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hermannj314

3,808 karma · joined June 25, 2009

Software developer and statistician.

Residence: Iowa. Luxembourg. Pennsylvania (currently).

The opinions I express are my own, but I accept the possibility I might be a Manchurian candidate sent by the algorithm.

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hermannj314··on Midjourney Medical
You don't need to build a perfect med spa, you only need to control the patents of the key pieces of a med spa.

This is nothing more thab a prophylactic patent grab to stifle competition and progress in this space for the next decade and/or hoover up patient data behind a paywall where they will gladly lease the weights and bias cure to you own disease back to you in the form of a subscription.

hermannj314··on Netherlands Seizes 800 Servers, Arrests 2 for Aiding Cyberattacks
I don't think a person saying Eastern European are observed doing something more than expected is inherently racist. It is a claim he either does or doesn't have evidence for.

If he made the claim with insufficient evidence or made the claim in contradiction of the evidence, then it becomes racist, but I don't think making the observation and doing the calculation is the racist part. It is a simple chi-squared goodness-of-fit test.

hermannj314··on Green card seekers must leave U.S. to apply, Trump administration says
From what I could understand from the 6-page memorandum, (my paraphrase) "the law allows us to be nice and convenient, but doesn't require us to be nice and convenient, so we decided to make things hard and cruel going forward"

The current administration is sending a pretty clear message to immigrants.

hermannj314··on Don't just paste the AI at me
Back in my day, when people were too lazy to put in effort they would want you to google for them, read results, interpret the data, and tell them what you found out. Lmgtfy.

Well now people are still lazy, but at least they talked to their llm, they just want you to read the result, interpret the data and tell them what you found out.

We might make better software, but we aren't making better humans.

hermannj314··on Tennessee man jailed 37 days for Trump meme wins settlement after lawsuit
Most people would spend 40 days in jail for $800k. Why wouldn't police collude together to arrest one another? This feels like a free money glitch. I agree without accountability this provides a huge incentive to enrich your friends quite easily off the taxpayer.
hermannj314··on College students drown out AI-praising commencement speeches with boos
"After my speech for the troops about how we are losing in Iran, my speech to children with cancer about how we've gutted research, sure I can then give a speech to people entering the job market about how AI is ruining the job market"

Perfect, that's exactly the message of despair we want to send! (How I imagine picking these speakers goes at every college campus)

hermannj314··on The US is winning the AI race where it matters most: commercialization
On a technicality, America has won every war it has declared to be a war.
hermannj314··on Maryland to ban A.I.-driven price increases in grocery stores
The topic of AI surveillance pricing is almost exclusively covered by left-leaning media sources according to ground news and party affiliation largely predicted the vote with no 100% of voting Democratic legislators for and 88% of voting republicans against it.

It feels like a partisan issue.

But I guess I don't read the news.

hermannj314··on Tesla concealed fatal accidents to continue testing autonomous driving
What would that guarantee look like and would it be legal to sell a product that made that guarantee?

"Prioritizing my life over every other concern" looks like plowing over pedestrians to get me to the hospital. I dont think you can legally sell a product that promises that.

hermannj314··on Microsoft engineer says original Task Manager was only 80KB to run on 90s comps
I'd suggest just watching the YouTube video and supporting the content creator with likes and subscribes and not reading the ad-laden summary paraphrasing it.
hermannj314··on Artemis II safely splashes down
From NASA

>> Under Artemis, NASA will send astronauts on increasingly difficult missions to explore more of the Moon for *scientific discovery*, economic benefits, and to build on our foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.

Yeah fuck me for thinking this was about that that.

hermannj314··on Artemis II safely splashes down
A diverse and inclusive crew, a publically-funded mission, an emphasis on science and discovery, and government investment in a long-term strategy, not a quick politcal win.

This current administration has made sure these things never happen again, Artemis is very much the swan song of an America that has died. I am not interested in watching our corpse twitch and calling it life.

hermannj314··on OpenAI backs Illinois bill that would limit when AI labs can be held liable
Craigslist invented prostitution, Facebook invented suicide, and OpenAI invented terrorism.

Ask any trial lawyer in America! The world was perfect in the 1990s without any of these things.

hermannj314··on US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire
I have friends in the US that want the US government destroyed, there are people in the southern US that think the south won the civil war. Who cares?

Every government in all of human history has had its detractors and supporters, more detractors probably exist in expatriated communities, their existence does not really prove anything.

hermannj314··on What being ripped off taught me
A piece of contract toilet paper is still better than a bare hand shake agreement.
hermannj314··on Why Switzerland has 25 Gbit internet and America doesn't
Well, whenever my city has to vote on extending the Xfinity/Comcast monopoly, coincidently Xfinity/Comcast is giving $5 off pizza coupons at my local pizza place.

