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stahtops

89 karma · joined October 2, 2017

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stahtops··on My Health Insurance Denied My Cancer Treatment. I Emailed the CEO
I returned to an email from the company’s chief scientific officer. Will approve tomorrow per oncologist request, his email said. The next day, I received multiple emails from company executives, authorizing milder chemo and apologizing.

Milder chemo came and went. My body felt like it was filled with cement after infusions; my eyes could not stay open; but the hairs on my head grew longer, and there were no more boils in my throat making it impossible to swallow or speak.

I went into remission that fall, and set myself to moving beyond cancer while also beginning to process the changes it had wrought on my body, and the nearness of my brush with death.

stahtops··on Apple announces changes for apps in the European Union
Well I’m definitely going to suggest that you don’t understand the definition of the word monopoly, because it has nothing to do with “size”.

What I’m suggesting is that it’s at best sloppy, and at worst corrupt, to arbitrarily apply rules in the way the EU is doing. If you think it’s wrong for a hardware manufacturer to be the sole operator of an app or software store on their platform, that’s fine. Make your rule, apply it to everyone, and give people N years to come into compliance.

The reason the EU isn’t doing that in these cases is because they don’t want to apply these laws to EU companies, and it gives them leverage in negotiations with foreign companies.

stahtops··on Bugatti CEO Mate Rimac: The future of supercars is combustion engines
So where’s your line? Do we all need to drive a Prius?
stahtops··on Apple announces changes for apps in the European Union
You’re making a lot of statements here with no supporting argument.

Plenty of other companies manufacture hardware and run stores. If we’re going to say that isn’t allowed, then at least make the rule across the board.

How many new companies will be popping up to manufacture these types of devices? Not many.

I think the reality is that the EU sees an opportunity to apply some pressure on a few successful foreign companies, as that potentially provides them leverage in other negotiations, or at the very least some revenue from fines.

stahtops··on Apple announces changes for apps in the European Union
I guess we can all make up analogies that don’t resonate with other people?

You’re describing racketeering, and in your analogy, you have a store.

But in reality, you don’t have a store, so the hypothetical doesn’t make any sense.

Do you want to try rail lines? You want to ship your HATS on a freight TRAIN, but you don’t have a TRAIN or even a RAIL.

Do you think the rail owner or the freight train will carry your product for free?

stahtops··on Apple announces changes for apps in the European Union
I just don’t get the outrage. If you made HATS and wanted to sell them at STORE, do you think you get to just walk into STORE and tell the manager/owner:

1) find some space on the shelf and your stock room to put my stuff! 2) I don’t have a store with shelves or visiting customers, but you will sell this for me at 0% profit!

You’re paying for sales access to millions of devices with frictionless checkout.

And you want to… make it harder to check out? Because you think you’re entitled sell things to their user base?

No one wants to go to your website. You’re crazy.

stahtops··on The Gargantuan Lie That Is Collapsing the Climate
Individual action definitely doesn't hurt, but it is not enough.

You and all your friends could install solar and batteries and drive EVs and all the energy consumption for your house, cooking, and travel could be totally green and renewable. That's great! But in the US in 2025, 63% of energy consumption is commercial+industrial [1].

National policies need to be set to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation through clean alternatives, subsidies, regulation, and probably treaties. If you can make green cheaper and/or a better product functionally, you don't have to convince people.

  [1] <https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/use-of-electricity.php>
  [2] <https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions>
  [3] <https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/deforestation-rates-by-country>
stahtops··on The Gargantuan Lie That Is Collapsing the Climate
Was it domino theory?
stahtops··on The Gargantuan Lie That Is Collapsing the Climate
Like a tree planting robot?
stahtops··on Rent collections are down in New York
Pick your favorite place on the planet. Then tell me if 8 billion people can live there, and would it be the same place if they did?

I know the answer to both of these questions, and so do you.

stahtops··on US transportation bill would add a $130 annual fee for EV drivers
People charge at home: no $ People charge at work: business has to eat the cost, can’t have that.

If this fee makes sense, then they should also remove any existing taxes for roads and assess the fee to every car.

stahtops··on Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait
Do you think you are American?
stahtops··on Tesla owner won $10k in court for Tesla's FSD lies. Tesla is still fighting him
We require individual humans to be licensed to drive and can revoke that license as needed.
stahtops··on Tesla owner won $10k in court for Tesla's FSD lies. Tesla is still fighting him
Some people only bought the sandwich because of the chips. If chips weren't offered they would have bought lunch from someone else across the street.
stahtops··on Olympic Committee bars transgender athletes from women’s events
If you divided the competitors into “has freakishly long arms” and “doesn’t have freakishly long arms” groups to compete within, and Phelps met the metrics for freakishly long arms, are you saying you think he should be free to compete in either group?

If so, there was no point in dividing into groups.

That said, I am sure athletes and governing bodies could agree on a better solution than outright banning- for example all it takes is a group that pairs a freakishly long armed swimmer with not, and they compete as pairs. Or an open group- maybe someone without freakishly long arms will find a way to win.

Anyway, it’s sports, people will min/max everything you let them, and we know from history they may bend or break rules as well. At the end of the day someone has to make a rule and enforce it, over time it will evolve.

stahtops··on Have a fucking website
If you prefer ai slop, let me introduce you to moltbook! Some of the ai agents there were even trained by humans being paid by pedophilic fascist speed freaks, so they tend to be more amenable to that sort of thing than your typical human.
stahtops··on 1M context is now generally available for Opus 4.6 and Sonnet 4.6
Why downplay the mass surveillance aspect by saying it's a request by "the military". It's a request by the department of defense, the parent organization of the NSA.

