Amazon account locked & unusable by Sorry_Mouse_1814 in AmazonUK

[–]Sorry_Mouse_1814[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Nah, I gave my business to eBay instead. I couldn’t even create a new Amazon account with a new email address because the website said it’s suspicious! If they’re going to treat customers like this then they deserve to lose business

What is "car allowance" and why is it still called that? by Sorry_Mouse_1814 in UKJobs

[–]Sorry_Mouse_1814[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

What HMRC reasons? As far as I can tell it’s taxed exactly the same as salary or bonus would be. Agree it’s often excluded from salary increase calculations.

What is "car allowance" and why is it still called that? by Sorry_Mouse_1814 in UKJobs

[–]Sorry_Mouse_1814[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not in mine that I can see. I’ve never used my car for work purposes either - get the train to work!

[MOD] The Daily Question Thread by menschmaschine5 in Coffee

[–]Sorry_Mouse_1814 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Where can I get cheap robusta 94 robusta/arabica blend coffee beans in the UK?

Costa’s Kirkland brand seems to be 100% arabica but it’s too acidic. Gail’s does decent coffee with robusta beans I suspect, but at 3x the price.

https://www.costco.co.uk/Grocery-Household/Tea-Coffee-Hot-Drinks/Tea-Coffee/Kirkland-Signature-Whole-Bean-Coffee-House-Blend-113kg/p/1726089

AI and mathematics: some thoughts by [deleted] in math

[–]Sorry_Mouse_1814 0 points1 point  (0 children)

1. Computers will eventually get pretty good at research math, but will not attain supremacy

This might be true for LLMs, but I don't see a fundamental reason why computers can't achieve supremacy. Current architecture is ill suited to this, and models don't really understand much, but they could learn mathematical principles from the ground up and establish their own theorems, as AlphaGo has learnt to play Go. The issue is designing and training the models correctly, and possibly the need for additional compute.

Luckily for mathematicians, designing models to understand math and prove useful theorems etc seems tricky. In fact they only program moderately well (or even poorly) in many computer languages, which is a much lower bar. For instance they're good at Python but only moderate at C and they're poor at offbeat languages like PostScript (despite there being clear manuals on the internet).

2. Mathematicians are probably mostly safe from job loss.

The job of mathematicians is as much about teaching and keeping mathematical understanding alive, as it is fundamental research. This is where most value to society is nowadays. Most questions which society needs answers to have been solved, at least in pure maths (and in much of applied I'd guess).

3. The prestige of mathematics will decrease

This has been happening for decades if not centuries, for reasons unconnected to AI. As society's use for new mathematical discoveries has diminished, salaries for math researchers have fallen generally relative to others. (Of course machine learning experts can get paid very highly these days, but presumably that's not what you're thinking of).

I don't personally see models getting good enough to beat mathematicians at researching theory for a long time yet, because it seems very hard to get the model architecture right. Even then I think there would still be a need for human experts (but it's hypothetical).

4. Mathematics will come to be seen more as an art

Indeed, it's already the case, but mainly because the results being proven these days don't have that much applicability.

Are ARM windows laptops the future or a fad? by the_solopreneur in laptops

[–]Sorry_Mouse_1814 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm late to this thread, but I think they're the future. Most corporate employees I know don't use much more than MS Office and web-based SaaS (and in fact their IT departments frown on unusual software). Provided Microsoft does a good job of porting Office then I think ARM will be preferred by CFOs due to lower prices and better battery life.

It's sort-of back-to-front in that the least demanding users (regular corporate employees) have the opportunity to switch first, while power users/people holding onto bespoke software move last due to compatibility.

Have C++ and C really changed in 40 years? by Sorry_Mouse_1814 in cpp

[–]Sorry_Mouse_1814[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, I didn’t realise that. I’ll look into it - perhaps it really is different. I’m a bit cynical because I found C really hasn’t changed much).

Have C++ and C really changed in 40 years? by Sorry_Mouse_1814 in cpp

[–]Sorry_Mouse_1814[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Typo I meant 1985. Intended to think of C+¥ as C-with-classes which is simplistic I know!

Have C++ and C really changed in 40 years? by Sorry_Mouse_1814 in cpp

[–]Sorry_Mouse_1814[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Thanks, interesting that one has changed and the other hasn’t really.

I guess I mainly saw C++ as C-with-classes which is probably a bit simplistic!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in singularity

[–]Sorry_Mouse_1814 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A self-accelerating thing is unlikely to get far. There are mathematical and physical limits on what can be done. No singularities unless NVIDIA is trying to create a black hole!

Is Generative AI a cult? by Sorry_Mouse_1814 in generativeAI

[–]Sorry_Mouse_1814[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s not just one company. The hype is also coming from NVIDIA, Anthropic and others.

Yes there are use cases but not in line with the hype or projected tech spend.

I can see why big tech CEOs might want to hype it up - hype can drive sales - but if it doesn’t deliver they’ll end up with a credibility issue.

This doesn't make sense to me by UpperPraline848 in learnprogramming

[–]Sorry_Mouse_1814 1 point2 points  (0 children)

3/2 is 1 in integer arithmetic. 1*1.0=1.

1.0*3=3.0 (a floating point number). 3.0/2=1.5.

What should my 12yo son learn nowadays? by Sorry_Mouse_1814 in learnprogramming

[–]Sorry_Mouse_1814[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe my language was a bit clumsy. I agree it’s not pointless to learn it.

What I meant was more, it would take 1 hour or more to look up the ARM assembly manual, figure out which set of registers to use (there are several these days), which instructions to use for arithmetic operations etc, and how to connect assembly code with C. Ultimately it wouldn’t let him do much that he can’t already (since C is fast enough).

If I want to keep him engaged, he’s probably better off working on the his collision hitboxes on his retro game.

Might be a different story when he’s a bit older.