Hacker News Reader

aaronharnlyon Carl Sagan Predicts the Decline of America (1995)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides_Trap

> Thucydides Trap, is a term popularized by American political scientist Graham T. Allison to describe an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon

> Allison led a study at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs which found that, among a sample of 16 historical instances of an emerging power rivaling a ruling power, 12 ended in war.[3] That study, however, has come under considerable criticism, and scholarly opinion on the value of the Thucydides Trap concept—particularly as it relates to a potential military conflict between the United States and China—remains divided.

aaronharnlyon Coping with dumb LLMs using classic ML

Relatedly, we find LLM vision models absolutely atrocious at counting things. We build school curricula, and one basic task for our activities is counting – blocks, pictures of ducks, segments in a chart, whatever. Current LLM models can't reliably count four or five squares in an image.

aaronharnlyon TikTok says it is restoring service for U.S. users

The law did not require them to suspend the service.

aaronharnlyon Uncut Currency

I calculated the "cost per dollar" of all of the offerings on the website at the moment.

The best "deal" is the most expensive – $100 x 16 for $1,860, at $1.16 per dollar. The worst deal is the cheapest – $1 x 5 for $18.50, at $3.70 per dollar.

Sheet here - corrections welcome:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Nb_WLW_WxOYSUS12fslf...

aaronharnlyon Grammarly acquires Coda

I myself do not, but some people I know who are intelligent and articulate and also dyslexic struggle to get their thoughts expressed in writing adequately for professional life, especially in the “everyone live co-editing” environment these days. Many of them report Grammarly being a valuable tool for them to feel like they’re on a more even playing field.

So yes, fancy autocorrect, but apparently better enough to matter for them.

aaronharnlyon OpenAI Releases Canvas

Yes.

aaronharnlyon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2024)

We have multiple openings!

aaronharnlyon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2024)

Amplify | Remote USA | Full-Time | Multiple Roles

A pioneer in K–12 education, Amplify is leading the way in next-generation curriculum and assessment. Amplify is a leader in creating immersive, rigorous digital learning experiences that look great, play great, and help students expect great things of themselves. Amplify has been described as the best tech company in education, and the best education company in tech.

See all roles at https://amplify.com/careers

Senior Software Engineer - $135,000 - $140,000 + bonus ---> https://amplify.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Amplify_Careers/...

Enterprise Architect - $160,000 - $180,000 + bonus ---> https://amplify.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Amplify_Careers/...

Staff Analytics Engineer - $150,000 - $175,000 + bonus ---> https://amplify.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Amplify_Careers/...

Product Owner, Knowledge and LMS - $134,000 - $145,000 + bonus ---> https://amplify.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Amplify_Careers/...

aaronharnlyon Automat

If you click on the moleskine notebook, you can read seven pages of "handwritten" notes, though they are full of analogies and exhortations that still don't actually explain what it is.

aaronharnlyon Show HN: Llama Workspace – An Open Source ChatGPT Teams Alternative

Thank you and congratulations!

How (in your opinion) does this project compare to https://www.librechat.ai?

(My company selected LibreChat to host our internal “GPT Teams” implementation after surveying and evaluating the current state of tools as of about six months ago, but I’m sure it’s a rapidly evolving space.)

aaronharnlyon Please do not write below the line

The author shares the full letter (in fact an archive of many years of letters!) on the homepage at http://www.bbctvlicence.com/

aaronharnlyon Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

Naive question: I obviously expect there to be flames from the engines, but there were flames on the lower sides for quite a while after the catch – is that expected?

aaronharnlyon End of the road for Google Drive in Transmit

Just as a data point, we paid $750 for one of these engagements (scan + some discussion about use cases etc) to one of Google's preferred providers. There were multiple options for providers.

aaronharnlyon Canvas is a new way to write and code with ChatGPT

I believe you wait until your number comes up :/

aaronharnlyon OpenAI rolls out Advanced Voice Mode with more voices and a new look

Interesting, do you know whether this can invoke Voice Mode?

aaronharnlyon Quote Origin: I had exactly four seconds and Google had told me it wasn’t enough

This book from 1931 deserves a mention as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Google_Book

it includes verses like:

  The sun is setting –
  Can't you hear
  A *something* in the distance
           Howl!!?
  I wonder if it's –
  Yes!! it *is*
  That horrid Google
  On the prowl!!!

