tal
The World Bank tried to put a value on the Amazon rainforest as part of a process of estimating how much it would be appropriate for the world to rationally pay Brazil for not clearing it.
https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/latinamerica/how-much-should-we-pay-preserve-amazon
...which corresponds to a total stock value of $1.4-3.3 trillion.
https://companiesmarketcap.com/amazon/marketcap/
Amazon's market capitalization is at $2.2 trillion, so they're in about the same ballpark, I guess.
We should totally do that again. Fun for the people generating them with different LLMs, fun to see the crazy stuff that shows up, and some people wind up with an avatar that they like.
@Thelsim@sh.itjust.works
I remember that "blank face" image being generated, too.
Also an interesting way to compare different LLMs, because you can see what they're spitting out for the same input.
EDIT: Found that thread:
https://sh.itjust.works/post/7955084
The intent wasn't originally to generate avatars, but some people did wind up using it as their avatar.
Easier to quickly distinguish between users with different-colored indicators for different users. There isn't built-in functionality to do that. If there was, I wouldn't have.
If it is, staying in a dark house and not exercising is definitely not what one wants to do.
I think that there is a legit question of why Europe uses diesel, which isn't the norm elsewhere. IIRC, that was in part a regulatory decision back when based on the idea that diesel would be advantageous, where regulators intentionally incentivized diesel. Problem is, it also caused a huge amount of diesel infrastructure to be built in Europe, and as emissions standards went up, diesel became increasingly problematic. As Europe's regulators clamped down on local pollution from autos, automakers couldn't keep up, and started cheating on regulations.
Switching away from diesel to gasoline would have been expensive at that point, with a lot of money invested in diesel.
https://www.vox.com/2015/10/15/9541789/volkswagen-europe-diesel-pollution
I recall reading another article talking about how some French government organization thought that diesel would be cheaper, though the above article doesn't mention that in that much detail.
EDIT: It also has a graph showing the relative scale of US diesel vehicles vs EU diesel vehicles:
It's a lot easier to make auto owners whole if you're dealing with the beige line than if you're dealing with the blue line.
The scope of the problem was far smaller in the US than in the EU. Diesel automobiles aren't a huge thing in the US, and VW has a smaller market share.
If the EU did the same thing the US did, there wouldn't be a VW.
In the U.S., Volkswagen had to either fix the cars or buy them back, at each customer's choosing, and provide additional compensation in restitution and to make up for the reduced resale value of their vehicles. According to the settlement, VW had to modify or remove from circulation at least 85 percent of the affected vehicles, which it has since done. In fact, VW tells us it ultimately accepted about 97 percent of eligible VW, Audi, and Porsche vehicles into its remediation programs.
Once recalled, these cars sat on massive lots until they received their EPA-approved modification. Then VW put them up for sale and set up VIN lookup sites so prospective shoppers could verify a car's EPA status. It sold quite a few of them. "Since the end of the 2.0-liter and 3.0-liter settlement programs in 2018 and 2020, respectively," said VW spokesman Mark Gillies, "the storage lots have been closed, and the remaining inventory of modified TDI vehicles has been in the used-car market for quite some time."
That was the end of VW's U.S. diesel ambitions. In 2016, the company announced it would no longer sell new diesels in the states and would instead focus on developing electric vehicles.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars-guide-to-the-volkswagen-dieselgate-emissions-recall/
Volkswagen has admitted to circumventing the emissions control system in about 550,000 vehicles sold in the United States since 2008 with the 2.0-liter diesel engine. As many as 11 million vehicles worldwide may be affected.
https://www.beuc.eu/volkswagen-emission-affairs
It soon became clear that the scale of the issue is global, with 11 million cars affected, including 8 million vehicles in Europe.
You're talking about 15 times as many vehicles in the EU, and that's from VW alone
there are a lot of other manufacturers selling diesel vehicles in the EU.
I would not want to use it [Linux or BSD] as my primary desktop system for too many reasons to go into here.
https://twitter.com/MayaPosch/status/1809311467545735654
The Linux kernel not having a stable driver ABI is why Linux will never amount to anything outside of some embedded and server applications.
Maya Posch, author of the submitted article
I guess maybe that's their reason.
I'm gonna go with more power generation capacity.
I don't see the B-21 listed there.
It was then that the Dutch poldered the Netherlands out to upwind of the Belgian wind farms.
"I'm skeptical of AI as it is currently practiced," he said. "I think AI could have tremendous value, but LLMs are not the way there.
Ehhh. I don't know if I'd go quite that far. I think that LLMs might be a component of a functional AGI. But just running a larger LLM model on bigger hardware is not going to suddenly barf out something that can act in the same sort of general way a human can, I agree there.