vel0city
> We also compete with a broader set of model providers operating at or below the frontier, including large companies, specialized AI labs, and a growing range of other open-weight or open-source (shared weights, training data, and code) models released by international and domestic organizations.
> No one is stating this literally
> You are getting caught up in phrasing
This is a text message board, how else am I supposed to take something other than the way someone chose to state things in text? Should I take their body language into account? The phrasing is truly all I have to go by.
> Change 1-2 words and you'll see what people really believe
Maybe you should have actually gone with those other sets of words then, assuming you're really the same person I was replying to? I'm replying to a specific comment, not some imagined idea of a comment with a radically different meaning.
And fwiw, I've definitely been around a lot of people who essentially use "God did this" to downplay thanking people for their hard work and efforts in the positive outcomes in life. I can totally get and agree with how annoying and shitty this kind of mentality can be. If someone has truly only known that kind of religious person, I can get how it would be easy to assume all religious people are that same kind of shitty. But they're definitely not all like that.
Its like I'm replying to "all birds are blue" and saying "nah there's a red bird over there, and they actually come in a lot of colors" and then you come in and say "nobody is saying all birds are blue..."
You might take this to reflect how not all religious people are the same, and can't easily be grouped into a single category.
Best of luck.
I can easily disprove you.
Here it is:
> For religious people there is always the single factor
Once again that line is:
> there is always the single factor
Lets zoom in
> always the single factor
Continue zooming in
> single factor
> while the surgeon did have a hand in the outcome, some god intervened in the process and allowed/enabled it to occur
Yes, as in multiple factors, enabled by God. Note, you mention the surgeon having a hand in the outcome. How could that then be a single factor?
> You have to understand that to the rest of us, this belief is absurd and hard to take seriously.
Ok, but don't argue that I'm stating its a single factor as if I don't give a shit about the fact the doctor spent a lot of effort to be trained and all the thousands of years of healthcare led to that knowledge being given. I can absolutely still respect and acknowledge that...meaning...not a single factor.
What I'm talking about is specifically this statement:
> For religious people there is always the single factor
That for all religious people there is only a single factor, that factor being God. As if nobody else's own work and struggle enabled that positive outcome, it was just God that stepped in and make everything just magically happen every time. I've experienced people (plenty, trust me) who lived life this way, and I totally get the frustration at dealing with such people. Because, in the end they usually use such a mindset to not give a shit about the people who were actually there that made the positive outcome happen. They can ignore giving back and supporting those who toiled to ensure the positive outcome happened.
Suggesting all religious people live live this way and with this viewpoint is painting a very negative view of all religious people. Tons of religious people absolutely do not have this viewpoint, at all, even if they see God's influence in their lives.
I absolutely still credit the surgeon for my survival, I definitely still tip my bar tender for a good time.
I'm a religious person. I both agree that I'm here because of my own choices and the choices of those around me, which were highly influenced by an uncountable of chance events that led to those decisions being made at that time and place.
And at the same time, I choose to point to God that what has happened is what has happened.
I do agree, there are those who do make it seem like only God did this thing, as if any rando person could have done that surgery or what have you. But saying "for religious people..." is being overly reductive IMO.
I had a pretty much near death motorcycle accident I happened to mostly walk away from which really made me restructure my perspective on things I'm afraid of.
It also managed to make my then to be wife realize she really couldn't live without me when I sent her a photo of a mangled bike and the text "ouchies", so that accident really changed my life positively and radically.
Although I'm still sad it destroyed my OG Surface Pro. It was a maxed out launch model with the year of the dragon touch cover I bought at a Microsoft store at a mall that doesn't even exist anymore. Worn in a messenger bag on my back, and ended up like a crazy twisted piece of metal in the end.
So yeah. Motorcycles. They'll change your life.
However, I did notice a number of times where my kids would have a harder time initially connecting with new social groups as there was less shared experience/context. They'd want to have some kind of make believe play where they'd assume a character from a show, but my kids had no context as to the expectations of the rest of the group and would struggle connecting. Its like the other kids were speaking a totally different language. Things would usually eventually work themselves out, but things could have been smoother and less stressful for my kids had they known the context.
Its like, back in the day, you'd be able to strike up a conversation with a someone and reference something from a show on one of the few TV stations, and there was a good chance the other person might have seen it and could get the reference. A shared experience, despite not being together at the time. Now days, good luck.
But it sure was nice when you had the whole game sitting there, without having to rely on some download server still being around. I'm able to go grab a used GameBoy game off the shelf at the used game store, stick it in an old GameBoy, and outside of some games with batteries in them (repairable fwiw) it just works. This has been great for my little kids, as I trust them a lot more with a cheap GBA SP than I do the Switch when going out places. Way more pocketable, way less fragile, and the replacement cost (and repairability) is a lot better.
If I grabbed an old Switch off the shelf in 30 years, popped in a game key card, would I actually be able to play anything? Probably not. There's a good chance most of this Switch 2 will be useless in 30 years time.
