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ear7h

198 karma · joined December 13, 2018

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ear7h··on Stop eating Lady Gaga's Oreos
> Everyone now has the ability to go viral and make it big financially, so it does feel like much of our actions (even if that's not our goal) are shaped that way. A random person may not want to be a rich, famous Instagram influencer... but that doesn't stop them from acting similarly (posting photos for likes).

This is a good point. Though I think I'd phrase it as: the ubiquity of the revenue streams means all behavior plausibly looks like profit seeking behavior. I don't mean to be nitpicky, but I think the problem or danger lies in the effect it has on the observer, rather than the actor. To me, it's not so bad that someone might engage in profit seeking, as a little treat or way of life, but that this seems indistinguishable in social media means I engage skeptically to what could be genuine social behavior. "The only winning move is not to play" if you want to avoid being a pawn in someone's profit game. But this comes at the cost of killing the social game, the reason I'm on the app to begin with! Of course, I could just log-off; but also not playing the (profit) game could mean ignoring goal, while still making moves in the social game.

ear7h··on 'Pervert glasses': Backlash against Meta's smart glasses grows
Curiousity is characterized by the pursuit for the answer, not the ability or speed to find the answer. You can still be curious without a google search bar, and I often find those pursuits are (1) much more rewarding and (2) stick around enough to become knowledge.
ear7h··on The Gargantuan Lie That Is Collapsing the Climate
I think this has to do with the fact that the public has caught on to greenwashing. One example that sticks out in my head is the "save a tree use a plastic bag" thing. I think the appeal to environmentalism was enough to change customer behavior, or at least not cause resistance, but the real motivation for the change was probably financial.
ear7h··on Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025)
Some commenters here talking about anxiety, but I think the bigger cause, which many people don't know, is that THC significantly increases your heart rate despite it's usual characterization as a depressant. If I recall correctly (big "if" considering the circumstances hah) my heart rate after smoking would go up by 10-20 BPM (from 65-70 to 80-90) while still feeling relaxed; ~~finding some numbers on this from a reputable source is difficult right now and this symptom is suspiciously missing from the wikipedia page~~.

Edit:

Realized this comment sounds like fear mongering, so decided to dig up some actual sources. The wiki page I needed to find was:

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

Also, the CDC page mentions it:

https://www.cdc.gov/cannabis/health-effects/heart-health.htm...

And links to this paper (though I can't read past the abstract bc no institutional access):

https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1552-4604.2002.tb06005.x

ear7h··on San Diego photologs from the 1970s
The Les Girls sign has stood at the same place basically unchanged until a few months ago, iconic. I remember when I first came across these videos I was living in an area of the city that was hardly developed and mostly dirt roads it was baffling. But aftwards I moved to the center of the city and it was baffling for the opposite reason, the storefronts and buildings were basically the same. Looking at the street view now and downtown also looks similar but a lot more trees.

Edit:

Looks like the author only has a reference to a subset of the originals on archive.org. There's tons more for more rural parts of SD you can find them on the city website:

https://www.sandiego.gov/digitalarchives/film-audio/street-v...

ear7h··on You are not your job
Throughout this diatribe I think you had multiple opportunities to see the value of human life. That you didn't, makes me think you actually don't value your own life and while that's entirely your right. But, to project onto others that they're "in denial" for valuing their own, their families', or complete strangers' lives isn't the radical ultra-rational flex you think it is.

To pick one mere point where you might have chosen to value life otherwise:

> They're not a rare thing like say, gold.

You mean the gold that's a relatively common chemical in the universe? You're comparing the elementary particle formed by astronomical processes to somethings which (even if metaphorically) exists only within organisms so complex we have yet to find signs of similar complexity in the universe.

