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ridewinter

158 karma · joined November 4, 2016

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ridewinter··on Apple announces that RCS support is coming to iPhone next year
There's 40 million American teenagers who are very interested in being a part of petty social circles.
ridewinter··on ChatGPT Plugins
Anything preventing Bard/etc from using these plugins as well?

Would be nice to keep the ecosystem open.

ridewinter··on iPhone lidar with applications for the geosciences
Can't AI be used to "fill in" 3D models without having to scan from all directions? That seems the killer app to me. Just use your camera like normal.
ridewinter··on Notes apps are where ideas go to die, and that’s good
It's the same mechanism as Morning Pages - write exactly 3 pages right when you wake up, whatever is on your mind. It's tremendously helpful to move you past whatever you're stuck on in life.

You can write "I don't want to be writing this" over and over if you like. But it turns out that you usually have good things to say.

ridewinter··on Amish Hackers (2009)
Utterly fascinating article. The OG steampunk hackers. I wonder what the latest is in 2021, have they decided that smartphones are anti-community?

What can we learn from them?

ridewinter··on Amish Hackers (2009)
Agreed, perhaps there's a lot we can learn from their experiment. For example, by not using artificial lighting do they have a habit of "two sleeps" like our ancestors did? https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220107-the-lost-medieva...
ridewinter··on Lithuania evacuates its embassy in China
If China went democratic then Taiwan wouldn't have much issue with becoming part of it, right?

Once people taste freedom they tend to not want to give it up, no matter how messy.

ridewinter··on The field of longevity biotech is a mess
Just like smartphones are only for the super-rich? Technology becomes affordable to all over time.

I for one cheer on the billionaires trying to extend their lives - it will benefit us all, and remove much disease & suffering from this planet.

ridewinter··on Disney Combines CGI with Neural Rendering to Tackle the ‘Uncanny Valley’
How far away are we from rendering realistic humans in real-time?
ridewinter··on Top scientists warn of 'ghastly future of mass extinction' and climate disruptio
I believe that species loss is inversely proportional to wealth. The poorer the country the faster its loss.

And due to advances in agricultural technology, since the Population Bomb book was published, global population has doubled while hunger has greatly diminished.

So wouldn’t the answer be more technology & wealth, not less?

ridewinter··on Tesla Battery Day Livestream
This is the top voted Battery Day thread? Weak, HN...

Where should I go for geeky insight into it?

ridewinter··on Chronic mania and persistent euphoric states
Hypomania is sometimes called the Entrepreneur's Disease. Let's say Elon Musk has hypomania (it does seem like it). Treatment levels him out and dulls his creativity at same time. Is that a desirable outcome?
ridewinter··on Smartphone contact tracing has failed everywhere
These would be good problems to have because they'd mean the apps were successful in the first place! Problems are solvable if we have the chance to solve them.
ridewinter··on Smartphone contact tracing has failed everywhere
The whole reason for Apple-Google getting involved in the first place was a technical issue that prevents Android from seeing iOS. Instead of solving that issue to allow a variety of solutions to be developed, they forced the entire world to create the apps in a certain way.

It's not that their privacy-centric approach was wrong (although this article details its major shortcomings), but the suppression of trial & error definitely was wrong.

Compounding this was Google-Apple's insistence that only government bodies can release exposure notification apps and you have a total absence of real innovation. It's no surprise that nothing has succeeded.

The whole debacle is a case study in the effect of gatekeepers on innovation. As manual contract tracing teams here in the US become overwhelmed, how many lives could have been saved by a successful exposure notification app?

ridewinter··on Coronavirus: Oxford vaccine triggers immune response
Don't they know we need the vaccine by Tuesday, November 3rd??
ridewinter··on TikTok to pull out of Hong Kong
Well said. How different is that from Obama's ill-fated TIPP? It could at least have been a starting point for a greater alliance.
ridewinter··on TikTok to pull out of Hong Kong
Isolating China like NK seems to be the direction we're heading, and not sure that I disagree.

The lack of error correction in the ability to replace bad leaders and freedom of speech isn't just a cultural preference: https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2016/01/31/fr...

ridewinter··on Bill Gates says poverty is decreasing. He couldn’t be more wrong (2019)
How has life expectancy gone since the height of the early industrial revolution? How has life expectancy gone in the developing world of our day?

I believe Yuval Noah writes mostly about pre-agricultural life, not pre-industrial life.

ridewinter··on Bill Gates says poverty is decreasing. He couldn’t be more wrong (2019)
Perhaps the difference is hourly pay vs. median income. The lowest tier of workers hasn't risen as much as the median income.
ridewinter··on Bill Gates says poverty is decreasing. He couldn’t be more wrong (2019)
The article really does glamorize the pre-industrial past. Since the author doesn't use facts to back up the claim that industrialization has made people's lives worse, how about looking at caloric intake over the past 800 years: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-per-capita-supply-o...
ridewinter··on Bill Gates says poverty is decreasing. He couldn’t be more wrong (2019)
Like many liberals, I thought it was a fact that US wages had stagnated in the past 40 years. And rich were the only beneficiaries. But in fact the median income has steadily risen: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_Unite...

So I ask HN, why has this narrative become so widespread?

ridewinter··on Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
Paul Graham tweeted the other day about the opportunity to supplant Zoom with something better.

Zoom doesn't seem to have much of a moat, right? Most users aren't even logged in.

ridewinter··on Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
Who here doesn't think that China has similar things and much much worse added to Tiktok, Zoom, etc?
ridewinter··on Zoom Acknowledges It Suspended Activists' Accounts at China's Request
Beautiful use of strong language.
ridewinter··on Huawei builds up 2-year reserve of 'most important' US chips
I don't, in fact. Principles are important.
ridewinter··on SpaceX successfully launches two humans into orbit
Interesting point. And the riots today are nothing compared to the late 60's. Yet.
ridewinter··on Huawei builds up 2-year reserve of 'most important' US chips
Could someone explain the downvoting please?
ridewinter··on Black hole paradoxes reveal a fundamental link between energy and order
My impression of physics is that space-time is like a field that emanates from energy/matter at the speed of light in a slight curve. When these fields overlap their curves compound - the more energy, the more overlap, the more curvature.

Without energy there is no space-time. Space-time could be thought of simply as information about the energy that it emanates from.

Apologies for the tangent from this amateur. But it seemed similar to your thoughts.

ridewinter··on Huawei builds up 2-year reserve of 'most important' US chips
I believe Sweden is the only EU country asking to actually do something about Hong Kong.

https://www.politico.eu/article/josep-borrell-chinas-move-in...

ridewinter··on Huawei builds up 2-year reserve of 'most important' US chips
Do you also agree with the EU letting China slide over Hong Kong? Money more important than millions of people's freedom?
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