It was too early, but also lingered in development for far too long. It also never had the proper server-side implementations, so it could feel like a solution in search of a problem.
That said, the design is far more advanced than the rolling disaster which is Passkey and it is much better suited for small Yubikey-type devices, where you could easily have unlimited site support. It also had intrinsic portability and advanced real-world security considerations, such as an attestation that instructed a server to disable weaker authentication methods, such as email or SMS (which is also a customer support disaster, but still...).
Ultimately, SQRL is an object lesson that the best technical design doesn't always win - it needs the right timing and robust community/corporate support.
Edit: Also, the (client) reference implementation was written in x86 assembly language for Windows. So I'd say the timing, support, and portability are all reasons for the lack of adoption.
I think you meant a quote attributed to Bill Gates:
"Well, Steve, I think there's more than one way of looking at it. I think it's more like we both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it."
Yes, I think the Gates quote was a response to repeated and aggressive complaints originating from Jobs (to anyone who would listen) that he had been ripped off.
It's not so much that they couldn't sell it, but adjusted for inflation to today's money, a well equipped Xerox Star workstation with reasonable amount of RAM, HDD ($20000+ in 1981 money), would be the equivalent of $70,000 in today's money. It was very much a high end system affordable only by a few niche users.
It's not clear to me how much it cost them to build the Star, but it might have been pretty close to that 20000 figure if they included all the R&D costs that went into it, and the fairly specialized high end hardware at the time like 20MB HDD. And it was being done in fairly low quantities so not much economy of scale.
> We'll assume a 32B dense model, as they've have gotten quite good for production use and a B200 can comfortably serve them. This could be a Gemma, Qwen, DeepSeek, whatever.
That seems like a very consequential point to include halfway through the post. They aren't wrong that Qwen 3.6 26B or Gemma 4 31B are quite good, depending on the use case, but if we're doing napkin math, I'd want some more headroom in the assumptions.
They really ought to have Qwen parameterize their post's calculations and add sliders so a reader could play around with the values.
Edit: And since they especially mentioned DeekSeek (or whatever), as far as I know, none of their current generation of models is a dense model, and even the smallest of the mixture of experts (MoE) models is 284B parameters (13B activated). That will completely incinerate their napkin.
But in reality, 32B dense is very similar* to 32B activated on MoE in terms of inference costs. And I highly suspect eg Opus is around that level of active params.
A 284ba13b model at scale, is almost certainly cheaper to serve than a 32b dense model.
*as you can shard the model across multiple GPUs at scale. but in reality you have some loss of efficiency from GPU coordination and expert routing
That's good information. I couldn't possibly even start to run even DeepSeek Flash on my system, but also if you're assuming multiple GPUs, that is going to affect the napkin math.
I assume this is primarily intended to block using older Kindles to bypass DRM?
I have some experience doing this with this on an older keyboard Kindle and Calibre, and haven't really kept up with the current state of jailbreaking on newer models, but at the time, it wasn't possible. Although a quick search says that you can still deDRM books using the desktop app[0].
Several years ago, I ran a niche hobbyist website and incorporated Adsense (because why not?!?). The site featured a fuzzy search function since it referenced tens of thousands of named parts. The search result page would echo the (sanitized) search term followed by the matching results - along with recent search terms in the right sidebar.
One day, some spambot hit the site and started searching for terms like "mesothelioma". Adsense would see that page with "mesothelioma" in the sidebar, query for it, and served up the ambulance chaser's paid ads, even though there obviously were no matching results.
I didn't realize this was happening for several weeks since this low volume site was earning very little and I never even hit the minimum withdrawal limit. Suddenly I was earning $50 - $100 - per day. This lasted for a few weeks but before I could transfer the earnings, Google locked the AdSense account due to abuse. It might surprise you, but Google support was not helpful and after a series of reviews, they permanently shut down Adsense for this site.
Therefore, I also turned off Google Adsense for my websites.
I was dumb enough when I was 11 to sign up for Adsense under my Mom’s name and put it on a php-based meme sharing site I made that my fellow 5th graders used.
Anyway, I noticed I could make a couple dollars a week. So I had my friends sit there and spam load the site. Made about 80$ until Google banned me (my mom) for life from Adsense
I have a VERY similar story about me adding AdSense to a Club Penguin hacks, tips, and tricks blog.
But I think I need to correct you -- what you and I did wasn't dumb at all. It was quite innovative for our pre-teen brains. This was my first exposure to running a business and setting up a team and thinking like an entrepreneur. Just imagine all the ice cream and Pokémon cards we could have bought if it had worked...
It's been like 10 years since I worked in the space but I'm pretty sure showing adsense on search results like that has been against the tos for a very long time unless you get a specific search feed(which is basically impossible these days and even 15 years ago was limited to companies like ask.com)
You have to agree to have read the policies when signing up and they've always been pretty clear about placement rules. Not placing ads on non-content pages is a pretty basic rule and would clearly apply to this since a search result is non-content.
Interesting. It seems like a ToS violation would have been worthy of a warning and revoking the offending earnings, but nope, it was no mercy or review.
or at least an explanation. That would of course require a customer service apparatus designed to service customers rather than one designed to force them to become tangled in the abyssal morass.
