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vilius

233 karma · joined August 27, 2010

Software Engineer
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vilius··on OpenAI Feared "Optics" of what might appear on Hacker News
It’s 2030, I open HN and top result is from 7 hours ago, 2100 points, 700 comments:

> AI agent accidentally publishes OpenAI’s unreleased model weights

The optics are bad. The submission marks a turning page in human history.

vilius··on Logo Programming
It’s 1998, I’m 10, it’s a gloomy autumn morning, in Klaipeda (pop. 200k), Lithuania, eastern Europe. I’m at school. Informatics class. Never touched a computer before.

The computer is running windows 95. The teacher starts Logo and I see that turtle in the middle of the screen. She explains how to make it move.

And I start typing my very first code.

It’s lisp based. Took me 28 years to learn that. Now I think I need to finish the job and pock up lisp.

vilius··on FDA authorizes first wearable device that monitors ketone and blood sugar levels
In Europe there is ketone-only continuous meter SiBio that goes for 86 EUR for 2 weeks.

A healthmaxxer goes with CGM to the left arm; CKM to the right arm and gets his glucose and ketones data for roughly 200-300 EUR per month. I did consider running this out of curiosity.

Having 2-in-1 is much nicer. Esp if you are diabetic.

[1] https://www.sibiosensor.com/products/sibio-ks3-ckm-continuou...

vilius··on I’ve joined Anthropic
> "I was born into a poor family but am relatively intelligent and good at learning things, therefore I can find success"

Nicely put, unconsciously this was my mindset in my 20s. In my 30s, I started questioning myself how come so many stupid people achieve great success. There must be more to success than just being relatively intelligent (just look into politicians - forgive generalization).

Once a nagging thought, now I find some comfort in it.

vilius··on The Bob Dylan concert for just one person
My GF was a photographer at a Secret Cinema event with Laura Marling that took place in London. She had to take some promo pictures, so they met in one of the event rooms [1] for the photoshoot. After just a few pictures they were done and instead of wrapping up, Laura started to perform one of her songs.

Not the same scale as Bob Dylan concert, but still a concert for one. A kind gesture, unconditional, free, ephemeral, but leaving a life lasting memory.

[1] https://everybody-s.com/laura-marling-the-grand-eagle-ball-s...

vilius··on Plane crashes, overturns during landing at Toronto airport
It happens to be that another pilot from a plane waiting to take off form the very same runway was filming the approach [1].

Purely by chance we have HD footage. It does make a huge difference and I agree with the sentiment that this would make flying safer.

[1] https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGNgCI0MC68/

vilius··on setBigTimeout
Here’s a deep dive in 6 minutes https://youtu.be/boD0ReK62FI?si=jSXuQn0DHn3riJgd

Just JS being JS: setTimeout(()=>{}, Infinity) executes immediately

vilius··on AI-generated sad girl with piano performs the text of the MIT License
Not sure how I've missed it! Now, I just wish to live long enough to hear the 3rd iteration. Hearing how much shit has happened over the years is so soothing, yet world just keeps on spinning
vilius··on AI-generated sad girl with piano performs the text of the MIT License
I've always wanted to Billy Joel to re-release his "We Didn't Start The Fire" but with updated events. Well, here it is: https://suno.com/song/b8b33785-271f-48f2-9934-26dabb8e20ed
vilius··on Sora: Creating video from text
The Lagos video (https://openai.com/sora?video=lagos) is very much how my dreams unfold. One moment, I'm with my friends in a bustling marketplace, then suddenly we are no longer at the marketplace, but rather overlooking a sunset and a highway. I wonder if there are some conceptual similarities how dreams and AI video models work.
vilius··on Square where Julius Caesar was killed opens to the public in Rome
Last winter, I visited Rome for the first time. I walked past this a couple of times. Everything was fenced, and as I continued my journey I just thought of it how inconvenient it is to walk around it. Unbeknownst to me, I was passing a place where Julius Caesar was killed. That pretty much sums up Rome - it is so enriched in history that you unwillingly become ignorant while exploring it.
vilius··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (April 2023)
Location: Warsaw, Poland

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Ruby, TypeScript, React, React Native, Next.js, Tailwind, AWS

Résumé/CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OyOYEzKUISx3ETkksnCEQqro49N...

Email: inside the CV

Full-stack developer who can design, 8 YOE managing engineering teams as a CTO. Very hands-on, fluent in working across the stack. Started interviewing in mid-March after a career break. I’m open to programming-focused roles as well.

vilius··on Ask HN: Generalist contractors, what is your hourly rate?
I’m also curious what’s a good way finding projects for generalists. My contracting experience was that I ended up doing specialized work even though I would able to complete the project from start to finish.
vilius··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2022)
Sedition Art | CTO | Full-time | Remote or Onsite | London

Hi HN! After 10 years at Sedition I'm moving on to some other ventures and looking for a replacement for my role. It's a great job at a small company that has been selling digital limited editions by World renowned artists since 2010. With advent of NFTs the digital ownership is becoming a new norm and Sedition can be at the very centre of this. It's all in your hands.

