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simmanian
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  1. The article and the comments remind me of Michael Levin's work on bioelectricity.

    20 min ted talk - https://youtu.be/XheAMrS8Q1c

    3 hr lex fridman episode - https://youtu.be/p3lsYlod5OU

  2. Well, I didn't say I look forward to living in a tiny capsule in space, just that it would be fun to live in a time where that's possible. I'd imagine most people would not venture into space until they can make it comfortable enough.
  3. I find it hard to believe too, but at the same time, Demis Hassabis has also said that AI will help us "colonize the galaxy" in as little as five years [1]. Maybe Sam Altman was emboldened by Hassabis' statement.

    I would not be opposed to living in a future where I can personally live in space. It would be quite fun.

    [1] (paywalled) https://fortune.com/2025/06/06/google-deepmind-ceo-demis-has...

  4. > and that what they want to call "GPT-5" is a fusion of their various models like 4o, dalle...

    Do you have a source? I ask because I read the opposite.

  5. If you keep this up i'm going to email dang. Your choice.
  6. As I already told you (yes, you), I doubt anything I say will change your mind. I do hope one day you will come to see that yelling ching chong at an asian man on the street should be seen as racist if you think a bunch of Arabs were being racists just because they said the word "Bangladeshi."
  7. when white people call me chinese ching chong it's not racism, but when arab people say something about bangladeshi, then of course it's racism? i have a couple guesses as to why you would think this way and it's sad.
  8. >I assume such events are randomly distributed.

    your point is racism towards asians does not exist, because these random assholes are being assholes toward random targets and they would basically act the same way to other white people. i disagree. i believe what the grandparent comment described about their partner's experience in rural town america is more or less true. you are free to think they are a liar or an outlier. but when people you have never interacted with call you a chinese ching chong on the street when you're just walking home, you have to admit there is some racial element to their abuse. would they have yelled anything at me if i were just another white dude in their predominantly white neighborhood? somehow i highly doubt that.

    no, i don't think these people go about their lives consciously trying to be especially mean to asian people. most of them have probably just internalized certain biases against asians. for the sake of convenience, i and many others have decided to categorize such patterns of behavior as racism.

    again, you are free to believe that racism is not real. if you are squarely within that camp, i doubt anything i say will change your mind.

  9. again, super happy for you. but i feel some people try to go out of their way to convince themselves that racism is not at play even when it clearly is, because it paints a picture where they are somehow "better" than those who experience hatred. the guy who yelled at me to park farther away, when I called him out on what he said, he walked up to me in an imposing manner and said, "so yeah, I can be a little racist, so what are you going to do, mr. china?" I'm not even chinese.

    this is just an anecdote, and you don't have to believe what i say. but i think racism (against asians) is very real and many people are affected by it every day.

  10. Why are you asking this given what the parent comment described? Are you accusing them of lying or blowing things out of proportion? I'm truly, honestly happy that you have not experienced anything like what the parent comment described. But I grew up in west coast America and I still experienced a lot of casual racism. Park next to someone? They yell, "This ain't China, don't park so close." Walk home from school? Students yell ching chong at me. Shit is messed.
  11. I wonder if you can really claim copyright on ai generated music like aiva is trying to do.
  12. You describe the music you want in text and it generates the whole music with or without lyrics (your choice) a la stable diffusion. You can optionally supply it with your own lyrics. I don't think it counts as "creating music" yet but with inpainting and better tooling, it can probably get to where text to image generation is today in short order.
  13. Right, no AI agent has shown itself to be capable of building amazing things. I just thought if current trends hold and big corps keep gobbling up everything to create bigger and better AI models, then even average people will have a lot to gain from it if big corps actually successfully build intelligent AI. Because then the playground would be leveled.
  14. Wouldn't intelligent AI agents enable average people to build amazing things?
  15. Do you have recommendations for other high quality courses teaching CS things?
  16. I am conflicted every time my wife brings home Patagonia she received for free at work
  17. I would like to remind people that...

