ryzvonusef

4,776 karmajoined 13 jaar geleden

Based in Islamabad, Pakistan

I write articles sometimes, do read and comment:

https://substack.com/profile/27961964-rizwan-yousaf

[email protected]

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/ryzvonusef; my proof: https://keybase.io/ryzvonusef/sigs/HHB4PzqVK4CYbvIiQt1ln-VWIlisKG71ihOdGRnqdj4 ]

Submissions

Political Neutrality Benchmark of popular AI models

neutralityproject.org

5 pointsby ryzvonusef6 uur geleden0 comments

The Digital Sovereignty Trap

statedept.substack.com

3 pointsby ryzvonusef18 dagen geleden0 comments

SpaceX signs computing power deal with AI startup Reflection worth up $6.3B

14 pointsby ryzvonusef20 dagen geleden1 comments

Tesla poaching engineers from chip manufacturing companies like TSMC

1 pointsby ryzvonusef4 maanden geleden2 comments

Neuralink has had 21 'Neuralnauts' in the past 2 years

1 pointsby ryzvonusef5 maanden geleden0 comments

SpaceX built a docking system from bicycle parts

washingtonpost.com

7 pointsby ryzvonusef10 maanden geleden3 comments

Amnesty says Pakistan spying on millions through phone-tapping, firewall

20 pointsby ryzvonusef10 maanden geleden3 comments

comments

5 uur geledendiscuss

The purpose of a college degree is NOT a job... but the purpose of a college LOAN is 100% a job, and it's very important to differentiate between the two.

The whole point of the loan is to buy time; you don't want to wait for when you have savings to purchase the degree, you want to do it now. If you are not doing it for the job, then why the loan, what's the rush?

If knowledge and prestige is all that matters, then don't take the loan, take the scenic route, get your degree slowly as and when you have the time and money, and one day you will have something to look back at.

But if you are doing it so you can start earning as soon as possible, when you are still young and energetic... then you are doing it for the job, and in that case the degree better be financially worth it.

You have the right to a degree in XYZ... you should NOT have the right to a taxpayer backed grant/aid/loan/whatever to gain said degree unless you're on a reasonable path to become a tax payer yourself as soon as you are done with the degree.

6 uur geledendiscuss

[dead]

10 dagen geledendiscuss

I feel that...if this only ever useful for limbs and not the head or torso.. it could STILL be a useful device given how cheap and useful it is.

16 dagen geledendiscuss

Please share your review of the device and how you read on it when you get the device. It will be interesting to see how your reading habits change.

17 dagen geledendiscuss

I have been trying to move away from doom scrolling, and the vice I've replaced it with is online webnovels and webcomics.

Reading from RoyalRoad or WebToons is hardly mentally stimulating, but I feel it's at least better than random tweets or vertical short form content. There are quite a few stories that I've come to really enjoy and look forward to reading when the new chapter comes out.

It's not like I've stopped reading books, but there is a lot of time between releases of a book series and each book requires quite a lot of time commitment, whereas a single web chapter require much less time to read.

Also, kinda sad but... tbh as I get older I've gotten a bit calcified in my literary habits; I'm now a bit reticent and less eager to discover new book series and have decided to stick to a few authors I'm more comfortable with (time requirement to discover if I like a new one is just too much). With web stories, just a few chapters let me know if I like the vibe, and picking/dropping stories has much less friction.

A device like the X4 would be ok for epubs downloaded from the internet, but for stuff like what I read now, due to its lack of internet connectivity [1] would mean I'd be reading LESS.

I'm not saying it SHOULD have internet... its purpose as a doomscroll-killer makes it obvious why it won't... just that these things have unintended consequences.

[1]: afaik, it has wifi but not an internet browser or app support that would allow constant linking/updating from such web sources.

18 dagen geledendiscuss

[flagged]

20 dagen geledendiscuss

    > Under the agreement, Reflection will get immediate access to Nvidia GB300s, top-of-the-line AI chips used to train and run advanced models, and has agreed to pay SpaceX $150 million per month beginning July 1, 2026, through 2029, according to materials viewed by CNBC.

