Lu2025 (u/Lu2025) - Readit News

Lu2025 commented on IBM to acquire Confluent confluent.io/blog/ibm-to-... · Posted by u/abd12

This is so fascinating to me. I mean how IBM keeps taking over other companies, but they consistently deliver low quality/bottom-tier services and products. Why do they keep doing the same thing again and again? How are they generating actual revenue this way?

Ok, so does anyone remember 'Watson'? It was the chatgpt before chatgpt. they built it in house. Why didn't they compete with OpenAI like Google and Anthropic are doing, with in-house tools? They have a mature PowerPC (Power9+? now?)setup, lots of talent to make ML/LLMs work and lots of existing investment in datacenters and getting GPU-intense workloads going.

I don't disagree that this acquisition is good strategy, I'm just fascinated (Schadenfreude?) to witness the demise of confluent now. I think economists should study this, it might help avert larger problems.

Lu2025 · 5 days ago

> they consistently deliver low quality/bottom-tier services and products

I worked with IBMers. The main priority for a lot of them is to ensure continuous employment for themselves and their buddies. They'd add unnecessary complexity to a product to stretch out the development for another couple of years. And they work at leisure pace for tech. Actual 9 to 5, many coffee breaks. They can't compete.

Lu2025 commented on IBM to acquire Confluent confluent.io/blog/ibm-to-... · Posted by u/abd12

oersted · 6 days ago

Not wrong but the image that people are painting in the comments is getting close to a caricature now.

The stuff IBM is doing on Quantum Computing is serious cutting-edge science and engineering for instance. The R&D they are doing on semiconductors on their 2nm and sub-2nm processes is also impressive and hardcore tech. They are doing a bunch of progress on post-quantum cryptography and homomorphic encryption. They've fallen behind now, but they were also quite strong on pre-LLM NLP for a couple of decades, it was not all fluff.

Yes they have an awful enterprise culture and they are not focused on building excellent products. But what they offer fits the needs of many organizations, and a lot of the things they are doing on R&D are no joke.

Lu2025 · 5 days ago

> The R&D they are doing on semiconductors on their 2nm and sub-2nm processes is also impressive and hardcore tech.

But they don't have production. How can they develop successfully without running silicon in a fab?

Lu2025 commented on iPhone Pocket apple.com/newsroom/2025/1... · Posted by u/soheilpro

fxtentacle · a month ago

I believe the issue is that with Jobs gone, Apple's design team is now apparently unable to continue their job. Instead of developing their own UI paradigm for small screens, they keep copying from Google Pixel both the UI ideas and the screen size. And now that they ran out of useful ideas, they turned everything transparent. Why make the iPhone look more like Apple Vision when people so obviously hate the latter? [1]

My prediction is that the age of AI and LLM assistance will make tiny devices the norm. Like those AI pins. Like Siri inside AirPods. Like Meta's AR glasses. But it seems that Apple is losing the race here. They lost their edge when it comes to developing new user interface paradigms.

EDIT: [1] Bloomberg claims 10-15% return rate, which would be massive: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-02-18/apple-... (for comparison, Galaxus reports 2% as normal for Smartphones and <5% for Meta's Quest)

Lu2025 · a month ago

> Why make the iPhone look more like Apple Vision when people so obviously hate the latter

They are normalizing Apple Vision look so it looks less weird when you switch.

Lu2025 commented on iPhone Pocket apple.com/newsroom/2025/1... · Posted by u/soheilpro

Lu2025 · a month ago

They could just make a device that fits in a regular pocket. Most phones are too big now.

Lu2025 commented on A Fond Farewell farmersalmanac.com/fond-f... · Posted by u/erhuve

Lu2025 · a month ago

Good riddance. These guys had like 40% forecast accuracy, worse than random. When they say the winter will warmer it will be colder and vice versa.

Lu2025 commented on I only use Google Sheets mayberay.bearblog.dev/why... · Posted by u/mugamuga

corry · 2 months ago

Always overlooked point in these pro/anti-spreadsheet discussions:

A spreadsheet gives you a DB, a quickly and easily customized UI, and iterative / easy-to-debug data processing all in a package that everyone in the working world already understands. AND with a freedom that allows the creator to do it however they want. AND it's fairly portable.

You can build incredible things in spreadsheets. I remain convinced that it's the most creative and powerful piece of software we have available, especially so for people who can't code.

