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maaaaattttt
Joined 415 karma
Side projects:

Puzzle game

* https://reach-100.com


  1. It's still not possible because of the high speculative aspect (even though stable coins offer some form of alternative but since they are anchored on the dollar, not so much). Change will happen when more people are impacted by unilateral decisions. If all of a sudden the US decided you/your business/your political party/your government is not aligned with their views, they could make sure that Visa/Mastercard/Paypal/Stripe/... stop accepting payments for that given group. Then you realize there are very little alternatives ready to go in that case (for online payments there are, but for physical ones not so much). So far this hasn't seem like a possibility at all, but, in my view at least, this has changed this past year.
  2. In recent months I changed views and shifted from the desilluioned "this is a casino" mindset that is described in this article to a "we need this now" one. An example in this article [1], the US can now unilateraly decide to prevent an individual anywhere in the world from having a functioning financial life and this because of the quasi (western) duopoly that is Visa and Mastercard. Nothing against the US in general, this is simply too much power to put in a single decisional entity, whatever/wherever it is. The "crypto" related systems now seem like a needed extra option to the current payment system (the same way cash is almost always an alternative to credit/debit card payment and vice versa)

    [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/19/n...

  3. Speaking of TF-IDF I once added it “after” the recommendations to downscore items that were too popular and tended to be recommended too much/with too many other items (think Beatles/iphone) and inversely for more niche items. It might be too costly too do depending on how you generate the recommendations though.
  4. Not sure if you’re joking but a relatively small datacenter I’m familiar with has reduced oxygen in it to prevent fires. If you were to break in unannounced you would faint or maybe worse (?).
  5. It’s the most likely explanation I believe. I have no idea about the content distribution of the training data but I would have assumed twitter and Reddit content would completely dwarf the literary content. Somewhat good that if it’s indeed not the case!
  6. I think this whole em dash topic should lead to some deeper (though not very deep) conversations:

    * If it was not widely used before where/how did (chat)GPT picked it up?

        * If it was widely used, then it shouldn't be a topic at all. But, there seems to be informal agreement that it wasn’t widely used.
        
        * Or, could GPT have inferred that even though it's not widely used, it's the better way to go (to use it). Which then makes one wonder about the whole probability of next token idea. Maybe this line of thinking falls too short of what might be really going on internally.
    
     * If it had picked up something that is widely used but in the wrong way, it should make us pause (again) about the future feedback loops these LLMs, which aren't going away, are already creating. Not just in terms of grammar and spelling but also in terms of way of thinking and seeing the world.
    
    (edit: formatting)
  7. Maybe do something close to what I like to believe the brain does and have a meta model wrap a "base" model. The meta model gets the output data from the base model (edit: plus the original input) as input plus some meta parameters (for example the probability each token had when it was chosen and/or better which "neurons" were activated during the whole output sequence which would include the Persona they mention). It's then the meta model that generates new output data based on this input and this is the output that is shown to the user.
  8. Given your premise (which I agree with) I think the issue in general comes from the lack of a good, broadly accepted definition of what AGI is. My initial comment originates from the fact that in my internal definition, an AGI would have a de facto understanding of the physics of "our world". Or better, could infer them by trial and error. But, indeed, it doesn't have to be the case. (The other advantage of the Zelda games is that they introduce new abilities that don't exist in our world, and for which most children -I've seen- understand the mechanisms and how they could be applied to solve a problem quite naturaly even they've never had that ability before).
  9. I've said this somewhere else, but we have the perfect test for AGI in the form of any open world game. Give the instructions to the AGI that it should finish the game and how to control it. Give the frames as input and wait. When I think of the latest Zelda games and especially how the Shrine chanllenges are desgined they especially feel like the perfect environement for an AGI test.
  10. That's what I understood from the explanation on stackexchange. But given what you said, if we take the plank length as the shortest length unit, and we consider two theoretical "objects" placed at one plank length away from each other. Does the universe expanding for these two objects mean: 1. the plank length is becomming bigger, 2. more plank lengths are added in between the two objects, 3. Something else and I'm completely off
  11. On a somewhat related note I'm wondering what the expansion of the universe means for our bodies and matter in general? I think, like the accepted answer suggests, the forces on the atomic level make it so that larger structures get back to a certain equilibrium even if constantly streched equaly in all directions. But I have a hard time imagining what the universe expanding really means on a human/solar system scale. I know of the inflatable balloon analogy, but to me, matter is not on the ballon, rather it is the rubber the ballon is made of.

    I have never seen this really explained in details to the general public which I belong to. Maybe that's a sign I'm completely misunderstanding the subject though.

  12. This was a great read, thank you for sharing it!
  13. It makes sense to me... I think. And I like this vision as well. It would explain the big bang (initial black hole formation), why the universe is expending (at probably non constant rates over time) which would be the black hole "ingesting" matter and growing and maybe also why time and space are one. Same as you, a take from complete uneducated pop-sci fueled imagination.
  14. The Fountainhead has many flaws (IMO) but a scene I remember very well that I recall often, is the one where Peter Keating finally reaches the top of the firm, sits in his office, and starts crying. To me, and I guess to the author, it represents this aspect of having externally defined goals (as opposed to personnaly/intrinsic defined) and how unfulfilled you feel if/when you achieve them.

    People (me included) often get confused and think that their goal of climbing the career ladder or being able to afford the nice <anything> is goal set by themselves only, when in fact it is a goal most likely induced by society and/or to reach a given social status. If you pause for a second and think honestly about your current goals you can probably identify the ones that are truly yours and the ones that are expected by society.

    In the book "The subtle art of not giving a fuck" there is in addition to that the notion of open ended goals as a rule of thumb of good goals to have. And this to me is probably the equivalent of "constraints" in this essay. Make sure the goals you follow are set by you and not expectations of society and try to make and formulate them as open ended goals.

  15. And if it’s employees? Do you ask them to contribute to the company’s taxes as well? After they’ve paid their own?
  16. Apologies for opening a tangeant on a tangeant, but am I the only one who thinks there are 2 levels of playing master mind (and therefore wordle)? Easy level, you let the player know exactly which spots are correctly placed and which ones are there but incorrectly placed. Hard level, you let the player know only that some are correctly placed and some are there but incorrectly placed without identifiying which ones. I personnaly don't enjoy the easy level when playing mastermind, but I do enjoy the hard version which is much more investigative and in my opinion triggers the same brain process as when I'm debugging code.
  17. I believe so too. The API they provide doesn’t need to respond with the exact address until an approved carrier makes an identified request. The availability of that API needs to be perfect though!
  18. Lately I this idea for email. It would work like a twitter handle for the user but similarly to domains and dns under the hood. Then you just use this handle to register and receive email communication. If you change email provider or get locked out for some reason you can just update the email the handle points to.
  19. I think that's the bet many investors are making at the moment. And if it pays off, it will do so big times as it will be almost impossible to maintain a codebase without an LLM. Therefore making them indispensable for the company using/working on said codebase. If they continue to perform linearly from the point we are now, though, then the only option is to continue making better LLMs capable of comprehending the relative mess the previous one made. Which at the limit means betting on AGI. If for some reason the progress doesn't come fast enough and too many people are making that bet, then developpers (the ones left) can expect even higher salaries than before...
  20. Or, it could be the usual VC startup playbook playing out. Offer a great service with great quality for free -> capture users. Once you're happy with your number of users, slowly lower the quality of the free service (meanwhile continue capturing users). Once they start to complain about the quality, introduce a paid "premium" tier that is just the initial service restored to its original quality (with one or two smaller features added to not be too obvious).

    You can re-apply the process later to move users to higher tiers.

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