Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 1d

oh cool, thanks for the info!

and thanks to the vAmigaWeb people for filing bugs. retro computing ftw

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 1d

The WebAssembly Exceptions problem with Safari/WebKit may have been fixed:

github.com/emscripten-c...

(at least on trunk)

safari 26.0 can not handle wasm-exceptions anymore · Issue #25365 · emscripten-core/emscripten

in case anyone wonders and looks into here for help because their emsdk built web apps are not working anymore with apples latest macOS, iPadOS and iPhoneOS... my two web projects were since years ...

github.com

1 1 3

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 3d

There is a lot to worry about here, yes.

But every savings they make on power saves them money, which they care about.

And the data shows they are doing it: a 33x (not 33%, but 33 *times*) improvement over 12 months, as mentioned in one of the previous links.

1 1

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 3d

And, while at the lowest level the math is simple, we know little (not nothing, but little) about how either human brains or AI models work at a higher level.

This isn't a surprise about AI models, this is a prediction from the field of neural networks.

4

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 3d

And that is the entire point of the field of neural networks: The human brain seems to be built out of very simple elements, doing simple math, and we can do similar math in computers, so let's try to build intelligence that way.

It is shocking and disturbing how well this ended up working.

1 4

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 3d

It's true that these models are only doing simple math at the lowest level.

But from a neuroscientist's point of view, neural networks in human brains are also only doing simple math. At least, we haven't found anything else, at the lowest level (despite speculation about quantum etc. theories).

1 7

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 3d

AI has many huge problems, but power usage is at least something these companies are self-motivated to fix, and so far they are finding technical ways to do it.

With that said, there can be very bad local problems if a data center is built without sufficient power or water nearby.

1

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 3d

Inference used to be expensive, but in recent months the estimates are just 0.24-0.34 watt-hours per typical query:

cloud.google.com/blog/product...

blog.samaltman.com/the-gentle-s...

This is small compared to e.g. videoconferencing or pc/console gaming.

1 2

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 3d

I think in this case it's the opposite: sci-fi shows the debate because it naturally comes up.

The Turing Test is from 1950 - probably before most sci-fi on this topic.

And the philosophical debate around things like the Chinese Room Argument show honest, deep philosophical disagreements here.

1 1

Reposted by A. H. Zakai

Rebecca Heineman @burgerbecky.bsky.social · 4d

I’ve started a GoFundMe to help with my cancer battle gofund.me/6850175a3

Donate to Help Rebecca Ann Heineman Fight Aggressive Cancer, organized by Rebecca Heineman

I’m Rebecca Ann Heineman. The very first video game champion, creat… Rebecca Heineman needs your support for Help Rebecca Ann Heineman Fight Aggressive Cancer

gofund.me

22 1.4K 1.2K

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 7d

I get how you can interpret his words that way, & maybe you're right.

Maybe "no more stupid rules" means "all the rules are stupid; no more of them."

But that's an interpretation, & might be (hopefully is) wrong.

I checked and e.g. CNN was careful to fully quote him there, avoiding guesses:

Hegseth orders military culture overhaul: ‘if you don’t agree, resign’ | CNN Politics

Before a captive audience of hundreds of senior military officers on Tuesday morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth asserted his vision for how the US military will physically look and act, and offer...

www.cnn.com

1

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 7d

Not to defend this jerk, but "The military is for killing people and breaking things" is a fair paraphrase of his words, while "No more rules of engagement" is not.

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 7d

Ok, I believe I found the two places you mean:

41:18 "We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement."

41:29 "No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement."

I guess you can interpret it as "no more rules at all", but also "no more of the bad ones."

2

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 8d

Where does he say "No more rules of engagement" - ?

It's not in the linked clip, at least. Was it in another part of his speech?

1

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 10d

don't spend that $1 all in one place (you literally can't)

2

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 10d

When is a xenomorph NOT a xenomorph?

Three possible reasons for Alien: Earth's large break with the past:

kripken.github.io/blog/scifi/2...

When is an Alien NOT an Alien?

(spoilers for Alien: Earth Season 1 and the rest of the franchise)

kripken.github.io

1 1

Reposted by A. H. Zakai

allsee 🔜 sleeping @allsees.online · 10d

everyone should checkout Messenger by Abeto. it's a free browser game where ur just a little delivery kid on a little planet!
messenger.abeto.co

34 770 2.4K

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 10d

You may also be interested in binaryen's wasm2js

github.com/WebAssembly/...

That is used in production by various toolchains.

GitHub - WebAssembly/binaryen: Optimizer and compiler/toolchain library for WebAssembly

Optimizer and compiler/toolchain library for WebAssembly - WebAssembly/binaryen

github.com

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 10d

(If you use Emscripten itself, there is a flag for this, SUPPORT_BIG_ENDIAN:

emscripten.org/docs/tools_r...

)

Emscripten Compiler Settings — Emscripten 4.0.15-git (dev) documentation

emscripten.org

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 10d

If you want endian-safe JS for wasm, it's enough to do what Emscripten does: wasm is always little-endian (as LLVM emits), & it rewrites the JS from TypedArray ops (using system endianness) to DataView ops w/ little-endian (matching the wasm).

Here is that JS transform:

github.com/emscripten-c...

github.com

1

Reposted by A. H. Zakai

James Snell @jasnell.me · 13d

Safe in the sandbox... blog.cloudflare.com/safe-in-the-...

Safe in the sandbox: security hardening for Cloudflare Workers

Cloudflare Workers are constantly being updated to be as secure and efficient as possible. We are further hardening Workers by making use of the latest software and hardware features. We use defense-i...

blog.cloudflare.com

1 1 7

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 14d

This whole show could have been a Black Mirror episode

1

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 14d

The ending took all the bad parts of the show and put them together

And it did almost nothing with the good parts

3

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 14d

Bluesky doesn't have an algorithm, but sometimes serendipity makes it seem like it does

Screenshot of a bluesky timeline with two posts in sequence, the first a Lord of the Rings meme about "The age of Mclachlan is over", the second a sewer district post near-quoting the Lord of the Rings "not all who meander are lost"

1

A. H. Zakai @kripken.com · 15d

It's amazing how the same arxiv paper led to two news articles, one pessimistic ("AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable") and this one which is optimistic.

1