AI companies are raising at valuations that require them to grow at rates that are only achievable by chasing the broadest possible market with the most generic possible product.
A company that raises at a $500M valuation needs to show a path to billions in revenue,
which means it can't afford to be a niche tool that does one thing brilliantly for a specific audience.
It has to be a platform, horizontal, aimed at enterprise, built for no one in particular.
Ever…
And Seattle has continued destroying the park along Elliott Bay.
Repaving the path and removing the potholes and bumps from tree roots? Definitely needed.
But not only is the whole area full of lamp posts ruining what had once been a pleasant place to enjoy an evening away from city glare, the paths are lined with fencing and sprinklers blocking access to any trees that could be useful as a spot for someone to shelter from the weather or even sit under one to read a book.
I…
OK, so apparently I shouldn’t have said “beyond the obvious,” and the obvious needs stating:
(1) Copyright licenses very clearly •do• allow the copyright holder to determine who may use a work and for what purposes, at least when such use would be otherwise prohibited without a license. That is how the law works. Rightly or wrongly, empires are built on this: “Streaming service XYZ may offer this song for streaming but not for download until this date.” Copyleft is one example of this principle in action.
(1a) Thing the thing presents discriminatory licensing (such as in Daniel’s strawmen) is anti-discrimination law, not copyright law.
(2) The reason copyleft specifically might prevent LLM usage is that •if• LLM output can be considered a derived work of the training material, then the output must also be licensed in the same way. That seems to me a thin reed: courts so far haven’t been willing to treat LLM output as derived work, even when the output includes things that would surely be considered plagiarism and grossly illegal if done by a human. But I don’t see another path to protection, and courts are still sorting this out…so.
https://mastodon.sdf.org/@dlakelan/116267990581623218
Today in the drizzle I stopped by the Living Library, a beautiful native plant garden near SF's Balboa Park at the San Jose/Seneca intersection. Highly recommend a visit to see some #ceanothus in bloom and California poppies and island mallows beginning to, and much more.
Just a little one and a half hour walk nearby before it was supposed to be raining (and rugby starts).
It was a nice walk and good to be out. Strangely, my old GPS device refused to get a location despite having lots of satellites. Just 10min before coming back (after a couple of restarts and taking the batteries out and back in) it worked.
Fortunately, I only had it with me to test if my heart rate monitor also connects to it.
RE: https://social.growyourown.services/@FediGarden/116082350446529495
Here's a wishlist item for Fediverse clients: it should be a one-click path to view the Local Feed page of an OP's server (where public) and if it is really niche, to subscribe to the feed like a hashtag.
Meander (2025).
(Unlike people who're associating a strong negative connotation with that word, I've always seen active meandering as a strength, a never ending search and adaptation of one's course in changing environments, finding/encouraging/prioritizing flow, learning/sharing/depositing bits of knowledge/material in different places and thereby also changing your local environment, at least a little...)
"Be like water!"
(Edit: fixed typo)
City Vibes 🎀
城市律动 🎀
📷 Zeiss IKON Super Ikonta 533/16
🎞️ Ilford HP5 Plus 400, expired 1993
If you like my work, buy me a coffee from PayPal #filmphotography
Have you read trumps bible?
The original Ezekiel 25:17 has one sentence.
And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.
trumps bible apparently has more.
"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley …
Two days ago, I had eight (out of one hundred and forty) unit tests failing, and I wasn't happy with my code. Last night, I had forty failing, and I thought things were improving. This morning I have one hundred and twenty four failing, so I *know* I'm on the right path!
#Software
#Lisp
I need to pick up a repaired snowblower tomorrow, and drop some stuff (gifts, taxes) off at the post office. By bike, as one does. Pick up the snowblower first, so I can park the bike loaded trailer outside the post office, people need to see that it's possible (easy, even). I seem to have sorted the electrical problem on the e-bike, which is nice.
#CarryShitOlympics
I never thought I'd be asking this but does anyone have a USB "microscope" to suggest that has a decently long working distance and really small head?
I'm thinking about how I'm going to record/livestream my reworkctf v2 playthrough and the microscope I have on the mill is not set up to record video, and I have no easy path to change that.