    + the primary source of microplastic particle generation in most households is the washing and drying of (plastic) clothes. I don't have evidence to back this up, but I have a feeling you breathe in more plastic fiber particles every time you remove lint from your dryer than you ingest through your mouth the whole year.

    + the more processed a food is, the higher its microplastic concentration [1] - apparently breaded shrimp is the worst.

    [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/01/12/...

  18. People who complain about Jira from a user perspective should try managing an instance - hundreds of people filing tickets to change specific configurations for their project and the right knobs and levers are so difficult to find that you end up filing tickets to engage Atlassian support so they can tell you where those settings are.
  19. Could you disclose where you work, or some of the orgs you see yourself working at?
  20. Not sure how things are in Chattanooga, but you will still have to exert yourself to climb hills, just way less than before. Also, REI lets you test drive these for free, so I would definitely try it out before buying!
  21. My initial thought after reading this comment is, it probably requires a lot more "tech" and design work to allow bikers to have that seamless biking experience while giving them the desired boost. I remember seeing a lot of discussions around how certain motors "feel" on ebike forums.
  22. that depends on local laws. depending on where you live, it may be illegal to ride high speed ebikes in the first place.
  23. If you're in US, REI has a 40% sale for their gen 1.1 and 1.2 bikes. Great entry level ebikes with proper range.
  24. I bought an ebike to complement my aging 2007 Toyota instead of replacing it outright with another car. I use the bike for most light use cases within the 10 mile radius and still lean into using my car when needed. Here are my takes on ebikes.

    Pros:

    - Ebikes help people punch above their weight class, allowing them to bike farther and faster

    - Going uphill is much easier

    - Ebikes encourage people to be more adventurous and discover local scenic routes

    Cons:

    - Good ebikes cost as much as my 2007 toyota

    - If you drive a hub motor and you get a flat (and you will eventually), it's harder to fix it up

    - They tend to be rather heavy (harder to drive without assistance), and lighter ones cost a lot of $$$

    - I am worried my bike may get stolen a little more

    For those interested in getting an entry level ebike and living in US, I recommend REI's gen 1.1 and 1.2 ebikes. They're 40% off(!) right now, which seems to be a rare discount for ebikes.

  25. what are some good post-covid treatments? I seem to be having symptoms of depression after covid. WebMD says a thiamine-rich diet is good to treat beri beri, but not sure if "eating better" can help me out here.
  26. If I volunteer at a nonprofit and I'm trying to run a team of volunteers who would...

      1) probably not stick around for long
      2) need to be trained from scratch
      3) not have a solid development background
    
    Would Phoenix be a good choice, given that you can do so much with it without needing to learn many other tools, or would it be better to start with something like Supabase + a javascript front end framework and hope we'll never have to deal with monsters like kubernetes?
  27. I see a few comments saying this can also be used to "solve" climate change, but I am trying to understand the how. Do people mean that the world will have less carbon footprint overall because everything will be much more efficient?
  28. How would this make climate change easier to deal with? Because it would make everything that much more efficient? I'm honestly trying to understand the implications.
  29. I like to entertain myself with the idea that perhaps what's driving the recent spotlight on UFOs is not that we are seeing/detecting them, but that we are detecting more and more of them.

    Maybe governments around the world have always known about objects flying/floating around. And that was fine because there are many natural causes that could explain these blips on radar. Many weather phenomena or man made objects could explain people "seeing" UFOs. Buzz Aldrin famously saw glowing objects flying around in space but he does not necessarily believe they have ET origin.

    But recently, there's simply way more of these objects everywhere, and nobody knows for sure what these are. This worries some people because, well, what if they're Chinese spy balloons or drones? Remember when the US military shot down a couple balloons some time ago and it made the news?

    This is a potential threat to the national security and it makes sense that they have put together teams for the retrieval of these objects. The government may not believe they have ET origin, but they now see them more as potential threat to the national security.

    Of course, I would definitely find it enjoyable and exciting if there is some "otherworldly" intelligence behind these objects.

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