retrac

57 ms·

841.
by retrac 3y ago
> still seems contemporary https://i.imgur.com/s8Zk7on.jpg The similarity is pretty amazing.
842.
by retrac 3y ago
I've been following speech recognition, in particular, since the mid-90s. Around 2000, after many hours of training the best speech recognition software available commercially, with a slight speech impediment (which does not confuse p
843.
by retrac 3y ago
> then I look at that 9" screen and go "Um, nah." System 7 is an interesting beast in terms of the era it spans. On one end, we have the Mac Plus from 1986 with its 9" screen and 68000 @ 8 MHz. It can run System 7.
844.
by retrac 4y ago
Ontario's 1990s curriculum was pretty awesome. The idea of dimension and sets were both introduced simultaneously and joined, using multiplication. Started in the 2nd grade and they just kept elaborating. Number lines and groups of
845.
by retrac 4y ago
There was an interesting offshoot from this idea. The depicted fax technology is analogue. It works really well on a quiet wire line, but even cross-country landline amplification in the USA in the 1920s or 1930s was pushing the limits of
846.
by retrac 4y ago
They were. The Mayans were perhaps the most consistent and precise, of all people doing astronomy, at least before telescopes. Unlike with almost all other ancient calendars, the alignment of the Mayan calendar to our own is known quite ex
847.
by retrac 4y ago
The pound was divided into 240 pence, or 20 shillings. So, 10 shillings is half a pound. 4 pence is 1/60th of a pound. So it's more "rounded" than it might seem. Much like how 3, 6, 9 and 12 feet are potential rounde
848.
by retrac 4y ago
Some form of backup heat is considered rather essential in many parts of Canada, including in suburban detached homes. A small fireplace-style natural gas burner that doesn't need electricity is common -- I think about 1 in 4 homes ha
849.
by retrac 4y ago
True. Since most current LLMs have no memory/state, do not update the model when inferring, and don't have any goals (beyond find the next token) the basic architecture is truly incapable of iteration, sequential reasoning, or &q
850.
by retrac 4y ago
It moves fast at the start so maybe not for the complete beginner, but I can really recommend "Lisp in Small Pieces" by Christian Queinnec: https://www.amazon.ca/Lisp-Small-Pieces-Christian-Queinnec/d... It
851.
by retrac 4y ago
Just something to consider: are you sure it's entirely you? And that you actually want to small-talk? I'm socially fluent and, at least when in the mood, can chat and bullshit about most things at length. But I don't lik
852.
by retrac 4y ago
> Hydrogen is currently impossible to generate efficiently (from an energy perspective) Thermolysis of water at high temperature directly driven by a nuclear reactor. Roughly a thousand tonnes of hydrogen per gram of uranium. Admittedly
853.
by retrac 4y ago
Just to nerd out a bit, according to the ST: TNG Technical Manual written by Michael Okuda (co-designer of the original LCARS graphically) and Rich Sternbach, LCARS is also a tactile interface. Pressure sensitive, with force feedback, dept
854.
by retrac 4y ago
Not just past tense. Here in Canada at least, many recent date/marker stones are still carved with Roman numerals. Bridges, in particular. The preservation in that specific context seems to hint at something. It's the same rea
855.
by retrac 4y ago
Well, I converted the image to greyscale and I have to say the additional hints are not particularly subtle. Because I still see the implied depth quite clearly: https://i.imgur.com/SxnZiwq.png It is a little more obviou
856.
by retrac 4y ago
It's not just about the cost. The mix of nuclear and locally-available gas and hydroelectric makes for a self-sufficient energy strategy, and that has always been a major concern. Yes, Ontario is synchronized with the US grid but it
857.
by retrac 4y ago
Nuclear power supplies about 50 - 60% of electric energy in Ontario, with 18 reactors currently operating, built 1970s - 1990s. Activated water with tritium in it has been released accidentally a number of times, and small amounts of tritiu
858.
by retrac 4y ago
Wind goes well with gas turbine generators, since they can match their output to demand and the supply of wind. Every watt-hour of wind energy you capture, is a watt-hour of gas you don't burn. Worst case scenario is no wind and you&
859.
by retrac 4y ago
Learn to walk before you run. As the article says, a self-contained environment capable of supporting multiple people, including their oxygen and food, while being able to contribute at least a little to their consumable use with local ac
860.
by retrac 4y ago
Heh. Still changed the last sentence a lot despite being intentionally all French-Latin to begin with, besides a couple unavoidable articles and prepositions.
861.
by retrac 4y ago
If you've ever wondered why English is described as a Germanic language, despite so much obvious French and Latin influence, this is why. Something like this is just not possible with (almost) 100% French/Latin vocabulary. The w
862.
by retrac 4y ago
> a credit union in Quebec and that very Credit Union turned us down too Perhaps somewhat impractical, but a quick skim of Ontario's credit union laws does not seem to preclude a credit union operated by a trade association of porno
863.
by retrac 4y ago
> but a surprising amount of content about inequality and injustices Is it inequality and injustice. where pointing it out. would actually threaten the power of the CCP? When I started reading Chinese language media I was surprised how m
864.
by retrac 4y ago
You're right about how machine learning is learning to approximate a function - most machine learning systems are mathematically equivalent to stochastic gradient descent, a statistical method which can, theoretically, do the same thin
865.
by retrac 4y ago
This shouldn't be too surprising. Similar results were had with GPT-3 a while back, which is kind-of-able to produce audio or images, encoded as streams of tokens, when trained on that task, despite not being designed for it. A very i
866.
by retrac 4y ago
Similar idea has occurred to me. In a lot of ways, 'traditional' rules-based AI has more 'understanding' than a LLM can have. Because those rules are fixed by humans to the machine's inputs, and they create a rela
867.
by retrac 4y ago
I still smile sometimes at the pop-ups. I mean, you can try and store a cookie. I'm still gonna automatically delete it in a few minutes. This never needed a legal solution in this form. Browsers should just not accept cookies, unle
868.
by retrac 4y ago
The TV tax is just that, a tax. A weird, oddly specific tax with its own weird, oddly specific tax enforcement department. But that's all it is. A tax. And yes, most countries with taxation collect taxes with threat of force.
869.
by retrac 4y ago
Exactly. After all, the PRC doesn't do it today. Nor did the later USSR. Not quite like they did back in the day. There was/is the whole thought control and censorship apparatus, and perceived enemies and threats were/are
870.
by retrac 4y ago
> The Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms prohibits anyone to treat you differently because of your language or accent https://www.cdpdj.qc.ca/en/your-obligations/prohibited-groun... Any human rights tribunal

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