What you say is cold, but hardly truth.

ear7h··on Nmap in the movies (2008)
> At least it is a lot more realistic than silly 3D animation approach used in many previous movies (e.g. "hacking the Gibson" on Hackers, or the much worse portrayals on Swordfish)

One of the things I love about Hackers is that it portrays the feeling of hacking and programming to someone who might not have done it. Yea I think a lot of people have the green text hackerman image when they think about hacking but it hardly conveys what's happening inside the head of the hacker, it's just something cryptic magic that solves a problem and advances the plot. In Hackers, the Gibson is a space, somepeople live there and oversee it, other's have to transport themselves (there's a montage with fast shots of a subway, then computer circuit boards, then the "buildings" of the gibson that work really well imo). Not every film has to convey all of this but I really appreciate that Hackers does.

ear7h··on Tell HN: I'm 60 years old. Claude Code has re-ignited a passion
This idea of LLMs a vehicle of midlife crisis is fascinating. I'm not sure if it's just about "throwing the fastball" though. Most of the usual midlife crisis things are a rejection of virtue. For example: buying a porsche, pickign up a frivolous hobby, or cheating on your wife, these are irresponsible uses of money, time, or attention that a smart, dedicated, family man wouldn't partake in.

In relation to LLM usage I think there's two interepretations. 1) This midlife crisis is a rejetion of empathy, understanding, and social obligation however minute. Writing a one-sentence update on an issue, understanding design decisions of another developer, reading documention are all boilerplate holding them back from their full potential in a perfectly objective experience. Of course, their personal satisfaction still relies on adoption of their products by customers (though decades of viewing customers through advertising surveillance has stripped away the customers' humanity from their perspective). Or 2) economic/political factors such as inflation, rising unemployment, supply chain issues, starvation of public services, and general instability means doing the usual midlife crisis activities are too expensive or risky, and LLMs present a local optmimum allowing them to reject societal virtues (eg. craftsmanship, collaboration, empathy) without endangering their financial position. Funny enough, I feel this latter point was also a factor of the NFT bubble (though, the finances were more clearly dubious).

ear7h··on Loops is a federated, open-source TikTok
This identity politics/virtue signaling seems off topic.

> I havent used Loops

I think the worst repercussion of consuming short form content is that it gives the _consumer_ a false sense of engagement. That their passive consumption endows them with knowledge and credibility, leading to the deluded belief that a display of disintirest such as this one is 1) appropriate and 2) a profound condemnation rather than the petty, irrelevant whine that it is.

ear7h··on I found a useful Git one liner buried in leaked CIA developer docs
I would have thought someone of such extensive life experience would be more comfortable with the uncovering of an unknown than to characterize it as "driving division and strife". It is undestandable to have a chip on your shoulder in the face of the ageism rooted within the tech industry, but my "digital hermaneutics" is simply a fact and not an attempt at toppling your "stats/prestige" of being a day-1 git user, there is no need to be defensive about it.
ear7h··on I found a useful Git one liner buried in leaked CIA developer docs
Does asking rhetorical questions count as effective argumentation?

If I do enough sealioning will my unsupported thesis be belived?

What about imposing my modern perspective into a chain of historical events to prove my own perspective?

Further, I'm going to use technical jargon to get around Occam's razor.

You seem very serious about this, I think wasting time on something silly could be good for you.

ear7h··on I found a useful Git one liner buried in leaked CIA developer docs
Nope, the term comes from bitkeeper which does refer to master/slave.

See this email for some references:

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2019-May/...

ear7h··on 14-year-old Miles Wu folded origami pattern that holds 10k times its own weight
I wonder what was happening 6 years ago that gave him a chance to develop and explore the hobby.
ear7h··on Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native
Wow you're so right, you did such a good job asking computer mommy to confirm your priors!

But actually, that's not the goal here. AI, at least the kind of products that need dedicated datacenters ie. generative, isn't critical infrastructure. The focus is on documents, collaboration tools, file servers, single-sign on, databases etc. that are seemingly monopolized by US providers.

ear7h··on Martin Luther King was talking about a universal basic income before it was cool
"before it was cool" people have been talking about this since at least 1848. But for the average American the fear of the C word seems to outweigh any sense of self preservation.
ear7h··on Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code
I'm not trying to _convince_ a stranger on the internet whether to use AI for their vibe shelf hobby project; I'm engaging with a project being presented by it's creator. Interesting that you think continuing to use AI is some enormous own against my presumed attempt at persuasion. Sounds like maybe you're the one needing validation for your viewpoint. It's clearly easy to achieve such validation given the evidence in this comment section so, I'm not sure why you're seeking it from me.

