microtonal

Ukraine is taking back terrain currently:

https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraine-has-retaken-745-sq-km-...

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/85252

Russia is successfully fighting the entirety of NATO

It is not. The primary reason that Russia can even keep up is that it has many more citizens that can be thrown in the meat grinder and can work in arms factories and it has a larger industrial base than Ukraine. If you would tell most experts before the invasion, that it would've ended up as it did, they would have laughed their heads off. They would have told you that the Ukraine army would not be a match for the Russian army and they would have told you that the response of the West would have been divided.

Russia has ~146M citizens, Ukraine has ~29M citizens within land that it currently controls. Russia's estimated GDP is $2.66 trillion, Ukraine's GDP is $225 billion. That's 5x as many citizens and a 10x larger economy.

A real conventional war against NATO would be a completely different story. Sure, NATO countries would have to catch up with drone production and defense, but a lot of knowledge transfer and co-development is already happening. But NATO's economy and population is several times larger than Russia's. If NATO countries switched to a war economy, it would not be a fair game.

Of course, Putin knows this and he also knows the real weaknesses: there is a change that not all countries will uphold Article 5 and coordination might end up in a mess if the US would bow out, because command & control has always largely been handled by the US. This is why he is constantly testing how strong Article 4 and 5 are on an escalating ladder. The other weakness are disinformation campaigns through social media, which are working really wel for them, both in the US and in various European countries.

(I don't think it's useful to talk about nuclear war, it will end up badly for everyone in a population center. There will be no winners, only losers.)

    softmax(QK^T/sqrt(d_k))V

    Q: N x q_dim (leaving the batch size and n heads out for simplicity, they are constants for our purposes here)
    K^T: k_dim x N

    QK^T: N x N <- this is the attention matrix

Then

    V: N x v_dim
    (QK^T)V: N x v_dim

Note that during decoding, the dimensions change. Since it is an autoregressive model, we do not need to recompute the values and keys of prior tokens, only of the token that we are currently decoding. Of course, the token that we are decoding still attends to all prior tokens and itself.

    Q: 1 x q_dim
    K^T: k_dim x (N+1)
    QK^T: 1 x (N+1)      <- Note that attention in this step is not quadratic anymore, since
                            we only need to compute how the current token attends to prior
                            tokens, the representations of prior tokens are frozen. K comes
                            from the KV-cache.
    V: (N + 1) x v_dim   <- V comes from the KV-cache
    (QK^T)V: 1 x v_dim   <- Also not quadratic, the value is only computed for the current token.

The point-wise feed-forward layer does not matter, in decoding it only needs to be computed for the representation of the token that we are currently generating. We don't need the representations of the preceding tokens for the next layer, since we have already cached their keys and values for each layer.

Disclaimer: I was one of the developers of a widely-used inference engine and implemented several of these optimizations.

Some apps like the App Store or Mastodon are a complete stutter fest, even when you let them preload all assets. But it even happens in very basic apps like the Settings app.

Meanwhile my woefully underpowered Pixel 10 Pro (on par with a flagship from a few years ago) with GrapheneOS is butter smooth in nearly every app.

I started noticing that for a lot of niche questions, AI overview often uses things like Reddit comments as the source, which are often partially or completely wrong. Then it gets reformulated with the typical confidence of an LLM.

Very scary because at the same time I notice people taking the AI overview answers as truth.

Last time was 15 years ago, though family has been as recent as a few years ago and havent's seen a much of a change change. Also, in many ways, the last 20 years is quite a bad example to pick, since wealth of everyone under the 90th percentile was the same in ~2017-2018 as in ~2007:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite...

Recent years are better though.

gotten better in the US and worse in EU, steadily

Not GDP at PPP, it's same-same: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4NLV!,f_auto,q_auto:...

Fun fact in this context: (Dutch) Philips was a major initial investor in TSMC (both in money and IP):

Only Philips was willing to sign a joint venture contract with Taiwan to put up $58 million, transfer its production technology, and license intellectual property in exchange for a 27.6 percent stake in TSMC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC#History

Many Europeans are better off than a few decades ago. Heck, many European countries were still under authoritarian rule until a few decades ago (East Europe, Spain, Greece, etc.).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cabinets_of_the_Nether... <- note that 'liberal' in NL has a different meaning than 'liberal' in the US.