As someone said on twitter, SpaceX is becoming the AWS for AI

really wish the AI division was a (differently named) subsidiary

26 dagen geledendiscuss

they had the option, but hadn't executed on it... now it seems they have.

vorige maanddiscuss

All that wailing and gnashing about Spacex ipo 'forcing' index fund to invest and thus 'loot' poor people's retirements... when all you had to do was just...add a waiting clause.

It can still be a passive fund, not the end of the world.

Index trackers hire talented people surely they can add a waiting clause in their tracks too, just like S&P.

If your index isn't adding waiting clause, it's simply because they are greedy.

2 maanden geledendiscuss

Would you be willing stake some money on your claim and short the stock?

2 maanden geledendiscuss

Karpathy's career arc feels similar to Jim Keller's; a butterfly flitting from one flower to another, gathering experiences and creating magic everywhere they go.

2 maanden geledendiscuss

> Yes, Elon is very sane.

tbf, a 'sane' person wouldn't have started a rocket company and an ev company, at the same time, in a recession.

He has never been sane. and that has made all the difference.

2 maanden geledendiscuss

I grew up in Nairobi during the 90's, and corporal punishment was common. We had massive work loads (by grade 7, we had 13 subjects and like 50 books, and no locker system like in america so had to drag two bags everyday) and there was often some chance of us not being able to complete a certain piece of homework... so we got hit on the hands or the butt with a pipe. Not quite caning, but still very painful.

Not sure how it helped, I just lived in constant stress of homework. But more importantly, the 'naughty' kids got immune to it. If you pipe everyone for minor infractions, then people just took it in stride.

____

Then we were posted in to Saudi in the early 00's, and I vividly remember an event. I was in an all boys high school by then (segregated because saudi, duh), and one day, just an hour or so before end of school, we were all ordered to assemble in the main ground. It was surprising since no event was planned, and the teachers were grim faced.

Soon a van came into the forefront, and out came the police (both the normal uniformed police and the religious police, remember this was saudi like 3-ish kings back) and a few kids.... who were caned in front of us. Not much, 3-4 strikes each, and their backs were clothed, but it was whole dramatic production nonetheless, with a speech in arabic and everything.

Turns out (explained by teachers after we came back to class) they were boys from our school who had loitered around the girls section, and upon the security guard's attempt to shoo them away, had bullied and hurt him badly.

Now THAT put the fear of god in the kids, at least for awhile. It didn't mean there weren't kids smoking in the bathrooms or other teenage bullshit even after, but the reminder that you could be caned in front of the entire school did put a damper on the amount of mischief that kids committed for some time.... until of course the kids who saw the scene graduated and the memory was lost, I guess.

____

So, while there is some merit to public corporal punishment and the humiliation ritual... but even then, kids are stupid and will justify to themselves many things (hey I'm not going to the extent of going to the girls section, nah it's just me and the lads messing around with a fellow classmate, doesn't rise to the level of caning, does it?)

And secondly, teachers will react by lower the bar further and further down until they go back to corporal punishment for everything (when all you have a hammer...)

____

One of the best way to control mischievous kids, imho, is to just kick them out.

Sounds brutal, but when you have a collective environment like a school, you can't waste the time of the overwhelming majority of kids for the very few who just don't want to 'fit the system'.

And yes, 'fitting the system' was a deliberate choice of words, because usually that terminology is used for kids who need guidance... but these aren't 'naughty' kids who just need a 'creative outlet', we are talking about bullies here; if you have reached highschool age and you still haven't grokked that you can't just hit fellow students just because you are miserable... then you need to spend time elsewhere and learn the costs of fitting in society.

Maybe very [south]asian-coded of me, but our parents put a lot of time and expense in our educations (literally the only source of social uplift for us), and if we can't study because some other parent is lacking in raising their child.... that should not affect us, the education market is already very competitive and we can't risk falling behind.

The question of course arises, what to do with the kids who have been kicked out? Can't let them roam around or the problem gets worse, nothing more dangerous than a teenager with no goals, they are walking loose cannons.

