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shmageggy

5,182 karma · joined May 27, 2011

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shmageggy··on Show HN: Elevators
Go fuck yourself. How's that for an LLM tell?
shmageggy··on Show HN: Elevators
LLM text tells, particularly in their other comments. Definitely AI generated.
shmageggy··on Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)
Just because you chose to have subtle mastering applied doesn’t mean that the commercial records we’re discussing have done the same, particularly for their digital releases, which is why they sound different. If you listen to vinyl versus digital releases of certain albums, it is obvious. Stop spreading misinformation.
shmageggy··on Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)
Good site, but it has some frustrating limitations that make it vastly less useful, specifically regarding the phenomenon in the article. The search UI doesn’t expose the release code (and many entries don’t even include it), so when it says “vinyl” you have no idea which of the possibly dozens of releases it refers to, some of which can be awful, like the article points out.

I’m willing to help fix this, but the source code is not public, and when I emailed the author I got no response.

shmageggy··on Vinyl succumbs to Loudness War: more than just collateral damage (2025)
Sorry, but you don’t know what you’re talking about. Many releases get mastered separately for digital and for vinyl, and one or both of them often does “change much”. Usually the brickwall limiting (among other things) on the digital master.
shmageggy··on Nvidia and OpenAI abandon unfinished $100B deal in favour of $30B investment
Except when that regulation actually has teeth, which is why he opposed California’s SB 1047. I agree with GP that Altman (and all the rest) want regulation insofar as it protects their moat but no further.
shmageggy··on uBlock filter list to hide all YouTube Shorts
I personally solved this by never clicking a short. We don't have to engage with every technology presented to us.
shmageggy··on What is a manifold?
FTA

> The term “manifold” comes from Riemann’s Mannigfaltigkeit, which is German for “variety” or “multiplicity.”

shmageggy··on Visible from space, Sudan's bloodied sands expose a massacre of thousands
> ...the United Arab Emirates (UAE) accused of backing the RSF with supplies and mercenaries...

And also helping to launder Hemedti's gold via Dubai. https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/conflict-resources/ex...

shmageggy··on American Prairie unlocks another 70k acres in Montana
> You'd probably be shocked at just how much wilderness is in the UK.

You're right. I was shocked at just how little there is. If one's definition of large is more than a few square km, there's virtually none, for any sensible definition of wilderness, at least south of the Cairngorns.

shmageggy··on Nobody has a personality anymore: we are products with labels
I’m sure I’ve heard of research along these lines, and indeed searching for something like “modern stress versus…” finds some work, such as https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8832552/
shmageggy··on Citizen science illuminates the nature of city lights
Very cool and hopefully will help influence policy in the future. (Here’s [not] looking at you, insanely overbright LED shop window ads blasting well into the late night in my city)

Looks like anyone can get involved here https://lichter.nachtlicht-buehne.de/

shmageggy··on Goblin.tools: simple, single-task tools to help neurodivergent people with tasks
Nice. AI-powered replacement for my missing executive function. Now I just have to remember to use it…
shmageggy··on NASA to launch space observatory that will map 450M galaxies
This is so cool, but I did not see a key piece of info in the article: does the ongoing operation of this mission fall under NASA's science budget and therefore at risk of cuts and defunding under Trump [1]?

[1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/white-house-may-seek-t...

shmageggy··on Google says AI weather model masters 15-day forecast
Looks like it will be free and open

> We’ll be releasing our model’s code, weights, and forecasts, to support the wider weather forecasting community.

https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/gencast-predicts-weath...

shmageggy··on Show HN: Satoshi9000 analog BTC key generator (mechanical)
Von Neumann randomness extractor

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randomness_extractor#Von_Neu...

shmageggy··on USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas
Actually it looks like their arguments are presented entirely in terms of tradeoffs. They argue that the carbon benefit from electric cars (cited as very far down the list on e.g. https://drawdown.org/solutions/table-of-solutions) isn’t worth the cost to biodiversity, water use and pollution, cultural values and history, peacefulness and tranquility, etc. https://www.protectthackerpass.org/mining-lithium-at-thacker...
shmageggy··on Why wordfreq will not be updated
This is (one of the many) reasons why I care primarily about biodiversity and preventing as many human-caused extinctions as we can. Those are a permanent loss to the beauty and complexity of the universe built up over millions of years, and they are permanent and irreversible.
shmageggy··on Siberia's 'mammoth graveyard' reveals 800-year human interactions with mammoths
That was exellently presented. Clear, informative, compelling. I especially appreciated getting to the end without being bombarded with any ads, popups, or begging for email signups. Curious how I could support such media, I found https://pressroom.rferl.org/about-rfe-rl/ which says,

> RFE/RL, Inc. is a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation funded by the U.S. Congress through a grant from the United States Agency for Global Media...

Yay taxes!

shmageggy··on GNU Justified Public License
It cheats!

> IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN *WRING* WILL

shmageggy··on Fastest rate of natural carbon dioxide rise over the last 50k years
Paper link https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2319652121 Absolutely infuriating that university press releases don't include this. They should be embarrassed.
shmageggy··on Show HN: I built an AI tool to help with ADHD task paralysis
I'd try it if there were other sign in options. Also the back button is broken on the sign in page (FF on Android)
shmageggy··on Apple apologizes for iPad 'Crush' ad that 'missed the mark'
It goes beyond aesthetics for me. It's like they took everyone's deepest fears about technology and AI, that it will replace or "crush" authentic human experience and creativity, and they just embraced and celebrate it by literally crushing representations of human creativity. At least I'm glad the corporate types were actually honest about their goals, though, instead of their typical doublespeak
shmageggy··on Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger
This is currently downvoted, but it's a valid question. The concept at play is "ghost acres". The idea being that you might have a wonderful regenerated plot of productive land, but if it requires a massive amount of land elsewhere to maintain, you might not have gained as much as you think.
shmageggy··on Sound-suppressing silk can create quiet spaces
Judging by the figures in the paper, it appears to attenuate low frequencies better than high frequencies, which is perhaps to be expected judging by experience with noise-cancelling headphones. This could be a game-changing complement to traditional acoustic treatment for recording studios and other acoustic spaces, where low frequencies are traditionally much harder to treat, requiring much larger and more expensive panels.
shmageggy··on Wild orangutan seen healing his wound with a plant
This is an animal living in the wild who did not have contact with humans. The article mentions that he may have learned it from other orangutans, but says nothing about humans.
shmageggy··on Life and Land in Anglo-Saxon England
What is that large, long-legged, ostrich-like bird in the painting? Was there a now-extinct bird like that in Anglo-Saxon England, or did people keep ostriches or emus or something like them?
shmageggy··on Haunting photos of the bison extermination in 19th century America
The latest Ken Burns documenatary, "The American Buffalo" tells the story of the near-total extermination of the Bison, and by extension, the Native American Indian way of life, and includes many of these photos. I felt like it was a better presentation of the reality of the West in 3 hours than the 8-episode "The West" from the 1990s, which only spent a scant few minutes on the Bison. Highly recommended.
shmageggy··on Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams
Yeah it looks like Roon can do this. Might be worth checking out, thanks!
shmageggy··on Spotify demonetizes all tracks under 1k streams
If only Tidal (or Qobuz, or...) would implement a Connect feature that allows me to control my PC desktop from mobile, then I would, but it's been on the "promised features" list for years now. It's a deal-breaker for me.
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