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coolandsmartrr

2,117 karma · joined November 24, 2013

Based in Tokyo, Japan. Filmmaker of "Searching For Kurosawa"

I interview people here:

http://rickyreports.com

http://rickyreports.jp

Contact:

[username] [at] gmail.com

Kismet: f0329ee9f25e7e82960db06991f707f27714e8e004e2c90254f4832ee16d8783

meet.hn/city/jp-Tokyo

Socials: - github.com/coolandsmartrr - instagram.com/coolandsmartrr - twitter.com/coolandsmartrr

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submissionscomments
coolandsmartrr··on Winning the visa lottery
> Firms that won and could hire all the foreign workers they sought saw revenue rise with an elasticity of approximately 0.20, meaning a doubling of H-2B employment raised revenue by about a fifth. Investment in equipment, vehicles, and structures responded even more strongly, with an elasticity of 1.5 to 2.1.

The "investment in equipment, vehicles, and structures" seem to be referring to Capital-labor ratio, a metric in economics that is often attributed as a good indicator of company productivity. I wonder if firms would still prefer to invest in labor force in lieu of capital, given the greater revenue multiple achieved by capital investment.

While this study pertains to US labor force, it is also salient to the Japanese economy. Here in Japan, we have a shrinking working population. Firms have responded by importing labor from abroad and investing in capital (e.g. automation). For example, convenience stores would hire foreigners, but eventually reduce headcount when they install self-serviced checkout.

coolandsmartrr··on Fable 5.1 Solves the Cyphral Distich, a 370-year-old cipher
FYI https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/business/bitcoin-satoshi-...
coolandsmartrr··on GPT-6 Astra
Yeah, I'm not sure if "no moat" analogy stands for chip manufacturing. Even if foundries acquire lithographic nodes, the procedures (temperature, duration, etc) are for them to figure out and are usually kept secret. This secret could be the "moat" that differentiates each foundry's operational capabilities.
coolandsmartrr··on Canada will match US tariffs 'dollar for dollar' as trade talks break down
Japanese here. Caved is not an accurate expression. After intense negotiations with Trump, Lutnick, and Bessent, Minister Akazawa managed to reduced the tariff from the proposed 25% to 15%. His story of flying weekly to the States on commercial aircraft became legendary.

PM's resignation stemmed from unpopularity not due to tariff negotiation, but diminished ability to pass laws after the ruling party lost significant number of seats in elections for upper and lower houses.

As for other countries around the world, the world-wide inflation caused many ruling parties to lose support.

coolandsmartrr··on Government orders GitHub to remove Bluetooth-based chat app Bitchat: Jack Dorsey
To add some context, the removal of trash cans accelerated prior to the hosting of the Tokyo Olympics. The municipal government was concerned about trash possibly overflowing from the can, thereby ruining the appearance of the streets.

Meanwhile, Japanese subway stations still have trash cans, which are only blocked when foreign dignitaries visit the country. It doesn't seem authorities are reacting to the subway attacks from 30 years ago.

coolandsmartrr··on Employers use your personal data to figure out the lowest salary you'll accept
That’s why you have to get competing offers
coolandsmartrr··on Apple's latest attempt to launch the new Siri runs into snags
Funny you should mention social media in the context of Apple, because they seem to have been attempting that with iTunes Ping[1] and then Apple Music.

iTunes Ping was a Jobs-era attempt to create a social network for music. It seems that they were trying to rely on integrating with Facebook, who pulled out of the collaboration in the last minute before Ping's release.

Apple hasn't seem to have given up on social networks for music. Apple Music presents a nascent networking feature where users can see what their friends are listening to.[2] It seems that Apple has learned their lesson from Ping and does not rely on a third-party for a social graph, which is instead powered by iOS contacts.

While social media is not Apple's bread and butter, they have maintained their interest in having presence in this market. I would assume that this stems from Apple's overall desire to maintain influence over on-the-top services that define the iOS experience. If they let third parties flourish even further, thirds parties gain leverage that they can use during negotiations with Apple. If third parties successfully negotiate for more features that creates parity with apps on non-Apple devices, Apple loses its differentiation on the device markets, thereby losing revenue.

(I think Stratechery wrote about Apple's service strategy that was motivated by its past relationships with Adobe and Spotify. Couldn't find the link.)

> We’re not asking them to come up with a better social media, or a better Notion or a better Netflix.

You're right that we haven't asked them for better on-the-top services. But it seems to be in Apple's interest to compete with third party services providers and make sure they do not supersede Apple in terms of their influence over on-the-top experiences.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITunes_Ping

[2] https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/iphone/iphdf490a9e9/io...

coolandsmartrr··on A macOS app that blurs your screen when you slouch
I think this is an interesting application of computer vision for healthcare purposes.

I've noticed that the app tends to use 15% of my CPU constantly. I wonder if there is room to improve efficiency so that the app does not hog resources.

coolandsmartrr··on An illustrated introduction to linear algebra
Yeah, I like this kind of content too. Do you still have the aggregator available online?
coolandsmartrr··on An untidy history of AI across four books
How does that compare to "The NVidia Way" by Tae Kim?
coolandsmartrr··on macOS 26 Tahoe's Dead Canary Utility App Icons
I feel that he became critical of Apple only post-Jobs.
coolandsmartrr··on macOS 26 Tahoe's Dead Canary Utility App Icons
This comment reminds of me of these such philosophical dualisms:

- Form (Formal Blueprint of Ideas) vs Appearances (Actual Manifestation of Ideas) (Plato)

- Noumenal (how things are in themselves) vs Phenomenal (how things appear) (Immanuel Kant)

Gruber has been an idealistic and longtime Apple observer. This is probably why he seems to invoke the Idea of Apple to compare and critique the current Appearance of Apple.

