downut

I am fascinated that I got down voted. I mean, isn't what I'm doing here nearly ideal? Or maybe not: why? My solar panels shade my roof under the incessant sun of the Sonoran Desert and turn a fraction of the insolation into electrical power that allows me to do almost SOTA local LLM stuff inside my house for free[1] that the parent commenter thought to be economically infeasible. Of course it's slow! So what! Right now I'm transcribing to text a podcast with whisper.cpp and it will take about as much time as the original podcast duration but I will be able to read it in 1/20th of the time.

Alternative interpretation of a downvote: we should all be enslaved to corporate electrical generation provided to "local" electric utility corporations so that we are economically incentivized to use cloud LLM providers. That's weird, no?

Teach me.

[1] It's a small nice house that cost ~$330K not too far off from my city center. This isn't rich privilege boasting.

I have rooftop solar and I have been building credit with my electric utility even though the daily high temperature is well over 100F outside and a comfortable 75F inside. That includes running three AMD 12 thread 128GB systems with obsolete GPUs 24x7x365. I'm not a gamer, so 6 years ago I went low-end low-power GPUs. Boy am I dumb. Currently running the qwen3.6:27b, 35b, and gemma4:31b models just fine.

As soon as VRAM prices drop to sanity I'm going to load up and I could care less about the power draw.

Some parts of the future are absolutely great.

Have you ever paid attention to what's on the road in Mexico? I've driven there for 30 years and I've seen it all.

Then, there's the idea that Mexicans might not be able to manufacture a quality vehicle. My 2001 Toyota Tundra was manufactured in Mexico and I will drive it until I die. Basically a grail vehicle.

Places like Monterrey have multistory quite modern BYD dealerships. You might start shopping for monasteries ;-)

For the people who don't believe this, spend some time watching urban traffic in a place like Oaxaca. 4 is a bit of a stretch unless it's a couple of small kids (that happens) and the moto is not really a moped, but not much more powerful. There's occasional bulky cargo. I am also reminded of the multiple times we were riding in a bus in Cairo Egypt and passed a donkey cart in the left lane of a 6 lane-ish "free"way.

One of the first things I thought when I first saw this thing is, oh, there will be mods.

My wife and I were mid '80s chemical engineers. She liked her 15c, but I went on afterward into fundamental numerical analysis and was extremely happy with my 32S. I recently asked qwen3.6:35b|qwen3.6:27b|gemma4:31b (can't remember which one) all about the current state of replacement LR44 batteries for an "HP 32S Scientific Calculator". It was fucking adamant, aggressively so, that the calculator required 1 battery. LOL no, it sits before me and yes it needs 3. A 6 pack cost I dunno $6 off AMZ? Anyway I have now replaced the batteries in my daily tactile basic algebra calculator for the third time. If I don't have it in hand I use Free42. I... regret not remembering how to program these things, it was so intellectually elegant.

I logged on for the first time in a while to actually talk about nerd things. God I loved the 80s-2000.

I'll take your word for it (Man Ray's) because... Picasso. It's interesting to contemplate though because those studies/sketches/whatever are Picasso, they're great, better than just about anybody who ever painted, but pale next to Guernica.

"The difference is that you don't own your EV, it is a computer on wheel. Any firmware update like Tesla has done in the past and features are no longer available."

Yeah, I think that's right.

I only thought in one dimension: reliance on corporate controlled high density existing infiltration of fossil-fuel delivery infrastructure. Which is worthless if the price is occasionally exorbitantly volatile or might even run into zero supply issues.

Another equally important dimension is: that EV car might just be a puppet, and not you running the puppet.

I'm pretty sure the Prius doesn't phone home (2015), but I admit that I've not gone deep into it.

I can't stand this thing I just did in this comment where I tried not to sound like an AI. I might have to give up short comments entirely because I can't generate enough context for authenticity credibility. <= It's a fact, and that right there sounds like AI to me now.

When we visited that room in 2012 or so the walls on the other 3 sides had Picasso's studies for the final painting.

The combination of those in proper size context to the astounding thing on that wall was... I dunno, very hard to bear? Chills and goosebumps. Just being in the presence of such genius. [Edited to add: I forgot! Many of the studies are clearly over complicated and colorful. And then you turn to see what was the final result. IMHO It's the same with genius software, in a different medium. Prose too, but maybe that's more contentious.]

There is no digital screen representation that can remotely approximate the psychic impact physical proximity to genius creates. I've felt this with many other greats as well.

I've sat alone in 3 different Rothko rooms. Damn. It's all I can say. You have to do it yourself. Tip: pan your eyes slowly while sitting in different corners.

