cricketsandmops (u/cricketsandmops)

cricketsandmops commented on US Intel stratechery.com/2025/u-s-... · Posted by u/maguay

The other day when the US's stake in Intel was announced, people assumed it was a political stunt. I suspected it was because of national security interests. The CHIPS act probably didn't get the result US Defense wanted quickly enough. Some details that were glossed over include that there was a chip shortage a few years ago as a result of COVID and TSMC supply chain disruptions that led to a shortage in electronics and automobiles even. This started to look like a national security interest back then.

Second, there is an AI race going on. US intelligence is taking it very seriously and views supremacy of our AI as very important. Recently, the US was pushing NVDA to start using Intel's foundry. I assume it's for national security reasons.

Finally, a couple of details from the Intel deal that were not widely discussed is that the US is taking a passive seat[1]

The government’s investment in Intel will be a passive ownership, with no Board representation or other governance or information rights. The government also agrees to vote with the Company’s Board of Directors on matters requiring shareholder approval, with limited exceptions.

There are also warrants being given whose status is based on Intel's foundry. That suggests the foundry was the interest all along.

[1]: https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1748/...

cricketsandmops · 3 days ago

I always hear about Taiwan and TSMC for Nvidia, but what I never heard until recently is that all these forbidden and banned chips are still assembled into GPUs in China. I am not sure how the US beleives any of this will do much good when the the chips are still sent to China to be completed into GPUs and other AI devices.

cricketsandmops commented on Show HN: NextDNS Adds "Bypass Age Verification" · Posted by u/nextdns

Imustaskforhelp · 12 days ago

I am a user of nextdns and okay, this is really neato team! I find this really interesting.

If I may ask, what are the dns tricks, is there a blog post about what you added, I am sooo curious about what sorcery is nextdns using.

Edit: I searched on ddg and there was a ghacks.net link and a alternativeto.net article and sadly ghacks was taking a long time to load and I just read the alternativeto.net article and it was kinda cool, let me paste it here

here is the article link : https://alternativeto.net/news/2025/8/nextdns-rolls-out-new-...

NextDNS has introduced a new DNS-level feature that allows users to bypass age verification checks commonly found on adult websites. This update enables users to avoid submitting personal documents, such as photos or government-issued IDs, to unfamiliar websites when accessing age-restricted content.

To enable the feature, users can activate it directly within the NextDNS settings. The technical approach is straightforward: the DNS resolver intercepts requests to target websites and routes traffic through proxy servers in countries where age verification is not required by law. This means that while users visit the same websites, the sites perceive the traffic as originating from a country without mandatory ID checks.

These changes are particularly relevant for individuals in the European Union and the United Kingdom, regions where certain governments have introduced strict ID requirements for accessing adult content websites. Looking at community reaction, user feedback on Reddit and social media has been largely positive since the announcement, with some users ironizing that “NextDNS developers know their clientele!”.

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TLDR/my-thoughts: Nextdns can use something similar to vpn and I am wondering how much more efficient is this for this usecase compared to a vpn, like I am sure that vpns can be banned by a country, see china.

But nextdns.io is still available in china?, how would that work, and so can this feature be actually expanded to make it a general purpose vpn too if need be but honestly a lot of vpn use cases might be for bypassing verification itself, so basically the only few use cases I can think of vpn is to bypass censorship and maybe verification and also changing vpn for lets say watching content that's available in other country

Can nextdns add other features too, like imagine you can use nextdns with netflix and change it to anime mode and you can get netflix as in of japan, I don't have netflix but I am just giving an example because that's a lot of times what I hear from all those youtube vpn shills

Or can they provide some vpn service itself while at it, and since nextdns still uses dns and dns can operate over https. I imagine that it might be even harder to detect such vpn traffic because I know for sure that some vpn's can be tracked implementation wise (as in wireguard)[i can be wrong, i usually am] but I am pretty sure that https can't be tracked in the same manner, and we can use dns over https in nextdns using this feature..

Can you guys maybe comment on what you think about it? adding general purpose vpns / japan/country switching/enabling vpns itself though I guess it might make you a vpn app which can have its own logs/rules and regulations and I am currently fine/really happy with protonvpn which I also think can run on top of https with their proxy option atleast in browser and maybe even in their apps I am not sure.

cricketsandmops · 12 days ago

I've been using Getflix for years to have my location spoofed to another country. It is a pay product though. I've used it on Amazon and mainly use it for BBC Iplayer. I couldnt ever get netflix to play nice using it or a vpn, so for it I just tunnel to my traffic to a residential address i have in mexico

cricketsandmops commented on Americans Are Ignoring Their Student Loan Bills news.bloomberglaw.com/ban... · Posted by u/paulpauper

pengaru · 12 days ago

Of course they're not paying their student debt. When the federal government of the moment is using student loan forgiveness to try bribe reelection votes, it sends a pretty strong signal that this shit is frivolous.

