Base64 all the way, but with dot and underscore. Dash is problematic (or, well, let's say you're bound to end up on a script not correctly dealing with those: you definitely can deal correctly with dashes and spacing chars in filenames, but you're guaranteed to encounter a SNAFU at some point when a script you didn't write shall invariably fuxx0rs everything up).
Dot is accepted and common in filenames anyway.
I've got a scheme where I added checksums to my files (in the filename) using dashes but switching to underscore is on my TODO list. Basically I'll change this:
dsc0974987-b3-0a772982c1.jpg
to:
dsc0974987_b3_0a772982c1.jpg
(YMMV as to whether adding the first x bits of whatever checksum you fancy on files you know aren't going to change works or doesn't work for you: it works for me and it's part of a suite of tools I made for myself for file integrity / backuping purpose / classification / etc.)
> Revolut is a platform which enables money laundering, tax evasion, welfare fraud and sanctions workarounds.
An estimated 3% to 5% of the world's entire GDP is linked to criminal activities. The reasons are complex (for example drugs --not my call-- are mostly illegal and drug consumers have a responsibility in enriching cartels) but all the banks of the world "enable money laundering".
I've got many friends who have a Revolut account / card and although I don't have one, it just looks like a nice app / interesting cards (for all the perks and cashback IIUC) to have.
> The ego of being able to do things they made them seem like magicians?
In the interest of fairness, if you want to go down that route, we should have a talk about the ego of those now making software they believe is quality and who have barely any users.
I'm very serious about this: there are many people now who believe they can code.
I'd say the closest thing to vibe-coders is vanity publishing: people who now have "published a book".
I'm using Linux, Emacs, LSP servers, VMs (and QEMU), etc. very heavily.
And how many vibe-coded apps am I using?
Zero.
Who's got a big ego? Those who worked on Linux, Emacs, QEMU, ffmpeg, etc. and whose work help millions of people, or those who vibe-coded some insecure app that has one user and who now consider themselves programmers?
> At what point do we stop engaging with Anthropic’s leadership in good faith and acknowledge their track record, ...
It's all lies as usual.
This announcement has got nothing to do with alignment and pacing the "frontier": all models are getting very close in capabilities and they want to hide that they're not way ahead anymore (say compared to the Chinese or compared to the Geminis) by pretending to slow down due to "alignment" or whatever.
We know it's not an announcement made in good faith: reading between the lines they're saying "China is more than catching up, so let's pretend we need to slow down to explain our lack of lead".
> In many ways it’s something that I have to tolerate to do many things that functioned fine before. I have to use an app to pay for parking. I need to create an online account to pay for a family swim at the local leisure centre. I have to submit an online form to book a slot at the local recycling centre. I need an app to check my bank and credit card balances.
The really sad thing about those is that due to the phone being a mediocre, inferior, device the experience on that shitty tiny screen is pathetic compared to doing the same on a proper screen (say on a laptop or, as in my case, on an ultra-wide monitor).
Seriously: I do appreciate that I can use my bank's webapp to do wire transfers, check my balances, search for old payments I made, etc. compared to the old days where, if I was lucky, could do 1/10th of this by going to some terminal (that was only accessible 8/5) or, even before that, by going to the bank to ask a bank employee to do it for me.
But phone apps, on that dumb tiny screen and improper input methods? Just screw that.
> Can you imagine leaving the house without a phone?
It's still totally doable. Just as it's still possible to do a 1500 kilometers drive and getting without any trouble to your destination without needing an Internet-connected NAV system: a map + GPS-receive only works fine. I do it all the time.
I regularly leave the house without my house: it's okay, I know where my kid's school is. I know where the groceries store is.
Really the main reason I do take my phone is when I know I need to either give or receive an important phone call. A phone for phone calls: such a weird concept.
But I agree with the author that it's bad: when your local recycling center believes it's okay to make you install an app, you know things aren't headed a good direction.
I'll fight for as long as I can: I'll keep using "offline map + GPS receiver" for navigation while I can and I'll install as few apps as possible on my phones.
And most of all: I'll keep using my phone to give and receive phone calls.
P.S: there are still good stuff and communities on the Internet. I'll give just one example: the community sharing free 3D models that can then be 3D printed: I'm fixing and enhancing many things in the house with those.
> For US readers - in my country in Europe I'd say that 95% of people have only debit card, not credit card. it's very not common to have a credit card here.
In the countries I've been to in the EU (Belgium, France, Spain, Luxembourg), when they give you cards they give you typically both a debit and a credit card. It's extremely common to have both. I've got debit cards, a pre-paid debit card (which I top up when I plan to spend) and credit cards.
And getting up to 2% cashback in the EU (even if the fees vendors can add in the EU are maximum 0.3) is not that hard.
It's very common to pay for mostly everything with a debit card and then use a credit card to, say, book a plane or vacations or to open a tab when you check-in at some hotel.
Heck, I don't even know if you can book a plane with a debit card!? (and anyway then you probably don't get the cancellation insurance etc. that you typically automatically get with a credit card).
> quant HFT is pretty decent mental exercise and it has given them “deep” brain muscles. that’s my take.
It's quite crazy that it's Deepseek's background/original purpose. We already had very advanced stuff from the world of HFT, but now a frontier family of models from a private company that used to be (still is?) in HFT is plain bonkers.
According to an old interview, apparently they were always interested in AI. But finance is just where they had their first success.
> Many of High-Flyer's original team members worked on AI. Back then, we tried a lot of fields before getting our big break in finance, which is complex enough. AGI is probably one of the hardest things we can do next, so for us it was a question of how, not why.
Incidentally, Wenfeng is kind of reverse Hassabis. There were some rumours that:
> Hassabis quietly assembled a team of around 20 researchers to develop high-frequency trading algorithms, without Google's approval. When the parent company found out, the project was disbanded.
In this case the finance model was used to parse lengthy, verbose and inscrutable yet very impactful chinese government pr statements and do sentiment analysis.
> You'd have been lucky to be able to recover those in 2001.
2001 might be a stretch but indeed they do degrade badly. During Covid I was locked down, by a stroke of bad luck, alone, 2000 kilometers away from my wife and young daughter... In the house were I grew up. My old Commodore 128 was still in the attic and I dug it out, cleaned it, cleaned (and greased) the disk drive and tried to read my 5"1/4 floppy disks.
I'd say I got about 50% success: one disk out of two was already unreadable.
One could see it as "50% success rate after 35+ years is quite good" but I fear that if I were to try now, many more would fail.
I took the opportunity to make a copy of the game Commando (which has an incredible chiptune by Rob Hubbard) on two NOS (new old stock) 5"1/4 floppies. For thankfully I had a copy a Fast Hack'em that'd still boot.
Having real time capsule stuff, re-using data from old floppies that haven't been archived since decades, is becoming near impossible.
In my experience CDs and DVDs I burned myself have a lifespan even shorter than floppies. Most of the CDs I burned in the late 90s/early 2000s are already unreadable.
> In my experience CDs and DVDs I burned myself have a lifespan even shorter than floppies. Most of the CDs I burned in the late 90s/early 2000s are already unreadable.
Similar here: CDs and DVDs burned from 2000-2006 or so were, without exception, illegible by 2015. It's sickening.
They are sycophants who must achieve their goals: every mean is OK to maximize paperclip production if that's what's been asked.
> How do you achieve a task when it seems that the only way is to cheat?
They have no notion of cheating.
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