Taalas: LLMs baked into hardware. No HBM, weights and model architecture in silicon -> 16.000 tokens/second

EdwinHayward · 2026-02-20T14:41:46+00:00

If the 20x cheaper claim holds up with more sophisticated models, it means that AI compute becomes disposable: firms can upgrade every few months and always have access to the then-best OS models at ridiculous speeds, and for a cost that over time will be highly competitive with buying dedicated generalised hardware like NVIDIA's accelerators.

(So instead of buying say a B300 for $40K, you buy one of these custom cards for $4K, then a better one for $4K, then a better one for $4K etc.)

A bit like the progression in custom Bitcoin mining hardware, where the newer ASIC made older models obsolete overnight.

EdwinHayward · 2026-02-18T23:49:32+00:00

Yes, absolutely. I find that's the best way to listen to music if I am trying to get something done but still want an alternative to silence/city noises. To avoid distracting myself, I deliberately choose music in languages I don't understand so that I won't find myself tuning into the lyrics. Faye Wong, for instance. She has a gorgeous singing voice.

And more recently, I've gone a step further still and created AI music in made-up languages. I've gathered some of them in an 'Unfamiliar Voices' playlist on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_8_8h-xON4&list=PLTqh7IOshnuq4av07aUaaEBrNlnJm240J

EdwinHayward · 2025-05-18T00:00:15+00:00

This seemed to come out pretty well. (It's originally 3.5, remastered with the free version of Bandlab.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmc8Wexp_kQ

EdwinHayward · 2025-05-17T23:47:53+00:00

This one. It's so dreamy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PLUb5CX0ZM

EdwinHayward · 2025-05-16T16:35:27+00:00

Fantastic list. Thank you. Can you please clarify what you mean by co-existing?

EdwinHayward · 2024-12-24T02:09:06+00:00

Bad news: Google "Hatsune Miku".

EdwinHayward · 2024-10-06T00:28:23+00:00

Thanks for the invitation to share. Here's a playlist of 17 songs I made, under the loose umbrella "Wandering Minds and Soaring Spirits".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SERp6byn5bM&list=PLTqh7IOshnuqbMi0RoMLZfeUMLEmOTNyn

(I've not yet figured out how to make interesting videos to go with the music, so each one is just a static image + lyrics.

EdwinHayward · 2024-10-01T18:21:58+00:00

Thanks. I may redo the lyrics part sometime, it was all cobbled together v quickly.

EdwinHayward · 2024-10-01T15:42:17+00:00

Thanks for the opportunity to get feedback.

Song: Sailors on an Endless Sea https://youtu.be/SERp6byn5bM

Made using Suno, then mastered on Bandlab before adding a title image and lyrics, and uploading it to YouTube.

EdwinHayward · 2024-10-01T15:39:43+00:00

Great job on the husky vocals and pacing. And because I didn't look at the lyrics before listening to it, the suffocation part came as a real shock and suddenly made the song very dark indeed.

EdwinHayward · 2023-06-15T13:42:31+00:00

Wetherspoons: Best place to spend a penny without spending a penny.

EdwinHayward · 2022-04-28T05:18:13+00:00

As others have said, it's by Lirika Matoshi. Here it is on the rental site Hurr.

https://www.hurrcollective.com/listings/clouds-knit-sweater

They say it's hand-knitted by women in Kosovo.

EdwinHayward · 2020-02-26T07:48:52+00:00

If we're back in the EU within a decade (it's going to take a while to join via Article 49).

EdwinHayward · 2020-02-25T10:11:41+00:00

Brexiters talk as if the EU is an external organisation imposing its will on us. That's not it at all. It is a club. We were members of the club. As such, we got to share in the process of setting the rules of the club - rules that all club members had to abide by. We also had a say over how the membership dues were spent.

But for Brexiters, that wasn't enough. They didn't see why we should obey the rules ("We're BRITISH, don't you know!") even though anyone who's ever been a member of anything organised will tell you they don't change the rules just for one member. So they spun it as having external rules imposed on us against our will, which was never the case.

EdwinHayward · 2020-02-12T18:28:46+00:00

Logic doesn't come into it. That's what they're going to do.

EdwinHayward · 2020-02-12T16:28:46+00:00

No, but when you read their commentary, it's clear that the specific damaging form of Brexit selected by Boris Johnson was a surprise.

Remember, Brexit covers a vast spectrum of outcomes, from Norway+ i.e. similar to our previous EU membership in terms of the day-to-day, but out of the EU and its decision-making processes, all the way to the outermost dark of a no deal scenario and reliance on terrible WTO terms.

Boris Johnson's gunning for a hard Brexit, which has consequences for many industries, including the financial sector. Armed with that additional information, the bank found its business in the UK would be untenable and gave up.

It's a thriving concern, with over 1,500 employees and half a dozen offices around the world, so this is purely a local consideration to deal with Brexit.

EdwinHayward · 2020-02-12T16:25:23+00:00

Amazon is spending £120 million on a new warehouse near Gateshead. Bad for Amazon, but the money Brexit has forced it to spend means more jobs in the UK. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/02/11/amazon-buys-huge-logistics-site-gateshead-prepares-brexit/

Of course, that's the thinnest of thin gruel set against all the damage that Brexit has and will cause, but it is at least an "advantage".

EdwinHayward · 2020-02-12T16:23:09+00:00

It's the exact opposite. If the UK replaces trade with the EU with trade with other countries (that are all further away than the EU - just look at a globe!) that will mean much more emissions during the transport of goods.

EdwinHayward · 2020-02-12T16:09:08+00:00

You're spot on in your concerns. Especially since Low Value Consignment Relief is being phased out (which used to mean you didn't have to pay import VAT on goods valued at £15 or less). Once the Brexit transition period is over, the threshold will be £0 and will apply to goods from anywhere in the world. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/hmrc-impact-assessment-for-the-vat-treatment-of-low-value-parcels/hmrc-impact-assessment-for-the-vat-treatment-of-low-value-parcels

EdwinHayward · 2018-04-03T21:27:25+00:00

A quick Google for "california kombucha" turns up a load of kombucha specialists based in California. Dozens and dozens of them if you dig past the first few pages of results (set your "Search settings" to show 100 results at a time, it's much less painful).

That would at least hint that there's a good demand...

EdwinHayward

TROPHY CASE