uncertainrhymes

In that case, you will probably also be happy to learn about:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnecessary_Mountain

It previously was on Teams and Enterprise.

There's a little 'update' blob to say now (Oct 23) 'Expanding to Pro and Max plans'

It is confusing though. Why not a separate post?

I was taken aback recently when a Gen-ish Z person told me AI was 'destroying all the water'. I've done data center work, and while I know it is used for cooling, I don't think I've ever personally destroyed any large bodies of water.

There is a perception out there about GenAI and water that goes surprisingly deep. I was told we are will be living in a drought-stricken hellscape, and AI is to blame.

I'd like to know the equivalent energy consumption of a single TikTok video, but that is probably arguing the wrong thing. My bigger question is ... where do they think that water goes? Steam? The assumption is that it is gone forever, and I can't get over how people could just take that at face value.

From the article:

People are also more likely to click into web content that helps them learn more — such as an in-depth review, an original post, a unique perspective or a thoughtful first-person analysis

So... not the blog spam that was previously prioritized by Google Search? It's almost as if SEO had some downsides they are only just now discovering.

Even though Varnish may not be in fashion any more, there were many companies happily using it for free and still demanding security updates.

I like their transparency about who actually supports them, and what the whole community gets for it. I wish other projects would do that, if for no other reason than to make it obvious that FOSS isn't just something that happens.

https://phk.freebsd.dk/VML/2025/

Private equity would like a word...

Someone is probably already making the most brutal Factorio mod of all time.

My math may be off, but it seems like 2000 joules to cool the volume of air 1 degree C vs 6,000,000 for the same volume of water.

It's the stuff in the fridge that takes the initial work, repeatedly exchanging the air is maybe a rounding error?

The Cochrane Library (https://www.cochranelibrary.com/) generally has good meta-analysis on various topics. I often prefer that to any one paper.

Given that Factorio has logic gates and people have built various programs (including Doom, iirc) how long will it take before someone runs an LLM inside the game?

I once had a (older) Russian colleague tell me about how he learned to program. He would write it out longhand, because access to compilers was limited to certain time slots in University. He know it had to work first time, otherwise he had to wait for the next chance to fix the bug.

I'm sure that was true for everyone back in the punchcard days. It would enforce a kind of rigor that I can blissfully ignore.

edit: I see the exact same story in the linked thread, so clearly a lot of Russians are very proud of that skill

If you enjoy surreal movies then definitely Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart. Just don't watch them with your kids. (Or parents...)

They are not 'normal', which is something I always admired about David Lynch. He had a very personal style and vision, and stuck with it.

I've always wondered if there is an accounting benefit for them. Can the free tier be charged as 'marketing'? No idea how you would internally break up the costs, but it could make your margins look better.

The tone of this sounds like it was written by non-bureaucrats trying to score political points. I get that it's a press release, but it sounds like a stump speech.

"Today’s plan mainlines AI into the veins of this enterprising nation – revolutionising our public services and putting more money in people’s back pockets."

Is a heroin analogy really what they are going for, and then straight into some imaginary cost savings?

I know it is fashionable to wonder if something was written by AI. I don't think this is, but some human went to great lengths to sound borderline unhinged.

Also worth listening to this excellent podcast about the two competing pizza-animatronic chains. The history is bizarre -- they were meant to make an 'arcade' feel less like a place for delinquents, and give the parents a chance to drink and watch the 'show'.

https://slate.com/podcasts/decoder-ring/2019/06/decoder-ring...

I like to reread this every year, and every year a different part seems especially prescient.

e.g.

  We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields. But which are the best ones to start with? Even this is a difficult decision. Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English. This process could follow the normal teaching of a child. Things would be pointed out and named, etc. Again I do not know what the right answer is, but I think both approaches should be tried.

  We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.

People make the argument that is a giant datacenter is consuming 50% of some local hydro installation, everyone else is town is buying something else that is less green.

It opens up questions about grids and market efficiency, so your mileage may vary.

Great, they identified differences in gut bacteria. Their control group was usually the spouses, so they were geographically similar. Wonderful.

People with PD are on very different medications, controlled diets (you need to avoid protein at different parts of the cycle), and.... what 'simple treatment'?

The conclusions in that fluff piece are not in the original study. Sure, some bacteria are linked to differences in uptake of some vitamins, but why would adding more vitamins to the diet affect the PD? It isn't like that is the cause of PD, at best a symptom.

Bad science journalism.

I agree with very little of this, but good to know what Palantir thinks we should be spending our effort on.

The big chains that do this in Europe are very clear that prices never go up during the day, and generally everything bulk updates at night. Baked goods get cheaper towards the end of the day, for example. The linked Planet Money episode in the article covers it nicely.

But sure, once you enable the capability, it won't be long before we are living in the inevitable grim meathook future.

CBC also had a wonderful show call ZeD -- early 2000s, it was user generated content before anyone knew what that was. Short films, music by unknown artists, oddball animation.

They had an 'interactive website' years before YouTube existed, and the format intentionally had a lot of internet crossover. They clearly had no idea what they were doing half the time, and it was wonderful.

Whenever people reminisce about the early internet, I think of this show as a pioneer in 'new media'.

I'm curious if the link to the landing page was intentionally near the end. Only the people who actually read it would go to the site.

(That's not a dig, I think it's a good idea.)

That's a fair point. My (untested) assumption would be that it would be cumbersome and weird, and I wouldn't be 'swimming'.

If I were to guess at their motivations, it might be 'what could make me go faster in the water and also be enjoyable'? I'd try it out of curiosity, sure, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't last beyond the novelty for me.

I swim because I enjoy it, not because I'm trying to get somewhere fast.

This seems awkward and I bet you have to use your arms just to counterbalance the twist you'd get on each 'stroke' of the leg.

So even though I think it's goofy, I bet I'd like whoever came up with this. Someone who put a ton of effort into building something they thought would be interesting despite a thousand people telling them it's goofy.

Good on them.

No specifically for video, but I've always had a soft spot for this site:

https://tiffzhang.com/startup/

It semi-randomly creates the site of a recently-launched startup. It is nine years old now, and completely nailed the overused style of the time.

The company names are also excellent. I wonder how many accidentally became real.

Several times my flight from LA to Sydney would get a good tailwind, arrive early, then just circle out in the ocean so they could land after 6:30 am and avoid a giant fine.

I work with SPF and DMARC, and still learned things from this recent post on HN.

https://simonandrews.ca/articles/how-to-set-up-spf-dkim-dmar... and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39712634

It honestly isn't that bad, but it falls into that kind of thing you do once a year and then forget in between. Don't let that stuff discourage you, you'll have much bigger problems with humanity on a mailing list unless you commit to really keeping on top of the community.

I find these posts infuriating... and given how old this one is, it seems to be the template for all those to follow.

"How did I get to be a world class marathoner? I avoided anything that wasn't running, and then on race day, I went faster than everyone else. It's so simple, you can do it too -- just buy my course."

The advice is reasonable, well-intentioned, and completely unusable for me or anyone else I know.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240313052508/https://www.nytim...

"What’s the bigger lesson from all this?"

"There are two: One, if you want to do seismic analysis, it’s ideal if you check with a seismologist first. The other is, it’s not aliens."

Who knew seismologists were this much fun?

You should be able to connect to a different network (e.g. Verizon) and make a 911 call even without a plan. You won't be authenticated to the network for data, but 911 is supposed to still work.