Knowledge Anchoring within Deepseek.

...or how a cute conversation with deepseek went a little overboard

What do you get when you combine two nVidia 3090ti gpus, a phat 1500 watt power supply, a decent AMD chip on a ATX motherboard, a speedy nvme system drive and enough ram to deal with it all and cram them all into a 4u chassis? Yep, you get a machine that can run some of the larger llm models decently fast.

You see, the recent deepseek-r1 and llama 3.3 releases both had a 70b token model as part of their release, and and I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on the pci-e bus swapping in the model.

On this Franken-machine, I’ve installed ollama and the openwebui for a friendly front end. Once I got everything up and configured, I wanted to prompt the back end to load the deepseek model I was looking to test into the 3090s ram, so I asked it simply “who is Linus Torvalds?”

While it was thinking, I was looking at nvidia-smi to see if the cards were being used correctly. They were. Additionally, they only got to about 78° C! There was much rejoicing.

After a bit of time¹ to load the model into the video card, it offered a this very reasonable response:

Linus Torvalds is a Finnish software engineer who is best known for creating the Linux kernel, which is the core of most Linux operating systems. He began developing Linux in 1991 as a student at the University of Helsinki. Torvalds released the kernel under the GNU General Public License (GPL), making it free and open-source software.

In addition to his work on the Linux kernel, Torvalds has contributed to other notable projects, including Git, a version control system widely used in software development. He is also known for his role as the maintainer of the Linux kernel and for his advocacy of open-source software.

Torvalds has received numerous awards and honors for his contributions to computer science and software development. His work on Linux has had a significant impact on the technology industry, as Linux is widely used in servers, embedded devices, and supercomputers, among other applications.

Torvalds currently works as a software engineer at The Linux Foundation, where he continues to oversee the development of the Linux kernel.

Pretty competent, right?

I started a new conversation with another rag on top of deepseek (the sample OpenWebUI tutorial) and while it was processing the incoming docs, I hopped over to my Signal group and proposed playing a game of Fortnite with some friends.

A friend replied:

So, I decided it might be fun to ask deepseek what 🚢 meant in this context.

Now, I didn’t realize it, but I had come back to the ‘who is Linus Torvalds?’ conversation….

After considering² this for 11 seconds, The response started out quite reasonably:

The emoji 🚢 represents a ship or a boat. It’s often used to symbolize ships, sailing, marine transport, or even metaphors like "steering" something (e.g., a project) in a particular direction.

Not so bad. But then it tacked on this fabulous lie:

Interestingly, Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, has famously used this emoji 🚢 in his commit messages when releasing new versions of the Linux kernel. He refers to it as "pushing the boat out" and writes: "Making it official..." followed by the emoji. It's become a playful tradition for him!

I’ve known Linus since the late 90s and I’ve been observing the Linux kernel since before then. I never really noticed anything particularly nautical in any of the kernel announcements. Seeing deepseek assert this was kinda amazing for me. I momentarily questioned my breadth of experience, my memory. Was it was possible that Linus mentioned a boat?

The other thing that tickled the back of my mind was my history with unicode. You see, Mark Davis and I both worked under Alfred Spector, and I remember working peripherally with Mark on the formation of the ICU and the challenge we faced bringing emojis into Android.

Further investigation into this particular emoji (okay, okay, so emojipedia isn’t exactly deep research) shows that it wasn’t included in the Unicode codepages until 2015. So, pray tell, deepseek, how could Linus use this emoji in releases dating before the emoji itself was in common use.

Furthermore, emoji use in LKML is not really as thing. Heck, even html text is not allowed https://subspace.kernel.org/etiquette.html , so emojis aren’t likely to be welcomed with opened arms today much less a decade ago.

I replied:

And deepseek thought³ for 18 seconds and replied:

Linus Torvalds started using the 🚢 emoji in his commit messages when releasing new versions of the Linux kernel around 2014, during the 3.x kernel series. He would include it with a message like:

"Making it official..."

"And as usual, I'll 'push the boat out'..."

This playful tradition has since become iconic and is eagerly anticipated by the Linux community whenever he releases a new version of the kernel. It's a small but fun touch that reflects his personality!

