Anthropic downloaded over 7M pirated books to train Claude, a judge said (businessinsider.com | comments) A judge has determined that Anthropic's use of copyrighted material to train its AI model, Claude, qualifies as fair use, while the company's downloading of over 7 million pirated books does not. This ruling highlights the legal complexities surrounding artificial intelligence and copyright issues.

• These are the people shaping the future of AI? What happened to all the ethical values they love to preach about? We've held China accountable for counterfeiting products for decades and regulated their exports. So why should Anthropic be allowed to export their products and services after engaging in the same illegal activity?

Fictional K-pop bands zoom to top of US music charts (bbc.com | comments) Songs from the animated film 'KPop Demon Hunter' have outperformed popular real-life K-pop groups BTS and Blackpink on US music charts. This unexpected rise showcases the influence of fictional music narratives in mainstream pop culture, challenging traditional successes in the industry and attracting diverse audiences.

• Not the answer to the Ticketmaster surcharges problem I was looking for, but okay.
• There have been fictional bands before like the Archies or Sabrina and the Pussycats. What's old is new again. Why pay some human who will often get a big ego and a drug abuse problem too?

Trying to find meaning in owning an old Mac (decryption.net.au | comments) The author parallels their father’s passion for classic cars with their own interest in restoring a vintage Apple Macintosh SE/30 computer, reflecting on how these artifacts embody nostalgia and the impact of technology on lifestyle. This restoration process serves as a personal exploration of their generation's computing legacy, akin to their father's affinity for classic vehicles.

• The se/30 is a beautiful machine, but it’s got some of the worst battery and cap issues, so clean it up quick :)
• Time plays tricks. I also love vintage computing equipment but somehow the keyboards and mice are less kind to my hands than my memory of them. Perhaps my acquired hate of low profile non-buckling-spring keyboards is misplaced?

You Should Run a Certificate Transparency Log (filippo.io | comments) Running a Certificate Transparency (CT) log has become more accessible and economically viable, providing critical support for web security by ensuring Certificate Authorities are accountable. New implementations allow logs to operate with minimal infrastructure, potentially requiring just a single server. This enables organizations to contribute significantly to web security while enhancing their credibility.

• Seems like something that might be useful to store on Arweave a block chain for storage. Fees go to an endowment that’s has been calculated to far exceed the cost of growing storage
• > You Should Run a Certificate Transparency Log And: > Bandwidth: 2 – 3 Gbps outbound. I am not sure if this is correct, is 2-3Gbps really required for CT?

So you wanna build an aging company (librariesforthefuture.bio | comments) Building a company that ages gracefully involves strategic decision-making to ensure long-term sustainability, resilience in the face of market changes, and effective succession planning. The approach requires an understanding of brand longevity, customer loyalty, and adapting business models over time for continuous relevance.

• The headline is confusing. This is not about a company that's becoming older. It's about a building a biotech company that treats the symptoms and causes of aging.
• Wouldn't this be an anti aging company?
• Diabetic medication can be a significant factor for increased healthy longevity.

Why are there no good dinosaur films? (briannazigler.substack.com | comments) The article critiques the portrayal of dinosaurs in films, noting a lack of originality since the success of 'Jurassic Park'. It examines common themes and failures in storytelling related to dinosaurs while questioning Hollywood's creativity and potential for producing quality dinosaur films that engage audiences and explore deeper narratives.

• I still cannot understand how good movies with dinosaurs are so rare. There are dozens of great movies with zombies, and the concept is very simple: people running from the infected. Why running from dinosaurs is different?
• "It's a Unix system. I know this." They don't make lines like this today I tell ya.

Adding a feature because ChatGPT incorrectly thinks it exists (holovaty.com | comments) At Soundslice, the digitization service for sheet music, an unexpected influx of screenshots featuring ASCII tablature arose from ChatGPT incorrectly suggesting users could import this format. Confounded by the surge, the team decided to develop an ASCII tab importer to meet user demand despite it being a misinformation-driven request.

• It's worth noting that behind this hallucination there were real people with ASCII tabs in need of a solution. If the result is a product-led growth channel at some scale, that's a big roadmap green light for me!
• This is called product-channel fit. It's great the writer recognized how to capture the demand from a new acquisition channel.

Dyson, techno-centric design and social consumption (2earth.github.io | comments) The piece reflects on the design philosophy of Dyson, emphasizing how their technology-first approach often sacrifices user comfort and functionality. Examples of design flaws in Dyson products are discussed, comparing them to competitors like Bosch. The author also critiques Dyson's branding strategy, which turns appliances into status symbols, potentially compromising design quality.

