stevenjgarner

"It is 1958. IBM passes up the chance to buy a young, fledgling company that has invented a new technology called xerography. Two years later, Xerox is born, and IBM has been kicking themselves ever since. It is ten years later, the late '60s. Digital Equipment DEC and others invent the minicomputer. IBM dismisses the minicomputer as too small to do serious computing and, therefore, unimportant to their business. DEC grows to become a multi-hundred-million dollar corporation before IBM finally enters the minicomputer market. It is now ten years later, the late '70s. In 1977, Apple, a young fledgling company on the West Coast, invents the Apple II, the first personal computer as we know it today. IBM dismisses the personal computer as too small to do serious computing and unimportant to their business." - Steve Jobs [1][2][3]

Now, "IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off". IBM has not exactly had a stellar record at identifying the future.

[1] https://speakola.com/ideas/steve-jobs-1984-ad-launch-1983

[2] https://archive.org/details/1983-10-22-steve-jobs-keynote

[3] https://theinventors.org/library/inventors/blxerox.htm

See also sciencealert.com repost:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46109446

See original article:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46122691

Could the mechanosensitive GPR133 receptor pathway be safely and effectively targeted in humans perhaps using a specific activator like AP503, to provide a superior, long-lasting therapeutic strategy for bone formation and osteoporosis reversal that avoids the severe side effects or lack of efficacy associated with current drugs?

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Demis is after all a co-founder and CEO.

We need 20 different amino acids to build all our proteins. We can synthesize 11 of them (non-essential amino acids), but we must obtain the other 9 Essential Amino Acids fully formed from the food we eat.

So in this sense then, human beings themselves are obligate metabolic parasites on the planetary ecosystem, particularly on other life forms (plants, animals, microbes). The term "parasite" here is used in the metabolic sense of relying on another organism to produce essential compounds one cannot produce oneself. The molecules we must obtain fully synthesized from our diet are called essential nutrients. And for a Sukunaarchaeum, everything is an essential nutrient.

Isn't replication the single most important act of metabolism for an organism? I am trying to reconcile their ""lost genes include those central to cell metabolism, meaning it can neither process nutrients nor grow on its own" with their "The organism’s “replicative core” — the genetic components needed to reproduce itself — remains, making up more than half of its genome".

Replication (making DNA, RNA, and proteins, and ultimately dividing) is a highly energy-intensive and material-intensive process. What appears to be lost by Sukunaarchaeum are the genes to build basic building blocks (amino acids, vitamins, nucleotides) from scratch. It cannot find a sugar molecule and break it down for energy (it can "neither process nutrients nor grow on its own"). Yet it can take pre-made energy and building blocks and assemble them into a new organism.

What is the exact line between the host's metabolic contribution and the archaeon's replicative assembly? How "finished" are the raw materials that the host provides, and how does the archaeon's extremely reduced genome still manage the subsequent steps of self-replication?

Did some research on the yields of the nuclear weapons placed in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis which apparently are now well-known, largely due to information released by Soviet officials and military historians in the decades following the Cold War (specifically in the early 1990s).

While the United States was unaware of the sheer number of warheads at the time (estimating far fewer or none operational), it is now confirmed that approximately 158 nuclear warheads were on the island.

The yields for these specific weapon systems were as follows:

1. Strategic Ballistic Missiles These were the weapons that triggered the crisis—long-range missiles capable of striking deep into the continental United States.

a) SS-4 Sandal (R-12) Missiles

Yield: ~1 Megaton (1,000 kT)

Status: There were roughly 36 to 40 of these missiles in Cuba. The warheads were present and could have been mated to the missiles within hours. A 1 MT explosion is roughly 60–70 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

b) SS-5 Skean (R-14) Missiles

Yield: ~1 to 2.3 Megatons (1,000–2,300 kT)

Status: The nuclear warheads for these missiles did arrive in Cuba, but the missiles themselves were blocked by the quarantine (blockade) and never reached the island.

