soganess (u/soganess)

soganess commented on xAI joins SpaceX spacex.com/updates#xai-jo... · Posted by u/g-mork

rybosworld · 7 days ago

An 8 GPU B200 cluster goes for about $500k right now. You'd need to put thousands of those into space to mimic a ground-based data center. And the launch costs are best case around 10x the cost of the cluster itself.

Letting them burn up in the atmosphere every time there's an issue does not sound sustainable.

soganess · 7 days ago

Are launch costs really 10x!? Could I get a source for that?

In the back on my head this all seemed astronomically far-fetched, but 5.5 million to get 8 GPUs in space... wild. That isn't even a single TB of VRAM.

Are you maybe factoring in the cost to powering them in space in that 5 million?

soganess commented on Ubuntu is the reason Windows users don't want to switch to Linux xda-developers.com/ubuntu... · Posted by u/tartoran

palata · 8 days ago

I never understood why some people really, really want others to switch to Linux. I don't really care if many people switch to Linux. If anything, a lot of beginner switching to Linux may well make Linux worse for me.

I see a lot of "if you want to convert Windows users, you have to...". I really don't want to convert Windows users. I did not move to Linux to please those who like Windows.

Said differently, if a distro managed to please all Windows users, it most definitely wouldn't please me. I don't see why I should hope for that.

soganess · 7 days ago

1. It's a moral good (free as in freedom). Wider Linux adoption makes software more free for everyone and creates a feedback loop: more users means more engineering effort, which improves the many many projects we colloquially call Linux, which (i++) attracts more users. As a corollary to #1: do you really want Billy G spying on your mom?

2. It's often better for the environment to keep old hardware running (manufacturing emissions usually dwarf operational ones for consumer devices).

And a more personal corollary to #2: I love old hardware and don't want to see it die (and I'm not talking about vintage tech). A 16+ core Haswell Xeon (that riiiing) and Polaris RX 480 (HWS, why yes) remain perfectly useful in the modern world. I like knowing both are out there, somewhere, just chugging away long after they were retired from some server or mining operation.

soganess commented on P vs. NP and the Difficulty of Computation: A ruliological approach writings.stephenwolfram.c... · Posted by u/tzury

soganess · 9 days ago

Can someone tell me what I am missing here?

This seems to suffer from a finite-size effect. Wolfram's machines have a tiny state space (s ≤ 4, k ≤ 3). For some class of NP problems, this will be insufficient to encode complex algorithms and is low dimensional enough that it is unlikely to be able to encode hard instances ("worst case") of the problem class. The solution space simply cannot support them.

In this regime, hard problem classes only have easy solutions, think random k-SAT below the satisfiability threshold, where algorithms like FIX (Coja-Oghlan) approximate the decision problem in polynomial time. In random k-SAT, the "hardness" cannot emerge away from the phase transition and by analogy (watch my hand wave in the wind so free) I can imagine that they would not exist at small scales. Almost like the opposite of the overlap gap property.

Wolfram's implicit counter-claim seems to be that the density of irreducibility among small machines approximates the density in the infinite limit (...or something? Via his "Principle of Computational Equivalence"), but I'm not following that argument. I am sure someone has brought this up to him! I just don't understand his response. Is there some way of characterizing / capturing the complexity floor of a given problem (For an NP-hard Problem P the reduced space needs to be at least as big as S to, WHP, describe a few hard instances)?

soganess commented on Former CNN journalist Don Lemon arrested after church protest in Minnesota reuters.com/world/us/form... · Posted by u/SilverElfin

zahlman · 10 days ago

> Do you honestly think I have not read that before? Like seriously?

It immediately and completely refutes your position, so if you have read it then you have no excuse.

> I don't even know where that is posted, I just see folks quote it all the time.

It is in one of the links in the page footer.

> I obviously don't abide, those were written at a different time with a different HN.