I own a copy of the 1979 edition and the illustrations are just wonderful.

aaronharnlyon SpaceX Astronauts Begin Spacewalk, Putting New Spacesuits to Test

One might suspect the CEO has dibs on this one.

aaronharnlyon Airbnb shares drop 12% as company flags weakening US demand

Traveling with small kids, having a kitchen makes the difference between being able to actually feed the family vs scraping together insane combinations of whatever sliver of restaurant meals the kids can eat and packaged food.

aaronharnlyon The 'pay phone bandit' who baffled the FBI in the '80s

That story seems to be a brief summary, which points to a fuller article here: https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/February-2019/Bi...

aaronharnlyon The misunderstood Kessler Syndrome

I suppose you could generate an alternate view (maybe someone has?) that doesn't show the individual satellites, but instead only shows little green/yellow/red flashes whenever satellites cross within some radius of one another.

aaronharnlyon From Fire Hazards to Family Trees: The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

Great article! A searchable collection of the maps is in the Library of Congress:

https://www.loc.gov/collections/sanborn-maps/?searchType=adv...

aaronharnlyon Apple Intelligence for iPhone, iPad, and Mac

That's not a "promise from Sam Altman", that's a contractual term between Apple, Inc. and OpenAI, LLC.

So I think it's worth as much as Apple is willing to spend enforcing it, which I imagine would be quite a bit.

aaronharnlyon Microsoft's Recall is already exploited

I agree that exploit is a strong term here, but when you think about the next time someone in your life falls for a TeamViewer tech support scam, it makes a difference whether the scammers are getting ahold of the contents of their screen at the moment, or everything they’ve done since having the computer.

It seems obvious that MS should put Recall data behind more of an access control than “any process that can read files”.

aaronharnlyon Watch SpaceX Starship FLIGHT 4 launch and reenter LIVE [video]

This feed is watching someone watch it, which is kind of cool but not the direct feed.

aaronharnlyon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2024)

Amplify Education | Analytics Engineering | Remote - United States | https://amplify.com

Amplify is leading the way in next-generation curriculum and assessment. Our core and supplemental programs in ELA, math, and science engage all students in rigorous learning and inspire them to think deeply, creatively, and for themselves.

We are hiring an Analytics Engineer to work with data scientists, data analysts, and data engineers to provide clean, accurate, reliable models and metrics for our products and business.

Listing here: https://amplify.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Amplify_Careers/...

Base salary $120,000 - $130,000

aaronharnlyon The Ticketmaster Data Breach May Be Just the Beginning

We read that[0], and then the company that published it un-published it without any accompanying notice[1].

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20240531140540/https://www.hudso...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40547921

aaronharnlyon Show HN: ChatGPT UI for rabbit holes

This is fun! It feels like infinite hyperlinks. It's the kind of wonder I had in exploring Wikipedia for the first time.

aaronharnlyon I got tired of hearing that YC fired Sam, so here's what actually happened

Perhaps a habit from the days of more limited Twitter character counts.

aaronharnlyon I got tired of hearing that YC fired Sam, so here's what actually happened

That phrasing struck me as oddly limp. They would have been “fine” for their president to stay At his job? That’s not exactly a strong statement of support. If my boss told me they’d be “fine” if I stayed at my job I’d be pretty worried.

aaronharnlyon Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice

I’m not a lawyer and don’t have any deep background this area of IP, but there is at least some precedent apparently:

> In a novel case of voice theft, a Los Angeles federal court jury Tuesday awarded gravel-throated recording artist Tom Waits $2.475 million in damages from Frito-Lay Inc. and its advertising agency.

> The U.S. District Court jury found that the corn chip giant unlawfully appropriated Waits’ distinctive voice, tarring his reputation by employing an impersonator to record a radio ad for a new brand of spicy Doritos corn chips.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-09-me-238-st...