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sithadmin

3,465 karma · joined November 28, 2013

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sithadmin··on Bending Spoons makes first post-IPO acquisition with $1.3B Airtable deal
I’ve always felt like their money went into marketing, not actual capabilities. It still feels like a Fisher-Price tier platform imo.
sithadmin··on The Corporate Creep of Plex: Why it may be time to move to Jellyfin
Didn’t the Jellyfin project lead and some other core founders quit this week?
sithadmin··on Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown
Should anything more complicated than what could be automated with a paper ScanTron form really be subject to automated grading anyway?
sithadmin··on US tobacco firms applied tobacco strategies to globalize ultra-processed foods
>How should using processes not used at home make something harmful?

Well, for starters - the refined sugars, carbohydrates and oils that seem to be the main culprits behind the obesity epidemic are mostly things that wouldn't be efficient (or in some cases, even possible) to create in a home cooking environment.

Sure, you could order some grain milling or oil extraction equipment on Alibaba and DIY it, but 99.999% of households aren't going to do that.

sithadmin··on I returned to AWS and was reminded why I left
That's not just AWS. That's Amazon generally. All Amazon orgs I've worked for have been like this, and due to the nature of my work, I (and my teams) have been treated like pariahs for daring to suggest that there ought to be even a minimal amount collaboration, shared standards, and cross-pollination on ideas between teams.
sithadmin··on Walking slower? Your ears, not your knees, might be the problem
>Why must moving slowly be stigmatised?

Because some of us have jobs to get to, trains to catch, appointments to make, airplane gates to queue at, and just generally need to get-things-done!

All for slowness, but not amongst pedestrians.

sithadmin··on Let's Buy Spirit Air
The majority of airliners are on 'dry lease' to their respective airlines to begin with.
sithadmin··on Apple App Store threatened to remove Grok over deepfakes: Letter
…which makes it no different practically every other form of periodical news media that’s ever existed.
sithadmin··on Drop, formerly Massdrop, ends most collaborations and rebrands under Corsair
At first, the entire premise was facilitating group buying to meet manufacturer order minimums for unique or high-demand hardware, and discounts for meeting manufacturers' volume discount targets. Then it morphed into a general specialty/niche retailer for people with keyboard, headphone, "EDC" and began to also focus on "house brand" type merch.
sithadmin··on How Invisalign became the biggest user of 3D printers
It’s been tried, with some success. Pretty sure I’ve seen a post here on HN from someone that DIy’d it end to end.

But it’s also something that’s not responsible to shortcut. Shifting teeth around too fast can result in permanent root damage and even loss of teeth. There was a whole cottage industry in the US for a while focused on under cutting Invisalign with a reverse-engineered product, but they often moved on accelerated treatment timelines that caused a not-insignificant amount of harm to patients, and cut corners on intake (DIY at home mold kits) that also contributed to problems. Pretty sure all of the companies doing this are basically dead now.

sithadmin··on Weight-loss jab could be made for $3 a month, study finds
Current 'self pay' pricing (as of March 2025) for those without insurance coverage for Ozempic is $199/month for two months, then anywhere from $349 to $499/month depending on dosage.
sithadmin··on Proton Mail Helped FBI Unmask Anonymous 'Stop Cop City' Protester
As a long time Proton customer...I am fairly certain Proton has always been completely upfront that they will comply with lawful requests for information from the Swiss authorities, if response is obligated by Swiss law. Therefore this isn't especially surprising.
sithadmin··on The Geometry of Tostitos Scoops
This honestly looks like it was created by someone that’s never seen, let alone held a Tostitos Scoop in their life. The models don’t resemble the average Scoop at all.
sithadmin··on More Mac malware from Google search
The article specifically mentions that the methodology here is to trick users into running an obfuscated CLI command…that downloads and runs a binary
sithadmin··on TikTok's 'addictive design' found to be illegal in Europe
Are they consistent? As a North American, I find it difficult to take EU/European countries’ stances on addiction seriously when they seem to be decades behind on reducing the prevalence of smoking and drinking, which almost certainly cause more practical harm than TikTok ever could.
sithadmin··on "IG is a drug": Internal messages may doom Meta at social media addiction trial
IRC and Newsgroups definitely had that level of addiction going on. Just smaller population size due by technical friction that kept the general population away.
sithadmin··on A worker fell into a nuclear reactor pool
300cpm is lower than what you’d be exposed to on a commercial airline flight (400-900ish cpm).
sithadmin··on Google flags Immich sites as dangerous
That’s not unique to PayPal. Pretty much any payment processor that detects a proprietor paying themselves is going to throw up a red flag for circular cash flow fraud and close the account. Bank-operated payment processors are often slower to catch it, but they will also boot you for this.
sithadmin··on Ultrasonic Chef's Knife
Why on earth would I care if a potato sticks to my blade, and why would I need to atomize lemon juice with my knife?
sithadmin··on Man wearing metallic necklace dies after being sucked into MRI machine
MRI and other radiology suites use lead glass windows, which are incredibly thick and tinted dark-yellowish-orange. Visibility through them is okay, but not great.
sithadmin··on Plex no Longer Offers Free Remote Playback for Personal Media
Plex does operate a few services that 'free' (or any) streaming may rely on depending on circumstances. Aside from auth, Plex clients that aren't able to discover the server instance locally rely on a Plex-hosted webservice to enumerate available servers. Additionally, there is a client-side config option that allows low resolution streams (720p is the ceiling, I believe) to be proxied via Plex's infrastructure. This setting is referred to as 'indirect connection', if I recall correctly.
sithadmin··on Effect of chewing hard material on enhancing cognitive function
'Miswak' sticks are popular in the Middle East/Northern Africa.

