VogonPoetry

Joined 4 years ago

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207
Submissions
100
Member since
May 2
Oh freddled gruntbuggly,

Thy micturations are to me,

As plurdled gabbleblotchits, in midsummer morning

On a lurgid bee,

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Recent submissions

Comment · 1 month ago
"population count" is often associated with hamming distance with uses in information theory, coding theory, and cryptography. There is another use, which I think is what it was really used for - cosine similarity.

The usual definition for two vectors A and B is A.B = |A||B|cos ø. If A and B are binary it becomes, A and B = popcnt(A)popcnt(B)cos ø. The similarity measure is how close cos ø is to 1.

Using modern vocabulary, with a message and a set of search criteria using a word embedding on the message, calculate the similarity to each search using, cos ø = (A and B)/(popcnt A * popcnt B). This is only be vectorizable when there is an intrinsic popcnt instruction. Results that have > 0 values for cos ø mean there is some similarity.

So, to capture, (re)scan and flag all messages that contain certain keywords, design a system to generate a KEYSCORE. When eXtended to reduce false positives, build a follow on system called XKEYSCORE.

The last paragraph is pure speculation, but I think it has merit. Worth a try on your own data?

Comment · 1 month ago
Okay, I'll bite. Also see my other comment.

You said "mouse", is it a gaming mouse? Is it configured to issue a bazillion clicks if you press and hold "left" button - for a stupidly small number of ms, taking no consideration of you if you are playing a game? Does it also send "wiggler" (WASD) keyboard presses at the same time? Either of these will ruin any chance of you doing "undo", unless you also "undo" a bazillion times. This behavior will likely make a lot of other things behave in quite weird ways and be "slow" to respond. If you've got a gaming mouse doing auto-clicks, auto-kbd strokes for non-game apps, then the UI designed for humans is going to behave weirdly.

FWIW, the placeholder text can never really disappear, if you remove it all, you get the placeholder "Text" back again. You can replace it with a single space, but that also has a hit zone of more than 1px both H & V. Maybe you have found a bug. I do think there are issues with font background / foreground colour selection that might make it "invisible", but the hit zone will still be there.

I use an ancient mouse, "Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 1000" and an Apple Trackpad. I cannot reproduce what you describe.

What mouse are you using? What additional HID (Mouse, KBD) extensions do you have installed?

Comment · 1 month ago
If the PDF doesn't contain form completion elements you have to use the "painting / diagramming mode" to add annotations. However, I often find the "form enabled" PDFs to have horribly mis-aligned boxes with odd choices for fonts and inconsistent behavior (check marks or choices for example).

I do agree that the annotation feature isn't like Omnigraffle or draw.io diagramming apps that are based around a mouse; the interface does seem more suitable for a touch (pad, screen). You choose an object to add, then get to move it into place rather than selecting an object to add and then use the mouse to place and size it. The annotation feature also works in a very similar way on an iPad / iPhone.

If you tap (click) and /hold/ anywhere in the hit zone of an object the cursor will move to a hand and you can move it anywhere. For a text box, the hit zone it is almost anywhere on the text - yup, it is more awkward if you delete all the text! The resize / reshape hit zones for objects are centered around the "dots" when the object is active. A single tap (click) will edit text.

I am not sure what is happening when things disappear and cmd-Z doesn't undo, I've not experienced that.

This markup feature is also available when annotating image attachments in email.

It would be nice to be able to group more than a single set of objects and keep them grouped.

I've used the annotation feature quite a lot to highlight errors in web pages and give sequence instructions on how to do something on a poorly designed site.

Comment · 1 month ago
Didn't have the same feel about the piece. But based on the parent comment, decided to also test it, using Pangram free "credits". For me it reported that only sections of it (30%) have been "touched" by an LLM. There is 60% of human written text.

Pangram does not report this as 100% LLM generated. Why do I use the word "touched" - because there are some specific details that must have come from some existing text and are not elsewhere.

How did I do the check? Please do check my results! I copied just the authored prose from the page, carefully removing any comments and site text that got mixed in. I did not have it analyze the "URL".

In looking at the details, a large part of the story is flagged as all human generated.

I've personally used LLMs when I've been very upset. I used it to rewrite / edit my rant into something with a more balanced tone. The modified text got what I wanted, my original rant would almost certainly not have.

So I do think this was a thought out piece that was largely written by a human who used an LLM as an "editor" to polish the writing. Someone took time to think about this and write it.

