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speak_plainly

1,192 karma · joined April 21, 2023

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speak_plainly··on Meta VR Glasses
Apparently there is a flap you can place on them to block out light.
speak_plainly··on Canada welcomes EU proposal to become 'associate member'
The real political theatre is coming from Alberta. Secession can't be achieved unilaterally under Canadian constitutional law. A clear majority on a clear referendum question would create an obligation to negotiate.

More critically, the Numbered Treaties (6, 7, and 8, and to a lesser extent 4 and 10) make the entire idea, for all practical purposes, a legal dead end. These are nation-to-nation covenants with the Crown and not with the province.

To leave with its borders intact, Alberta would have to negotiate constitutional amendments with Ottawa and the other provinces, while securing affected First Nations’ consent to any transfer or replacement of their treaty relationships with Canada in a situation where Alberta has almost no leverage.

Good luck.

speak_plainly··on EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'
I’m hopeful that closer ties with Europe could give Canadians a chance to learn from European agriculture and food culture.

Canada needs a new perspective in how we produce and sell food here. I’d love to see us move away from a food system dominated by crappy US-style highly engineered, ultra-processed products and toward a much greater variety of fresh and minimally processed foods, stronger regional production, and a richer everyday food culture.

I would welcome EU grocery chains and food producers to shake things up here and bring some sanity back to Canadian food culture.

speak_plainly··on Another researcher says OpenAI trained on conversations, then claimed breakthrou
Coincidentally, a tweet from OpenAI's Tibo yesterday:

https://x.com/thsottiaux/status/2097746417012166816

speak_plainly··on Apple Announces Foldable 'iPhone Duo'
I think you're right. We're at the point where Apple is sort of out of steam in terms of hardware and software and their products are mature and the company has become more risk averse. They need gimmicks to get people to upgrade and I'm sure we will see more attempts like this in the future. These sorts of devices have limited use cases, like people who are on the road a lot for work or leisure, and of course this appeals to tech enthusiasts or the vanity tech crowd.

It'll be a nice device for some, but I think we're at the stage where device upgrades are no longer going to be a yearly or even biennial thing with all things considered.

speak_plainly··on An Alien Mind
Pre-IPO positioning … or how a charity dedicated to saving humanity from the apocalypse realized the most responsible thing to do was float 15% of the apocalypse on the NASDAQ.
speak_plainly··on Mom gets 6-month suspended sentence for letting 5-year-old walk to the pond
I guess they're trying to overcompensate for years of brutal child slavery with kids working in textile mills, tobacco processing, agriculture, mines, and factories.

https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/hiring-out-of-the-e...

speak_plainly··on Gemini 3.8 Flash and 3.8 Flash Cyber
After struggling with Gemini for months, I think the trick to getting the most out of the model is writing a really solid personal intelligence/instructions prompt. The results are night and day in terms of performance.
speak_plainly··on True Rate of Unemployment
A percentage chart does not always have to start at zero. Scaling the y-axis to the range of the data is commonly used to make within-chart trends easier to see. I don't think this is evidence of a nefarious motive... it looks more like a stylistic choice.
speak_plainly··on No AI Fridays
The cognitive debt accusation is dumb. Implying there is some sort of cognitive deterioration when it is merely a label used by the authors to describe lower cognitive engagement while using AI and some persistence of that lower engagement when returning to the task without it … which is predictably going to be the case when you’re offloading work.

If your plan is to offload a task to AI, do you really need to dedicate your attention to it?

speak_plainly··on The internet is kind of a predatory cesspit now
This also seems to be spilling into the real world. Because of this internet addiction, it’s almost guaranteed that everyone has a relatively expensive computer in their pocket. This has turned into an increasing number of real-world scams, as well as supporting trafficking networks for stealing phones. The scams range from old school pickpocketers to sympathy schemes to full out phone-related accusations – anything to get you to take your phone out of your pocket, potentially unlock it, and have someone swipe it.

If it’s unlocked, they may do some further scams from what’s available on the device, but either way, within days, your phone is somewhere in Asia, disassembled, and sold for scrap and parts.

speak_plainly··on Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario as 'Lake America'
Google, Apple, etc.: impose this renaming on Canadian maps at your own reputational risk. You will invite a backlash.
speak_plainly··on Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
Sad to see the mascot going in March. Apparently this entire brand reset is tied to something JR East is calling 'Suica Renaissance,' which is about a ten-year effort to turn Suica into a lifestyle brand.

Whitepaper: https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/press/2024/pdf/20241210.pdf

They're planning on moving beyond the ¥20,000 prepaid balance limit, they are adding QR code payments (think WeChat and Alipay), making Suica work across regions and support more touchless and cloud-based systems, and connecting it more with banking, shopping, loyalty, discounts, and local services.

So essentially they want to become your default payment platform which is a huge opportunity given how paper-money-driven Japan is.

speak_plainly··on Omarchy development practices lead to predictable security issues
That OSS has become too entangled with political activism and ideological gatekeeping, when it should be about making great software, giving people control over their computers, and rediscovering the joy of computing.