• >Dyson hand dryers are very fast, but as a result, they fling water everywhere Isn't that the whole point of them? Instead of imparting enough heat energy to evaporate all of the water on your hands, they just push it off which is much faster and more energy efficient. How would they work better than regular dryers without doing that?

I used o3 to profile myself from my saved Pocket links (noperator.dev | comments) With Pocket shutting down, the author reflects on their nearly 900 saved articles over seven years, extracting valuable insights about their preferences. Using the AI tool o3, they analyze this data to infer personal demographics, interests, and professional background, suggesting they are a likely male software engineer in their mid-30s to early-40s with a family.

• Another thing one could do with a flat list of hundreds of saved links (if it's being used for "read it later", let's be honest: a dumping ground) is to have AI/NLP classify them all, to make it easy to then delete the stuff you're no longer interested in.

When Figma starts designing us (designsystems.international | comments) The piece analyzes how design tools like Figma influence not only the aesthetic but also the cognitive processes behind design work. It delves into the implications of these tools on creativity and user experience, suggesting that the technology may start to shape the designer's approach and outcomes.

• I think what the author is saying is that we’re losing the human touch when doing our initial design work. I’ve felt the same way the past years working in Figma and seeing new features being introduced. It’s a pitty the industry is slowly merging roles together to the point we’re losing the personality in design.

Thesis: Interesting work is less amenable to the use of AI (remark.ing | comments) The thesis argues that interesting work—tasks that are engaging and valuable—tends to resist automation through artificial intelligence (AI) more than mundane tasks do. This suggests that AI is more suited for repetitive or less engaging jobs, while creative and insightful tasks remain challenging for AI to replicate effectively.

• If AI can do the easiest 50% of our tasks, then it means we will end up spending all of our time on what we previously considered to be the most difficult 50% of tasks. This has a lot of implications, but it does generally result in the job being more interesting overall.

Tuning the Prusa Core One (arachnoid.com | comments) This article provides an in-depth guide to optimizing the Prusa Core One 3D printer, covering essential alignments for enhanced performance. It offers step-by-step instructions for print bed leveling, essential for users assembling the printer. Additional resources include a custom camera mount and useful tips applicable to other Prusa models.

• Has anyone made any experience with printer head changes (similar to factory robots exchanging grippers)? I dont want the print to pause in some gcode function waiting for me to pick &place
• What practical reasons are there to choose the Core One over an MK4S or vice-versa? The Core One is slightly more expensive.

Show HN: Piano Trainer – Learn piano scales, chords and more using MIDI (github.com/zaneh | comments) Piano Trainer offers an interactive platform for learning piano scales, chords, and more using MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) technology. This tool simplifies music practice and enhances the learning experience by allowing users to engage directly with their instruments through digital means.

• This is cool. I am wondering if anyone knows if there is a game like Guitar Hero (old playstation game with a custom controller), but for piano and with MIDI input support, something to practice the mechanical skills, preferably with a library of beginner-friendly charts?

Backlog.md – Markdown‑native Task Manager and Kanban visualizer for any Git repo (github.com/mrlesk | comments) Backlog.md is a task management tool that integrates with Git repositories, utilizing Markdown for easy note-taking and task tracking. It features a Kanban visualizer that allows users to organize projects efficiently, combining the simplicity of Markdown with a visual workflow approach that aids in project management.

• Whatever is going on in the that GIF must be very impressive, but it goes by so fast it's impossible to tell for sure.
• How is this different from taskwarrior? I feel the use cases are overlapping (which is a good thing as taskwarrior rewrite in rust is a mess)

Intel's Lion Cove P-Core and Gaming Workloads (chipsandcheese.com | comments) Intel's Lion Cove P-Core architecture is designed for high performance, particularly enhancing gaming workloads. This advancement aims to improve processing capabilities, allowing for more efficient execution of graphics-intensive applications. The announcement highlights Intel's continued innovation in CPU technology.

• Fantastic article -as always. Regarding the top-down analysis: I was a bit surprised to see that in ~1/5 of the cases the pipeline stalls b/c the pipeline is Frontend Bound. Can that be? Similarly, why is Frontend Bandwidth a subgroup of Frontend Bound? Shouldn't one micro-op be enough?

Lightfastness Testing of Colored Pencils (sarahrenaeclark.com | comments) This article evaluates the lightfastness of over 50 colored pencil brands, providing insights into which materials resist fading over time. The findings can help artists choose the right tools to maintain vibrant artwork, as it highlights both high and low performers in lightfastness testing.

• I really enjoyed reading this even though I have no direct interest in the lightfastness of the pigments in colored pencils. It was just fun to see what someone who is deeply invested thought important to test, explain and research about something I'd have previously called a matter of aesthetic preference (as opposed to a thing you can benchmark).