Honestly... I don't know. Caning will work for a bit... but how long before the shock value passes? Some sort of juvie? That again just gets them into the crime pathway. Maybe some special school for them? But isn't that a juvie by another name?

3 maanden geledendiscuss

Quick, someone tell slashdot!

3 maanden geledendiscuss

Thank you for sharing! that's an interesting project.

3 maanden geledendiscuss

there is a youtube video I watched where an RV guy converted as many appliances and gadgets on his vehicle to Direct DC as he could, saved a lot on wastage from DC-AC-DC conversions.

We need mundane home DC solutions.

4 maanden geledendiscuss

The problem arises because Trans people in the west (ironically) insist on a binary definition.

Here in Pakistan, trans people have fought for (and gained) the right to NOT be part of the binary system; so here we have 'M' for men, 'W' for women and 'X' for trans people. (Homosexuality is still illegal, btw)

Or to make it more explicit, the tagline 'trans women are women' would be considered transphobic here, because women is considered to be synonymous with cis women, but they are trans, they earnt the right for that X in their sex column.

It's not like we are a bastion of trans rights here, so the issue of bathrooms ( they are required to have their own, iirc, but I doubt compliance is prevalent) and sports (haven't heard anything about trans people in sports) hasn't arisen yet.

I feel trans people in the west will have to come to the same realisation that their trans counterparts in the east have; the binary definition is not fit for purpose.

4 maanden geledendiscuss

The issue is literally one of segregation.

You create, as a form of entertainment for the masses, an event for peak athletes to display their talent...by quirk of biology that means men.

You create a women's category to let them have their own entertainment niche.

You have in fact segregated sports, by gender, or sex, or whatever you want to call it.

Now there exist individuals who challenge the boundaries of this segregation. What do?

The realpolitik answer would be to segregate these individuals into yet another niche.

Of course the question arises, how many segregation categories to you create before it becomes all meaningless?

4 maanden geledendiscuss

Here is Elon Musk's take on this attempt:

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2035743704322023820

    > Given that several companies make advanced chips, but no companies have ever made fully reusable rockets or achieved SpaceX scale, I think Starship is harder, but we shall see.

    > Terafab will technically be two fabs, each making only one chip design. This greatly simplifies process flow and allows more linear, adjacent movement of the FOUP. 

    > A super high production rate allows us to test very quickly what steps can be deleted, simplified or sped up, even after the design is fixed. Current fabs are extremely conservative, operating on rigid historical heuristics, which are mostly, but not all, correct. 
 
    > Anything that is a rate limiter at the machine level means that machine will be redesigned, unless already at limit of physics. 

    > Having new iterations of a chip design be produced every day in the research fab (with <7 day lag) means being able to try out many high risk, high return ideas.

    > Etc

    > In any event, there is no other way to reach extreme scale, so either we make Terafab or we will be stuck at the ~20% chip/memory output growth per year of the current industry.

and here is a reply countering this that might provide some insight:

https://x.com/ContrarianCurse/status/2035753377053766134

    > First of all, you can’t turn iterations for 6-8w at 2nm, there is 1k+ steps, can’t speed up dep or EUV any further 

    > “I’ll just delete steps”. Those steps are ruthlessly optimized in surface of reducing defect density and boosting yields - which is critically important with this type of capital intensity 

    > Even TSM took 3y to ramp 2nm and that is with essentially a monopoly on the talent base to pull it off +40 years of accumulated know-how and recipes 

    > This is quite literally impossible. Better off spending that capital on prepays for capacity

4 maanden geledendiscuss

original link in chinese, here is a google translate link:

https://money-udn-com.translate.goog/money/story/5612/939845...

The source is a Taipei based journalist:

https://x.com/dnystedt/status/2036231434722222447

    > Tesla’s TeraFab has launched a talent war in Taiwan via job postings seeking senior chip experts (Process Integration Engineers) with over 10-years of experience, media report, adding its 2nm fab plan aims directly at TSMC. Chip engineers are already in short supply in Taiwan – like nearly everything chip related – and industry insiders worry the ‘Musk Halo Effect’ will draw local talent.