1. Meta Llama 3
Total comment counts : 87
Summary
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Top 1 Comment Summary
The article contains multiple links to different sources, but it does not provide any text for me to summarize.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses a comparison between the performance of different versions of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, specifically GPT-3.5 and GPT-4. The author mentions evaluation scores such as MMLU, GPQA, MATH, HumanEval, and DROP, indicating that GPT-4 outperforms GPT-3.5 in all of these metrics. The article also mentions that GPT-4 can be run locally and modified, which is seen as an exciting development. The GPT-4 numbers mentioned in the article can be found on the GitHub page of OpenAI.
2. Hardest problem in computer science: centering things
Total comment counts : 83
Summary
The article discusses the issue of aligning elements, particularly text and icons, in web design and applications. The author highlights the prevalence of poorly-aligned text and icons in various platforms and points out that despite the knowledge and methods available for centering, they are not effectively utilized in practice. The article explores challenges related to font metrics, line-height, and the limitations of CSS in achieving proper alignment. It also mentions the use of icon fonts and their drawbacks, including inconsistent sizes and alignment issues. Overall, the article emphasizes the difficulty and importance of achieving proper alignment in web design.
Top 1 Comment Summary
This article discusses how once you start noticing certain aspects of web development, such as misalignment or color oversaturation, it becomes difficult to ignore them. The article suggests that this phenomenon can also occur with other areas, such as appreciating high-quality speakers and headphones.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author states that there is no singular correct rule for aligning design elements, learned from studying design and typography. Different people have different opinions on what is visually aligned and symmetrical. GUIs often have examples of misalignment, even if these are fixed, designers will still find something to complain about.
3. CFPB Takes Action Against Coding Boot Camp BloomTech and CEO Austen Allred
Total comment counts : 61
Summary
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has issued an order against BloomTech, a for-profit school, and its CEO, Austen Allred, for deceiving students about the cost of loans and falsely claiming high job-placement rates. The CFPB found that BloomTech falsely marketed its “income share” agreement contracts as not being loans, when in reality they carried substantial finance charges. Internal metrics showed that placement rates were closer to 50 percent, despite the company’s claims of rates as high as 86 percent. As a result, BloomTech is permanently banned from consumer-lending activities, and Allred is banned from student-lending activities for ten years. Other penalties include ceasing collections on loans for graduates without a qualifying job and allowing students to withdraw without penalty. BloomTech and Allred must also pay civil penalties of over $164,000.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author attended Lambda School and initially believed they would only have to pay if they got a job using the skills learned. However, the experience quickly deteriorated as the format and curriculum constantly changed, making it difficult for the author to complete the program due to their work schedule. Promised career guidance never materialized, with the closest thing being an irrelevant resume course and review by another student. When the author dropped out, they sought to have the Income Share Agreement (ISA) canceled or reduced, but Lambda School insisted they were still responsible for it. The author considered legal action but was discouraged due to the required arbitration in NYC being more costly than potential savings.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The boot camp school formerly known as Lambda School faced criticism and legal issues in the past. They recently reached a settlement to end deceptive educational financing practices. For more information on their previous troubles, you can refer to the following links: Link 1 and Link 2.
4. Short Stack: World’s smallest Nintendo Wii
Total comment counts : 26
Summary
The article discusses the creation of the world’s smallest functional scale-model Wii console. The console, called Short Stack, is a 1:2.38 scale model of the original Nintendo Wii. The motherboard has been trimmed down to the bare essentials, resulting in a board that is just 62x62mm but still contains the CPU, GPU, RAM, and flash memory. Custom PCBs are used to provide power and data to the board, replacing the original power circuitry and connectors. The console also includes a custom heatsink for cooling and is housed in a 3D printed case. The design aims to replicate the clean aesthetic of the original Wii, and GameCube controllers are connected using TRRS headphone connectors. The article also mentions the possibility of further reducing the size of the console by 25-30%, but notes that it would be challenging to assemble.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the use of TRRS headphone connectors instead of GameCube controller connectors on a small build of the original Wii. The author warns that hot-plugging these connectors may cause shorts between connections, as many electronics are not designed for this.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the confusion surrounding a small disc drive that looked like it could use mini CDs. However, it is later revealed that the disc drive is only for decoration purposes.
