etblg (u/etblg) - Readit News

etblg commented on Apple, What Have You Done? onlinegoddess.net/2026/01... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

OhMeadhbh · 15 days ago

Having had to deal with Jobs, I would like to say the man was a bit of a mercurial douche trading off his reputation. That being said... he had a great ability to see what computers could be for "normal people." Instead of stealing ideas from IBM or DEC, he "stole" ideas and staff from PARC (who stole some of the staff away from SRI.) Dude was a dick, but he used his dickishness to "encourage" people in the Apple org to make products that were better than they really had to be. [1]

Tim Cook is an amazing operations guy and only sorta gets the product vision thing. Maybe 650 milli-jobs. [2] But the people in the Apple org who have a gut feeling for what makes a decent product from a customer perspective are lower on the org chart. I'm sure they're doing daily battle with the accountants who know the price of everything but the cost of nothing.

[1] Someday I am going to write a memoir about what it was like to partner with NeXT in the early 90s.

[2] A milli-jobs is a unit of product vision. 1000 mJobs is Steve Jobs. 650 mJobs is Tim Cook. 100 mJobs is Gil Amelio.

etblg · 15 days ago

I feel like you have to expand the taxonomy of people expressed in milli-jobs. Does anyone out there exceed 1000 mJobs? Does anyone come the closest? Is there a suitable conversion to other systems of measurement?

etblg commented on TikTok is now collecting more data about its users wired.com/story/tiktok-ne... · Posted by u/coloneltcb

nikkwong · 18 days ago

...Highly disagree. China can (and has) manipulate the hearts and minds of the American public—skewing their biases in a way that creates internal chaos and dissent, disrupting institutional order, and sewing distrust of thy neighbor. They've been doing this for at least a decade now, and have played a silent hand in reshaping American politics. If (when) a conflict arises, trust that they will use this tool to manipulate the electorate in a way that benefits them in a zero sum way.

etblg · 18 days ago

Damn, imagine if an Australian or a South African billionaire did that with big media companies, oh well, that's just a weird thought, nothing to take from that.

etblg commented on America could have $4 lunch bowls like Japan but for zoning laws abio.substack.com/p/ameri... · Posted by u/627467

mrgoldenbrown · 25 days ago

surely if NYC can do 99c slices, it's not as simple as high rent costs?

etblg · 25 days ago

The day of the dollar slice in NYC is dead, most places have switched to $1.50 slices.

etblg commented on Influencers and OnlyFans models are dominating U.S. O-1 visa requests theguardian.com/us-news/2... · Posted by u/bookofjoe

areoform · a month ago

Disclaimer: I don't mean this comment as an insult to you or anyone else here. It's meant to be slightly tongue in cheek.

I hate to be that person, but the fact that so many people on HN think OF is prostitution is revealing of the site's demographics (i.e. older). It is, as some may put it, boomer thinking.

You're misunderstanding what these people - esports athletes, successful streamers, influencers, OF models etc - actually do. They create and maintain parasocial relationships.

The point isn't just the gameplay or nudes / sex videos or commentary. For e.g., I (and a bunch of other young women for some reason) love to watch Temet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go8EJbNaIHg while working. It's the way they reflect back to their audience and allow them to become a part of their performance.

It's kind of like the place where everyone knows your name? These are digital third places and the content (whether it be neon blue bunny hopping characters or a graphic video of someone having sex) is a mechanism for bonding / a part of the activity. Kind of like the alcohol at the pub, I suppose.

That's where real influence comes from in this age.

If you think OF is prostitution, you're fundamentally misunderstanding what will drive power and culture in this century.

etblg · a month ago

> I hate to be that person, but the fact that so many people on HN think OF is prostitution is revealing of the site's demographics (i.e. older). It is, as some may put it, boomer thinking.

Well it's not non-existent either, there are a fair number of onlyfans models (and also general actors in the field of pornography who do the same) who do escorting on the side.

etblg commented on xAI Raises $20B Series E x.ai/news/series-e... · Posted by u/runesoerensen

colesantiago · a month ago

So we need the entire world's available money, capital, energy and earth's entire resources in order to improve LLMs so that my daughter's cousin can keep talking to their imaginary 'friend'.

I can't wait until AI startups need to raise $100TN dollars for this important mission.

etblg · a month ago

Judging from the recent news, it's also now so weirdos online can get an AI to make CSAM about your daughter's cousin. Fascinating twist.

etblg commented on The ruin of Gaza: how Israel's two-year assault has devastated the territory theguardian.com/world/ng-... · Posted by u/hebelehubele

etblg · 4 months ago

> 67,000 Palestinians

> 30,000 Hamas fighters

those are different things.

etblg commented on America is now one big bet on AI ft.com/content/6cc87bd9-c... · Posted by u/saubeidl

gooob · 4 months ago

the idea is to use AI to build super productive farms and greenhouses, improve the capability to do that in urban areas, automated and super efficient transportation. but it's not just AI doing all that, it's someone who wants to start a business using AI himself to figure out how to best start up a greenhouse in his community and setup the tech infra needed including the API for people to be able to view available produce, estimates on availability, initiate trades, etc. (this greenhouse thing is just one example).

another example could be someone wants to build an ecosystem monitoring station to monitor the nearby ravine (pollution levels with rainfall and other events etc.) and air quality over time. this is just a small datapoint but if people all over the place build their own ecosystem/weather monitoring things using basic electronics ordered from the internet and all plug them in to a standard observability software system then that could provide some pretty awesome outcomes including figuring the best way to clean polluted water (because some of the places will surely have implemented varying methods of sanitizing their own water).

etblg · 4 months ago

> the idea is to use AI to build super productive farms and greenhouses

How? What are the mechanisms in which AI will lead to farms and greenhouses being more productive? How will AI improve the existing automation that already exists for the farming sector, and has existed for a hundred years?

etblg commented on Even light alcohol drinking raises dementia risk, according to largest study psypost.org/even-light-al... · Posted by u/ivewonyoung

chistev · 5 months ago

What are the benefits of alcohol again?

etblg · 5 months ago

Alcohol makes a good solvent so it extracts flavours in things that don't tend to go in a liquid. That's for liquors at least, for things like beer and wine, they're tasty drinks that also happen to have alcohol in them through the process of creating them.

Also it's fun having a drink or two!

etblg commented on Delete FROM users WHERE location = 'Iran'; gist.github.com/avestura/... · Posted by u/avestura

alexey-salmin · 5 months ago

> If America had intervened during the revolution

Well they did intervene during the 1952 revolution. The secular democratic government wasn't very convenient so they basically undid the revolution and reinstalled the Shah in power. Then the second time the Shah was overthrown, it was done by Islamists, not by the secular elected parliament.

etblg · 5 months ago

Third time's the charm, just one more revolution and we'll have it all sorted out, juuuuuust one more /s

etblg commented on US Gov acknowledges that 100K fee does not apply to existing H-1B visas holders [pdf] uscis.gov/sites/default/f... · Posted by u/zzzeek

OutOfHere · 5 months ago

Please stop spreading the unsubstantiated rumor that it's 100K a year. It's not. It's for the lifetime of the visa which is 3-6 years, potentially longer, subject to employment.

etblg · 5 months ago

This unsubstantiated rumor coming from......the Secretary of Commerce?

"Reuters was not immediately able to establish how the fee would be administered. Lutnick said the visa would cost $100,000 a year for each of the three years of its duration but that the details were "still being considered.""

"Lutnick said on Friday that "all the big companies are on board" with $100,000 a year for H-1B visas. "We've spoken to them," he said."

https://archive.is/WYuI1#selection-1571.0-1575.32