jackschultz

For engineering we had to pick either multivariate calculus or linear algebra for more upper level math courses. I picked multivariate, and I'll say it was also my least enjoyable there. I look back wondering what would have gone different if I picked linear algebra instead, but who knows, maybe I'd have just as blech of an experience with that. Lot of great classes in the EECS department though.

Same with async and throwing threads at a problem. People love do those and think it's the right answer, but you can do a ton with smarter memory management and actually looking at what the code is doing lower level rather than abstractions.

Video about this that was very interesting to follow and somewhat related to what you're doing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rb0vvJ7NCY

Great stuff. We get told O notation is what matters for data structures / algorithms, but improvements low level with memory and storage with things like rust is much more where improves can be made. These types of tricks for anctual run times are so valuable, and interesting to follow.

In the tl;dr at the start

>So is Zig a better alternative to writing unsafe Rust?

The title here and what he has in his post are the same, but in the tl;dr along with the slug of the url which is "unsafe-rust-vs-zig".

We need to realize it's a very specific case he's talking about, rather than in general. The pain of titles.

It seems like the options are 1) MicroPython, which is really easy to use (use python for everything) but lacking in anything lower level to a quick restriction on what you can do. 2) C, which I've used before and understand, but going from the Arduino or PlatformIO experience would require a lot of learning as well. 3) Rust (with embedded_hal and embassy), which is newer, along with different language, but with ability to go lower level with complies, and seeming overall goal to be more widely used.

College was all C/C++ so I've used that before, so I can understand and pick up the code. Since I have brief experience rather than your experience, I'm betting that the time it'd take for me to get up to speed with C and fuller dev environments would take as long as with Rust, and since I can use rust in more applications for what I do professionally, I'm figuring to put the time there.

What have you built and with what in your 25 years? Too many posts and vids about these things are intro rather than more in depth. It's great to hear from people who actually do this into production rather than mini-projects.

Back to embedded systems, particularly with Rust.

I did computer engineering in college some 10-15 years ago, where these projects were super basic and difficult to get into. Seems like massive advancements in the past decade. Maybe my eye has been watching for these, but I'm seeing many more posts about ESP32 projects, for example, being linked here. Same for RP2040s, along with sensors galore and wifi / bluetooth connections.

Picking Rust as language for the chips instead of the C and MicroPython. Rust has applications beyond the embedded systems and learning it lower level can be helpful if wanted in other cases.

Great timing. I've been wanting to learn how to do projects like this, but been so unsure what types of microcontroller I should get and what else could be needed. Similar in the software world where we all have our preferred tech stacks, I was so uncertain of what stack to use for these projects that it definitely causes a hurdle.

His mention of the ESP32 and how

>While working on the game I used my newfound ESP32 skills to do some other projects, such as automating the remote-controlled blinds in our bedroom as well as a motion sensor that would send Pushover notifications to my phone.

is absolutely what I'm wanting to be able to do. Learn the tech needed for one controller that can be used on tons of different places. That, plus that talk with MicroPython (and other parts) gives some confidence about learning this hardware stack.

So many great parts in this.

1) The sense and importance of community. Both the mention of them coming together when he returned where "the ghosts will be laid". And also the mention of "there was no “I” in his war, only “we”. We're stuck in such an individualist culture where we're told to work hard to stand out, and seem to be shamed if we're weak and in receiving help from others.

2) Words as metaphors. Beautiful examples given in the post, but we should remember the roots of many of our words are also metaphors. My favorite being "persona"[0], coming referring to an actors mask that air goes through. Helps remind me that we're always actors in the world, not some defined Self we're stuck with. Good book[1] on that topic from Jay Garfield.

3) Explanation at the end of his "Navajo Code-Talkers uniform". Mentions that yes, it's more than ok to imagine clothes as images and have meaning beyond "something to wear for efficiency". The Emerald podcast talks about these things, both ornaments in general from human history [2] and more specifically about guardians [3] which is what he considered the Navajo colors were for, to protect him.

The similarity of all these cases, to me, comes to they're not all thoughts he had in his head as words, which is what we're told to do from the smallest of ages. We're told to think hard, and use words (like I'm doing here) to be smarter than others. When looked at, words and thoughts are nothing compared to the experienced feelings that come from community, imaginal metaphors like hopping rabbits that leave tracks in the snow, or looking at colors you're wearing and feeling protected.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona

[1] https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691220284/lo...

[2] https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast/universe-adorned-ornam...

[3] https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast/guardians-and-protecto...