Fascinated to see a remark on HN that reminds me of this concept in philosophy.

coolandsmartrr··on EconTeen – Financial literacy lessons and tools for teens
Could you make the curriculum visible on the landing page? I'm sure students/customers want to understand what kind of lessons they're signing up for.
coolandsmartrr··on Show HN: I built a daily sunlight tracker
Looks cool!

A couple questions:

(1) Are you supposed to join the waitlist to use this ("Get Early Access"), or can you just start using via TestFlight ("Download Today")? I see two different links on this page.

(2) How does this app measure the amount of light received by the Apple Watch? Does the Watch have such sensors and expose such APIs?

coolandsmartrr··on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (June 2025)
I wonder if there's a nice film festival in Barcelona or nearby.

Otherwise, I'll let you know once it's widely available.

coolandsmartrr··on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (June 2025)
I made a film called "Searching For Kurosawa". This short documentary chronicles the story of Kawamura, a man who worked with legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa on the set of his opus "Ran". Kawamura was working in the BTS crew, but his footage got confiscated. It took almost 40 years to recover the footage and present that as his feature film.

My film got screened at the Academy Award-qualifying Bali International Film Festival and the Marina Del Rey Film Festival in the past month. It will be screening next month in New York City at the Asian American International Film Festival.

coolandsmartrr··on Adobe Project Indigo is a new photo app from former Pixel camera engineers
Strange, they don't let you download this app from the App Store in Japan.
coolandsmartrr··on Dance Captcha
The idea is funny, but doesn't work too well without a wider-angle webcam. (Arms get cut off from camera view)
coolandsmartrr··on Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality than sleep duration (2023)
How did you fill your schedules despite your initial lack of projects?
coolandsmartrr··on Hacker Typer
I knew about this website for a long time, but I just learned about this easter egg!
coolandsmartrr··on Meta Movie Gen
That quality filter may come from highly-tuned personalization.

I remember seeing low-quality but viral content on YouTube, so I kept telling it "Don't Recommend This" for quite a while (month-ish). Now it's better, but the recommendation algorithm needs a lot of samples labeled negative.

coolandsmartrr··on Stolen iPhones Will Be Even More Useless from iOS 18 Onwards
Would be nice for many other expensive items you take outside, like mirror-less cameras.
coolandsmartrr··on Lip Reading as a Service (Read Their Lips by Symphonic Labs)
I think you just proposed the ideal benchmark material for all future AI lip readings.
coolandsmartrr··on Show HN: Hacker News for film buffs
I suppose Hacker News likewise dissuaded average users with its brutalist design, which made users to focus on the content of their post/comment. Furthermore, ycombinator.com is not a domain that seems friendly to the average user.

Like any social networks, the key to this website's success would be retention. I hope you find a way to make users come back often.

coolandsmartrr··on Show HN: Hacker News for film buffs
I did not know about Lemmy until now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmy_(social_network)

coolandsmartrr··on Show HN: Hacker News for film buffs
Bootstrapping like HN would be ideal, since the users knew each other (YC startup founders) and set the tone for an ideal interaction. I'm not sure if there's a completely analogous gathering for film.

Furthermore, the communities for film appreciation and film making may behave differently on a film news website. While people who appreciate film can candidly talk about films, people who make films have vested stakes. This can make Filmmakers self-censor their thoughts. (e.g. They don't want to openly criticize a veteran filmmaker, since the veterans might have influence in the younger filmmaker's future production.)

coolandsmartrr··on Show HN: Hacker News for film buffs
As someone who has garnered much HN karma commenting on film, I'm glad to see an attempt to make a quality film community. It's difficult to bootstrap an online community, let alone one with the quality of HN. You're going to need visitors who (1) visit frequently and (2) have much insights to offer on film. (2) may be more difficult, because you need people who already educate themselves about film from quality sources. [1] Furthermore, you'll need to moderate heavily to enforce an editorial standard and dissuade low-quality reactions.

I share your frustration with existing online film communities. The problems I notice in online film communities (including the film-specific Letterboxd) are:

- knee-jerk reactions that are paltry in analysis (e.g. "old films are better because they were shot on film" or "how dare you dislike that film")

- churlish reactions getting "likes" in part to its humor, not its content

- comments saying nothing more than "look how beautiful/ugly this is"

A couple of questions:

1) This website may become more valuable if it could attract and retain insightful commenters. Is there any plan to achieve that?

2) What made you focus this website on film news? Are moviegoers more able to comment insightfully on news that is in-the-making?

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[1] This may be the root cause of the decline in the quality of film discussions, like with discussion of many other subjects in our age of social media. Most people do not engage with quality sources, which lowers their expectations for discussions in general. One can still find substantial information in publications that enforce editorial standards, such as trade magazines and journals on film studies.

coolandsmartrr··on Show HN: Find Visa Sponsorsip and Relocation Support Jobs
Hey, cool website you built. A couple questions: (1) How did you source your postings? (2) How do you intend to increase listings?
coolandsmartrr··on FTC sues Adobe for hiding fees and inhibiting cancellations
The idea of "use it at work" may have change drastically with the advent of social media. Nowadays, anyone can become a content creator[1], thereby making their home a place of work. This shift in trend may have compelled Adobe to pursue revenue from individual users, albeit rather aggressively.

[1] On a side note, I lament how this phrasing became over-used by adult content creators, thereby making its connotation strongly affiliated with that industry.

coolandsmartrr··on Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI "Sky" voice
Could you explain what "to use regarding 'tells'" means in this context?
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