The chemical secrets that help keep honey fresh for so long (bbc.com | comments) Honey, a natural sweetener, resists spoilage due to its unique composition, including low water content and acidity, which inhibit microbial growth. This makes it a long-lasting food source.

• Recently went through first aid training and the instructor claimed putting honey on wounds would help them heal faster. (Sample size 1) I tried it on myself and a wound that was stubborn about healing was better very quickly.
• Really high sugar concentrations will pop the cells of any simple organisms.

New sphere-packing record stems from an unexpected source (quantamagazine.org | comments) A newcomer to sphere packing, without prior experience, has recently achieved a significant breakthrough by solving a long-standing problem in the field. This accomplishment comes just a few months after they began their exploration into the complexities of sphere packing, which involves arranging spheres in the most efficient way possible.

• Neat. I spent a month trying to use sphere packing approaches for a better compression algorithm (I had a large amount of vectors, they were grouped through clustering). Turned out that theoretical approaches only really work for uniform data and not any sort of real-world data. EDIT: groped -> grouped

My first verified imperative program (markushimmel.de | comments) The upcoming Lean 4.22 release introduces a verification infrastructure for proving properties of imperative programs. This article outlines a simple example that checks if any two distinct integers in a list sum to zero, demonstrating the use of data structures like sets for optimized solutions in Lean's functional programming environment.

• Naturally, this proof only works for arbitrary-precision integers: when you use fixed-precision integers, the algorithm will wrongfully report "false" for arrays like e.g. [INT_MIN, -1] or (if you insist on C semantics) [UINT_MAX, 1]. Hopefully the proof would break if one tried to transfer it over?

François Chollet: The Arc Prize and How We Get to AGI [video] (youtube.com | comments) François Chollet discusses the Arc Prize and its implications for achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) in a recent video. He delves into the importance of collaborative contributions and innovation within the AI community as key factors for advancing towards AGI, highlighting interdisciplinary approaches as essential.

• How do we define AGI? I would have thought/considered AGI to be something that is constantly aware, a biological brain is always on. An LLM is on briefly while it's inferring. A biological brain constantly updates itself adds memories of things. Those memories generally stick around.

Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered (phys.org | comments) Enrique Jiménez from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, collaborating with the University of Baghdad, has rediscovered an ancient text, 'Hymn to Babylon,' lost for a millennium. This significant finding adds to historical knowledge and is documented in a paper published in the journal Iraq.

• "Hymn to Babylon, missing for a millennium, has been discovered" Oh great, just in time for the passage of an interstellar object and the Dalai Lama's reincarnation day.
• Fascinating. I should have studied Assyriology, few areas are as impressive imo. Maybe I still can, even at LMU. Although I don't believe it's possible alongside a regular job.

Mercury: Ultra-Fast Language Models Based on Diffusion (arxiv.org | comments) The paper presents Mercury, a generation of large language models (LLMs) based on diffusion techniques. These models, utilizing Transformer architecture, achieve high token prediction speeds of 1109 and 737 tokens per second for Mini and Small versions on NVIDIA H100 GPUs, outperforming similar models by up to 10 times. Real-world performance was validated through developer feedback on Copilot Arena, where Mercury ranks second in quality.

• Damn, that is fast. But it is faster than I can read, so hopefully they can use that speed and turn it into better quality of the output. Because otherwise, I honestly don't see the advantage, in practical terms, over existing LLMs. It's like having a TV with a 200Hz refresh rate, where 100Hz is just fine.

Building the Rust Compiler with GCC (fractalfir.github.io | comments) This article details the process of bootstrapping the Rust compiler using GCC instead of the typical LLVM, explaining the three-stage build process. The author navigates through several bugs encountered, employing debugging techniques, and highlights the nuances of Rust's inlining attributes and their implications on compiler behavior.

• > Really, think about it. How often do you see somebody inexperienced use ifs instead of a switch? This pattern is common enough for most compilers to recognize, and more importantly, optimize it. This made me chuckle. Playing dumb so that gcc optimizes you away is both hilarious and genius

Neanderthals operated prehistoric “fat factory” on German lakeshore (archaeologymag.com | comments) Recent findings suggest that Neanderthals in Germany operated an ancient 'fat factory,' where they processed animal fat for various uses. Archaeological evidence reveals that they created a kind of early oil from the remains of aquatic creatures and plants, pointing to sophisticated resource management and culinary practices among these prehistoric humans.

• > cut-marked remains of 76 rhinos and 40 elephants were also discovered at nearby sites like Taubach. Remarkable how different the previous interglacial periods were. Herds of elephants and rhinos in today's Berlin, at 51° north!
• Neanderthals were people. Even Nobel laurate Svante Pääbo, who sequenced their DNA, admits it.