796 karma · joined August 29, 2009
Giant Steps is more abstract but still worth dipping into once in a while.
Here is a musical analysis of Giant Steps (basically the Circle of Fifths):
If memory serves, one student objected strenously and ran the professor's own work (published 10 years earlier) into the same tool and it flagged that work as AI-generated.
EDIT: HN item from June 2023 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36215823
A similar dynamic occurred in the early days of search engines.
BTW, the RedNote userbase in China is 70% female, similar to Pinterest in the US. That may be why there's an affinity with a portion of the Tiktok userbase. The RedNote users are not into politics (at least were not). They cats, cooking, fashion, interior decorating, travel, sports.
Unfortunately, I fear we will instead end up sweaty and dirty and bloodied, grappling in the parched terrain, trying to bash members of a neighboring clan with rocks and wooden clubs, while a skyline of crumbling skyscrapers looms in the distance.
I have worked on simple games in the past which are in the low tens of thousands LOC. I understand AAA games can be several millions of lines of code. Minecraft is reportedly 1.8M.
However, Chocolate Doom (the precursor for Doomretro) is around 50kloc, according to [1]. Wonder what changes were made to more than double the code size.
[1] https://medium.com/@atroche/a-quick-comparison-of-the-size-o...
Here's some more detail about China, which has the two largest transit systems in the world: Shanghai and Beijing.
In 1993, Shanghai had one line running 2.7 miles with 4 stations. Less than 30 years later, the system had 15 lines, 500 miles of track, and 500 stations. [1]
And in that same time frame, the Beijing subway system was expanded, from 2 lines in 2002 to 27 lines and 500 miles of track, with 13 million riders per day in 2022. [2]
Also in that time, 30 other cities in China got subway systems as well.[3]
In 1993, China's per-capita GDP was $537. By comparison, per-capita GDP in the US was 50 times larger (about $23k). Since then, the gap has narrowed. US per-capita GDP is now 5x of China (66k vs 12k).
China demonstrates that, even with small GDP, if you prioritize the needs of the people over entrenched commercial interests, it can be done.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Shanghai_Metro [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing_Subway [3] https://qz.com/1010911/a-beautiful-data-animation-shows-the-...
Regarding support, that is not an issue I have never needed it for Google, but occasionally have needed for MS Office. So I can see why if you are using Office you would value that.
This complements the detailed description provided by 3blue1brown
Here's a list of 25 such predictions in an almost yearly cadence: https://x.com/rippinkitten18/status/1701411830642741348?s=20
In the meantime, China has outpaced most Western countries with steady growth.
One notable "expert" is Paul Krugman, who predicted Chinese doom a couple of months ago. Turns out he made a similar prediction ten years ago: https://x.com/NuryVittachi/status/1701400962957746544?s=20
For an accurate street view about Beijing recorded over the past 2 weeks, here are two random videos that show a bustling and prosperous Beijing, taken by Western travelers:
I'm told that, in China, a way to greet someone is to say: "Have you eaten yet?" 你吃了吗
You are not supposed to provide a detailed answer such as: "Yes I ate a breakfast sandwich this morning at 8 am".
Instead you simply say "I ate" (吃了) or "Nope" (没呢)
I suppose I could make more effort to mine other sources like Medium or decentralized Twitter clones, but haven't yet done so.
I'll put up with the dreariness and annoyances of X for now, but the instant I find a better alternative, I'm gone.
In terms of real-world actions, the US has more 750 military bases in 80 countries, including 300 in Asia.
China has 8 overseas bases: one in Djibouti and the rest in islands near China.
China is definitely trying to advance its economic interests throughout the world, by investing in infrastructure in Africa and Latin America.
That's what every country does or aspires to do. It's just business.
Better transparent soft power that delivers tangible results for the local populace rather than opaque coups, mercenary armies, and funding dictators and warlords.
To avoid this, countries need to plan for and mitigate the social effects of economic dislocation, such as UBI. Unfortunately that ain't gonna happen. Brace yourselves.