HN user
I would thoroughly recommend the Fall of Civilizations podcast episode on the ancient Phonecians. It goes into detail about life in Phonecian society, particularly Carthage, and its rivalry with Rome and ultimately the Punic wars. It's quite long, but well worth it if you want a broad picture of how life was like in that period.
So just of the top of my head, things that have made mainstream news in the past ~week;
- A Small molecule oral cancer drug kills 100% of solid tumors across 70 evaluated cancer types - LK-99, potentially the first ever room temperature ambient pressure superconductor (unverified as of yet)
Things are looking up
I would love to use Firefox, Brave, even Safari, but I'm quite literally locked into the Google eco-system. My work emails are G-Suite, so having chrome means I can sync data from sheets, slides, docs etc. I stupidly moved everything personal to a Gmail address too back in 2016 when things weren't looking so grim, and cloud only was a hype so I'm kind of locked into using chrome for personal use too as I can't get away from not having Google account sync functionality.
De-googling is incredibly hard. I've used my Gmail address for everything from government voting registration, to companies house, to services I can't even remember signing up for. At this stage, I'm kind of stuck. Bonus: I own an android phone and Google services are essential. Please don't preach to me about grapheneOS or whatever, they suck without the play store.
Iris Alexandra's twitter is especially enthralling. Seems like so much discoveries and innovation happens from computer science to physics, chemistry and biology all from people with anime profile pictures.
I know this is a joke, but can we for a second take a step back to marvel at how we're now watching US Congressional hearings about UAP's, where the word "Aliens" and "Extra-terrestrial life" was mentioned several times? I feel like I'm living through the beginning of a sci-fi movie.
More to the point, why is it always people in the US that have credible or semi credible (or for that matter ANY) evidence of UAP's, UFO's etc? The earth is a big place, why is it always the US they choose to visit? Is Botswana not good enough? Is Europe not technologically advanced enough? Does South America not send the right message?
Signal is great, easily one of the best apps I've ever used. As someone who's privacy conscious, I've been trying forever to get my network of friends, family and colleagues to use signal with literally no success. Here in the UK, WhatsApp is ubiquitous, and to even _think_ of using a different app is, by most laypeople's standards, absolutely weird. Most people I've convinced have downloaded Signal, gave it a go with a few messages, and them promptly went back to WhatsApp because that's where the majority of their communication happens.
I'm convinced that it doesn't matter how good the product is, what matters is the network effect. Nobody cares about privacy, what they care about is whether everyone else is using the same app. Until there's some doomsday scenario of everyones messages getting leaked or something (the closest was the WhatsApp privacy policy changes that triggered worldwide scrutiny and was a general PR nightmare), nobody will be moving en masse to a plucky small app that their network isn't on.
Also doesn't help that Signal are implementing features like crypto transactions that most people don't care about.
Kind of wild that Apple have built up so much of a reputation that you're calling it the 'best VR headset ever made' without it even being released yet. This just proves that good products are like 70% perception, and its why we continuously drink Coke even though there's so many better healthier, tastier drinks
I've been using pop on my 2017 xps for 3 years now, its amazing. Honestly the best linux experience
You don't just develop existential dread about climate change out of nowhere. First comes awareness, in this case the younger generation grew up being educated about climate change. Then you get exacerbation/increased attention - in this case social media and traditional media which have fuelled doomsday rhetoric and alarmism in general. Not to say that it isn't a big issue, it's massive; but doesn't help that we're feeding young minds with constant negative stimuli about how we're all going to die and there's nothing we can do about the problem.
Blender is what I point to when people tell me open source is doomed for failure. There isn't anything that comes remotely close in terms of features and ubiquitous support, and its free. Honestly the best example of open source done right.
For context, this is part of a wider layoff at Amazon, with over 9000 job losses:
Its quite sad that ad-blocking is framed as killing this business. Surely it's more akin to a subsidised business failing to move to a more sustainable model? Don't get me wrong I love free no nonsense business models, but as Google and Facebook have shown us, ads are only part of the equation. If we didn't collectively lose trust with the ad industry, and ads weren't so intrusive, I for one (and many others I've spoken to) wouldn't be blocking ads. I go out of my way to disable ad-block on friendly websites and blogs that need the ad revenue; sites that have a responsible and ethical policy surrounding their ad usage. Zippyshare seemed like one of those sites. Unfortunately the rest of the industry had to ruin it for them. Even more sad, this will become the norm and sites will have to move to a paid subscription type model to keep their services alive.
