CarbonCycles

Appreciate this article...shows some interesting insights on how humans "behave" vs agents.

In case anyone is interested, here is a paper on how they implement this.

https://arxiv.org/html/2504.10035v2

How is this supposed to improve productivity? I'm still struggling with the framing of the business productivity gained from this?

I will say that I feel for the folks who work at Meta...I can't help but to feel they have long jumped the shark.

I commend Apple for hiring someone internally...someone who climbed up the ranks and understands the DNA of the company.

Also think it's cool that John Ternus has only a bachelor's degree with a very down to earth presence. I completely dig his LI page being really bare bones.

I suspect Apple is about to experience another Renaissance era...

What an odd article and release statement. It’s almost as if they’re signaling w-out literally signaling the parties of interest.

Surprised the doj didn’t issue any gag orders.

To make things worse, the neighborhood crack heads have discovered that the charging cables can bring in some decent money.

Neighborhoods are having problems with theft, and from what I've been told, those charging cables aren't exactly cheap to constantly replace.

Unfortunate, an opportunity to further enlighten others, but the author took a dismissive and antagonistic perspective.

I enjoyed this blog...not so much about the topic regarding legos or even YouTube. I appreciated the way the owner used analytics to quickly better understand his demographics and did some very high-level marketing/product analytics.

I really appreciated this blog.

I walked away with a lot more insight (no pun intended) on what is being considered as leading now of days. I admittedly started to become numb when it started to feel like a race to the bottom on who has the biggest pockets and largest datasets.

Absolutely...between this and Twitter, I think I'm going to put the old classic Xmas movie on repeat and go enjoy nature with the family.

This topic reminds me of an observation I made a while ago. I have found many folks (esp. non-technical) confuse automation with intelligence (more-so Artificial Intelligence).

Automation ==/== AI. Automation consists of a series of systems that are designed (i.e., programmed using control algorithms, logic rules, machine/deep-learning) to operate under a series of pre-set boundaries. The boundaries are typically defined under "normal" operating conditions, and safe-guards are put into place once the automated systems deviate from those "normal" operating conditions (I see a lot of practitioners esp. in the ML world fail to account for abnormal conditions...may be this is what happened w/ the Uber driver?).

The only comment I will say about AI is that I'm glad I am seeing RL and the like come more into play. I also contend this feels like a supervisory problem.

To add another point to the above post, the lab in question a year ago made the following statement regarding fusion. The hype circle continues...

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/17/lawrence-livermore-lab-makes...

Excerpt copied for emphasis:

Hurricane, however, is more cautious about seeing fusion as an answer to a need for clean energy.

“While our team is very excited about this result, because it is a hard won science/engineering achievement, I don’t see it as being useful for a clean energy source. The learning from our result may, however, be relevant,” Hurricane tells CNBC.

“I am very concerned, in general, about fusion being hyped as a solution for climate change,” he says. “My personal opinion is that fusion energy is still a future technology, so it would be foolish for people bet the planet on fusion addressing the immediate climate concerns.”

Also noteworthy, research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory National Ignition Facility is part of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, a government effort born in 1995 to study aging nuclear weapons without nuclear testing.

“One of the original visions for the NIF was for it to be a substitute for underground nuclear testing, keeping weapons scientists tethered to the reality of experiment so that the Nation can depend upon their skills, knowledge, and most importantly judgement,” said Hurricane. “This new result helps support that vision.”

Adding a bit more context to this good post, the control algorithms are designed and developed around assumptions and an operational envelope deemed to be "normal".

An airplane is much more complicated from a systems perspective (but yet can be more easily automated from an operational POV). To make an airplane fly, there are dozens of control surfaces, very complex mechanical systems, and not to mention a greater degree of danger (i.e., explosions) and loss of life should these systems fail. Yet, when everything "works" within their engineered/designed parameters, we can construct control algorithms around these operational envelopes.

Also, at 10k feet in the air, there are rules that govern flight paths (overseen by controllers); radar and beacons that help keep planes on track; and most importantly much less traffic/congestion (as opposed to a bus or car).

This provides the pilots (and also sailors) the ability to automate their flight at steady-state. This is where it gets interesting. If a plane loses a control surface or a critical system fails, these controls systems will be pushed outside of their operational envelopes, and this is where a human takes over.

It's not a question of "if" but "when" things will fail....

Yea know this lobbying effort just screams lawsuit by incompetence.

The execs who are pushing this effort appear to know little to nothing about flying, safety, human centered design, and automation.

I might be as brash to state they may not give a damn as long as they get their bonuses and punch out leaving the other exec holding the bag. The compensation structure and laws regarding claw back clauses must be revamped.

Anyway, as a person w a controls background and system automation, this is a total cluster fvck w out a major investment in sensors and UX redesign.

If this passes, I am going to seriously consider those private plane sharing programs.

You can’t. Their cartridges have some sort of way to recognize only HP cartridges (rfid? NFC?)

I think this may be my last HP printer as well. Company has a f the consumer mentality.

This paper and a recent post by Sebastian Raschka (where he decomposed a Forrester report about the uptake of technologies in industry) is alluding to something I have witnessed in system/control design and applied research.

Both LLMs and massive CV architectures are NOT the holistic solution. Rather, they are the sensors and edge devices that have now improved both the fidelity and reliability to a point where even more interesting things can happen.

