Tootfinder

Opt-in global Mastodon full text search. Join the index!

No exact results. Similar results found.
@Techmeme@techhub.social
2026-02-19 13:15:51

Mobile gaming company Scopely buys a majority stake in Istanbul-based studio Loom, maker of puzzle game Pixel Flow!; a source says the deal values Loom at $1B (Georg Szalai/The Hollywood Reporter)
hollywoodreporter.com/business

@memeorandum@universeodon.com
2026-03-20 13:06:07

The last line of defense against Paramount megadeal (Politico)
politico.com/news/2026/03/20/h
memeorandum.com/260320/p26#a26

@aredridel@kolektiva.social
2026-04-14 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.

@lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz
2026-02-18 03:31:29

Wow, serious rite of passage: my younger son playing his first lp... On our turntable unused for a decade or two, with a just-replaced cartridge... These speakers are also getting their first airing despite me having had them for years (gifted by a mate as excess to requirements)...

Mr 14, standing side on in his school uniform with phone recording this epic experience: excited to be hearing his first LP for the first time. This is in our lounge with Tannoy speakers on the floor, cobbled together speaker cables, and stereo components (Yamaha power amp & radio receiver, Onkyo turntable, and Technics dual cassette deck. Incidentally, the latter was bought from Lan Pham's husband 7-8 yrs ago) in a home made ply rack sitting on the carpet in front of curtains blocking out the …
Closer view of the stereo rack for the audiophiles.
@toxi@mastodon.thi.ng
2026-02-18 13:27:01

AI bros are just loving open source — loving it to death... maybe quite literally! (Godot being latest popular example[1])
More and more projects are impacted by floods of bogus AI pull requests and resulting discussions, stealing precious time and nerves away from their maintainers doing actual productive work. More buggy and insecure software (incl. commercial offerings) due to slopcoding, more websites getting attacked daily by AI crawlers in desperate search for any new bits (liter…

@chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.ca
2026-03-10 04:03:57

#Rant
Rob Shaw is solidifying his position as the new Dean of Right Wing, anti-Worker Legislative Reporters in British Columbia.
With these gems, it's incredible that he has an education or goes to a doctor at all…
"The BCTF is typically one of the most militant unions, and quickly prone to job action.”
BCTF Strikes since 2000:
2005
2014
phew! almost got to three!
Remember that this was at the time of a union-busting BC Liberal government that had to go to the Supreme Court of Canada to get told that they ripped up union contracts unconstitutionally and were *forced* to compensate many years later.
"The ratification is a win for a New Democrat government. And extraordinarily expensive for taxpayers, too."
“extraordinarily expensive. Really? How is a wage increase that is *barely* in line with inflation after literally decades of below-inflation increases, “extraordinary”? I'll wait.
"Teachers can thank the BCGEU for turning what was an initial 3.5 per cent wage offer over two years by government, into a more than 12 per cent increase over four that is now forming the baseline for all other union deals."
Indeed! For those who can do math, that means 3% each of 4 years instead of 3.5 over two. But thanks Rob for making it seem like 4 times more!
Thanks BCGEU members for your solidarity and perceverence! I have been on strike. It sucks HARD. But it was worth it and it works.
"The ratification by the BCTF means roughly half of the 450,000 public sector employees now have deals of some sort with the province. Two majors left on the table are nurses and doctors.”
Oh no! Let’s not pay doctors and nurses! Surely they'll stay regardless in our incredibly overworked and under resourced healthcare system!
Like how does Mr Shaw believe we are to stay competitive or attract people. Or is he just not worried about getting sick….
"The skyrocketing deficit has the NDP government inking sweetheart deals with organized labour on the one hand, while pledging to cut public sector jobs with the other.”
Ya, we could have kept those public sector jobs if it weren't for fools like you who demanded governments cut taxes over the past 20 years instead of reasonable rises to... again…keep up with inflation and retain service!
It is a crappy balancing act that the NDP is doing and I do not like a lot of it. At the same time as Mr. Shaw complains about "sweetheart deals" for people in post-secondary, I am seeing historic cuts in that same sector. It's a blood bath actually. So the potential wage increases are going to be welcome, but feel pretty hollow as so many collegues have left.
Rob Shaw would have had us all lose our jobs and take a pay cut at the next one for good measure.
Thanks but no thanks Rob, your world view sucks.
nsnews.com/economy-law-politic

@NFL@darktundra.xyz
2026-03-17 17:44:15

Source: Texans to add Teller to rebuilt O-line espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/482320

@bourgwick@heads.social
2026-03-18 04:07:05

such a fun label & will pretty much check out anything they put out, but as a non-londoner i had no idea about their main activity as promoters. social.lol/@thetonearm/1162179

@Mediagazer@mstdn.social
2026-04-14 21:01:13

Internal emails show Brendan Carr's links to the Center for American Rights, which supplied arguments for the FCC's challenge to Jimmy Kimmel (Dell Cameron/Wired)
wired.com/story/the-fcc-has-a-