HN user
Currently working on Orcasound (https://github.com/orcasound/)
Previously Tapin.tv and Framebase.io (YC S12)
You may want to check out David Brin's work, he covers the implications of this idea extensively in The Transparent Society: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society
I found it really interesting he frames privacy, surveillance, and power through the lens of information asymmetries.
It's actually partly built, still in beta testing (has some bugs) but here's a nice example: https://live.orcasound.net/bouts/bout_031YiYO7OqPbPhcmP3mQeb
Requirements are pretty flexible, but the inspiration is largely iNaturalist, and also this very cool project put together by Google Creative Lab back in 2019 https://patternradio.withgoogle.com/
Best place to learn more is to stop by the community Zulip chat (https://orcasound.zulipchat.com/) and ask questions, it's full of really knowledgeable people. Also you can explore the entire codebase here: https://github.com/orcasound/orcasite
DAS has really been taking off in the marine bioacoustics world!
https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/deep-listening/
https://depts.washington.edu/uwb/revolutionizing-marine-cons...
Very cool and very powerful technology, it'll be interesting to see how fiber sensing progresses, especially with how much undersea fiber already exists. For subsea power cables, is there a parallel fiber dedicated just for DAS monitoring? Do these get bundled in with data fiber runs as well? I've been curious how well DAS can work over actively lit / in-service fiber.
I've been working on a citizen science version of this, we have 7 hydrophones deployed that anyone can listen to live:
These hydrophones are a bit more expensive (~$1k per deployment) but still very accessible compared to how much it usually costs. And the goal is to bring the cost down to the ~$100 range (so $5 is very impressive!):
https://experiment.com/projects/can-low-cost-diy-hydrophones...
All the data is being saved (used for scientific research & ML training), with some of the hydrophones going back to 2017, and yes it's quite difficult to listen to and review so much audio. Better tools like the hydrophone explorer UI are much needed (been working on something similar).
One of the things that's surprised me the most is how difficult to keep hydrophones up and running. I can sympathize with both the technical and social challenges—underwater is not a friendly environment for electronics, and it can be difficult to get permission to deploy hydrophones. But it's incredibly rewarding when it works and you capture some cool sounds.
For anyone interested, all the code is open source and acoustic data is freely available:
Code: https://github.com/orcasound/
Data: https://registry.opendata.aws/orcasound/
Community: https://orcasound.zulipchat.com/
I recently read the story of the Magic Link: https://commoncog.com/c/cases/general-magic/
When General Magic finally shipped in 1994 — under the threat of Apple’s Newton — they hadn’t made the Pocket Crystal that Porat first dreamed of in 1989. Instead, they released something they called the Sony Magic Link. It weighed 1.5 lbs (0.68 kg) and was priced at US$800 (US$1560 in 2022 dollars). It offered futuristic features like a touchscreen, downloadable apps and animated emojis — the first of its kind. Fadell thought it would be revolutionary — people could now carry a personal computer with them wherever they went. But nobody bought it. In the end only three to four thousand Magic Link devices were sold, and mostly to family and friends.
There's a documentary too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTdyb-RWNKo
There are tons of things that we decide to ignore to go on with our lives
Absolutely, we all need to filter the overwhelming amount of information we're faced with. The part that seems terrifying is that occasionally our filters can line up in such a way as to pick up what's just pure noise and escalate it into an enormous positive feedback loop.
And of course there's a whole discussion about how those filters are shaped (by the media we consume, authorities we decide to trust, direct experience) and how that's changed over time.
Such a notable carpet it even has its own wiki article! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_International_Airport...
Link to game: https://mashpoe.github.io/1D-Game/
Orcasound | https://github.com/orcasound/ | https://www.orcasound.net/
We're building open source tools to listen underwater, focused on monitoring endangered orcas (killer whales) along the west coast of North America. We operate a network of hydrophones that anyone can listen to live (https://live.orcasound.net/). We have a community of over 6,000 citizen scientists who use our tools to help us detect orcas & other marine life. Short-term our goal is to help conservation, long term we want to contribute to scientific research (orca behavior & communication).
It's an incredibly broad project that ranges from:
- hardware (building hydrophones & deploying electronics underwater)
- embedded systems / IoT (capturing & streaming data from our locations)
- live streaming & audio processing
- machine learning & data science (our dataset is nearly 10tb, all open data)
- mapping & GIS
- full-stack web
- design, UX, UI
Tech stack: Python, Elixir, Javascript/Typescript, React, C#, PostgreSQL
We need so many things that there's almost certainly something you can contribute to, regardless of skill level.
If you're interested, come say hi in our community chat on Zulip! https://orcasound.zulipchat.com/
SUV is a poor term, nowadays it's largely used to refer to crossovers/CUVs, which have unibody car chassis and are really just station wagons with some extra clearance. The nomenclature may be a lost battle at this point, but the rise of CUVs (which are certainly cars, not body-on-frame trucks) is what killed minivans and sedans.
