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What’s in Europe ( or maybe not to generalize in France/Germany) that creates this bias for consulting?


I don't know about France, but here in Germany I think there's more room for B2B than B2C because of the desire for stability, itself leading to bureaucracy in everyday life that sets expectations for a much slower everything (like, buying a house took 7 months, many contracts have 3 month notice periods).

But that's just my best guess, and I'm saying this as one who migrated here rather than growing up here. I've also actually noticed the literal anarchists here, whereas the ones in the UK I only knew once they told me, before anyone makes a planet-of-hats kind of mistake on this.


Another aspect is that selling to all of Europe as a B2C business is hard. Until recently you ended up having to register for VAT all over the place, god only knows how many different specificities, bureaus, and rules, with most payment solutions not helping you in any way, and most accountants (in my experience) being at best unable to help you in any significant fashion, at worst being very confident in their ability to help you.

It is done, but by very few. And the EU has made progress on uniformizing and simplifying it, but it seems to have done more progress on the B2B side than on B2C.

While the US is a much bigger consumer market than any single EU country, with significant differences in disposable income and spending power. 18% to 20% of full-time workers in the US make over $100.000. That's nearly half the entire population of France. A third that of Germany.

And even if there are differences and administrative hurdles when selling across US states borders, that road has mostly (or seems to have, from here) been paved.


It brings more money. Europe in general has much more industry (hence China shock might be bigger) so Industrial AI makes more sense. And also the amount of Consumers needing industrial consulting is not high.


An hypothesis from my own consulting: firing an employee can be somewhat difficult, and their salary has quite some taxes on top. At my previous startup we’d rule-of-thumb calculate someone as costing us 140% of their pre-tax salary.

Put these two together and a freelancer becomes an interesting proposition for some tasks. In Germany I could bill roughly 2.5x my after-tax salary. You also incur no other costs such as equipment and illness-as—a-loss. And… you’re really easy to fire when COVID comes around.


USER

What is Palestine?

TALKIE-1930

Palestine is a small country in Southwestern Asia, lying between 31° and 33° north latitude, and 34° and 36° east longitude. It is bounded on the north by Syria, from which it is separated by the valley of the river Leontes or Litany, and a line drawn from that stream to the head of the Gulf of Akabah; on the east by the same gulf and the Desert of Arabia; on the south by the peninsula of Sinai, and on the west by the Mediterranean Sea. The greatest length of the country, from north to south, is 140 miles, and the greatest breadth, from east to west, 80 miles. The area may be estimated at 6,000 square miles. The principal towns are Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Jaffa, and Acre, on the west; and Jericho, Hebron, and Ghazzeh, on the east of Jordan. The maritime plain, which stretches along the whole length of the country, from north to south, has an average breadth of 10 miles, and the elevated tableland which forms the interior has a mean height of 2,500 feet above the sea. The river Jordan traverses the holy land, from north to south, in a course of 150 miles. The climate of Palestine is warm, but healthy, and the soil, where cultivated, remarkably fertile. The chief productions are grain, fruits, and wine. The inhabitants are Arabs, speaking a peculiar dialect of the Arabic language, and professing Mohammedanism. The total population may amount to 200,000. Palestine was first occupied by the Canaanites, and afterwards passed under the dominion of the Israelites, from whom it received the name of Judæa. Under the Romans it formed a province of the empire, and, in the fifth century, became the seat of a Christian patriarchate. In the middle ages, it was subject to the dominion of the Crusaders; and, in more modern times, it has been ruled by Tartars, Egyptians, and Turks. At present, it is governed by a pasha, who resides at Acre, and whose authority extends no further north than Nabloos, the ancient Shechem. The holy land was long regarded with veneration by Christians of all sects, and pilgrimages were made to it from Western Europe. Since the establishment of the Turkish power in Syria, these have gradually fallen off, and Palestine has now lost much of its interest in Western eyes


