avidiax

I'm not going to claim that elevator malpractice isn't possible, but no elevator is designed with a single point of failure for any safety critical system, so I don't think it's easy or likely to make a mistake that would cause a safety issue.

avidiax

4일 전discuss

This post was pretty technical. Let's explain a couple of terms:

ML-KEM -- Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism

ML-DSA -- Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Algorithm

solo PQ -- Using post-quantum crypto on its own

ECC+PQ -- Using post-quantum crypto as a layer on top of traditional elliptical curve cryptography (ECC)

So what's at stake here, is that the PQ crypto is not proven yet, and had recent implementation vulnerabilities (Kyberslash 1 & 2).

In the NSA's defense, combining cryptosystems also creates attack surfaces, timing problems, additional complexity, etc. Perhaps they know something we don't. They have sometimes acted to strengthen public cryptography, as with the DES S-boxes and differential cryptanalysis. Of course, they also weakened the key-space...

avidiax

6일 전discuss

Put them in the vegetable bin in the fridge, too. Should make them last much longer.

avidiax

6일 전discuss

AI is both terrifying and miraculous.

Good to have stories like this where it enables something that might be impossible or impractical otherwise.

I do think the author has a good understanding of software requirements, which is hopefully something the AI will take over eventually.

avidiax

20일 전discuss

This article really buried the most interesting part: the shaping of public opinion by the home office in the UK following acts of terrorism.

avidiax

지난달discuss

The French Revolution is no longer possible. The surveillance state plus wealth mobility means the wealthy will be in New Zealand before anyone erects a guillotine, and the people that would foment a revolution are heavily surveilled and infiltrated.

avidiax

지난달discuss

Rural power was always expensive, but now due to wildfire risk, it needs to be ruinously expensive. It's not for the benefit of the cities, and driven by corporate risk management.

avidiax

지난달discuss

Yes. That is a central problem with power distribution in California.

The cities are paying exorbitant prices for electricity to pay for safer infrastructure for rural customers (undergrounding).

Some cities have divested from PG&E and enjoy much lower electricity prices as a result.

avidiax

지난달discuss

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/newsletters/2026-05-21/spa...

https://archive.is/yFZjd

----

The complaint here isn't from SpaceX investors. It's from retail investors that are being forced to buy SpaceX stock on an accelerated timeline as part of the ETFs they likely purchased so that they would not be overly exposed to volatile single stock picks. The article isn't explicit on this point, instead vaguely gesturing to the series of mega IPOs coming and pointing out that retail clients need to plan for this.

There is a game being played here where the various indexes (NASDAQ, NYSE, etc.) are trying to sweeten the deal to attract big entries like SpaceX (and later OpenAI, Anthropic). The sugar they are giving is an accelerated timeline and inflated spot in the index (3x float rule). That sugar is paid for by retail investors, who may get squeezed when their index funds pay a high price for a small float of public shares, all on predictable days.

Before you say that retail investors should simply buy SpaceX themselves prior to the 15-day index inclusion, realize that retail investors also don't have access to shares at the IPO offer price. That benefit is reserved for large investors, private equity, etc. While it is possible that some retail investors will take this gamble and win, many will be taking a large risk.

avidiax

지난달discuss

> So a passion tax seems like something that should exist and not really be decried.

To put it the other way, work that is distasteful in some way, should also pay more, but this is missing the point.

I think the point of the unionization is that the monopsony of a small number of AAA game studios gives them excessive market power to reduce compensation and especially to reduce working conditions.

A union can acquiesce to the passion tax and say that top developers at a AAA should make $150k/year (a bit low), while simultaneously saying that that developer should be able to see their children on nights and weekends. The project management that leads to "perma-crunch" is something that ought to be resolved on the employer's side, not by the employees.

avidiax

지난달discuss

Also product liability. If you give a domestic hair dryer a 12 ft cord, someone will use it in the shower.

If you give an insta-pot a 6 ft cord, someone will drape it off the counter and a child will pull it.

UL standards actually limit cable length for many appliances.

https://www.intertek.com/standards-updates/ul-1026-electrica...

avidiax

지난달discuss

What is a "fair" outcome?

Is it easier to hold back talented students with a low bar or push untalented ones to a higher bar?

avidiax

2개월 전discuss

It's not just special relativity that's out of reach. It's generally difficult for an LLM to do anything novel, i.e. produce a new hypothesis from scientific data that fits no existing hypothesis, or create an algorithm with a new lower bound on runtime, or debug a proprietary system that makes unusual design assumptions.

avidiax

2개월 전discuss

Present LLMs are quite good at interpolating, in fact, too good.

That's the source of hallucinations. A path can be found between A and B, even if A is the 12th century Chinese royal court and B is the Easter bunny.

Interpolation and rote knowledge are still very useful. Most cognitive tasks are like this.

The thing that LLMs are not presently good at is extrapolation. You can train an LLM on pre-1904 literature, but you won't get special relativity from it, at least not without a human to prompt it in just the right way.

You can have an LLM provide a "novel math proof", but you are necessarily discarding 100 or 1,000 "novel math mistakes". The process is more like a guided walk (like the A* algorithm), with human supervision and intervention, not an autonomous math genius.

"They" are, of course, working on it. But the present implementation has some severe structural limitations (such as an inability for new or discovered information to affect model weights) that make LLMs as a human replacement incomplete.

avidiax

2개월 전discuss

AI for engineering productivity seems to be widely misunderstood to be a magic button that produces the same result, but faster and more cheaply. And based on that reasoning, you should want to force employees to tokenmax, because, why wouldn't you want to get more results but faster and cheaper?

A more nuanced view would be something like:

* AI lets you achieve your roadmap somewhat faster, but:

  * You incur tech debt that's similar to if you hired a dev temporarily for the features. You don't necessarily have someone on the team that understands the new code.

  * Similarly, you aren't upskilling your junior team members. So you aren't getting skill/wage arbitrage as much as before.

  * You will complicate the product. P2 features are P2 for a reason, but AI can cause them to be included and complicate the product for lower marginal gain.

avidiax

2개월 전discuss

Until SCOTUS rules that parallel construction is a constitutional violation, the FBI is free to track everyone and build cases from illegal data.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

avidiax

2개월 전discuss

The US could have those benefits for free.

Single payer would be drastically cheaper than the current system.

The other benefits are just policies that slightly reduce GDP per capita based on a first order analysis.

We are able to afford so many other subsidies, so unclear why housing would be different.

avidiax

2개월 전discuss

That paper is looking at the top 1%. Buy, borrow, die is the realm of the top 0.1 % or 0.01%.

Are you saying that billionaires are actually realizing capital gains to afford yachts, private jets, and mansions?

avidiax

2개월 전discuss

Though I am pro-LVT, I don't think this will help in the current situation.

The owner, the bank, and the city all wish to maintain the illusion that a $10M building from 2010 is still worth at least $10M today, even vacant. No party wishes to realize the loss in value. Occasionally, the city may try to punish vacancy with a tax, which is still about additional revenue and not about realizing diminished value.

avidiax

2개월 전discuss

Get custom fitted ones at an audiologist.

They are very comfortable, at least in the upward facing ear, for me. Foamies are only tolerable a couple of nights for me.

Submissions

SpaceX's index fund debut will look nothing like what most investors expect

SpaceX and the 'Enshittification' of Markets

Police allege 'evil twin' of in-flight Wi-Fi used to steal credentials (2024)

comments