kashyapc

11 ms·

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by kashyapc 3y ago
You make excellent points; I agree. Especially, a non-maintainer with a high-quality contribution gaining trust. Many times, (tired) maintainers are forced to "rubber-stamp" and merge such high-quality patches. It could be du
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by kashyapc 3y ago
No counter-argument; fully agree. FWIW, that's what I was referring to when I said, "fat companies" (and executives) glossing over the important tedious here[1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39905
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Yeah, as I note elsewhere in this thread, the OpenSSL "Heartbleed" saga should've taught some lessons, but alas, it's "classic" human nature to repeat our mistakes.
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Given this disaster, one or other "foundation" will now embrace the `xz` project, start paying a maintainer or two so that they don't accidentally end up dying from burnout. Rinse, repeat for all critical-path open source sof
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by kashyapc 3y ago
While "open source" fundamentally doesn't work that way, the point here is about maintainers , not regular contributors. Identity of new maintainers must be vetted (via in-person meetups and whatever other mechanisms) by ot
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Careful there. By saying "many of the results", you're hand-waving most of the book. The book covers over several decades of his collaborative research with Amos Tversky. Most of the "underpowered studies" are i
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Yeah, that's an excellent book, too. Thanks for reminding, I need to re-reread parts of it.
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Yeah, while I appreciate the little classic, "Elements of Style", it falls short[1]. As you say, "On Writing" is indeed a better practical guide -- just by reading the first 80 pages, you get a lot of value out of it. An
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Excellent point on "Death of a pig" by E.B White. It's the perfect example of a timeless essay, without a "big scientific idea". For others unaware of it, that essay was written in 1948[1], go read it in full. It st
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Very well said, all are smooth, snake-oil salesmen. (You might know, Greene is a mentor of Holiday.)
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by kashyapc 3y ago
It's that time of the year again. Newport (a relentless marketer, a bit like Tim Ferris) has been on a contract to churn out these filler "books" based on the same bloody theme for years . I've been harping on it since
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Yeah; it is absurd hyperbole. The only person I've seen talk sensible on these topics is Stuart Russell of "Human Compatible" (read the book, it's written with great clarity). He has his head firmly on his shoulders and
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Also see the "somatic marker hypothesis"[1][2] by neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio. It's about how various internal body "markers" deeply influence decision-making. I first read it in his 1991 book, Descarte's
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by kashyapc 3y ago
I agree. I indeed meant the non-technical complexities that (a certain kind of valuable) experience brings.
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Based on my understanding[1] about the board, essentially it's all "I know a guy who knows a woman who knows a guy" situation. I.e. a conflict-of-interest minefield. Also, none of them seem to have the temperament either (the
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Thank you for the context; much appreciate it. In short, it's all "I know a guy who knows a guy".
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by kashyapc 3y ago
(I can't comment on the workforce question, but one thing below on bringing SamA back.) Firstly, to give credit where its due: whatever his faults may be, Altman as the (now erstwhile) front-man of OpenAI, did help bring ChatGPT to t
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Silicon Valley outsider here. Am I being harsh here? I just bothered to look at the full OpenAI board composition. Besides Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman, why are these people eligible to be on the OpenAI board? Such young people, calli
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Fair question. I meant it should be talked with more nuance and specifics, as the definition of "AGI" is what you make of it. Also, I hope my response to tempestn clarifies a bit more. Edit: I'll be more explicit by what I
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Fair point. I don't want to split hairs on specifics, but I had in mind the "weak AGI" (consciousness- and sentience-free) vs "strong AGI". Since Shank 's comment didn't specify what they meant, I should
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Hi, can we talk about the elephant in the room? I see breathless talk about "AGI" here, as if it's just sitting in Altman's basement and waiting to be unleashed. We barely understand how consciousness works, we should st
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Sorry for being vague. I was not at all referring to his answer per se. But rather his high-brow reference to Plato. If he has truly read and digested Plato (and not just skimmed a summary video), he would not be in this ditch to begin with
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by kashyapc 3y ago
On lying: There's a great irony here. Altman apparently accepted[1] "Hawking Fellowship Award on behalf of OpenAI" at the University of Cambridge. I kid you not, sitting in a fancy seat, Altman is talking about "Platoni
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by kashyapc 3y ago
From where I'm sitting (not in Silicon Valley; but Western EU), Altman never inspired long-term confidence in heading "Open"AI (the name is an insult to all those truly working on open models, but I digress). Many of us who
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by kashyapc 3y ago
I think Daniel Kahneman phrases it better: "Money doesn't buy you happiness, but lack of money does buy you misery!" Anyone "rich" who forgets this is inhaling their success too deeply and is not acknowledging the
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Isn't it the same story with every other "smart" device these days? Headphones, smart watches, etc? A new release almost every couple of years, causing a deluge of waste. That's our "growth at all costs" so
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by kashyapc 3y ago
While I love working from coffee shops, one thing I really get grumpy about is people taking meetings out loud. If you're taking a meeting from a quiet corner while not disturbing others, it's fine. What drives me up the wall is
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by kashyapc 3y ago
(Disclaimer: I work for Red Hat, but I don't work on the kernel. I'm a user-land mammal, and sometimes work with kernel maintainers to debug issues.) It makes total sense and I support this. I've met some of the upstream Li
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Meanwhile, as I started to learn my 5th language (French), I just came across this article[1], where it claims studying a new language can "interfere" with other languages you know. To selectively quote: "[...] we can conclud
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by kashyapc 3y ago
Of course they're "not compelled to". Why would they? The legal/regulatory "situation" allows them to get away at this point. I hope we fix this kind of pilfering soon. We're still navigating the sleazi

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