Nothing can beat the Python numpy/ML ecosystem. There's a lot of value in just being able to run a Python script as well without any compilation step. The typing isn't perfect right now but it's usable.

For vectorizable problems there also won't be huge performance gains from switching to a compiled language because all the hard stuff is already done in highly optimized native code. The only time it really makes a difference is if you have to write a custom for loop or traversal.

The difference is that LLMs may or may not be sentient in the domain of human language, which we can relate to, unlike the domain of chess.

For me it was the original DALL-E project page.

I think it's niche now because getting the hardware to run it is expensive and the quantized models don't work as well. If those improve then it would be a no brainer to pay one off for the hardware instead of a fortune for API calls.

I am not really convinced that four bit quantisation is that bad; almost certainly six will be enough. But Google are making claims for their QAT tech in Gemma that they are surely using or testing in Gemini that it preserves nearly source model quality while reducing footprint.

The hardware for 50 tokens per second with a four bit quantisation of Gemma 4 26B or the sparse Qwen 3.6 is not really that expensive: it’s a secondhand M1 Max.

Beyond that, I agree. I think moving planning tasks to local is a now thing, not that it really has much impact on token spend. I also think many small coding tasks are fully within the grasp of the above two models.

The main issue right now is that the software landscape is rather confusing, but I reckon uncomplicated Gemma 4 26B QAT support with MTP is a few weeks away.

AI vendors are attempting to offer the whole apple. And they are spending huge sums of money in the process.

But most businesses don't really care about most of the apple --- they only need their special bite out of it.

For example, doctors mainly care about medicine. Nvidia is attempting to provide the hardware needed for local, specialized models.

I think it is likely to appeal to video and photo editors who want to use AI tools (the press release has a quote from Blackmagic Design, as well as from Adobe, who I think have no stomach for their own cloud AI).

But I don’t know about specialised: this could run quite large models with MoE.

Yeah, that's not very typical, I'd like to make that point.

The live music experience would be terrible if only the richest fans can get in. Every crowd would be old and square.

Not really. The vast majority of live music isn't even able to sell tickets as nobody would pay a penny, let alone a fortune. Getting in isn't much of a problem.

Only the megastars that can command high-priced tickets would attract the old and square, which is okay because the megastars are old and square themselves by the time they've built that old and square audience. The hip and with it music fans have already moved on to seeing the next up-and-comers that play for free.

If I get sent a fake (or no) product by someone halfway around the world there's absolutely no way I'm getting my money back in small claims court.

Then use a service that offers escrow. I don't need my groceries to use insurance for the eventuality that the store goes belly-up in the 2 days until I can check that the products arrived in good order

Base payment products should just do payment at operating margins rivaling a non-profit. It's public infrastructure

I'm quite happy with the status quo that I don't need to negotiate escrow with every random online service or store.

That's not the status quo here, but you can often choose to use an american payment mechanism that has this insurance built in. Isn't a selection of things, as we have today, fine then? If these insurers use the cheap transaction service under the hood, and you can choose it directly for a discount, everyone's happy right?

I saw your reply earlier but came back to it because I'm ordering from a new store and they actually offer a discount if you pay with SEPA instead of one of the 11 other options that are various forms of "pay in installments" (take up a credit basically), "pay with insurance", or "pay with your favorite american payment provider". I have no problem paying slightly less than the advertised product price! :) It's a well-known store so imma trust their customer support in case of issues, and the product price is such that insurance makes absolutely no sense (I could bear the loss nearly 100 times over and still make rent this month)

What you’re describing here results in extreme consolidation. The one or two e-commerce giants that figure it out will rule. No startup can ever sell anything online easily. Why would a customer trust a new or upcoming brand or buy anything online?

It's not hard if E is in tune already. :)

In my part of Europe (Hungary), on a sunny day we have more energy produced from solar (on top of about 50% nuclear) than we can actually use. Sometimes we're 110% zero-carbon and it's because of solar and nuclear.

As of writing this comment our energy mix is 35.69% solar, 23.19% nuclear, 26.66% nuclear imported from Slovakia. The rest is hydro and solar from Austria and about 5% gas and biomass.

In my opinion clean electricity is an almost solved problem, especially as storage gets better.

I am surprised that this is the case after reading how Orban was behaving on the matter of its oil and gas sources. I guess the big problem is that the economy and heating is still very fossil dependent ?

Yes, we can't immediately convert all vehicles to electric and gas boilers to heat pumps, so if we lose access to gas and oil we're kind of screwed.

Orbán had 16 years of unlimited power to diversify from Russia as the only source though, so there's no excuse.

In the US it's often not the last mile, but the last 10 or 100 miles. I'm saying this as someone enjoying fantastic public transport in Budapest.