deeth_starr (u/deeth_starr)

deeth_starr commented on Storing Drinking-Water in Copper Pots Kills Contaminating Bacteria (2012) ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti... · Posted by u/Red_Tarsius

vram22 · 8 years ago

Thanks for the info. Yes, I've read about leaded petrol and its effects on the brain, more so in children. I even read somewhere a while ago (maybe on HN) that crime had come down somewhat over some decades (in the US?), which was partly attributed (in the article I read) to reduced use of leaded petrol (gasoline).

Interesting about the silver study, and agree about quacks.

deeth_starr · 8 years ago

Worldwide probably...

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/01/yep-gasoline-l...

deeth_starr commented on Physiognomy’s New Clothes (on the Limits of AI) medium.com/@blaisea/physi... · Posted by u/herf

deeth_starr · 8 years ago

Tl;dr Two researchers claim they can use convolutional neural networks to pick criminals from pictures.

For the criminals they use pictures from government id cards. For non-criminals they searched the internet for random pictures.

These bozos just trained CNN to pick government id photos.

This is scary stuff because police are not very technically savvy and use biased scoring systems already[0].

[0] https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessm...

deeth_starr commented on Warren Buffett says he dumped a third of his IBM stock money.cnn.com/2017/05/05/... · Posted by u/MilnerRoute

ebbv · 8 years ago

Except Watson, Siri, Alexa, etc aren't real AI. They are very specific applications for a specific task. The idea that they are AI has been great for marketing and creating another "Strong AI is around the corner bubble."

But look at how slowly they have evolved. Siri is barely better than she was 5 years ago. I haven't seen Watson really do much beyond the same language processing and information lookup stuff it did on Jeopardy years ago. The other assistants are somewhat evolved versions of Siri. But they all require special coding to teach them any new task. None of them is really anything like true AI. They are AI only in the sense that they are programs which appear to exhibit intelligent behavior in a very narrow and specific role, like an AI opponent in a video game. But I strongly believe we are not appreciably closer to true AI than we were 10 years ago. We are just in another bubble like the 80s because the people with money don't understand the massive gap between Siri and Hal.

deeth_starr · 8 years ago

At SXSW one year IBM had Watson come up with a bunch of new recipes to try. I thought they all tasted awful. Some things are just not suited to the current AI tools.

Edit: typo

deeth_starr commented on Apple’s China Problem stratechery.com/2017/appl... · Posted by u/uyoakaoma

mikhailt · 8 years ago

This seems to confuse some people, the author is not saying Apple have a monopoly on smartphones. What the author is talking about is the locked-in ecosystem that Apple owns, iOS and macOS (watchOS/tvOS).

> Moreover, the advantages go beyond margins: the best way to understand both Apple’s profits and many of its choices is to understand that the company has a monopoly on not just MacOS but even more importantly iOS. That means Apple can not only capture consumer surplus on hardware, but developer surplus when it comes to app sales; that some apps are not made is deadweight loss that Apple has chosen to bear to ensure total control.

The problem that Apple is having in China is that WeChat is the driving "platform" ecosystem, not the OS or the brand.

In other words, people aren't buying iPhones for its integration with Apple services in China, which could lead to an increase in growth due to the halo effects. Instead, they run WeChat and they buy things through there, which leads to no growth in Apple's services and revenue. Which also means, the customers have no desire to buy another Apple device. They can do the same on any device that can run WeChat.

If Microsoft sells a Windows Phone with WeChat as the default app for everything, they may have a hit in China but it would not be a sustainable hit because again, WeChat can run on iPhone or Android or any other OS.

deeth_starr · 8 years ago

This is not an issue just for China. Naver/kakao in South Korea also are like this. Apps that are all-inclusive are the norm. It's because the government is picking winners. Ie, someone tied to the government.

