vmurthy (u/vmurthy) - Readit News

vmurthy commented on I built a demo of what AI chat will look like when it's “free” and ad-supported 99helpers.com/tools/ad-su... · Posted by u/nickk81

beloch · 15 days ago

The most powerful advertisement is a recommendation from a friend.

Has a friend ever brought some product up, completely out of the blue, and had you ready to buy it almost immediately? The biggest challenge traditional ads have is breaking down your defences. For friends, they're down by default. If someone is a friend, an ad doesn't have to be subtle or context sensitive, although it does help. Random suggestions from friends work.

A lot of people have friend-zoned AI and will be especially vulnerable to this novel form of manipulation. If you're the sort who treats AI as a friend, even a little bit, even subconsciously, change that. You're setting yourself up for a serious mind-job.

vmurthy · 15 days ago

Ah the science of influence : the masterpiece on influence is this book [0]. Came my way by a mention in one of Charlie Munger’s speeches. All the things you mention here and more are there in case you want to broaden your understanding

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28815.Influence

vmurthy commented on Why India's big cities are becoming unliveable bbc.com/news/articles/cp9... · Posted by u/vinni2

pkphilip · 3 months ago

The level of corruption in India is beyond belief - and the issue is not just with the politicians. The general populace itself is extremely corrupt.

It does not help that the dominant religion thinks of truth and morality as extremely subjective.

All of this leads to a very low trust society where each person is only for themselves and their families. So it is not at all surprising that the biggest cities where people live in extremely densely populated clusters turn out to be extremely unlivable places.

vmurthy · 3 months ago

You’ve gone from corruption (which I agree with) to something about dominant religion thinking of truth and morality as subjective ( which is debatable as you have cited nothing - infact seems like it’s your opinion and nothing else) to low trust ( which I agree with). What’s the logical link to cities being unlivable? The article says that mayors and councillors lack powers which is the major problem.

vmurthy commented on OpenAI needs to raise at least $207B by 2030 ft.com/content/23e54a28-6... · Posted by u/akira_067

luckylion · 4 months ago

> But Amazon will fight for its life to stop this

have you seen Amazon's "Rufus"? It's hilariously useless.

vmurthy · 4 months ago

> have you seen Amazon's "Rufus"? It's hilariously useless.

I'd argue -- for now. Maybe it's an incentive/urgency thing. At the moment, Amazon isn't seeing ChatGPT do the buying of goods bypassing Amazon's own search. I expect Rufus to drastically improve especially given that Amazon has an AWS offering of LLM(s) [0].

[0]https://aws.amazon.com/ai/generative-ai/

vmurthy commented on Why Everyone Is Leaving New Zealand [video] youtube.com/watch?v=F_VUB... · Posted by u/l8rlump

vmurthy · 5 months ago

I asked ChatGPT to summarize the video and avoid the ad etc.

"The real reason: opportunity.

NZ’s economy offers few paths beyond agriculture and real estate.

Larger, more diversified Australian cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane) offer broader careers and education options

In Summary

New Zealand’s paradox: a high-quality society built atop a narrow economy. Its openness with Australia, while culturally beneficial, drains the very people it needs to sustain growth. Until it diversifies beyond real estate and agriculture and offers more opportunity to young professionals, the exodus is likely to continue"

vmurthy commented on Grapevine canes can be converted into plastic-like material that will decompose sdstate.edu/news/2025/08/... · Posted by u/westurner

vmurthy · 6 months ago

The 20 year old me would have been so excited about something like this. The 39-year old (ok 40 next month) is more reserved. It is not that I don't think this will be adapted but more like : What needs to happen (government, civic groups whatever economic forces) for companies to adapt this? It's going to be a slow burn for sure if this needs to work at a global scale but the impetus should begin with incentives, sadly.

vmurthy commented on iPhone dumbphone stopa.io/post/297... · Posted by u/joshmanders

jaysonelliot · 6 months ago

Before installing all those apps the author listed, I'd recommend this exercise:

Let the battery die on your phone, and live one week without it. Cold turkey. Tell people in advance if you need to, give them an alternate way to reach you. Replace your phone for that week with a small notebook that fits in your pocket.

During that week, every time you want to do something that requires a smartphone, jot it down in your notebook. Then, fifteen minutes later or so, write down what you did instead.

After a week, you're ready to start using your smartphone again and turn it into a so-called "dumb phone." Read your notebook and think honestly about which things you really needed to do, and which ones weren't such a big deal after all.

vmurthy · 6 months ago

One aspect of no phone is how to deal with payments. Specifically UPI payments in India. These are QR code based payments and it is getting more difficult to pay by cash at many locations.

Right next to that is OTPs from financial institutions.

vmurthy commented on What brain surgery taught me about the fragile gift of consciousness bigthink.com/business/bra... · Posted by u/NaOH

vmurthy · 7 months ago

What a beautiful, thought provoking article! When I saw the title , I thought it was a book summary of “My stroke of insight” [0]. This book is by a neuro-anatomist who had a rare stroke resulting in the left hemisphere of her brain being incapacitated. That led her to experiences similar to that of the article’s author. Do check out the book and pair it with the article

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/142292.My_Stroke_of_Insi...

vmurthy commented on Double Bishops: The Silent Killers of Chess lichess.org/@/Puli1234/bl... · Posted by u/fzliu

vmurthy · 7 months ago

FWIW , the blog post doesn't really show any famous games where double bishops helped someone win or anything like that. It's a small fragment of games where players with double bishops improved their position etc.

vmurthy commented on Show HN: OverType – A Markdown WYSIWYG editor that's just a textarea · Posted by u/panphora

vmurthy · 7 months ago

Went down the rabbit hole which is the overtype.dev website (nice work btw!) and found and even nicer rabbit hole - https://hyperclay.com/ Single HTML apps :). Enjoy!

vmurthy commented on Real Risk to Youth Mental Health Is 'Addictive Use,' Not Screen Time Alone nytimes.com/2025/06/18/he... · Posted by u/koolba

vmurthy · 9 months ago

I would also pair this article with "Stolen Focus" ( a book I am currently reading -- fascinating read ) [0] . I am only 10% in and the book is captivating. Read the book to understand the "whys" of this article .

[0]https://www.amazon.com.au/Stolen-Focus-Attention-Think-Deepl...