He got very upset with me about that question. He went on about how everyone around here is so focused on their work and not living life (this was in a very corporate office tower part of town, so...yeah). Everyone only cares about what you produce, not with how you live. It turns out he had also been laid off earlier that day as well. We discussed this a good bit, and in the end had a good night hanging out at the bar. I never met him again, but I think about that conversation often.
That interaction made me decide not to ask that question going forward. These days, instead of asking "what do you do?", I ask things like "what keeps you busy in life?" Because ultimately that's closer to what I'm really wondering.
I'm still not amazing at piano. But having a basic understanding of musical theory, understanding how a lot of these concepts of harmonics and tones and waves are related, have really unlocked a lot of neat things throughout my life. Their push for me to learn an instrument drove me to performing for family events including a couple of weddings, with my involvement in their day still quite a powerful shared memory between us. It led me to learn additional musical instruments, which I enjoyed a lot more than piano. It helped me in other artistic endeavors like theater. It helped me understand music production, something I moonlight in as a volunteer. It gave me instant connections with lots of people who were important people in my life but probably would have forever been passing strangers. It has given me something else to share with my children, as they routinely ask me to play for them and show them how instruments work. A basic understanding of waves and harmonics and what not even helped me understand a lot of more complicated EE topics.
Learning an instrument early in my life was definitely a powerful and deeply impactful thing in my life journey, almost entirely positively outside of many afternoons where I had to catch up on DBZ later.
If this isn't really a worry of GOP voters, why would Republican campaign groups go so far as to fraudulently represent themselves to make such fears seem so salient to their voters?
Due to voting histories I'm on a lot of GOP mailing lists. Other friends aren't. I received the mailer, they didn't. I've heard the same thing widely.
Clearly they see this as a sticking point to try and drive more GOP votes.
So the "loss" happens, because they were issued assuming one company valuation before, but the company is worth a lot more now, so the equity exchange on the conversion is now more "expensive", and thus a loss? But ultimately it just means the earlier investors are getting their equity cheaper than what an equivalent would be worth today, right?
Sounds like not too bad of a problem to have if I'm understanding things right. It implies Anthropic is worth more than expected, so they should have potentially received more money back in the day, but the whole point of those convertible notes is the future value is highly speculative. In the end if that's your problem, its because you're potentially crushing it harder than expected at least from a valuation viewpoint.
Anyone please correct me if I'm wrong. I am not in finance, and am definitely looking to learn and understand more.
> I totally get that by using zstd I'm not directly supporting these things.
I'm not supporting Facebook by using a library that's freely available on the public internet and hosted by others. I'm not out there saying its worth the genocide. I actively try and avoid giving Facebook any amount of actual value from me and the things I touch. If you can point to how me using a package pulled from some debian package host is actively supporting Facebook, I'll try and reduce my consumption of the library.
> You are just like all the other kids out there
Ah, an ad hominem. I didn't expect better.
> you are simply a hypocrite
I am no perfect person and agree at times I am a hypocrite. I acknowledge the basics of the concept tHeRe iS nO sUcH tHiNg As eThIcAl cOnSuMpTuIoN uNdEr cApItAlIsm, and ultimately almost every product I buy can probably trace some amount of its lineage to the suffering of others. I do think to a certain extent some of that amount of suffering is inherently impossible to avoid in the world of globalized supply chains, and ultimately I will end up consuming something connected to it. But if there's a choice of company A that causes X amount of societal damage and company B that causes 2X amount of societal damage, and you can freely choose between them, which do you choose? Do you go online and directly argue company B's products are definitely worth the extra human suffering?
> How do I know? You already stated you will continue to use it.
I use it because its there, open source, and freely available. Because, sure, you're right, it exists regardless of the suffering at this point. If they charged even a penny for a lifetime license I wouldn't use it, because I don't want to support Meta or companies like them if I have the choice. Same goes for lots of other corporations which I feel are directly bad actors, have been called out for being a bad actor, and I can actually choose a different supplier or eliminate such a thing from my life.
Using an open-source library already in the public space isn't the same as supporting a corporation. Going on a forum and saying their products are worth genocide and excusing their bad actions is supporting that corporation. Do you not see the difference? Is installing MariaDB supporting Oracle, as some amount of the code traces a lineage to codebases now owned by Oracle?
> Me? I just live it.
You're not "just living it" though. You're actively saying a compression library is worth a genocide, so long as you don't have to pull the trigger. If they came to you and said "we'll make you a better compression algorithm, but we'll support a genocide on the other side of world to finance its development", would you choose to take that trade? Is such a thing is OK with you, that it doesn't really matter to try and push suppliers to be better, because its worth it? If not, please do correct me, but that's definitely what I'm understanding from our conversation.
