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monk1

50 karma · joined December 7, 2017

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monk1··on The tyranny of the algorithm: why every coffee shop looks the same
> Instead of critiquing existing designs - it'd be helpful to have a vision of what locally culturally distinctive designs for a coffee shop or AirBNB could look like. Help us readers envision what a better world..

I agree, but then I'd argue that simply pointing out the homogeneity of cafes (and everything else) might have been the author's goal. To just make you stop and think. The finding of that authentic cafe is left as an exercise for the reader.

monk1··on Life on board a British nuclear submarine (2012)
That's the point.. the whole tuna will most likely send you to eternal sleep
monk1··on Life on board a British nuclear submarine (2012)
>The watch officer and sonar operators are discussing an important philosophical question: would it be more painful to be struck by a whole tuna or a tin of tuna?

Of course the tin of tuna would hurt more. And, I know this is not the question, but being hit by a can of tuna is more probable haha.

But jokes aside, it seems all the monotony does get to them. And such discussions are necessary to maintain ones sanity. I would be a little conflicted if I had such a job. On one hand, the boring routine is the best case, because it means there are no active threats and thus no war. But then again, I'd be secretly looking forward to a bit of action - something to make me feel alive

monk1··on Life on board a British nuclear submarine (2012)
I don't know about the ethics, but I'd argue that people still get born into terrible situations right here on earth. Think of all the children born in war-torn countries, into extreme poverty etc. Even in the midst of all this adversity, they will still find a reason to smile. And some will even make a huge impact in our world.
monk1··on Water
> I’m curious about what’s the best way to go about gathering user feedback and feature requests.

IMO, building in the open is still the best way. But to ensure that you don't end up with a mongrel of a thing that tries to do every single thing requested by everybody, It does help to have a rigid set of goals about what we want to build. And the courage to say NO to feature requests that stray too far from the original design goals.

monk1··on Network protocols for anyone who knows a programming language (2017)
> An interpacket gap of 96 bits (12 bytes) where the line is left idle. Presumably, this is to let the devices rest because they are tired.

This one left me laughing hard.

monk1··on The Joy of Computer History Books
The first Computer History book I ever read was "Forbes Greatest Technology Stories". That was more than 10 years ago.

I found it quite interesting, and I highly recommend it.

monk1··on This Voice Doesn't Exist – Generative Voice AI
Good to see that authors/maintainers of AI models are beginning to think about attribution. But it seems like this will be a hard problem to solve. For example, say my voice was part of the training data set, to what degree can I lay claim to the newly created voices? Also, will there be some sort of grading/ranking (e.g. it could be argued that some of the voices used in the training set are more desirable than others, and therefore their "owners" deserve better fees etc.)?