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theahura

2,131 karmajoined 8년 전
amolkapoor.com

writes at http://12gramsofcarbon.com/

Submissions

Colleges have an education problem (2025)

12gramsofcarbon.com
2 points·by theahura·16시간 전·0 comments

What are the AI folks up to these days?

12gramsofcarbon.com
1 points·by theahura·그저께·0 comments

Sometimes free isn't cheap enough

12gramsofcarbon.com
7 points·by theahura·7일 전·0 comments

Memorizing session transcripts isn't useful

12gramsofcarbon.com
180 points·by theahura·9일 전·159 comments

HTML is all you need

12gramsofcarbon.com
3 points·by theahura·12일 전·0 comments

Tokenmaxxing is dead, long live tokenmaxxing

12gramsofcarbon.com
191 points·by theahura·14일 전·291 comments

The modern company won't have bullshit jobs

12gramsofcarbon.com
5 points·by theahura·17일 전·0 comments

Verification Debt is the new Tech Debt

12gramsofcarbon.com
2 points·by theahura·20일 전·0 comments

Show HN: A Browser Built for Browser Automation

github.com
3 points·by theahura·21일 전·0 comments

There is a shadow hanging over this Fable thing

12gramsofcarbon.com
492 points·by theahura·30일 전·487 comments

Playwright as My Default Browser

12gramsofcarbon.com
2 points·by theahura·지난달·0 comments

I'm waiting for Claude to rm rf my computer

12gramsofcarbon.com
4 points·by theahura·지난달·1 comments

Show HN: Switch skills between agents, locally manage multiple configs

github.com
4 points·by theahura·지난달·0 comments

The Pope Takes Aim at Silicon Valley Culture

12gramsofcarbon.com
3 points·by theahura·지난달·0 comments

Dune Imperium Is an Everything Sandwich

12gramsofcarbon.com
2 points·by theahura·2개월 전·0 comments

Elon Musk lost his case against Sam Altman

theverge.com
5 points·by theahura·2개월 전·0 comments

Everyone's Getting Fired

12gramsofcarbon.com
2 points·by theahura·2개월 전·1 comments

Let's maybe not defund universities (2025)

12gramsofcarbon.com
5 points·by theahura·2개월 전·0 comments

Slack having issues with Messaging, API

2 points·by theahura·2개월 전·0 comments

Essays on Dwarkesh's "Big Questions on AI"

12gramsofcarbon.com
1 points·by theahura·2개월 전·0 comments

comments

theahura
·5시간 전·discuss
Let's spend $100 billion + on Iran, but also cancel student funding because don't you know the budget is too high?
theahura
·5시간 전·discuss
> Do you really want to make the case that the Federal government should fund these?

No, but I don't think means testing is a better alternative. You and I both know that this is a wedge to punish perceived political enemies, as much as you know that the total number of people who graduate with a degree in "somatic body work" is such a small fraction of people as to be negligible

> Nationally, about 10,600 to 10,700 students graduate annually with a degree or certificate in the broader category of Somatic Bodywork & Therapeutic Services. The vast majority (over 10,500) specialize in Massage Therapy, while purely focused Somatic Bodywork programs see much smaller cohorts, averaging roughly 40 to 50 graduates per year across all US institutions. (From Gemini)

This is kinda like saying we should get rid of encryption because a few people may use it for bad things, or that we should require identification before anyone can get on the Internet because some people may be hurt by it
theahura
·5시간 전·discuss
Education isn't a binary, so I'm not sure why we should arbitrarily draw the line at highschool as we become richer as a nation
theahura
·5시간 전·discuss
Yes we should also do this
theahura
·15시간 전·discuss
> There is no evidence that students were actually doing this in any significant numbers.

premature optimization is the root of all evil. Seems like we shouldve actually shown that kids would do that before putting it into law
theahura
·15시간 전·discuss
> whats the goal of government education subsidies

a more educated populace is a public and civic good on its own terms. Public funding for education is maybe partially for economic returns, but is mostly because education is a necessary part of a functioning democracy and a necessary part of living a good fulfilling life
theahura
·15시간 전·discuss
imo this is pants on head backwards. The whole problem with the current university system is that it has become exclusively a credentialing system that everyone uses to justify higher salaries. We’ve completely left the education part of it by the wayside…except for the liberal arts majors who are actually there just to learn! This rule is just encoding the existing tulip mania into federal law directly, by making it clear that the ONLY reason one goes to school is for future $$$
theahura
·5일 전·discuss
always a fun day when someone rediscovers these. Lucky 10000

in case folks are interested, i wrote up a ~layman's review of each paper over the course of two years a while back. Several of those reviews ended up doing reasonably well on hn. Full analysis of the ~23 docs that were papers and not massive books

https://12gramsofcarbon.com/p/ilyas-30-papers-to-carmack-tab...
theahura
·9일 전·discuss
(note that I am the author!)
theahura
·9일 전·discuss
> Like, if you have complaints about the thing, perhaps you should address them to your supplier directly. None of your readers can help, and nobody's magic folk solution to your problem is better than yours.

I think you may just misunderstand the point of having / writing a personal blog. I write because it's fun! Whether the reader gets any value out of reading it is almost entirely beside the point.

(Also several comments here directly post a fix to the problem stated in the blog post, so readers can and do often help)
theahura
·9일 전·discuss
With the million-context-window models we never hit compaction, observed over hundreds of sessions. What are you doing that has you hitting compaction regularly?
theahura
·9일 전·discuss
interesting take. I think I disagree, but I like this take a lot and I had to think about it.

First, I think that models still need a context layer. One way to think about 'context' is as a form of compression. You provide the model context because it makes it easier for the model to figure out what to do. Even in a world with infinite model capacity and infinite model context, this is still useful because it allows the model to avoid rederiving everything from first principles every time. As long as models perform better using fewer tokens and as long as we care about token spend, context is a useful (necessary?) shortcut.

Once you bite that you need some form of context layer, the question is which. Here I do agree that it is better to work with what the models will find familiar (markdown files colocated with code, for eg). But this speaks to over-engineered solutions not understanding their main user (the agent) more than it does the need or lack there of.
theahura
·13일 전·discuss
starting a company that benefits from tokenmaxxing, mostly
theahura
·13일 전·discuss
Hi, author here. I'm probably somewhat financially benefiting from tokenmaxxing. I also just believe compounding correctness is right, based on my own experience using the tools (which is why I have structured my life to try and financially benefit from tokenmaxxing)
theahura
·14일 전·discuss
(its in the article, which predicts that there will be another round of tokenmaxxing with different underlying incentives)
theahura
·14일 전·discuss
that is a better title! Added it as a subheader
theahura
·14일 전·discuss
Dan Luu at MS: https://x.com/danluu/status/1487228574608211969?lang=en
theahura
·14일 전·discuss
Independent of everything else, very interesting to see how polarized the comments are here
theahura
·14일 전·discuss
I do abuse this title format, guilty as charged
theahura
·16일 전·discuss
> “I have determined that appropriate safeguards are in place to permit certain trusted partners to access the Claude Mythos 5 Model,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wrote to Anthropic’s chief compute officer Tom Brown Friday

why is the commerce secretary making this decision