I don't think Omarchy is anti-political so much as an attempt to revive the enthusiast/hacker ethos of the OSS community.

speak_plainly··on Kobo can run apps now
I too would like my Kindle to do one single thing well. Sadly, we seem to be waiting for that future to arrive.
speak_plainly··on c100
I'm glad PC manufacturers are taking snack drawers seriously. A shot of the IO would be nice and is the computer in the keyboard or in the snack box?
speak_plainly··on Casio F-B100W-1A
Those buttons are the menu. The idea of menus on watches is a modern ux extravagance.

I don’t have the satisfying answer as to why they dedicated a button to 12/24 hour time but my guess is that it’s simply a cool digital feature and stands out against the limitations of analog watches.

speak_plainly··on The Vietnam Binh Chau (Chau Tan) Late Tang Wreck
They would have more accurately labelled it as the 'Seal of Solomon' in the context of religious, magical, and protective contexts.
speak_plainly··on Why I'm Staying Out of the Substack Religion Debate
This is like the pinnacle of Reddit scholarship.
speak_plainly··on David Sacks on X: Some thoughts on Dario's post
I agree with Sacks.

Amodei's conception of regulation is difficult to distinguish economically from some form of regulatory capture, protectionism, or rent-seeking in the face of limited infrastructure and resources and intense regional competition.

It doesn't make sense given that the US does not have a monopoly on AI development and regulation would put US companies at a disadvantage, especially given the US's hegemony is debatably potentially over. The idea of US using regulatory sway requires that the US can influence the entire ecosystem, from access to capital to semiconductor development to allied export controls. That world is probably over.

The US has lost its grip on all of these threads and China has picked up the slack. This is like trying to put the genie back in the bottle with one hand tied behind your back.

speak_plainly··on I requested a copy of my data from McDonald’s loyalty program
I totally agree, and I think this is why using a traditional, Deming-style Quality Assurance framework is so valuable.

Data is useful, but only to a point. A process-first approach (guided by clearly defined quality characteristics) is going to produce more meaningful and sustainable results: products and services that customers value more, lower costs and less waste for the company, and happier and more empowered employees.

speak_plainly··on License plate reader searches should require a warrant
A license plate is already publicly displayed information (and is in most jurisdictions not private property), and you're operating in a public space.

I know it's unpopular but I went from not supporting these sorts of systems to embracing them after seeing the positive effects in China.

For crimes that depend on anonymity, theft, assault, hit-and-runs, vandalism, illegal parking, etc., surveillance changes the calculation because the offender expects a higher or even a near certain chance of being identified/caught in China. I think this is a good thing. I also see no issue with someone breaking the law and receiving a ticket almost immediately.

With all systems, it comes down to the design. What sort of oversight is there, how long is footage stored, can it be used for specific crimes or expanded later, and are there mechanisms to correct false identification.

Done right, these systems work well. I would be happy to live in a society where street crime is rare enough that I can leave personal property anywhere, like a bike, without constantly worrying about theft. I think many fears about these systems come from dystopian science fiction and assume the worst possible implementation, rather than recognizing that technology can be designed with strong safeguards.

speak_plainly··on Bluesky's active user base is shrinking as its focus expands beyond the app
I think there are two things going on. After launch, there was an exuberant group of users who believed the purpose or aim of Bluesky was to be a recreation of Twitter in terms of user base and impact. They were lead on by the icon a bit and lots of rhetoric. And I think many believed it would destroy X. By their standards, Bluesky is an epic failure.

But by the aims of the company itself, moving social media from proprietary platforms to open protocols, it's a major success. And I think it can continue down that path and serve its users.

speak_plainly··on U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’
I would have anxiety if I was a first year student who wanted to transfer out to another school or program and not know if my 'pass' would be sufficient to get prior recognition of learning or advanced standing.
speak_plainly··on U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’
The stated reason for doing this seems suspicious. A pass/fail dynamic would likely maintain student anxiety, if not increase it.

What I think is more likely is that this move will help them hire less qualified teachers and reduce administrative oversight as now they no longer have to worry about all the issues that come with grading, such as consistency, or the grades accurately reflecting performance. The quality of curriculum will likely drop significantly and this will be reflected in the student’s second year grades.

speak_plainly··on Defending my own brain against enshittification
Other than the NHK World documentary series, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness was quite good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24wViGZKVu8
speak_plainly··on Run Android ARM64 VR APKs on Apple Vision Pro
It's not exactly hostility, it's a paralyzing fear about public perception of battery life, especially given the form factors they want to maintain.
speak_plainly··on Apple introduces leasing program for iPhones and other devices
The next few upgrade cycles for Apple will be about enabling AI functionality through an increase in ram. So if people want AI, they’ll have to get a new phone.
speak_plainly··on Adults over 65 will outnumber children by 2029
We're on the path to putting Augustine's City of God theory of population to the test.
speak_plainly··on Canada adds 75,000 new jobs in July, unemployment rate lowest in 2 years
The Daily: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260807/dq260...
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