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braingravy

89 karma · joined January 27, 2022

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braingravy··on Livenerf: Has Opus 5.5 been nerfed yet?
Pretty amazing to see enshitification happen live with a product still in development… Truly web 4.0
braingravy··on OpenAI bots meddled with multiple US Government agency sites
They were never charged, it was just posturing: https://krcgtv.com/news/local/no-charges-for-st-louis-post-d...
braingravy··on Tutoring company tells parents to save their money and 'use AI instead'
I think the shift is in part from learning behavior indicating an ability to apply (‘I wanted to do something so bad I went to the library/college/etc.!’), to the free availability of knowledge leading to a delinkage of knowledge v.s. the ability to apply knowledge and get a desired outcome.

AI can really help the outcome part (by just doing it for you), so for better or worse I see that delinkage continuing.

People who bother to actually learn while using AI will have an edge on those shovel slop, but there’s clearly a difference from previous eras.

braingravy··on Everyone should slow down AI development except for me
Yep, they are setting themselves up for that. He’s already shown he doesn’t understand how to play DC politics. Maybe he’ll learn, but he and Sam have played this so poorly (and greedily) that public sentiment is clearly soiled on AI at this point.

I could see how standing up an independent body could be an easy win in the public eye, it’s becoming low hanging fruit, socially.

braingravy··on Europe's "Less" Is Doing More Than Anyone Gives It Credit For
If ever there was a time to insert a few key visuals to illustrate your point…
braingravy··on The 90-year history of the binoculars bolted to scenic overlooks
Seems like the perfect place to install a credit card scraper… I would not tap anything on that.
braingravy··on US Treasury undertakes historic intervention in yen market
Yeah… what was the point of that?
braingravy··on EU commissioners shut down air conditioning for employees, leave theirs on
Sounds good! It was a waste to begin with. They can handle first-class.
braingravy··on US DHS put out alert on comedian who created parody ICE tip website
Video in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJnkikcrHA0
braingravy··on A message from President Kornbluth about funding and the talent pipeline
It’s not crazy… the wages are below food prep. What would be crazy is paying to help someone else’s career. That’s why a well known rule of thumb for graduate program evaluation is whether or not they pay their grad students.

If they pay their grad students, then at least the time the grad students spend creates enough value to offset the cost of paying them.

If not, stay far away from the program.

Also, regarding the career comment: If graduate school is not at least the first step in a given career (it should the second, undergrad being the first), how/why do you expect gifted intellectuals to spend their prime wage earning years doing it?

Most people do not have access to enough wealth to spend prime wage earning years toiling to help someone else’s career with no return on investment.

braingravy··on America's carpet capital: an empire and its toxic legacy
The chemical differences between PFAS and vitamin A and B6 are beyond vast.

Comparing them betrays a complete ignorance of the molecular properties that, in combination with biological system processes, make A and B6 healthy at small doses and poisonous at large doses on one hand, and those that makes PFAS linearly poisonous at any given doses on the other. (And yes, you can be exposed to small amounts of toxins and be fine. That doesn’t change the toxicity of a given substance.)

Struggling to see how this could be anything but a bad faith argument.

braingravy··on Little Snitch comes to Linux, but the core logic is closed source
They really are… and it’s just one person too, right?

They’re doing the lord’s work.

braingravy··on Artemis II will use laser beams to live-stream 4K moon footage at 260 Mbps
If you have to make that trade off you’re already in trouble.
braingravy··on The bot situation on the internet is worse than you could imagine
> “…reverse-engineering the computational dynamics of a biological brain and reproducing them in real time…”

Is not an anti-AI argument, it’s an open and unsolved question. Your optimism is appreciated, but the dismissal and assumption this is already solved is foolish and naive.

braingravy··on Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events
Mid-tier or not is a judgement call.

Regardless, Lia went from not being in the front of the pack, to being in the front of the pack:

“By the conclusion of Thomas's swimming career at UPenn in 2022, her rank had moved from 65th on the men's team to 1st on the women's team in the 500-yard freestyle, and 554th on the men's team to fifth on the women's team in the 200-yard freestyle.”

65th to 1st in one category, and 554th to 5th in another.

It is fair to say there was a significant increase in rank post-transition.

braingravy··on Anthropic Cowork feature creates 10GB VM bundle on macOS without warning
I use GP, would recommend as well; it generates great color codes tree maps of your storage. Once you get used to navigating it that way, you won’t go back.
braingravy··on A new California law says all operating systems need to have age verification
Isn’t it more of a reflection of the current law? Age gates have long been self service (e.g., “enter your birthday”), and we have laws on the books for quite some time barring minors.

There is certainly a risk of what you’re describing with KYC tech that coming online, but I don’t know if that means it will happen.

To play devils advocate; It’s a reasonable demand from parents to control what their children are exposed to. This seems to support that.

braingravy··on US orders diplomats to fight data sovereignty initiatives
So, the premise is high drug costs in the US subsidize drug prices in the EU.

