ridgeguy

This invites the question, "Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?".

So what? Does that mean it's wrong or noncontributive? Don't judge a book by its cover, etc.

An audio "recording" is data (digital, analog, grooves on vinyl, whatever) that allows later listening to the original audio.

What Apple is doing in Rewind is as legal as if you were to take a contemporary transcript of a conversation. That's not illegal.

It's legal even if you're a skilled shorthand transcriber and get every word. That's Rewind, if I've understood it correctly.

My need for this new iPhone is driven by my declining vision. Twenty years ago, I had no problem with my first iPhone. Five years ago, I started to get acquainted with some of the visual accommodation measures in iOS. I do still use my (physically larger than I would like) iPhone 16 Pro Max, which I bought for the biggest screen. I'd love to do my stuff on my laptop or desktop, but smartphones are de facto The Computer these days. So I'll probably buy an iPhone Duo after I sell a kidney for financing. All that said, today's Apple presentation left me gobsmacked at the technology they've developed. I was born before civilian jet transports were in service, with all that implies for a long personal view of tech dev. The tech feels to me like a cut&paste from 2076.

Tungsten is 1.0015 times denser than gold. A gold-coated tungsten ingot could be adjusted (tiny internal cavity) to have exactly the same mass as a solid gold ingot of the same volume.

I've no idea what checks are done to exclude such artifacts from gold storage. If somebody accepted them and stacked them in a reserve vault, they might go decades without discovery.

I guess it's not something to worry about. It's improbable, and even so, if everybody agrees on the value of undetected bogus W/Au ingots, makes no difference from the real thing.

Californian here. I live in hope.

Yes, and the one thing I'd add is practice. And more practice.Take an occasional macro video so you can remember how that perfect joint felt when you did it.

Source: decades-old Lockheed certification for rework on Trident C4 & D5 SLBM G&C boards.

This is correct.

Any system that executes variation, selection, and inheritance will show evolution. We're seeing evolution, this time in agents, not biology.

Not saying the agents have their own consciousness, intent, or whatever anthropomorphic descriptor gets used for deflection. Just saying that people will (and no doubt are) crafting agents with defective instructions that will lead to regrettable unforeseen real world consequences. Also saying that other people will (and no doubt are) crafting malicious agents that will lead to predictable and unexpected real world catastrophic consequences.

To the extent we're dependent on reliable, aligned computation to maintain our civilization, to that extent we're in for real trouble.

This is why I use the human-run checkout lines. I want to keep the humans employed.

Sometime in the mid-90s, after I'd read M&C and the two following books, I heard Patrick O’Brian interviewed on the radio as I was driving to work in Sunnyvale. The interview included about 20 minutes of his reading from M&C.

After listening to him read for about 30 seconds, I pulled onto the shoulder of 101 around Ames lab, shut down my car and just listened to him. I'd never before heard someone give voice to the English language in what sounded to me as such a profoundly perfect form. I remember thinking that I'd love to have heard him read Shakespeare.

I appreciate the post. I had no idea he was such a flawed person, and it's illuminating to learn that. But it doesn't affect my happy memory of hearing my native tongue (if I may claim that, even though I'm American) employed with such superlative skill.

Maybe I should look into training an AI in the audio style of Patrick O’Brian and have it read Shakespeare for me.

Gasoline doesn't do that. Perhaps you're thinking of the following?

What it does do is slowly polymerize, becoming useless as an ICE fuel in time, typically in a year or two. This is why backup generators should run on propane, which has no degradation mechanism.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when an AI-piloted F-16 flies for real against a human-piloted one. IIRC, the F-16 maximum maneuvering G-load is 9.5G, LBA (limited by airframe). Maybe that's the meatbag limit, not the airframe - possible to crank it up a bit? Certainly the various CCAs in current flight test will take much higher G loads.

Several years ago, DoD flew an AI against a human in a simulation. In basic fighter maneuvers (no BVR stuff like missiles, just a merge and fur ball), the AI killed the human - always. So G-limits may not matter. Pretty interesting.

