I always wondered what the model meant when it writes "I'm now considering the architecture of the service" but outputs nothing of the sorts in its CoT.
Is the model really "thinking" about that stuff or is just mimicking human "manners"? And if so, where the thinking is happening if it is not in the literal chain of *thought*?
I'm not sure J-Space is the answer to that question, but very interesting nevertheless.
The issue is not the amount; it's the currency. Ours is not convertible.
To put it into perspective: even *free* services can be completely inaccessible here if they require payment info for verification purposes.
Acquiring hard currency to spend online is truly a bureaucratic nightmare, and even if you manage it, the annual limit is strictly capped (at around $300).
I live in a country where the selection of available books, especially in English, is very limited. Buying online from foreign markets comes with a long list of administrative hurdles and limits.
If it were not for Anna's Archive and Z-Library, I would've never been able to read the books that shaped who I am today, or keep my passion for learning alive.
Thanks, AA and ZLib! (Also, thank you to the authors whose books and knowledge I consumed without being able to pay them back.)
Manufacturing requires micromanaging every aspect of the process, requiring special machinery, trained workforce (human or not), inventory management.
Reproduction, once we master its blueprint of course, is much less demanding: just provide the ingredients at approximate proportions and the chemistry will work its magic to provide a similar enough unit to achieve the required task.
You stumble upon a news article from 2226. You read it to see who, between Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, won the AI race.
Instead, your learn about Biotic.
It's now the leading polity in the solar system and its environs. It bought Alphabet, OpenAI and Anthropic in a single day back in 2084.
Humans are no longer desired. Their reproduction is capped to an optimal minimum assuring the survival of the species as a relic.
For productive matters, Biotec preferes to rely on its biomachines. Imagine drones giving birth to offspring when traffic is at a peak. It takes more energy, sure. But no factory, nor workers are needed.
If left alone, machines would multiply out of control, instead of rotting to waste like in the olden days.
I wish the Soviets had focused more on developing an independent computer industry and their own distinct flavors of programming languages.
Imagine the thrill of studying languages built to run on completely separate hardware architectures, featuring entirely novel paradigms and structures.
This would be the closest thing to experience reverse-engineering a computer from an alien spaceship.
For previous models, it was the excessive "sportiness" that sometimes made them look like a car from a mecha anime.
Luce's is more of an underwhelmed look, especially with the outstanding interior design it was privileged to have that was (rightfully) overhype over the last few months.
A car with that kind of an interior deserved a much bolder design.
I even created a generator so people can configure it with their Telegram/Pushover settings and have it generate a static app easy to host on Netlify or Clouflare Pages/Workers.
I'd say that that's a feature of modern-ish newspapers with "advanced" layouting techniques from early to mid 20th century.
A news sheet from THE olden days (eg Victorian era), looks more like a wall of text, set as tightly -- an uniformly -- as possibly, which is not surprising considering the limitations imposed by the technology of the day.
As for story selection, I think the collective hivemind of hn-ers would be a worthy substitute for an editor in chief.
I lived through similar dynamics (though not at Ferrari, of course).
The management knows that they need something new and out of their comfort zone. Someone (from within or without) suggests an idea that would never been accepted in the olden days.
The management, for the sake of their company, would suppress every instinct they have built over the years, often over-correcting. This inevitably results in some questionable choices seeping in, in the name of openness to new paradigms.
And not every time this goes well.
I'm not saying this is what's happening here. These are world-class engineers and designers, but nobody is immune from a bad decision or two.
Is this a common thing? Sleeping without any sort of cover during the hot summer months (notably July and August) is the norm here (North Africa) and never heard of anyone who does it (AC or not).
Is this an American thing? Do people in warmer regions of the country (Texas, Florida, ...) also feel the same?
Can't help noticing how the interface and general mechanics of these old OSes were tightly coupled to the hardware. Both the makers and users of that era seemed to relish that vibe. I know I certainly do.
However, that paradigm made computers daunting for anyone who wasn't an enthusiast. While I’m nostalgic for that level of transparency, I recognize that those hurdles stood in the way of mass adoption.
We might lament how 'dull' or 'abstracted' modern software feels, but technology's primary purpose is utility, not just to be venerated as an artifact.
THAT SAID, I still believe that user-friendliness isn't an excuse to strip away agency.
Modern simplification shouldn't feel like a forced lobotomy of the OS (or any piece of software really). There’s no reason we can't have both: an interface that stays out of the way for the average user, while providing total control for power users.
What make TikTok, well TikTok, is the frictionless experience.
When I opened the link, I expected to directly be shown the target content. If there's a login screen or any explanation to do, it should either be postponed or integrated into the experience.
By the way, it looks like there's a bug where I can't search for articles when already inside one. To do so, I need to go back to home > articles and then search.
Just kidding, of course. This is incredible and surprisingly nostalgic. Reading some of the entries took me right back to being a kid huddled in my room for hours pouring over an encyclopedia or even the dictionary.
And I still vividly remember the rush of installing Encarta for the first time on the family PC.
I couldn't believe that I, a mere kid, have now access to iconic historical footage and that I can watch anytime I felt like it. I can't describe how amazingly cool that felt at the time! It still gives me a hit of endorphins when I remember it today.
Even discussing a taboo topic may cost someone their freedom, if not their life.