I like Obsidian too, but the one thing it really can't do that Notion does well is collaboration. And surprisingly I haven't seen any good plugins that solve this problem (to be fair it's not an easy problem).
recreating something like the Sunbeam T-20
I got a vintage Sunbeam toaster recently, and in the process I found this guy who restores vintage Sunbeam toasters for almost $300!
That's not including the toaster itself, which generally runs somewhere around $100 on eBay.
It makes me wonder if it's a better business to restore old toasters (and even other kitchen gear) rather than to make new ones. I haven't used his services ($300 is quite a bit more than I'd like to spend), but it seems like he goes to great lengths to fix up these toasters, even ordering custom power cords from a wire supplier. I bet it would be easier to start off recreating some replacement parts rather than manufacturing a whole toaster.
Very true, unfortunately this means that for many modern products it only makes sense to buy the cheapest because then at least you know exactly what you're getting (low quality), even though it's not really what you want. Yet again an instance of Market for Lemons (or maybe Gresham's law).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law
You get many of the same environmental benefits (lake area no longer flooded, fish can traverse the base of the dam)
Besides the fact that the lake area will still be partially flooded, as other replies have said, fish are complicated and there are a lot of dam related issues that affect fish passage. Just a few:
- Downstream passage would have to be through spillways. Survival rates are pretty good (95%+) [1], much better than turbine passage, but not as good as not having a dam in the way.
- Conventional spillways open from bottom, which fish have a hard time finding. [2] Granted, if the water levels are reduced this could be less of an issue.
- Time spent in slow moving water increases predation on salmon. [3] If you visit a dam you'll see ospreys all around. Slow water can also favor some species over others.
- There are a bunch of other water quality issues that dams cause, most notably water temperature. The 2002 Klamath fish kill [4] (the largest in history and a major impetus for un-damming the Klamath) was caused by high water temperatures. [5]
- Even shadows can cause significant issues, from structures as small as docks or piers. [6]
- Upstream passage is not solved by opening the spillway and would still be an issue, requiring fish ladders or transportation. All the existing problems with fish ladders apply. [7]
- Besides salmon and trout, other important species get blocked by dams, including sturgeon and lampreys [8], and each are affected by dams in their own way.
[1] https://www.salmonrecovery.gov/Hydro/Structuralimprovements/...
[2] https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/endangered-species...
[3] https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/endangered-species...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Klamath_River_fish_kill
[5] https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/prog...
[6] https://wdfw.medium.com/casting-shadows-on-the-sound-3a9a555...
[7] https://medium.com/re-form/whats-the-dam-problem-3b5cd839ae7...
[8] https://e360.yale.edu/features/sea-lampreys-pacific-lampreys...
ScienceClic on youtube has some really great videos, the first half of the string theory video [1] does a good job framing the conflict at a high level, string theory being one attempt to resolve the problem.
It doesn't go into math but mentions that in the standard model, interactions are local, which for example means something like photon emission is instantaneous. When applied to gravity/gravitons, you get infinities in the math. This sort of makes sense to me, but I have yet to find anything that does an understandable job explaining how/why exactly the math breaks down.
There's a series on the maths of general relativity [2] which I haven't completed but I'm hoping will provide a bit more background to understand the math.
Also, the article mentions that the new theory was motivated by solving the black hole information paradox [3], which there's a good video [4] about as well
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7cOlBxtKSo
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xodtfM1r9FA&list=PLu7cY2CPiR...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox
I've had the same question and I don't have the answer, but what you're asking about might be referred to as the cosmological principle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_principle
Seems like so far our observations are that the universe is pretty homogeneous. Cosmological principle being the default position, my best understanding is that it's just a lack of evidence otherwise:
The End of Greatness is an observational scale discovered at roughly 100 Mpc (roughly 300 million light-years) where the lumpiness seen in the large-scale structure of the universe is homogenized and isotropized in accordance with the Cosmological Principle. At this scale, no pseudo-random fractalness is apparent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#End_of_Gre...
NASA did get to the moon in under a decade though. I definitely suspect there was a heightened sense of urgency when they were working on that. Sub-orbital to lunar in 10 years is pretty quick.
My interpretation is that it's very intentionally heavily based off of Fight Club in season 1, but that's just the setup. Now it's what happens after Fight Club. If it were a rip off, you wouldn't have so many Fight Club references and easter eggs. I think it's "sampling" and not "biting." Of course there's disputed gray area, but I think the self-awareness makes it clear that there's a respect for the material it's building off of. There's a lot of American Psycho, Taxi Driver, etc. in there too. It's basically an amalgam of all the mind-bending/character study plot techniques.
I think the GP is referring more specifically to Henry George Theorem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George_theorem). The theorem has pretty solid theoretical backing, so I don't see why it wouldn't apply to basic income. At the very least it's a good question to research.
