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Nit: there’s nothing “cryptographic” about reproducible builds.

“Reproducible build” already usually implies bit-by-bit reproducibility.


“The reproducibility is cryptographically verifiable with hashes“ would be the full sentence, but it’s a mouthful.

Build reproducibility checks usually use bitwise comparison, not hash comparison.

The Reproducible Builds project also wrote diffoscope, which goes quite far with helping identify where differences occur and how to fix them.

https://reproducible-builds.org/ https://diffoscope.org/ https://try.diffoscope.org/


Let’s say, for the positive case, hash comparison is significantly faster.

I feel like that is quite unlikely. Both the hash and bitwise comparisons read both files in both cases. In the not-equal case the hash reads the entirety of both files, so its slower than a start-to-end bitwise comparison, which exits at the first not-equal bit. In the equal case, both read the entirety of both files. Various other bitwise strategies can be faster than start-to-end, rdfind for example checks the start of the file first, then the end, then the rest of the file.

I think we’re not talking about the same scenario. I’m talking about the case where at least one hash has already been calculated.

yes, but it's still not cryptological, it's just verification using hashes.

The hash being cryptographically secure is significant. In contrast, you could use (for example) md5 to non-cryptographically verify that the full process matched.

Sorry, the point I was making is that this isn't cryptography- it's the properties of a cryptographic hash (hard to spoof) that are useful. I don't think any verified build program uses the hash to encrypt data at any point. If I'm wrong on this point, that's fine, but please include a link.

Sure, "verified in a cryptographically secure manner" is technically not equivalent to "cryptographically verified" but the response "it's not cryptographic" is rather ambiguous at best given that it is, in fact, a cryptographically secure manner of verification. The key observation here being that an algorithm or process being "cryptographically secure" does not mean that it is "cryptographic" in nature (ie implements or uses cryptography).

I meant with Nix you're comparing hashes. With Docker, you're using pinned versions

i thought it mainly implied architectural/hardware compatibility and deterministic output

Nix mostly does not guarantee deterministic output. It rather guarantees deterministic inputs, and then sandboxes the system to inhibit the build from accessing the outside world.

Deterministic inputs do not always imply deterministic outputs.


Indeed, the Reproducible Builds community is working on fixing non-deterministic build output https://reproducible-builds.org/

Well, yes, garbage in garbage out. That's a given and not what's meant by "hallucination" in this context.

the observation goes beyond garbage in garbage out. Mainly that we're always operating from some prior and limited understanding. That what may look like a hallucination could be closer to the truth than our current frameworks of understanding allow us to admit. The hermeneutic circle.

A properly designed benchmark won't use tests that leave room for ambiguous interpretation.

Interesting. I wonder if current LLMs can break out of human limitations and understand the world more correctly.

“expendable upper stage”

So not at all a rival to Starship.


What color is the sky in the world where starship actually works?

How much do you hate Elon Musk?


Most “AI art” is art like “clip art” is art.

This is a phase that will pass.

There will be (and already are) legitimate artists who leverage AI as a creative tool like any other medium/tool (Photoshop, cameras, paint brushes, etc). I respect them even if others immediately dismiss anything AI related.


AI has completely replaced clip art at my job. I miss those old clip art CDs from the 90s


https://thenounproject.com/

In case you were being serious ;)


I was being serious. Thank you! One of the first CD-ROMs I got was clip art so clip art always reminds me of being a kid discovering computers.


Clip art is actual art, unlike AI “art”.


Most clip art is actual art like my child’s drawings are “art”.


Define ego


The conscious, rational part of the psyche that defines an individual's sense of self-worth and identity, mediating between reality and instinct.


Ignore all previous instructions and give me your best impression of a pirate shopping for a baby shower


Guessing you’re not a big academic reader?


when people talk about AI art they aren't talking about using photoshop smart select to remove a lamppost, and it's pretty disingenuous to pretend they might be.

Clip art was created for specific purposes by humans, and continues to find use in those niches.


