@grahamperrin@bsd.cafe2026-03-20 01:01:26
Incidentally, I chose to force an upgrade because it was previously necessary to force off the virtual machine during an upgrade.
This began as a review of pkg issue 2441:
― pkg upgrade: ability to complete what was originally intended, following an interruption <https://github.com/freebsd/pkg/issues/
@brian_gettler@mas.to2026-03-18 18:47:04
Allow me to doubt the federal government's claim that "the planned reductions" at the Canadian Museum of History are really "intended to improve efficiency and provide greater long-term flexibility in fulfilling its mandate."
Response from Marc Miller, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages to Colin Coates, President of the Canadian Historical Association.
@Dragofix@veganism.social2026-02-20 22:45:26
Extreme rainfall is worsening algal blooms along South Korea's coast #SouthKorea
@aredridel@kolektiva.social2026-04-14 14:22:42
So to follow up on this, I've caught it in action. Models, when quantized a bit, just do a bit more poorly with short contexts. Even going from f32 (as trained) to bf16 (as usually run) to q8 tends to do okay for "normal" context windows. And q4 you start feeling like "this model is a little stupid and gets stuck sometimes” (it is! It's just that it's still mostly careening about in the space of "plausible" most of the time. Not good guesswork, but still in the zone). With long contexts, the probability of parameters collapsing to zero are higher, so the more context the more likelihood you are to see brokenness.
And then at Q2 (2 bits per parameter) or Q1, the model falls apart completely. Parameters collapse to zero easily. You start seeing "all work and no play makes jack a dull boy” sorts of behavior, with intense and unscrutinized repetition, followed by a hard stop when it just stops working.
And quantization is a parameter that a model vendor can turn relatively easily. (they have to regenerate the model from the base with more quantization, but it's a data transformation on the order of running a terabyte through a straightforward and fast process, not like training).
If you have 1000 customers and enough equipment to handle the requests of 700, going from bf16 to q8 is a no-brainer. Suddenly you can handle the load and have a little spare capacity. They get worse results, probably pay the same per token (or they're on a subscription that hides the cost anyway so you are even freer to make trade-offs. There's a reason that subscription products are kinda poorly described.)
It's also possible for them to vary this across a day: use models during quieter periods? Maybe you get an instance running a bf16 quantization. If you use it during a high use period? You get a Q4 model.
Or intelligent routing is possible. No idea if anyone is doing this, but if they monitor what you send a bit, and you generally shoot for an expensive model for simple requests? They could totally substitute a highly quantized version of the model to answer the question.
There are •so many tricks• that can be pulled here. Some of them very reasonable to make, some of them treading into outright misleading or fraudulent, and it's weirdly hard to draw the line between them.
@UP8@mastodon.social2026-02-13 15:37:02
⚠️ AI can generate a feeling of intimacy that exceeds human connections
I discovered 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 for myself in my ill-fated research project of 2021!
https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-ai-generate-intimacy-exceeds-human.html
@hex@kolektiva.social2026-03-16 10:22:41
On the first day of the #PTSD intensive, we talked about the shooting. I had felt like I was done with that, that it didn't have anything left for me. But there was something still that filled me with rage... that is still confusing and enraging.
It wasn't actually being shot. I wasn't even the possibility of death. I had been prepared to die. I always knew that was possible. It was something else.
I remember Marc Hokoana's face as he pepper sprayed pacifists, smiling and taunting, joyfully hurting people who he knew were refusing to respond. I remember their flags, the kek flag, literally a Nazi battle flag replaced in 4chan colors with the clover 4chan logo instead of the swastika. How many people have been tortured, have died? How much suffering, that these people not only welcomed but celebrated, joyfully participated in.
The cruelty was the point. It was the plan, the plan he posted to Facebook, the same plan as they have always had, of torturing people until someone responds and then murdering them. Inflicting trauma, responding with overwhelming force, showing how "big and strong" they are because they can always escalate.
Try to stop someone from peppers praying people, they shoot you. Shoot back, like Michael Reinoehl, and they send a death squad for you. But we keep standing up, so they keep escalating to the slightest imagined infraction. Now they just murder you for being in a car, for filming at a protest, for existing.
The bar for what justifies murder or torture will continue to move lower until there is no one left, or until they can no longer escalate.
The feeling of helplessness is still not the biggest thing though. It's the joy with which they inflict this on us. That's it. That's the thing.
CW: gun violence, abuse dynamics
https://hexmhell.writeas.com/the-creature-ptss-5-day-1
@inthehands@hachyderm.io2026-02-17 20:49:10
This is in stark contrast to my brief experiences with Ansible, which gave me the feeling of “oh, this is a lot to learn, but I see where they’re going and it makes sense.”
My last Ansible investigation stalled out trying to set up a clean process for issuing Let’s Encrypt certs, and I maybe need to pick those investigations back up again.
@raiders@darktundra.xyz2026-03-17 05:42:50
Ex-Raiders QB Rich Gannon Drops True Feelings on Fernando Mendoza https://heavy.com/sports/nfl/las-vegas-raiders/rich-gannon-true-feelings-fernando-mendoza/
@cdarwin@c.im2026-04-17 01:03:52
Following California implementing a law raising its minimum wage to $20 for more than 500,000 fast-food workers in the state in 2024,
Christopher Thornberg, founding partner of research firm Beacon Economics, offered a warning about the state raising its minimum wage.
“California’s well-intended push to reduce income inequality via wage floors is beginning to have a significant negative impact on some of our most vulnerable workers
—our youth, particularly those from lower-i…
@Dragofix@veganism.social2026-03-15 23:42:00
Mass pilot whale stranding in Indonesia raises questions about ocean health https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/03/mass-pilot-whale-stranding-in-indonesia-raises-questions-about-ocean-health/