As for the main concern in your comment, I did in fact read the blog post; see how I quoted multiple parts, verbatim ("word for word")?. I now understand this audience may not be entirely familiar with literature or reading beyond basic instructions from their preferred datacenter or advertising company, but generally the beginning of a piece of writing (the "introduction") serves as the premise while the end (the "conclusion") describes the abstract ideas a reader should take away from the entire piece. I'll even let you in on a little secret: the word "conclusion" is synonymous with "a judgement following logical steps". As I mentioned in my original comment there is also a middle section which can often be more important or meaningful (to both characters and readers) than the introduction or conclusion. Howver, in this piece of writing it amounted to "I didn't know how to do something so I asked AI and when it didn't do the right thing I asked it again" which isn't a very engaging story (there's a similar famous premise about an "oracle" that can respond to three "queries", however the entertainment relies on this limitation). Anyways, the badic premise seems to be well received already and lacking any interesting description of the process, I chose to engage with the conclusion. The question of taste.

The author believes, or rather instructed an LLM to generate an article from the perspective in which someone belives, generative AI can enable the good taste of someone in prototype hell to come to fruition. But in my original comment I'm making the point that creating something of good taste is inextricably linked to engagement with the medium. But the author shows a willful lack of engagement, with their medium whether that be software or a book shelf.

If you'd like to engage with my original comment in good faith, here are some questions: * do you really think this project constitutes good taste? for software? for book shelves? * can someone with an apathy for a craft as extreme the author have good taste? * might this even be considered bad taste given the technological sensibilities of this forum? (disdain for js bloat, foss, "elegant solutions")

ear7h··on Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code
> I own more books than I can read.

> I started asking for things I did not need.

For a community that prides itself on depth of conversation, ideas, etc. I'm surprised to so much praise for a post like this. I'll be the skeptic. What does it bring to you to vibe code your vibe shelf?

To me, this project perfectly encapsulates the uselessness of AI, small projects like this are good learning or relearning experience and by outsourcing your thinking to AI you deprive yourself of any learning, ownership, or the self fulfillment that comes with it. Unless, of course, you think engaging in "tedious" activities with things you enjoy have zero value, and if getting lost in the weeds isn't the whole point. Perhaps in one of those books you didn't read, you missed a lesson about the journey being more important than the destination, but idk I'm more of a film person.

The only piece of wisdom here is the final sentence:

> Taste still does not [get cheaper].

Though, only in irony.

ear7h··on Researchers discover molecular difference in autistic brains
N=32 and

> We want to start creating a developmental story and start understanding whether the things that we’re seeing are the root of autism or a neurological consequence of having had autism your whole life

ear7h··on Third party cookies must be removed
Can't you just work around all of this by proxying to the third party site(s) with a subdomain?
ear7h··on I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time
This sounds like an intellectual debate but there's nothing of substance being said here lol. casey2 thinks British people today are wrongly (naively) complaining about the rich/powerful/elite (structuralism). top1bobby is making fun of casey2 because the latter is using a lot of big words (overwrought) while _reducing_ complicated politics to a single issue; basically "you think you're smart with fancy words but you are just as bad as the people you complain about (P.S. I can use fancy words too)"
ear7h··on The window trick of Las Vegas hotels
I saw that one in the comments section, and I pretty much only agree with the last sentence. We should probably make more human-friendly architecture. However, the rest of the article reeks of eugenics. "Giving input to people who deviate from the norm harms our society". Ironically, that's actually what was bad about Le Corbusier, he was an architectural fascist. It wasn't that his mind processed visual stimuli differently, it's that he hated the way other people saw things. Here's some quotes from "The City of Tomorrow":

"There is only one right angle; but there is an infinityde of other angles. The right angle, therefore, has superior rights over other angles; it is unique and it is constant"

s/right/white/ and s/angle/race/ and you probably have a direct quote from Hitler.