Raw mastic gum seems to be gaining popularity in the US.

Neither is popular for the explicit purpose of cognitive enhancement, though.

sithadmin··on "Do you not like money?"
Is poverty really 'designed into our society'? It seems to me that the underlying aspects of poverty - particularly resource scarcity and insecurity - are inherent aspects of the 'state of nature', which are only escapable via the cooperative mechanisms associated with the formation of society and governance. Sure, these things aren't 100% effective at eliminating poverty, but the proposition that poverty is somehow an intentionally baked-in objective seems hyperbolic.

Further, the notion that the USSR failed because "they tried to make a better man" is an absurd whitewashing of Soviet history.

sithadmin··on Apple Invites
If it's anything like the web version of Facetime, it's not gonna be a great experience for non-iOS users.
sithadmin··on TCAS Avoided Collision with Army Helicopter over Potomac River [video]
It’s convenient for everyone. Normal, local people (including myself) tend to strongly prefer DCA when a route is available in/out rather than deal with Dulles or BWI.
sithadmin··on Fructose in diet enhances tumor growth: research
Yup. ~5% more fructose than table sugar in its most common formulations, actually lower content than table sugar in some formulations (e.g. HFCS-42). The 'high fructose' moniker is derived from a reference to 'pure' corn syrup which is nearly 100% glucose, not a reference to table sugar as commonly assumed.
sithadmin··on Enron Corporation Announces Relaunch with a Vision to Solve Global Energy Crisis
Almost certainly a shit memecoin project. The Enron trademark was until recently owned by The College Company, [https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=88914633&caseType=SERIAL_...], a t-shirt and knick-knacks vendor that previously capitalized on the Birds Aren't Real meme (news coverage: https://archive.is/vZvup). It looks like the trademark was handed off to a new entity this year, whose address aligns to 'Ground Control Business Management', which appears to be a firm specializing in financial planning and 'family office' type investment management for wealthy individuals.

Further, Enron.com is currently hosted on Shopify (IP resolves to Shopify; page is stuffed with Shopify web assets if you inspect the source). This makes no sense for a proper corporate web presence outside the retail industry. The College Company's other pages are also built on the Shopify platform.

sithadmin··on Wooden satellite heads to space in Mars exploration test
It looks like there's a metal(?) frame with rivets, screws used to secure internal electronic components, and the internal wood 'body' seems to be assembled with fastener-less joinery. There are some photos of the cubesat without the frame here: https://www.infoespacial.com/texto-diario/mostrar/4304727/ja...
sithadmin··on Notes on Anthropic's Computer Use Ability
The airline booking + awards redemption use case is a mostly solved problem. Harcore milage redemption enthusiasts use paid tools like ExpertFlyer that present a UI and API for peeking into airline reservation backends. It has a steep learning curve, for sure.

ThePointsGuy blog tried to implement something that directly tied into airline accounts to track milage/points and redemption options, but I believe they got slapped down by several airlines for unauthorized scraping. Airlines do NOT like third parties having access to frequent flier accounts.

sithadmin··on The brain's waste clearing lymphatic system shown in people for first time
No, the prior post's reference to having some degree of control over the sensation, plus a prolonged impact on mental state makes it distinctly ASMR, as opposed to frission which is usually a short-lasting involuntary response. [1]

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6086079/

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