kurito (u/kurito) - Readit News

kurito commented on AI Mode in Search gets new agentic features and expands globally blog.google/products/sear... · Posted by u/meetpateltech

eitland · 3 days ago

I switched to DuckDuckGo about seven years ago, added Marginalia when it became available, and then moved over to Kagi three years back. I made the change because I was utterly fed up with Google trying to be cleverer than me.

Looking back, I’m increasingly glad I became an early adopter - Kagi has proven to be as much of an improvement over Google as Google once was over its older rivals.

kurito · 3 days ago

My thoughts exactly. LLMs are tools, and you should be able to draw your tools out of your toolcase whenever you need them. Kagi has a good implementation where AI doesn't obscure your search results, but it's one click away if you need it. If only Kagi had more reasonable pricing.

kurito commented on Croatian freediver held breath for 29 minutes divernet.com/scuba-news/f... · Posted by u/toomanyrichies

nfriedly · 5 days ago

That's 29min 4sec after breathing pure oxygen.

The record for regular air is 11min 35sec.

Pretty impressive either way.

kurito · 5 days ago

Amazingly so Stephane Mifsud's 11:35 "regular air" WR apnea was set in 2009 and has stood since (at least as far as AIDA is concerned). There was a lot of speculation online back then as it is an extraordinary time and was quite high compared to the previous record. If I recall correctly the hold was performed at his home pool, and he has a lung capacity almost double the average adult male's.

This is a video of the end of Mifsud's 11:35 breath hold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHPGKb7ipgc . The protocol after the hold is that you have to take off your goggles/mask and noseclip, look at the judges and do a clear hand signal that you're ok. Your chin/face should not touch the water before you get a reply from the judges, in the form of a card. It's nothing short of amazing how clearly he follows protocol given that his brain has been oxygen deprived for more than 11 minutes.

kurito commented on Slack's 57MB 404 page a.slack.com/archives/b/c... · Posted by u/lecarore

tomcsavage · a month ago

Since nobody's mentioned this yet: this must be a left-over from or tribute to Glitch (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_(video_game)) the video game project that Slack originally grew out of.

kurito · a month ago

Yep! This seems like a tribute to Glitch!

kurito commented on X partners with Visa to enable money transfers on the platform washingtonpost.com/busine... · Posted by u/macleginn

superkuh · 7 months ago

And this is the functionality that makes social media sites worth it for the vast majority of people. They are there following people who are there to make money. The vast majority of people involved in social media are primarily or secondarily there because of money. So this move makes sense.

And that's why decentralized, federated, or whatever social networks will never gain a large scale (>1 million or so) users. The governments of the world will never allow non-corporations to provide the money transfers necessary for people to "make a living" on such sites. That's not a bad thing, but it does mean tha "alternative" social media really needs to stop chasing these kinds of users.

kurito · 7 months ago

I really don't get this. Why would I want to send money via a social media site, especially twitter in its current state?

kurito commented on EU threatens to fine Meta for saying Facebook is 'free' theverge.com/2024/7/22/24... · Posted by u/aspenmayer

phyrex · a year ago

I don't know how the EU expects Meta to make any money. It's pretty infuriating

kurito · a year ago

The EU is protecting its citizens' privacy, as it should, and I find it immensely relieving that the EU has been making mostly sane decisions as far as privacy is concerned. It's not the EU's responsibility to figure out how make Meta's business model be profitable while respecting their users' privacy.

kurito commented on We're ending our Samsung collaboration ifixit.com/News/96162/wer... · Posted by u/skilled

negative_zero · a year ago

> I can't get behind what you're saying but I am curious to hear your take. Why do you think right to repair "won't ever work"?

hnaccount_rng has already raised good points. I will add to them:

1) Working in product compliance I have learned: The simpler the rules, the harder it is to avoid them/weasel them. "Right to repair" rules will ALWAYS be more complicated than a simple "good" warranty. You are essentially legislating how to design products which has an infinite solution space. AND what do you legislate? "It has to be repairable". What is that?

- What skill level of the technician is required? What is the maximum time that they are allowed to spend to deem it "repairable"? (given enough time and skill you can repair almost anything). How we do verify that? Do they need a certification now? Who sets the requirements for that? Who does the testing? Or should the consumer be able to fix it? What tools are allowed or not allowed? Are custom tools allowed? Do I now have to manufacture them and sell those? (cause we use lots of bespoke tools). Now I have to inventory those items, that's going to cost.

- Are mechanical jigs (which are ubiquitous and very expensive and normally bespoke for manufacturing or repairs) allowed? How complicated can they be? Say they are allowed, how does the technician use it? Do I now have to manufacturer it and make is saleable? How much can it cost? (they can easily cost tens of thousands). Can I just lend said jig? For how long? Who insures it when it is in transit? How many jigs must I have in circulation at any time so that repairs are conducted fast enough?

