k310

The article disappeared. No wayback, but here are some related pieces.

What are GMSSELFingestor and IFTranscriptSELFingestor notifications on iMac?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255988020?sortBy=rank

Enjoy the Bounty - Proactive Harvesting in Apple Biomes

https://northloopconsulting.com/blog/f/enjoy-the-bounty---pr...

Biome isn’t about biometrics, but suggestion

https://eclecticlight.co/2022/06/27/biome-isnt-about-biometr...

If you dislike "another proprietary Apple function with no public documentation " there's open source.

I have had some pet projects in my notebooks for years. I made the mistake of moving to the boondocks, where people seem to extend their fear of "over the river and through the woods" even to electronic communication, which is the best way NOT to collaborate on new ideas.

I joined HN, besides lurking, to build "cred" and to improve my communication skills.

I honestly use an auto-pager to save each day's entire HN in a SeaMonkey composer page. As I rapidly page through, some items stand out, and I read them on the spot and save as pdf's.

Any big ones I miss show up on "best" [0]

I am an infovore, and this limits my HN time. Like an addict treating themself. I am still mostly sane.

New developments I find WILL make their way into those ideas, or I'll just hand them to my son in law.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/best

History must be rewritten to support the party.

From Emmanuel Goldstein's work:

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM [0]

PDF download: [1]

As a web page: [2]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oli...

[1] https://archive.org/download/the-theory-and-practice-of-olig...

[2] https://genius.com/Emmanuel-goldstein-the-theory-and-practic...

Free

  Basic Batch Rename
  Standard ZIP Compression
  Image Format Conversion (right click, "Quick Actions")
    Also removes background (better than GIMP does)
  Path Copying Tools

Got 'em and since perl comes with the OS, this batch rename is my "go to" tool.

  $ more ren
  #!/usr/bin/env perl
  # Tom Christiansen <tchrist at convex.com>, in alt.sources, 90-12-08.
  # Modified by Fran?ois Pinard <pinard at iro.umontreal.ca>, 91-04-19.
  #
  # rename script examples from lwall:
  #       rename 's/\.orig$//' *.orig
  #       rename 'y/A-Z/a-z/ unless /^Make/' *
  #       rename '$_ .= ".bad"' *.f
  #       rename 'print "$_: "; s/foo/bar/ if <stdin> =~ /^y/i' *

  $operation = shift;
  for (@ARGV)
  {
      $previous = $_;
      eval $operation;
      die $@ if $@;
      if ($previous ne $_)
      {
          if (-f $_)
          {
              warn "$0: $_ already exists\n";
          }

I also use cdto a lot. Put its icon in the finder toolbar and you can cd to the finder's location with one click.

https://github.com/jbtule/cdto?tab=readme-ov-file#cd-to

"Laziness is the mother of invention."

Before the turn of the century, Jim Taylor and Watts Wacker wrote "The 500 Year Delta", and I recall the mention of "Downward Nobility"

Checking on that, it really refers to products, not people. Insane ostentation is still the rule, with mega-yachts and buying up most of Hawaii, the "norm".

I thought it would be more like myself, wanting not to be a prince, and certainly not wanting to look like one, but to live like one. That hasn't exactly worked out, but my slobbovian clothing is genuine.

Wolves in sheep's clothing.

Help me out here. I visited Wikipedia to check if the post was real, in this post-truth era. Wikipedia is usually quick to update, but not this time. When it was updated, I had 8 minutes to update my post, which I did.

HN disables edits after one hour, which, in a world of "nothing but change," can make one look mighty foolish, and I have in the past asked for a post to be removed.

I am just puzzled why anyone would downvote a Wikipedia link. Maybe it's because Earth's magnetic poles are reversing. Maybe not.

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_X._Cringely

  Born Mark Stephens 
    January 28, 1953 (age 73)
    Apple Creek, Ohio, U.S.

JUST updated. I had 8 minutes left to edit this.

Died October 3, 2026 (aged 73)

Why demand that users be human when Grok, the electronic "soul" of the site, isn't?

It's asymmetrical warfare against users.

Again.

Oh, and bot accounts aren't a problem. They're a feature. Grok can only lie, but it can't amplify the lies. Bot accounts do that, and do it well.

Perhaps the author is too young to remember all the cool science fiction and TV series (Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and so on) that dealt with this issue.

We still have gigantic human problems that go unaddressed, I think, because people are now living in a virtual world (A Matrix of sorts) divorced from real world problems. And fantasy engines are the answer to their virtual world problems.

