271–280 of 488 posts
Bellard has a very interesting project that is `ts_zip`, a compression algorithm powered by LLMs. It's just an "experiment" and should never be used in production, but very smart. The description on his website is amusing: "The ts_zip utility can compress (and hopefully decompress) text files using a Large Language Model" https://bellard.org/ts_zip/
If the decompression is optional, I've got a really impressive compression algorithm in mind!
Bellard is a genius. Carmack's modesty about his own genius is impressive too.
"He is almost certainly a better overall programmer than I am." That is a work of art in and of itself. It's genius narcissism. "almost certainly", "overall programmer", are we really going there? Are we 16? Why even do the comparison? Fabrice is not a "programmer". He is an engineer. Programming is a medium he often works in and that medium is completely meaningless in and of itself. I would be offended if someone c…
Bellard has a very interesting project that is `ts_zip`, a compression algorithm powered by LLMs. It's just an "experiment" and should never be used in production, but very smart. The description on his website is amusing: "The ts_zip utility can compress (and hopefully decompress) text files using a Large Language Model" https://bellard.org/ts_zip/
> (and hopefully decompress) If the decompression is optional, I've got a really impressive compression algorithm in mind!
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Oh, this is human nature and you will find it impossible to avoid this framing of cult figures, because they are indeed cult figures - albeit positively perceived ones, since they appear to not just be doing it for themselves, but altruistically every wonder they produce is for their users - and thus their works have effectively and productively impacted the lives of millions of other people, at economies of scale mo…
Humanity has some 300.000 years of existing, and we can only trace back the prevalence of cult figures a few thousand years back. For all we know, it could be a temporary fluke and we'll snap back to something else. We could be beings with no default to snap back to, ever changing, destined to dissolve the prevalence of cult figures into something else in the following eras. In a few thousand years we could totally s…
A cult figure before writing would have more limited reach, and be forgotten because their name wasn't written down. But they'd still have been a cult figure.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think developers sometimes get too obsessed with code quality thinking that smarter code makes them a better developer. In fact I’ve seen developers fall into the trap of mistaking their code as the product and thus spend so much time beautifying it that that fail to ever release anything. Then you have the other end of the spectrum where people are too focused on hacking stuff together that the end result is unmai…
But the code quality is speed. And reach. You can not advance, unless you can read the code, you can understand the model, you can not scale beyond a certain point. The beauty of the architecture is the ability to build a spaceship compared to a train of kerosene tankers. Physically similar, but in capability radical different. I find this very scary. Somebody unable to perceive capabilities and tech-debt. If you can…
Reading the list of Bellard's contributions, what strikes me is not the raw ability (although certainly there is that too!) but "damn, he knows how to pick 'em!" He keeps picking stuff to work on that ends up being insanely useful to a massive number of people. That seems somehow even more remarkable than the technical ability. Deciding what to work on might be the most important question in life.
My guess would be the hueristic is "I want to do simple thing, why is it so hard?" (Modern computing has an overabundance of "DX tarpits".) Which is funny because, everyone has that experience, right? But then approximately nobody proceeds to do something about it. (Including most people who have the skills to make a difference!) Like, that's surprisingly mundane, and surprisingly actionable. --- If we distil it into…
Of course, all of those are hard! And I think that speaks to the modern tarpits. No one set out to make a tarpit, it just happened and it's hard to make it perfect.
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And I'm here wondering if there's a limit to HN's nested replies.
I'll continue to do my part as time allows, also curious. Anyway, if enough flag the top [like I did], it'll collapse.