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f_allwein

2,922 karma · joined March 17, 2015

Social scientist, Professor for Digital Transformation with IU International University of Applied Sciences.
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f_allwein··on Show HN: Making a smart TV dumb and then smart
Not connecting the TV itself to any WiFi/ LAN networks used to help. Is that not the case anymore?
f_allwein··on iPhone Duo
Fun fact: The iPhone Duo‘s outer display is 5.4 inch, just like the iPhone mini. Ok, with different proportions.
f_allwein··on Waymo Premier
Realistic costs of owning a car are around 1.000€ per month - see https://assets.adac.de/Autodatenbank/Autokosten/autokostenue... (pdf, German, look for Gesamtkosten (total cost))

Wherever I tell this to people here in Germany, they are good at pointing out why their car is the exception.

f_allwein··on 'Happiness is not just about GDP': ambitious plan or utopia?
> While critics will question the feasibility of this vision because it relies on a radical reform of global financial institutions and massive wealth taxes – both of which have long been dismissed as unthinkable by rich countries – there can be no worthwhile assessment of its value without considering the far bleaker options offered by the far right and the old left.
f_allwein··on United Airlines 767 returns to Newark after Bluetooth name sparks alert
Also, who carries a Bluetooth speaker on a plane? And for what purpose?
f_allwein··on Yearslong fight over users' right to tweak smart TV software heads to trial
dup https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48208304
f_allwein··on India's hottest district shuts at 10 am as mercury breaches 48 C mark
No.

Takes decades to build/ projects run over time and budget/ where would you build?/ where would you store nuclear waste (bonus points for: in your region)?/ contributes little to global energy mix atm/ uranium is limited. Where do you get it from? Etc

f_allwein··on Oxford All Souls College General Examination (2025) [pdf]
I have another one:

What is lost when you put any of these in an LLM?

Yes, we can get plausible sounding answers generated algorithmically. But these are great starting points for humans to develop their own thinking.

My university, LSE, asked all students to write exam essays by hand ~10 years ago. Wonder how it is done at Oxford today.

f_allwein··on Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning
maybe “The Only Way to Win is Not to Play”
f_allwein··on How the Vision Pro Rollout Inflamed Tensions at Apple
> Jobs saw the Apple Store not so much as a retail outlet but as a church for evangelizing to the unconverted. He wanted the world to know that Apple’s simple but powerful tools would give people access to whatever stirred their passions—photos, songs, movies—and help them create these things on their own.
f_allwein··on How the Vision Pro Rollout Inflamed Tensions at Apple
Interesting, thanks for sharing! I really want to like the Vision Pro, but haven’t even tried it yet. Hope it will evolve into something good.
f_allwein··on Folk are getting dangerously attached to AI that always tells them they're right
„Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.“ Oscar Wilde
f_allwein··on The AI productivity take-off is finally visible (Erik Brynjolfsson)
triple submission - could they be merged? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47022142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47037772
f_allwein··on Bye Bye Humanity: The Potential AMOC Collapse
It is a global challenge. Climate change is caused by rich people in developed countries (the average Indian person causes very low co2 emissions). There are some good initiatives to mitigate climate change, but so far, it is too little, too late. The US taking a back seat does not help either.
f_allwein··on Bye Bye Humanity: The Potential AMOC Collapse
Here’s the science: https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/news/latest-news/possible-nort...

„Under high-emission scenarios, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a key system of ocean currents that also includes the Gulf Stream, could shut down after the year 2100.“

f_allwein··on Climate Change Economic Models Omit Shocks, Likely Flawed
I like the original title, „ Flawed economic models mean climate crisis could crash global economy, experts warn“. Why edit it?
f_allwein··on Ask HN: Is there anyone here who still uses slide rules?
Still available in Germany („Rechenschieber“), eg https://www.wissenladen.de/products/der-rechenschieber
f_allwein··on A Crisis comes to Wordle: Reusing old words
Maybe it should be „forked“
f_allwein··on I found the perfect yearly calendar (for me)
> In Apple Calendar it's not possible to see the full year, and still have some visibility into which events are happening on the individual days

It‘s weird in general how tools/ websites seem to avoid putting too much information on a screen (see also: event listings, …). Why is that? Most people have big screens nowadays, so it would be feasible to have a view like the one described here, at least for desktop calendars.

f_allwein··on SETI@home is in hiberation
on the other hand, WETI still seems to be up, so you could contribute there.

http://weti-institute.org/

f_allwein··on 2025 was the third hottest year on record
Don’t live like a rich person in a developed country - they’re the only ones whose co2 footprints are too high.
f_allwein··on Apple Creator Studio
Power tip: replace the Word docs with Markdown.
f_allwein··on Confer – End to end encrypted AI chat
Interesting! I wonder a) how much of an issue this addresses, ie how much are people worried about privacy when they use other LLMs? and b) how much of a disadvantage it is for Confer not to be able to read/ train in user data.
f_allwein··on A4 Paper Stories
Hint: The aspect ratio sqrt(2) should be quite convenient for foldable phones. Current ones seem to be more or less square if unfolded - what use case is that good for?
f_allwein··on Calendar
Which calendar is that? I haven’t found one with a decent year view similar to the one here.
f_allwein··on Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI
I understand Twitter posts are still shared here, even though I would often (usually?) have to log in?
f_allwein··on Ask HN: What skills do you want to develop or improve in 2026?
Then check out the Pomodoro technique if you haven’t done so! I’m always amazed how much I can get done in 25 minutes of focus.
f_allwein··on Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI
And here it is: https://bsky.app/profile/robpike.io/post/3matwg6w3ic2s
f_allwein··on Germany wakes up to US tech dominance
As a German, I would guess on the one hand, there's not enough digital skills in the broad population. Also, entrepreneurs historically tended to flock to classical engineering roles (= making internal-combustion cars).
f_allwein··on Germany wakes up to US tech dominance
agree! other notable examples include MP3 and the GSM standard. Oh, and the World Wide Web...
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