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Kungfuturtle

46 karma · joined October 8, 2015

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Kungfuturtle··on GLM-5.3-Flash
One term of art that's emerged for this "feel" is "big model smell", first coined by @aidan_mclau. [0]

To my surprise I couldn't find any proper explainers of the term in a quick search, despite grokking it after seeing it in various contexts on Twitter, but Fable 5 offered a useful analogy: "A student who memorized worked solutions and one who understands the subject score the same on the test; you can only tell them apart by asking a question the test didn't. Real-world use is nothing but those questions, which is why a single AA number feels right and wrong at the same time."

In other words, big model smell is related to the underlying ability to "understand" when tasks are underspecified or out-of-distribution. This ability can be mimicked to parity by smaller, distilled models according to the density of the training data for particular tasks, but neural scaling laws still hold for generalized reasoning ability.

More recently with these smaller models, there's a separate but related "RL-fried" phenomenon, where they rely on CoT to "grind toward a checkable answer even in contexts (open dialogue, taste, ambiguity) where there is no checkable answer, and you get the tell: over-hedged, over-structured, relentlessly on-task, deaf to the subtext."

There are some other insights and caveats in the (short) conversation that I feel you may appreciate reading. [1]

[0] https://x.com/aidan_mclau/status/1807843014104211855 [1] https://claude.ai/share/d511a348-7c36-432f-a6d5-9deab2802615

Kungfuturtle··on Show HN: Hacker News em dash user leaderboard pre-ChatGPT
I've long been a fan of the em dash—one of the first things I did when I migrated back from OSX to Windows was to set up an AutoHotKey function to map <Alt>+<-> to an em dash.
Kungfuturtle··on Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex
This reminds me of Teilhard de Chardin's take on complexification, as laid out in his seminal book Le Phénomène humain. See e.g., this article[0] for a simple overview of the hypothesis. For further reading, I recommend the excellent new translation by Sarah Appleton-Weber, The Human Phenomenon[1].

[0] <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/%28SICI%2910...>

[1] <https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/...>

Kungfuturtle··on Bank run on Silicon Valley Bank
For what it's worth, I agree with you and feel those examples are indeed emblematic of our current economic mode.

The "alternative" you envision is premised on shifting power back to the masses, but I think it's also important to mention guardrails to prevent excessive capital accumulation. There would still be an economy, but it would be driven by a more egalitarian aggregate demand and less likely to suffer the shocks of boom bust cycles associated with financial malarkey.

Kungfuturtle··on 10-sec 1-leg stance duration predicts survival in middle-aged/older individuals
To say the quiet part out loud: your body's center of mass is located near your belly button. [0] You maintain balance through a combination of your vision, vestibular system, and proprioception [1]—focusing attention on your belly button keys into that last method and reinforces your overall sense of balance.

[0] https://www.professionalptandtraining.com/balance-strategy-b...

[1] https://www.neurolab360.com/blog/balance-and-proprioception

Kungfuturtle··on My macOS keyboard shortcuts
I would also suggest https://github.com/koekeishiya/skhd for hotkeys; it also pairs well with an associated project for window tiling and management: https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai
Kungfuturtle··on Intelligence as a Planetary Scale Process
Indeed, why not? ;)

There may yet be something to Teilhard de Chardin's take on the Noosphere which exists in a matrix of consciousness that spans planets, solar systems, galaxies, galaxy clusters, and indeed universes!

Kungfuturtle··on Scientists have found a way to harden wood to make a knife that rivals steel
https://youtu.be/Oadf4KNYz-I
Kungfuturtle··on US throws out millions of doses of Covid vaccine as world goes wanting
I encourage you to consider an alternative perspective, in which grocery stores intentionally restrict availability of food in order to artificially maintain high profits and externalize the costs of reprocessing for redistribution: https://twitter.com/a_vansi/status/1445450534672998407

What if, for example, food that would spoil in a couple more days were simply moved to a "free" section of the grocery store? No need for complex shipping or logistics costs, simply ask the stocker to move from one aisle to another. Why don't grocery stores do that, if they're concerned about "reducing waste"?

Kungfuturtle··on US throws out millions of doses of Covid vaccine as world goes wanting
Reading this comment and shaking my head, I am reminded of the Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Dont feed the trolls, folks.

Kungfuturtle··on The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance (2020)
One kind of building that I came across is called an "Earthship", which relies on "thermal mass construction and natural cross-ventilation to regulate indoor temperature".[1]

It will be somewhat difficult to retrofit buildings to take advantage of e.g. thermal mass inertia, but I'm hopeful that new construction will increasingly favor passive/low-energy cooling methods.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship

Kungfuturtle··on $100M xPrize for Carbon Removal
I highly recommend checking out https://twitter.com/BuildSoil if you're interested in learning more about this approach.
Kungfuturtle··on Clearview AI’s Entire Source Code Exposed in Security Error
More discussion here:

Security lapse exposed Clearview AI source code - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22892494

Also links to the full article on Tech Crunch.

Kungfuturtle··on Ask HN: Who Is Firing?
You should not use that term in that manner.
Kungfuturtle··on Ask HN: What projects are you working on now?
This is a super neat tool—thank you for creating and sharing!
Kungfuturtle··on Things that are illegal to build in most American cities now
No cars?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

More seriously, my guess is that you enjoy those streets because there's so much more character to them. They are generally part of an older, more storied urban core, so the streets are more imbued with a "there"ness of the community.

Contrast this with the experience of walking down a recently-gentrified street.

Kungfuturtle··on A new India is emerging, and it is a country ruled by fear
2nd-gen Indian in Austin here: many folks in my generation are highly critical of Modi and the BJP, but just as many if not more are casual supporters. I honestly do find the more informed they are about Modi's policies, the less likely they are to support him.

My parents' generation on the other hand range from moderate supporters, who have "some qualms" about e.g. Kashmir/Assam, to fervent supporters of his nationalist identity and agenda.