2. Tactical (Battlefield) Nuclear Weapons This is the category that most alarmed historians and officials when it was revealed in the 1990s. The U.S. did not know these were present or operational. If the U.S. had invaded (as was being debated), local Soviet commanders had pre-delegated authority (later rescinded) to use these against American landing forces.

a) FKR-1 (Meteor) Cruise Missiles

Yield: 5 to 14 Kilotons (kT)

Status: There were approximately 80 of these warheads. These were ground-launched cruise missiles intended for coastal defense and could have been used to strike the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay or incoming amphibious fleets.

b) Luna (FROG) Artillery Rockets

Yield: 2 Kilotons (kT)

Status: There were 12 of these warheads. These were short-range battlefield rockets intended to destroy troop concentrations on the beachheads.

c) IL-28 "Beagle" Bombers

Yield: ~28–30 Kilotons (kT)

Status: There were 6 nuclear bombs (likely the RDS-4 type) specifically for these light bombers. The aircraft were capable of striking targets in Florida or regionally.

[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1177/009634021246436...

[2] https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v10...

[3] https://www.atomicarchive.com/history/cuban-missile-crisis/m...

[4] http://www.cubanmissilecrisis.org/background/frequently-aske...

[5] https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book-special-exhibit/cuba...

[6] https://www.cfr.org/blog/twe-remembers-secret-soviet-tactica...

[7] https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB449/

[8] http://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/cuban-missile-...

Power requirements, moving mass and audio sampling and processing.

Hearing aids run on tiny voltages (typically ~1.4 Volts). They are designed to amplify speech (a small frequency range) at moderate volumes. An IEM is designed to handle the massive energy of a live drum kit without distortion. To do this, the internal amplifier needs Headroom. It likely steps up the battery voltage significantly (internally converting to higher voltage rails) to ensure that when a snare drum hits 120dB, the amplifier has enough electrical height to reproduce that spike without clipping.

Hearing aids use microscopic balanced armature receivers that require almost zero power to move because they are only moving a tiny amount of air near your eardrum. IEMs use dual-driver miniature subwoofers and tweeters that are physically larger and heavier. It takes significantly more electrical current to push these drivers back and forth.

Hearing aids often use aggressive battery-saving tricks, such as lowering the sampling rate or "sleeping" processes when silence is detected. The processor of an IEM is running wide open 100% of the time. It is constantly digitizing the world at a high sampling rate to ensure zero latency. If it tried to save battery by "sleeping" between notes, you would hear a delay (latency), which would make it impossible to play in time.

You definitely have a point there. The 3DME uses small MEMS microphones embedded in the faceplate of the earphone and has no physical windscreen or noise suppression like digital hearing aids and consumer buds which use aggressive software algorithms to detect wind and instantly cut the low frequencies to stop the rumble.

As a workaround, some artists performing outside wear a thin, acoustically transparent beanie or headband over the ears effectively acting as a pop-filter/windscreen. This breaks the wind before it hits the mic while still letting mid-to-high frequency sound (speech/music) pass through. Not exactly a hearing aid alternative.

Here's a crazy idea. I personally prefer the fidelity of an active ambient in-ear monitor (IEM), as used by musicians on stage over the best hearing aids. Once a year, I do a monthly trial with the latest hearing aid models and IMO the fidelity (especially low-end) and the comfort just is not there compared with the best active ambient IEMs. The difference between hearing aids and IEMs is blurring, but they are not yet fully interchangeable.

Standard IEMs isolate you from the world, which is the opposite of what a hearing aid does. However, a specific category called "Active Ambient" IEMs bridges this gap. These are IEMs with embedded high-fidelity microphones on the outer shell. They pick up the sound of the room (bandmates, crowd, conductor), amplify it, and blend it with your monitor mix. The accompanying bodypack or app often includes a multi-band EQ and Limiter. You can boost specific frequencies where you have hearing loss (e.g., boosting highs to hear cymbals or speech clearly) and set a volume ceiling to protect your remaining hearing. I have no ownership/sponsorship in the product, but I personally LOVE the ASI Audio 3DME (powered by Sensaphonics), which is the industry standard for this. [1] It allows you to use an app to shape the ambient sound to your hearing needs.

