> I have nothing against this person. Your bad faith reading of that article says otherwise. It's bleedingly obvious that it's satire. Do you think people seriously ask for donations to fund a private airplane? $20K of gear isn't that much if you're an independent developer, and if you're working for others as such in the US, and you're not a financial basket case, it's doable. She even says "It put me in the poor house for a few months" so she made sacrifices to get there. You can too, if you want to. Why the envy? To the contrary, so you really seem to have a problem with her. [references https://web.archive.org/web/20260529122658/https://justine.lol/animus/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260529122658/https://justine.l... ]

nutjob2 5mo ago

She's clearly making a point about taking advantage of the optimization/algorithm she's pitching, and doesn't seem very serious. Alternatively, someone reading that as a serious claim is rather naive.

deleted 5mo ago

[deleted]

kitd 5mo ago

Go to the end. Those machines were provided by the companies discounted so she could continue her llm research. She's not saying "anyone who's anyone" has a 1024-core workstation these days.

loeg 5mo ago

I wouldn't read it too literally. I read it as jokingly rationalizing an obviously overkill self-indulgent purchase.

camgunz 5mo ago
I gotta think people are working pretty hard to not see it's a joke.

keybored 5mo ago

Yep. The consolation is I guess that it might be better if developers with such modest means as “splurged on” two 20KUSD~ work stations (and left in the “poor house” for a few months, oh my) are competitive instead of absolutely all of us becoming compute renters. But then they go on to take a Gemini job[1] so I dunno, more consolidation than consolation perhaps. [1] TFA says “job offer” but another comment[2] says that they work there. [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48348919 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48348919