1988. On a math TA salary I paid $600 for an 80MB (That's megabytes) hard drive. I had dialup. I also had Turbo Pascal and an 8087 coprocessor. I was a MS student in computational math AKA numerical analysis.

It was goddam glorious.

Took until 1995ish to have a homelab to experiment with FreeBSD and later Linux over a 10-Base-T network with gcc/g++ and dialup access to this thing called "The World Wide Web". The browser had a throbber dinosaur.

It was even more goddam glorious.

Right now I've got three main systems with decent CPUs and 128GB of memory, and several emphemeral satellite systems. With 8GB of NVIDIA VRAM I'm running gemma4:31b just fine on my media system. Which curiously enough has, ah... media on it.

I feel like I have a good idea how EV owners feel right now. (We have a Prius.)

The protocol we have always implicitly used in this case is 'no news is good news'. I.e., participants in the meetup understand that they only have to communicate 'I won't/can't be there.' The reason is optional. Could be lots of things.

But socially this has gotten inverted.

I have several very long relationships with people (>30 years) who are overwhelmed by this. Living their lives immersed in constantly buzzing irrelevant social noise.

In 1989 I wrote and posted a paper letter to a college friend of ours in Northern England, asking, hey, around [June date I forget] we will be in London, want to meetup? A while later I get a reply letter saying sure, how about we meet at Piccadilly Circus on this date at this time. I posted an affirmative reply and there was no further communication. We were in Arizona at the time.

On the agreed-to date and time we were there, and so was she.

If we were talk about paper maps, it would blow people's minds. If we were to get further in the weeds and describe how we traveled around communist Czechoslovakia w/o a map, only a phrasebook entitled "Travelers Czech", well...

Ah I forgot! We, without being specific about the date, knew that other college friends of ours, originally from Czechoslovakia, had told us they were going to be in their home town of Olomouc. We got the barest help in Prague with my wife's bad German on how to get there by train. Arrived, got a room, and called them up. For the next week they showed us around the country and visited family and friends.

Other than lousy waiters in Prague we had a terrific adventure. Different times.

But you sure had to able to demonstrate you had integrity in your agreements and were open to changes of plans.

Might be a translation issue here with the commenter, maybe?

Handwritten notes help to remind yourself when studying about what the instructor thought important. You write down the emphasis. I sure made it clear to my classes that my emphasis was on this, this and that. The instructor is writing and grading the tests. Or was, back in the ancient times when we made chalk dust, as a pedagogical tool.

This is hilarious. This comment would imply that the people who got multiple degrees and were very successful through their careers (that would be everybody in my generation: we started in 1980) learning from lecturers scribbling with chalk on a blackboard, writing it all down with pen on paper, somehow had a less effective education than modern students using modern tools. Yeah, looks all around, remembers training youngs, no, I don't think so... Actually sometimes it was bad because people, but sometimes it was fucking awesome. I lectured undergrad mathematics at UF and ASU using chalk and a blackboard and to this day that was some of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. Especially for the upper division classes, my students paid attention. They asked questions. It was glorious.

Best to kill anything that moves; it's the only way to survive.

I figure if Seymore Cray thought digging was useful for mental hygiene it's probably ok:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_tunneling

LC 200: 381HP V8 lol! Holy shit they are expensive used. It kinda looks like the updated version of the FJ-80 public "Mall Cruiser" actual knower "Land Crusher" concept, where the thing that looks like yer regular suburban kid hauler has got some serious off road chops. Used "Mall Cruiser" FJ-80s were considered a steal for many years.

So is mine (2001TRD bought new). Searched all over AZ looking for manual everything and I got it, except for the trans. It replaced an fj60 Landcruiser. Beautiful machine I worked on a lot (5spd trans, lift, exhaust, gas tank) but it needed more power. The FJ-60 replaced an absolutely bottom basic 4cyl 4wd 5spd manual Toy "Pickup", better than a jeep 'cause you could carry shit off road, that the child outgrew sitting in the middle behind the stick.

The only thing I dislike about the Tundra is the gas mileage. I thought I would hate the auto trans but then I did some largish sandy-ish steps uphill and fuck me that was easy. Ah, there is another annoying thing: anti-lock brakes make sandy steep downhills with exposure much more interesting than they should be.

When I die I want to be buried in it.