5. Cyc: History’s Forgotten AI Project
Total comment counts : 26
Summary
The article discusses the Cyc project at MCC, which aims to build a single intelligent agent with a knowledge base containing tens of millions of entries. The project seeks to advance research in expert systems, natural language understanding, and machine learning. Cyc has developed a corpus of 1.5 million concepts and 25 million rules, allowing it to make deductions from long chains of reasoning. Despite its impressive achievements, Cyc has been overshadowed by newer machine-learning algorithms used in chatbots and self-driving cars. The article also details the history of AI research and the development of expert systems, leading to the creation of Cyc.
Top 1 Comment Summary
This article discusses the author’s involvement in the Cyc project and their decision to replace the Interlisp-D implementation with one they wrote on Symbolics machines. The author emphasizes the importance of the knowledge base (KB) and mentions that they built it so that different people could work on it simultaneously, which was unusual at the time. They also mention the significance of neurosymbolic approaches in AI research. However, the author expresses uncertainty about the impact of manually curated KBs, suggesting that they may only be useful for bootstrapping.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author of the article recalls growing up in the Soviet Union and having access to books that were not available to the general public. One of these books discussed the European Information System for the Coordination of Information on Agro- and Fishery Science and Technology (EURISCO) and its advancements in artificial intelligence (AI). The book claimed that EURISCO not only won games but also invented a new structure of a NAND-gate in silicon, which is now used by the industry. Another expert system mentioned in the book claimed to be twice as effective as the best human diagnostician in diagnosing cancer. However, despite these impressive capabilities, the author wonders why these systems were not widely deployed in hospitals, particularly in the United States. The author notes that current language and image models, such as LLMs, are limited to predicting words and pixels rather than understanding and diagnosing the real world. The author questions why there has been progress in text and image generation but not in the development of diagnostic systems, except for Cyc. The article concludes with the author pondering what might have happened to hinder the advancement of world models in AI.
6. Goldene: A single atom layer of gold
Total comment counts : 16
Summary
Scientists from Linköping University in Sweden have successfully created sheets of gold that are only a single atom layer thick, a material they term “goldene”. This breakthrough opens up new possibilities for using gold in applications such as carbon dioxide conversion, hydrogen production, and the production of value-added chemicals. The researchers used a three-dimensional base material with gold embedded between layers of titanium and carbon to create goldene. The discovery was made accidentally when the researchers exposed the material to high temperatures, causing the gold to replace the silicon layer inside the base material. Using a method called Murakami’s reagent, which has been used in Japanese forging art for over a hundred years, the researchers were able to separate and stabilize the gold sheets. Goldene has unique properties as a result of being two-dimensional, such as having two free bonds, which make it suitable for various future applications. The researchers plan to investigate whether the same process can be applied to other noble metals and explore additional applications. The research was funded by various organizations and foundations, including the Swedish Research Council and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article mentions that the photos included in it appear to be stock photography, with captions describing the images as “Scientists doing sciencey things.”
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses whether single atom thick gold is optically transparent.
7. Feathers are one of evolution’s cleverest inventions
Total comment counts : 25
Summary
The article is about a cache server called Varnish that is providing forbidden details.
Top 1 Comment Summary
This article discusses the genetic mysteries surrounding skin appendages in humans, specifically focusing on how nails and hairs grow in only one direction. The author mentions a side point about the microraptor, a quadrupedal creature with four wings. Unlike insects, the microraptor used all four limbs to fly. However, it is suggested that sticking to two wings was more optimal due to the optimization of the wishbone and chest musculature. The article notes that the Wikipedia page on the microraptor does not explore this idea.
Top 2 Comment Summary
In October 2022, a bird known as B6, a young Bar-tailed Godwit, set a new world record by flying from Alaska to Tasmania without taking a break. The bird covered a distance of 8,425 miles over 11 days. The article highlights various factors that contributed to this achievement, such as muscle power, metabolic rate, and a physiological tolerance for elevated cortisol levels. Additionally, a fun fact not mentioned in the article is that birds sleep with only half of their brain at a time during these long flights, allowing them to stay alert and avoid falling out of the sky.