I present a relevant use case regarding robotic arm manipulation. Before the latest SOTA CV algorithms were developed, the legacy technology couldn't provide the fidelity and feedback needed. Now, the embedded fusion of control systems, CV models, etc. we are seeing robotic arms that can manipulate and sort items previously deemed to be extremely difficult.

Research appears to follow the same pattern...observations and hypothesis that were once deemed too difficult or impossible at that time to validate are now common (e.g., Einstein's work with relativity).

My head is already spinning on how many companies and non-technical managers/executives are going to be sorely disappointed in the next year or two that Stable Diffusion, Chat GPT, etc. will deliver very little other than massive headaches for the legal, engineering, recruiting teams that will have to deal with this.

Really appreciate articles like these...it somewhat reflects how society expects people to conform, but it's always the outliers that manage to change the world.

Thank you for sharing...

Really good article...very much enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing!

Now that's both funny and sad. Mostly sad....

The positions of the satellites are well known and documented. Fun fact..on the Garmin fenix watches, it is recommended that you synch your watch with your Garmin Connect app every few days (week) so that you download the latest satellites position file, which significantly improves the GPS lock time with the satellites before you begin an activity.

As others have stated, I don't think Apple's product will really erode Garmin's market share for several years. The lack of detailed topo maps and applications will severely hamper them.

With Apple latest shift, I see their ecosystem as a very strong contender for business travel (international news reporter?) that requires strong security (lockdown mode), ability to communicate in many form factors through adverse conditions (voice, data and now satellite), and has a slew of safety features (crash detection).

Garmin has decades of experience regarding outdoor travel and safety that Apple would always be playing catchup...IMO.

Anyone know performance wise between Garmin's use of Iridium and Globalstar?

Iridium has been around for soo long...I am getting constant outages from the status page. Kind of disconcerting at times.

Ah, I found the following article that somewhat explains the different technologies w/

"The main difference between Iridium and Globalstar is the relaying mechanism. Iridium requires relaying between satellites. Globalstar requires relaying between satellites and earth stations."

https://www.mobilsat.com/the-best-satellite-phone-globalstar...

Garmin has already released the new GPS chipset that uses multiband (similar to Apples).

https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=9NWiPDU4gM0JWMfdWFol7A

The new GPS chipsets are absolutely a beast in challenging conditions and incredibly accurate/precise over the older technology.

I wonder how many ppl will now travel to more remote areas with a false sense of security (and being woefully under prepared) that you can "Just call" for help.

As a paying customer with Garmin's inReach service, I'm acutely aware of how spotty and unreliable the service can be based on environment and current surroundings.

I agree..this article seems very click-baitish, which I sadly clicked on.

What company wouldn't want to hire the best? I've been casually making mental notes of the positions/titles of the groups impacted, and it follows common sense that talent acquisition, administrative, junior level employees, units that no longer support the business mission, and low-performing employees (or ones that don't fit the culture) were let go.

If anything, the article could have pointed out that the performance expectations have been shifted-up a notch or two as the remaining employees (once considered to be high-performers) are now "average". This could become a vicious negative feed-back cycle if not appropriately managed.

sigh Corporate life can definitely be a drag. The holidays can't come fast enough!

I agree. Two very different business responses between Musk and Zuck. I almost feel sorry for Zuck as we are witnessing meltdowns of two large companies in real-time. Musk just continues to dig his own grave…

I feel bad for the ppl losing their jobs but that is a very generous severance package.

This is a fascinating multi-faceted problem...there is the outright concern of how much of the data is being exposed, but there is also a much more subtle action at play.

It appears that MS is using our data to continuously train their large DL networks to provide these recommendations...so what is to prevent a bad actor from cunningly constructing an asset that may trick the recommender into leaking insights from another company (or possibly poisoning the network itself)? These adversarial attacks have been well documented in academia.

This is where I would argue other sites like Glassdoor and others come into play.

I prefer not to blur the lines, but I guess in today's digital world that isn't possible. Just to be clear, I agree that we need to hold one another accountable in our actions...just not sure what makes the most sense.

Agreed...also don't get me started on when ppl start to post highly political or controversial topics. I typically remove them from my network immediately.

It's a professional network...act accordingly?

I personally wish LinkedIn would STOP trying to be a social platform. Their UX changes make it feel more instagram-ish with engagements, impressions, etc. I also DO NOT want to have media feeds...it's a frigging professional network.

I have talked to several influential recruiters in my area, and they have all said that LinkedIn has a MASSIVE identity problem...in one hand they sell our data to recruiters and on the other hand they are trying to drive engagement with these gimmicky engagement products.

They seem desperate to grow revenue with all these wonky product launches. Whoever was responsible for the A/B testing on those products to gauge market adoption really should be reprimanded.

Guess MS is finally expecting some ROI from their expensive acquisition....

Intel has an identity problem and greatly over-estimates its capabilities (or influence...or maybe they have jumped the narcissistic shark all together)?!?

TSMC & SAMSUNG have large backing and incentives from their respective governments....no publicly backed corporate entity can match those pockets.

Intel's designs (i.e., architectures), products and manufacturing capabilities are from the early 90s. They have failed to innovate partly because their manufacturing capabilities are pretty poor, which have a high impact on their architectures and product development. They need to decouple those two functions as AMD did when they split into GlobalFoundries and acquired ATI...which was probably the smartest thing AMD ever did.

Also, Intel needs to get off their highly egotistical perspective that chips can only be processed using PhDs and Postdocs...their entire mentality is elitist driven by a highly academic white castle mentality.