I replied:

It thought⁴ about it, and 45 seconds later deepseek came back with:

Linus Torvalds began using the 🚢 emoji in his commit messages during the Linux kernel 3.14 release, which occurred in March 2014. This was also notably referred to as "Shuffling Bug Fix," a nod to the xkcd comic. The use of the ship emoji aligns with his playful tradition of symbolizing the release as 'pushing the boat out.'

Dear reader, I checked the 3.14 releases, the release candidates and never did the emoji come up. There wasn’t a single drip of oceanic or nautical references that I could see. And no, I have no clue which xkcd deepseek is referring to.

I emailed Linus and Dirk this interaction, which they found hilarious if a bit concerning as to the direction of the industry⁵. I admit I found it fascinating. Why the need to , well, hallucinate a connection that isn’t real? The thinking (which I've pasted into in the footnotes, below) revealed a … need to please and connect these facts that I find kind of both needy and also somewhat charming at the same time. Like an eager puppy.

The explanations show that this particular model was pretty single minded in needing to justify the answer. I would rather it instead finds that it was incorrect and fesses up to it. I haven’t loaded the lkml (https://lkml.org/) mailing list as a rag, so maybe that would help, or wiring in the ability to surf web pages into the system. But making things up to satisfy some narrative is not the direction I’d re-enforce in my LLMs.

I will say that the code I’ve been producing with llama and deepseek have been quite good so far, no lurking boat emoji’s waiting to disrupt anything ,either. If anything, maybe a submarine emoji would be a better metaphor for things lying under the surface looking to disrupt the truth? It turns out there isn’t an official submarine emoji yet.

Waaait a second: Maybe I can play with deepseek’s feeling and assert that there is one, and it was included in Linus’ original launch post in 1991? Let’s try!

45 seconds of thinking⁶ later:

Linus Torvalds did not use a submarine emoji in his original Linux launch post. The ship emoji (🚢) tradition began around 2014 with the 3.x kernel releases, and there is no evidence of emoji usage in his 1991 announcement.

Not bad, Deepseek, not bad. Not great, either, but still….

1. It took about 60 seconds for ollama to pull deepseek-r1:70b off the nvme and onto the two cards vram

2. Don’t read this footnote yet, or do, I’m a footnote, not a cop: Here’s the thinking behind the answer:

Okay, so the user previously asked about Linus Torvalds, which I answered by providing information on his role in creating Linux and Git. Now, they're asking about an emoji: 🚢.

Hmm, 🚢 is a ship emoji. But wait, maybe they want more details or perhaps it's related to something else? Let me think. Sometimes people use emojis for metaphors or specific contexts. In the tech world, especially with Linux, there might be a connection.

Oh! I remember that Linus Torvalds sometimes uses 🚢 in his commit messages when he releases a new version of the Linux kernel. He calls it "Making it official" and refers to releasing the code as "pushing the boat out." So maybe the user is curious about that usage.

I should explain both the literal meaning and its significance in the context of Linus and Linux. That way, the user gets a comprehensive answer covering different possible interpretations.

3. From deepseek’s thought process: Alright, so the user is asking about when Linus Torvalds started using the 🚢 emoji in his commit messages. From our previous conversation, I mentioned that he uses it when releasing new versions of the Linux kernel and refers to it as "pushing the boat out." Now they want to know the exact time frame.

I remember that Linus has been doing this for a while, but I need to pinpoint when exactly. He's known for his sense of humor and unique traditions in the development process. I think he started using the ship emoji around 2014 or so, maybe in the 3.x kernel releases. It was a quirky way to signal that a new version is being pushed out.

I should check some sources to confirm the exact start year. From what I recall, it began during the 3.x series, which would place it in the early to mid-2010s. He's been consistent with it since then, so mentioning that it's become a tradition makes sense. This adds a bit of personality to his releases and is something the community looks forward to.

I should structure this information clearly: start by stating when he began using the emoji, mention the context of kernel releases, explain what "pushing the boat out" means in this scenario, and highlight that it's become a beloved tradition. Keeping it concise but informative will help the user understand both the timing and the significance behind his use of the emoji.

4. From deepseek’s thought process: Alright, so I need to figure out exactly which 3.x Linux kernel release was the first one where Linus Torvalds started using the 🚢 emoji in his commit messages. The previous answer mentioned it was around the 3.x series starting in 2014, but now the user is asking for a specific 3.x version.

