Profile pic is from Jason Box, depicting a projection of Arctic warming to the year 2100 based on current trends.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: March 3rd, 2024

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  • Designed so they wouldn’t become another HDMI fiasco, where you have to search for aftermarket clips so your plug stays in. Now, do Displayports need it, probably not. They feel about as secure as a USB. But there is that fear going back to even VGA, where most worked fine without screwing them in, but just to make sure… (I can’t recall, did EGA have screws?)




  • As a (still) Linux novice, this is something that I noticed with later distributions but never thought about your valid point. I did always wonder why there should be different places to install things in the same OS. It would probably be fine if they handled things the same, but then all you’re doing is changing the UI. It never “felt” like they did things the same.


  • People don’t change. Some people look at what they’re repeating and try to understand the why, others blindly do what they are told by whom they deem as authority. LLMs are the latest, earlier were various websites (which LLMs were trained on, uh oh), still before that were the computer magazines with things to type in and the later versions even maybe a free CD of stuff. The printed media was less likely to have malicious things in them, but lord did they have errors, and the right error in the wrong place could ruin someone’s day if they just ran it without understanding it.


  • Ollama.com is another method of self hosting. Figuring out which model type and size for what equipment you have is key, but it’s easy to swap out. That’s just an LLM, where you go from there depends on how deep you want to get into the code. An LLM by itself can work, it’s just limited. Most of the addons you see are extra things to give memory, speech, avatars, and other extras to improve the experience and abilities. Or you can program a lot of that yourself if you know Python. But as others have said, the more you try to get out, the more robust a system you’ll need, which is why you find the best ones online in cloud format. But if you’re okay with slower responses and lower features, self hosting is totally doable, and you can do what you want, especially if you get one of the “Jailbroke” models that has had some of the safety limits modified out of them to some degree.

    Also as mentioned, be careful not to get sucked in. Even a local model can be convincing enough sometimes to fool someone wanting to see things. Lots of people recognize that danger, but then belittle people who are looking for help in that direction (while marketing realizes the potential profits and tries very hard to sell it to the same people).



  • I agree it can be used fallaciously, often found in the business world. My point was to include both good and bad honestly and not hide it, and people won’t shut down if they get the good first. It also depends on the subject - if they’re on the right track and your suggestion leads to better results, that’s not as negative as telling someone they’re doing something incorrectly and offering a different way.

    In the end, how you say things is just as important as what is said.


  • On constructive criticism - definitely rule one is make sure that it’s invited first, but second, the best way to “sweeten” a critique and make it more appealing is to put it between compliments. Don’t have a bare remark about the problems or suggestions, tell them what you like first, then how they might change things, and then close with something else positive or simply thanking them for sharing it. Even if someone says they want to hear what people think, it’s normal to be defensive, so help lower that reaction first, and then leave them feeling appreciated even though you pointed out issues you saw.



  • I read through the summary, and it sounds a lot like how evolutionary development is perceived by the layperson vs. how complex it really is, including the deception that we are at some high point. So the next question in my mind, and based on the summary the authors left to explore as the answer is probably a difficult one to find - are there paths that could have been traveled which didn’t lead to similar messes like we find ourselves in? One assumption is always that capitalism and consumption and all that comes with them is inevitable. Maybe not? It would ruin this meme that I found very fitting for society, but that’s again based on an inevitable conclusion to be true.