So I'm wondering about just adding a second macro/closeup view off to one side looking at the work area and hopefull…
Q&A with Skild AI CEO Deepak Pathak on building a general-purpose brain for robots, standing out among big tech's robotics efforts, the path to AGI, and more (Alex Heath/Sources)
https://sources.news/p/skild-ai-ceo-robotics-brain-davos
Willem challenged us to ask ourselves what we would do if we were living under Nazi occupation. Before all of this, I doubt anyone thought they would be complicit. I doubt anyone said to themselves, "nothing. I would cower in fear and do nothing."
But for 4 years or so we all answered that question again and again with our lives. Now here we are, answering it again... Every day. But it's no longer "what would you do during the rise of Hitler?" It's now, "what would you do after the invasion of Poland," and "what would you do after you knew about the concentration camps?"
For some people, the answer is still, "nothing."
But a lot of people have been brave in the face of it all. A lot of people have died, and a lot more will die. He will die, perhaps after a ruling by some court or other but, honestly, probably not. That's just how these things work out. Lots of people die, some for no reason, some because they stood up against injustice. A whole lot of people do nothing, until it's safe to claim victory... Until it's no longer safe to be on the other side.
That's just how these things go. Fascism is self-defeating, but it causes incredible harm on it's path of self-destruction. The more people who stand up, who risk themselves, the faster it collapses and the fewer it can hurt. That's also just how these things go. It's incredibly dangerous for everyone until enough people take some extra risk and make it safe for everyone again.
But that question still stands... Which one of those groups are you in? Are you proud of what you are doing, or will you look back with shame? Some of y'all have a lot to be proud of, but, if you're not, it's never too late to earn your way into that proud group.
„That’s three or four clicks just to see the error, and every one of them loads a new page with its own loading spinner, and none of them are fast. You are navigating a bureaucracy. You are filling out forms at the DMV of CI.“
What an apt comparison. The whole piece is *chef’s kiss*!
https://www.
Cross To The Other Side ❎
去向另一边 ❎
📷 Nikon FE
🎞️ Lucky C200
If you like my work, buy me a coffee from PayPal #filmphotography
Finally back to posting #photos!
This one is from my recent snowshoeing tour (you might have seen it if you've read my blog). - I was just quite happy that I set out and did this hike 🙂
https://www.
House and Senate Republicans have identified the enemy
— and it is one another.
A meltdown in relations between the two G.O.P.-led chambers caused the embarrassing collapse on Friday of a Senate-passed proposal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security before lawmakers raced out of town on a two-week recess.
It left no clear path for resolving the crisis that has led to airport chaos and workers without paychecks.
And with President Trump seemingly cheering on the…
For #footpathfriday I'm sharing this one again. It's really one of our most liked trails.
Even though it doesn't gain a lot of elevation, the path along the shore of the lake is all I like:
narrow, pretty nature like, absolutely great views, bends along the shores so that you don't see too far, and mountains all around ... what else would you need 🙂
Shot ...and chaser (and it's only Tuesday): Two new 8x6" prints done over the weekend, from one of my fave repeat hikes in the Allgäuer Alps...
Alpsee and view into the Lechtal Alps (November 2021)
Himmeleck mountain pass with Großer Wilder (October 2023)
I find the aesthetics of the Kallitype process are so nicely complementing the timelessness of these places...
For some of the next prints I will be switching to Rochelle salt as developer for supposedly even…
Fork, Explore, Commit: OS Primitives for Agentic Exploration
Cong Wang, Yusheng Zheng
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.08199 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.08199 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.08199
arXiv:2602.08199v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: AI agents increasingly perform agentic exploration: pursuing multiple solution paths in parallel and committing only the successful one. Because each exploration path may modify files and spawn processes, agents require isolated environments with atomic commit and rollback semantics for both filesystem state and process state. We introduce the branch context, a new OS abstraction that provides: (1) copy-on-write state isolation with independent filesystem views and process groups, (2) a structured lifecycle of fork, explore, and commit/abort, (3) first-commit-wins resolution that automatically invalidates sibling branches, and (4) nestable contexts for hierarchical exploration. We realize branch contexts in Linux through two complementary components. First, BranchFS is a FUSE-based filesystem that gives each branch context an isolated copy-on-write workspace, with O(1) creation, atomic commit to the parent, and automatic sibling invalidation, all without root privileges. BranchFS is open sourced in https://github.com/multikernel/branchfs. Second, branch() is a proposed Linux syscall that spawns processes into branch contexts with reliable termination, kernel-enforced sibling isolation, and first-commit-wins coordination. Preliminary evaluation of BranchFS shows sub-350 us branch creation independent of base filesystem size, and modification-proportional commit overhead (under 1 ms for small changes).