OP in this case isn't the customer, they are a supplier who has agreed to terms then decided to go against that agreement in a way that allowed scammers and himself attempt to defraud Googles actual customers.
OP isn't the good guy in this story. Them breaking a very basic, clearly worded rule assisted in fraud. Of course they deserve to be banned from the network if they can't even follow that rule.
Also all the other people in this story complaining about their rates falling off a cliff can blame people like OP who place ads in places they shouldn't leading to low quality traffic. No one wants to buy network ads if they have quality anymore.
I don't get the impression that the OP was deliberately breaking the ToS. That doesn't mean they weren't violation but you usually inform someone when they are breaking the rules, even if you are taking punitive measures. It would be like arresting someone and never telling them what they are being arrested for. Not only is it scummy behavior to not tell them but it also doesn't effectively communicate to others that the thing won't be tolerated.
If I hire someone to do a job for me and find out they are breaking rules to try and get additional money from me and my clients I don't owe them anything.
The scummy behaviour is agreeing to only put the ads on content pages then immediately putting them on search result pages to attempt to extract more money from advertisers.
I feel like you're not quite understanding the level of fraud in advertising. There is a reason all the networks are quick to fire publishers/affiliates because the ones that aren't go broke paying out for fraud.
If you don't think that people are entitled to know why their service is being terminated then I don't think we having anything else to discuss. enjoy your day
Even though Google provides the software to manage the interaction the publisher is the supplier in this agreement, they tried to defraud the client.
No one owes anything to someone that tried to scam them out of money. I also don't send replies to every phishing attempt explaining why I'm blocking their email.
Go click on new with readdead enabled. Do you believe HN owes every banned spammer an explanation on why their account was banned?
The person would have agreed to the placement rules when they signed up then went and broke them leading to Google and advertisers being defrauded by a bot. Why would you expect mercy there?
I think there is a super-sophisticated industry where advertisers are gamed out of their advertising dollars, and we occasionally can see it leaking out. For example I was very recently relentlessly hammered by political advertising by some odious tech guy who wants to get nominated for some congressional seat in the Bay Area. This was hard programming, where they just threw out the guy's name before you could hit mute, figuring that ppl would do that as quick as they could because the guy's vibe was so unrelatable. I have to imagine that the seasoned ad folks saw this dude as a pay day that they'd milk for all he is worth with this utterly misery inducing campaign. It's almost 100% brainwashing, with the tiniest sprinkle of substance. It has to be an industry that's preying on the buyer as much as the consumer.
I also get bombarded by anti-Saikat ads, most from "Abundant Future", which appears to be a PAC funded by Garry Tan and the Ripple guy. the ads loudly proclaim that AOC tweeted once that one of Saikat's tweets is divisive, and that Saikat is a millionaire. This coming from two guys who control a huge pile of money in San Francisco.
Every person and company I know who had an Adsense account was banned and not paid. Two of them were banned for terms violations which were things Google reps told them to do. Endless conspiracy theories on this, no idea.
I am guessing these companies were not big enough to make enough of a fuss and have a good legal team? Google likes making money, and if there is the slightest reason to not have to pay someone, then they are gonna make use of that reason. Might even make it onto someone's KPI list of "prevented fraud".
Because ads are cancerous, it may make you a few dollars, it massively reduces the usage of the internet, it eats resources (energy, time) from the world, it helps breaks privacy, it continues to paint the normality of the internet as a cesspit
As much as I respect the site and gladly financially support it, this is ultimately a failure on Ars Technica and its editors. If there are any.
If this were just some random blogger, then yes the blame is totally theirs. But this was published under the Ars Technica masthead and there should have been someone or something double checking the veracity of the contents.
That said, there are a number of Ars Technica contributors that are among the best in their fields: Eric Burger, Dan Goodin, Beth Mole, Stephen Clark, and Andrew Cunningham amongst many, so one f'up shouldn't really impugn the entire organization.
Eric Berger has a strong pro-Musk bias (having literally written a fawning book about him). To him, Musk can do no wrong, it seems.
I also dislike Dan Goodin’s reporting. He tries to talk the talk, but nearly every article he writes has some tell that he doesn’t really understand the thing he’s reporting on. Which is fine if he was relying on third-party expertise and quoting that, but he tries to make it sound like he has the expertise and it just comes up short. I feel like he’s a good example of that old fallacy that you think the news is correct about everything, until they report about something you know.
For me, Ashley Belanger is the best reporter they have. She might not have the subject matter expertise some of the others there claim, but she has the best journalism of anybody there. Lots of direct sources, well written, and the right level of depth. I honestly feel like I’m reading a different (and better) publication when I read her articles. More than once, I’ve had to scroll up to see if the article I’m reading was one of Ars’ licensed outside pieces, as the quality bar was higher than I’m used to, only to find her name.
Beth Mole is a close second. She has subject matter expertise, good journalism, and loves to slip in some humor or justified “get a load of this idiot” comments.
