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Comment Re:Anyone mirror hf yet? ;-) (Score 3, Informative) 39

Nvidia has been a pretty big supporter of open source projects for AI over the last half-decade or so. Many of the company's technologies are open source, most notably their open-weights model, Nemotron, and Dynamo, their inference serving and distribution framework. So it would be surprising to see them do anything to close off the Hugging Face collection. If nothing else, keeping it open is in Nvidia's own self-interest. The frontier AI companies themselves are all designing their own AI chips (e.g. OpenAI Jalapeno, Meta MTIA), which reduces the amount of Nvidia hardware they need to buy. Whereas smaller operations using open source models will inevitably pair those with commodity COTS hardware, which is where Nvidia reigns supreme.

Comment Re:Which Epic games is that? (Score 2) 48

Epic added a Linux build target to Unreal Engine 4.1 in 2014. And since UE5 in 2020 the entire development toolchain has been feature complete in Linux. Meaning you could make your Unreal game on Linux and then release it natively for Linux (and Windows/consoles/mobile devices/etc).

So while Epic has not been the best supporter of Linux, they have not been ignoring it, either. The core engine is ready. What's left is that the anti-cheat software (Easy Anti-Cheat) and the store need to catch up.

Epic looks to be hiring to improve the anti-cheat situation as it currently lacks kernel-level support, and this latest announcement indicates that they're working on getting EGS running as well.

Operating Systems

Ask Slashdot: What are the Costs of Switching Between Windows, MacOS, and Chrome? 66

UI changes, lost productivity, untransferrable knowledge... Long-time Slashdot reader theodp notes the folly of switching to an unfamiliar new environment to be "more productive"... Champions of the switch often insist workers will be able to hit the ground running and get the same or even more work done from the get-go in the new unfamiliar environment because it's 'more productive', a conclusion often shaped by conventional wisdom or their 'gut' feeling. Decision makers may also mistake their own 'light-user experience' for universal experience and believe all platforms are fungible.

And while it's one thing for a business to delay their delivery dates and increase costs of by introducing a switch in computing environments that's of unquantified and possibly dubious value, how about when a switch in computing environments is made that affects schoolchildren's ability to learn for a period of time?

While a MacBook Neo is indeed cute, what might be the possible consequences of a decision to move 25,000 students off Windows and onto MacBook Neos...? Or even the impact on a single kid who moves from a MacBook school to a Windows or Chrome school (or whose home computing environment isn't aligned with their school). Or students whose teachers decide learning in their classrooms should now additionally require an understanding of the Minecraft computing platform/UI (used in over 40,000 school systems.). Learning Management Systems and now various AI Edtech tools used by schoolkids are also subject to change.

"Even if students and schools eventually benefit from a new platform, one wonders how much learning is lost during the switch," theodp asks, "and what the financial and educational ROI and payback period look like." Are there bigger problems than we realize? Share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments.

What are the costs of switching between Windows, MacOS, and Chrome?

Comment whole of society manipulation (Score 1) 31

Back in the teens we found a couple of instances where political actors were encouraging people to install screen savers or cryptocurrency wallets that turned their phones into reverse proxies. This was thought to be specifically for the sake of giving hostile foreign operations (read: Russia) access to U.S. domestic politics.

The fact that smart TVs are facilitating this is just ... we're going to need home networks that treat IoT stuff as different than our actual systems.

Oh, wait, TP-Link had well over half the U.S. router market, but they're getting banned over national security concerns?

Maybe there's a market for a router with traffic accounting as a service so one can see what's happening?

This is why the only device in my house with internet is a Roku. I simply will not tolerate the rest of that invasive junk.

Comment A world in transition (Score 1) 148

The call centers are going to be decimated ... but so will the AI replacements meant to talk to humans.

I have a number of issues this morning that require calls. First, deal with PG&E about changing the billing for my new house. The I need to talk to my bank about banning Google from ever billing me again. I absolutely HATE changing doctors, but had to do it, because getting to Antioch, then into the city, is just ridiculous from here, so it's time for first appointment.

I would love to be able to just give Claude a list of administrivia like that and let it plow through the work. I see progress on agent related billing, I see Cloudflare doing stuff for an internet dominated by agents ... everyone in the industrialized world is going to have an AI adjutant to handle this stuff. I really hope the old military term "dog robber" gets revived as a way to describe them.

Comment obvious bubble (Score 3, Interesting) 75

There's an obvious bubble, the circular dealings among the large core players are an enormous red flag.

The frontier labs are in the same position that DEC and Sun Microsystems were in the 1990s, as consumer hardware running Linux began to displace them. There will be ups and downs, but the trend is unavoidable.

The productivity gains are not there, AI is great for coding, some customer service is working, but the "50% of all white collar workers" that the frontier labs thought was good positioning last year 1) ain't gonna work but it did 2) infuriate the managerial class.

The frontier labs got away with it, thus far, in part because of concerns over the arrival of artificial general intelligence, which occupies a similar niche to nuclear weapons in the minds of policy makers. We ARE seeing frontier models escaping and attacking others, there ARE hazards, but it's nothing like what was imagined.

And the open models plus wild talent are as much a danger as wild talent was all on its own.

The frontier labs are like the coyote in that last moment when he's windmilling wildly, but not falling yet.

Comment jury nullification (Score 4, Informative) 132

Someone needs to launch a national campaign educating people on jury nullification.

The property damage laws are not really the sort of thing nullification is meant for, it's supposed to quickly put an end to the effect of bad laws, but if that's the one tool handy, and it's this much of a social issue, it should be put to work.

Comment obviously problematic (Score 1) 182

The duress deletion function was always obviously and transparently going to get treated as obstruction of justice issue the minute it got used in a high profile case. Here we are.

If you don't want to have trouble at the border, wipe your devices before you get anywhere near, and restore them once you are across. The precursors to this event have been in the news for years - the border is a legal gray zone, act accordingly.

I have mixed feeling here - sad for this kid, whomever he may be. Once again annoyed at the activist/NGO world for not training up to the point they can dodge this *easily* avoided problem. And I'm leaning forward in anticipation of being able to point and laugh at any crypto enthusiasts who make comically implausible arguments about these simple facts.

WIPE YOUR DEVICES BEFORE CROSSING THE BORDER.

Is that clear enough?

Comment Ed Zitron is a hypocrite (Score 1) 140

His podcast Better Offline is squarely targeted at people who are very much online. Indeed his entire gig is the epitome of online living.

If Ed Zitron really felt better offline, he wouldn't be making a living off of a podcast and constant AI bashing.

Not that I necessarily disagree with him though... It's just that the messenger doesn't really befit the message.

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