As a CTO you will work closely with CEO and lead the technical evolution of the product. We are 6 technical people so the role does not involve much management work but rather planning and hands on coding.

We expect the CTO to be a technical generalist with previous experience in a similar role.

Drop me an email at vilius at seditionart.com

vilius··on Ask HN: What tech companies/industries will do well in a recession?
Depends on the luxury level. At the very top the customer base consists of the most recession-proof people in the World. I assume they just carry on with their habits recession or not.
vilius··on One App – Two Worlds: This Is TikTok in Russia and Ukraine
If governments are censoring our internet we need to change the way we're being geolocated. VPN is too much configuration and centralisation. TOR is over the top privacy. I want something as accessible as turning the flight mode on my mobile. The button can be placed next to flight mode and called CENSORSHIP. You can turn it on. It will then reveal your true IP address and make the internet very fast. However it's off by default. The internet is a bit slower. But your requests are being cleverly routed through random IPs that are not censored. These random IPs are provided by organisations but most importantly by peer users of the feature who happen to live in free countries. Sort of SETI@home but the goal is to increase intraterrestrial intelligence.
vilius··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2022)
Sedition | Senior Ruby on Rails Developer | Remote | Full-Time | https://www.seditionart.com/

We started Sedition with a mission to create a platform for publishing and collecting digital artworks. This was in 2011 well before the advent of NFTs. Since then we have published more than 4000 artworks from 1000 artists. Including Blue Chip represented artists like Tracey Emin, Jenny Holzer, Mat Collishaw.

We're now working on our integration with NFTs on Ethereum blockchain. It's going to be an interesting transition with a lot of challenging tasks in the pipeline. Our stack is Ruby / React / React Native / TypeScript / Solidity.

Compensation: $90K - $120K + bonuses. Timezone: We're in EU but we're flexible. More info: https://www.seditionart.com/jobs (other positions available). Apply via email: jobs@seditionart.com - please mention HN.

vilius··on Show HN: I'm writing a free book called Computer Networks from Scratch
If you're just starting in programming you may thing that Computer Networks falls into a nice to know category. At least I did as a freshman in CS. At a time I was more interested in gaining practical knowledge: popular programming languages, frameworks, OOP. In fact you can become a successful programmer without knowing much how networks work.

The reason why I recommend learning about Computer Networks from scratch is how fascinating the subject is. The way layers are implemented, their interactions, how the overall complexity is reduced by having layers of responsibility. This pattern can be seen in other areas as well: hardware -> operating system -> SDK -> programming language -> framework -> DSL. Ultimately from a Turing complete machine to seeing 200 FPS 3D FPS game with 150 other players on your screen.

vilius··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2022)
Sedition | Senior Ruby on Rails Developer | Remote | Full-Time | https://www.seditionart.com/

We started Sedition with a mission to create a platform for publishing and collecting digital artworks. This was in 2011 well before the advent of NFTs. Since then we have published more than 4000 artworks from 1000 artists. Including Blue Chip represented artists like Tracey Emin, Jenny Holzer, Mat Collishaw.

We're now working on our integration with NFTs on Ethereum blockchain. It's going to be an interesting transition with a lot of challenging tasks in the pipeline. Our stack is Ruby / React / React Native / TypeScript / Solidity.

Compensation: $90K - $120K + bonuses Timezone: We're in EU but we're flexible More info: https://www.seditionart.com/jobs (other positions available) Apply via email: jobs@seditionart.com - please mention HN

vilius··on Belarus referendum approves proposal to renounce non-nuclear status
I would not be so quick to dismiss it. Belarus claims that it still is an independent country. If it uses a nuclear weapon then it cannot be treated as if Russians used it directly. At least in Russia it would be easier for propaganda to push the story that Lukashenko did it.
vilius··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2021)
Sedition | Multiple roles | Remote | Full-Time | https://www.seditionart.com/ Sedition is a platform for selling and collecting digital art. Founded in 2011 we have since become one of the industry leaders in terms of content and playback options. Our collection consists 4000+ artworks, including works from artists like Tracey Emin, Shepard Fairey, Yoko Ono, David Choe. Every collected artwork can be enjoyed on Apple TV / Chromecast / LG TV / Samsung TV via Sedition apps. Bought editions can be also resold on a secondary market. All of this was created well before the advent of blockchain technology. We are super excited about NFTs and the changes they made to digital ownership. We have started working on integrating NFTs into our platform and are looking for talented developers to join us.