As a taxpayer who has never taken on loans of any kind, I find this all quite irritating. You take on debt, you pay the debt, don't turn my tax dollars into your negligence subsidy.

cricketsandmops · 12 days ago

I look at it more as an investment in our citizens . If you don't keep your grades up or fail out you should have to pay it back, but if you graduate and start your life, pay taxes etc the loans should be forgiven. The country would eventually get their investment back via taxes. They could implement this and some type of oversight to reign in the university costs. Easier to control indebted people though so it wont happen.

cricketsandmops commented on How to live on $432 a month in America shagbark.substack.com/p/h... · Posted by u/cactusplant7374

DrillShopper · 3 months ago

> Taxes: $41

> Electric: ~$30

> Water: $0

> Heat: (no, it's really blank)

> Transit: $53 for a 30-ride pass for each person living there, assuming you go to town 3x per week at $2/trip. Multiple options to take the bus to town each day from this location.

> Food: ~$300/mo.

> Telephone: $8/mo

> Entertainment: Fishing and library, free

> Internet: Use library

This author cannot be coming at this from a serious point of view with this absolute embarrassment of a cost breakdown. There is no accounting here for heat (which is sort of important in the middle of "American Siberia"), property taxes, homeowner's insurance, healthcare, or saving for retirement.

> I’ve known men who grow rare Chinese medicinal herbs in greenhouses on a tenth of an acre to sell via the mail; or my uncle, who takes lumber from old barns and crafts it into shelves to sell online.

Damn, I be that would be a lot easier with an Internet connection at home and a smartphone.

cricketsandmops · 3 months ago

Perhaps the author heats with a wood stove. You have to get wood through your labor or buying it though, so it's not truly 0$. Plus the time and effort to keep it going.

cricketsandmops commented on A layoff fundamentally changed how I perceive work mertbulan.com/2025/01/26/... · Posted by u/mertbio

closeparen · 7 months ago

The most your ex coworkers can do for you at a decently paying corporate job is get you past the resume screen. And even then, there are constant complaints at my employer about our recruiters never contacting our referrals. The person referring can certainly not be allowed even the appearance of influence over the interviews or debrief.

You might be hired on the strength of reputation or recommendation into an early stage startup, but these roles only make sense if you’re 23.

cricketsandmops · 7 months ago

The referrals come from the c-suite. They can call up board they're on and friends that they have. I was laid off last fall and went straight HR told them where i applied and they reached out to the ceo and he called someone with me in the office. Had a job offer 1 week later

cricketsandmops commented on A layoff fundamentally changed how I perceive work mertbulan.com/2025/01/26/... · Posted by u/mertbio

seanc · 7 months ago

I've been in high tech for 30 years, and I've been laid off many times, most often from failed start ups. I _strongly_ disagree with a fully cynical response of working only to contract, leveraging job offers for raises, etc.

There are a few reasons for this, but the most concrete is that your behavior in this job has an impact on getting the next one. The author is correct that exemplary performance will not save you from being laid off, but when layoffs come your next job often comes from contacts that you built up from the current job, or jobs before. If people know you are a standout contributor then you will be hired quickly into desirable roles. If people think you are a hired gun who only does the bare minimum that next role will be harder to find.

On top of that, carrying around bitterness and cynicism is just bad for you. Pride in good work and pleasure in having an impact on customers and coworkers is good for you. Sometimes that means making dumb business decisions like sacrificing an evening to a company that doesn't care, but IMO that sort of thing is worth it now and then.

To be sure, don't give your heart away to a company (I did that exactly once, never again) because a company will never love you back. But your co-workers will.

cricketsandmops · 7 months ago

My perception of work changed after a layoff last fall. I had the typical C-Suite reaching out and 6 months of severance. After giving over a decade of my time to a company and given 6 months of pay in return my thought process changed. I was offered a job due to their contacts, but I would be in a similar situation with no laws to protect me, so I decided to decline and left the country. I had a contact in Mexico... after reading about their labor laws I decided while the pay was 50% of what i made in USA. I didn't have to worry about layoffs. For perspective had I been laid off in Mexico and worked the same amount of time my severance by law would have been about 3 years salary. That was the bare minimum by law (if the company offered a savings accounts, which most larger ones have here). A friend in HR down here did some calculations and said I would have been most likely closer to 4-5 years because of stipulations in contracts.

cricketsandmops commented on AI is creating a generation of illiterate programmers nmn.gl/blog/ai-illiterate... · Posted by u/namanyayg

varispeed · 7 months ago

Until an obstacle hits them and AI goes into a "reasoning" loop unable to find a solution and they don't know how to "nudge" it to the right path.

I've seen in some companies, relatively trivial tickets are bounced from developer to developer for months and management believing these are hard to do.

cricketsandmops · 7 months ago

This happens to me and I just move to another AI program if i have 0 idea, but I have been getting better at figuring things out too.

cricketsandmops commented on AI is creating a generation of illiterate programmers nmn.gl/blog/ai-illiterate... · Posted by u/namanyayg

slightwinder · 7 months ago

How? What I see are non-programmers who can create programs, but still have hardly any ability to understand them, debug them or even create them on their own without AI-tools. This is similar, but worse, to what we used to call Stack Overflow-Programmer, or coding bootcamp-kids.

cricketsandmops · 7 months ago

I would fall into this camp. I don't understand everything I am doing, but I have learned a lot through trial and error. I have an IT background in infrastructure and dabbled in automation, but never enough to be good. AI has allowed me to create things from my ideas that interest me. Is it good, no. Do I sell it though, no. I create things for myself. I wouldn't be able to do these things without it though because I didnt have the time and the teaching I had tried didnt interest me.