God the new gigantic Tundras look awful. I think I'm seeing a lot more newish Tacomas these days, and they still look decent. They definitely look easier to park.

quickget windows 10 Downloading Windows 10 (English International) - Parsing download page: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I... - Getting Product edition ID: 2618 - Permit Session ID: ea2e2386-932a-44f2-b9b1-da7629b3d601 - Getting language SKU ID: 16068 - Getting ISO download link... - URL: https://software.download.prss.microsoft.com/dbazure/Win10_2... #################################### #################################################################################################### 100.0% Downloading VirtIO drivers... #################################################################################################### 100.0% Downloading Spice drivers... #################################################################################################### 100.0% #################################################################################################### 100.0% #################################################################################################### 100.0% Making unattended.iso Making windows-10.conf - Setting windows-10.conf executable

To start your Windows virtual machine run: quickemu --vm windows-10.conf

quickemu --vm windows-10.conf ERROR! QEMU 6.0.0 or newer is required, detected 10.1.2.

I hardly want to run windows apps at all, but I have a garmin etrex 32x and I can't for the life of me get garmin windows software to run on wine or linux crossover (something to do with USB) and there is nothing available on linux that can talk to the device. I'd run Windows 10 in a VM but I looked (I think?) pretty carefully and valid Windows licenses seem to be well over $100, cheaper to use a refurbed office desktop.

Someone stomp me down and tell me I'm wrong, please.

"Shop"? Ok, well, have you ever been in there? Because it might be the best market in Atlanta, right now.

We just spent a 3 year sojourn in the Atlanta metro area and the Dekalb Farmers Market is one of the only things we will miss. Still the best reasonably priced beautiful cheese/dairy/seafood/charcuterie + a whole bunch of other stuff in N. Georgia.

Now we're back West again and there is Lee Lee Oriental Market. No interesting cheese, but a lot of other things. Including charcuterie!

If you go to the Dekalb Farmer's Market definitely look for nettle cheese.

Back in the early '80s we ate a lot of English nettle cheese that we bought in the Dekalb Farmers Market in Atlanta. It was delicious. I've watched but never found it in the US since.

It looked like this: https://www.northumberlandcheese.co.uk/nettle-cheese

Wasn't expensive.

I used all of the plants discussed, interesting meats like various types of game, lamb, offal, turtles, frogs, raw oysters, all shellfish in general, and a whole bunch of fermented foods including every kind of cheese, and all the curries, to filter out the squeamish during the partner search. 45 years later I think the strategy has proved itself spectacularly. During the pregnancy all that stuff was in the mix every day and the result was by 1 1/2 years old depending on the meal we called the kid The Broccoli Monster or The Asparagus Monster on account of the kid's hilarious enthusiasm. Fascinating watching the asparagus get inhaled. Also we didn't force it but when the crawler snuck into the fridge for raids invariably she grabbed the BBQ chicken or the ham. "Guess she's not a vegetarian...". We have pix. Kid recently got a food science MS from UC Davis.

Kinda figures this is in the BritishBC.

Edit: I'm very happy for the down votes, because it gives me new data on a subset of current HN commenters. Musk really needs you because those Mars rockets aren't going to be a culinary paradise. He's probably going to just put in a row of push button dispensers for that stuff they dish out on the ship in The Matrix. Unclear if the tubes go directly to a row of hungry mouths, or even more efficiently right down into the stomachs.

I do not think that a 12' gator is going to appreciate you patting it on the head. And for short distances, they can outrun a human. That said I am a 3rd generation S. Floridian who grew up 50 years ago swimming and water skiing in the canals along what was then two-lane Highway 84, out west of Plantation, nothing much else there. Never had a problem, but the big ones got shot, officially or not.

Fun story: I was slaloming bank to bank down that canal and wiped out. The canal is narrow enough the boat has to slow down and idle around the u-turn to then plane up to get back, so it takes a bit. There was a high arched water pipe over the canal and a kid parked on the apex. Kid sez, there's a gator next to you. I said, sure, right kid. Kid sez, there's a gator next to you... and I look and yep, maybe a 6', 7' gator about 10' away. Well... not much to do... I started waving the ski and a couple of minutes later they throw me the rope and I orientated and up and away I went. ha haha. Good times. I think I was 15.

Another one: Buddy of mine is on two skis and is kinda mellowing out just running down that same canal and I'm driving and see a gator ahead in the middle of the canal, and why not, I steer around the gator and then steer him right over it and it explodes in a huge splash ha aha haar I am just laughing at the memory and he looks back and then back at me with a big shit eating grin. I was probably 16.

Same canal: I got this hot gf I'm trying to teach to ski and she's fiddling with the skis, as you do starting out, and a nice 5' tarpon rolls about 6' away from her. Panic! We're like no no no they do not bite, it's just a tarpon, they're friendlies! Oh well, no water skiing for her. I was... 17.

