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moj

53 karma · joined January 27, 2011

iOS app developer, ex-apple, dinosaur (40+), student of mysticism (shamanism, buddhism, sufism, .-ism it's all good)
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moj··on Ross Ulbricht granted a full pardon
I'll share my experience, too: I live near Glen Park and was in Bello that day, taking up one of those coveted seats, as all this was happening. I recall being aware of a lot of police cars outside, and perhaps seeing the phalanx around Ross as they walked past the window. Clearly something big was going on, but I stepped outside and the street was already back to normal. Shrug, perhaps I'll hear about it on the evening news. Not a peep. :-)

It was only some months & years later that I heard about Glen Park, the library, and Bello being part of the drama, and other local landmarks. To this day I keep hearing about other local details. (I learned a few months ago that his group house was on Monterey Blvd, not far from the conservatory).

Looking back, I had noticed a number of 'out-of-town' business people in Bello around that time. Glen Park is a busy local scene, but gets very few visitors, so they stuck out. Clean cut, business casual, but not FiDi types. They were cheerful but not interested in chatting. Who would go to a cafe and not want to socialize, I wondered? I thought perhaps realestate people.

I went to Bello frequently then, and must have seen Ross there a few times too, but I only vaguely recall once or twice. Something drew my attention to his laptop, maybe it had an EFF sticker on it? But he likewise didn't seem interested in conversation. I do recall once he was talking with an older man, in his 50's or early 60's, about libertarianism.

moj··on My Dinner With Andre (1981) [full movie]
Loved this film for ages. First the Wally character, then decades later the Andre character. Film-wise it also took me ages to realize how carefully crafted it was; it comes off as casual at first but step through a few scenes frame-by-frame and you realize the depth.
moj··on Sleep technique used by Salvador Dalí works
I experienced such states on several occasions, usually randomly once every two or three years. I resolved to explore it if it happened again, and sure enough I was ready when it did.

I soon discovered you don't have to wait years; it can happen a few times a week.

Simple technique: - wait until you've woken up after a dream. (so technically hypnopompic, not hypnagogic, but more powerful imho) - Any dream will do, but be careful not to drift back into normal consciousness (so don't think of work, taxes, todo's, etc) - instead, imagine something fanciful. Like swinging at a baseball in dodger stadium in slow-motion, or, my favorite, imagining you have the worlds smallest record player between your fingers & playing a song you like (funk music is good for this) - stay with the humorous feeling, let it grow awhile - after a minute or two, you should find the dream state has stabilized - once it's stable, and only then, call up a problem or life situation you'd like insight into, or just explore the landscape (what's behind that circus tent?) - try not to get too intellectual or willful, it can dispel the state

NB: no drugs required. But caffeine in the evening can increase the odds of waking after dreaming.

moj··on Psychedelics alter metaphysical beliefs
Try getting there without the drugs, it's not difficult. It might require a weekend workshop or two, but it's quite doable.

Of course, this will also open up new horizons for doubt, too. Ymmv.

moj··on Highlights of new technologies introduced at WWDC 2021
Yes, async/await will be terrific. It's been a long time coming though; I've been expecting it 'real soon now' for over 3 years: https://gist.github.com/lattner/429b9070918248274f25b714dcfc...
moj··on People Drawn to Conspiracy Theories Share a Cluster of Psychological Features
And famously Martin Luther King Jr, even Hemingway.

TL;DR: His friends were disturbed by his paranoia that the FBI was following him. But years later it turned out to be based on fact: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/opinion/02hotchner.html

moj··on An industrious mouse tidies up a retired electrician’s tool shed each night
Reminds me of a strange story of mysterious 'modern art' arrangements, of leaves and twigs, that appeared every morning on a workshop stoop (spoiler, it was a fieldmouse): "Elena's Messages: From Her Big Sur Sanctuary" https://www.amazon.com/Elenas-Messages-Her-Big-Sanctuary/dp/...
moj··on What If Consciousness Comes First?
> Science simply hasn't FOUND [...] I personally believe in time we will

Lets call that Scientism. Beliefs about what may be discovered later are just beliefs, something that should be considered anathema to science itself. (Of course these beliefs may or may not come true, and curiosity about them may indeed provide insight that allows their eventual discovery.) But in the meantime unfounded beliefs may indeed hamper further scientific insight and discoveries. Ironic, given the history of science & faith, that science might be stymied by limitations of its own faith.

moj··on ATDT relief
> jailbreak [...] iPhone

Also used in voting machines which "aren't connected to the internet" (!)

e.g. https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2018/02/22/are-voting-machine-...

