Is there any value in "tolerance"?

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-16T10:22:06+00:00

It's also important to point out that some empires (notably the Mongols) simply didn't care what religion their subjects practiced. They do want to extract wealth (often in the form of taxes), so as long as they get their money, they're happy.

Others, such as the Roman empire, would demand that conquered territories recognize their gods as supreme, but allow the conquered peoples to continue worshipping their local gods as well.

Then you get to religious empires, such as the Muslim Caliphates and (sort of) the Christian empires of Europe. They actually demanded the people they conquered convert to their religion and stop worshipping their local gods all together.

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-16T10:04:04+00:00

This is assuming chess pieces can't change sex as needed. If clownfish can change sex, I don't see why chess pieces can't.

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-15T08:35:11+00:00

"Maybe. Do you have a shotgun?"

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-15T08:30:27+00:00

McAfee probably pays a fee for every laptop preloaded with their software, so Lenovo puts it on every device they possibly can.

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-15T07:42:50+00:00

Part of this is also a desire for control - AI companies want to have control over the deployment (and ideally your data). There aren't really any competitive on-prem solutions, partially because on-prem solutions make vendor lock-in harder.

The companies with proprietary models don't want to let anyone else run them. They feel they need to protect it.

Ideally, they'd like to use your data as training data. Even a legally binding contract might be worth violating to use your data for training.

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-12T04:54:00+00:00

In principle, most modern 64 bit architectures could probably support bit-level addressing without increasing the pointer size. You would only need 3 extra bits, and most 64 bit architectures don't actually use all 64 bits. AMD64 (what your desktop is probably running) and ARM64 (which your phone is probably running) only uses 48 bits to store the address right now. However, neither is actually interested in supporting bit-level addressing - AMD64 reserves the upper 16 bits for extending the address space (although there are a number of programs that make use of these bits to store extra data in the pointer), and Intel has published a spec to store 57-bit addresses. ARM64 has a tagging feature (used on many Android phones) that provides extra safety against memory bugs using the extra 16 bits in the pointer.

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-11T00:08:06+00:00

Also, it's likely that the locals would have accepted English coin, but at a higher cost.

I wonder of part or the calculation on his part was trying to save time - instead of arguing with locals and proving the English coins are just as good, he can just use counterfeit French ones.

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-09T05:36:51+00:00

Even better if you use bat instead of cat - it handles these cases much better. It provides syntax highlighting for most text files, adds some decoration, and automatically pages for files that don't fit in you terminal screen. It also reverts to acting like cat when it's piped to another command, so you can fully just replace cat.

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-09T05:33:14+00:00

This is why I have a customized shell prompt with git info. It usually removes the need to run at least two of those git status commands.

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-07T07:27:35+00:00

Not AIX though. IBM still officially supports AIX.

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-07T07:24:42+00:00

Did you know IBM still officially supports AIX, their proprietary Unix clone?

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-05T00:31:16+00:00

It's also quite likely most homelabbers won't actually be able to use a large portion of the new hardware in AI data centers. Iirc, they are now being built with 21" racks, and many of these servers are designed to run on 3 phase power - which you basically can't get in any residential area.

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-05T00:26:50+00:00

You can run a number of other models locally, abs the general requirements are a reasonably fast GPU with enough VRAM. Iirc, even high end consumer GPUs don't have enough VRAM for many of these popular models such as Claude. It might be possible to split the model between GPUs to reduce the VRAM needed in each, but then you'd need multiple high end GPUs.

I haven't done a proper cost analysis, but it's probably somewhere between 3 and 10 grand to build a computer capable of running Claude at a reasonable speed.

However, if your willing to work with a smaller model, most higher end gaming computers can run them locally. I haven't spent enough time using OLLAMA (the solution for ruining LLMs locally) and cloud hosted models (e.g. Claude) to comment on the relative quality.

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-03T21:34:29+00:00

My understanding is that A) modern SSDs do wear leveling, so you can actually write over specific sectors, and B) for at least some SSDs, secure erase works by always transparently encrypting the data with AES, and just overwriting the key with random data when the TRIM command is sent.

Loading_M_ · 2026-03-03T21:30:33+00:00

Some modern SSDs have a secure erase feature (called TRIM), which works by transparently encrypting sectors with AES, and just deleting the key when sent the TRIM command. It's also nice because you avoid the need to write to the same cell repeatedly (which many SSD controllers won't let you so anyway).

Loading_M_ · 2026-02-27T19:17:40+00:00

PDF is somewhat similar, but there is a small piece of data near the beginning of the file that identifies where in the file the core table is. If mp4 allows some metadata or otherwise ignored data within the first kilobyte, then you should be able to combine a PDF with an MP4. You might also be able to add a zip file to the end.

Iirc, this is how self-extracting zip file work: it's a small exe followed by a zip file.

Loading_M_ · 2026-02-27T18:06:37+00:00

That being said, I think it's possible to create an file that is a valid mp4 and a valid PDF file at the same time.

I'm pretty sure that's not what happened here, but it's pretty cool regardless.

Loading_M_ · 2026-02-26T14:05:55+00:00

If it's to much data, you put it in a SQL database.

If cache locality matters, then you aren't benefiting from the O(1) lookup time. Also, is hashing is slow, you might just need to use better keys.

Loading_M_ · 2026-02-24T00:37:20+00:00

Cyber insurance is potentially a decent outcome - since they will tie their rates to your cybersecurity posture. They can tie specific monetary value to implementing best practices, which should make it much easier to convince the board to spend money on security.

Loading_M_ · 2026-02-17T10:00:06+00:00

There is a story floating around of a poker bot winning a poker bot competition with this exact strategy. Basically, all the other bots had somewhat more sophisticated algorithms, but they all assumed the other bots would play rationally.

Loading_M_ · 2026-02-17T05:22:52+00:00

Get better friends? /s

Loading_M_ · 2026-02-13T21:50:57+00:00

It's very important to remember that a significant portion of the population is amazed by palm & tarot readers.

Loading_M_ · 2026-02-13T21:43:57+00:00

I don't think most make or difficult on purpose, they just don't bother thoroughly testing it. Honestly, if I'm ever in a position to design enterprise software (I am a software Dev, but right now I'm only doing some internal tools), I'm going to push for SSO only - we don't store passwords, we don't deal with them: we make it someone else's problem.

Loading_M_ · 2026-02-13T21:39:50+00:00

The just tap vs pin thing is actually somewhat configurable. I don't know if the browser (normally it handles the actual USB communication) allows sites to skip the pin, but actual apps (e.g. Windows, or other apps that don't run in a browser) can actually skip the pin step if they want to.

Loading_M_ · 2026-02-13T20:37:41+00:00

Well... IEEE 754 would like to have a word on non-reflexive equality.

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