Anecdotally, it's already being used in day to day life. My friends (who work in non stem fields) have been using it to settle arguments. My neighbour has been using it to ask for gardening advice. An acquaintance at the mosque used it to help him create posters in Photoshop (he asked it how to implement masking and such). It's actually incredible how quickly it's being adopted.
I got my start writing RuneScape bots too! It's such a shame because speaking to the younger generation (I call them the TikTok generation) they don't have the same experience with the web the way we did. For them, the internet is closed off, a few big websites like Facebook, youtube, twitter. They use their phones primarily to access the web, and a laptop is exclusively used for school work; "A PC? Why would I need that when I can game on my XBox/PS5??". The internet really did change so much in the last decade, and in my honest experience computer literacy has gone down not up as we've all expected
Looks like the current news cycle is mostly pushing fanfare; everybody loves a good Alien story. It seems like the pentagon and US officials are also eager to hint that it's extra terrestrial activity - In reality it's most likely US-China relations going sour and each country shooting down the others super-secret not-so-secret-now spy drones. In a couple of decades when we have the declassified info available we'll be marvelling at how the second cold war was going on right under our noses and the pentagon convinced us it was aliens.
Most European countries have failed to integrate their growing Muslim populations. They’ve imported an underclass, one that’s going to be increasingly furious that they’re stuck in socioeconomic ghettos
Muslim from London here - my father came here as an immigrant in the 80's, and stayed here. I would say that I'm integrated. Your outlook reeks of no only condescension and disdain for class struggle, but complete misunderstanding of how cultures develop and work. Come to London and tell me immigration is an outlandish idea - your barrista, your off-license shop keeper, your NHS keyworker and your TFL underground marshall will all laugh in your face.
In my experience, it's the exact opposite. It's the first and second generation immigrants who tend to have more kids and who tend to bring in fresh labour pools, and therefore more business making and running opportunities. This is a longstanding problem for any country that has an aging population, but the going solution (at least in Europe) has been to import labour by turning the needle on immigration. Japan hasn't done this, and they're notoriously anti-immigration. Think about the businesses that get created - local cultural food shops, cultural clothing shops, even in some cases entire submarkets to service immigrant communities. As time goes on, like or not, but countries that failed to adapt to the global era will fall behind to those willing to take a chance on immigration.
What's interesting to me is that if we're able to accept the idea that mass social media-induced illness can be developed just by virtue of video watching TikTok or YouTube, then this opens new doors to examining the behaviour of other illnesses such as gender dysphoria that are statistically over represented. This is probably going to get downvoted to oblivion, because nobody wants to confront the idea that we can _learn_ to want to be another gender. But I think there's some interesting parallels to be observed here, and discounting that based on "moral virtue" or "denying hate speech" or whatever i'll be attacked with is just moving the target.
I know HN will absolutely tear me apart for recommending this, but I use GitHub desktop. It has all the bells and whistles of the CLI, but you can actually see and understand what's going on.
As a Junior Engineer, a Senior Engineer recommended it to me. I thought he was joking at first, but he kindly reminded me that using a GUI app is completely fine and okay. We shouldn't stigmatise tools that make it easier to use and understand your workflow. GitHub desktop allows me to see what i'm committing, commit history and much more. I'd definitely recommend it.
PS. Using it is not an excuse not to learn how to use the CLI. Others will accuse me of being lazy and not learning best practice. Learn both. Use the easier one.
Anyone condemning NHS England for these moves must look beyond current political/social discourse at the implications of allowing children who are unable to vote, drink, drive or any of the ""adult"" things to permanently modify their body. The research isn't clear, the science isn't clear, and the fact that this has become a political issue is quite frankly, alarming. The right thing to do is more research, which is what's currently happening. The NHS is right to publish guidelines that fit our current model of knowledge, and until new evidence shows that gender dysphoria _isn't_ a phase, we should continue to treat this like any other psychological issue as we have previously.
How very pessimistic. We should never shirk technological progress for fear of upsetting the status quo or established agenda. All of this is only a matter of time away from emerging. Have fun being on the forgotten side of history
Yes and no. Hate speech can be arbitrarily defined, but speech inciting violence has a solid definition. There's a line between calling out refugee acceptance and questioning immigration to calling for all refugees to be hanged and for illegal immigrants to be physically harassed. There is an overlap between the two categories, but accepting hate speech and not accepting speech inciting violence is a very tough line to walk for any legislative body, and we're talking about human made bureaucratic institutions which need to make laws that can be clearly defined and followed. I don't think there's a one size fits all law here, and everything needs to be taken on a case by case basis, but free speech purists always ignore the fact that speech inciting violence can have a material impact on the world.
