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simtel20

600 karma · joined February 12, 2013

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simtel20··on How to grow a cacao tree at home (2024)
Part of the flavor is the bean, how the fruit is grown and harvested. Part is how its processed, fermented, and maybe roasted, but the final step is usually that it is then sold and processed - melanged and conched and mixed to a desired flavor profile, and then turned into a form that is edible. So who's to say, really.
simtel20··on How to grow a cacao tree at home (2024)
They source from all of the globe's cacao growing regions
simtel20··on How to grow a cacao tree at home (2024)
Well, the fruit is a lovely flavor. Once you learn that e.g. pomelo peel has a way to cook and be eaten, you realize the resourcefulness of our forebears and their quest for flavor and a full belly
simtel20··on Alarm Grows over 'Clearly Illegal' US Election Meddling in Brazil
Bolsonaro is a few pancakes shorter of a stack than Trump. Even though he's clearly a liar who attempted a military coup, in a multi-party election he still leads a cult of personality large enough to make his son a presidential candidate.

As with the US, education in Brazil needs improvement

simtel20··on Uber shuts operations in Nigeria and Uganda with immediate effect
99 is quite popular in Brazil, and is often cheaper, but Uber does seem ubiquitous there and is the leader.
simtel20··on People of ACM – Russ Cox
The bar used to be pretty low. My father spent a few years writing and selling a system/360 time sharing system in the 70s or so. He was not a self-identified computer person, just a physics student who found a way to make a few dollars.

In the 70s and 80s and 90s so many operating systems from lisp machines to ITS to the bsds... People used to write an OS like people write frontend frameworks now.

simtel20··on Choosing an AI model: one prompt, 11 models, different results
Why are you trying to put words in my mouth about visiting every coffee shops website etc? You look at possible places and choose the one(s) that appeal.

Since all coffee stores are not the same, I look at the website of the coffee shop I am considering visiting, and either I choose it or I don't.

simtel20··on Netflix Has Peaked
All your points are valid, but they all assume a fait accompli of all cdns have already built out to Netflix scale with similar contracts for bandwidth at the edge. If they have done so, then that is not a moat or even a difference at all. However these things take time, and amortize over years, and I don't think the big.playets are all there yet, and so it's a moving target.

Also you are saying that the lawsuit speaks to context cost, which is the headline, but that is unlikely to be the full story at the end of the day since it is a fishing expedition at the moment.

simtel20··on Choosing an AI model: one prompt, 11 models, different results
When I travel I have limited time, and if e.g. the coffee shop doesn't have the hallmarks of good coffee, I will save my time and find one that does
simtel20··on Netflix Has Peaked
You are probably right that it's not the most likely outcome, but it is more likely with net revenue and projections of future revenue being the actual crux of the case isn't it?
simtel20··on Netflix Has Peaked
That is not what I said. I am challenging your dismissal of the cost of bandwidth is material to the success of a cdn

> All that matters is that the CDN is good enough to serve viewer traffic. If your CDN isn't up to snuff, the outcome is that the viewer can't play the video they want. AFAIK, no Netflix competitor is suffering from insufficient CDN resources

My personal experience is that e.g. if your cdn can serve ads, but not video, then you lose subscribers.

Extrapolating from that, if you lose money on every video a subscriber plays because of DTO costs, then you can't stay in business. Netflix and Amazon can afford their cdn. Maybe Disney can stay in business because they have the scale to get to the right COGS to meet their forecast, but for sure in the past they are accused of misleading investors as to their costs and revenue and their future revenue forecasts[1]. Since that's still underway, we may even know what part of their break-even calculations CDN costs are in the future.

1. https://www.ktmc.com/new-cases/the-walt-disney-company/?hl=e...

simtel20··on Netflix Has Peaked
Everything about a cdn is cost per MB, and Netflix has that priced at I don't know, I imagine almost zero, and maybe negative because they host with ISPs, which other cdns can't do. Which means their competitors must spend infinitely more money until they hit a scale where they can start to follow in Netflix's parh. Also, I imagine that buying hardware now, especially DRAM is four or more times as expensive as it was when Netflix paid for a lot of their hardware, so yeah, that.
simtel20··on Bioengineered chewing gum may offer a way to fight HPV and other microbes
The original chewing gum was a latex called chicle from tropical trees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicle?wprov=sfla1
simtel20··on Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise
I would guess that the casino is a relatively cheap space that can do entertainment and conferences and food, and it's not being chosen for the gambling aspects
simtel20··on Prioritize mental health, and why communication is so important
This is irresponsible on your part. OP has been diagnosed by professionals and is being treated and clearly sees the difference. While high CO2 levels make a measurable difference in some tasks and its effects can be felt in crowded spaces, it seems like you're taking your pet peeve and dismissing the struggle that the OP is going through. Please try to have more sympathy.