Two wrongs don't make a right. The policy is there for a reason, and I'm confident that any of the moderators will happily tell you that it's meant exactly as seriously now as it was at the beginning. But you don't have to take my word for it; you can also email hn@ycombinator.com.

soganess · 10 days ago

I am so confused wrt what you are attempting to do.

I literally do not care what the policy says. Must I say it that way? The policy

  (1) is logically incoherent

  (2) is not policed in an equitable way

  (3) is used to launder a worldview to young tech workers just coming to hn

  (4) ... do I need to keep going? because I can keep saying stuff

  (5) is just random bits on a server

I don't like it, many people don't like it, it has a negative chilling effect on the hn community. I am regularly voicing my concern in an effort to create my desired outcome. FWIW, the folks that want the rules changed are generally the most aware of them.

soganess commented on Former CNN journalist Don Lemon arrested after church protest in Minnesota reuters.com/world/us/form... · Posted by u/SilverElfin

zahlman · 10 days ago

> The only thing desperate is people plugging their ears and lalala-ing “HN is not for politics.”

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

soganess · 10 days ago

Do you honestly think I have not read that before?

I don't even know where that is posted, I just see folks quote it all the time. I obviously don't abide, those were written at a different time on a different internet with a different HN.

NOTE: I slightly restructured this without noticing the reply. The poster below is not misquoting me in anyway.

soganess commented on Former CNN journalist Don Lemon arrested after church protest in Minnesota reuters.com/world/us/form... · Posted by u/SilverElfin

swed420 · 10 days ago

I still primarily come for the tech/hacker vibe, but also understand and accept that continually hitting snooze on important political items will threaten my future ability to enjoy the former.

I also respect the fact that this is run by an SV incubator and everything that entails. Out of all the discussion platforms, this one is still the most sane, for now. Moderation is a thankless job, and they do a pretty good job with that around here compared to all of the alternatives.

soganess · 10 days ago

I consider myself extremely confrontational on here (especially compared to myself in meatworld), but in my 13 years on HN I have had only one direct disagreement with dang, and it was about the definition of the hazelnut spread Nutella.

I am sure he and I disagree on most things, but I don't fault the primary moderator. In general, dang seems pretty laissez-faire. I am venting at the flag brigade: what news gets flagged, and more importantly what doesn't.

I come here to stick my thumb in the wind and see what the prevailing tech view is. As for the tech itself, I am more "if I learn something cool along the way, neat," so I guess I am here for the vibe as well. I just wish folks were more honest about what HN is (like you are being here). Things change; it's okay for them to change.

soganess commented on Former CNN journalist Don Lemon arrested after church protest in Minnesota reuters.com/world/us/form... · Posted by u/SilverElfin

nh23423fefe · 10 days ago

That list would be even less interesting than the flagged off topic politics posts that people are so desperate to contend are on topic because everything is political.

soganess · 10 days ago

  > “so desperate to contend”

The only thing desperate is people plugging their ears and lalala-ing “HN is not for politics.”

The tech talk here is embarrassingly shallow. Depth is now the rare exception. If I want deep dives, I’ll go see about some crabs. This place now exists to launder the tech worldview, and that’s an inherently political act. Pretending it isn’t doing that is political too.

Like most folks here nowadays, I primarily come for the politics. The difference is I’m not lying to myself about my posture.

soganess commented on Streets of Minneapolis brucespringsteen.net/news... · Posted by u/clutter55561

soganess · 11 days ago

The boss is doing a little nod to Desolation Row? I see you.

soganess commented on Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda with 1.4M followers reports TikTok ban aljazeera.com/news/2026/1... · Posted by u/siavosh

soganess · 11 days ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisan_Owda

Sounds like a real monster... wait... nvm.

In all seriousness, I don't know a ton about her, but, if her Wikipedia is to be believed, the only thing she is guilty of is being a little "Leave Brittney Alone" extra while living through a genocide:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuTV6hrjQW8

But maybe there is another side to her posting that isn't available from a terse search?