- Can I not use glue anymore? Or only certain types? Say you legislate types that are easy to remove or desolve, ok well their mechanical properties suck and the device will be crappier now.

- How long does this need to be repairable? The reality these days is that a lot of PCBs are cheaper and/or easier to just scrap and replace ... so do I now have to keep repair stock? How much? For how long? What if I run out? Am I now obligated to spin up a 1 million dollar production line to make a few very uneconomic spares?

I could go on ALL day. How do you legislate all of that? Cause the parts that don't now have to go through the courts. Now it's just a big steaming mess that doesn't work AND it's complicated AND you have many smart engineers, who just want to get paid and go home and smart lawyers to circumvent it.

2) I know this might be very unpopular to say on HN, but the reality is that MOST (not all) of what companies do that makes things "unrepairable" is mainly because it's a) cheaper or b) securing the supply chain against counterfeiters because counterfeits devalue your brand and also you don't want to be on the hook for repairing really good counterfeits (and I have personally experienced the latter).

3) The "good warranty" solution is utilising an internal manufacturer calculus that already exists. Right now it is "tuned" to if US market => it only has to last a year + 1 day. Then "not our problem". In a "hand wavy based on experienced way" it's easier to get change by just shifting the goal posts (longer warranty).

4) I applaud you on fixing the items yourself but while it was fine for you, the quality probably wouldn't have passed on my production line. I have also observed many of those little phone repair shops do work and every single one I would have booted off my line. I am yet to see a single one of them use proper ESD protection (in any modern factory you are not even allowed inside without ESD gear). Sure they fixed it for you, but some other customers phone is now a walking wounded. I guarantee it.

I found this article very illustrative about just how clueless, many people, even "right to repair" proponents are about the systems that they are trying to regulate: https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/21/23079058/apple-self-servi... Yes, that jig Apple supplied, that's what it takes these days. Modern production and repair lines are soooo tuned for efficiency it's insane. That tuning introduces complexity which then goes through the roof for repairing stuff outside of said line. It's why often it's cheaper and quicker to throw parts out and replace it. We've gotten THAT good.

Finally, I actually think it is actually rather insulting how many people believe that fixing something like a phone PROPERLY is "not that hard" and "any tech can do it". I see these comments as demeaning and insulting to the experienced people working on these production and repair lines who are often underpaid and treated very poorly.

5) Right to repair will not solve e-waste. My opinion is it won't make much of a dent. E-waste is a separate issue that absolutely also needs to be tackled by compulsory recycling. And actually, in the case of phones and many other consumer electronics, making them "repairable" can mean more resources being used. People (especially on HN) bemoan glue being used. Modern glues are great. They're used because they speed up assembly, are fairly easy to apply and make stuff thinner and mechanically simpler. Say you ban glue as a part of Right to repair legislation, I guarantee the screws and extra plastic you need instead use more material and have more embodied energy. You've actually now increased the amount of e-waste.

Finally, I think fundamentally, rather than being repairable, I think most people just want these devices to last longer (so again just force that through long warranties). And it can be done. I have personally worked on products with a 10 year "official" warranty and a "quiet internal" 20 year one. It wasn't an exotic product or industry either. In my opinion, repairing a thing is the ambulance at the bottom of the hill, it should not have broken in the first place. Why mandate the ambulance in all cases when you can mandate the minimisation of pushing stuff off the cliff instead?

kurito · a year ago

Thank you for taking the time to write all this, it's very informative. It sounds messy, but then again I can't help but feel that every single point you mentioned is quite complex because we managed to reach a point in time where a device designed with repairability first, seems such a farcical concept.

We might have become really precise with manufacturing, and produced beautifully thin and solid devices. But the fact that Apple needs to ship a 79-pound/36kg repair kit just to change the battery of a phone, doesn't really demostrate how clueless people are about the repair process, on the contrary it demonstrates the absurd lengths Apple is willing to go just to mock open access to tools, parts and processes.

Regarding longer warranties, that would be an excellent step, but warranties won't solve the same problems, as they will never cover user caused damage which I'm guessing is the cause for most repairs.

What if we started with the obligation of the manufacturer to provide access to reasonably priced parts along with schematics, without altering their manufacturing process? Would that be an acceptable first step towards making repairs more accessible?

kurito commented on We're ending our Samsung collaboration ifixit.com/News/96162/wer... · Posted by u/skilled

hnaccount_rng · a year ago

Because you generate, at best, an adversarial situation. The self-repair users are in it mostly for being cheap (or thinking it’s cheaper) and are (largely) unable to do a better-than-trained-technician job of a (probably) complicated job. Both are an annoyance to the producer. And not one where they risk a lot for (this only affects a minority of purchases)

On the other hand, mandating long warranty times puts the Producer vs the state. Which is a much harder situation to decide “I’ll just ignore that”.