A modern instance of that old saw "you are what you eat".

SpaceX, Tesla, and X have entered the chat....

YMMV a lot with Aliexpress. I bought a $700 chiller that arrived without a small attachment fitting for the return inlet line. I complained, received another chiller (with the fitting) free. Go figure.

eBay is very good for science-related goods, in my experience. Last week, I bought ~$12K of used gear for a project. All items work, would have cost ~2.5x that from the usual used instrument vendors, about 6x new.

YMMV. When we sold in 2021, our realtor connected us with an interest-free lender who put up $76K for repairs and staging. This, and other services, made the difference between our selling for $1.8M and the $2.4M we got. Maybe we could someday get similar service from a realty AI, but in our recent experience, the humans made all the difference.

The lighter centers could have been diffraction around the object and reconvergence. Or some kind of signal processing effect at the retinal level.

The retinal vessel network is a fun thing to inspect as you say. It works best for me when the sun is high in the sky. The bright, featureless blue brings out the branching network very well.

Reconsider the blood cell visualization thing. I've had bilateral PVD. Each was accompanied by an initial few minutes of seeing a few dozen small dark spots that had lighter grey centers. Most visible when I looked at the sky. They all disappeared after a few minutes. I think these were RBCs from minimal retinal blood vessel tearing at the PVD events.

Human RBCs are ~6µm - 8µm diameter. Human retinal light sensing cells range from ~0.5µm - 10µm diameter, depending on type and position. They're close packed.

Given the geometry, RBCs leaking onto retinal cells should cast shadows that could be resolved as images. And that's right where leakage is most likely to occur during a PVD event.

Maybe the taxpayers who pay for those expensive sports arenas + the tax breaks that frequently shelter their owners/operators?

"Rocket Manual for Amateurs" was my favorite book after I found it in 8th grade. In high school I had a chem teacher who would give me chemicals so I could experiment with what I'd read. A great book for budding Raketenkinder.

Teflon.

I wonder if the results would have differed if LLM training data were biased to include a stronger correlation between use of nukes and subsequent collapse of technology that all LLMs require to run ("survive")?

I suspect there are substantial numbers of us in our 70's+ who would volunteer. Why not go out having made an amazing contribution?

This is an issue for me and my company.

I'm building a prototype chemical vapor deposition system in a space with strong Chinese interest and activity. I picked Prusa 3D machines over Bambu because of the potential for losing critical proprietary IP with Bambu. Can't take the chance.

Unknown at present (nobody sells diamond sandpaper yet that I know of), but not likely. Diamond is as bioinert as gold, fluorocarbons, and similar materials in not provoking inflammatory responses when implanted in tissue. Your point about unexpected behavior of dust is a good one. AFAIK, the worst dust hazards (aside from outright chemical or radiological toxicity) are from spiky, acicular particles like asbestos. Diamond dust is either well-formed small crystals or blocky fragments, depending on how it's made. It doesn't exist in needle-like forms that trigger pathological responses from otherwise nontoxic materials.

One has to be trained to do it, the untrained tendency is to wait too long. There's a USAF film on Youtube titled "Ejection Decision" that discusses this and shows how little time there is to make that choice.

De Beers built and has abandoned a very large CVD gem diamond synthesis in Oregon. This was their LightBox operation. They've transferred it to Element Six to rid the parent (De Beers) of the money sink, probably as a touch-up before a sale.

There was a fire sale of LightBox diamonds a few months back. I picked up 3 diamonds, all brilliant cut: 3ct. white, 2ct. pink, 2ct. blue. Total for the three was $600.

De Beers sells devices that can distinguish between naturals and CVD synthetics. They're not cheap, but less than ~$80K, IIRC. They do a pretty good job, I've heard >90% success in identifying CVD stones.

Diamond grit for polishing and grinding is now a cheap commodity. In 10,000 ct. lots, I pay from 5¢/ct. to 30¢/ct. depending on specific grit properties. I haven't searched for it, but diamond sandpaper should be a thing at these prices.