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simontheowl

269 karma · joined December 23, 2018

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simontheowl··on Age verification is just a precursor to automated attribution of speech
Honestly, I don't know why this is such a big deal for people. There is no right for anonymous free speech, just free speech. The idea that you should be able to do everything anonymously is certainly nothing that I've seen in the constitution.
simontheowl··on The Waymo World Model
Does this model include things like how slippery the road is, or head wind/ cross wind. Or is it only visual / depth model?
simontheowl··on Show HN: High-precision date/time in SQLite
Very cool - definitely an important missing feature in SQlite.
simontheowl··on Ask HN: What is your streaming setup like?
Synology NAS - works great, scalable.
simontheowl··on Apple Vision Pro – Why It May Be Lousy for Watching Movies on a Plane
This whole blog is just a regurgitation of surface-level wikipedia knowledge. All of these issues are very well known in the industry. Asking to solve all of them, perfectly, at once, is clear indication of someone who's never done product development.
simontheowl··on Show HN: Image Upscaler AI
Gigapixel AI works fantastic (https://www.topazlabs.com/gigapixel-ai) and has a perpetual license.
simontheowl··on Apple Vision predictive bio-feedback
A lot of these large companies spend millions of dollars recruiting participants from various demographics to test prototypes and fine-tune technologies like this. It's a tremendous effort.
simontheowl··on Examples using Photoshop’s new “Generative Fill” feature
100$ /month is nothing for someone who makes a living doing this. And tbh, the value-add is arguably a lot more than that.
simontheowl··on Fuck being productive
I had similar thoughts for a while. What helped me was instead of aiming to make all of the time outside work productive (3-4 hours) just aim for under an hour. For me, 40 min of producitivity per day outside of work makes me feel accomplished. You can actually get a lot done in that span of time like do some exercise, practice an instrument, read an article... (pick one per day and cycle through the week). Not much immediate gratification, but over the years it adds up to a tonn of personal development. Plus with a 40-min window you don't feel guilt about abandoning your other family duties etc.
simontheowl··on Stanford just released a 386-page report on the state of AI
What's interesting is that the trend in "Average Weighted Accuracy" seems to increase linearly in the past three years whereas the number of model parameters and required compute is growing exponentially. So accuracy is pretty expensive.
simontheowl··on 80/20 Aluminum T-slot Building Systems – Build your Idea
By that logic, the lego sets we buy for our kids should also be the cost of plastic ;)
simontheowl··on ‘Films are vulnerable’: The battle to preserve Eastern Europe’s analogue movies (2022)
Same is unfortunately true for a lot of Eastern European music. There are thousands of great soviet recordings of various classical and folk pieces that have never been digitized. And the current atmosphere over there is not honed in on preserving art. A lot of the recordings are only available on 50-60 year old vinyls which are getting harder and harder to find in a decent condition. Been digitizing a lot of my favorites in my spare time.
simontheowl··on 100 Gbps achieved from space to Earth
A large reason why these are aimed for scientific missions is because the single photon detectors utilized for receiving these transmissions are still incredibly expensive. They are basically liquid-helium cooled arrays of nanowires (SNSPDs) which act like micro balometers - pretty sweet tech, but not commercial grade just yet.
simontheowl··on Tell HN: You can't hire because you don't post salary ranges
For most companies, you can tell them what your expected salary range is during the first round of phone screens or meetings - no need to wait till the end. The HR represenative should be able to tell you right there and then whether they are comfortable with that number or not. The biggest tip is to know what your market worth is so that expectations of both parties align.
simontheowl··on What it’s like to get custom earbuds made
For those of you who already have a favorite pair of nice earbuds, I suggest checking out ADV (https://www.adv-sound.com/pages/ciem). They are able to manufacture a custom-fit sleeve for a lot of existing earbuds and are therefore much cheaper (~250 USD). I have a pair of Shure earbuds and their custom-fit sleeves are great - they even send you a do-it-yourself ear impression kit, which is quite easy to use.
simontheowl··on What computer and software is used by the Falcon 9? (2015)
I think another thing that is often overlooked is that a project like this requires a ton of very diverse hardware in the form of hundreds or maybe thousands of sensors, valves, PLCs etc. A rocket launch site reminds me a lot of an industrial process facility. National instruments sells all of that hardware with LabView as a complete solution. Their PXI systems, which are used extensively in the process industry, are quite expensive up-front but the seamless integration of the hardware with Labview drivers, Teststand etc makes it so much more cost-efficient down the line.
simontheowl··on A $1.2B law to boost US quantum tech
Here's a great report from the National Academy on progress in quantum computing https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25196/quantum-computing-progress...