Available roles:

Back-end Rails Developer Front-end React Developer Full Stack Developer Blockchain / Solidity developer

Read more https://www.seditionart.com/jobs Apply via jobs at seditionart dot com - feel free to mention HN

vilius··on Telling the Bees
Bees to this day are very respected in Lithuania. A very close friend can be being called "Bičiulis" which is derived from a word bee. As in "bee honey" = "Bičių medus". For english speakers the pronunciation can sound a bit contraindicative ʙɪᴛᴄʜ-ᴜʟɪs
vilius··on The Chernobyl Tragedy – From the Memoirs of Nikolai Ryzhkov
I recommend reading Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. It is an elaborate attempt to figure out the reasons behind the collapse. According to the author Chernobyl played a major role.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin%27s_Tomb:_The_Last_Days_...

vilius··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2021)
Sedition | Multiple roles | Remote | Full-Time | https://www.seditionart.com/

Sedition is a platform for selling and collecting digital art. Founded in 2011 we have since become one of the industry leaders in terms of content and playback options. Our collection consists 4000+ artworks, including works from artists like Tracey Emin, Shepard Fairey, Yoko Ono, David Choe. Every collected artwork can be enjoyed on Apple TV / Chromecast / LG TV / Samsung TV via Sedition apps. Bought editions can be also resold on a secondary market. All of this was created well before the advent of blockchain technology. We are super excited about NFTs and the changes they made to digital ownership. We have started working on integrating NFTs into our platform and are looking for talented developers to join us.

Available roles:

Back-end Rails Developer Front-end React Developer Full Stack Developer

Read more https://www.seditionart.com/jobs Apply via jobs at seditionart dot com - feel free to mention HN

vilius··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2021)
Sedition | Full-Stack Developer | Remote | Full-Time | https://www.seditionart.com Sedition is a platform for selling and collecting digital art. We've been doing this for the last 10 years and since have become one of the industry leaders in terms of content and playback options. Our collection consists 4000+ artworks, including works from artists like Tracey Emin, Shepard Fairey, Yoko Ono, David Choe. Every collected artwork can be enjoyed on Apple TV / Chromecast / LG TV / Samgung TV via Sedition apps. We are particularly excited by the recent rise of NFTs popularity and the direction digital collectables are taking.

We are looking for a Full-Stack developer with strong Ruby on Rails skills. Ideally you should have experience with some of the following: React / React Native / Solidity / TypeScript / Obj-C. Most importantly you are a generalist who enjoys working with any part of the stack.

vilius··on How NFT's reference the media you're “buying”
Makes sense, it is still a very early stage ecosystem. I wonder how this evolves in future:

1. It's a bummer if your NFT URL is bust even if you have a copy. I wonder if there would be a way for owner to append NFT URL information with non-broken URL. This way owner could ensure source files availability.

2. Playback options are very limited and often require derivative formats. It seems there is an opportunity for a service that indexes NFTs and provides convenient access to their owned content. Wallets are too limited right now. I would like to have an Apple TV app that showcases my NFT collection.

There are many negative things about the current NFT bubble we're seeing however it does feel that blockchain is finally taking off and we'll be be seeing a lot of interesting dapps in the upcoming years.

vilius··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2021)
Sedition | Full-Stack Developer / Generalist | Remote (Europe) | Full-Time | https://www.seditionart.com

Sedition is a platform for selling and collecting digital art. We've been doing this for the last 10 years and since have become one of the industry leaders in terms of content and playback options. Our collection consists 4000+ artworks, including works from artists like Tracey Emin, Shepard Fairey, Yoko Ono, David Choe. Every collected artwork can be enjoyed on Apple TV / Chromecast / LG TV / Samgung TV via Sedition apps. We are particularly excited by the recent rise of NFTs popularity and the direction digital collectables are taking.

We are looking for a Full-Stack developer with strong Ruby on Rails skills. Ideally you should have experience with some of the following: React / React Native / Solidity / TypeScript / Obj-C. Most importantly you are a generalist who enjoys working with any part of the stack.

vilius··on Visualization of 40M Cell Towers
When visiting USA for the first time I was surprised how often I would be in a no reception zone. Drove just away from Miami to Everglades National Park - no reception for miles. Drove from SF to LA via Highway 1 - no reception for miles. Being from Europe I just took cell coverage for granted and always have assumed USA has the same.
vilius··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2021)
Sedition | Senior Front-End Developer | Remote (Europe) | https://www.seditionart.com/ Sedition is a platform for selling and collecting digital artworks. We've been doing this for the last 10 years and since have become one of the industry leaders. Our artwork collection consists 4000+ artworks including works from artists like Tracey Emin, Shepard Fairey, Yoko Ono and many other well regarded names. Every sold artwork is a limited edition and collectors have the right to resell their collected artworks. Our goal is to create a platform for art collecting in digital space.

Last year we've gained some exciting traction and looking for new people to help improve the product. We're a small team based in Europe, originally in London but since pandemic we've ditched our office and became fully remote.

As a front-end developer you will be working on improving our website (React / TypeScript) and apps (React Native). Occasionally we would ask you to help with back-end (Ruby on Rails) and possibly other things Tizen OS (Samsung), WebOS (LG), Chromecast, Apple TV (Obj-C). We don't expect you to be familiar with these other technologies, but if you like art and want to broaden your skillset don't hesitate to apply.

vilius··on IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed
I have IKEA socks (probably illegally made by https://theholeinmysock.com/shop/women/ikea-socks/) and tend to wear them in summer. People often compliment me for this odd choice of socks. Others find it confusing. However when I ask them if they prefer IKEA or LEGO as a brand they still choose IKEA. Statistically insignificant but I thought I’d still share.
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