1. Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison
Total comment counts : 99
Summary
Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of crypto exchange FTX, has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for defrauding customers and investors. His parents expressed their heartbreak and vowed to continue fighting for their son. The sentence has drawn criticism from the crypto community, who point out the disparity in punishment compared to Ross Ulbricht, the creator of Silk Road, who received a life sentence. Bankman-Fried can potentially reduce his sentence through good behavior and the First Step Act, which allows nonviolent inmates to reduce their sentence by up to 50%. The court also ordered a forfeiture of $11.02 billion, which will go towards repaying victims of the FTX collapse. Judge Lewis Kaplan expressed concerns about the risk of Bankman-Fried repeating his crimes in the future. It was noted that he comes from a privileged background, is highly intelligent, and has autism.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the idea that someone can make such a mess of their life that they are unable to recover. The author hopes that the people connected to this person can find meaning by repairing the harm they have caused. The article references a quote suggesting that while we may not be exactly like this person, we are all capable of making similar mistakes.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author of the article reflects on losing a significant amount of money due to someone’s actions. Surprisingly, they confess to feeling indifferent towards the person’s sentencing, even though they suffered financially. They express uncertainty about whether they should feel vengeful or if it is healthier to let go and move on.
2. ST-DOS
Total comment counts : 18
Summary
The article discusses the compilation and linking of the kernel using the Open Watcom compiler. The kernel requires certain information in memory addresses related to the BIOS drive number and boot partition. It can be loaded to any memory location and must be started with a far jump to the beginning of the code. Several updates have been made to the ST-DOS-specific features, including the replacement of MMX routines with code that uses 32-bit i386 registers, the ability for symbolic links to point to device files, and optimizations for calculating 64-bit sector indexes. Bug fixes, optimizations, and new features have been implemented, including better support for installing from a USB storage device, disk read optimizations, and support for different keyboard layouts. The kernel also supports large disks and 2 GB FAT filesystems, dynamic disk caching, dynamic file buffering, and mostly MS-DOS-compatible API.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article is about a “Very Finnish Project” which involves a random Finn completing a seemingly unnecessary project to perfection. The author expresses their admiration for Finns and mentions a discussion on ST-DOS on the Dos Ain’t Dead forum.
Top 2 Comment Summary
This article discusses a personal clone of MS-DOS created by someone with the initials “ST”. It clarifies that this clone has nothing to do with Atari ST.
3. BeagleY-AI: a 4 TOPS-capable $70 board from Beagleboard
Total comment counts : 18
Summary
The BeagleBoard.org Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Michigan, USA. They aim to educate and foster collaboration in the use of open-source software and hardware in embedded computing. They provide a platform for owners and developers of open-source technology to share ideas and experiences. The community focuses on developing open-source solutions for physical computing, such as robotics, 3D printers, and other industrial and machine controls.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author of the article is questioning what can be done with 4 or 8 TOPS (tera operations per second) and 4 or 8 GiB (gibibytes) of accelerator memory. They are unsure if tasks such as speech recognition, object detection in images and videos, LLMs (language models), and Stable Diffusion can be performed with these specifications. They are seeking clarity on the potential capabilities of such a system.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article highlights that small built-in accelerators were designed during a time when YOLO (You Only Look Once) was considered the highest standard for edge applications. However, they are now considered significantly underpowered due to advancements in technology.
4. Endlessh-go: a Golang SSH tarpit that traps bots/scanners
Total comment counts : 10
Summary
The article introduces a golang implementation of endlessh, which is a tool used to block brute force SSH attacks. The golang implementation exports Prometheus metrics and provides a Grafana dashboard for visualizing the data. The author explains that the original C implementation only provides text-based logs, which they find inconvenient. Therefore, they created this golang implementation to export metrics and create a dashboard. The article also mentions that the implementation can translate IP addresses to geohashes and provides options for configuring log destinations. The article concludes by mentioning the required software versions and providing instructions for importing the Grafana dashboard.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article explains how Golang is effective in handling a large number of idle goroutines. Additionally, it points out that Golang is also well-suited for bots and scanners used by attackers, as the goroutines can idle for extended periods without wasting the attackers’ time.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The user is asking for clarification regarding the use of endlessh, a software that generates an endless SSH banner. They are wondering if they need to run endlessh on port 22 while having their real SSH server run on a different port. The user feels that this information is not explicitly mentioned in the documentation and is unsure if they are missing something.
