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john_minsk

479 karma · joined June 28, 2017

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john_minsk··on 5G networks meet consumer needs as mobile data growth slows
Right now - not many. But at some point in the future, if metaverse is everywhere, you can pull out a phone and a combined data for the room you are in might be 100GB. Would we want to have 6G then?
john_minsk··on El Salvador abandons Bitcoin as legal tender
Didn't you get the news: BTC is no longer new money. It is new gold now.
john_minsk··on Cesium for Unreal – Bring the Real World to Unreal Engine
Even if true, still - unification of efforts across multiple industries will create more value and synergies in the long run compared to narrow optimisations.
john_minsk··on Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts
To clarify, I really think that is what's happening. People feel that their future is not a guaranteed success and make safer choices to be clear minded and focused to achieve success. Probably just my bias is talking...
john_minsk··on OpenAI O3 breakthrough high score on ARC-AGI-PUB
My personal 5 cents is that reasoning will be there when LLM gives you some kind of outcome and then when questioned about it can explain every bit of result it produced.

For example, if we asked an LLM to produce an image of a "human woman photorealistic" it produces result. After that you should be able to ask it "tell me about its background" and it should be able to explain "Since user didn't specify background in the query I randomly decided to draw her standing in front of a fantasy background of Amsterdam iconic houses. Usually Amsterdam houses are 3 stories tall, attached to each other and 10 meters wide. Amsterdam houses usually have cranes on the top floor, which help to bring goods to the top floor since doors are too narrow for any object wider than 1m. The woman stands in front of the houses approximately 25 meters in front of them. She is 1,59m tall, which gives us correct perspective. It is 11:16am of August 22nd which I used to calculate correct position of the sun and align all shadows according to projected lighting conditions. The color of her skin is set at RGB:xxxxxx randomly" etc.

And it is not too much to ask LLMs for it. LLMs have access to all the information above as they read all the internet. So there is definitely a description of Amsterdam architecture, what a human body looks like or how to correctly estimate time of day based on shadows (and vise versa). The only thing missing is logic that connects all this information and which is applied correctly to generate final image.

I like to think about LLMs as a fancy genius compressing engines. They took all the information in the internet, compressed it and are able to cleverly query this information for end user. It is a tremendously valuable thing, but if intelligence emerges out of it - not sure. Digital information doesn't necessarily contain everything needed to understand how it was generated and why.

john_minsk··on Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts
Bad times create strong people.
john_minsk··on Niantic announces “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data
Very cool.

However, I can't fully agree that generating 3d scene "on the fly" is the future of maps and many other use cases for AR.

The thing with geospatial, buildings, roads, signs, etc. objects is that they are very static, not many changes are being made to them and many changes are not relevant to the majority of use cases. For example: today your house is white and in 3 years it has stains and yellowish color due to time, but everything else is the same.

Given that storage is cheap and getting cheaper, bandwidth of 5G and local networks is getting too fast for most current use cases, while computer graphics compute is still bound by our GPU performance, I say that it would be much more useful to identify the location and the building that you are looking at and pull the accurate model from the cloud (further optimisations might be needed like to pull only the data user has access to or needs access to given the task he is doing). Most importantly users will need to have access to a small subset of 3D space on daily basis, so you can have a local cache on end devices for best performance and rendering. Or stream rendered result from the cloud like nVidia GDN is doing.

Most precise models will come from CAD files for newly built buildings, retrospectively going back to CAD files of buildings build in last 20-30 years(I would bet most of them have some soft of computer model made before) and finally going back even further - making AI look at the old 2D construction plans of the building and reconstructing it in 3D.

Once the building is reconstructed (or a concrete pole like shown in the article) you can pull its 3D model from the cloud and place it in front of the user - this will cover 95% of use cases for AR. For 5% of the tasks you might want real time recognition of the current state of surfaces for some tasks or changes in geometry (like tracking the changes in the road quality compared with the previous scans or with reference model), but these cases can be tackled separately and having precise 3D model will only help, but won't be needed to be reconstructed from scratch.

This is a good 1st step to make a 3D map, however there should be an option to go to the real location and make edits to 3D plan by the expert so that the model can be precise and not "kind of" precise.

john_minsk··on Niantic announces “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data
Very interesting. What is the current state of this tech?
john_minsk··on Niantic plans a “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data
No. it should be owned by the owners of the land on which these objects are located. You should be able to provide access at different levels of detail to public or private entities that need said access and revoke it at your own will. May be make some money out of it.

3D artist can create a model of a space and offer rights to the owner of the land, who in turn can choose to create his own model or use the one provided by an artist.

john_minsk··on Ask HN: What are you working on (September 2024)?
This is amazing.
john_minsk··on Rerun: Visualize Multimodal Data over Time
Super interesting! Thank you!
john_minsk··on Deliberate Practice and Acquisition of Expert Performance: A General Overview
I've heard that there is Library Genesis extension on Google Chrome that allows you to search catalog right from the browser window. It has everything SciHub has to offer. Article from the post was found without any issue.

Rumors are that extension was working just fine for the past year+ so it is quite reliable.

john_minsk··on Removing stuff is never obvious yet often better
Great post and Elon Musk has similar rule in his thinking.

For anyone who liked the trick in the post consider checking out TRIZ: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ

There are too many interesting ideas in this framework, but one of the first steps in the algorithm of solving a problem is to "Formulate ideal final result", according to TRIZ.

Now the "Ideal final result" has a specific definition: The part of the system doesn't exist but the function is still performed.

I'm having a lot of fun with this and other tools coming from TRIZ when solving problems every day. You might like it as well!

