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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Self Driving Cars - were getting used to the idea because of the half baked stuff that’s already here but it’s realistic this will make it mainstream in the coming years

    “Cure” for cancer - the rapid progress in immunotherapy drugs is making more and more cancers realistically treatable. Cancers.are still terrible conditions but it does feel realistic that we are moving towards a “cure”. After that it’ll be a focus on preventing and reducing the horrible side effects of treating cancers.

    Regrowing organs - this also seems increasingly realistic. We’re already routinely regrowing people’s immune systems for some conditions (autologus ransplants - where the donor is also the recipient). We’re also increasingly growing different types of tissues and organs in lab experoments. It’s looking plausible although hard to say when it’ll become mainstream.

    AI - I’m not convinced this one is on its way. What I mean is true General AI. What is labelled AI now is nowhere near General AI; it’s sophisticated and impressive but also limited and deeply flawed. We’re in an era of hype to drive up share prices but the actual technology is error strewn and is essentially a remix engine for human generated creativity. I’m not convinced true General AI is on its way because at the moment they don’t understand how the current AI systems work. It’s unlikely you can proceed from what we have to full general AI stumbling around in the dark or by shear luck. Not impossible, but unlikely. I think the current methods will more likely hit a brick wall in prpgress - they are useful tools but may be an illusion when it comes to full AI.






  • In fairness to Apple that is good design. Computers including phones should be intuitive and easy to use, but also accessible to more experienced users.

    The keeping up with Jones stuff with apple though is really bad. Like kids going off the university getting premium Mac books when they could save money and get a generic windows lap top. Or the seemingly ubiquitous purchase of earpods - an expensive way to purchase earphones when there are so many cheaper alternatives, not least the dirt cheap 3.5mm wired earphones that phone manufacturers are trying to obliterate.


  • This is an interesting concept but doesn’t seem like it has long term legs.

    It depends on what you mean by open source and also even eBook reader (I’m assuming eInk), but if people want open source e-readers I would say flashing existing reader hardware with open source operating systems would be the way to go. However I’m not sure if there is much motivation to do that.

    There are Android based eink ereaders available with more freedom than Kindle devices (Boox is an example) and you can side load free or open source reader software onto Kobo (maybe not Android Kindles though?), and you can load free books onto e-readers via software like Calibre. So you can read books in privacy outside the vendors ecosystem - it kinda reduces the imputus to build an open source ereader (hardware or OS).

    I’d love to see a truly open source Eink device - particularly software wise. But I doubt the demand is enough. And this Open Source hardware solution seems a bit too cut back to fit the bill.





  • Not strictly correct. Spotify pays out from its net revenues (revenues when billing costs and tax are removed) and it pays to the various industry rights holders who then distribute the money. There are lots of complex deals in place and big rights holders are likely to have better deals than ad hoc users, plus it’s different in different countries.

    The 70% figure is a PR thing Spotify pushes about as part of its constant battles with rights holders on exactly how much it will pay them. It’s trying to claim most of the money goes to artists but it’s opaque how much goes where.




  • This may also be about trying to take control of OpenAI. Despite owning 49% of OpenAI, the company is seemingly set up so the 5 board members have control and they’re seemingly not under the control of investors.

    Could this actually be about Altman and his allies trying to take the company fully for-profit so they could benefit? It also seems Altman is very close to Microsoft, so rather than product roadmap this might actually about trying to take control of the company.

    Microsoft hiring the staff and forming an AI unit is a boon to them if it happens, but OpenAI still own and controls everything they’ve worked on up to date, and it seems the Investors don’t control that judging by the boards independance.

    Meanwhile Altman is tweeting very concillatory OpenAI but pro Microsoft position. This may be a battle for the whole company, not just a personality thing.




  • This feels misleading? They’re claiming Linux has been hard coded to 8 cores but from what they describe in the article it is specifically the scaling of the scheduler?

    If I understood correctly the more cores you have, the more you could scale up the time each individual task gets on a CPU core without experiencing latency for the end user?

    I can see that would have a benefit in terms of user perception Vs efficient use of processing time but it doesn’t mean all the cores aren’t being used? It just means the kernel is still switching between tasks at say 5ms when it could be doing it at 20ms if you have lots of cores and the user wouldn’t notice. I can imagine that would be more efficient but it’s definitely not the same as being capped to 8 cores; all the cores and CPUs are being scheduled just not in a way that might be the most optimal for some users.

    Is that right? I feel like the title massively overplays the issue if so. It should be fixed but it doesn’t affect how many cores are used or even how fasr they work, merely how big the chunks of time each task get to run and how you can “hide” that from desktop users so the experience feels slick?


  • Almost the whole of black Friday is a nonsense. The only things worth buying are things you would have bought anyway but know are on discount.

    Many items prices go up for a period before black Friday so they can then be discounted, and manufacturers even have cheaper versions of models of their products that they supply to discount chains and companies like Amazon for black Friday.

    The only things I’d buy on sale are items I’m watching via camelcamelcamel which have hit discount, or software on discount. There are a few specific items I need to buy that I might buy if they’re genuinely on discount but most of the stuff thrust in your face during the sales is cheap tat or lies.