I guess that Jonathan Swift addressed them as well, with the Laputans, [0]

> The inhabitants of Laputa appear to be people completely cut off from life. They are so deep in abstract thoughts that their wives cheated on them all over and over, and servants have to periodically clap ‘thinkers’ over faces with bull’s bubbles and bring them back to reality.

> And science, devoid of morality and high purpose, is simply dangerous.

[0] https://jgdb.com/literature/study-guides/character-laputans

May be AI. Seems disconnected.

The link is a github login.

https://github.com/login

Too late to edit, so try again, please.

Trump’s ‘Morally Binding’ New AI Guardrails Are Meaningless Pudding [0]

> The 308-word “AI accord” is a load of bullshit and fluff. One, it’s worth noting it couldn’t even spell “United States” properly. Two, most of it is just vaguely urging AI companies to do things they were already doing (poorly).

A good read.

Previously noted on HN with only one comment [1]

[0] https://www.techdirt.com/2026/10/01/trumps-morally-binding-n...

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49921987

From Emmanuel Goldstein's work:

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM [0]

PDF download: [1]

History must be rewritten to support the party.

As a web page: [2]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Oli...

[1] https://archive.org/download/the-theory-and-practice-of-olig...

[2] https://genius.com/Emmanuel-goldstein-the-theory-and-practic...

Well, if it's a presidential agreement, it must be law, under the newly rewritten constitution of the Unites States.

Expect Google and Apple to similarly rename the Unites States.

Can't blame the spell checker. Unites is a valid verb.

I was super busy in 1989 with work and family. I was "Mister Mom" for the evening shift, talk about busy.

Worth a look-see. Thanks. I saw the Lon Chaney Jr. and Lionel Atwill, when we had the "slightly above lowest tier" cable, which brought the old movie channels.

All a stupid person needs is a lot of stupider people.

People who project their own fears, weaknesses and failures onto others are easy marks for exploitation, selling their own fortune, honor, opportunity and welfare for a change to "own" some minority. It varies from exploiter to exploiter. Lately, "Foreigners, Minorities, Women, Socialists, Gays and Liberals" in the graphic. [0] Stock fascist playbook.

Every appeal is to "the old brain".

[0] https://i.ibb.co/JtSWj63/Voterep-1.jpg

Meta and Google are in effect, utilities which regulate themselves.

The result is predictable.

The current ultra-libertarian trend makes this even worse. i.e.

> Trump’s ‘Morally Binding’ New AI Guardrails Are Meaningless Pudding [0] [1]

Or is that "SI"? Sports Illustrated? System Internationale of units?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49921987

[1] https://www.techdirt.com/2026/10/01/trumps-morally-binding-n...

> How does one keep up when we can produce proofs faster than we can understand them?

Life without understanding may be OK for routine life chores ... we passed that stage when computer chips got into cars and TV sets and when banks turned from calculators to computer iron ... the urge to understand things drives all of science, and innovation.

Arguably, understanding makes us more valuable than machines, adaptable, and happier, especially in our relationships with others. Understanding others lets us give really good advice, rather than milquetoast "reinforcement", which has had devastating (suicidal) effects, when true understanding was needed, and lacking. Ultimately, it's still a world of people. Thoreau warned "But Lo, men have become the tools of their tools" and take that to heart.

Look back at how interpreted languages sped the development cycle, and empowered home users to write working stuff in Basic and Hypercard. Professional work made a leap out of these, but sysadmin people relied on scripting languages to get things done, often in perl and friends.

While the new tools offer a "step up" as noted, turning developers into reviewers, and possibly empowering home users, I see some problems.

AI tends to reinvent the wheel at every turn, and whether I am a professional developer wanting reliable and thoroughly tested routines as building blocks, or the home user not wanting the fridge to launch a DDOS attack on government sites, this seems counter to good practice, and the verbosity makes review difficult, so you have to get your tools to review your tools.

And there's no learning. Our great skill is in confronting the unknown, and ma lose this when everything is a button-push (or prompt) away.

I chug away at piano, rather than letting the MIDI play stuff.

More self-protection than stupidity?

Every action of the current and prior administration have abetted Putin in destroying the United States from within. At the same time, a great deal of legislative, executive (DOJ) and judicial capture have gone into shielding the Epstein sex, blackmail and money-laundering empire from the light of day.

