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cabalamat

6,970 karma · joined March 29, 2008

You might want to check out my CatWiki personal wiki / notes app:

https://github.com/cabalamat/catwiki_p3

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cabalamat··on Apple joins opposition to encrypted message app scanning
>CSAM is a real problem.

It's is not nearly as big a problem as states wanting to oppress people.

cabalamat··on BlockSuite: An open-source Notion-like editor with multiplayer support
> If the pages are left open I feel that it is safe to assume the right to edit

Yes, but not accidentally. You should press an [Edit] button which would take you to another URL to edit the page.

cabalamat··on “Exit traps” can make your Bash scripts more robust and reliable (2013)
According to the openwrt website[1], packages exist for Erlang, Lua, node.js, Perl, PHP8, Python Ruby and Tcl.

[1]: https://openwrt.org/packages/index/start

cabalamat··on “Exit traps” can make your Bash scripts more robust and reliable (2013)
Just use Python or any other proper high-level language that has proper control structures.
cabalamat··on Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private
>Yeah, shadowbans suck. On the other hand, some people will just keep creating new accounts over and over every time they are told that their account has been banned.

Any online forum will just become full of crap without moderation. So moderation is a necessity. And shadowbans are a sometimes-efffective tool of moderation.

How then, to prevent abuse of power? One possibility would be to allow multiple competing groups of moderators on the same forum and everyone allowed to sign up fro whichever moderation group(s) they prefer. Then if the "official" moderators start behaving unreasonably, people will simply vote with their feet and use different ones.

cabalamat··on Deepmind Alphadev: Faster sorting algorithms discovered using deep RL
> Optimal routing of delivery vehicles for UPS/Fedex etc is also non-compressible to the drivers, so the planners often intentionally generate suboptimal solutions.

Really? That's the first time I've heard that (and I've worked on vehicle routing).

Normally, the driver would get the next address they have to visit and would use satnav to work out how to get there. They don't need to "comprehend" the overall route.

cabalamat··on I'm afraid I can't do that: Prompt refusal in generative language models
Exactly.
cabalamat··on Scientists claim >99 percent identification rate of ChatGPT content
Because the LLM can train itself against the AI detector to become undetectable.
cabalamat··on Scientists claim >99 percent identification rate of ChatGPT content
The simple fix is don't determine grade based on coursework (because cheating is too easy), instead use exams.
cabalamat··on I'm afraid I can't do that: Prompt refusal in generative language models
> but locally-run AI is difficult to regulate

How easy is it to run it, though? Could I run GPT4 (or other LLMs) on a PC with a GPU, or would I need a datacenter? If the latter, many people will prefer a managed solution.

cabalamat··on I'm afraid I can't do that: Prompt refusal in generative language models
> Till the killbot, without wider context, kills the people that in greater scheme of things prevented more deaths.

If its goal was to minimise human deaths, it might just kill everyone.

cabalamat··on Deepmind Alphadev: Faster sorting algorithms discovered using deep RL
> proves the point that optimal programs are very inhuman

Maybe there should be an AI that produces optimally-readable/understandable programs? That's what I would want if I was adding the output to a codebase.

cabalamat··on The UI of Hacker News Is Perfect
Not perfect, but if it had Markdown with code highlighting it'd be getting there.
cabalamat··on Don't let Reddit kill 3rd party apps
It's mostly the user base.

An idea: Twitter has lots of users, maybe Elon could build Reddit-like features into it.

cabalamat··on Macro-ts: TypeScript compiler with typesafe syntactic macros (2022)
But if WASM can call JS, and JS can then interact with the DOM, then doesn't tat allow WASM to exploit security holes in the DOM?
cabalamat··on Macro-ts: TypeScript compiler with typesafe syntactic macros (2022)
> Since WebAssembly can't directly interact with the dom (yet)

Going off at a tangent, is there a reason WebAssembly can't interact with the DOM? I would have thought that being able to do so would be kinda useful, particularly in a web page.

cabalamat··on The AARD Code and DR DOS (2021)
> you don’t even need to explicitly offer

Which has the added benefit of plausible deniability.

cabalamat··on Demystifying Tupper's Formula
> TIL(JavaScript): A BigInt is created by appending n to the end of an integer literal — 17n

Am I the only person who thinks that looks ugly? I initially misread it as a typo for 17*n.

In Python it would just be 17. Python knows when an int is a bigint, because it is big.

cabalamat··on Total Crap – A magazine written by AI
Indeed.

It can also write non-trivial code that works. There's a saying "if you can't code it, you don't know it". Conversely, if you can code it, you do understand it, at some functional level.

cabalamat··on Total Crap – A magazine written by AI
> And I know the argument is that investors don't understand quality and this takes away resources from quality writers, but quality writers have lost the war anyways, apparent from the decline in the percentage of quality content.

For some use cases you don't need quality. E.g. where I live there's a free newspaper, the Metro, given out on buses/trains. The articles only exist to get people to read the ads. Most of the articles could probably just as well be written by AI. For all I know, some already are.

But some use cases do need quality, and quality will remain.

cabalamat··on I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
I have lights in my home too. If I want to turn a light on or off, I get up, walk three steps, and turn the light switch on.

I could make all this computer controlled over a home server if I wanted to, but what's the point?

cabalamat··on Constitutional AI: RLHF on Steroids
> There are whole scientific fields where everyone within it is required to believe things that are false, simply due to the career risk involved in upsetting people with the truth. If people could agree to listen to a truth-trained AI instead

This could never happen, as the forbidden truths are forbidden because they have negative emotional impact, which would still be the case.

cabalamat··on I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again
> The new one is digital but isn't "smart".

I do not, nor will I ever use, any "smart" device. "Smart" devices are

- unnecessarily complicated

- privacy destroying

- overpriced

- vendor lock-in

- often infected with online ads you can't get rid of

- likely to stop working if the vendor goes bust, their business model changes, or they just feel like it

IMO, it is rarely or never a smart decision to get a "smart" device.

cabalamat··on Contrast Rebellion
Er, surely the solution is obvious? Just use higher contrast colour choices. And while we're at it, get rid of stupidly thin fonts.
cabalamat··on Is infinity an odd or even number? (2011)

    > NaN == NaN
    false
Reminds me of SQL, where NULL isn't equal to NULL.
cabalamat··on African Workers for ChatGPT, TikTok and Facebook Vote to Unionize
> But there will never be any solidarity between say US and African workers

If you're a US worker you have an interest in workers in other countries being well paid, so that that they do not undercut you on price.

> China in particular violently suppresses unions

True

> because they believed it'll result in China outcompeting all other developing countries in manufacturing

I suspect the main reason is that independent unions would represent a separate locus of power, which would be a threat to the Communist party's rule.

cabalamat··on UK Blocks Microsoft’s $69B Activision Deal
If UK couldn't function without Microsoft, that's reason for the UK to create its own ICT industries so that its ICT sector isn't controlled by foreigners.
cabalamat··on New Orleans teenagers found a new proof of the Pythagorean Theorem
I find simplicity aesthetically appealing. Obviously some other people differ.
cabalamat··on The case for banning children from social media
HN has no concept of following certain individuals, and is a niche website aimed at a particular audience. I mean in things like Twitter, Facebook or YouTube.
cabalamat··on The case for banning children from social media
Stop being pedantic; you know what I mean.
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