edanm

8 ms·

61.
by edanm 11mo ago
> a state conducting a Nazi-style genocide (according to the UN). Can you provide a link showing that the UN is saying this? I kind of doubt the UN ever called it a "Nazi-style" genocide, and I don't think anyone serious
62.
by edanm 11mo ago
But isn't this true of all technologies? I know plenty of people who are amazing Python developers. I've also seen people make a huge mess, turning a three-week project into a half-year mess because of their incredible lack of
63.
by edanm 11mo ago
There are clear differences, I don't disagree, I just think the difference isn't "rooted in real physics" vs "rooted in imaginary physics". The difference is more a matter of tone and general setting. Space? It
64.
by edanm 11mo ago
> Firing is when employer terminates someone for cause, i.e. employee did something wrong or didn't meet expectations. AFAIK you are using the term "for cause" incorrectly. Firing "for cause" is usually more seri
65.
by edanm 1y ago
Some does, but often the source of interest in the story is making up a world in which some scientific law is different.
66.
by edanm 1y ago
Not really, no. A common sf theme is "here is this change to the laws of physics, what would our universe then look like". Eg Arrival (and the story it's based on), tons of books by Egan, any book with FTL.
67.
by edanm 1y ago
(Haven't read Tau Zero.) I agree, and sometimes the line is drawn between SF being "things that are theoretically possible" vs. Fantasy where things are impossible. But then you have things like Egan's Clockwork Trilogy,
68.
by edanm 1y ago
Practically speaking, they're lumped together for a few reasons: 1. Many people who like one genre also like the other. 2. Many authors write in both genres. 3. There's a lot of similarity in the genres, and lots of things that ar
69.
by edanm 1y ago
That's inaccurate. SF/Fantasy contains elements which are not possible under the laws of physics, not anything imaginary. Literary fiction is also imaginary, but taking place in "our world". (The lines get blurrier when
70.
by edanm 1y ago
Interesting idea. And pretty easy to try. If you do it, I'd love to hear your results. In general, I wonder if we're at the point where an LLM watching you interact with your computer for twenty minutes can improve your workflow,
71.
We are in the "gentleman scientist" era of AI research(seangoedecke.com)
5 points by edanm 1y ago|0 comments
72.
by edanm 1y ago
> My mental model is that what is called RAG can either be: RAG is confusing, because if you look at the words making up the acronym RAG, it seems like it could be either of the things you mentioned. But it originally referred to a speci
73.
by edanm 1y ago
Yes. And fittingly, Docker was born out of a Heroku competitor.
74.
by edanm 1y ago
Immediately thought of this. Even the watered-down version of wave was something I used at my host startup, it was effectively our project management tool. And it was amazing at that. I don't know how it would fare compared to the opti
75.
by edanm 1y ago
Seconded! This was an extremely well written and well thought out explanation of this idea. Would love to read more along these lines. (Will now be checking out your blog.)
76.
by edanm 1y ago
But no one is actually hurt by it. (I'm not saying you're wrong, btw. People aren't always rational.)
77.
by edanm 1y ago
Why? This net saves people money, because it makes markets reflect reality faster. Other than a vague sense of "fairness", can you articulate why insider trading should be illegal?
78.
by edanm 1y ago
As you said, this is in a very different context. He was building an OS, which was sold to highly technical users running their own programs on it. I'm talking about "shrinkwrap" software like Word or something. There's
79.
by edanm 1y ago
Out of curiosity, how do you assess software that you didn't write and just use, and that is closed source? Don't you just... use it? And see if it works? Why this is inherently different?
80.
by edanm 1y ago
In practice this is not how the term is used. It bugs me, because the acronym should encompass any form of retrieval - but in practice, people use RAG to specifically refer to embedding-vector-lookups, hence it making sense to say that it
81.
by edanm 1y ago
Hmm. Interesting. If I'm following you, then most "mathematical" CS is based on constructivist foundations? E.g. while a halting problem Oracle might "exist" in the mathematical sense, it's not considered to &q
82.
by edanm 1y ago
> We each find different things delightful. What I like, you may not. And vice versa. To be honest, I don't feel like I know enough about the constructivist philosophy. What would be a good place to start if I want to learn more abo
83.
by edanm 1y ago
> Therefore an oracle to decide the Halting problem does not exist within the constructible universe. I might be confused here, but isn't an Oracle to decide the halting problem something that everyone agrees doesn't exist? T
84.
by edanm 1y ago
Yeah, I think that's fair. On the other hand, I think it's really cool to teach laypeople about things like "sizes of infinities", etc. They are deep math concepts that can be taught with relatively simple analogies that
85.
by edanm 1y ago
> When you say "given ZFC", you're assuming a lot. Errr, I'm just assuming the axioms of ZFC. That's literally all I'm doing. > In what sense do [numbers that can't be finitely specified] exist? In t
86.
by edanm 1y ago
What leaps are "unprovable"? I'm curious, that doesn't sound right. For sure there are valid arguments on whether or not to use certain axioms which allow or disallow some set theoretical constructions, but given ZFC, is
87.
by edanm 1y ago
Oh wow. I feel like you should be royalty around here! I've been a happy user of autojimp for many years, and just made the switch to Zoxide last week because it's maintained. I feel vindicated now :)
88.
by edanm 1y ago
The main thing to make it clear is that BB(n) for a specific n isn't a function - it's a number. Just like Mult(10,4) isn't a function, it's a number (40). So a specific BB(n) is just a number and is computable.
89.
by edanm 1y ago
> The reasons why the original problem is so confusing is the same reason why the Monty Hall is so confusing: people have different understandings of the question, and don't realize it in discussions. I think this is true of the &qu
90.
by edanm 1y ago
> I read quotes like this and reminded that it is common that people forget money is just a competitive resource we use to outbid each other for _real_ things. But money is an abstraction of wealth, and wealth absolutely can be destroyed

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