5. Peter principle
Total comment counts : 32
Summary
The Peter principle, developed by Laurence J. Peter, states that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to a level of incompetence. This means that employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent. The principle suggests that skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another. The concept was explained in the book “The Peter Principle” by Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull. Although intended as satire, the book gained popularity for highlighting the shortcomings of promotion within hierarchical organizations. The Peter principle states that a person who is competent at their job will earn a promotion to a position that requires different skills. If they lack the skills required for the new role, they will be incompetent at the new level and will not be promoted again. If they are competent, they will continue to be promoted until reaching a level at which they are incompetent. The outcome is that every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence in a hierarchy. This leads to the corollary that every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent. The study of how hierarchies work is referred to as hierarchiology. The principle is named after Laurence Peter, although Raymond Hull wrote the book based on Peter’s research. The book provides examples of the Peter Principle in action, debunking apparent exceptions to the principle. It also discusses the different methods of achieving promotion and the effect of the principle in politics and government.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article challenges the assumption that organizations are rational meritocracies by arguing that competent people are often seen as a burden by higher levels of management. Competent individuals tend to provide feedback and suggest better solutions, which can be seen as challenging or inconvenient for managers. As a result, these competent individuals are often overlooked for promotions in favor of less competent individuals who simply agree with their superiors.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the policy of George Marshall, Chief of Staff of the Army during WWII, of replacing commanding generals who didn’t adapt quickly to new positions. However, instead of firing them, Marshall transferred them to other commands, allowing them to still hold flag rank. This approach proved successful as the commanders went on to deliver excellent service in their new roles. This was in contrast to continental armies with aristocratic backgrounds that found it difficult to remove flag grade commanders. Marshall’s ability to implement this policy was due to the support of FDR and his reputation from his previous role as Pershing’s Chief of Staff in WWI. Additionally, Marshall was the only person in the US Army to be considered for the rank of Field Marshall, primarily for humorous reasons. The article concludes by mentioning that while it may be possible to bypass the Peter Principle (the idea that people are promoted to their level of incompetence), it requires significant effort and careful management of egos.
6. A step beyond Rust’s pattern matching
Total comment counts : 12
Summary
The author starts by discussing pattern matching in the Rust programming language, noting that while it can be used for simple matches, it can also handle more complex patterns with conditions and variable bindings. They then explore the idea of using pattern matching for database queries, using Glowdust as an example. Glowdust allows for conditional pattern matching and variable bindings within the same pattern, making it suitable for database query languages. The author explains that Glowdust compiles down to bytecode and can handle full expressions, joins, filters, and eventually aggregations. They emphasize that while Glowdust’s pattern matching is similar to Rust’s, it is better suited for database queries.
Top 1 Comment Summary
This article discusses the use of match guards in Rust and how they can be used to mimic let-else patterns. It provides an example of using match guards in a while loop to determine if a condition is met and execute code accordingly. The article also mentions that using the bound values in an expression is a bit more difficult. It suggests implementing this functionality as a macro without changing the language.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article explains the limitations of patterns that are allowed to be expressions and proposes a solution using user-defined patterns. It provides examples of how these patterns work in TXR Lisp, demonstrating their ability to perform more useful tasks such as predicates. The article concludes by showing how the user-defined patterns can be implemented using the example of the addition operator.
7. LLMs use a surprisingly simple mechanism to retrieve some stored knowledge
Total comment counts : 17
Summary
Researchers at MIT and other institutions have found that large language models (LLMs), such as those used in popular chatbots, often use simple linear functions to retrieve and decode stored facts. While these models are complex and difficult to understand, the researchers discovered that identifying linear functions for different facts allows them to probe the model and determine where knowledge is stored. Even when a model answers a prompt incorrectly, it often has stored the correct information. This finding could help scientists find and correct falsehoods within the model, reducing its tendency to give incorrect or nonsensical answers.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author wonders if the relationship between language structure and Word2Vec still holds with newer models that have more computational power. They believe that training on large amounts of human text encoded with Word2Vec and positional encoding allows for the prediction of encodings at superhuman levels of cognition. However, they think that the bag of words and limited context windows used in positional encoding may not align well with the internal cognitive structure. The author suggests that with more computational power, new forms of representation may evolve and be discovered. They also mention that MemGPT, with its unlimited long-term memory, could potentially become an AGI. They relate this idea to the protagonist in the movie “Memento.”