I understand it can be difficult or even frightening to think about problems that don't have a trivially described cause, effect and solution like your proposal, but it would be a good idea to ask questions, even as simply as asking if that OP has noticed an effect, before trivializing their struggles this way

simtel20··on Late Bronze Age Collapse
Do you find yourself more lost in the history parts or the gaming parts?
simtel20··on Damaged Earth Catalog
Aside from the reasons stated in the page linked to? The thinking there seems like good fodder for conversation, do you have a more specific question?
simtel20··on Leaving Mozilla
I see it as a pointed observation that the people who focus on a goal will accomplish that goal. There are organizations with administrative-focused people who work in alignment with the mission-focused people, and that also follows this law as well. It's just that the same dynamic can cause organisations to spiral into an extractive, stale, ossifying, change-resistent focus instead.
simtel20··on The Joy of Folding Bikes
Hi fellow tikit owner! When they did the early upgrade of the cable, I thought it was just some gauge of airplane wire, threaded through the front nut and clamped or welded in place (I don't rude mine very often, it's a very early model and has a lot of the weaknesses like chain offs, and it comes unfolded too easily when I roll it). But I haven't been able to bring myself to sell it, it's still such a nice little device.
simtel20··on S3 Files
Ok, but to be clear you said all outgoing traffic is charged. The API call price is something else, it's not part of the outgoing traffic.
simtel20··on S3 Files
Reads from s3 via an s3 endpoint inside a vpc to an interface inside of that vpc is not billed.
simtel20··on U.S. stocks are set to deliver their worst quarter in nearly four years
The parent comment is quoting Pam Bondi doing evasive maneuvers a couple of months ago
simtel20··on The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild
Where did you get that idea about NYC water being untreated? NYC treats its water. Chlorine is added if and when needed. Testing stations exist to evaluate water quality all around the boroughs, etc.

You can't have a city of millions of people and have the water be potable from the tap without testing and treatment

simtel20··on Hands-On Introduction to Unikernels
There were publications in the 80s that used that term iirc, and I do recall the term for how slightly incongruous it was, and how it didn't come with an explanation.

In looking into ut some more, it looks like the executive was a term from mainframes for the layer of the kernel that enforced isolation, but I must have read the term being loosely used in pc magazines. Or maybe mockingly?

simtel20··on Flameshot
Oh, thanks for the link. I've been using flameshot for most of the past decade, but haven't been able to use it with pop-os and my monitors recently because it was derotating my monitor.
simtel20··on Hands-On Introduction to Unikernels
I've only ever heard of that as the type of a DOS/Windows .exe binary.
simtel20··on The Absent Silence (2010)
I believe community should be considered more fundamental than economic consumption.
simtel20··on The Absent Silence (2010)
I think I hear you, but you're phrasing your twist as a choice made by individuals or made by their circumstances, e.g. choices that you are not a party to. However I'm asking about you in this case, alongside the "us" that comprise the people taking the time to observe and hypothesize about the world we're living in by discussing in on HN. Maybe after that it'll lead elsewhere.
simtel20··on The Absent Silence (2010)
I have started to read "The Dawn of Everything" by David Graeber and David Wengrow and while I cannot speak to most of the book, even in the first hundred or so of (ebook) pages, it challenges that frame of reference in a way that is clarifying, in the sense of being a palate cleanser, admitting different ways of thinking about these things.
simtel20··on The Absent Silence (2010)
In that context, what leads you call yourself and the rest of humanity primarily "consumers" in response to an essay? I think this has become uncomfortably (to me) normalized, and it begs the same question that Le Guin asks about whether we understand what we are doing when we are defining ourselves. A citizen and a person doesn't have to be defined as what they consume, do they?
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