The Pros: It provides hearing protection + monitoring + hearing enhancement in one device.

The Cons (Why they aren't daily hearing aids):

1) Form Factor: You are tethered to a belt pack. You likely won't wear a wired bodypack to a grocery store or dinner party.

2) Social Barrier: Wearing full-shell custom IEMs creates a "do not disturb" look that discourages conversation in social settings. This can be more socially alienating than a comparatively inconspicuous hearing aid.

3) Battery Life: IEM systems typically last 6–8 hours, whereas hearing aid batteries can last days or weeks.

[1] https://www.sensaphonics.com/products/3dme-custom-tour-gen2-...

I am so old I lived through it! - 13 years old staying up all night to watch Neil take his little stroll. Genuine question, how DO they teach it in school? Do they get into the physics of any of it (orbital mechanics, rocketry etc)? Do they get into the cold war geopolitics of it? Do they teach the amazing accomplishments of the Soviet Union as well as NASA?

I hope mightily that you are correct and it is restricted to the flyover states. I fear that the reality is probably that in populated states the police are so preoccupied dealing with real crime they have little opportunity to take "preventative action". Being as empathic as I can, I would say that the cops in flyover states deal with a LOT of transport-related drug crimes (that's why they are called "flyover"), so I get their focus. I have just learned to exist below the radar as much as possible. I no longer drive dealer plated cars and have no vehicles registered in my name (so I never come up in ALPR systems). I try to be compliant in every way possible. But then again that's what real criminals do too.

One of them WAS a sergeant. My hope was that a State Trooper would stop and reign things in a bit. Just lots of semis thundering by. Otherwise, it can get pretty quiet on rural interstates at night.

Yes that is what I am saying. Most cops carry a multi tool at the minimum (with Phillips screwdriver). They also had a standard 10mm socket (carried by MANY cops and all that is required to dismantle much of any Hyundai).

Using their multi tool, they removed the fender liners (wheel well liners) from all 4 wheels, the trunk side trim (luggage compartment side trim) from both sides - all of which just has plastic push-pin scrivets (retainer clips). They broke 5 of them.

They folded down my back seats (after removing all my personal items out to the shoulder in the rain), then unbolted and removed the back seat.

I do a LOT of interstate driving, and it is not at all uncommon to see this happen.

This is not the only time I have been in situations where authority has been exceeded. My attitude is to generally be cooperative (without giving consent) as my experience has taught me that is the most painless way to go.

Please watch "Don't Talk to the Police" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36371237)

Not true. Section 215 of Patriot Act expanded surveillance powers, information-sharing, and intelligence authorities, allowing the FBI to obtain “business records” relevant to counterterrorism, no probable cause required. This does not specifically authorize detention, but show me the "business records" of any enterprise that would not raise questions requiring 48-hour hold.

Drove a new Hyundai with dealer plates from AZ to Minnesota and got pulled over by Bethany, MO city police on I-35 in northern MO with no probable cause other than window tint being too dark. They tore the car apart certain that I was muling drugs (removed seats, body panels, etc). Took 6 hours. Never found anything and left me with "we know you have committed a crime, we just cannot find it, but you will get caught". I had to put the car back together myself in the dark.

Retired age men driving dealer plate cars eastbound onto I-80 in Nebraska out of Colorado from I-76 get stopped ALL THE TIME as potential drug mules.

Thank you and upvote to the OP for posting this. I love Bach and place him on a pedestal of my own.

Personally I lack the physiological or cultural understanding of the significance of Tuvan Throat Singing [1] and why "Kongurei" (Konggurei / 60 Horses) is often described as the most beautiful and heartbreaking song in the Tuvan Throat Singing (Khoomei) repertoire.