Bet they don't have that in Switzerland.

hermannj314··on Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth
Proving the Earth is flat is not one of the stated goals of the Artemis program which is to establish a permanent base on the moon to prepare for deep space exploration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_program

hermannj314··on Artemis II crew take “spectacular” image of Earth
One of the objectives of the Artemis missions is to prepare for Mars travel, none of the objectives of Artemis are to view Earth as the only planet we have nor to preserve it.
hermannj314··on A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8B Company
You might have to hold my hand on how you got there.

My actual argument was the ride-sharing addressed systemic racism that yellow cab companies did not, that is a good thing.

What net good would fentanyl do to society? If it exists, then yes, sell it. Clean, reliable fentanyl might be a good thing, I don't know.

hermannj314··on A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8B Company
Correct. While ride-sharing services aren't perfect, they have significantly reduced rates of service refusals and long-wait times based on race.
hermannj314··on A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8B Company
Some laws represent moral truths and some laws represent the attempt of a prior generation's upper class to protect that wealth.

The willingess to break a bad law is a sign of a good person.

hermannj314··on A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8B Company
This was the same criticism levied against AirBnB, Uber, cryptocurrency, prediction markets, sports betting apps, etc.

The border of legal and illegal is a good place to make money and change.

hermannj314··on Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz
The difference between war and terrorism is what language you use to say "God wills it"

If you say "Deus Vult", you are a war hero. If you say "Inshallah", you are a radical terrorist.

The rules are quite simple.

hermannj314··on Why the US Navy won't blast the Iranians and 'open' Strait of Hormuz
One freedom denied to Americans is that we can not provide comfort to our enemies - this is punishable by death according our constitution, so we tend to err on unwavering support for our military always.

Many Americans may be absolutely against this horrible, barbaric, idiotic action in the Middle East, but they might wisely not want to talk about it.

So let me say "Thank you to all American troops for your service, God bless America. Our military is the only reason we have peace and freedom." - this is my official public opinion as an American and I would never have at least two witnesses catch me saying anything different.

hermannj314··on We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
Your question implies a sense of moral outrage about gambling so I don't if it was asked in good faith or not.

Kalshi was on my radar because of Tim Walz dropping out the Minnesota governor race and an article about who would replace him being wagered on prediction markets, coincidently this was during a boring part of January after a snow storm and so weather was on my mind.

You can wager on aggregate precipitation, high and low temp, etc. The price is a binary contract between two parties with the market taker paying a small percent fee, so the conclusion you make that it "seems like a roundabout way to lose money" was not the conclusion I drew then nor believe that conclusion to be true even now, being a market maker using a trivial model from one-day forecast data was break-even for me.

hermannj314··on We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
I'm not going to lie, it started as a fun thing to do on a boring and cold Saturday night after a snow storm, I was looking at weather underground map of stations around central park praying it would drop a few degrees and I'd make 4:1 on my bet. I learned a lot about weather stations in the next few weeks and it was cool looking the historical data from the Central Park weather station (I think the longest running in the US) and see how it added features and new reporting values over its long 100+ year life. It was a fun winter side quest.

I don't think this needs regulated if the people involved are responsible and having fun. No chickens died for sure, which is probably why these articles focus on the more serious bets where people are dying (and not weather).

hermannj314··on We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
Data is released every minute, every five minutes, every hour, and then 6 hour high/low, and then mid-day preliminary reports, so there is no last-minute since any one of those reports could contain data (with various validation/rounding caveats) that could eliminate a market of temperatures, so there isn't really a last minute.

My conclusion was to focus on forecast and attempt to predict the temperature better than forecast vs. market implied probability rather than attempt to respond very quickly to published information. I learned (with my skills) the latter was a losing proposition, but the former isn't impossible (although also possibly beyond my skills it seems).

hermannj314··on We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do
I got into weather betting markets earlier this year since I figured those can't possibly be rigged, it is automated weather station data yet some groups in the market know the truth a few minutes before everyone else based on the way the markets move.

BUT, I stopped on the day that the PHL airport preliminary report said the low of the day was 17 and then later than day the low was raised to 18. The way the market was behaving, insiders knew the low would be retracted because normally the markets clear out a tranche of bets that are no longer possible and that wasn't happening that day.

So I don't do that. The whole game seems to be based on a group of insiders that know when and what temperature reports will say seconds or minutes before the general public and they have the capacity to play with validation on the back-end (I suspect).

I built a few models to predict weather 6+ hours out using blended model forecast data, but that didn't do better than break-even.

I don't know my point. It is the wild west, caveat emptor, you need thick skin and ridiculous attention to detail to beat the game, and even then the deck is probably stacked against you.

hermannj314··on I wrote a 750-page guide to self-hosting production apps
Congratulations on completing the book!
hermannj314··on Tin Can, a 'landline' for kids
If a company puts unenforceable terms in their TOS, how likely are they to comply with the law in every other matter? No way would I give my kid a device made by these people for that reason.
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