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YC is wrong about LLMs for chip design
LLMs don’t make chips better. Good engineers do.
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We are shutting down Ondsel
After operating for almost two years, Ondsel has made the difficult decision to cease operations and close down.
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Long Term Software Development
Recently the Dutch Electoral Board (where I am also a very part time advisor) invited me to do a talk reflecting on their open source Abacus vote tabulation software. Much software is now provided as a service, and is typically deployed continuously (CD, continuous deployment), surrounded by enough automated testing…
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How Nestlé gets children hooked on sugar in lower-income countries
Nestlé’s leading baby-food brands, promoted in low- and middle-income countries as healthy and key to supporting young children’s development, contain high levels of added sugar. In Switzerland, where Nestlé is headquartered, such products are sold with no added sugar. These are the main findings of a new…
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Ticketmaster’s attempt to game arbitration services fails
In an effort to curb mass arbitration, Ticketmaster sought to switch arbitration service providers to New Era ADR, including for past ticket purchases. New Era incorporated some defense-favorable provisions to its mass arbitration provision. The Ninth Circuit holds those provisions...
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If WordPress is to survive, Matt Mullenweg must be removed
I believe Matt Mullenweg's abuses of his unilateral, unchecked powers prove that it is in the best interest of the entire WordPress community that he be removed from power immediately.
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The deep learning boom caught almost everyone by surprise
"You’ve taken this idea way too far," a mentor told Prof. Fei-Fei Li.
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Most people don't care about quality
My friend, the photographer Paul Clarke has an uncanny eye for detail. Every single shot he publishes is beautiful - they capture life in a way that I don't have the language to describe. I'm quite content to point my phone at someone, use the default settings, and grab a snap. My photos lack composition, clarity…
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Calculating the cost of a Google DeepMind paper
Recently, GDM released a great paper titled, Scaling Exponents Across Parameterizations and Optimizers, in which they conduct over 10,000 LLM training runs to obtain optimal hyperparameters under different regimes. After reading it (it was great), I wanted to test my understanding of the paper by tallying up all…
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Stack Overflow users deleting answers after OpenAI partnership
In this ever changing and evolving world of user generated versus AI generated content, the recent announcement of Stack Overflow partnering with OpenAI recently has been met with some backlash by …
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Big Tech to EU: "Drop Dead"
The European Union’s new Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a complex, many-legged beast, but at root, it is a regulation that aims to make it easier for the public to control the technology they use and rely on. One DMA rule forces the powerful “gatekeeper” tech companies to allow third-party app stores...
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Why are cancer guidelines stuck in PDFs?
How Machine-Readable Clinical Guidelines Can Help Standardize Cancer Care
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Browsers are the most likely disruptor of the mobile duopoly
Under regulatory pressure, mobile OSes are opening up and adding features that will allow PWAs to disrupt app stores ... Yet with shockingly few exceptions, coverage accepts that the solution to crummy, extractive native app stores will be other native app stores. ... The press fails to mention the web as a sustitute…
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OKRs Are Bullshit
It's a new year, time for a new rant! And yes, before you ask, the post title is deliberately provocative. You might say this is my ploy to get more paid subscribers, because only paid subscribers can leave comments and I expect that the title alone will make many of you want to comment. 😝
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Y Combinator and Power in Silicon Valley
A demonstration of power by Silicon Valley’s top startup accelerator.
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The Mafia of Pharma Pricing
4% of all the money in America flows through a few mafia-like health care conglomerates. The FTC just released a ground-breaking report on how they operate. And it is gearing up to sue.
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Batteries: How cheap can they get?
How dirt cheap batteries will completely transform our electricity grid, paving the way for solar and wind and replacing grid reinforcements with grid buffers.
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Nintendo Files Suit for Infringement of Patent Rights Against Pocketpair, Inc
Press release of Nintendo Co., Ltd.
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So you want to rent an NVIDIA H100 cluster? 2024 Consumer Guide
Tips and technical analysis on how to pick an H100 cluster (interconnect, reliability and CO2 emissions)
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Hetzner raises prices while significantly lowering bandwidth (US)
Hetzner raises prices This morning I received an email from Hetzner stating that they are raising prices in the US while significantly reducing bandwidth. The largest price percentage increase is 27.52% for CPX21 servers, and the smallest is 4.17% for CX3+ servers. Bandwidth allotments are decreasing on average…
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We Have to Start Over: From Atom to Zed
From the Zed Blog: Thorsten interviews co-founders Nathan, Max, Antonio about the vision and the technological choices behind Zed, how they went from Atom and Electron to Rust and GPUs with Zed.
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The economics of writing technical books
Yes, you can make money writing books. But never do it for that.
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Cautionary tale on using Chase bank for indie business
A cautionary tale of a business owner's nightmare with Chase Bank, revealing crucial banking lessons for entrepreneurs.
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The biggest source of waste is untapped skilled pragmatists
The biggest source of waste is not low performers or having too many employees.
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Apple's risky bet on CarPlay
What is Apple's strategy with CarPlay?
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Spotify has shut down several API endpoints
To increase security we are limiting access to certain Web API endpoints for new applications.
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We Could Fix Everything, We Just Don't
[programmers frantically pulling cables out of the wall]AI: "Nuclear power. Double teachers' salaries. Build more houses. Distribute food more fairly. TRAINS—"— qntmyrrh (@qntm) November 24, 2023 I remember growing up with that same old adage of how you could be the next scientist to invent a cure for cancer, or a…