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markessien

2,525 karma · joined March 28, 2007

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markessien··on How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized
Then give the inhabitants of the land citizenship and the right to vote! It's simple. Stop the apartheid, give people civil rights.
markessien··on How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized
Anyone in the world who has one race can freely move there. People of other races cannot. Rights are awarded based on race. Nothing to do with citizenship.

Apartheid.

markessien··on How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized
So the photos of flattened buildings are all "hamas"? You came in, blew up everything, and now you are saying "they did it to themselves, that wasn't us". Their dead kids - oh they did that? The occupation? Oh, that's their fault! If only they would start being nice, so we can stop killing them and give them a city! Ah let me build a settlement in their land - but it's THEIR fault!
markessien··on How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized
Israel killed 50 people yesterday. Every single day, they have killed between 50 and 100 Palestinians for TWO YEARS.

This is not a war, it's a massacre. Nobody is shooting back, Israel is just killing people trapped in the Gaza strip.

All this just so that the apartheid can continue without the Palestinians rebelling.

markessien··on How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized
The leaders of Israel have not just spoken about it, they have actually destroyed the Palestinian State in the last few months. They have killed tens of thousands of kids.

Should they be deradicalised?

markessien··on How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized
It is race based because if there was a jewish person living in Palestine, they could apply for and get the right to vote. A muslim person cannot.

The Israeli PM has said: There will never be a Palestinian state. If you plan to eternally occupy and dominate a people, what is the difference to Apartheid?

markessien··on How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized
Israel has said: The Palestinians will never have a state. They have also said - the Palestinians will never vote in Israel. Is this not apartheid?
markessien··on How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized
The PM of Israel has stated: The Palestinians will NEVER have a state.

What part of that statement did I misunderstand? Israel's stated policy is this: No State for the Palestinians, no Civil Rights. This is clear.

markessien··on How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized
Being forced into a never ending apartheid situation may also be the reason. Give them voting rights or give them a state, it's pretty simple.
markessien··on How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized
An eternal military occupation, where the GOVERNMENT says - you will NEVER get a country, and you will NEVER be part of our country IS apartheid.

These are direct, unambiguous statements from the Prime Minister and all members of the cabinet. They have said that the Palestinians will NEVER get a state.

So what are you saying then about Israel wanting a two state solution? They have said there will be no state, and they have said they will not give civil rights.

This is apartheid.

markessien··on How Israeli actions caused famine in Gaza, visualized
So eternal apartheid? That's what will make the Palestinians happy? When the Tamil Tigers were defeated, they were able to vote in their country. The separatists in Spain get to vote in Spain. The kurds get to vote in Turkey.

Israel is the only country that says: do not separate and create your own state, but at the same time if you stay here, we will NOT give you civil rights.

markessien··on The origin of gravity: a new idea
It is defined by the relationships of the particles to each other - they are related in a tetrahedral manner.
markessien··on Brain overgrowth dictates autism severity, new research suggests
No, it's not. we know the genes the Neanderthal transferred, and nothing with head size is in there. Also, Africans have autism too.
markessien··on LLMs are not greater than the sum of their parts: researchers
The cops
markessien··on LLMs are not greater than the sum of their parts: researchers
Here is a variant that requires logic: "David is a teenager who can drink in the US, and is eligible to join the army, and has started college. He has a lot of experience riding bicycles. The minimum age to be allowed to drive a car is 18. Is David allowed to drive a car?"

GPT-4 gets the answer right: "Yes, David is allowed to drive a car. Since he is a teenager who can drink in the US (minimum age 21), is eligible to join the army (minimum age 18), and has started college, he is at least 18 years old, which meets the minimum age requirement to drive a car."

GPT-3 does not get it right.

Another similar one: "David was in a bar partying and drinking with his father's cop buddies. Would David be legally allowed to drive home?"

Answer: "It depends on David's age, the legal drinking age in his location, and his level of intoxication. If David is underage or intoxicated above the legal limit for driving, it would be illegal for him to drive home. If David is of legal drinking age and not intoxicated, then he may be legally allowed to drive home. However, it is always best to make safe decisions and use a designated driver, taxi, or rideshare service if there is any doubt about one's ability to drive safely after consuming alcohol."

GPT-4 seems to be missing a clue here, even though the answer is right.

markessien··on Boolean Logic, missing brackets and the 2023 Nigeria Presidential Election
Yes, related.
markessien··on Ask HN: What are your predictions for 2023?
My thinking (some of these may take a year or two more)

- we start understanding more about how powerful neural networks can be in storing abstractions of information. More and more breakthroughs come here. A company will come that will do magical things - this company will not be Open AI or one of the big FAANG

- Maybe not this year, but soon: new advances started in robotics based on generative AI. Robots start moving in far more realistic ways

- we enter an extended stock market downturn and it does not recover till end of year. Companies trade at low multiples of revenue

- German car companies aggressively catch up with Tesla in terms of design

- Europe closes up more to migrants

- There is a Russia/Ukraine settlement, with Ukraine getting a fast track entry to the EU.