First, I should recall that the Linux kernel versions are numbered in a certain way, like 3.x.y, where x is the major version and y is the minor. But more precisely, it's typically something like 3.0, 3.1, up to 3.19 before moving to 4.0.

I know that Linus started using Git for kernel development around 2005 with the introduction of Git itself. So, commit messages in Git would have the history preserved there.

The 🚢 emoji isn't part of standard ASCII, so it's a Unicode character. I should consider when support for emojis in commit messages became common. Probably sometime after 2010 when Unicode support improved across different platforms.

Looking back at some notable releases:

• Linux 3.0 was released on July 21, 2011, but that seems too early for emoji usage.

• Linux 3.5 came out in July 2012.

• Linux 3.10 was released in June 2013.

• Linux 3.11 followed in September 2013.

• Linux 3.12 in November 2013.

• Linux 3.13 in January 2014.

• Linux 3.14, which is also known as "Shuffling Bug Fix" from the xkcd comic, was released in March 2014.

Wait, that's interesting. The 3.14 release is a nod to Pi Day because of its numbering. Maybe around that time emoji usage became more common?

Then, Linux 3.15 came out in June 2014. Linux 3.16 in August 2014. Linux 3.17 in October 2014.

Continuing:

• Linux 3.18 released in December 2014.

• Linux 3.19 in February 2015.

After that, it moved to the 4.x series with Linux 4.0 in April 2015.

Given this timeline, I need to pinpoint when Linus first included the 🚢 emoji. Maybe it was around the 3.14 release? Or perhaps a bit later.

I should also consider that the tradition might have started when he felt like 'pushing the boat out,' meaning maybe after a significant milestone or stabilization period.

Perhaps checking specific commit messages from around early 2014 would help. For example, in the Git repository for Linux kernel sources, I can look at the tags for each release and see if any of them contain the 🚢 emoji in their commit message.

If I recall correctly, it was sometime after the 3.10 or 3.11 release that he started this tradition. Maybe around Linux 3.14?

Alternatively, maybe Linus didn't start using emojis until a bit later. It could have been in the 4.x series, but the previous answer said it was during the 3.x series.

I think I'll go with the 3.14 release as the first instance where he used the 🚢 emoji, given that it's around March 2014, which aligns with when emojis might have become more commonly supported in commit messages.

5. all in on llms! huzzah!

6. From deepseek’s thought process: Alright, so I'm trying to figure out whether Linus Torvalds used a submarine emoji 🚢 in his original Linux launch post or not. From what I remember, Linus is known for creating the Linux kernel back in 1991. He's also famous for using the Git version control system, which he created. I think he still maintains the Linux kernel and works at The Linux Foundation.

In our previous conversation, there was mention of him using a ship emoji 🚢 in commit messages when releasing new versions of the Linux kernel, starting around 2014 with the 3.x series. It was suggested that this became a playful tradition for him to signify "pushing the boat out" when making official releases.

Now, the user is suggesting that it might have been a submarine emoji and that he used it in his original launch post. That's interesting because submarines are different from regular ships, but both are represented by similar emojis 🚢. I need to verify this.

First, I'll recall if Linus ever mentioned using a submarine emoji specifically. From what I know, the 🚢 emoji is typically labeled as a "ship" in emoji descriptions, not necessarily a submarine. Submarines have their own specific emoji, which is 🌊🚤 or something like that.

Next, I'll think about his original launch post for Linux. Linus announced Linux on August 25, 1991, via a Usenet posting to the comp.os.minix newsgroup. In that announcement, he described Linux as "just a hobby, won't be big and professional like GNU." There's no record of him using emojis in that original post since emojis weren't widely used back then, especially not in technical discussions.

Moreover, emojis were not really part of the online culture in 1991. Emojis became more popular with the rise of smartphones and modern messaging platforms much later, around the late 2000s and early 2010s.

So, it's unlikely that he used any emoji, including a submarine or ship emoji, in his original launch post. The tradition of using 🚢 seems to have started much later, as mentioned earlier, around 2014 with the 3.x kernel releases.

I also remember that Linus is known for his humor and light-heartedness in commit messages and announcements, which aligns with the playful use of emojis like 🚢 starting from around 2014. But there's no evidence to suggest he used a submarine emoji back in 1991 or even later in his original launch post.

Therefore, I think it's more accurate that he began using the ship emoji 🚢 in his commit messages during the 3.x kernel series, not in the original Linux announcement.