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arebop commented on Creative Technology: The Sound Blaster   abortretry.fail/p/the-sto... · Posted by u/BirAdam
arebop · 5 months ago
Who remembers Dr. Sbaitso, the tts eliza derivative and forerunner of chatgpt?
arebop commented on Australia widens teen social media ban to YouTube, scraps exemption   reuters.com/legal/litigat... · Posted by u/Brajeshwar
OJFord · 6 months ago
But this is basically the way for Australian government to try to make YouTube do that isn't it? There's already YouTube Kids, so maybe this makes YouTube think ok we need YouTube Teenz, or YouTube Educational or whatever.
arebop · 6 months ago
YouTube Kids is also full of garbage. The bar to get content into YouTube Kids is substantially higher than YouTube but still the average video's educational quality is abysmal.

There are people at YouTube/Google/Alphabet who care but at the end of the day we get what the invisible hand gives us. Market forces have not yielded a well-curated educational video experience on YouTube.

arebop commented on We hacked Gemini's Python sandbox and leaked its source code (at least some)   landh.tech/blog/20250327-... · Posted by u/topsycatt
Mindwipe · a year ago
Does anyone at Google care that you're trying to replace Assistant with this in the next few months and it can't set a timer yet?

(I mean it will tell you it's set a timer but it doesn't talk to the native clock app so nothing ever goes off if you navigate away from the window.)

arebop · a year ago
The Assistant can't reliably set timers either, though I guess 80% is considerably better than 0. Still, I think it used to be better back before Google caught a glimpse of a different squirrel to chase.
arebop commented on The Last Drops of Mexico City   mexicocitywater.longlead.... · Posted by u/anarbadalov
alephnerd · a year ago
Nezahualcoyotl/Neza, Naucalpan, and Ecatepec (the municipalities mentioned) are not in Mexico City proper.

They along with Iztapalapa are the former slum towns. How much of the water crisis can be attributed to the fact that these were all unplanned muncipalities, with split governance between Mexico State and CDMX

Edit: Yep, looks like only 15% of water in Mexico is allocated to human consumption and the rest is for agriculture and manufacturing [0].

Now I'm curious how many seats in Estado Mexico's assembly are within the CDMX metro and how many are not. If majority of them aren't within the CDMX metro then it's the classic democracy dilemma you see in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Philippines, etc as well.

[0] - https://www.axios.com/2024/11/26/mexico-water-crisis-claudia...

arebop · a year ago
For comparison, about 13% of water in US is allocated to "human consumption" with the rest for ag and mfg [https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/sci...].
arebop commented on Executive wealth as a factor in return-to-office   twitter.com/EthanEvansVP/... · Posted by u/kappi
cogman10 · a year ago
The nature of nursing is that you have to be in person. What HR did (and has been doing) is keeping the number of staff at a barebones level. They don't, for example, hire enough nurses that if one is out sick (during covid!) that there could be someone to cover the shift.

They went so far as to only hire travel nurses (temps), who were commanding 100k+ salaries, when things got bad enough rather than filling a full time position. And, to add insult to injury, the nurses themselves have been getting salaries in the 30->50k range. So HR could have literally filled 2+ positions for the cost of a single travel nurse.

That's what has lead to a nursing shortage and burnout. HR cost cutting because "we just need the minimum and no backups". It's a big part of the strikes.

Believe it or not, many nurses and doctors working in healthcare actually care about their patients. Something HR is more than willing to exploit to get them to work ridiculous hours.

arebop commented on Google Fiber is coming to Las Vegas   fiber.googleblog.com/2025... · Posted by u/mfiguiere
advarkcal · a year ago
Have you considered Monkeybrains? For the price the service is fantastic, and with some of their new upgrades speeds are pretty good for most of SF.