I think it's a reflection of our modern age that, and I know this has been said before to death, that authenticity has been chased out of the window. The social media of 2006 is gone. I can never see a viral clip and take it at face value, because in all likelihood it's a manufactured, scripted and acted gig. I don't think we'll ever get authenticity back unless we get rid of the incentive to make videos - i.e get rid of the pay per view schemes, and the ad dollar machine altogether. One day we're going to look back on this age and marvel at how much lost productivity, time and energy was spent on creating useless videos to capture attention for a minute or so.
Pulling the lever makes you a murderer instead of a bystander.
Ah that, I'm not too sure about. If you have the means to avert a disaster and divert the trolley but consciously choose not to do so, you'd be a murderer either way right? The baby question really hammered it home for me, most respondents chose to have the trolley kill the elderly people instead of diverting it to the baby. Sure, you stood by and did nothing but you're STILL a murderer no matter the outcome. The minute you stand by the lever you consciously choose who's going to live or die, regardless of whether you do nothing or pull the lever. Inaction is action.
I grew up and live a short 5 minute walk from Battersea Power Station - I have some fond memories of playing in the (admittedly quite unsafe) industrial estate around that area. It's quite sad to see what it's become now; as much as I support the development of the local area, they had to add a bunch of shopping outlets, restaurants, and very expensive boutique outlets. It's completely antithetical to the local identity of the area - literally opposite a council estate. The area is essentially unaffordable and has transformed into a sort of camden/southwark esque hellscape of bourgeois gentrification. Everyone I know has been either priced out, or will be in the next couple of years. I anticipate having to move due to developers wanting to demolish this council estate - I get letters every day asking about private purchasing agreements.
That's because a lot of these ""tech"" companies are just other business models in disguise. My especially favourite are the unsustainable business model food delivery apps like Deliveroo and JustEat, or the retail apps that are classed as tech for some reason like online consumer brands such as Victorian Plumbing and whisky seller Artisanal Spirits. It's clear to me that IPO's are no longer about long term equity, and more about short term gambling. This is especially true when you have both US and UK markets actively trying to attract more retail investment, just to swindle the public out of more money. Until we see a radical shift in the way we think about and measure the performance of companies, IPO's and equity markets will continue to be a wild ride.
You're right of course - the Romans took from the Greeks, the Greeks took from the Egyptians, etc etc. Ideas adapt over time and cross cultures. Still, I can't help but have a romantic view of cultures, perhaps because up until this point it has taken centuries for ideas to develop and catch on, as our mediums weren't as efficient as what we have now. Prior to the printing press, it was hand art, and spoken word prevailed to tell stories and divulge ideas. Nowadays a single YouTube video has a thousand times more the impact. This is what we lose when we have mass medium like the modern era of the internet. I know it's naive thinking
This is incredibly sad to be honest. I love the interconnectivity of the modern web, and social media allows us to share our thoughts freely and communicate ideas at a scale never before seen in human history, but the consequence of this is the limitation on culture. It used to be the case that cultures developed in a silo'd fashion, and this gave way for some very advanced and different ways to doing things. When our ancestors visited a new location they would find new people with a completely different view of the world. Now everyone thinks the same, acts the same, the culture is the same. We've opened the box on shared thinking and the result is that we'll never have an era of silent cultivation on ideas - the mind virus is live.
realistically you need a decent level of wealth to participate in these tax havens. It's expensive to hire a lawyer who knows this stuff, and even more expensive for administration and execution. The people who have the level of wealth to pay for this are already doing it.
Calling Interdependence peer pressure is diluting the nuance of people's relationships. It has a lot to do with culture and societal norms, for example in my culture (Arab) there is a strong emphasis on family and community values, i'm expected to take care of my parents, even going so far as to ensure their financial stability during retirement (absolutely NO care homes!). It's an interesting insight into conformity, but it's clear to researchers that western countries have less conformity, and therefore more selfishness by default; it's a symptom of the capitalist mindset. Regarding charity, yes western countries are more charitable but isn't this just more conformity? Charity is always given the most when others are watching, when it's made into a game or a challenge (remember ALS ice bucket?). Using charity as a metric for interdependence is also an illusion. More charity does not necessarily mean more interdependence; we should be measuring (as best as we can) happiness and satisfaction in daily life, which coincidentally the US and the UK fall short compared to other nations.
Maybe what we can learn from this is that there isn't a be all end all singular mindset, and we can adapt our thinking to fit our cultural norms, whilst avoiding the pitfall of self indulgence.