8. Implementing Natural Conversational Agents with Elixir
Total comment counts : 5
Summary
The article discusses the author’s work on building an assistant named Nero using AI, math, and programming. The initial version of Nero was not a great conversational assistant as it required user interaction and did not retain conversational history. The author was motivated to improve this after seeing a demo from Retell. The author decided to change the speech-to-text pipeline by monitoring microphone volume and triggering recordings when the volume reached a certain threshold. However, this approach had issues with natural dips in volume, so a timeout was introduced to stop recording after the volume was below a threshold for a certain amount of time. Despite some shortcomings, the author was able to passably detect a single speaker in a quiet room.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article is recommending a book called “Machine Learning in Elixir” by Seam Moriarity, which highlights the advancements of Elixir in the field of machine learning. The book is praised for its straightforward language and abundance of examples. A link to the book is provided for further information.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the author’s experience in building a real-time conversation platform using Elixir. They used the Membrane framework to coordinate the steps involved in speech-to-text (STT), natural language processing (LLM), and text-to-speech (TTS), resulting in a latency of around 1300 ms. They found that the typical human response time in a conversation is around 250 to 300 ms and aimed to achieve that as their goal.
To reduce latency, the author implemented several strategies:
- They streamed the audio to the TTS endpoint, focusing on the tail latency, which is the time between when the audio ends and the final transcript arrives. This approach significantly helped in reducing latency, with Google achieving around 200 ms in this aspect.
- Gpt 3.5 had a time to first token of about 350 to 400 ms, which couldn’t be improved further. However, streaming the tokens to ElevenLabs allowed for faster audio retrieval, contributing to reduced latency.
- The majority of the latency budget was consumed by ElevenLabs, even with their turbo model. By streaming words (rather than tokens) and using the “flush” function, latency was further improved.
The author’s key finding was to mask the latency by immediately responding with filler audio. They also mentioned the importance of making the LLM aware of the filler audio text to ensure a natural continuation in the conversation.
9. Math Puzzles
Total comment counts : 6
Summary
The article states that the JRMF puzzles are designed to be free, fun, and meaningful for all individuals. The puzzles are hands-on, play-based, and aligned with educational standards. They are created to have a low entry point for engagement and a high level of challenge. Festival guides are provided to help individuals use the activities at home, in the classroom, or during math festivals. The project is supported by Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs, a 501(c)3 organization.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses how JRMF puzzles and festivals are an effective way to involve grade school students in mathematical problem solving and inquiry. It is positive to see JRMF gaining popularity on HN.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses various aspects of a puzzle website. It mentions that the website is visually appealing and provides tutorials for each puzzle. When the Spanish language is selected, the games may appear in Spanish mode. The article suggests removing the ability to select the separator between two cells in the Domino Dissection puzzle as it causes the selection to become stuck. The author also mentions the difficulty of creating a complete unity game for each puzzle. Furthermore, the author promotes their own puzzle website where users can solve ARC tasks, and provides links to the website and its source code on GitHub.
10. The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat
Total comment counts : 26
Summary
This article is about Mitsuyoshi Hirai, the chief engineer of the cable maintenance ship Ocean Link, who found himself in a dangerous situation when an earthquake struck while he was repairing a fiber optic cable off Japan’s eastern coast. Hirai feared a tsunami would follow the earthquake, as tsunamis are particularly dangerous to coastal areas. The crew of the Ocean Link prepared the ship for evacuation to deeper waters, successfully avoiding the tsunami. Hirai, however, began to worry about the work that lay ahead, as earthquakes can cause extensive damage to subsea cables. If the cables were broken, Japan risked being cut off from the world in its moment of need.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author, who has experience as a technical diver, expresses their appreciation for the physical work done by people in various industries. They mention being amused by the contrast between someone getting frustrated with slow internet while a person is working at sea during a storm. The author also shares a personal experience of doing rope work during COVID when their desk work was reduced. They reflect on the satisfaction of having a tangible connection to the world through their physical work.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author’s dad worked as an ROV technician in the early 2000s but was made redundant after 9/11 and the dot com bubble bursting. The author recalls a trip to Brazil where their dad was stationed for work, and they had exciting experiences with fiber-optic cables and driving an ROV. The author reflects on the damage caused by the dot com bubble burst and mentions the abundance of fiber laid during that time.