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Temporary_31337

517 karma · joined December 1, 2021

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Temporary_31337··on Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?
HAM radio is whole range of things that were not possible when I was getting into it - first of all it's super cheap to start now, and you can probably bounce RF signals off the moon for less than $100 nowadays. Shortwave radio has always allowed signals to go around the world (by bouncing off the stratosphere). Most likely the new digital + AI capabilities means that a few well positioned relays could make for a very independent, low bandwidth Internet. Solar powered BTS or APs all kinds of experiments are possible...
Temporary_31337··on Sweden goes back to basics, swapping screens for books in the classroom
I know it's brutal, but my kids were raised with iPads, PS3-5, computers, age inappropriate Minecraft and youtube, all kids of gadgets and turned out ok, already earning money (in tech of course) - one is in UX / product building, another more on the core math/theorem side. Protecting kids from tech is like raising your kids in a glass house, yes they are fine while inside but then what?
Temporary_31337··on Ask HN: European Tech Alternatives?
Curious about the motivation. The current conflict in Iran once again reminds us of how it;s all intertwined. The blockade of Strait of Hormuz means helium shortages means no chip production, means your EU based alternative is not getting chips so you really don't have an alternative unless you can somehow magically wish a whole fairly alternative supply chain of EU based rare minerals, fabs, nvidias etc
Temporary_31337··on New Apple Silicon M4 and M5 HiDPI Limitation on 4K External Displays
I think you'd want to offer morethan a problem statement when taking CEO time. Yes it's broken because shareholders demand M$ products have AI feature so that the share price has the 'AI' multiple. It's pretty hard to justify the stock price, even with the current, high earling from the cloud so they are looking for hte next golden goose
Temporary_31337··on $500 GPU outperforms Claude Sonnet on coding benchmarks
the headline is pretty stupid - compares a model to a GPU that models run on. Somewhere in that data centre, some part of Sonnet infferencing runs on a 900$ GPU or maybe even cheaper Google tensor
Temporary_31337··on Ask HN: How many of you hold an amateur radio license in your country?
My father was pretty serious about this as a hobby - SP7DRV - had shortware CW and voice connections with pretty much all the coutries, remote islands (when there was an expeditions) and some countries that do not exist anymore so his tally was more countries than there are in the world. Personally I prefer the convenience of fibre connection + TCP/IP but I get that in a time of hypothetical crisis or war this could prove useful. War in Ukraine shows it's more Starlink + Internet rather than HAM radio but there's still a use case.
Temporary_31337··on What Drives Stock Market Returns? (2018)
One thing I learned about logic is that if you start with a false statement, whatever comes next doesn't matter "almost all valuations and returns are driven by corporate earnings" no they are not, at least not anymore.
Temporary_31337··on Luce: First Electric Ferrari
Unfortunately for a lot of performance and luxury oriented Car manufacturers, EVs are a death trap - since they don't have access to any special battery chemistry, the drivetrain is basically a commodity - you can get more HP from Xiaomi than you can get from a Ferrari. Any advatages / weight savings around say carbon chassis will be negligible and probably more of a nuisance in daily driving.

Moreover the battery will degrade over time so it's not a good long term investment (unlike ICE cars where 100 year old machines still run fine). I'm sure there will still be some buyers but the margins are going to get squeezed and the Rich Oil Sheikh will reconsider their purchasing choices when it gets overtaken by a Chinese EV equivalent at 1/10th of the price. I really don't see how Ferrari can support its brand with a toy car like this.

Temporary_31337··on Your app subscription is now my weekend project
..so they would pay so the see the blog post a little earlier thna you do? Math doesn't work out on this
Temporary_31337··on Why Replicate is joining Cloudflare
came here to put this comment exactly ;)
Temporary_31337··on General principles for the use of AI at CERN
blah, blah,people will simply use it as they see fit
Temporary_31337··on Samsung's 60% DRAM price hike signals a new phase of global memory tightening
I think that goes to show that official inflation benchmarks are not very practical / useful in terms of buckets of things that people actually buy or desire. If the bucket that measured inflation included computer parts (GPUs?), food and housing - i.e. all that the thing that a geek really needs inflation would be wayy higher...
Temporary_31337··on Amazon confirms 14,000 job losses in corporate division
I dunno, I got used to the weekly beatings. You could arque that if you understand what brings the most business value and deliver that repeatedly, you're pretty safe from being fired and arguably you'd know how to run your own business if needed.

If someone, say did a great job of updating API documentation that can be fully automated now, that's not good enough nowadays. I realise that's not exactly fair because the capitalists / shareholders 'only' have to have to have money in order to receive compensation, and you as a labourer face increasing demands. If you don't like the balance of power you find a niche / leverage as a laborer or you switch to being a capitalist eventually.