Edit: Alternately, West-style VC wasn't funding companies so Asian gov't stepped in.

deeth_starr commented on Ask HN: How has Facebook figured out my family doctor as a friend suggestion? · Posted by u/throwaway_374

hollander · 8 years ago

Using the wifi at the doctor's office would be another methods of linking. (I know this doesn't apply to the poster, but just giving another method.)

About 2: Email. I don't understand. If I send an email from my gmail address to his hotmail address, and both of us use the addresses for Facebook registration, how does that link us? And you say "either", so only one of us uses it for Facebook. I don't get it.

About 3: Maybe he has many links to other people on FB, people in his social circles, one or two or even three steps away. If you have enough of these people, the link is made. And they just show these people, and at some point you see it and all the others go unnoticed, but this one pops out.

deeth_starr · 8 years ago

>> email

I agree that it's likely not "either" but both email addresses matching but I'm convinced that some friend recommendations come from gmail. There's no other way.

deeth_starr commented on How to rickroll Spotify for Android github.com/kjempelodott/r... · Posted by u/kjempelodott

michaelmior · 8 years ago

They could still serve the first few seconds from a CDN at the edge via TLS.

deeth_starr · 8 years ago

My guess because it will save them a few $$$. Millions at stake here. Why would someone do a MITM attack against 5 secs of intro audio?

Obviously the NSA would.

Edit: exclusives. https://qz.com/949942/spotifys-new-deal-with-universal-gives...

deeth_starr commented on How to rickroll Spotify for Android github.com/kjempelodott/r... · Posted by u/kjempelodott

jessedhillon · 8 years ago

Couldn't the preview always end after N seconds, and the licensed stream always begin at the very next frame? Then it's just a matter of appending the licensed stream to the playback buffer after exhausting the preview stream.

deeth_starr · 8 years ago

Exactly. This is how you do it. But you'd be surprised how complicated this is.

deeth_starr commented on The Mac Pro Lives daringfireball.net/2017/0... · Posted by u/neilprosser

csomar · 8 years ago

Am I the only one that sees OS X as the biggest reason to switch to Mac? I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X. And please, don't tell me Ubuntu or other linux flavors. They look good (and are good if you are programming on them) but the UX is still lacking a lot. (Never mind the confusion of the different flavors, packaging systems, and configurations). Also god forbid you have a problem (especially a hardware problem) and then try to debug it. Good luck searching online for a resolution.

I never had success with Linux. My Macbook pro has had its shares of problems (Wifi issues that later resolved with a system update) but it's nowhere my experience trying to install Linux and battling the drivers issue.

Anyone figuring out the Linux/Laptop problem is re-inventing the Macbook Pro/OS X.

Here are things that I'd pay $1,000 on top of the current Macbook Pro model:

- Thiner/Lighter

- Longer Battery Life (5+ hours)

- 32/64GB RAM

For OS X:

- Less cluttering (ie: remove all Apps and let the user decide what to install, like Siri and crap).

- Native Package Manager

That's about it. I'd be buying the new Macbook Pro in a month. But if Apple releases something like the above, I'm more than happy to drop 5-8k usd into it.

deeth_starr · 8 years ago

No, I used Mac then Windows in the PowerPC days, then back to MacOs on the switch back to Intel. I still need to use Windows for work sometimes and I still think some things about it are better (file management). But in so many ways it's way better. If I needed to build a high end video/gaming workstation now I would buy a PC. But I would still have a mac laptop to do everything else. Let's see what Apple comes up with, but my guess is that this is the reality going forward.

deeth_starr commented on How to rickroll Spotify for Android github.com/kjempelodott/r... · Posted by u/kjempelodott

z3t4 · 8 years ago

HTTP works in most places. When the music has started playing, the client can try other methods, versus waiting for a timeout.

deeth_starr · 8 years ago

HTTPS works in most places too.

Edit: the HTTP vs HTTPS is interesting. My guess is because it is slightly cheaper to use HTTP and they serve a fuck load of music. But this only saves you from MITM attacks. People can still grab music out of their cache. So confusing.