terran57

I found the rented e-scooter experience in Paris to be a cost-effective, convenient, and quick way to get around the city. I much preferred taking one of them over the subways/bus system or taxis. I did see a lot of irresponsible riders over the years, which is partly why we are here now. My next trip will find me transitioning to e-bikes rather than returning to the old transportation options.

I have a personal story that seems to dovetail with this article.

Back in the days of the pre-Y2K "crisis" hype, I lived in Colorado and was young and more impressionable, I started developing a prepper mentality. While I was pretty sure that we'd get through that, it seemed wise to plan for the future.

So, I fell into a group of like-minded people, and joined in conversations about what would be needed to survive in a post-collapse environment. We honed our hunting skills, pre-stocked camping backpacks, and formulated plans to flee into the mountains in case things went south. We also started looking into what it would take to buy a piece of property and build out a bunker, stock it, and prepare for whatever was to come.

My enthusiasm for this individual prepper mentality diminished quite rapidly due to a single conversation. I was in a "seminar" where we were all discussing the advantages/disadvantages of prebuilt bunkers and how to disguise them on the property. During a break, when I asked one of the "consultants" what his plan was. He took me aside, looked around so that nobody would hear him and said something along the lines of: "Kid, don't waste your time with this hiding in a bunker nonsense. Me and my kids and grandkids live up in the mountains and know where a lot of these preppers have their stashes. If things go south, we're just going use our bulldozers and diggers to dig them out and take what they've stored away for us. They won't be able to outlast a group of us."

I looked at him like he was Judas, but he then said. "Don't think I'm the only one in this business who's planning to do this, we'll gladly take their money and build whatever bunker they want, but at the end of the day, if things go to hell, we'll use whatever means we have to survive, and so if that means cracking open these stashes - so be it".

Then he said "the key to survival is being part of a community you can rely on. Ideally, this is your family as they're much less likely to betray you, but a good like-minded church group could also work".

I was a bit stunned by this, but it crystalized in my mind then, that the individual "prepper" was eventually doomed to fail at some point and it was pretty useless to prepare for it.

So, yes, I now agree that the best approach to "prepare" is to work to strengthen your community.

A breakthrough in human life extension technologies could help alleviate the need to have more children to perpetuate the species. It is conceivable, as indicated in some research papers, that next century humans might be able to live past 100 with a high quality of life through advanced medical interventions.

Now, of course, we face great unknowns in how things will turn out in the future. So, living past 100 might be a moot point if society has broken down.

What do you mean by revive?

As someone who's done a couple of ultramarathons, my first reaction is "That's crazy."

However, the title of the race does have "Transcendence" in there, so it seems a primary motivating factor is to see if you can put yourself into that state of transcendence for the duration.

Pardon the slight (irrelevant) quibble - but land hasn't been "destroyed" - only the "improvements" made to the land have been.

The chart reflects what I've observed in the media in a visually appealing manner.

Personal datapoint: I loaded up Threads when it was announced, and then said "meh" because there wasn't enough content at the time. This post actually reminded me to take a look at it again and now I see much more content, so I'll take a second look at it to see what's there.

Also - Still waiting on my Bluesky invite.

First - please seek some professional help immediately - you are not alone, and these feelings are common in people who've had a setback. Perhaps there's a slight chemical imbalance in your brain that needs to be reset - but only a professional can guide you there. Perhaps, all you need is some time to reflect and unwinds. Just don't make any rash decisions that have permanent consequences.

RE: startup failing.

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas Edison

Having a startup fail is, in itself, a success. At least you tried and with the failure, you learn things that you can use with the next startup.

Don't give up. There's so much negativity in the news we're not seeing the positive sides of things. Technology is advancing quickly and we're on the verge of a new age. It'd be a shame to not see how it turns out.

Another reminder that I'm glad to use Photopea.

That's great! Which APIs are you using?

Cool project - thanks for sharing!

Your $10 needs to be $15 now...

$10K - no, but if he'd be willing to trade shares of BRKA in exchange for it ... I'm listening.

It's amazing how many wonderous discoveries are published on the first day of the fourth month of the year.

$10 in 1970's dollars ~ $50 today's dollars. Nicest house on the block with a nice large corner lot.