Great comment, and applies to any activity we do. Seems like in western culture we're told to not have enjoyment, to work hard and grind, and that any bit of enjoyment means you're not trying hard enough and lacking. Much better to have the attitude of allowing the happiness to come from the actions.

>Then I realized that we are already surrounded by machines that demonstrate a complete lack of insight, we just call them corporations. Corporations don’t operate autonomously, of course, and the humans in charge of them are presumably capable of insight, but capitalism doesn’t reward them for using it. On the contrary, capitalism actively erodes this capacity in people by demanding that they replace their own judgment of what “good” means with “whatever the market decides.”

Excellent quote. We say we're in a rational world where we make rational decisions in our societal game we've all been told we have to play - capitalism where money is the determinant of success vs failure for corporations, families, individuals.

But step back and when looking at the question of whether it's rational to us as humans be playing this game and it is not rational at all. Why are we not deciding that food and places to live for everyone is the determinant of success of a country, society? Or happiness?

60 Minutes has a segment about Bhutan from a couple weeks ago [0] about this. They lived by something they named "Gross National Happiness". Which feels weird to type but again stepping back, it's because our whole lives we're told that "Gross Domestic Product", overall money, is the determinant of "best" and that's so engrained for us.

On a different note, Ted Chaing's short story books [1][2] are incredibly, incredibly good. I'm reading them again and read "Story of Your Life" earlier today. Being able to write fiction like that makes it much more trusting to listen to what someone has to say on other topics. And saying that seems like another topic - how we're told to downplay fiction compared to non-fiction, when our brains evolved for stories. But that's for another comment.

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g_t1lzn-1A

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stories_of_Your_Life_and_Other...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhalation:_Stories

Here's the other thread for reference[0], and yeah, something might be going on. The referenced one from yesterday is by Nina Teicholz who is meat industry paid to confuse people like us. If you read the other post, at least watch this about the author [1]. If you read that post, watch that video.

So many cases in human history are where one thing is believed, people and studies come and show that it's false, and then it takes a really long time for culture to come around to it. Earth being round, tobacco, climate change among others.

Based on what the non-industry funded science shows, saturated fat being considered any bit healthy is in the long stage of culture taking a long time to accept what the science is saying. And it's not helped by studies with industry funding that know how to skirt the edges. Many places to choose from, but here's one from Dr. Barnard talking about sugar vs saturated fats [2].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41957637 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkqWdY5_2-8 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xeHDqBB6X0

Seeing that Frees for sure is the one that I suggest people read. Long and slow read where every paragraph seems like I could read it and sit and appreciate what he says before needing to read the next paragraph.

Burbea has many talks as well, youtube or on other podcast platforms. Hours and hours and hours of talks that are all so helpful on understanding in the word form.

Channel of his talks: https://www.youtube.com/@boubabuddha

I find this playlist great as a starting point if you want to get into it, and one that I can go back to: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO6hhaAzLmioyOxMi8ELP...

Very cool with the JSON_TABLE. The style of putting json response (from API, created from scraping, ect.) into jsonb column and then writing a view on top to parse / flatten is something I've been doing for a few years now. I've found it really great to put the json into a table, somewhere safe, and then do the parsing rather than dealing with possible errors on the scripting language side. I haven't seen this style been used in other places before, and to see it in the docs as a feature from new postgres makes me feel a bit more sane. Will be cool to try this out and see the differences from what I was doing before!

Awesome to see this. One of my favorite songs to listen to that can get a pumped up feeling is Go! by Public Service Broadcasting where they use the voices from here in the song. I knew the source was Apollo landing, and it's cool to listen to the words from their origination.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHIo6qwJarI

If you're looking for an intro to mindfulness and meditation, the practice of mettā [0] is a truly a great way to start, and frankly, end with as well.

Commonly translated as "loving-kindness", applicable to the post, but even more simply as "friendliness" to yourself and others. It's crazy the feelings that can come when you sit, say, and feel the effect of phrases like "may I/you be happy", "may I/you be at ease". This isn't a game where we try to get points for being nice for an afterlife, but somewhat of a compounding way of looking at life and interactions with others.

There are many quick start posts, but this is a good one [1] to follow along. Rob Burbea has many talks about mettā, and these [2] are a good intro series.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitr%C4%AB

[1] https://www.mettainstitute.org/mettameditation.html

[2] https://dharmaseed.org/retreats/1084/

Was talking to coworker yesterday about a spectrum of where code lives, and the differences from where I started to where I am now in understanding.