Ultimately if they came to me with that choice, I'd say no. Please stop supporting genocide and social unrest around the world would be my response. I'll continue with whatever compression library I already have, or maybe go try and get someone else to make a better one. I wouldn't just think "hey its worth it to trade human lives for financing software development".
This doesn't square with your "Zstd is worth a lot of other's people's pain" earlier statement. So what is it, you just don't care to actually be the one to inflict such pain? You're entirely OK with the idea that by championing zstd and telling people "its worth a lot of other's people's pain", knowing that by other's people's pain we're talking genocide, suicide, and deaths due to misinformation, so long as its not you specifically having to do that? Why is that?
You've already stated its definitely worth it. Just not worth it for you to pull the trigger, but worth it enough for you to champion somebody else to pull the trigger?
Personally I'd never say a compression algorithm is worth a genocide.
Not currently, no. But when I do, I do bother actually trying to check sources. The last things on my feet were sandals purchased from the people who actually made them.
> Every purchase is an atrocity by proxy.
I mean, I understand tHeRe Is nO eThIcAl CoNsUmPtIoN uNdEr CaPitAlIsM. Sure. But when you know a specific supplier is a bad actor, has been pointed out as a bad actor, and refuses to change, do you continue to support that bad actor when you have tons options? Do you continue choosing to champion them on forums online, despite knowing their entire product line is "we're going to throw kids into an emotionally damaging blender, sow discontent in your community, help ruin mental health globally, support genocidal maniacs overseas, spread massive disinformation, and overall damage everything you care about!"
Do you just pour your used motor oil down the storm drains because, hey, the environment is fucked anyways, or do you at least try to reduce your impact?
And once again, I even mentioned I'll continue to use zstd. I totally get that by using zstd I'm not directly supporting these things. But acting like "hey Facebook is great and its perfectly fine tons of people died directly to finance zstd's development" is IMO a bad take on the whole situation.
So once again I ask, if it took you pulling the trigger, how many people would you personally murder to have zstd be financed, since you seem perfectly OK with trading human lives for compression algorithms? Or would you argue we shouldn't be trading lives for compression algorithms in the first place, and we should press on those corporations who do make money off such things to stop doing so instead of arguing we should just accept it?
If you outsourced the murder to someone else, how many people would you be OK with murdering?
Wouldn't it be better if we didn't continue to support corporations who enable genocide around the world?
Now, ultimately I'll still end up using zstd. I'm not happy about it's ties to Facebook. But it's code that exists out there now, I don't see the reason to not use it. But I'll still try and avoid giving Facebook any money or praise. I don't give praise to Facebook engineers, at least not ones recently working there. They're massively paid in blood money, and they should already understand that by now. Their products hurt societies around the world, and they don't actually change.
If you're leasing in a building and put your equipment in it, you're outsourcing the facility management duties. What if the AC fails? What if there's a leak? Who manages the building's power contracts? Who handles on-site security? Do they own the generator and its maintenance or do you?
If you're at a colo, you're outsourcing even more management of the actual datacenter work inside the building on top of the rest of the facility management. Who is managing access control? Are they providing network connectivity? Are they providing backup power?
When the colo we were at lost power due to employees not following procedure while doing a power failover test (didn't match the phase), I still got the "you need to do something!" talk. Other than being ready to validate everything came up properly, there was nothing I could really do in the end though. We didn't have the budget to operate at multiple facilities, this was just an accepted risk. What, was I going to go out, negotitate a new datacenter contract, haul all the gear, rack it all up, and get it all deployed in the half hour or so they spent to validate things and get power restored?
With how some of this urban design happens it almost feels to be the case at times.
A bit more real of an answer is: federalism. You're assuming the state DoT is entirely in charge of these projects. Lots of different government organizations are in charge of these things, and they don't always communicate well. Cities, counties, toll operators, and others can decide when these ramps are opened or closed. It's not just the state DoT that does these things. There's no single org that can authoritatively say "these are all the roads which are open, right now."
Now, I do agree with you, making such a data set complete and public should be some level of priority. There should be reporting standards involved in defined, standardized formats. These do not really exist, and making such a thing happen is a political question not a technical one.
Now if their dissertation was actually entirely relevant to the exact problem at hand, that'd be different. But such things are pretty rare. The problems PhD's are concerned with are rarely the same, boring, problems most organizations experience.
Sounds like someone who's never in their life driven in Austin.
It wouldn't surprise me to find it's nearly a half dozen per year, on a slow year. I only drive down there a few times a year and yet almost every time I go on my random route at least two stretches of road are just radically different from the last time I drove on it.
Sometimes it really feels like Texas' biggest industry is highway bridge/overpass construction.
If you've never experienced the rapid redevelopment of Texas exurbs and what not it's something of a marvel to behold, like watching a train wreck take place over months.
And yet so many people expect deterministic responses from llms while they're entirely okay with non-deterministic responses from teammates. It's just not how it's been done in the past to always expect deterministic code generation from humans, and yet we expect that when we give work to agents.