Caveat: I work from home so I keep my comcast subscription as a backup and have a router with automatic failover. I would say this is not worth it for most people and just Monkeybrains is sufficent.

arebop · a year ago
Yes, but it requires landlord cooperation.
arebop commented on Google Fiber is coming to Las Vegas   fiber.googleblog.com/2025... · Posted by u/mfiguiere
rconti · a year ago
> GFiber service will be available in parts of the metro area later this year. Nevada residents and business owners will be able to choose between Google Fiber’s plans with prices that haven’t changed since 2012 and speeds up to 8 gig.

The author of the press release is under the mistaken belief that unchanged broadband pricing is a good thing.

From the linked price page:

1gig: $70/mo

2gig: $100/mo

5gig: $125/mo

8 gig: $150/mo

There was a time I would have been insanely jealous of any fiber option at all here in the Bay Area, and I know how hard it is to find fiber anywhere in the US, even still here in many parts of the Bay.

But when the fiber actually arrives, it becomes clear how cheap it is to provide.

When AT&T finally rolled fiber to my house in ~2019 it was $80/mo for 1gig symmetrical.

And you know AT&T's shareholders are still making money hand over fist at that price, because today, I pay Sonic $50 per month for 10gig symmetrical.

arebop · a year ago
A lot of people lately are complaining about a lack of price stability, it seems like a good angle.

Also as an SF resident with no realistic alternative to Comcast cable, I'd appreciate a provider who didn't try to sneak price increases onto my bill a couple of times a year.

In a healthy market I wouldn't expect big margins for sellers, but honestly if someone's making insane profits by selling me a product or service that's excellent and better than my non-empty set of alternatives I'm not going to complain.

arebop commented on Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals   ft.com/content/1201f834-6... · Posted by u/kvee
thehappypm · a year ago
Why do you have to wait several months? That has not been my experience at all.
arebop · a year ago
IDK this is my experience over the past few years with 10+ appointments with two specialists and three PCPs in the SFBA; my understanding is that it is typical in this area and becoming typical in other regions of the U.S. as well.
arebop commented on Why America's economy is soaring ahead of its rivals   ft.com/content/1201f834-6... · Posted by u/kvee
kbrkbr · a year ago
> "healthcare deserts"

Well, in Germany health care is affordable in terms of cost. However, while 20 years ago you just went to a doctor when you were sick, these days you will wait hours and hours even at your family physician's crowded waiting room. You need a specialist? 6 months if it's something serious like a cardiologist. If you're on private health insurance, alright, only 3 months.

I don't know if this is specific to Germany, or similar in all of Europe.

But that is a change many people notice that I speak with.

arebop · a year ago
The waiting is similar in the U.S., only the cost is wildly different. Actually, it sounds like you can see a family doctor the same day in Germany? That would make it better in Germany.

In the U.S. I can see a midlevel the same day by paying $200 for an annual membership in a mass-affluent pseudoconcierge practice plus $800ish for the appointment+labs, the $800 may be partly or entirely covered by insurance depending on how the conversation goes with the "provider". I have to wait several months if I want to see a real doctor outside of an emergency room. 6 months is about right for seeing a specialist with a preexisting relationship, might need a little more lead time for an initial consultation.

arebop commented on DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome   bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/redm
elmerfud · a year ago
So I understand trying to break up monopolistic companies to provide better competition in the market which is generally better for the consumer as a whole. This strategy of saying Chrome should be sold off seems strange to me because unlike other monopolies Google's monopoly with Chrome is fundamentally different.

Since Chrome at its core is the open source chromium browser engine the ability for your competition to leverage what you do is already there. The dynamic here is fundamentally different than many other monopolies of the past due to this fact. It must be asked are people gravitating toward Chrome because they feel there is no other viable option to offer a similar experience or is it because they choose that because it feels to them to be the best choice to make in a free market.

arebop · a year ago
The DOJ has renounced the consumer welfare standard [https://prospect.org/justice/2024-08-09-will-googles-monopol...].

u/arebop

KarmaCake day1417June 13, 2008View Original