As for A/B testing and getting unexpected results: inside TRIZ there is explanation why it works - it is called "Psychological innertion". i.e. when engineer is getting a problem it is usually already formulated in a certain way and engineer has all kinds of assumptions before he even starts solving a problem. This leads to him thinking along specific "rails" not getting out of box. Once you have algorithm like TRIZ, it allows to break through psychological innertion and look at the problem with clear eyes.

Some other trick one might use to find interesting solutions to the problem from the post: "Make problem more difficult". I.e. instead of how to make calculator simple and unrestandable, formulate it in a different way: "how to make calculator simple and unrestandable, visual, fun to use and interact with, wanting to share with your collegues?"

"Turn harm into benefit". calculator in the post is treated as a necessary evil. Flip it. Now we have a calculator, but we could show some extra info next to prices, which our competitors can't do. We can compare with competitors and show that our prices are better, calculator can serve as a demo of how customer is always in control of their spending as the same interface is available after they become customer to control their spend etc.

Formulating this way already gave me some ideas what could be added to calculator to make it work.

Hope it helps someone.

john_minsk··on Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?
This is super cool!

As a marketing spin for this - consider packaging it into Nvidia NIM format and make it generate 3D graph as 3D OpenUSD scene. From where I'm standing this route has a lot of potential.

Also if you never looked into it there is a project called wikidata. There each object contains a unique ID and hierarchy, which helps build semantic web. Exploring their data using your interface might be effective. (please check similar projects though as an idea seems straightforward and someone might have already done that for them)

john_minsk··on Open Source Farming Robot
Interesting. A while ago I heard about a project to use laser with AI to grow salmon and protect from parasites[1]

Would it be a terrible idea to destroy weeds with laser shots? Or crops don't provide enough margin for such advance tech?

1. https://www.stingray.no/delousing-with-laser/?lang=en

john_minsk··on "Superintelligence" 10 years later
Interesting. Could you share what are you interested in at the moment?
john_minsk··on Next gen 3D metal printing
On a second read, I would like to rewrite your workflow as follows:

I would prefer to be able to:

[x] buy a GPU, -> [v] Download SimReady USD of your GPU from nVidia website.

[v] whip up some CAD

[v] import USD of nVidia card into CAD

[v] measure the geometry using CAD

[v] Design cooling element

-> Export CAD to USD

-> Import CAD as SimReady Asset into nVidia Omniverse with tests you need.

-> Once simulation is OK send final CAD to production (or better from GPU simulation into simulation of production on one of the factories or 3d printers)

In this scenario:

- SimReady USD of a GPU must already exist inside nVidia. They could make it available for simulation inside Omniverse. (or build open high level model yourself)

- Thermal simulation app is something that nVidia needs for their business now and in the future. They could share current software with public and let people like you download it, change it and run simulations with your changes (or build open high level model yourself)

I'm wondering how difficult it would be to simulate important effects on your models. Do you think the above process has potential to improve your process or did I miss some important detail of your work?

john_minsk··on Next gen 3D metal printing
If I understand correctly: you want to create your own design of a water cooling for your GPU (let's say RTX4090) - test it to make sure it will work in the real world - and once test is successful send your CAD to factory and they can produce and assemble all components?

Are you doing it for the whole cooling unit from scratch or just 1 part? (like a fan or some holder)?

What is the most common reason you would order v2 from the manufacturer after you receive v1 and test it in the real world?

john_minsk··on Next gen 3D metal printing
Very detailed description. Would it be a bad idea for your customers to take your design document and test it in virtual environment and once tests are passed - you would go to production right away?
john_minsk··on Ask HN: Shaking Up YouTube Recommendations
Just a friendly suggestion to read: https://madebyjamie.com/003-the-builders-high/ https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-builders-high/?ref=ma...

Or a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpdQOGNO2rY

Have a great day

john_minsk··on Elon Musk drops suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman
Can't make decision for myself. Article doesn't contain picture in question or a link to a tweet or anything of that nature. Given that current internet narrative is neurotic and even smallest questions are blown out of proportions I tend to think that offence was not that big, otherwise FBI would request IP address of the guy and put him in jail (much better outcome then "ban his twitter account")
john_minsk··on Elon Musk drops suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman
Love his response. Makes total sense to me.

This paywall is crazy.

john_minsk··on Elon Musk drops suit against OpenAI and Sam Altman
Interesting. What makes "political and economic opinions" bad?
john_minsk··on GPUs Go Brrr
Great attention to detail! I, like the parent, was surprised by the quality as well. However now I can't unsee it:-)
john_minsk··on Open source AI will win
Isn't there some kind of standard for publication metadata? The one which will allow to uniquely identify publication + further track different editions as children of "original" publication? Maybe we should create one and make it freely available?
john_minsk··on ProtonMail Complied with 5,957 Data Requests in 2022 – Still Secure and Private?
For a very long time I saw articles on self hosting, where people complain that their emails are filtered out by big providers and it is no longer feasible. How do you deal with this part?
john_minsk··on Show HN: Serverless VPN, pay as you go, unlimited devices, no subscriptions
Just a suggestion: drop these providers
john_minsk··on French tax officials use AI to spot 20k undeclared pools (2022)
Gardens must be taxed too then.
john_minsk··on Vimium – A browser extension that provides Vim-style keyboard controls
Always wondered what's this bar doing when accidentally pressing 'b' in the browser:-D Thanks!
john_minsk··on Vimium – A browser extension that provides Vim-style keyboard controls
Kudos. If I need to do something or return to something it becomes a card in Trello, not a tab which I always need to evaluate if I need it open or not, is it important or not, what did I want to do with this information last time I saw it etc.

And Trello card is an action item which will eventually get to the "DONE" column, will be decomposed into actionable items or will be deleted/archived during the next review event.

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