Start after college and backend web dev was fully in scripting language, Python or Ruby, and ORMs that completely fogged where any of the data was stored. Rails and ActiveRecord is so good at shrouding the database to the point where you type commands that create databases and you never see them. Classes are written to describe what we want the data to look like and poof! SQL commands are created to build the schema that we never need to see. On this end of the spectrum, the scripting language will stay the same, but we want to be agnostic to where the data is stored.

On on the other end of the spectrum, Postgres is enough. More than enough. Like in the link, it can do all the tasks you ever care about. The code you're writing for the backend / data is about data, not about the script. We care where it's stored, that it's clear the structure, the reads and updates are efficient. We can write all statements in SQL to create tables, functions, trigger, queues, and efficient read queries with indexes to make the data come back to the scripting language in the exact form that's wanted. On this end, we know and optimize how the data is stored, agnostic to the scripting language that uses the data.

I went from the first end of the spectrum to the second. Everything can be done in Postgres. Audibility, clarity, efficiency is much better there than in Python, is my position. The only thing holding it back is that people don't see development from the data side yet, and if you're deciding on tech, it's not easy to use a tech that people don't have as good of development ability yet. There are no Postgres bootcamps right now.

But There's more and more adoption of this I'm seeing, and the money and development of Postgres leads me to trust that it'll be around a very long time, only getting better. Posts about the power of databases, Postgres and some SQLite for example are becoming more and more common. It's a cool change to follow and watch grow.

How much talk is there about how these headsets are going to be used to talk to AI models? I don't see comments about that, but that's what I imagine they'll be used for. Models will be quicker, more efficient, and be able to capture audio, and able to be run on self owned GPUs. Take a google thing, throw a fake looking person and some type of voice on top and presto, you're talking to models.

I feel like that _has_ to be why all major companies are pushing hard on vision products like this. They know AI is coming and need to be there first so their glasses are efficient and adopted where models will be easy additions.

Hey! I used the word "bizarre" in the comment above because Milwaukee is rarely, if ever, mentioned in a post or comment. Good to know that some others are out there too.

Bizarre to see this pop up on HN. I live in downtown Milwaukee, about 5 blocks from the apartment where the car bomb took place. Reading through the rest I know where all those places are, and went by some of them today.

The other interesting thing about this is I had no recollection of organized crime or any of these names having grown up around the city and now living downtown. Is it my fault for not ever wanting to know about the history of the city I grew up in? Or has society changed what it considers interested to where people don't really care about recent local pasts?

These sort of stories are really the thing I hope gets emphasized in the future of local news. Longer stories about people, both from the past but also in the current. Automation with AI generated news can't help become a thing, and hopefully this means more emphasis is put on reporters doing fuller stories, news stories, not news facts.

This is a story not only about the crime scene in Milwaukee ~50 years ago, but also the story of how the author learned about it and how it affects her. In fact, it's less of a story about a crime, and more of a story about what someone had to do in this age to try to understand more about what happened before.

And the amount of water for farming that is used to grow crops for animals rather than humans, with beef needing an absurd amount[0] yet is has always argued on for different research methods and money from sources that want to confused us[1].

To quote another study [2] on the issue.

>Agriculture accounts for 92% of the freshwater footprint of humanity; almost one third relates to animal products. ... >In the western countries, the WF of meat can be reduced by changing consumption, requiring a transition in the present nutrition pattern and a reduction of food wastes. Obviously, the WF of the livestock sector is only one of the concerns to be taken into account. Other factors include animal welfare, food security, public health concerns and environmental issues other than water, like contribution to emission of greenhouse gases.

It took a while for me to come to grips that I needed to change food comsumption to only non-animal products. Way to many reasons. Maybe comments on threads like this can slowly change other people as well. We need compounding changes to really make a difference.

[0] https://www.watercalculator.org/news/articles/beef-king-big-... [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120001666638282817 [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221237171...

What's not mentioned here is test-time compute. Idea being that, sure, you can spend a ton of compute power on pre-training and fine-tuning, but generation is difficult. So instead of spending all time and power more focused on that, how about spending some time and power on it for the model to generate a bunch of possibilities, and then spend the rest of time having a model verify what's been generated for correctness. That's the Let's Verify Step by step.

Great video to talk about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARf0WyFau0A

In threads on LLMs, this point doesn't get brought up as much as I'd expect, so I'm curious if I'm missing talks on this or maybe it's wrong. But I see this as the way forward. Models generating tons of answers, and other models being able to pick out the correct ones, and the combinations being beyond human ability, where after, humans can do their own verification.

Edit:

Think of it this way. Trying to create something isn't easy. If I was to write a short story, it'd be very difficult, even if I spent years reading what others have written to learn their patterns. If I then tried to write and publish a single one myself, no chance it'd be any good.