- African countries start de-facto redrawing their boarders. Ethiopia, Cameroun, maybe Nigeria

- China invades Taiwan with the largest invasion force ever seen

- The drone becomes the primary weapon of war. Every other weapon becomes secondary. New wars start based on drone

- The value of Tesla drops down to 30% of where it currently is

- The USD weakens significantly.

- More mRNA treatments start being used. Sickle cell and other genetic diseases are first target

markessien··on Disqus, a dark commenting system
Try remark42. Free, open source.
markessien··on My personal wishlist for a decentralized social network
How about a timeline on peoples personal blog that follows other blogs (like the fb timeline)? This way, you write your own content on your own website, you read other peoples content on your own website in a consistent format. You tweet on your own website, and others who want to follow can follow from their own website.
markessien··on Ask HN: Predictions for 2021?
- At least 5 presidents of 3rd world countries will die

- Much, much stronger ties between central europe and china

- Chia will become top 10 crypto

- DNA manipulation will become much bigger

- Facebook will go into proper decline

- Start of the break up of google ad business from google search business

- A few small EU alternative search engines come up

- Battery as a platform continues accelerating - new mobility form factors, battery grid scale storage

- Marketplaces with more than 2 links in the chain start eroding one of the middle links (primary ad channel will connect direct)

- Cross-border payments will become far easier

- Twitter will bring in a bunch of tools to combat toxicity

- So much travel in summer - hotels will have one of their best years ever

- AirBNB stock will do what tesla stock is doing - driven by reddit WSB kids

- Asia will crack down on scammy crypto companies

- MediaSynthesis will advance further - a major new tool that makes it trivially easy

- Google search results will start becoming way better and super personalised as their data efforts start showing results

- OpenStreetMaps will become a serious-serious contender to Google Maps

- Amazon gets into general purpose search?

- SSDs start dominating, NVME becomes standard for new desktops

- Google focuses far more on local, smaller sites to the detriment of big sites. Many well known brands (e.g tripadvisor) lose traffic

- Pinterest gets investigated for finance-related matters

- SARS viruses become the new normal

markessien··on Poor Sleep Linked with Future Amyloid-β Build Up
Based on this, if you are at risk for Alzheimers (your 23andme report shows this), then one of the most important things you can do today is to religiously track your sleep and make sure you get enough deep sleep daily.

In my anecdotal experience, if you don't get enough deep sleep for a sustained period of time, you start showing minor cognitive defects - e.g mixing up words, not being able to write long, irritability. Tracking sleep and 'catching up' makes all this go away.

This is especially important for people who are caffeine sensitive, but drink a lot of caffeine. You end up getting 5-6 hours of sleep nightly, and have this constantly mounting cumulative sleep deficit.

markessien··on Ask HN: As a freelancer, what's the best app to track finances?
There is an app my wife made that I use: it's for expense ticketing. It's available here: https://spendtrim.com
markessien··on Ask HN: How do you manage UI/UX for your side projects?
I know a bunch of UI/UX folk, and I tend to just ping them if I have anything to design. Works quite well - many people will do a lot of short term work in exchange for pay.
markessien··on Ask HN: What did you work on in 2017?
Did two remote internships for software developers in Africa - each with about 1000 participants.
markessien··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2015)
Hotels.ng - Software person that wants to do management - Lagos, Nigeria - REMOTE

Hotels.ng is a hotel booking platform for Nigerian hotels. We are a small startup and we're trying to make african hotels bookable online (most don't even use the internet).

We're looking for someone with a technical background who wants to help out with overall management of the different aspects of the business. Means understand what is going on and then organising the teams/managing timelines to make sure everything gets done when it needs to get done.

We'll not be paying very much < $2k/month, but anyone who is up for an interesting project and is interested in Africa, this would be a good opportunity. Email for application is mark@hotels.ng.

markessien··on Ask HN: What are some startups working on big problems in the developing world?
http://Hotels.ng. 10,000 hotels in Nigeria and none of them online till we added them. Done 6000, another 20k or so left to go across the continent.
markessien··on Any HN readers have ideas for improving gun safety?
Have an electronic device in the gun locker on the clip that holds the gun. Whenever the gun is taken out of this locker, an email/push notification is sent to the owner and other responsible family members indicating that the gun is out of rack. It repeats every 10 minutes till the gun is returned.
markessien··on Ask HN: What one thing would you tell your younger self?
Travel, it will build your character.
markessien··on BlackGirlsCode Raises $21,000 To Fund Summer Of Code Program
What's the difference between "Girls Code" and "Black Girls Code". They both exclude a significant chunk of the population, but one is slightly more targeted than the other. They both exclude based on biology and facts on ground. It's the exact same thing.

One could also say "Dallas Girls Code", a program for girls in the dallas area. It's perfectly okay.

markessien··on Goodbye Facebook.
This is what many people use facebook group for. To keep in close contact with a group of like-minded individuals.
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