My understanding is that all owners of would increase the rents/prices of their unimproved land, not just housing landlords. Everywhere you'd move is now more expensive by the same amount, because unimproved land is (mostly) fixed supply.
Robots are capital. Real estate is mostly land. Capital produces interest. Land produces rent. These are different things.
Not according to neoclassical economics! Land is just another form of capital. I still don't understand why though. Some say it's political but that feels like too much of a conspiracy theory to me. There must be a good explanation but I haven't found it yet.
They are productive assets, much like houses produce rent
The rent houses produce is very different from the money robots help you make. Rents (in the economic sense) are good to tax, can't be passed on to the tenant, and has no bad distortionary effects. If you tax robots, and don't do anything else, all that does is raise the prices of the goods produced by robots. It harms the consumer the most. If you tax robots enough, you can incentivize the owners to not use robots and hire humans instead. But then we're missing out on all the benefits of having a society where robots do the hard work, there's got to be a better way.
One solution would be to tax robots, and redistribute the taxed money back to the consumers. Everyone should benefit from the fruits of automation. This would probably work pretty well. The biggest issue here is that the government isn't known for being very good at redistributing tax revenue. So there are proposals like basic income to keep the process as simple as possible. There are probably even better options, like taxing the rents only, and taxing them very highly, and then paying that out as basic income. Theoretically this might target the people you want to be targeting, without harming the consumers. Obviously, theory only goes so far with this kind of thing. I think the point here is that taxation is tricky, and the burden of a tax is not necessarily on the person/company you're taking the money from. So "tax the robots" might not be the best thing, even though it has populist appeal.
I'm terrified of anyone but me having access to this kind of data, though. It's nobody's business but mine.
This is by far the biggest problem with this kind of tech. If there were a way to guarantee the privacy of the recordings, it would be a super useful tool. You could basically have a perfect photographic memory. Not to mention all the cool processing you can do with the data. The idea really excites me, but equally terrifies me.
But I think given enough time and progress in encryption/speech recognition/legal issues, I think something like this is inevitable. It's hard to see a future where we record less. I think another key part is having access to data of you. That way you don't feel like it's being recorded to be used "against" you.
This is great, only thing missing cowbell. Here's a basic house beat: http://sampulator.com/paulcretu/house
Interestingly, planting trees can be bad in some cases: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/opinion/to-save-the-planet...
Quote from the article: "Climate scientists have calculated the effect of increasing forest cover on surface temperature. Their conclusion is that planting trees in the tropics would lead to cooling, but in colder regions, it would cause warming."
But yes, in general we should definitely plant trees. They're also great at undoing desertification: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_greening
Just because our laws are poorly suited for new technology doesn't mean we have to be stuck with the tech we have. With more automated traffic enforcement, our laws would have to better model our expectations, as you point out. If we had speed cameras on 100% of roads, I doubt people would be okay with $300 fines for speeding, so it's bound to change.
I agree with you that there are cases in which Dropbox might pick up false positives. I think the DMCA should be updated with harsher penalties for improper takedown requests ("copyfraud"). Still, the policy Dropbox has seems pretty reasonable. And you can always choose to encrypt your files locally or even not use Dropbox. After all, it's a company competing in a relatively free market. But I think for most people Dropbox is a pretty good choice and this takedown policy shouldn't be a reason for them to stop using it.
Just curious, are you storing the keys? Or at the very least the login info from which you could regenerate the keys? If so, there's no reason a government couldn't ask for you to hand the info over, so even though this is a step more complex that Dropbox, it doesn't add too much security.
Now, if users provide their own key and it's never transmitted, that would be secure, but obviously the data would be un-decryptable if the key is lost.
I don't think what you're arguing would be a problem. From the article:
"Only when a file is shared from user-to-user (or with the Internet at large) does the DMCA check system come into play"
"Some thought the original file was deleted from the user’s Dropbox — that’s not the case, either. Dropbox just blocks the file from being shared."
Personally I think cloud services are super convenient and the downside for most people is really small.
This technology is really cool, too bad it seems like there wasn't much thought put into making an appealing product out of it. Just imagine how much more you could do with a flexible display, rather than just reading PDFs and writing notes. From the video, the UI looks mediocre, and this is just a guess, but I wouldn't expect the software to be great. It feels like Sony just wrapped up a really cool hardware prototype in a shell and decided to sell it, but the whole thing lacks any sort of polish. I can't wait for someone who cares about the details of a product to get a hold of flexible e-ink screens.
There's a huge difference between the government spying on its citizens without their knowledge and citizens recording others. If I knew that constantly being on camera would be inevitable in the future, I would definitely choose Glass over CCTV and the NSA.
David Brin puts it best in The Transparent Society (which I would strongly recommend to anyone concerned about privacy):
"We may not be able to eliminate the intrusive glare shining on citizens of the next century, but the glare just might be rendered harmless through the application of more light aimed in the other direction"