But _judging_ short stories is much easier to do. So if I said screw it, I'll read a couple stories to get the initial framework, then write 100 stories in the same amount of time I'd have spent reading and learning more about short stories, I can then go through the 100 and pick out the one I think is the best and publish that.

That's where I see LLMs going and what the video and papers mentioned in the video say.

Oh! Good question. Not sure, but having lights that come closer and closer to legit sun shine throughout the day would seem like the ideal end goal. If the grow lights already are tuned for that, then they could definitely good ones to try.

The glow lamp I have is ~4x4 inch square panel, and it can get decently bright where I can feel some energy in my eyes and a difference in mood. That's what I've used for the past couple years. The thing I found with it is that it's almost like an orb, where there's energy glowing from it, but the rest of the area is still dark.

With the corn bulbs, it blasts energy and more light all over, which makes a much bigger difference in vibe. I can't comment on the lux difference (I'm actually getting a lux meter today so I can get a better number in comparison), but with more light all over the room, I can feel much more energy overall.

LED light panels are the other thing I think you mention, and I haven't tested with those. I picked corn bulbs to try first. Compared to the marketed mood lamps, the bigger panels would also light the whole room for a better vibe.

I don't think there are dimmable LED type higher power bulbs or panels. On or off for them. I'm planning to get more lights, and then maybe see if there's a way to create shades to put over them to change the color and amount depending on day.

For now, I'm keeping the lamps powered until ~6pm, and then back to the old light I had before to get ready for sleep.

For sure. I'm in Wisconsin, and when I see maps about where Europe would be overlayed compared to the US in terms of latitude, it's a shock. I feel like we get such little light in the winter months, but turns out I live middle of France, while you in the UK is much further north.

I live in the upper midwest and, like many other places, don't get much light in the winter. I don't get much light in the summer turns out since I'm inside most of the day anyway, but winter feels worse. A couple years ago I was suggested a SAD lamp, and man did it make a difference. What I've learned this year though, is it isn't enough. It's a small square light that sits in the same place and only comes into your eye at a small angle.

Article[0] came up across a feed which was saying the same thing, and I said screw it, and got two 100W LED corn bulbs[1] that the article suggested, and boy did it make a difference. Literally came mid last week, and for the last 4 days, I've had more energy, better sleep, and felt better than I have in months, years even. Incredible difference for $60.

The corn bulbs are just like light bulbs so they fit into the same sockets (some are bigger, but get the ones that say E26). You can also get specific lamps to put them around. I also got some construction string lights[2] and hanging those on my wall. Makes it almost seem like I'm in a museum which is cool too.

My goal is to get some more lights and make my living / office area legit feel like I'm outside on a summer day. I have a lux meter coming today to be able to see and judge intensity. If it's too intense, I can turn them off like I'm going into the shade.

The importance of letting your body know when it's daytime and nighttime, which is talked about in the article, makes all parts of life better. Eat better, more energy to do things, less angry. Part of me disappointed I didn't know this before, but another part glad that I'm catching on now.

[0] https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZHMD5ZL [2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5X7XLRQ

For everyone who responds to this question, thinking they're right, please look back and try to find the reason or reasons as to why you pick a government vs corporation. You'll realize you yourself are not making this decision. The number of news stories that have been pushed in front of you, or talking points from people you value as smart or worthy of listening to, all fabricate your reactions and who you consider yourself to be.

It's not only this one, but all of your opinions are dependent on cases from the past that you've been trained on.

I've been thinking about how these personal LLMs fit into Klara and The Sun[0], book by Ishiguro from a few years ago. Written in first person from someone named Klara, who is an AF (artificial friend) "human" who is an assistants for families and children.

The scene in the book that stuck out to me, and that I feel fits with personal AI / LLM, was the scene where a person in the AF store was looking to possibly buy an upgraded AF. The one the family had was something like 3.5, and now that 4 was around, they should ditch the outdated AF and get a new one with more learning power.

If I was looking to get into the personal LLM space, and I agree with the reddit post linked, I feel like the process will be to be able to quickly spin these up and train them, and be aware that new ones are going to come and don't be overly attached to the old. Weird to type that out.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klara_and_the_Sun

I found it was better. I didn't mention this in first comment, but nutritionalist friend got me a couple test CGMs after I'd been using normal GM with blood samples for a few weeks. I'd check them both at the same time, and many times the CGM was quite off, both on the super low and super high. There were points where I'd look at the CGM, see the number, feel that it was probably way off, and then test the blood and see that my feeling was correct.

