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omnee

375 karma · joined June 21, 2024

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omnee··on The lamps in my house
I've had the BenQ WiT reading desk lamp for nearly five years, and it has been almost flawless until now. I always use it to light my desk when working on the computer, and it's also fine for any detail work or whenever I'm reading on the desk. It could be improved with some design changes to reduce lateral glare, but this could impact the wide throw of the light which entirely covers my desk.
omnee··on Amazon workers under pressure to up their AI usage are making up tasks
If the financial or career incentives for management relies on 'Token usage growth', then that is what will happen to the detriment of everything else.
omnee··on David Attenborough's 100th Birthday
An outstanding voice for nature for all these years, and how kind nature has been to him in return. Long Live Sir David!
omnee··on Israel escalates attacks on medics in Lebanon with deadly 'quadruple tap'
Israel's actions can only be described as inhumane and sadistic. In fact, it's similar to actual terrorism that they claim to be against.
omnee··on Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is killed in Israeli strike, ending 36-year rule
In isolation the death of this brutal dictator is great news, but we have seen how previous decapitation strikes have not had the intended effect. And I can only hope the Iranian people somehow end up better for this entirely illegal war that the Trump administration has initiated, instead of facing up to a fractured leadership and a potential civil war.
omnee··on Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
Agree fully with the main points of this statement. Mass domestic surveillance is the hallmark of an authoritarian and undemocratic state. That such a state holds 'votes' regularly does not detract from the chilling effect on public discourse and politics caused by mass surveillance.

The guardrail on fully automated weapons makes perfect sense, and hopefully becomes standardised globally.

omnee··on Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai gets 20 years' jail
Indeed. People very easily conflate laws which every state since antiquity has had, with the rule of law, that exists only in a minority of countries even today.
omnee··on Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy
My experience is closer to yours, and I've had to learn to enjoy without alcohol, which has been a positive transformation. I still drink, but now I know when to stop. Some of my friends still drink too much and would probably benefit from GLP drugs even when they are not obese.
omnee··on Tell HN: Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas everyone!
omnee··on Nearly all UK drivers say headlights are too bright
I have an older car with the low light gauges, and so my eyes are more adjusted the darkness. Which makes the poorly calibrated bright lights of newer cars the bane of my life at night.
omnee··on Apple reports fourth quarter results
That's an exceptionally high bar of talent and creativity. For the 99.999+% of us, the computer and the mobile has made completion of many tasks highly efficient. Like surfing HN on a lazy Saturday morning...
omnee··on Carlo Rovelli’s radical perspective on reality
Your conclusion rests on the assumption that QM's description of reality represents the ontological truth. And such a 'truth' is not provable. However, as you already mentioned, it doesn't matter as QM provides the strongest epistemological claims, and this is what matters in the end.
omnee··on A Clausewitzian lens on modern urban warfare
The amount of total financial support provided to Ukraine is lower than that which Russia has earned from the same bloc. And military support is the smaller fraction of this total. So, the support has been important but without Ukraine deciding to resist Russia vehemently, the Donbass would have long been conquered.

I do agree with your criticism that in certain places, such as Bakhmut or Avdiivka, Ukraine has lost many men needlessly when in an indefensible position. Saying that, Russia is making at best incremental gains for huge casualties. They certainly aren't going to conquer the rest of Donbass by this year or even by the 4th anniversary.

omnee··on Gold Prices Top $4k for First Time
Some notable examples, and likely many others exist throughout history.

Retail does not have the financial power to move any large market. The responsible parties, in either direction are institutional buyers. So your final point is worth consideration. Could it simply be diversification from US Treasuries? Or are there other geopolitical factors?

omnee··on Slack has raised our charges by $195k per year
I find it hard to believe such an underhanded policy was not approved by senior staff members. Clearly, the negative feedback has forced Slack to change course, but that such a policy was allowed in the first place will be held against Slack by any reasonable person for the foreseeable future.
omnee··on GPT-5: "How many times does the letter b appear in blueberry?"
Indeed, we are able to ask counterfactuals in order to identify it as an illusion, even for novel cases. LLMs are a superb imitation of our combined knowledge, which is additionally curated by experts. It's a very useful tool, but isn't thinking or reasoning in the sense that humans do.
omnee··on A.I. researchers are negotiating $250M pay packages
Zuck made him and offer that couldn't be refused. But neither salaries or hype or hope are what AI should be measured against. LLM based AI should be measured against previous technological revolutions, in terms of sustained real income growth and ideally real income growth per person.