Temporary_31337··on Baldur's Gate 3 Steam Deck – Native Version
Wow, I bought Baldur's Gate 3 out of nostalgia before a very long (20hours + ) flight and played some good long hours on the plane. Unfortunately the Proton version meant the game was unplayable on the Deck later in the game. I'm so happy I can finish it now. Coincidentally I also realised I can play it on my Mac too...
Temporary_31337··on iPhone Air
but 250 000 000 other people will.
Temporary_31337··on UK's largest battery storage facility at Tilbury substation
What is the chemistry and expected lifetime of the batterries? They are saying this is for sustainable energy future but it looks like it's using natural gas (not sustainable) powered energy to charge up Lithium(?) batteries that will need to be replaced every n years (also not sustainable). Which part of this facility makes it more sustainable?
Temporary_31337··on F-35 pilot held 50-minute airborne conference call with engineers before crash
US can (effectively) shut down F35s remote.y
Temporary_31337··on AI Is Wrecking Young Americans' Job Prospects
computer job market is a huge misallocation of skills and resources, so no it's not that simple. Given how much tech debt/backlog there is, there should be enough work for everyone, just paid less. The fact that it isn't so just shows that there are bottlenecks elsewhere - HR, companies stuck in office only mode (so there's a high floor on salaries).

Currently all I see is a mix of very highly paid do it all types with rather lowly paid outsourced talent but no sensible middle and of course no way to realistically learn on the job - the bar to get in is very high.

Temporary_31337··on Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears
occam's razor
Temporary_31337··on Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears
I dare say that size is 3. Fight me ;)
Temporary_31337··on Sequoia backs Zed
For 2038 I predict Epochalypse and since there will only be vibe coders by then, good luck to y'all.
Temporary_31337··on Databricks is raising a Series K Investment at >$100B valuation
it's funny how we're letting private companies get away with made up numbers. Rather than making IPOs easier, owning a private company above a certain valuation should come with at least an obligation for GAAP accounting, indepndent audits etc. This is really for the greater good - so what is we see 2-5 years of a beautiful AI bubble if it's going to come crashing down again. It's lawmakers and regulators role to smooth out and dampen the natural tendency for the markets to go bubbly.
Temporary_31337··on Databricks is raising a Series K Investment at >$100B valuation
what is the investor thesis for coming in with such a multiple? You know they will have to find a a greater fool, possibly the public to buy at an even higher ratio to break any profit on that....
Temporary_31337··on Databricks is raising a Series K Investment at >$100B valuation
At that time the Palantit valuation was considered 'hefty / overpriced' at $9B. Current stock price valuation, post IPO is a completely detached from fundamentals ~$378B

if you were to apply the same ratio to Databricks it would have to trade at 42 000 000 000 000 000 USD - enough to buy the entire US sovereign debt, the moon, all earth's minerals with plenty to spare. A completely rational market if you ask me.

Temporary_31337··on Databricks is raising a Series K Investment at >$100B valuation
depends on who is making a decision and how exactly is the funding round structured - for some investors, diluting other shareholders is actually a good thing. For existing employees, if they get an option to partially cash out now is probably better than waiting indefinitely for an IPO etc
Temporary_31337··on Databricks is raising a Series K Investment at >$100B valuation
What's the end game? What are investors expecting and how are they expecting the company to get $100b in profits and over what period of time?
Temporary_31337··on OPA maintainers and Styra employees hired by Apple
1. Any idea on what should I start next so that I can get acquihired?

2. It looks like Apple didn't get much 'ownership' of OPA in this case, what was the point of purchasing the company as a whole versus simply offering these 3 employees generous sign-on bonuses?

3. Why is it that companies generally tend to pay a lot more per employee in an acquihire scenario?

Temporary_31337··on Staff disquiet as Alan Turing Institute faces identity crisis
When it was founded in 2014 it was criticized as yet another glass building in London (technically a floor in this case) in a very prestigious location. And indeed as you could a lot of the funding went into the building, maintenance, events/catering and you could see random freeloaders loosely associated with the Institute using the space as a free coworking space. I think since the beginning, the PhD funding was great idea as you could do your research towards current issues, somewhat outside of the usual rusty academic echo chambers. But the fact that you were supposed to commute to the central London location, a lot of the grant went on train tickets or accommodation. As an early LLM adopter / practitioner, I went there for some sessions on AI Ethics and such and did not see that it was worth the millions pumped into the institution as we saw that whatever Captain Obvious insights (guardrails, data protection etc) came out of the Institute were completely ignored by the US giants. The current political twist toward practical applications in defence might actually be good for the institute as they will actually be able to practice some applied science but frankly I don't have much hope that my tax payer money is being put to good use here - it's always been a desperate scream for relevance and there's more and more of this action free nonsense coming from the government, like the recent OpenAI memorandum https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/memorandum-of-und...
Temporary_31337··on What does Palantir actually do?
FWIW, I am in a project like this where we a re given free will to use whatever it takes to deliver quickly and ignore the company internal procedures etc - we're using agile as it should be done (principles not just verbiage) so for example we don't have meetings unless needed etc. Needless to say we've shipped our first product a few months back and now it's v2 and now some of the team is moving on to other areas. Disruption can be good you know....
Temporary_31337··on What does Palantir actually do?
Have you looked at companies such as Jane's? Overall bigger market cap and RPE orders of magintude higher - don't fall for hype like everyone else, or at least check the numbers before saying 'most profitable', they are not even close.
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