Your example is definitely the thing I wanted both glucose monitors for. The CGM didn't seem that great at the giant spikes. With the GM, I'd test numbers right before eating, then 10 minutes into eating, 20, 30, etc. Sure it involved poking my finger, but those were much more informative. than the 15 minutes CGM time frames and the fact the those numbers weren't close to as correct as the blood GM.

True about the light exercise unless you have the poking stick with you. What I did was have an internal treadmill in my apartment building. Example would be test 20 minutes after food, see and feel a 140 reading from the GM, go down and walk for 10 minutes, come back up add see and feel the drop to 100. Learning the feels has been invaluable, and the CGM wouldn't have gotten me the same quick time information that I could trust compared with real time from the direct source.

You don't need a CGM, just get a GM. I had a case where I wanted to see the effect of foods, and the feeling of blood sugar levels that change during the day. I thought of going through one of the brands to get one but the per month price was decently high. The other issue with CGMs is they're for people with high blood sugar, so they're more tuned to high levels, not low levels you'd have from hypoglycemia, so I'm not sure how accurate those numbers would be. Besides, it's 15 minutes late and doesn't test the blood sugar directly (got this info when asked nutritionist friend who helps people with CGMs).

Getting the normal glucose meter was great. The poking of the needle barely causes an effect, and you can get pretty ingrained with numbers. The first couple weeks with the thing I went through tons of tests, before meals, various times after meals, and then if the sugar level was high, meaning over 130 for me, I'd go for a 10 minute walk and could see and feel that the numbers dropped to the low 100s so quickly. At this point I can tell decently well what level my number is.

The glucose monitor with poking stick is really great. Better, faster, cheaper, more trustworthy data than the current continuous monitors out there.

It's always sad to see this argument made comparing the golf changes to baseball wooden vs metal bats:

>If it helps, think of it in baseball terms. There's a wooden bat used in the major leagues, and a metal bat used in college and recreational play. The wooden bats require that extra bit of skill to send the ball 300-plus feet.

The reason college and recreational play doesn't use wooden bats is because they break and they'd have to travel with more bats every time, adding weight and $$$. The metal bats are changed to have the same pop as wooden ones. In fact, NPR has the story about this. [0]

That said, here are some main points I about the rule change.

1) Bifurcation, where pros and amateurs play different balls, is not good. There are people who'd be playing in events one week where you can play the current ball tech, and the next have to change. Those are people who'd be screwed to have to spend more time and money on equipment. Similar to juniors, who go up in the ranks and suddenly need to change. That part can really hurt.

2) Golf distance won't increase much more than it currently is. What's happening and is going to happen is like height in the NBA. Where it became so clear that being tall is beneficial, and so the average height shot up. But it's not like humans can grow any taller. The current golf rules for drivers do put a limit on how far humans will be able to hit it. To compete on Tour, it'll become more of a prerequisite to hit the ball far, just like more of a prerequisite to be tall.

3) That distance is different than how courses were designed and the game had been played in the past. Augusta National has changed a ton over the years to lengthen the course.[1] You can look up stories after Tiger came in '97, and all the way to this year where they lengthened #13, quite a famous hole. That hole will play much more like how the hole was played back in the days pre-Tiger. a) Most courses don't have the money or land area to make these changes. That's the problem the USGA going with. That's the argument the NPR article is saying too, how public courses need to change. But do they? The argument made by the USGA is that public courses and players will _not_ need to change equipment. b) How bad is it that games are played differently than when they started? NBA is quite different with dunks and 3s, MLB changed this year with the pitch clock and no shifts, NFL has forward passing and quite needed body types to play positions meaning genetics is a huge factor in whether or not you can turn pro. The distance changes is golf advancing like all the others.

4) The USGA kind of has a bad reputation. I play in USGA events and the people who run them are kind of, well, they think they're gods and know all. This causes conflict between the guys on PGA Tour and who run PGA Tour events week after week. Should the USGA be making these decisions?

I'll stop here, but there's much more to say, especially with the amount of unanswered questions. Things like, how much different equipment will be needed if you play the new ball vs the old one? Will the ball change make it even _more_ important to have length?

People think length reduces the skill in the game, and that's just not true. The ability to swing hard with control is a great skill, and is trainable. Those who say they don't want to have to do it are doing it to themselves. Golf is an athletic endurance sport. It's taken much longer than others for people to understand this.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2012/02/27/147523340/new-baseball-bat-st... [1] https://www.golfdigest.com/story/complete-changes-to-augusta...