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lokischild commented on Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?    · Posted by u/jamestimmins
madaxe_again · 5 years ago
I had a similar screwup, different outcome.

Was working for a brokerage as an intern, IT gopher stuff, pretty much my first office job.

A month in, I’m told by my boss to delete a directory on the file server. Which I do. I scurry off and rm -rf it, think it’s taking a while, so saunter out for lunch.

Turns out that that directory was an active mount point for the root of the filestore on which they kept all of their user drives, legal documentation, everything. rm had got about halfway through wiping it before they pulled the plug on the machine.

Turned out they didn’t do backups, because “nothing like this ever happens”.

My boss’s boss flipped his desk over the incident, hurled a monitor tree at me like a battleaxe while purple and screaming, incandescent with rage. My direct boss of course fired me. I was literally booed out of the office by the traders, who chucked cups and bottles and crap at me as I did the walk of shame. Grown-ass men. I was 18.

I learned then that most people everywhere just want someone to blame for their own shortcomings, and being that person can be a valuable service if correctly structured.

Edit: I lie. I learned no such thing at the time. It dented my confidence and gained me a reputation in the city - and not a good one. It was however one of the formative experiences that led to me starting my own business, and never, ever treating anyone (or allowing anyone in my business to be treated by anyone else) in the fashion I was treated.

lokischild · 5 years ago
You lost me somewhere between "I’m told by my boss to delete a directory on the file server. Which I do." and the rest of the story.

Did you misunderstand? I don't see the logical conclusion

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lokischild commented on A.I. Is Solving the Wrong Problem   onezero.medium.com/a-i-is... · Posted by u/mbellotti
maest · 5 years ago
It's interesting to see how super advanced ML-based engines have changed the field of chess in recent years - top engines are way better than top humans, so, in a sense, act as oracles.

Top players routinely use them in preparation, to study new lines, get hints about what moves make sense in a position and also to generate new ideas or tweak the principles they apply in the game. The engines don't explain their reasoning, but provide something closer to the "correct" move in any given position. It's up to the humans to do the legwork and understand _why_ the recommended move is strong.

Clearly, chess is not real life, but the impact of these oracle engines has been broadly positive (with the exception of using engines to cheat in online play).

lokischild · 5 years ago
This is a good example, because Chess rules do not surpass human intellectual capacity. With enough time, you can understand the reasoning of an AI.

But when it comes to raw intellectual superiority, say, explain the logic behind new mathematical or physical concepts and discoveries, very high level predictions, we come to our human limit and cannot surpass it.

The AI can give us implants to improve our intelligence, but only to a certain limited degree, our biological brain will slow us down significantly.

That is the barrier we cannot possibly cross in a timespan of human life.

lokischild commented on A.I. Is Solving the Wrong Problem   onezero.medium.com/a-i-is... · Posted by u/mbellotti
soco · 5 years ago
If we can't understand the problem, will we be able to understand the solution presented by that AI? Or we'd just apply it, trusting blindly the unfathomable reasons the AI used? Do we have an AI where the decision tree can be grasped by humans?
lokischild · 5 years ago
It seems inevitable to me the moment AI capacity seriously surpasses human (as a whole) capacity in any specific topic, it becomes an oracle. I hear of efforts to translate machine decision making to human understandable terms, but if it is a question of raw intelligence, it will quickly become impossible to understand.
lokischild commented on Superfast-charging aluminum-ion batteries outpower lithium-ion   newatlas.com/energy/gmg-g... · Posted by u/mardiyah
clouddrover · 5 years ago
> Like just as examples, scalability, robustness, promise of ease of mass production, raw compound price, safety as good or better then proven tech, compatibility with the market standard.

This battery addresses those things:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltaylor/2021/05/13/ev-ran...

https://graphenemg.com/gmg-graphene-aluminium-ion-battery-pe...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc80Mg8Cw54

lokischild · 5 years ago
I sincerely hope this one is finally not a semi-hoax and delivers. I won't get my hopes up so soon though.

On a side note, I don't want to argue over this, but just saying I found two points (compound prices, safety) addressed. It reads kinda like a lot of hype... What do you take from the articles, how this reasearch project is more promising or further down the road then the many promising looking projects before them that ended up failing? You don't see a pattern? This one is now different, how?

lokischild commented on Superfast-charging aluminum-ion batteries outpower lithium-ion   newatlas.com/energy/gmg-g... · Posted by u/mardiyah
lokischild · 5 years ago
I am reading the same 'new tech hype' articles again and again. Very prominent on battery tech. These articles create unjustified hype by focussing on a few promising test results under lab conditions with prototypes. What they fail to mention are all other factors that contribute to a succesful new technology. Like just as examples, scalability, robustness, promise of ease of mass production, raw compound price, safety as good or better then proven tech, compatibility with the market standard.

There were literally hundreds of exactly those articles I read or skimmed through in the past, none of them made it to mass market. It's almost as if there might be an underlying scam that produces these research hypes to grab investor money or something. Until the real problems are adressed, or looked at and then the research ceases.

I mean I really hope there are some leaps in battery technology soon, as many do, because it does not hold up at all to moore's law as it is kind of needed for mobile devices to progress as fast as silicon or other advancements. I just don't care for misleading articles anymore :)

lokischild commented on So you want to build a carbon capture company   caseyhandmer.wordpress.co... · Posted by u/_Microft
lokischild · 5 years ago
I have a hunch that there is no artifical process that could possibly compete with what nature already has. The answer is plants. So the solution would be a way to sustainably grow a lot of plants in a short time.

But another main factor is the destruction of the densest of those ecosystems, the rain forest on a large scale.

That is my answer, stop humans/companies/countries from destroying the rain forest on a large scale (I'm looking at brazil and neighbors) and think of ways to rebuild lost rainforest in an efficient way. I am going to wager, from the knowledge and experience I gathered in my years of living, there is no other solution that is sustainable.

lokischild commented on Sign for a ban on biometric mass surveillance   privacyinternational.org/... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico
varispeed · 5 years ago
Normally when politicians propose something awful, you simply don't vote for them next time. Unfortunately this does not apply in the EU. If EC is fixated on something, there is no way to stop it. If you recall the massive protests about ACTA and then few years later they got it (slightly changed) through anyway - just wait when the time for implementing content filters and link tax is up. So if they want mass surveillance, they'll have it regardless of any petitions. It sounds harsh, but that it the reality.
lokischild · 5 years ago
A reality we need to change with one discussion, one petition vote, one voicing your disagreement at a time.

Mountaineers do not stare at the peak of the giant mountain all the time, they look in front of them and take the next step. So should we. Don't be discouraged, things can change for the better again if enough people wake up and become aware of specific maldevelopments.

lokischild commented on Video game loot boxes linked to problem gambling, study shows   theguardian.com/society/2... · Posted by u/pseudolus
lokischild · 5 years ago
It is good to have this pointed out from a scientific perspective. But now comes the tricky part - will this information be drowned in paid mock-studies stating otherwise, or water the case by casting doubt? Will there be actual protection of children and young adults from the legislative side, or is this again one of the cases where the money to be made is just too big and politicians too easily bought, to change anything and to prevent turbo capitalism when it becomes harmful to people? Similarities to food regulations and sugar products come to mind.

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u/lokischild

KarmaCake day19February 4, 2021View Original