From what has been shared publicly, they absolutely did ask for contractual limits on domestic mass surveillance to be removed, and to my read, likely technical/software restrictions to be removed as well.

What the department of defense is legally allowed to do is irrelevant and a red herring.

stahtops··on Apple Does Not Include a Charger with All New MacBooks in UK and EU
You don’t work in hardware. Now someone has to open a box and put a charger in? And you have to ship air for the other SKU? How much fuel/energy was wasted shipping empty space?

No one is going to do that. They’re going to package them separately and ship the box. And the onus is STILL on the user to manually add a charger to their cart. When they forget or don’t realize, they’ll complain, just like people are complaining here.

The EU made a bad rule. They should have exempted electronics above a certain price point. Their rule only really makes sense in the context of junk that costs $9.99 being shipped with a cheap charger and cables that no one wants.

stahtops··on Anthropic and Alignment (Ben Thompson)
You’re right, the analogy makes no sense. And what’s more, Dario didn’t make the analogy. This blogger took a partial quote out of context and constructed a blog post around it.

If you listen to the interview, Dario is talking about the Trump trade deal with Nvidia being allowed to sell H200 chips to China, but the USA gets some taxes. He thinks it’s a bad deal for long term national security. He likens it to “selling NK nuclear weapons and bragging that the casings are made by Boeing”.

It’s not about AI/nukes being equivalents- it’s about making a bad deal with a rival, giving them something they want / reducing your superiority, just so you can brag about having made a deal.

stahtops··on Anthropic and Alignment (Ben Thompson)
That’s not what Dario said. This guy Ben took a partial quote and then used it to construct a strawman. And hey look, he was successful, you bought it.

Dario criticized the Trump admin policy of allowing Nvidia to sell advanced chipsets to China as being poor for long term national security. He said our model edge is dependent on the HW edge, and likened this Trump “deal” to selling nuclear weapons to NK and bragging that the casings were made by Boeing. You can go watch the video yourself.

He was attacking the Trump trade deal as being bad, and characterizing Trump as more concerned with being able to name drop a US company and say he made a great deal, rather than actually doing what is in the best interest of the country.

Do you just believe everything you read on the internet? Or was it Ben the bloggers amazing credentials of being an Apple INTERN in the company culture group? He’s a real philosopher king I’m sure.

stahtops··on Apple Does Not Include a Charger with All New MacBooks in UK and EU
Yea that’s how regulations work. If the EU wanted both options then it should have specified that.
stahtops··on Apple Does Not Include a Charger with All New MacBooks in UK and EU
This is on the EU. Not bundling a charger with electronics that cost hundreds of dollars/euros is dumb, and having it be a requirement is even dumber.

And yea I’m definitely still salty from the time I bought a 3DS and then got on a 14hr flight to Shanghai, only to find out it didn’t come with the proprietary charger.

stahtops··on Apple Does Not Include a Charger with All New MacBooks in UK and EU
If that’s what the EU wants then why didn’t they require it?

If you’re forced to break the two components into two SKUs, that’s what you’re going to do- optimize. Not make a third SKU to add confusion. What if you’re out of stock of the charger-less SKU? Does that put you in violation of EU rules?

stahtops··on Anthropic and Alignment (Ben Thompson)
Sorry, but literally what are you talking about?

If Ford sells Broncos, and Pete Hegseth says “I’m Batman, we want them with RPG launchers”, Ford is not required to create Bronco’s with RPG launchers.

If Pete wants AI killer robots and AI domestic mass surveillance tools, he can go put out a RFQ like literally any other DOD DARPA project in history and get bids.

stahtops··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
If the T&C is agreed to up front, why shouldn't they be able to? If their client or potential client doesn't like the T&C, they can find another vendor.
stahtops··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
Sovereign like King George III?
stahtops··on Tesla Robotaxis Reportedly Crashing at a Rate That's 4x Higher Than Humans
Fascinating to cherry pick while trying to color an article as biased. Couldn’t even include an entire sentence?

“The incidents included a collision with a fixed object at 17 miles per hour, a crash with a bus while the Tesla vehicle was stopped, a crash with a truck at four miles per hour, and two cases where Tesla vehicles backed into fixed objects at low speeds.”

stahtops··on Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study
Anecdata, my i3 range was not perceptibly reduced after ~8 years, 82k miles. But the pack was thermally managed, and from what I understand, also didn’t allow you to go to true 0 or true 100 SOC.

Tesla lets you use it all, which gets bigger range numbers (for a time) but at the cost of degradation, if you use it.

stahtops··on Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study
You should answer for yourself why any of the three stopping methods would result in more or less tire wear than the other.
stahtops··on Adoption of EVs tied to real-world reductions in air pollution: study
Plenty of ICE cars let you control the transmission, and not just MT. Engine braking is effectively the same as regen braking to tires.

Regen is lossy, so there’s no incentive in slowing down to capture 1W just to speed up and spend 1.1W

Porsche has modes for coast and regen. Applying brakes in coast mode will use regen up to a threshold and then use conventional pad/rotor.

So I am sorry to inform you that you’re just wrong.

There are EVs that can coast.

EVs are not braking more.

Whether you use conventional brakes, engine braking, or regen braking, it’s all the same to the tires.

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