With that power and freedom comes downsides, sure; and we can debate the merits of it being online, or whether this or that vendor is preferable; but my deep appreciation for spreadsheets remains undiminished by these mere trifles.

It's the best authoring tool we've ever devised.

EDIT TO ADD: the only other thing that seems to 'rhyme' with spreadsheets in the same way is: HyperCard. Flexible workbench that let you stitch together applications, data, UX, etc. RIP HyperCard, may you be never forgotten.

Lu2025 · 2 months ago

Right? Spreadsheets have such a low barrier of entry. I use Google Sheets in a middle of a farm field to enter plant growing records on my cell phone. I don't even have good reception at times so the sheets are in offline mode; they'll synch when I get back to the house. Crappy, crummy records are oftentimes better than no records. Farming is data-heavy and data-starved at the same. A learning cycle is a year, and one year is not like the other one.

Lu2025 commented on A human-accelerated neuron type potentially underlying autism in humans academic.oup.com/mbe/arti... · Posted by u/ivewonyoung

jiggawatts · 3 months ago

An observation I've made is that the most people ("the general population") will compromise on hard facts without pause to attain social goals. I.e.: They will follow instructions from a workplace superior with zero push-back even if the instructions are total nonsense or impossible to physically implement.

It's a rare breed (1-2%) of the population that will actively push back, insist on facts, and stick to only the "hard, unyielding reality" of physics, chemistry, mathematics, physics, logic, etc...

There is a very high correlation between these types of people and autistic people.

You have to not care about how other people "feel" or what their conflicting priorities might be to prioritise reality above the personal whims of others.

To be truly intelligent, you have to be able to call the emperor naked.

PS: It's easy to disagree with the above, but this is invariably an instance of "the fish is the last to know it lives in water" idiom. Something like 80% of the adult population goes along with Santa for Grownups because of peer pressure, also known as "mainstream religions". Don't get me started on partisan voting against one's own interests. Etc...

Lu2025 · 2 months ago

> will compromise on hard facts without pause to attain social goals

You can look no further than masking for Covid prevention. It makes sense, it works, it's relatively easy but social pressure is strong enough to force the majority to make a suicidal decision not to. We are so, so screwed.

Lu2025 commented on A human-accelerated neuron type potentially underlying autism in humans academic.oup.com/mbe/arti... · Posted by u/ivewonyoung

jrflowers · 2 months ago

Training in a hyperbolic time chamber to max out my grasp of social cues. I emerge cocoon-like with a correct estimation of who is and is not mad at me

Lu2025 · 2 months ago

Just find zen and stop giving a shit, buddy.

Lu2025 commented on Privacy Badger is a free browser extension made by EFF to stop spying privacybadger.org/... · Posted by u/doener

sanex · 3 months ago

I don't think people understand the price we pay for these ads. Companies _generally_ are going to operate so they don't lose money. In an industry I am familiar with, I booked someone to clean my home. The total cost was somewhere around $350, about 125 of that went to the actual person cleaning the house. The rest went to a combination of google for the ad and the company I booked through. This industry generally has a 35% marketing expense (sometimes way more) so somewhere around $75 of what I paid to get my house cleaned went to Google. How much better of a job could have been done if the cleaner got a 60% raise? How much better would the local economy be if all of that money stayed local?

Lu2025 · 3 months ago

I see how Google has a vested interest in hollowing out communities to the point you have nobody to text to refer you to a cleaner.

I frequently see such requests in a local Facebook group aptly named "Exit 10 and 11" (of a highway)

Lu2025 commented on Ode to libraries (the book ones) sibervepunk.com/ode-to-li... · Posted by u/siberpunk

dpassens · 3 months ago

> So what to do? Go to nearest coffee shop. You’re lucky if they don’t play tasteless trendy music. You’re lucky if a waiter doesn’t keep asking if you need anything, isn’t intrusive, and doesn’t subtly let you know when it’s time to leave by checking on you constantly . You’re lucky if no teenagers talking loudly about their-whatever-teens-talk-about-these-days. Oh, by the way, pay a lot of money to be here and to drink a nice cup of burnt coffe.

Astonishingly entitled. The point of a coffee shop isn't to provide you with a nice space to work but to sell coffee.

Lu2025 · 3 months ago

Something like 60% of a coffee shop Cost of Goods Sold is rent. You aren't really paying for coffee when you sit down with a cup.