Presumably this conclusion was arrived at because pharma companies sell drugs at a higher cost in the US than they do in EU, Canada, or anywhere else. Therefore elevating profits in the US relative to profit margins in other nations. (Note: they reportedly use the profit to develop new drugs, so this is where the subsidization comes into play, as higher profit markets will drive increased revenue and future drug development.)

And your argument against the premise is: 1. The EU is not at fault, and 2. Drugs cost more in the US because of the poor healthcare system.

Argument 1 does not attack the premise: Undoubtedly the EU is not at fault, the EU does not set drug prices in the US. Pharma companies do, within the context of the US economy, of course.

The premise does not assign fault, it’s an assessment of where profit comes from.

Argument 2 is more direct in addressing the premise, but still misses the point: you might be right, mostly right, or you could be wrong. I lean toward agreeing with the point you made (US healthcare system sucks), it doesn’t address the profit differential across different nations.

So, what about the premise is weak and incomplete?

Pharma shareholders want profit, and the US supplies that at a greater rate than the EU (likely due to the regulatory environment). They’ll take a lower profit margin vs. no profit at all, so they operate accordingly.

None of that goes against the premise that the extra profit from the US market is subsidizing the research costs for drug products that enter the EU market.

braingravy··on A Botnet Accidentally Destroyed I2P
That’s a great question… Currently we’re in the main Chinese holiday period with the Lunar New Year/Spring Festival/Chinese New Year, so perhaps people traveling back home from foreign lands might use the service more during this time?
braingravy··on European lawmakers suspend U.S. trade deal
America great? Lol… I didn’t say it was a good thing.

Regardless, most EU nations do spend relatively little on their military compared to the U.S., hence the reliance.

Sorry to break it to you.

braingravy··on European lawmakers suspend U.S. trade deal
That would require a military arsenal. The EU outsourced that to the U.S. a long time ago.
braingravy··on IBM AI ('Bob') Downloads and Executes Malware
For Power BI + AI work, you can use the JSON formatted .pbip report and semantic model files. Just fyi.
braingravy··on Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves
“almost nothing” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Stalking someone from your desk vs. IRL is a whole different ball game. Not sure why this needs explanation… anyways, the main difference is how easy it do things from your desk. For example, no one see you when you’re stalking someone from your desk. Think of the success of 4chan investigations vs. those in authority to actually do so. It’s empowering.

We live in a world of strangers, and unfortunately a % of those are the type to kill/rape other strangers. Why enable them?

Not sure who else would be empowered by making all public camera accessible at the click of a button, but I’m interested in who you think that population is.

Certainly we can agree most normal folks will not spend their time looking camera feeds of strangers?

I’m fascinated by people who stick to their theoretical principles (‘all data should be public’, etc.) no matter the real world implications, but we all have our own interests :).

braingravy··on Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves
It’s anonymity of the viewers combined with mass open-access surveillance that enables an unheard of level of stalking capacity.

Most people don’t like the idea that strangers could easily stalk their child remotely.

It’s the easy of access to surveillance technology that is different. Has nothing to do with the park being safe or not.

Try to think like an evil person with no life and very specific and demonic aims if you’re still having trouble seeing why this would be an issue.

braingravy··on Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves
Yep. Until we start holding decision makers responsible for the consequences of their decisions, they will always choose the selfish option.
braingravy··on Explaining the widening divides in us midlife mortality: Is there a smoking gun?
Yeah it seems silly.

Why is college the primary group factor…? Is there some sort of health effect of sitting college classrooms for 5 years? Seems unlikely.

College education is highly associated and predicted by income/access to wealth.

Wealth inequality seems like a more likely explanation. Not seeing how they controlled for that across college vs non-college groups.

braingravy··on Cheese Consumption and Dementia in Older Japanese Adults: The Jages Cohort Study
The blood vessels in the brain prevent cholesterol from passing through due to the blood-brain barrier.

The first part of this abstract breaks down the current understanding nicely: https://www.mdpi.com/1467-3045/47/2/115

braingravy··on I have recordings proving Coinbase knew about breach months before disclosure
Are banks breached at the same rate as bitcoin brokers? I think that was op’s point.
braingravy··on China's New Rare Earth and Magnet Restrictions Threaten US Defense Supply Chains
What a hilarious world view that humanity majors are running the U.S.

The U.S. is ran by wealthy elites, who run the U.S. in such a way to make themselves more wealthy.

Of course they would outsource every job and business related resource mining operations if that meant more profit in the short term. It’s just good business!

braingravy··on When private practices merge with hospital systems, costs go up
In the richest country that has ever existed? The one that sends 1/3 of food into the dump? (https://refed.org/downloads/refed-2025-us-food-waste-report....)

Yes, obviously yes. If someone can’t pay for food, we clearly have enough to go around.

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