But I'm not here to tell you these stories. I'm here to talk about the river of grass, the Everglades. Many millions have lived around the periphery but you can look at maps and see it's a long way across with "nothing" there. How would you see the vast scope of the interior, in an efficient way, right down at water level?

Family 2 doors over in Melaleuca Isles (still exists, I see) the father was the district superintendent (I think) for the Florida Fish & Game Commission, or whatever it's called these days. In those days the US was a normal country and everybody hung out, the kids, the parents. So I'm over there in the morning and he says want to go on patrol. I say sure. So we drive the airboat out to the launch point on 84 (Alligator Alley) and off we go. This thing had a Lycoming flat six and there's not much to the boat but the Al flat hull, the two tier seats, and the enormous engine and propeller. And for 5 hours, at speeds peaking at 100mph[1], we criss cross the entire sector of the Everglades north of Hghwy 84. I stopped counting deer in the sawgrass in the water at 100. The vistas were of an endless prairie of sawgrass. He drove across the hammocks where there was grass by just powering the boat onto the land and then over.

I came away from that experience with a full appreciation of the scope of the Everglades, the idea of it, and am sad that the idea of wilderness has softened like melting fat into an ideal of a cozy unthreatening warm bath. There is nothing that can be accurately described as wilderness unless organisms endemic there are present and may be out to eat you. Starting with mosquitos and ending with alligators.

[1] In those medieval times we did not know nor understand the term "eye protection" and so I had none, though my neighbor did. He didn't care. At 100mph your face is quite distorted. Some debris is getting through the screen on the front of the boat. What a MF adventure.

"Which one do you think Harvard picks?"

Do you not understand what the point of legacy preference admissions is? I will supply it here: Legacies take the place of the higher performing non-legacy candidate, not the equivalent one. Is this difficult to understand? Why?

Now fit legacies into this theory.

The wikipedia page on Legacy Preferences is illuminating. Note the Larry Summers quote:

Former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers has stated, "Legacy admissions are integral to the kind of community that any private educational institution is."

Yeah, this is how you do it. Everybody pulls but the protected one. I've been in team time trial situations where we had to protect one (it me, but we won), even two, and goddam that pull through could be hard but I made it.

CFD simulation indicating leader is assisted by followers: http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/epn/2013102

Ah I see your cite shares the same lead author. Likely a better paper.

They move to where the jobs are. And the small town where they got their schooling hollows out.

I cannot find it but I think for about a decade the music cart rotation at WREK was powered by a student built automation system on an Altair. Don't remember any faults in the years I was around it.

(I was a music director at WREK in the early '80s)

For the people who are wondering whether this is a good idea or not, lemme tell you about some x-country cyclists I met on a ride. 3 years ago in the middle of summer I was climbing Iron Springs Rd on the west side of Prescott AZ. 3 youngish cyclists were paused on the side of the road with an apparent mechanical. They had a modest amount of camping gear in their panniers. Turns out they were French, had the barest grasp of English (I have the barest grasp of French), and needed a derailleur adjusted (no gears, no climb). I fixed them up and of course I was damned curious about their situation. Turns out, they on a whim flew into NYC, bought some not serious bikes and camping gear, and... just started biking across the country! In the middle of summer! In the wrong direction! Going to LA! And their pins... NOT CYCLISTS.

The Iron Springs climb tops out at 6000' or so, the weather is awesome in summer. However that is the end of weather happiness for 300 miles or so, because it's a steady drop from there into the desert, all the way down to the Colorado River. Temps in the 100-115F range are normal. Water is scarcer there than on just about any roads in the country. I was pretty alarmed so I got it across that they needed to show me their route. As best I could I showed them the best way on maps to not die. I tried my damnedest to get across they should not bike in the afternoons. "extra chaud!" etc.

And off they went. Never found out if they made it or not, but... you just can't keep humans down. They will always find a way to do the craziest things.

The underlying purpose of org-mode is to manage this issue (the text part). It doesn't solve it, instead it is a tool for managing the steadily increasing archive organizational complexity within an ever evolving timeline. You reconfigure your archive's implicit schema well now you're in a world of heavy editing. That's life. If you don't have a solid backup strategy, you are going to lose stuff. That's also life. Big binary blobs are a different, equally important problem.

Sure, keep your archive text in markdown (which one? a dumb person asks). But I'd recommend managing it with org-mode, it doesn't really care what format your text is in.

(Yeah I saw the footnote mentioning org-mode but that reads to me that org-mode's reference there is entirely about the markup flavor.)