Especially with the money laundering, Putin's lifeblood, there was likely a trio at work (and then there were only two) If so, then the destructive actions can be seen as reaction to blackmail on Putin's part.

Here are some interactive charts of Epstein's network. While association isn't necessarily guilt, it indicates the global scope of his contacts, and possible blackmail victims. You don't make that kind of money in real estate and as a small investment house.

https://epsteinexposed.com/network

https://epsteinsecrets.com/network

https://epsteinweb.org/explore-the-network

https://epsteinatlas.com/

https://epsteinatlas.com/map/

I recall a sci fi movie about a man who grew stronger with electrical current. Man made monster.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-Made_Monster

You KNOW that we are living in the Twilight Zone right now. Plus a bunch of Star Trek's (Return of the Archons) and some Hitchcock. Bang! You're Dead. With Billy Mumy.

https://slate.com/culture/2013/05/alfred-hitchcock-gun-contr...

I went to the store today ...

Food items that yesterday contained ARTIFICIAL ingredients, today have SUPERIOR ingredients.

Wilhoit's law.

“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

https://pylimitics.net/wilhoits-law/

How would management know if you're using AI or not, and what you're using it for, other than the cost?

I have found most bosses to be pretty damn dense, mostly interested in making sparkling reports to THEIR boss. In fact, I rated them by how fast they stole my ideas. The ideas weren't so brilliant, so I was glad to let go of them, as long as they got a life somehow.

The sharpest bosses (rare) would steal them with a week. One took about 6 years, and got them wrong. A couple of us were and are real open source junkies and argued that instead of screen-scraping various Learning Management Systems, (LMS) all of which had proprietary databases to lock school systems into their software with no possibility of export, that we give away a database schema for all schools use open source, and sell the software around it in a competitive marketplace.

It's called giving customers choice. Nahhhhhhhhhh.

He later scrawled a big brainstorm map on a board, mentioning the open source LMS, Sakai [0] Showing his deep understanding of open source, he spelled it "Sockeye".

I read tech magazines and one issue of "Fast Company" (2005) was on my desktop. When the boss entered the office for who knows what, he couldn't get his eyes off the magazine cover. It was a picture of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons with a feature article "Is Your Boss a Psychopath?" [1] I would have gotten the magazine without it, but (surprise) he aced the quiz inside.

I'm not making this up. [2] Image hosted at x02.me

Conclusion: Try to outsmart management. It's easy. I did it many times. I'll share some later on.

Cheers.

[0] https://www.sakailms.org

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20050709032131/http://www.fastco...

[2] https://x02.me/i/sCWcAj.jpg

Libertarians.

As Scott McNealy bragged about having one of the first P.T.Cruisers, "I've got mine."

We had a fridge years ago that was dumb in the sense that its non-fridge function to the user was only some temperature indicators (and probably controls, I forgot)

One day they stopped working and the fridge had to be rebooted.

I read that younger people have no concept of files or filesystems.

"Just search baby!"

And now "someone else's database"

Books are essentially files (chapters) bound together by being coherent, consistent, aligned and building upon each other. This is not something you want to see go away. I have used "The Internet of Unconnected Bytes" for too long.

Putting things together in interesting and valuable ways is a creative act. Files are that way.

Applesauce isn't.

It's real. Try growing old. You move to the woods because of the divorce, you have half the money and can't afford to live where there are people. The nearest towns with people (say, universities as well) are 50 miles away.

People don't even answer text messages and emails, as if they are coming from Mars and there's a surcharge on long distance calls.

Who here wakes up, looks at the phone and there are zero dots?

Geez, I send messages, really nice photos, encouragement, invitations. Growing old ain't easy.

Apple, hire me! I have a habit of simplifying things by introducing bizarre complexity.

If the watch recorded the very unique motion I use to instill my eye drops, GREAT, but I use little magnets on the range hood to record my eye drop activity (give or take a few times I forget)

Where I differ is that I actually realize the folly of "simplifying by making more complex" and "drop" the matter. Complexity bias remains a hobby with me instead of a business model.

Trump won by convincing people who were not reaping the benefits that billionaires enjoyed that they were WINNERS. Usually at the expense of minorities least able to protect themselves. The billionaires remained the only WINNERS, and the myth is fading rapidly as the reality sets in.[0]

And so, something "artificial" is renamed "super" despite having flaws that "ordinary" can discern.

And so Velveeta is renamed "Camembert"

[0] https://x02.me/i/tv6spw.pdf (pdf 1.3MB graphic)