toXiv_bot_toot
Unsplittable Transshipments
Srinwanti Debgupta, Sarah Morell, Martin Skutella
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.07230 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.07230 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.07230
arXiv:2602.07230v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We introduce the Unsplittable Transshipment Problem in directed graphs with multiple sources and sinks. An unsplittable transshipment routes given supplies and demands using at most one path for each source-sink pair. Although they are a natural generalization of single source unsplittable flows, unsplittable transshipments raise interesting new challenges and require novel algorithmic techniques. As our main contribution, we give a nontrivial generalization of a seminal result of Dinitz, Garg, and Goemans (1999) by showing how to efficiently turn a given transshipment $x$ into an unsplittable transshipment $y$ with $y_a<x_a d_{\max}$ for all arcs $a$, where $d_{\max}$ is the maximum demand (or supply) value. Further results include bounds on the number of rounds required to satisfy all demands, where each round consists of an unsplittable transshipment that routes a subset of the demands while respecting arc capacity constraints.
toXiv_bot_toot
This morning in Minneapolis:
Somebody posted in one of the local chats that their neighbor didn’t come home last night, looking for help finding them. Family doesn’t know where they are. They’d been taking the legal path to seek asylum. ICE doesn’t have their name (but that means very little; they hide names, kidnap anonymously, even discard people’s IDs).
Meanwhile, confirmed ICE sightings are ramping up in my area now after some relative early morning quiet.
Just in case you wondered how things are going here.
Set the Unsettled 🧘
尘埃落定 🧘
📷 Pentax MX
🎞️ Lucky SHD 400
If you like my work, buy me a coffee from PayPal #filmphotography
And like.... I get it. I know these folks are terrible. But if you still have any of these people in your life, there is a level of privilege generally associated with that. Everyone who doesn't have the privilege needs you to use it now to help ease the boot on their neck.
Every crack in this system is important, even if it's just one more person who is out.
"When your ready enemy is strong, divide them. When your enemy is weak, attack them."
We're still in that "dividing" phase, and providing a path for folks to leave the cult undermines the power of the cult. The more people who leave, the faster they leave, the faster it unravels. If you hate Trump, and you still can talk to any of his supporters, now is the time to stop gloating and pointing out how stupid they are and to instead give them a way to leave. Most of them don't actually want to be defending a demented pedophile, so please help them stop doing that.
The invasion of Minneapolis was a •disaster• for the Trump regime. They shot themselves in the foot. In both feet. They’ve lost support they desperately need from many different quarters: the press, the judiciary, the population’s mushy middle, their own party, even some of their own base. They don’t have an authoritarian state yet — and their path to achieving one looks a •lot• more distant than it did at the start of Dec.
6/
Incremental (k, z)-Clustering on Graphs
Emilio Cruciani, Sebastian Forster, Antonis Skarlatos
https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.08542 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.08542 https://arxiv.org/html/2602.08542
arXiv:2602.08542v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Given a weighted undirected graph, a number of clusters $k$, and an exponent $z$, the goal in the $(k, z)$-clustering problem on graphs is to select $k$ vertices as centers that minimize the sum of the distances raised to the power $z$ of each vertex to its closest center. In the dynamic setting, the graph is subject to adversarial edge updates, and the goal is to maintain explicitly an exact $(k, z)$-clustering solution in the induced shortest-path metric.