I'd say if one has any interest in writing objectively about space technology, one will likely end up being perceived as having a "pro-Musk bias".
Elon himself is indeed questionable, but you really can't argue with his space-related achievements. Even other eccentric billionaires like Bezos haven't come close.
Your comment makes it pretty clear you've not read him much. He regularly credits SpaceX with specific accomplishments and rarely brings Musk into the topic unless it's about setting direction, etc.
The description is slightly backwards. The problem is you continue to trust the news after seeing how wrong they are about something on which you’re an expert.
Berger is clearly guarded and measured when he talks about Musk and SpaceX. Given the configuration of the space industry and the reality that Berger clearly needs access to make his living, I think Berger has provided generally even handed coverage of SpaceX, Musk and Musk's antics.
In his article on SpaceX's "pivot from Mars to Moon", he describes Musk as "In the last 25 years, Musk has gone from an obscure, modestly wealthy person to the richest human being ever, from a political moderate to chief supporter of Donald Trump; from a respected entrepreneur to, well, to a lot of things to a lot of people: world’s greatest industrialist/supervillain/savant/grifter-fraudster.". https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/has-elon-musk-given-up...
I think Berger got a lot of flack for not really commenting on Musk and DOGE during his articles last year, and I think it's fair to criticize him for that choice, but I don't think it's really a "Musk can do no wrong" position.
In other words, I think you really need to read between the lines for Berger re Musk.
Berger wrote 2 books about SpaceX (not Musk), and he definitely does not have a pro-Musk bias.
He's is careful not to opine on Musk's other dealings, which is fair. As someone who wants to know more about SpaceX, I don't want to read yet more about Tesla, or Twitter, or Trump, or Epstein.
Personally, one of the authors I most like to read on ArsTechnica (though he writes rarely nowadays).
CarTechnica though .. yuck. Also, Oulette reliably picks movies and TV shows I will absolutely hate, so I guess good S/N there?
Mole's coverage is great if you're into Cronenberg-but-in-real-life.
I think it's pretty widely agreed in the space flight community that Eric Berger is currently the best space flight reporter in the world. He has lots of insider sources. Several times he correctly predicted things years in advance. Most recently the Artemis III change to a LEO mission.
> He's is careful not to opine on Musk's other dealings, which is fair. As someone who wants to know more about SpaceX, I don't want to read yet more about Tesla, or Twitter, or Trump, or Epstein.
But all of those matter, and are not isolated. When the leader of an organisation is distracted by the other organisations they control, it matters. It also matters when they are repeatedly wrong about their predictions, even if on another organisation, because it helps you calibrate expectations.
Could be. I am currently scrolling the comments on the new Apple displays and the gatekeeping "Only rEaL ProoOOOs should have any achual use for frame rates over 60. Ur just lowly a gamer. Shoo!" attitude is through the roof there.
Massive radiators. In this photo[0], all of the light gray panels are thermal radiators. Note how they are nearly as large as the solar panels, which gives you an idea about the scale needed to radiate away 3-12 people's worth of heat (~1200 watts) + the heat generated by equipment.
Nemotron-3-Nano-30B-A3B[0][1] is a very impressive local model. It is good with tool calling and works great with llama.cpp/Visual Studio Code/Roo Code for local development.
It doesn't get a ton of attention on /r/LocalLLaMA but it is worth trying out, even if you have a relatively modest machine.
Deep SSMs, including the entire S4 to Mamba saga, are a very interesting alternative to transformers. In some of my genomics use cases, Mamba has been easier to train and scale over large context windows, compared to transformers.
It was good for like, one month. Qwen3 30b dominated for half a year before that, and GLM-4.7 Flash 30b took over the crown soon after Nemotron 3 Nano came out. There was basically no time period for it to shine.
It is still good, even if not the new hotness. But I understand your point.
It isn't as though GLM-4.7 Flash is significantly better, and honestly, I have had poor experiences with it (and yes, always the latest llama.cpp and the updated GGUFs).
I find the Q8 runs a bit more than twice as fast as gpt-120b since I don’t have to offload as many MoE layers, but is just about as capable if not better.
Do they have a good multilingual embedding model? Ideally, with a decent context size like 16/32K. I think Qwen has one at 32K. Even the Gemma contexts are pretty small (8K).
There have been enshitification clouds looming on the horizon for Nova Launcher for so long, I think many people (including me) were hoping it would just never happen.
That said, check out Octopi Launcher. I installed it for the first time tonight[0] and it is exactly what you are looking for - a smoother, better Nova Launcher.
That said, the design is far more advanced than the rolling disaster which is Passkey and it is much better suited for small Yubikey-type devices, where you could easily have unlimited site support. It also had intrinsic portability and advanced real-world security considerations, such as an attestation that instructed a server to disable weaker authentication methods, such as email or SMS (which is also a customer support disaster, but still...).
Ultimately, SQRL is an object lesson that the best technical design doesn't always win - it needs the right timing and robust community/corporate support.
Edit: Also, the (client) reference implementation was written in x86 assembly language for Windows. So I'd say the timing, support, and portability are all reasons for the lack of adoption.