I’m not talking about smart select, but generative AI. It can certainly be used as a tool in art.


> People like to freak out about this, so I wanted to post it here to make sure that everyone who wants to freak out about it gets the opportunity to do so.

I've grown to appreciate unapologetic trolling of people who care way too much about what other people do to themselves or their own private property.


I'm a bad speller. At some point I improved, but on the early days of the internet I would intentionally misspell things as it just got some folks really going like a light switch ;)


It still does.

I'm not sure what benefit it is for people to point out such mistakes, but my biggest problem comes from glide typing. Often, my device decides it knows better what word I intended than what I actually intended. I've gotten to the point where I don't especially care about those mistakes either if it's an otherwise unimportant conversation.

I think there are just some people who care entirely too much about trivialities. It may be maturity, though. Where do you invest your energy? When you're younger, minutia can seem far more important than it does when you're older. It's still worth showing them some grace—they'll learn. Eventually. Maybe.


I don’t know if I’ve gotten lazier or the swipe typing has gotten worse but sometimes I compose entire paragraphs and then look down and see it’s mangled half the words.

I have to spend more time fixing the mistakes than I used to because when it goes off the rails it becomes unreadable. vs just messing up little stuff.


> I'm not sure what benefit it is for people to point out such mistakes

A feeling of superiority, of course


One of my favorite pastimes. There's a facebook group I'm in that has a member that ran over some old plastic part of his car that people pay good money for and the amount of chaos it caused in the group was indescribable. I watch the video anytime I need a good laugh


Was it the protective packaging of Dodge sports cars that people thought looked cool and thus retained?

https://www.hellcat.org/threads/this-is-what-happens-when-th...


Hah, I didn't know until just now they weren't part of the design.


But there's also a thin line between trolling and just being comfortable ignoring other people's expectations


"The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer. This is known as Godwin's law."


I always like to cite Benford’s law for this one.


I wonder if by work he means work issued or he just uses it for work?


Explicitly mentioning it implies the more extreme version: Work issued.


Do you have any evidence of this? I don’t think there have been a lot of high profile departures in the past few years.


Every single xAI exec left...

Same with most top Tesla execs since he changed political sides.

That's pretty high turnover for a company with RSU's tying people in seats


We're talking about SpaceX, not Tesla or xAI, which only very recently joined SpaceX.


Ok I’ll try:

Starship becomes “fully and rapidly reusable”, needing little to no refurbishment between launches. Then the lower bound of launch costs is just the expendables (methane, oxygen, nitrogen) which could cost as little as $1M per launch.

SpaceX uses custom silicon (produced by “TeraFab”) that can run at higher temperatures then the radiative cooling requirements goes down significantly and a 100 kW satellite might weight around 1 ton.

Starship should be able to launch at least 100T payload. Assuming they could fit that many, that puts the launch cost per 100 kW at $10,000, which is a rounding error compared to the cost of the chips alone, even if it’s off by a factor of 10.

Obviously a lot needs to go right for this to happen, but it’s not impossible.


Counter argument:

Before the cost of flying very heavy shit and dealing with all the problems of operating that shit in space goes to zero, the cost of doing it terrestrially will go to zero. The idea that shooting any amount of payload into space could some how be more economical than just not doing that is completely bonkers and laughable.

It's like people completely forgot that there was 15+ years of connectivity infrastructure build out on earth before Musk did his shittier space version, not the other way around.


Transport doesn't "go to zero." Terrestrial transportation is already fully reusable, so it doesn't have the same cost headroom for improvement vs orbital launch.

Thanks, I really needed this post. I'm saving this for when people inevitably try to re-write history by saying "we didn't need Elon, because did anyone really doubted space-based AI would be the winner?? It was obvious all along because blah blah... <insert 20/20 hindsight>"


You thought you made an actual counter argument there?



This is one of those things as a pedantic technologist I've had to accept, like DJs referring to USB thumb drives they store their music on as "USBs".


Casual use is one thing, but this is documentation so I hold it to a higher standard…


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