My mom worked a split-shift (3 hours in the morning, and 5 hours in evening Wed-Sun). My dad was in the army and was deployed to far-away lands for a significant portion of my life between 8-16 years old. My mom hired a couple of "minders" - but the first one made a baby in our bathroom with her boyfriend, and the second one did nothing but watch TV and sneak some shots of whiskey between TV shows (on the three networks then available). Long story short, I was left to my own devices a lot. My mom tried to make dinner for me - but sometimes (being a growing boy) I was just really hungry - so chef-boy-r-dee pizza was a staple - at least until I learned that one could phone in an order for pizza and have it delivered! Now we were cash-poor, so when wanted spending money, I'd have to go house-to-house to ask if they needed their lawns mowed. I'd get somewhere between $5 or $10 depending on the lawn size and would use the money for pizza delivery once or twice a week. Pretty amazing to think about it - a kid between 10-15 years old being left alone for hours a day and having to go house-to-house to mow lawns for extra money! (let's not forget it was the 70s so things like bike helmets, seat belts and non-smoking areas didn't exist either).

Eisenhower warned about the "Military-industrial" complex - but it seems to me that has morphed into a "Military-Industrial-Political" which is geared more towards enhancing shareholder value and political capital rather than military preparedness.

I installed it locally about an hour ago and have been running it through some paces. Nice work! (In addition to the predefined prompts, I like the API usage meter at the top).

(now, I just need Openai to take me off the waitlist for GPT-4)

Sadly, Google's track record makes this more likely than not.

I find myself nodding in agreement.

Good ole' negativity bias at work here...

Back before I moved to NYC, I lived in Colorado. When it came time for me to replace my car, I couldn't see the logic in buying a SUV that would be predominantly used for commuting. So, I countered "convention" thought and bought a sporty Acura RSX with a standard transmission. I loved the simplicity and utility of that car, and I loved the fact that, sometimes (depending on how I drove), I could get nearly 34 miles to the gallon. Meanwhile, my friends driving SUVs would complain every time they had to fill up about how much gas would cost them. After I moved to NYC, I held onto my car for a year in case I needed it. But, once I got used to living car-free, I sold the car to my brother's GF for a song.

Unfortunately, there are only a few cities in the USA where one can live car-free. However, it's maddening (to me) how many people choose to buy the biggest, least economical vehicle. On the other hand, it's quite fascinating how marketing has successfully imprinted on the American driving public the "need" for such vehicles.

thank you

I wouldn't be surprised to see the advent of mandated motherhood in China in the future.

Exactly, people aren't taking care of themselves so that they don't get the chronic diseases that reduce their lifespans. The majority don't realize that what they do in their middle-age years has a profound impact on their life expectancy.

Given the advancements in medical science and longevity research, this is entirely possible. But, the way the world in which we currently live is evolving, it may not be desirable to live to be 100 (or for that matter 90, 80, 70... depending on how things degrade)

Because of these examples, my immediate gut reaction to a new Google product announcement is wondering how long it will be before Google will discontinue said product.

From the article:

"Of course, you need a sufficiently large model to be able to learn from all this data, which is why GPT-3 is 175 billion parameters and probably cost between $1m-10m in compute cost to train.[2]"

So, perhaps better title would be "GPT in 60 Lines of Numpy (and $1m-$10m)"

404: NOT_FOUND Code: NOT_FOUND ID: cle1::7lpfh-1675176512139-930cbbb14333

This brings back a lot of memories. My part time job in high school during the early 80s had me working as video arcade attendant on evenings and weekends. Unfortunately, for the arcae manager, he had not properly done the research into traffic flows and how to actually make an arcade fun to visit - So, much to his chagrin, the patronage to this arcade was pretty low.

However, this was great for me, as I had the keys to the games and could load up free credits on them to my heart's content before or after hours. We had Defender, Pac-man, Centipede, Galaga, and 8-10 others which, because traffic was so low, the manager encouraged that I play so people might be enticed to come in. Eventually, I noticed that one of the few regulars, a kid around 12 years old, had the ability to play of Galaga just to the point he would roll the high-score counter on a single quarter. Then he'd move over to Pac-Man and do the same.

Curious, I asked him to show me how he did it in exchange for free credits on the other machines. He demonstrated that there was a pattern on Galaga that, if you followed precisely, would allow you to cruise through each level. The first key step, of course, would be get your ship captured so that you could free it and double your firepower.

He also demonstrated that there was also a pattern on PacMan, and again, if you followed the pattern precisely, it would also allow you to cruise through each level, while maximizing points.

Over the course of a few days, I committed the patterns to memory. Then, with this new-found skill, I was able to go to other arcades around town and obtain the high score. (At that point in my life it was the absolute best feeling to see every line High Scores Screen filled with my initials).

Shortly afterwards, the arcade where I worked closed (I can tell you it was a sad day for me when the truck came to pick up all the games as I was hoping to buy one on the cheap). I then found a new job, which involved a lot of physical activity, which caused me to lose a bunch of weight, which suddenly made girls show an interest in me, which then made video games much less attractive to me... and so, I forgot the pattern.

(geez, I sound like an old man - I guess soon I'll be yelling at kids to get off my lawn ...)