"things which come into close contact with the body, are of a less pure geometry"

You don't have to go around trying to give fake diagnoses to Le Corbusier to find where things went wrong. You just have to listen!

ear7h··on The Fourier Transform, explained in one sentence (2014)
Kind similar is this demonstration on a record player:

https://youtu.be/mRi23ueU7Zk

ear7h··on Using Rust at a startup: A cautionary tale
My devil's advocate take on this article is that they're using Rust as scapegoat to their scaling (team not performance) problems. I use Go at $DAYJOB and we're having similar problems for lead times. OTOH, the novelty of Rust in webdev, means there isn't someone to make a decision like, "we don't need performance, so use threads instead of async and pass everything around in a box". I've sunk plenty of personal time trying to wrangle async on a CRUD app for learning, and I recommend it as an exercise, but I'd avoid async if I was trying to ship something.
ear7h··on Memory Safe Languages in Android 13
I'm guessing if you don't need something low-level/c-compatible in Android you'd reach for Java/Kotlin since it's already engrained in the ecosystem.
ear7h··on Self Hosting a Google Maps Alternative with OpenStreetMap
> Based on the cheapest instance that matches my own PC's specs

I wonder how much comoute and ram you need for the routing part.

When I worked on a maps stack (no routing and cloud) we would only provision a big compute instance for importing data and seeding (pre-caching) the new tiles. The server itself could be less powerful, though you might have to pay extra for more hard drive space.

ear7h··on The End of /R/GPUMining
Looks like it was deleted. From the wayback machine:

Hi All,

We all knew that this day was coming. The day where Ethereum FINALLY merges into Proof of Stake after years of development and delay. As a result, Ethereum can no longer be mined. This is a devastating blow to the mining community as a whole and signals that /r/GPUMining and the corresponding discord server are ready to be shut down.

Yes, there are still coins out there that are minable. Go ahead and go for it, but most of them pose an extremely high risk and the moderators aren't comfortable keeping this subreddit going knowing that it will be used as a platform used to shill and push scamcoins. People already do push shill and scamcoins in this subreddit and discord, but the moderators have done an excellent job of filtering out the obvious shills.

We will keep this subreddit viewable, but we will no longer allow new posts. The discord server will be soon deleted and only /r/gpumining will remain in read-only mode.

While /r/GPUMining will be over, we still encourage you to get involved in crypto communities, join teams, and help push this technology forward to benefit the greater good.

We hope you got in early and made your bag before it was too late.

Thank you for all of the fun through the ups and the downs. We'll see you all around soon!

Thank you,

/r/GPUMining Mod Team

ear7h··on Embed is in C23
Not the parent comment, but my personal use case is for rendering a selectable list. The server side would render a static list with fragment links (ex. `#item-10`) and include elements with corresponding IDs, and a `:target` css rule to unhide the element. This would hopefully be paired with lazy loading the include elements.

edit:

My goal is to avoid reloading the page for each selection and rendering all items eagerly. JS frameworks are the only ones that really allow this behavior.

ear7h··on Riot Games: Artificial Latency for Remote Competitors
> I feel like that's the one scenario you'd care about, making the Busan players have 35 ping was the whole point

I think the key word is "significantly". The post states that the tool was originally developed for matches where both teams would be remotely connected, so neither team would have a significantly different latency (you can usually enginneer this by the first approach they suggested, of picking a server in between two locations).

ear7h··on U.S. eliminates human controls requirement for fully automated vehicles
And then they could optimize the model for efficiency by picking up multiple people that share similar routes. It could even become a public service!
ear7h··on The new silent majority: People who don't tweet
The original thread is literally about the the riots from Jan 6.
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