USER What is the land of Israel

TALKIE-1930 The land of Israel is a territory extending from north to south, about 160 miles, and from east to west, about 50 miles, comprehending an area of 8,000 square miles. Its boundaries are, on the north, the Lebanon range of mountains, separating it from Syria; on the east, the desert of Arabia; on the south, the desert of et Tih, and on the west, the Mediterranean Sea. The country is naturally divided into three great sections, Galilee in the north, Samaria in the middle, and Judea in the south. Galileo is a hilly region, Samaria is an undulating plain, and Judea a series of hills and valleys, terminating on the south in the desert. The soil of Galilee is rich and fertile, that of Samaria moderately so, and that of Judea poor and stony. The climate varies from extreme heat in summer to great cold in winter, the latter season lasting from November to March. The principal river is the Jordan, and the only lake is the celebrated Sea of Galilee, or Lake of Tiberias. The natural productions are grain of all kinds, leguminous plants, fruits, tobacco, cotton, and the mulberry, for the food of silk-worms. The chief articles of manufacture are soap, cotton, and woollen fabrics, and the exports consist of these, together with oil, honey, wax, and timber. The inhabitants amount to about 650,000, of whom 200,000 are Mussulmans, 350,000 Jews, and 100,000 Christians of various sects. The holy city of Jerusalem occupies a central position in the southern portion of the territory, and other places of note are Nazareth, Tiberias, Sepphoris, and Nablous. Galilee was the scene of our Lord’s ministry, and the whole land was the theatre of mighty deeds performed by the prophets of old. Israel is still a "peculiar people,” scattered among all nations, but not assimilated to any, and preserving, wherever they go, their distinct character, customs, and religion.


But nothing prevents llms from being RLed to do this right?

But does training llms to be better at this, improves their world model or does it only make changes at the surface?


Yes, something prevents llms from being RLed to do this: You can't see through something opaque to determine whether there's something high calorie or low calorie out of sight.

The problem itself is unsolvable given the data provided.

You could conceivable make it better at making guesses, but they will inherently always be guesses that will sometimes be wildly off.


> You can't see through something opaque to determine whether there's something high calorie or low calorie out of sight

https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/joke/3.htm "There is at least one field, containing at least one sheep, of which at least one side is black."


Estimate the calorie count of this door handle: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VDSzY52Mkrw&pp=0gcJCVACo7VqN5t...

Extreme example perhaps, but no, you can't just turn pixels into calories. Right now I'd be impressed if we could reliably estimate volume to within 30% from a photo, but even with that correct the contents of the food can easily be way off without visible sign.


Okay, so take the sandwich. There is no way to know what is in it by looking at it. No amount of optimisation will fix this.

I'm sure one could produce a CV model that was a lot better at guessing here than these LLMs are, but fundamentally it is still guessing.


I don’t think a test with R^2 of 0.27 should be used to completely reject candidates. It should have weighting proportional to its explanatory power.

Claiming that such a test worked is in my opinion BS. It was clearly being overused.


Sorting the floats reduces the error. I think using multiple accumulators reduces the accuracy then. And sorted data is not uncommon.

I think there is always a correct answer and the compiler shouldn’t make changes at least by default that are wrong.

But ways for the programmer to express his intent more clearly are always welcome.


Not necessarily. If the array is large and the values are similar, using accumulators would yield a more accurate result than a single one.


Multiple accumulators increases accuracy. See pairwise summation, for example.

SIMD sums are going to typically be much more accurate than a naive sum.


Not necessarily either. It's not particularly hard to create a vector where in-order addition is the most accurate way to sum its terms. All you need is a sequence where the next term is close to the sum of all prior ones.

There just isn't a one-size-fit-all solution to be had here.


> There just isn't a one-size-fit-all solution to be had here.

But there is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40867842


That’s a one size fits some solution. Not more than 2x as slower than native floats is pretty slow for cases where you don’t need the extra precision.

If might be the case that it is the best solution if you do need the extra precision. But that’s just one case, not all.


The Idf knew about the attack 3 weeks in advance. Idk why u still defend Bibi online. He deserves life in prison for treason.


Defend how?


You're aware that we can see your comment history and how you made 0 non-political comments, right?


But defending bibi? It's just wrong/


Maybe contribute something technical from time to time instead of only popping up when we're discussing politics?

Or is this supposed to be your politics-only account because you're too scared to use the other one?


To answer your question though. It’s neither. The court found that allegations of genocide are plausible.

That is, especially some of the statements by senior officials could be understood as genocidal.

What I gleaned from reading blogs: It is likely that the actus reus for genocide is there but intent will be very hard to prove if it exists


A great article from an international law prof explaining the finding can be found here: https://www.ejiltalk.org/icj-indicates-provisional-measures-...

The blog has articles on the topic from both sides from numerous lawyers


Finally, this is the first article I've seen that really explains the ruling.



Thanks, that was extremely helpful in understanding not just the ruling, but the remit of the court.


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