my favorite story about quincy is that at as a 22 year old he was selected as the music arranger for dizzy gillespie’s band, and they all went to iran and gave a series of concerts. around 1954. RIP.
Readit Newssmortaz commented on Quincy Jones has died apnews.com/article/quincy... · Posted by u/gfortaine
smortaz commented on Is Bach the greatest achiever of all time? marginalrevolution.com/ma... · Posted by u/surprisetalk
Bach is the best proof we have that advanced aliens visited earth and took human shape :). like in that episode of star trek, The Traveler.
and based on the complexity of Fugues he was probably the world’s best multi-threaded programmer too :).
smortaz commented on How to find a lost phone in a no-cell-coverage camping site? manas.tech/blog/2023/10/2... · Posted by u/mgarciaisaia
not directly relevant, but was riding my motorcycle in the boonies, and lost the phone which was on the handlebar (bumpy rocky path).
Looked for it several times on the path with no luck. Then I remembered my old iPhone was in the backpack. Did a Find my phone on the backup phone and it showed exactly where it had lost touch with the primary phone. This is all without cell or Wi-Fi service. Saved me a $1000.
smortaz commented on Google Maps has become an eyesore fastcompany.com/90930810/... · Posted by u/nkurz
I worked on Google Maps monetization, and then on Maps itself.
Monetization was a dismal failure. I don't know how well they're doing now, but Maps was a gigantic money-loser, forever. I'd be a little surprised if it didn't still lose money, but maybe less. I don't what those "pin ads" cost, but I'd bet it's way less than a search ad.
If you don't believe that, that's fine. "What about indirect revenue?" you ask? Google consciously does not want to estimate that, because such a document could be discovered in patent litigation. As it is, there are tons of patent lawsuits about Maps, and the damage claims always tried to get at Ads revenue, because Maps revenue was nil.
Caveat: I could be way out of date here. I've been retired a while now.
As for the UX: "enshittification" and big-company bureaucracy describe it pretty well.
speaking of monetization, i’d happily pay a $10 monthly fee for these features as a biker:
- weather along route
Google knows the weather, it knows the route… Just add a layer! better yet suggest a reroute. i pay for a separate app for this currently.
- motorcycle friendly features
bigger buttons for usage with gloves; selection of straight, curvy, unpaved etc roads; right now it’s just Highway or non Highway
- ability to create a group and show their live locations on the map.
Something better than WhatsApp live location. The current approach that Google maps uses is cumbersome and non-intuitive. also if a route is updated, an option to update everyone else’s shared route.
- local info, POI, etc
you know my location and interests, tell me some interesting stuff over Bluetooth about the city or POI’s i’m passing by.
smortaz commented on Show HN: Image background removal without annoying subscriptions pixian.ai/remove-image-ba... · Posted by u/jacobn
seems to be fast and accurate. thx will use.
smortaz commented on Show HN: Get a Professional Headshot in Minutes with AI virtualface.app... · Posted by u/peteralaoui
Thanks, interesting because I thought that the styles pictures (available after clicking on the call to action) would serve as samples but I guess I should put them on the homepage directly. I will try that tomorrow (European timezone ^^)
yes definitely home page. it’s the first thing i looked for, didn’t immediately see, hit the back button.
i would also consider a trial pic for free tied to email.
smortaz commented on Show HN: I trained an AI model on 120M+ songs from iTunes maroofy.com/?hn=v3... · Posted by u/subtech
nice! is this in reference to composer javad maroofy?!
smortaz commented on Legit Startups – AI Generated Startup Websites legit-startups.com/... · Posted by u/jermaustin1
brilliant! many chuckles. i hope people try it out.
tested on a few pics. excellent colorization. pls provide patreon etc link so the site stays up! thxxx
smortaz commented on Ask HN: Anyone joined a company after contributing to their OSS projects? · Posted by u/gowthamgts12
definitely. i used to run the visual studio / vs code teams for python, R, nodejs, jupyter etc at microsoft. working closely with and hiring from the os community was both delightful and a priority for me. several key employees were hired that way.