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author is expressing their concern that the current state of AI research is focused too much on simple neural networks, specifically the perceptron structure. They question whether this is the best approach and suggest that other training methods and encoding schemes are being overlooked. They argue that until there is more variation in the fundamental rulesets of neural networks, progress in AI will be limited.
8. Memories are made by breaking DNA – and fixing it
Total comment counts : 19
Summary
A new study published in the journal Nature suggests that when long-term memories form, some brain cells experience a strong rush of electrical activity that can snap their DNA. However, an inflammatory response then repairs this DNA damage, helping to solidify the memory. The findings shed light on the risky nature of memory formation and raise the possibility that the DNA damage-and-repair cycle may be faulty in individuals with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. The researchers trained mice to associate a small electrical shock with a new environment, and then examined gene activity in neurons in the hippocampus, a crucial brain region for memory. They found that genes responsible for inflammation were active shortly after training, but less active three weeks later. The cause of the inflammation was a protein called TLR9, which triggers an immune response to DNA fragments. TLR9 was most active in a subset of neurons in which DNA breaks resisted repair. When the researchers deleted the gene for TLR9, the mice had trouble recalling long-term memories. These findings suggest that DNA damage and repair may play a role in encoding and retaining memories.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article suggests that while the hippocampus is important for memory consolidation, memories are actually distributed throughout the cortex. The author wonders if this mechanism applies to all neurons or if it is specific to the rapid learning ability of the hippocampus, which is the only place where neurogenesis has been observed in adults.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author wonders how visual memory works and questions if it can break and fix itself quickly. They personally have a strong visual memory and can remember specific pages and faces for a long time. They express concern and find it difficult to imagine the process of DNA breaking and fixing.
9. NotepadNext – a cross-platform reimplementation of Notepad++
Total comment counts : 43
Summary
The article discusses a cross-platform reimplementation of Notepad++. While the application is stable and usable, it is not recommended for critical work as there are bugs and incomplete features. The article provides information on how to obtain and install the application on Windows, Linux, and MacOS. It also mentions that font smoothing on MacOS can be disabled using a specific command. The development of the application is done using Visual Studio 2022 and Qt v6.2+ on Windows, but it is known to build successfully on Linux and MacOS as well. Instructions are provided for building the application using Qt Creator. The code is released under the GNU General Public License version 3.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article states that Notepad++ and SciTE are both code editors based on the Scintilla open source code editor component. SciTE is described as the official demo-editor for Scintilla and was last updated in 2024. The history of Scintilla and SciTE dates back to 1999. It provides links to the Scintilla website and the SciTE demo-editor page.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article in question mentions the rewriting of a certain text but does not provide a specific reason for it. The text itself appears to neither be of poor quality nor particularly popular.
10. Things I Learned from René Girard
Total comment counts : 21
Summary
The article discusses the relevance and influence of social theorist René Girard in recent years. The author notes that despite Girard’s focus on exposing lies behind fashions and trends, he has become trendy himself since his death. The author reflects on their initial skepticism of Girard’s reliance on literature to explain sociology but later realized the depth of his concepts and incorporated them into their own work. The article highlights some of the key insights the author has drawn from Girard’s writings, including the pervasive nature of imitation, the power of mimetic desire and rivalry, and the role of the truthteller in exposing imitative passion. The author emphasizes that mimetic desire can lead to conflict and violence and discusses the use of scapegoating as a means to temporarily halt such conflicts.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses Girard’s model of mimetic desire, which consists of three parts: the subject, the object, and the model. The subject desires the object after seeing that the model possesses it. However, the article highlights that the desired outcome is often not the exact object itself. For instance, observing someone else’s happy relationship may lead an individual to desire a happy relationship for themselves, without specifically wanting the same partner. Similarly, seeing someone else enjoy their job might inspire a desire for a job that brings enjoyment, but not necessarily the same job. The article suggests that from this perspective, mimetic desire does not necessarily result in conflict.
Top 2 Comment Summary
This article discusses the concept of the scapegoat and how it solves problems in three ways. Firstly, it helps resolve pressure that arises from social paradoxes, such as pretending to like someone when one actually doesn’t, or having desires that cannot be openly admitted. Secondly, it reminds people that things could be worse, as normal problems pale in comparison to actual violence. Lastly, it promotes bonding among individuals through the shared experience of having a common enemy.