While efficient dynamic $k$-center approximation algorithms on graphs exist [Cruciani et al. SODA 2024], to the best of our knowledge, no prior work provides similar results for the dynamic $(k,z)$-clustering problem. As the main result of this paper, we develop a randomized incremental $(k, z)$-clustering algorithm that maintains with high probability a constant-factor approximation in a graph undergoing edge insertions with a total update time of $\tilde O(k m^{1 o(1)} k^{1 \frac{1}{\lambda}} m)$, where $\lambda \geq 1$ is an arbitrary fixed constant. Our incremental algorithm consists of two stages. In the first stage, we maintain a constant-factor bicriteria approximate solution of size $\tilde{O}(k)$ with a total update time of $m^{1 o(1)}$ over all adversarial edge insertions. This first stage is an intricate adaptation of the bicriteria approximation algorithm by Mettu and Plaxton [Machine Learning 2004] to incremental graphs. One of our key technical results is that the radii in their algorithm can be assumed to be non-decreasing while the approximation ratio remains constant, a property that may be of independent interest.
In the second stage, we maintain a constant-factor approximate $(k,z)$-clustering solution on a dynamic weighted instance induced by the bicriteria approximate solution. For this subproblem, we employ a dynamic spanner algorithm together with a static $(k,z)$-clustering algorithm.
toXiv_bot_toot
Harman Switch Azure First Impression 🥰
哈曼Switch Azure第一印象 🥰
📷 Nikon F4E
🎞️ Harman Switch Azure
If you like my work, buy me a coffee from PayPal https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/ydcdingsite
I am so sad and annoyed this morning.
They are topping more trees in Cathedral Grove.
The place that was literally shown to the world during the Opening Ceremonies of the 2010 Olympics now has dozens of headless 30-50ft tall, 300 year old, stumps.
Because “safety”, I assume.
There has been a road through this park for 100 years, but it took until the 2020s for someone to decide there were “danger trees”.
We’re all idiots.
I am going to try to take a picture this morning of the new cuts but it is all blocked off as they work so it will be hard or impossible. I’ll do my best.
What are we doing. Why are we like this? 😢
The photo is from earlier this year. Most of the headless trees are along the road, but not all. This shows one along the walking path.
cc: @… @mlabotterell @…
#thicktrunkthursday #throwbackthursday #cathedralgrove #bcpoli #mosstodon #nature
Very proud and excited to vote in the NDP leadership race today!!
This is not the first time I've voted in a Federal leadership race... more on that later but first, my choices! I considered only voting for two people, but I ended up filling in all 5 choices.
#1: Tanille Johnston @…
#2: Avi Lewis @…
#3: Heather McPherson
#4: Tony McQuail
#5: Rob Ashton
Why?
You might ask why I would publicize my choices. I don’t expect others to of course. It is a privilege and a right in Canada to exercise your democratic choice freely and privately, but I also think there is value in knowing how others voted.
#1 why Tanille? #electoralReform and proportional representation myself, I didn't just want to pick my top two. I wanted to make a statement on each of these candidates an influence each one.
To be blunt, Heather is #3 because she is the middle-of-the-road candidate. She is an excellent representative as MP and has gathered the support of other MPs including my own, but while I would be OK with her leadership, I would see her as a continuation of the status quo, and that is not what the NDP needs as a party, nor is it what Canada needs as a country.
We desperately need a vigorous and clear alternative to the Centre-but-mostly-Right Liberals, and the MAGA-wannabe Conservatives. The only way to do that is to catch the attention of Canadians and inspire them. I am not sure that Heather has the ability to do that, and if we continue with the same leadership crew in the NDP, I am not confident that the policy choices will be strong enough to inspire and attract Canadians.
That is why Tanille and Avi are far better options.
#4 Why Tony:
Tony is the real deal. Honestly, I would have loved to rank him higher. He represents the true life blood of rural, socially progressive, environmentally aware, Canadians. You should go check out his platform. I am so glad that he was able to participate fully in the race and we need his voice in the NDP.
#5 Why not Rob?
I have been an active member in my Union for more than 10 years. Unionism is The Way. Rob is representing a division within the union movement that claims that working people can't have jobs if the environment is put first. This is a lie.
We need union leaders that look to the future and speak honestly to people. We need union leaders who are genuinely progressive, not ready to do the bidding of corporate masters to the benefit of a few.
Working people need honesty, and when an industry is on decline, a clear path to new, excellent, union, jobs!
#CanPoli #CdnPoli #Liberal #CPC #Canada #Democracy #NDP
@cdarwin@c.im
