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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 9th, 2023

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  • Anybody who thinks running Windows is easier hasn’t tried to get Tensorflow working on Windows with GPU support.

    In theory, it could run on a straight Windows build of Python, but nobody seems to have given that serious consideration. It must go through WSL, but that means passing through the GPU to WSL. When you Google how to do it, you’ll find three different approaches that have been taken over the years, only one of which is valid on modern setups. If you take one of the old approaches, you will likely twist your system in knots and need a complete reinstall to fix.

    On Linux, you install the GPU drivers, compile Tensorflow with the GPU flags, and you’re done.












  • When drinking with Zefram Cochrane, Deanna Troi had no idea what tequila was. She went to Star Fleet Academy in San Fransisco, and even without warp drive and transporters, that’s not far from the major agave growing regions on Earth. Cadets gonna drink whenever they have the chance, and they’ll seek out non-synthehol stuff if they can.

    Agave isn’t being farmed sustainably right now. It could also have been hit hard by Star Trek’s WWIII. It’s possible agave didn’t survive into the 22nd century. Zef may have even been going through the last bottles of it.


  • I’ve been watching The Great on Hulu. It’s an explicitly fictionalized account of Catherine the Great in Russia, and I generally recommend it as long as you keep its subtitle of “An Occasionally True Story” in mind.

    Anyway, the actual Catherine the Great was one of the Enlightened Despots of Europe. For the sake of argument, let’s say everything she did was absolutely amazing, and raised millions of people out of serfdom and into education and opportunities that were completely closed off before. Basically, the absolute best case you can ever make for the monarchy.

    6 generations later, Russia is ruled by Czar Nicholas II, and there’s no other way to put it: it’s a fucking disaster. Russia hadn’t been industrializing the way other powers had in the 100+ years between then and Catherine, but Nicky drags the country into a war against a country that had. The inevitable happens, and it gets so bad that Nicky gets shot by revolutionaries in a basement along with the rest of his family. As brutal as that execution was, it’s hard to say the Bolshoviks were wrong for doing so.

    So even in the absolute best case scenario, better than any monarchy could ever do for real, it doesn’t last. It can’t last. You may get a good one once in a while–and even that is a stretch–but the next one could easily be a monster that undoes everything.