Hacker News: actually_a_dog

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Ask HN: What is your longest lasting code?"

actually_a_dog — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 21:24:10 +0000

There's some code I wrote 30 years ago that's still running inside a text-based, multiplayer, internet game (LPMUD). I wouldn't say it's useful, per se, but it'll probably continue to run for at least several more years.

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

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Weber–Fechner Law"

actually_a_dog — Sun, 09 Apr 2023 12:12:05 +0000

> Well that and it’s hard to distinguish if you’re early in exponential growth or linear.

That's true, but not really saying very much. Any differentiable function is locally linear around a neighborhood of any point where the derivative exists.

> Also exponential growth does hit some kind of ceiling relatively quickly.

Well... that depends. Much like how markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent, exponential growth can often remain exponential for much longer than it takes to create a problem. Conversely, sometimes it can't remain exponential long enough to prevent a problem. Exponential growth is a hard beast to tame.

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Weber–Fechner Law"

actually_a_dog — Sun, 09 Apr 2023 00:38:35 +0000

Yeah, unfortunately, I believe that one side effect of the human (sensory) nervous system having a logarithmic response curve is that humans are bad at understanding exponential processes. If you look at an exponential function on a log scale, you get a graph that looks linear. But, that's what fools people into thinking exponential processes are tame and easy to control.

New comment by actually_a_dog in "An exponential improvement for diagonal Ramsey (numbers)"

actually_a_dog — Sat, 08 Apr 2023 18:43:08 +0000

Huge news, because this is the first improvement on the upper bound for the diagonal Ramsey numbers since 1935.

An exponential improvement for diagonal Ramsey (numbers)

actually_a_dog — Sat, 08 Apr 2023 18:43:08 +0000

Article URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.09521

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35496308

Points: 1

# Comments: 1

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Federal Housing Administration greenlights 40-year mortgages"

actually_a_dog — Sat, 08 Apr 2023 04:44:57 +0000

The word itself suggest as much as well. "Mortgage" is derived from Old French mort ("dead") + gage ("pledge"). In other words, it was a pledge that was supposed to die either when it was paid off, or when the borrower defaulted.

> And it seemeth, that the cause why it is called mortgage is, for that it is doubtful whether the feoffor will pay at the day limited such sum or not: and if he doth not pay, then the land which is put in pledge upon condition for the payment of the money, is taken from him for ever, and so dead to him upon condition, &c. And if he doth pay the money, then the pledge is dead as to the tenant, &c. [Coke upon Littleton, 1664]

https://www.etymonline.com/word/mortgage

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?"

actually_a_dog — Sat, 08 Apr 2023 04:05:08 +0000

I am not. I am suggesting there are other savings in the average household energy budget that are more significant. Besides, even "waste" electricity heats a home in the winter, so it's not quite as bad as it sounds even.

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?"

actually_a_dog — Sat, 08 Apr 2023 00:25:49 +0000

20 watts standby is only about 14.7 kWh per month. Even at on-peak, summer PG&E rates, we're only talking about $7/month. Granted, I'd much rather pay $0 than $7, and I'd rather not waste energy, but we're probably not talking about anything close to the amount of energy the average household wastes. I'd be looking at refrigerators and other large appliances for energy savings long before I'd be thinking about how much electricity the TV uses on standby.

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Ask Wirecutter: Can you recommend a not-smart TV for me?"

actually_a_dog — Sat, 08 Apr 2023 00:20:29 +0000

When this happened to me, I just renamed my tv to "STOP TRYING TO PAIR WITH THIS FUCKING TV"

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Llama.cpp 30B runs with only 6GB of RAM now"

actually_a_dog — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 23:46:47 +0000

By "diversity," do you mean something like "entropy?" Like maybe

    H_s(x) := -\sum_{x \in X_s} p(x) log(p(x))

where X_s := all s-grams from the training set? That seems like it would eventually become hard to impossible to actually compute. Even if you could what would it tell you?

Or, wait... are you referring to running such an analysis on the output of the model? Yeah, that might prove interesting....

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Llama.cpp 30B runs with only 6GB of RAM now"

actually_a_dog — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 23:07:21 +0000

As a former grad student, I can tell you, that's all research code, not just ML, or even "performance-oriented" research code.

New comment by actually_a_dog in "How to draw dotted lines on chalkboards, MIT style (2021)"

actually_a_dog — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 09:17:32 +0000

While it's not manufactured by the same company anymore, a Korean company bought the formula and sells it on Amazon now! [0] So, you, too, can see what the hype is all about, if you want! At $0.39 per piece of chalk, it is, indeed, expensive. But, it is also a much different experience from writing with ordinary chalk.

---

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01HDNUXBW

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Always use Zoom in a browser. Avoid the app (2020)"

actually_a_dog — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 00:13:35 +0000

Why? In my office, you'd see me (of course), and some bookcases behind me with a bunch of very SFW books. What's so offensive about that?

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Always use Zoom in a browser. Avoid the app (2020)"

actually_a_dog — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 04:40:04 +0000

Don’t do that. Those blur effects always look so bad.

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy"

actually_a_dog — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 04:26:31 +0000

What other crimes do you think should allow the “not my problem” defense? A crime is still a crime even if full restitution is made.

New comment by actually_a_dog in "HuggingFace and Open Source AI Meetup in SFO Mar 31st"

actually_a_dog — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 02:34:19 +0000

Crash it. It’s more fun that way anyway.

New comment by actually_a_dog in "HuggingFace and Open Source AI Meetup in SFO Mar 31st"

actually_a_dog — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 02:33:04 +0000

Well, I think it’s just as weird to refer to it as “the City,” as if there aren’t literally over 100 cities in the 9 Bay Area counties.

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy"

actually_a_dog — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 02:29:08 +0000

No. You can’t “not my problem” your way out of being an accessory to fraud.

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy"

actually_a_dog — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 19:40:31 +0000

The problem is fraud. Locking out Chinese fraudsters at the expense of legitimate Chinese sellers solves the problem.

New comment by actually_a_dog in "Amazon starts flagging frequently returned products that you maybe shouldn’t buy"

actually_a_dog — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 19:39:19 +0000

That’s all yet another instance of “not my problem.” Can’t prevent fraud on your e-commerce site? Maybe you should not be running one.