Intuition and the actual test results tell us that LLMs aren’t the pinnacle when it comes to more generally usable and safer AI. A safe and more generally intelligent AI must be able to understand the consequences of its own actions, and how things behave in the real world. It’s also obvious that our biological brains are much more efficient and flexible than LLMs at learning, and at applying intelligence in a general way, that hasn’t specifically been trained before.
As Yann LeCun also emphasises, this doesn’t mean that LLMs aren’t useful. They’re great at understanding any sort of “language”, the more formally defined, the better; at abstracting large sets of digital knowledge, and at inference to generate new concrete knowledge. That’s also why LLMs are usefully good already at understanding and generating source code based on specifications. One also has to keep in mind the mechanisms behind LLMs though (stochastics; LLMs lack a truly grounded/based, intrinsic understanding of matters; it’s all just stochastically arranged symbols) and thus the limitations of LLMs.
Pretty good overview of better-than-average to top-notch software, in terms of security and privacy (note that there are also service providers and tools listed on this page that I would neither endorse nor recommend):
After switching the 3 AAA batteries of my beloved HP 48G calculator, it didn’t turn on anymore when hitting the “ON” button in the bottom left corner. I first thought it’s because of poor electrical contact due to poor QA batteries (I noticed the new ones were a fraction of a mm shorter than the previous ones). This might have played a rule in the sudden failure to power on my HP 48G, but it probably wasn’t the only reason.
Here are some “tricks” to try, if your HP 48 won’t turn on:
Double-check that you inserted the AAA batteries pointing with their (+) poles in the right direction (left, right, left)
If the AAA batteries have poor electric contact (particularly the middle one is susceptible to this), cut out and fold some aluminium foil (also called “aluminum foil”; historically “tin foil” was used), and put it where better electric contact to the batteries is needed.
Press the “ON” button in the bottom left corner
If that doesn’t work: press and hold “ON”, press and release the “C” button, release the “ON” button
If that doesn’t work (it didn’t for me): Press the area between the “B” and “C” buttons/keys, then press and release “ON”
If that still doesn’t work (it didn’t for me): Flip the HP 48 over and remove the upper right rubber foot. You can basically just wiggle it a bit and pop it off, there’s no need for special instruments. Underneath, there’s a little hole to reset the calculator. Use e.g. a paperclip, insert one end into the hole until you hear or feel a subtle “click” sound to reset the calculator (please bear in mind that this could also clear the memory). Then press the “ON” button and you’ll be prompted to try recovering the memory, which you should confirm.
At this point, unless it’s a severe error of the board, your HP 48 should turn on again. It might display “Warning: Invalid Card Data” at every start though. You can get rid of this warning message by typing “PINIT” (without double quotes) and pressing the ENTER button (source: https://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/archv013.cgi?read=43990)
If none of the above tips help, your HP 48 probably needs repairing.
It seems to be quite a nightmare to service the HP 48, but there are a couple of videos out there of people repairing a HP 48 SX (disclaimer: know what you’re doing, follow at your own risk):
Off-grid, resilient mesh communication with strong encryption, forward secrecy and extreme privacy.
Nomad Network allows you to build private and resilient communications platforms that are in complete control and ownership of the people that use them. No signups, no agreements, no handover of any data, no permissions and gatekeepers.
Information is the basis of society in the digital world. Freedom of expression/speech and free access to information are indispensable prerequisites for democracy.
Sadly, there are misleading and dubious organisations, lobbyists, parties, secret services, legislative and executive bodies that work against these liberal, enlightened and humanitarian values and demand or advocate censorship, online and offline. This is a big threat for civil society – you and me, all of us.
And this is what makes projects like NomadNet important and valuable.
Stand up for freedom of expression/free speech and fight censorship!
(And as always, please note the disclaimer: All software and hardware can have security bugs).
I verified the tips on the page below. The only mistake I’ve noticed is that the date format is wrongly indicated, i.e. instead of in MM/DD/YYYY format, the dates have to be specified in DD/MM/YYYY format.