There is also really weird segregation, like neighborhoods where only African-American people live. We once walked into a large restaurant and people looked at us in shock. There were only black people in the restaurant and by the shock on their faces, a family of white people walking in must have been rare occurrence. They were super kind, but it also was very weird.

But yeah, we have one party that is most often in government that just loves privatisation, taxing workers more and the rich less, etc. and engages in a lot of short-term thinking. Apropos short-term thinking, one of them was a prime minister for 14 years and cut defense spending and did not even consider increasing spending when Russia invaded Crimea. And now he is the secretary general of NATO. Talking about failing upwards. Though he is probably primarily chosen for being able to communicate with Trump.

I am happy that we are increasing spending and building up our own industry now. But it was far to late and it was fair for US presidents to criticize Europe for it. Note though that this happened as early as Bush and the 2% norm was established under Obama. Mark Rutte just sold the 2% to Trump as Trump's own win (initially during Trump I) to keep the US on board.

The current 3.5% is still the same 2%. It's some weasel wording about investing 1.5% in infrastructure that benefits the military as well. But you can put pretty much under that umbrella. It was purely to appease Trump. Though a lot of countries are going above 2% anyway due to the increasing Russian threat.

Your belief in US exceptionalism is interesting. Even more so, because it is so obvious that the power that will soon overtake the US economically is very likely to fill that void. But they will also get all the benefits of that role and the US will slowly lose them.

In fact, they have already been stepping in the US' former shoes. Some EU leaders mentioned to Zelensky that the only reason that Russia hasn't used nukes against Ukraine is because China said 'no'. In better (depending on perspective) times, it would have been the US as its role of world leader/police to enforce such implicit rules.

It is true that China is currently supporting Russia, but it's mostly of their interest to drain NATO and increase their power over Eurasia. Well, thanks to Trump they proceeding very fast. Or as the Chinese like to say "Trump the nation builder".

Ehm, Russia didn't invade Danish territory. The US was threatening to invade Danish territory.

First, Europe has no ability to engage with Putin, and if Kushner and Witkoff are the people he will see then we should try for some manner of diplomacy even if the people that are sent aren't the ones you would prefer.

Putin only wants them because they are weak and can be played.

It was a dumb negotiating tactic but it's important to us that it is defended to our satisfaction.

It was not a negotiation tactic. They already had an agreement for over half a century that they could scale up US military presence as they would like. The US has reduced presence over the years.

Trump wanted to add land like every pathetic little (wannabe) dictator. But the EU showed some teeth suggesting that the trade bazooka could be employed, country moved troops to Greenland (so it wouldn't be a clean invasion without blood). So Trump TACOed out.

If it was a negotiation tactic it is bloody stupid ("art of the deal" I guess). Aside from getting a worse deal then before, as a side-effect many European countries that were planning to buy US arms are now switching to European options.

If you're in favor of nuclear proliferation then sure. But it doesn't include just the "good" countries. It also means Israel gets to ramp up its nuclear forces, Saudi Arabia gets nuclear weapons, Argentina can get nuclear weapons, and anyone else on your naughty list. So we will further double down on a more dangerous world and you're advocating for further breakdowns of international law.

Yes, and that was exactly my point earlier, the Trump and the US opened pandora's box. He disturbed the equilibrium by threatening to leave the NATO/not respecting article 5, by threatening to attack its own allies, by yelling Zelensky out of the White House. This sends ripples all over the world and Europe, Canada, and East Asian countries get the message "we cannot trust the US as an ally anymore", which leads to proliferation and probably more wars. It's very likely that Putin will try some sort of attack on NATO countries soon, just to test how firm Trump's commitments are. This would never have happened if he didn't weaken NATO. It's understandable that Poland gets nervous and wants to be able to MAD Russia.

"Art of the deal"

You seem to have missed their point. There was a detente and a worldwide "order". Russia stepped out of line and almost the entire world punished them for it. The order mattered.

Exactly this. It seems that the US has forgotten what soft power, alliances, rules-based world order means. You have the power because you have allies, because you can hold others to rules (and mostly keep up the appearance that you obey the rules yourself), etc. Initially, you can benefit from abusing that position, but it is short-term only. Your allies will form new alliances (e.g. Canada getting closer to the EU), stop buying your weapons, wean themselves of your products (this very news item), etc. The problem with incompetent people like Trump and his administration is that they only see the benefits of the short-term abuse, but not the terrible harm they do to themselves and the rest of the world long-term.