I also get that the Javanese gamelan orchestral masterpiece "Ketawang Puspawarna" [2] is widely cited as the candidate for the "most important, beautiful, and pivotal" global composition. So much so, that NASA included it on the Voyager spacecraft Golden Record in 1977 (side 2 track 2, together with 3 compositions of J.S. Bach). But I probably lack the aesthetic fabric to fully comprehend or appreciate its significance.

[1] Tuvan Throat Singing, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx8hrhBZJ98

[2] Ketawang Puspawarna, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irt2AsxYYnI

If the brain contains far finer, previously unknown micro-zones of organization — even within tiny nuclei — how much of neuroscience’s current “regional” model is actually too coarse to explain cognition, emotion, and disease? Are we missing critical functional units of the brain simply because we haven’t been able to see them — units that could fundamentally change how we understand behavior, consciousness, and neuropsychiatric disorders?

Isn't there a big liability insurance payout on this towards the 5.2 Billion, and if so won't the insurer be more motivated to mandate compliance?

Researchers have identified a specialized immune cell, CD4-Eomes, that naturally targets and destroys aging “senescent” cells in mice, revealing that the immune system already evolves its own anti-aging defenses.

For the first time, it has been showed that these cells are directly triggered by senescent-cell buildup and are essential for keeping those harmful “zombie” cells in check; removing CD4-Eomes in mice caused senescent cells and tissue damage to surge, while restoring them reduced scarring and inflammation in chronic disease models.

The discovery overturns the common belief that rejuvenation requires resetting the immune system to a youthful state and instead suggests that supporting age-adapted immune responses may be key to slowing biological aging.

The unique achievement in this work is that researchers have teleported quantum information between photons that were created by different and physically separated semiconductor quantum dots — a task long believed to be prohibitively difficult because photons from different sources normally never match well enough to interfere.

By engineering nearly identical quantum dots and using quantum-frequency converters to “tune” the photons into perfect alignment, the team demonstrated true quantum teleportation across independent sources, a capability essential for building scalable quantum repeaters.

Quantum repeaters are the missing link for a long-distance, fiber-based quantum internet, since quantum states cannot be copied or amplified like classical signals. This experiment shows, for the first time, that teleportation-based renewal of quantum information between independent solid-state photon sources is possible, marking a major step toward practical, long-range quantum communication networks.

This article claims that Young's famous double-slit experiment — which for a century has been taken as textbook proof that light is both a wave and a particle — might actually be explainable using only particles. The researchers argue that the interference pattern (the bright and dark stripes) does not require waves canceling each other; instead, photons sometimes enter “dark states” where they can’t excite a detector, so it looks like no light is there even though photons passed through. If correct, this would mean wave-particle duality is not a fundamental feature of light, but an inference built from incomplete models. This does not overthrow quantum mechanics, but it challenges the idea that light must have a wave aspect at all — and it could reshape how we interpret measurement, interference, and maybe even the role of the observer in quantum physics.

Okay I'm going to ask. Is anybody else here playing Living Colour's "Cult of Personality" while they read this? [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xxgRUyzgs0

Jevons paradox predicts that AI, by making many tasks dramatically cheaper, will increase total demand for those tasks and create new industries around them—just as cheap imaging increased radiology demand and cheap cloud computing created DevOps.

Gary Tan is right that AI will spark massive expansion in many fields. But commenters to the video correctly warn that Jevons paradox only holds until we hit demand saturation or broader system bottlenecks, and AI is unique because it simultaneously automates every link in every knowledge-based value chain.

As AI lowers the cost of cognition itself, humans — not compute — may become the limiting reagent. That means efficiency gains may create new opportunities in the short run, but long-term labor compression, industry consolidation, and economic restructuring are likely unavoidable. AI will expand the economy—but it may not expand the need for human workers at the same rate.

Can you enlighten me as to how manage the need for on-site maintenance, and if on-site maintenance requirements can be eliminated, why is this not happening on earth?