After switching on your HP Omen Desktop/Gaming PC, the boot process gets stuck at the “Omen” logo and Windows (the default OS) doesn’t get started anymore.
Power supply, LED lights, mainboard, RAM, GPU, hard disk and SSD are working and there’s no indication that anything would be wrong with them (IOW: The PC per se isn’t dead and seems to work).
The last time you used your PC, you might (or might not) have been prompted by an HP app (maybe the “HP Gaming Hub” or similar) to update some drivers or the firmware.
Reason/root cause:
HP apps apparently tend to mess with the CMOS and BIOS (e.g. automatically install updates), which may cause the HP Omen to get stuck the next time you try booting it. Windows 10 would thus no longer start.
Solution:
Reset the PC’s CMOS.
How to reset the CMOS in a HP Omen 30L:
Turn off the computer I.e. hold the power button for a couple of seconds until lights go out. For double safety, you could even quickly disconnect and reconnect the power cable.
On your keyboard, press and hold the Windows + V keys To rule out any other problem, it’s best to plug your original HP USB keyboard into a USB plug directly on the PC.
Still pressing those two keys, press and hold the Power button on the computer for roughly 1 second, then release the power button, but continue pressing and holding the Windows + V keys, until you see that the PC boots and doesn’t get stuck at the “Omen” logo again, instead, there might be notifications that further updates are being installed. Or you might get displayed a CMOS reset screen or hear beeping sounds. Note: According to HP, one has to press the power button 2-3 seconds in this step to trigger a CMOS reset. For my HP OMEN 30L GT13, that was apparently too long however, as it shut down the PC instead. Just try it a couple of times, until you finally see something happening again on the boot screen (but do not interrupt ongoing updates!).
If there’s a message that there are pending updates, wait for them to finish. If you see a message that the CMOS was reset, hit ENTER to reboot the PC
Some more useful tricks about the HP Omen 30L GT13
Even though booting stopped at the Omen logo, I was still able to enter the BIOS setup upon rebooting. To enter the BIOS setup, do the following:
Press and hold the F10 key on your keyboard (on the original HP USB keyboard, you’ll actually have to press the “Fn” key and the “F10” key at the same time, as F10 is a secondary functionality only)
Press and hold the power button for 3 seconds till the PC turns off, then hit the power button again to start the PC while you’re holding the F10 key (Fn + F10)
First, as I was indeed suspecting that something might have gone wrong with an accidental (or intransparent) BIOS update, I tried following a hint that if one disconnects the hard drive (and/or SSD?), the mainboard of an HP Omen would allegedly automatically fall back to the previous BIOS version. Therefore, I tried to disconnect the HDD and start my PC like that. It didn’t have any positive effect though, as the boot process kept getting stuck at the Omen logo.
BTW, to open the HP Omen 30L case, you simply press the big “INTERNAL ACCESS” button in the upper right corner of the back side of the PC, then tilt the (plexi-)glass window, then tilt it back towards the case a bit and lift the window up and off.
A further complication in my case was that I also use a fairly new and cutting edge Samsung 49″ super wide screen monitor (Samsung LC49RG90SSUXEN, supporting natively 5120×1440 pixels at a 120 Hz refresh rate) for that PC (and sometimes also with my MacBook Pro, via a special 8k USB-C to DisplayPort 1.4 cable). My experiences with any sort of Samsung devices have been a mixed bag so far, so for one, I don’t really trust the quality of Samsung’s hardware, firmware or software (although I can’t complain about this display, it has been all fine so far and I’d highly recommend it for simulators). Secondly, I’ve plugged some essential USB devices (like the original HP USB keyboard and the receiver of my beloved Logitech G305 mouse) directly to the display’s USB hub, rather than to the PC itself. To rule out any weird error (e.g. like a boot process stopping because of a missing keyboard, caused by a faulty USB hub or connection), I’d generally recommend disconnecting “exotic” devices (like steering wheels, web cams, joysticks, controllers, ..) that could potentially cause troubles and plugin the essential devices (keyboard, mainly, maybe also the mouse) directly to the PC.