Nope, nobody was talking about getting nukes after the invasion in 2022.

Everybody started talking about getting nukes after: (1) Trump has been threatening to leave NATO and casting doubt about upholding Article 5, so nobody is really sure if the nuclear umbrella extends to Europe anymore; and (2) Trump has threatened to invade Greenland.

Basically, nobody here trusts the US anymore, but politicians are keeping up appearances to race to scale up production capacity of arms, etc.

Trumpists will typically say "but why should the US provide the nuclear umbrella for Europe?" Which is woefully ignorant of history, the whole NATO nuclear sharing arrangement, etc. exists, because the US didn't want European countries like (West-)Germany to have their own nukes.

Isn't it embarrassing that all these idiots are the dominant force on the planet and you have to cry to them to help you against Russia and they make much more money than your citizens? If you're going to insult Americans like this you should at least have something worth insulting us over. I do think biking culture is way better than driving, but I'm not sure about much else.

Sorry, but the arrogance is perplexing. First, European countries contributed a lot more money to Ukraine than the US. Second, when the US, Ukraine, etc. signed the Budapest memorandum, they US implied that they would respond to a Russian attack.

However, when negotiating the security assurances, U.S. officials told their Ukrainian counterparts that, were Russia to violate them, the United States would take a strong interest and respond. [...] Washington did not promise unlimited support. The Budapest Memorandum contains security “assurances,” not “guarantees.” Guarantees would have implied a commitment of American military force, which NATO members have. U.S. officials made clear that was not on offer. Hence, assurances.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-care-about-ukraine-an...

And this is exactly one of the issues of the US now. It is completely reliable. Make a trade agreement and then on a whim Trump can decide to shred it again.

The funniest case was that Trump wanted to impose tariffs when Denmark wanted to send troops to Greenland... Which is an autonomous territory of Denmark.

One can only hope that another power that cares about rules fills the void.

During the reflection period, you may open the packaging. You may try or fit the product, just like in a normal store. But you are not allowed to do more than what is needed to judge the product. For instance, you can try pants. But you cannot wear the pants for several days and then return it. If you do this anyway and the product loses value? Then the seller may charge you the damage. The seller needs to inform you of this before you buy the product.

https://consument.acm.nl/aankoop-dienst-annuleren/bedenktijd

I have sent back products within the 14 days, including smartphones that I tried and decided that I don't like it. Some sellers also extend the 14 days to 30 days.

Changing the terms later is a completely valid point though and it should be possible to reject any updated terms IMO.

A lot of parking spots have chargers. So we only charge it when e.g. bringing our daughter to sports or when my wife is at her choir. That way the car practically always has enough juice.

When traveling, we’ve found that we are generally more efficient. We stop every three hours anyway to get a drink or eat something and hook it up to a fast charger. Since we would have these breaks with an ICE vehicle as well, we skip the separate stop for refueling.

It’s funny, the first time we made a long trip with our EV we tried to plan where to charge, etc. Now we just go without thinking about it, because there are always some fast charging options when you need it (though e.g. NL is much better than DE).

iCloud already protects sensitive categories of data (like Passwords, Health data, Messages in iCloud, etc) with end-to-end encryption by default.

Except that there is a footnote in Apple's security document where they confirm that Messages in iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted if you don't enable ADP and have iCloud Backup enabled (which is probably most users):

Standard data protection: When iCloud Backup is enabled, the keys to your backups are secured in Apple data centers. If you use both iCloud Backup and Messages in iCloud, your backup includes a copy of the Messages in iCloud encryption key to help you recover your data.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651

So, there is always a backup of Messages in iCloud accessible to Apple and thus (US?) law enforcement, unless you enable ADP and the people you communicate with also use ADP.

WhatsApp is similar by the way. Unless you enable E2E backups, they end up in iCloud/Google Drive backups and are only encrypted at rest. Of the major messengers, I think only Signal completely opts out of iCloud backups and have their own real E2E-encrypted backups.

Even most technical people I talk to do not know this and don't have ADP enabled.

There are a lot of weak defaults like that.