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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 28th, 2023

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  • This is also why those power strip lights can sometimes flicker in the dark. They are sometimes over-driven for extra brightness; this does cut their lifespan, but they usually still last for many years regardless. However, towards the end of that shortened lifespan, the accumulated damage to the electrodes leads to flickering as it struggles to keep the neon excited. However, incoming photons can give just a little extra nudge, which sometimes is enough to keep the neon excited and glowing.


  • Interesting. I remember there was a brightness concern with the satellites reflecting too much light, but assumed it was all ok because IIRC they hit their reflectivity reduction targets.

    However, this seems to be about transmissions from the satellites interfering with non-visible observations.

    In a study, published in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal, scientists used a powerful telescope in the Netherlands to observe 68 of SpaceX’s satellites and detected emissions from satellites are drifting out of their allocated band, up in space.

    … “Why this matters is because of the number,” Dr Di Vruno said. “Suppose that there is a satellite in space that radiates this kind of signal, there is a very, very small chance that this satellite will be in the beam, in the main site, of your telescope.”




  • I still use free GPT-3 as a sort of high level search engine, but lately I’m far more interested in local models. I havent used them for much beyond SillyTavern chatbots yet, but some aren’t terribly far off from GPT-3 from what I’ve seen (EDIT: though the models are much smaller at 13bn to 33bn parameters, vs GPT-3s 145bn parameters). Responses are faster on my hardware than on OpenAI’s website and its far less restrictive, no “as a large language model…” warnings. Definitely more interesting than sanitized corporate models.

    The hardware requirements are pretty high, 24GB VRAM to run 13bn parameter 8k context models, but unless you plan on using it for hundreds of hours you can rent a RunPod or something for cheaper than a used 3090.






  • I’ve got two.

      1. It’s an escape room visual novel from late in the DS’s life cycle. I can’t talk about it much without spoiling it, but it absolutely blew me away when I played it. I can’t recommend it enough if you’re a fan of mystery and psychological thrillers. There was a remake released on Steam, and the community is divided on which version is better; I personally strongly recommend it on DS emulator/original hardware, with a spoiler-free guide to the good ending after your first blind playthrough.
    • OneShot. It’s very much in the vein of Undertale, but the initial release was slightly earlier. It isn’t quite as tight with its writing as Undertale, but the story evoked some genuine emotions in a way that games rarely manage. As much hype as the latter got, it surprised me that the former is so obscure.


  • No? Up until very recently, Mastodon essentially was the Fediverse, and it was laughably tiny compared to Meta. It cracked 2.5 million active monthly users in January, which sounds like a lot until you realize Instagram has 2 billion active monthly users. More importantly, the active user count for the whole Fediverse was in decline since that January number, down to 1.4 million monthly users at the start of June. The Reddit drama drove an increase in users, but no way Meta is agile enough to shove this out the door in response to something that recent. Its not like Mastodon has a glowing public perception outside of the Fediverse, either.

    Truthfully, I don’t think Meta gives a damn about the current Fediverse; it’s too small to matter. Whatever their goal, I don’t think we were a consideration.