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bnj

1,057 karmajoined 13 years ago
[ my public key: https://keybase.io/banj; my proof: https://keybase.io/banj/sigs/JCsA2bSuKNyrDJTr24k8SUmOh7Xs5Dj5ARTKQHIWxYk ]

Submissions

We'll fight the platform war against big AI

anildash.com
4 points·by bnj·5 days ago·0 comments

Data.world to be discontinued on July 11, 2026

docs.data.world
4 points·by bnj·last month·1 comments

comments

bnj
·19 days ago·discuss
I’ve been wanting to get better acquainted with local inference but I don’t have the hardware, which has made me think about something I haven’t seen discussed, which is local collaboratives. The economics makes it seem like a group of people joining together to run good hardware and an open model might make sense, but I haven’t seen anything like this mentioned. Have I been missing it?

I think it would be pretty neat to launch a service helping people who wanted to participate in something like that locate one another.
bnj
·19 days ago·discuss
I appreciate this distinction. The are multiple senses of SOTA and one that has been taking on greater mindshare is as a synonym of “the best available”. By rebasing on SOTA as generally available and understood versus cutting edge, which has limited distribution and leads the way, we expand the vocabulary we have available to describe what’s going on. Thanks.
bnj
·19 days ago·discuss
Wouldn't this also be true of government issued ID's? There's nothing preventing a non-US national from having a drivers license...

Maybe I just don't understand the definitions?
bnj
·19 days ago·discuss
> We are not collecting more than we need

Why does anthropic need more than a credit card for paying subscribers?
bnj
·last month·discuss
Thanks for sharing this, I didn’t realize that there was a fundamental philosophical divergence here- you’ve really helped me expand my thinking
bnj
·last month·discuss
That’s a good point. So maybe another point of divergence here is that the outcomes of the DMA are rooted in inherently unpredictable market interactions, whereas a medical device standard depends on the device performance and characteristics.

I don’t think it makes sense to create an accountability framework for a company that requires the cooperation of the market, because I think companies should be in a position to either comply or be held accountable on their own merits
bnj
·last month·discuss
It sounds like what you’re saying is that because the legislature can’t anticipate how companies will abuse loopholes, they sidestep that by outlining the outcomes instead.

The issue I have with that approach is that I don’t agree with that approach to governance. I believe it’s incumbent on the regulator to define what is acceptable vs. disallowed in unambiguous terms.
bnj
·last month·discuss
Big scary warnings aren’t a solution either. I watch the way my son interacts with consent screens and warnings, and it’s barely believable- the average person is very well trained to click through the warnings.

Someone might believe that people who ignore the warnings deserve everything they get, but I respectfully disagree. I remember helping my grandma uninstall and remove all the hostile browser extensions that had tricked her into installing them. If Apple is protecting vulnerable populations by taking the choice out of the users hands, even if it’s only profit motivated, I’m okay with that until someone presents an alternative that actually addresses those needs.
bnj
·last month·discuss
But that does have to do with privacy.

Apple wants to implement features that access data locally. It doesn’t want to allow competition for offering those features, but if it did, competitors may use that access to local data to exfiltrate.

So it is about both competition and, as a result of creating competition, privacy.
bnj
·last month·discuss
As I follow the situation, it seems that regulatory uncertainty is a major issue though- the EU’s requirements are framed in terms of outcomes sought, rather than in terms that can be quantitatively shown as met or broken. So it’s not a matter of dedicating a team to meet a list of requirements, but instead navigating the worst case scenario of enforcement if post-launch the EU determines that the proscribed outcomes aren’t being met.
bnj
·last month·discuss
There is a vast asymmetry in knowledge and capability to make those choices for most users. Most users will press agree and consent to things they don’t understand to get to the next screen, and while that would be terrible for the individuals I think it’s also important to look further at the ramifications because probably Apple would be blamed.
bnj
·last month·discuss
I like it I think it’s sort of cool to see the different environments around Apple Park and be able to hear from a lot of different employees without having to watch a parade over the stage
bnj
·last month·discuss
Acquired by ServiceNow in 2025 and now shuttering the service.
bnj
·2 months ago·discuss
Plenty of comments about using an LLM to assist with this, and I was happy to be able to read about a learning experience where the stakes were pretty low and the feedback loop pretty tight. Thanks for writing it up; for me, it reminds me that some of the use cases where an LLM might be an efficient tool are also the places where it can be wise to take the opportunity to learn and sharpen new skills.
bnj
·2 months ago·discuss
For an adobe creative cloud subscription? I just looked at their pricing page and could only locate "annual, billed monthly" options. If there's an actual monthly subscription which is just a little more expensive then I'd say the insidious aspect is in hiding it.
bnj
·2 months ago·discuss
Maybe the goal is to release something publicly every day, can’t get away from OpenAI announcements the last two weeks. Competing for mindshare.
bnj
·3 months ago·discuss
If I read it right, the 4B ballpark figure is based on total annual per employee cost of 500k * 8000 employees, so the figure is actually 4B/year. 20B over five years.
bnj
·3 months ago·discuss
This makes me think of the interface for one handed touch screen typing that was used in the movie version of Ended’s game; it stuck with me as an example of a more touch friendly flexible input mechanism that really challenged how I thought about interfaces. Someone made an open source implementation of it but half the battle is getting these idioms to take root. I wish Apple would experiment more with novel touch interfaces in the way the article describes.
bnj
·3 months ago·discuss
It’s insidious because you’re being required to agree to pay for a year of use, split monthly, but cannot decide to cancel during the term of the agreement without paying for use that you don’t want. Just because the terms are clear doesn’t mean it’s not an insidious pricing scheme.

If it were not insidious, it would be easy to answer the question: “what costs for adobe are being covered by the early termination fee?” - but there aren’t any costs, the fee is a punishment to dissuade you from cancelling and hoping that you will miss the window to prevent automatic renewal.
bnj
·3 months ago·discuss
In my circles it is regular and routine for students to use an older edition, pirate, and/or use library copies. Many students literally can’t afford to buy the books at list price and find other ways to manage.