This list is fantastic.
Readit Newsebertx commented on Fantastic Learning Resources matklad.github.io/2023/08... · Posted by u/ingve
ebertx commented on Amazon’s Roomba deal is about mapping your home bloomberg.com/news/articl... · Posted by u/Vaslo
If we are permitted baseless speculation: NO, almost certainly not.
Reason #1: Amazon needs robotics people badly. Roomba has a lot of robotics people and expertise. It's a natural fit, and an easy way to acquire a bunch of fully functional robotics teams.
Reason #2: Vacuum robots are useful things, especially for people with pets, which is probably most Amazon customers. Chinese companies are eating Roomba's lunch when it comes to cleaning robots (and Amazon knows it!), so Amazon probably thinks they can compete, win, and yield profit on this investment. They'll do it by leveraging their existing warehouse expertise to help the robot clean your house better.
Non-Reason #1: They want to sell your home information to the police state. Come on people, your local government already knows the layout of your home, you have to tell them that when you build it!
Non-Reason #2: They want to look at products in your home to sell you stuff. Sorry, the embedded systems that are going to be on these things are going to be able to recognize "fridge," "bed," "power strip." Not "Miele SKU #7560, Brand New Condition" or "IKEA Krugsforst Chair, Tattered Underfabric". They are running mobilenet on 512x512 thumbnails, not efficientdet-v7 on 12 megapixel raw input. There is no GTX3080 on board this thing, and they're not gonna stream a high resolution video to AWS. And Lidar cannot tell what color your shoes are, or even that the point cloud is a pair of shoes.
Non-Reason #3: They want to know what you own so that they can determine some other information about you. Uh, this thing is going to connect to your router, see a MacBook Pro, and a Sonos speaker connected, and subsequently know your monthly disposable income to the $10's. They already know this information -- they don't to do a bunch of extremely difficult statistics on the huge amount of data this thing could generate to figure these things out.
Reason #0: Amazon sells things. This is a thing they can sell. You'll probably buy this thing after they acquire it, make it better, and market it to you.
While I agree that #1 and #2 are the biggest drivers for acquiring Roomba, I find it hard to imagine Amazon executives not actively discussing in-home robotics as a vector for increased data collection. It might be a few years out, but it will happen.
What is this random spot with seemingly nothing around it in Russia?
https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=5.85&lat=68.2729&lo...
There are a lot of strange spots in Russia. I was looking at a spot south of the Pechora Sea on the light pollution map, then comparing it with Google Maps/Earth. I can't see anything that would correlate with that much light.
https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/#zoom=6.17&lat=67.1945&lo...
ebertx commented on Rediscovering the Small Web neustadt.fr/essays/the-sm... · Posted by u/livatlantis
When I picture it in my head I think of the early web as more of a library. Over time it has transitioned into a shopping mall.
If I continue with this thought exercise, a lot of the big indoor shopping malls around me have been knocked down and replaced with standalone outdoor stores (walled gardens?).
I'm not sure where things are going next.
I thought the exact same thing about the web as being a library. It's nice hearing someone else say it, it's validating.
However, I feel like it's moved more in the direction of being like broadcast television: lots of content that's designed to be consumed once and then forgotten. Maybe the television analogy oversimplifies the matter. Still, I think the more that content creators view their content as going into a permanent library, the better the quality.
ebertx commented on U.S. users are leaving Facebook by the millions, Edison Research says marketplace.org/2019/03/0... · Posted by u/rmason
I disabled my Facebook account 4 years or so ago and didn't miss it. That said, I now have a daughter with an extremely rare genetic disorder. Although there are a number of databases out there specifically to help parents find other families with rare genetic disorders, we didn't find anyone until we resorted to Facebook. This is only one anecdote, but from my personal experience thus far, Facebook is still unfortunately the best place to find a needle in a haystack.
ebertx commented on Review of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny economist.com/books-and-a... · Posted by u/mastazi
My theory is that every book written about the fall of the Roman Empire is more about the political climate of the time it was written and the political perspective of the author writing it.
In the mid- to late-00s when sentiment against the Iraq was its peak, I remember seeing the claim that Rome fell because of military overreach and being in a constant state of war. On the more right-leaning side, I remember seeing the claim that Rome fell because Rome became a weakened, welfare state.
Obviously there are real reasons why Rome fell, it just seems to me that more often than not the explanation for its fall is a reflection of the times in which it was written.
edit The word "every" in the first sentence is too strong. I stand by the general sentiment, though.
ebertx commented on NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments npr.org/sections/ombudsma... · Posted by u/hampelm
This is an interesting move, and a topic I've been discussing with friends. I've stopped using sites like Reddit, because the comment sections are just toxic. I've gone as far as installing Chrome extensions that make comment sections disappear from popular sites like YouTube. It's too easy to get drawn into the negativity, and I'm completely over it. "Social Networking" has reached it's low point as far as I'm concerned. Hacker News is about the only civil place I'm capable of contributing to a discussion to at this point.
I've always thought of technology as being the sole driver behind the fragmentation of communities into small niche communities. It's interesting seeing that comments appear to be one aspect of technological change that drive people to seek niche communities (going off of another comment that it's better to frequent smaller subreddits rather than the larger, default ones).
ebertx commented on Leonard Nimoy, Spock of ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 83 nytimes.com/2015/02/27/ar... · Posted by u/coloneltcb
In loving memory of Leonard Nimoy's wackier side:
Verify me.