technotarek

I spend a big chunk of my summers in nowhere cow-ville France (la Creuse). No Michelin star restaurants, no art galleries, no shopping worth note. Just landscapes, hiking, lakes and slower life. BUT what surprises me most is how often I describe this to people, even the French, and they’re like “why / pourquoi ?!” Is it not obvious? There’s a reason people say they need a vacation after their vacation. I think it’s that people are expecting too much of their vacations.

Apparently CloudFlare’s turnstile can’t, as evidenced by several public-facing CRUD and mail routines we maintain that no longer are warding off the spam.

I’m not a furniture maker, but I have a rather close connection to the industry. I used to hate ikea furniture. In fact I hated almost all modern furniture that mass market, that wasn’t high end. I was a huge proponent of vintage furniture ( and still am), but I have really come around on ikea. They sure still make some crap, but they also make some genuinely innovative pieces that can last if you treat them with a basic level of care. I’d specifically call out / praise a few of their beds with built in drawer solutions. A few good desks too. They also have other mostly solid wood products too. It really depends. Just my $0.02.

“ Humans must not blindly trust the output of AI systems. AI-generated content must not be treated as authoritative without independent verification appropriate to its context.”

I’m lost, how do individuals actually do this in our current world? Is each person expected to keep a “white list” of reliable sources of truth in their head. Please don’t confuse what I’m saying with a suggestion that there is no truth. It just seems like there are far more sources of mis- of half-truths and it’s increasingly difficult for people to identify them.

Like Mr Jobs said, “You’re holding it wrong.”

Not a fan of my own medical example there. If I knew my kid was going to be blind, there are lots of actions I would take: Educating myself, potentially preparing the home environment etc.

A sincere question : In a home environment, what information do devices like this provide that you regularly act upon and how? Can you give some examples? I’m trying to understand the use case given I already have a thermostat with humidity readings and look at the weather for air quality. Is it more than after cooking, the PPMs are high, open the window or turn on the vent fan (which I do out of habit anyways)?

I self imposed a rule when I went through the process of having a child — to avoid (negative) information that I couldn’t or wouldn’t really act upon (e.g. learning about genetic markers/hints that couldn’t be prevented and wouldn’t make me think about extreme measures, such as blindness). For me it’s an issue of anxiety management.

But whatever came of the lost cat??!!

Wow, what an interesting piece of journalism, in regards to the presentation. It reminded me of when I saw the NYT’s Snow Fall piece for the first time. At the time, it was an amazing display of cutting edge UI skills that exhibited both skill and restraint. Great storytelling to boot.

As a native (suburban) Detroiter (who departed 20 years ago), I don’t want to throw shade but articles like these rarely give a good sense of the size or scope of decades of decay. There are still miles (and miles) of apocalyptic looking neighborhoods. As a teenager, we had our pick of hundreds of abandoned warehouses to party (“rave”).

I'd love to see it flourish, and maybe if the area could get past its car addiction, I’d even want to call it home again one day.

*Removed inaccurate statement about the city’s size.

RE prices were zero in my rave days : https://technotarek.com/shows/richie-hawtin

FYI the demo’s login credentials are case sensitive for the email field (when they probably shouldn’t be?).

I’ve got about twenty domains listed with them. No problems after 2-3 years, but I do wonder whether it’s a good idea to use the same vendor for DNS and domain registration.

I love this photo:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_bobbing#/media/File%3A...

If anyone is interested in connecting with someone working in this space, please hit me up. We’ve been building tools for political media buyers for the last several years. We draw data from the Google Transparency DB, Meta’s equivalent and other disparate sources to allow campaigns to analyze the spending in greater detail. It has been really interesting from an engineering perspective, but also just to learn more about how this industry operates.

Here’s a cover of his I like, kind of turned on its head.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8eYJwydTxYA

Tangential…Anyone from the HN community using Yuka app. (Scan barcodes to get info about dangerous additives and other health info about food and healthcare products.) I discovered it in France where it’s rather popular and continue to use it state side. Has changed a lot of my buying/consuming decisions. No affiliation.

Whenever I see statements like this that correlate price and product quality (eg wine, spirits), I’m always wondering why a “fake” wouldn’t just elevate its price to the level of the non-fake. I have a feeling most customers won’t know the difference. I guess I’m just skeptical of using price as a proxy where everything from a fancy-looking label to a nice marketing campaign will inflate the price.

Breaking news

Just installed and gave it a try. Good initial vibe. One of the first things I wanted to do was share a particular story/summary with someone else (ideally by text or email). Since you’re pushing the sharing idea at the bottom of the front page, maybe you want to consider that option as well? Not much beats getting a potential new user by feeding them the real meat of your product.

We need an acknowledgment of the past, the origins, which may no longer be present. Detroit starting in the ‘80s and into the 90s would be the prime example. I wrote a short essay about the latter :

https://technotarek.com/shows/richie-hawtin

I was being specific when I chose an LLM product like ChatGPT, not LLMs generically. I do so because it is a product like ChatGPT that boils away the noise to the end user, for better or worse. That is, to grossly simplify my point, it provides a single answer / response, instead of a long list of potential garbage for which I must dig, ponder, assess etc.

Sure, but that’s huge. And probably the reason some (or at least me) are becoming so disillusioned with the web. It’s why I find it hard to believe/trust what I read from news to health advice to product reviews. The noise numbs us to the point where it all starts to feel worthless. This may be one reason ChatGPT et al feel so novel. They get rid of the noise. Of course, they are all built on the back of that noise.

Sorry, yes 10KWh!

One man’s experience in DC (where the SRECs are crazy valuable):

Installed 10Mwh system in 2021 for ~$40k.

After federal tax credits, SREC earnings, reductions in electric bills, and payments from electric co for over production, we have $7k left to recoup in only 3 years. And that ignores savings from the gas we’re not spending on charging the PHEV.

I know it’s a luxury to have, but there’s also some pride value (clearly!). Fortunate circumstance if you’re in the right place and have the cash. I wish the investment was more broadly accessible.

Yes! And occasionally, I still miss them.

? I guess you haven’t been around Paris in the last couple of years. Nike’s dominate street shoes - Jordan’s, AF1s, and Dunks.

Also in use at (at least some of) Paris’ libraries. I was quite impressed with the frictionless book borrowing experience. Scan your card and put your mess of a pile of kids books on the platform. Done. Happy kid.

To boot, I was worried I was taking too many books. Expected a limit of 5 or maybe 10. But when I asked —- 40!

They work on me and that’s exactly the problem — that is they work at manipulating me. And that’s why I want them gone. I’d rather free up the energy I spend on trying to ignore them and put that energy into something that actually makes my life better.

I don’t know where you live, but what about all the mail spam — physical mail like catalogs and email advertising/marketing? And that half of what’s published by most journalistic outlets is now veiled ads?

Dear Products,

I know me better than you. I’ll come find you WHEN I need you. In the meantime, please just sit tight and stay out of my way.

-Mr Consumption is Overrated