Comment · 1 month ago
Bloom Energy makes fuel cells that can run on natural gas. This site would need a very large number of them to replace gas generators. Each "bloom box" can create 325kW and are about 1m x 1m x 2m in size.

They make sort of whine/squeal noise when operating. Not sure of the dB level.

San Jose Ice Rink has had a bunch of these installed out back for about 10 years I think.

Comment · 1 month ago
Another comment mentions a KryoFlux. A cheaper alternative is a GreaseWeasel (£30, $30). The 4.1 version even has USB-C as a connector. You will need an external power brick with a 4pin Molex connector for 5.25 drives. You can buy these standalone or they might come with a SATA/PATA/IDE Hard Drive to USB converter. Can also use an old PC power supply if you fake the power on signal.

I've had quite a lot of success, almost 100%, over quite a long time - both 5.25 and 3.5. I did use older drives intended for "desktop" machines. The drives from Japanese companies seem to be the most reliable; NEC, TEAC. The 3.5 USB Portable diskette drives are based around laptop floppy designs. You won't be able to find a direct 5.25 to USB adapter (or modify one to work) as the speeds / data rates are all wrong, so you will need something like a GreaseWeasel or old PC for those.

I've used different reading mechanisms over the years; an old PC running Linux with a real floppy chipset + custom raw reading code, custom hardware with an F82077 + Atmel + SDCard, and most recently a GreaseWeasel.

The floppies I've recovered were stored relatively well, but were mostly my and family members data - not commercial floppies. If there is any copy protection on the floppies you are trying to read you may need to capture the flux transitions. For these, I'd check archive.org to see if someone has already generated a copy.

For 5.25 floppies fingerprints and surface blemishes can be softened / removed with ISO Propyl and a Q-tip. Floppies designed for cleaning the heads of drives seem to now be very expensive / non-existent. Manually cleaning the heads of a 3.5 drive is way more difficult. I've got ideas about using Face mask / filter material to create a cleaning tool, but it is on the experiments to try list.

Even back when floppies were a thing, I found that 3.5 drives were more un-reliable between machines than 5.25 drives. I think there was more variation in head alignment and track positioning. When I've had issues, I've always been lucky in that switching the drive vendor / model made reading the floppy possible even if it took multiple attempts or was very slow.

Good luck.

Comment · 2 months ago
Your site does not currently seem to be reachable / responsive when I try to reach it from a US Comcast IPv4 address - you are not advertising IPv6.

Edit / Update: It was Apple's Private browsing mode that causes it not to respond. I can now see it when this is disabled.

Comment · 3 months ago
Comment · 3 months ago
Comment · 5 months ago
It is still possible to adjust the speed in QuickTime Player: from .5 to 2x. Not available via Quicklook, but definitely there in the player, either in the menu bar or by clicking the >> in the video window.
Comment · 7 months ago
This is fantastic info, thank you. I've now set mine to 5.
Comment · 7 months ago
The post was fixed about 30 seconds after making it - due to the *s being interpreted as italics. It is a shame there isn't a preview button when composing posts.
Comment · 7 months ago
Does this also mean only using "standard" parts? Or does the manufacturer have to over-produce the parts for, lets say 7 years, and then warehouse and ship those parts, probably multiple times. Or keep a low rate production line running for 7 years? What happens to the parts that don't get used? Are they scrapped?

That "what if" cost is going to be built into the cost of the laptop. Repairability doesn't always keep the cost low. The purchaser will definitely have to foot the cost otherwise it isn't sustainable.

Comment · 7 months ago
That 2mm uses at least (2*335 + 2*235) * 2mm * 1mm = 2,280 mm^3 more material for the case. (a wall thickness of 1mm)
Comment · 7 months ago
Please can you explain the evidence that this is generated content.

Yes, the site is new, but other posted articles are 100% consistent with the author wanting a guaranteed level of local inference with large models.

What I read was written by a skeptic who took claims and systematically addressed a number of issues. The debunking was concise and used simple sentences.

The boxes in the pictures were, to my eyes, generated manually using the macOS Preview annotation feature. They are not well aligned. I've used this technique many times to general overlays. If this were me, I'd get called out. I like nicely spaced and proportioned boxes! NB: iFixit tear downs are mis-aligned as well and it bugs me.

People have a distasteful habit of assigning others into boxes. Particularly if that box currently has a negative connotation. Boxing is a primary tool of the; misguided, bullies, sycophants, censors and those with an unspoken agenda. Humor: Which box applies?

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