2024

blindsight (peter watts) i don’t know how i ran across this. likely on some recommended reading list that i’ve long forgotten about. an entertaining read, i’m pretty sure that i’ll forget all about the plot of this book within the next week. 2 notable plot elements here. there’s a vampire in the mix. this is apparently set in some world where vampires co-evolved with humans. ok, that’s a fun twist. there’s an amusing “academic presentation” on some of the backstory here within the accompanying web site....

links, etc I improved my iPhone’s battery life by changing these 10 settings | ZDNET mumble grumble, a solid refresher on some options, that i need to periodically check, and avail myself of.

links, etc No More Blue Fridays TIL: eBPF for windows. it’s gonna be a thing.

links, etc Smaller, Cheaper, Faster, Sober | Drew Breunig i’ve been intrigued by the small models that run fast and are increasingly useful for mission specific tasks. this seems like the thing that will be durably useful in all of this AI flotsam. Enterprises are foregoing general models for open ones trained for single tasks. And it’s not just foundation training, but fine-tuning training. Teams are learning that small models trained for a single purpose can outperform the best general models out-of-the-box....

links, etc List of presidents of the United States who died in office a reminder that the political history in the united states has a solid history of being pretty violent.