And if you say; that right to repair is also a state decision… it’s only kinda. Because what right-to-repair means (or is thought to mean) differs _widely_. But the nice thing about the warranty thing would be that it would create a large incentive to make it cheaper to repair things. Which probably ends up with the same situation (ie experts, or self-perceived experts, being able to help themselves)

kurito · a year ago

> unable to do a better-than-trained-technician job of a (probably) complicated job

Isn't this because manufacturers are actively hindering repair shops? It's both the result and the cause of the manufacturers' strategy. No schematics, devices built without taking repairability in mind and very expensive parts or parts that come with caveats.

Making longer warranties is always welcome but it won't help as much, because the vast majority of repairs aren't covered under warranty. I'm guessing that most repairs are due to user error than manufacturing defects thus not covered under warranty.

> Because you generate, at best, an adversarial situation.

This shouldn't be the case. Reducing e-waste and thus doing everything possible for sustainability should be the priority here. I've found myself many times in a situation where a perfectly working device was damaged, or just stopped receiving software updates and had to be decommissioned because of security concerns, and this is not only limited to phones.

kurito commented on We're ending our Samsung collaboration ifixit.com/News/96162/wer... · Posted by u/skilled

negative_zero · a year ago

As a hardware engineer:

Right to repair is a nice idea and it's heart is in the right place, but won't ever work for something like a consumer phone. Further, IMO, it's really just a band aid for the US's extremely poor consumer protections which manufacturers are hell bent on exporting to the rest of the world.

The most effective way to approach this problem is known and proven: mandate long (I think 5 years is fair) 100% repair/replace/refund waranty periods with no cost to the consumer (including shipping).

Then the manufacturer themselves will figure out the details on how to meet that. And don't worry they are perfectly capable of it because it's what they do RIGHT NOW.

The hardware will become more reliable or it'll be repairable or they'll just refund you or a combination of those.

Batteries just need a requirement such as minimum 80% of capacity at 5 years. Overnight they'll become replacable/over-provisioned/better chemistry/better thermals or again a combination of those.

I've never had "repairability" raised to me as an engineer. It's a nebulous thing nobody understands or cares about and can be just paid lip service to or effectively ignored. But waranty IS something bean-counters and managers understand. It's: "this thing must work for X time or it costs us money" with the added threat of "lawyers might get involved".

It's not perfect, but still far more effective and practical than "right to repair".

kurito · a year ago

> Right to repair is a nice idea and it's heart is in the right place, but won't ever work for something like a consumer phone.

Why not? Every major phone manufacturer uses numerous techniques to make devices unrepairable and yet people still find ways to fix them. I'm not a hardware engineer, but I have fixed multiple devices, and I have no special skills or equipment besides standard ifixit toolkits. The only hindrances are introduced by manufacturers themselves. Replacing or refunding devices doesn't reduce e-waste, on the contrary.

I can't get behind what you're saying but I am curious to hear your take. Why do you think right to repair "won't ever work"?

kurito commented on Reddit is quietly changing the way its homepage works sherwood.news/tech/reddit... · Posted by u/pavel_lishin

everdrive · a year ago

It's not the beginning of the end for reddit, just another stage. I would honestly recommend archiving data on reddit if there's anything you particularly value up there.

kurito · a year ago

As others have noted, technical and more quality content, especially the one found in subreddits that are more composed in nature is becoming more scarce and rapidly declining in quality. Bots, constant reposts and low quality comments and posts in contrast are rewarded and gain more exposure than ever. "It's just another phase" is a very light way of putting it. Reddit is becoming - maybe arguably has become - a former shell of itself more akin to 9gag than what it used to be.

kurito commented on Android isn't cool with teenagers, and that's a big problem androidpolice.com/android... · Posted by u/retskrad

tuxxi · 2 years ago

As someone who used Android from day 1, and recently (about 1 year ago) switched to iOS, I think all of this comes down to the trend of unification and same-ness in smartphones over the years.

All of the reasons I liked Android from the start — replaceable battery, SD card, headphone jack, diversity of of hardware options, customizable software/launchers/default apps, rootable — have been slowly one by one removed in flagship phones over the last 5 years.

Sure you can still get a low or mid tier phone with some or all of these, but all the expensive Android models (read: good build quality, software support, acceptable perf and battery life) have slowly become more and more like an iPhone, yet without any of the small things that make iPhones good to use: excellent build quality, extended support, ecosystem…

So android isn’t cool with teenagers, but it’s mostly because Android devices just suck now.

As an allegory: when I was a teen, PCs weren’t “cool” compared to Macs (remember those old ads?) But in 2023 PC gaming is more popular than ever, so PCs are cool with the youth.

Teens today will buy a PC so they can play CS or League with their friends, something they can’t really do well with a Macbook Air. Would you buy a $1000 android phone when it’s just a worse iPhone?

kurito · 2 years ago

> but it’s mostly because Android devices just suck now

How do they suck now?

> Would you buy a $1000 android phone when it’s just a worse iPhone?

How is an android phone a worse iPhone? Genuine questions, my opinions are entirely opposite and I would like to understand your perspective.