Some of these GSM modems have AT-commands to upload & run sophisticated, persistent LUA scripts. (Scripts that can can make tcpip connections over GSM, communicate to host hardware via I2C or uart, send SMSs, etc). The possibilities are wide ranging, using officially supported features; no hacking necessary.

see: https://simcom.ee/documents/SIM5320/simcom_lua_application_n...

moj··on ATDT relief
ATS11=50? 25?

Yes, I think I typed that before every dial.

moj··on ATDT relief
Several billion are being carried around right now in people's pockets, actually: the baseband processor in mobile phones use ATDT/Hayes commands to talk to the host processor(!).

It's quite interesting how the command set has been extended for modern needs, for example see: https://www.u-blox.com/sites/default/files/u-blox-CEL_ATComm...

moj··on MIT Researchers Have Developed a ‘System for Dream Control’
"The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep" by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is excellent. The terminology can feel alien or intimidating, but if you're receptive you can see results quickly. Bonus: The author & his organization give many workshops, in the US and abroad, even online.
moj··on ARKit
> part of the platform, requires no external libs [...]

Sadly this also means Apple will only update it in subsequent versions of the OS. This is a big deal when choosing a target platform, e.g. ARKit 11 vs ARKit 12.

For example when iOS 12 comes out your target audience will be split, some with ARKit 11 and some with 12. You'll have to decide if you want the new features in 12 or ability to run on devices still using iOS 11.

Compare with other game platforms, which insulate you from underlying tech changes. For example a Unity app can be updated and use the latest Unity features, even on an old iOS.

[FWIW Apple could update ARKit independently of iOS, but that's not been their pattern]

moj··on After Last Call: A Bartender Trades SoHo for Serbia to Reclaim His Mansion
Looks like this is the house on streetview: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.8038344,20.4722595,3a,75y,37...
moj··on Twitter Is Tracking Users’ Installed Apps for Ad Targeting
It's a lower-level c-api, so perhaps it's slightly harder to scan for in the submitted binaries?

Its overdue blocking/nerfing, and you can start the countdown for that now. (As others have noted). Hopefully it will be anonymized but not completely nixed; it provides legitimate debugging info.

moj··on Twitter Is Tracking Users’ Installed Apps for Ad Targeting
There is also sysctl(), which returns running process info. Not the full installed app list, but arguably more useful and bonus it doesn't rely on app urls.

A (mostly old) discussion about it on stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8275578/how-to-get-inform...

moj··on The reality show: Schizophrenics used to see demons and spirits (2013)
As a mystic that sounds right. I have no knowledge of schizophrenic phenomenon, but it seems to be adjacent territory. The only difference may be that mystical experiences are deeply educational.
moj··on Ask HN: What are you working on and why is it cool?
An ios app to make roadtrip timelapse movies (video + gps = fun). This idea has been on my mind for ages so I finally sat down and built it.

This video, the very first upload, shows it in action. Bonus if you can guess where it is: http://youtu.be/-sFu7xAxt5c

The in-app playback has map route, speed, & direction overlays, not yet present in the video export.

It's not ready for the store yet, contact me if you'd like to beta test.

moj··on Empty F-16 jet tested by Boeing and US Air Force
Looks like that's a picture of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, and not even the whole boneyard:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/309th_Aerospace_Maintenance_and...

https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.17089,-110.855184&q=loc:3...

moj··on ITunes App Store: Buy the Numbers
I'm the author.

I wrote an iOS App Store crawler, and have been picking through the results for the last few days. In this blog post I share some of the oddities and curiosities I found in there.