Right now capital expenses are responsible for most of AI's economic impacts, as seen by the infrastructure spend contributing more to GDP than consumer spending this year.

omnee··on Terence Tao on the suspension of UCLA grants
One of the worst excesses of this admin has been the attack on science and mathematics, stemming from their deliberate ignorance of evidence. A setback for the researchers and a tragedy for the people that might benefit from their work, the nation and the world as a whole.
omnee··on ‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler
The banality of evil on full display. These very same people will claim in the future that they were misled or did not understand the gravity of crimes being committed in Gaza and the West Bank.
omnee··on Fintech dystopia
Gold was also inversely correlated to long term US interest rates, which no longer holds true. So, nations and large institutions already hold the opinion that inflation will be higher (>2%) for longer in the future. Maybe the target should be moved to ~3%, which is defacto the case.
omnee··on Is Australia's bloated property market destroying the middle class?
This is the outcome of neoliberalism taken to its logical extreme, where capitals interests are prioritised over everything else.

Technology was expected by some to empower the citizens, enabling them to counteract negative outcomes - but in fact has allowed the powerful to shape opinions and politics to their perspective even more easily.

omnee··on EU commissioner shocked by dangers of some goods sold by Shein and Temu
I want to emphasise your latter point - I have a Lenovo work laptop, Fenix head torches and various other high quality Chinese products. Any company selling into the EU needs to meet the QC and regulatory requirements, and many well known Chinese brands already do so, and so their products naturally sell at a premium to the cheapest options. A little more thought in purchasing by buyers would go a long way in helping the commissions efforts to reduce harmful goods.
omnee··on Preliminary report into Air India crash released
This report is outlining the known facts of the flight at present. The main one being the movement of the fuel switches to the off position did occur a few seconds after take-off, almost certainly by one of the pilots. And this was the primary cause of the crash. However, blame has not been apportioned and the reason for why is not known.

blancolrio puts its well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA_UZeHZwSw

omnee··on Sleeping beauty Bitcoin wallets wake up after 14 years to the tune of $2B
You can't get rich with gold. And haven't been able to for a long long time. It usually preserves wealth due to its long term real rate of return of around zero. But as BTC is new enough, the early owners have indeed become very rich.
omnee··on Visualizing environmental costs of war in Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä
Like others I want to recommend the manga. It's a masterpiece and in my opinion Miyazaki's Magnum Opus.
omnee··on Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]
I agree with your reasoning, but I would add that customers also want to be easily distinguished from using an Android or a different device. Apple has long recognised the importance of this sign value and is acting accordingly.
omnee··on Tell HN: Help restore the tax deduction for software dev in the US (Section 174)
The law can be a ass, as in this case. So I fully support this petition.
omnee··on Cloudflare CEO: Football piracy blocks will claim lives
I have done something similar too, as I wanted to watch a specific football game - Barcelona v Real Madrid - and it was available on a different streamer to the THREE that I already have. So I simply took the easier route.
omnee··on Trump administration halts Harvard's ability to enroll international students
Trump is acting in the manner of all previous authoritarians: What is good for him is what's good for the country and the laws that align with this are proper, and those that do not will be ignored or changed where possible. The rule of law is anathema to authoritarians, and hence why they detest it. As individuals we might even feel the same about some laws. But in totality, the rule of, law and not by law is the foundation of our society, because its benefits are immense and usually taken for granted.
omnee··on AlphaEvolve: A Gemini-powered coding agent for designing advanced algorithms
This is one of the most valuable intellectual skill that humans can develop and is even more relevant in a world where manipulation and misinformation at scale is effectively commoditized. Like you, I'm not going to outsource it to a corpo, and will use LLMs as simply another source to be used critically in learning and/or reaching a decision.
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