bigyikes

What’s upstream of the central bank? …Congress?

The snarky analogy doesn’t really really work because plenty of people actually do credit video games for their successful career, myself included. Thanks, Roblox.

Why even bother with such a small layoff? Is there a reason to not just dial up your attrition for a while?

Yes, Dario has publicly stated that models are already profitable if you exclude R&D for the next model.

Even if that’s not true, given that hardware and software efficiency gains can be expected to continue it’s likely that this is the most expensive the current level of intelligence will ever be.

The frontier models may increase in price, but only because they’re also more capable. If you hold intelligence constant, price should fall over time.

Does it matter if the author is a renowned expert in the field?

What does Blender do differently that makes it such a successful open source product?

It’s powerful and pleasant to use. Even the release marketing page is beautiful and well-made.

I like open source as much as the next guy, but outside of developer tools there is little that comes close to Blender in terms of utility and UX.

Is it funding? Specific individuals? Are there PMs and designers? Whatever it is, it’s working!

Okay, forget everything outside that field of view in your real vision.

If you could crop your real field of view somehow to just the photo in question, then would it be as though nothing changed?

(Like, I get that things outside the phone image would change, but does the image your imagining change? Does the sensation change?)

Not the parent, but I relate to their experience.

It depends on what you mean by “see”.

It’s nothing like seeing with my eyes, and it’s nothing like dreaming.

When I “see” it is abstract. There are impressions and sensations. I can recall the qualities of something - even the visual qualities - but it doesn’t feel like sight.

Can you remember what something smells like? I can recall a foul smell, but I don’t recoil because it doesn’t actually feel like smelling. Still, I have an impression of the smell. Sight works the same for me.

Let’s suppose you have perfect recall.

Pull up the image on your phone and look at it. Now close your eyes and imagine the image as accurately as you can.

Is it as though you didn’t close your eyes at all? Do you see it the same way as when your eyes are open?

I’ve interrogated people about this but can never get a straight answer.

——

“So you can really see things in your head when your eyes are closed?”

Yeah!

“And it’s as though you’re seeing the object in front of you?”

Yeah, you don’t have that?

“So it’s like you’re really seeing it? It’s the sensation of sight?“

Well… it’s kind of different. I’m not really seeing it.

——

…and around we go.

Personally, I can see images when I dream, but I don’t see anything at all if I’m conscious and closing my eyes. I can recite the qualities of an object, and this generates impressions of the object in my head, but it’s not really seeing. It’s vibe seeing.

It might be helpful for intuiting the structure of a program. Imagine if you had to read code all on a single line, with newlines represented with \n.

I can get the feel of a piece of code just by looking at it. Even if you blurred the image, just the shape of the lines of code conveys a lot of information.

Owning the user base seems like a huge strategic advantage.

I love my USB-C iPhone but Lightning was smaller and easier to plug in.

Tape a wire to the trackpad and hold the wire?