smath

I believe that is correct. Part of the problem is that similar words in different languages are actually not quite identical. “Not having emotions” is not quite the essence of stoicism: I understand it to be “avoiding highs and lows - being equipoised by recognizing what is and isn’t under our control”. A very closely related idea is proposed in the Bhagawad Gita.

Tangential tidbit about etymology of the word Zen:

Zen is a Japanese word that comes from the Chinese “Chan”, which in turn comes from the Sanskrit word “Dhyana”, which roughly translates to focus/meditatiin.

That trajectory Sanskrit —> Chinese —> Japanese reflects the geographical trajectory of the spread of Buddhism out of India.

Same word in Vietnamese and Korean is “Thien” and “Seon” respectively.

Right, value != price. Now, is this a bug or a feature? Discuss (serious question)

I'm looking for some data -- if anyone has it -- on the fraction of companies that are led (CEO) by a technical person, over the years/decades. I have the (anecdotal) impression that this fraction has been falling (stories like Boeing), but it would be cool to support or refute this with hard data. Anyone know where to find/assemble something like this? Also, if this trend is true, then why?

This reminded me of my 11 yr old who, when I give her math problems to solve, is too focused on “getting the right answer”. I’ve told her plainly, I don’t care if you get the right answer right now, I want to see your reasoning. She has yet to understand this.

Here is a solution to this problem I think: make an LLM. Summarize everything. If there is fluff then it should get dropped? Basically we only care about the relevant information content, regardless of the number of characters used - so we need a compressed representation

I for one am happy to see an engineer at the helm.

Loved the writeup.

I'll just drop a note here to say that these spherical harmonics are also used in creating specialized neural network layers that are useful for modeling 3D objects like point clouds and moleculues, proteins, etc. Basically whenever we want to make sure that rotating / translating the object doesnt make a new object. [0] is a good reference for this.

Even more interesting is that these are the same spherical harmonics that appear as solutions to Schrodinger's equation in quantum mechanics (s, p, d, f orbitals in an atom) [1]

[0] https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.07511. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital

My 2c is that it is not 'joy' or 'happiness' that kids bring to parents universally (although they might bring those things for some parents), but 'meaning'. Meaning is harder to define than joy/happiness, perhaps because it is less objective and more subjective.

Shameless plug: More than a decade ago, I wrote a paper [1] on how the random perturbations in the wireless channel between an ambient RF transmitter (FM radio, TV) to the two devices, allow nearby devices to authenticate locality because the perturbations are correlated only if they are nearby (where nearby is relative to the wavelength being monitored)

[1] https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/121443

As a kid I loved casio digital watches (metal band, digital display). But as a grown up I found I like analog watches better -- my brain is quicker at interpreting the visual image of the hands. For the last few years I wore this [1] very simple and robust casio watch and eventually gave it to my son to help him learn to tell time. Very clean crisp design and 1/3rd the price of a similar looking swatch.

[1] https://www.casio.com/us/watches/casio/product.MQ-24-7BLL/?u...

Very very cool. I have this condition - I got it randomly ("idiopathic" as opposed to age-related) when I was 22. At the time it wreaked havoc on my mental health.

A benevolent monarchy maybe - like some places in the east (maybe).or maybe UBI? Some way to not have to worry about basic health and needs

What places have this today? I see an answer suggesting AUS below. ChatGPT says Switzerland

Slightly tangential: this is a wonderful and deep project, that requires a lot of personal time. Lately I've been wondering what social/economic/govt conditions allow for this type of deep thinking + tinkering among working people (not academia). My very rough guess is the US of 1950-60s did, and some other countries today do, but not so much the US of today because the cost of living and time pressures are higher. I'd be curious if anyone has a more detailed answer (or a rebuttal of my thesis altogether).

came here to see if anyone had read Rodney's recent essay - and to ask how does this announcement by Figure square with Rodney's essay.

The essay was long so I cant claim I read it in detail - one q in my mind is whether humanoids need to do dexterity the same way that humans do. yes they dont have skin and tiny receptors but maybe there is another way to develop dexterity?

“How the immune system works”, Lauren Sompayrac

Also (I think?):

- Govt beaureucreats spending taxpayer money - Availability of cheap credit for the US govt (the spender is other countries buying the debt) - Availabiulity of cheap student loans

Obligatory mention of the Radiolab episode titled 'Colors' [1] - which among other things, talks about how the color blue appears in almost all world languages much later than other colors.

[1] https://radiolab.org/podcast/211119-colors

Very cool!

Maybe I missed it but I didn’t quite follow why you needed to buy an adsb receiver if adsb exchange is already aggregating all the data

My impression (might be wrong) is that one can get this for some subset of blood tests but not say an MRI or x ray, let alone more complex tests. Are these just insurance company rules? If I found a way to make it profitable can I open a diagnostic lab independent of insurance companies?

One thing I’ve wondered is why getting a diagnostic test done out of pocket in the US of your own volition (without a doc prescription) isn’t possible. Why does it need to be controlled by a doc and insurance?

In India this is common. They probably use the same expensive machines for x rays and MRIs but anyone can walk in, and pay for a diagnostic test and get numbers (well, not everyone can afford it, but generally middle class folks can). I’m not saying the healthcare system in India is great, but this distinction intrigues me. Maybe the volumes are much higher in India so the diagnostic center can recoup costs? Are there laws preventing this business model in the US?

lol, I almost missed the sarcasm there :)

I have wondered this too. Some stumbling blocks might be (1) lots of people are not well informed enough or care enough to participate -- which if true, would suggest there is a deeper problem (2) how to prevent lots of coersion.

But imo definitely worth thinking more abt. It might solve a lot more problems than it creates by giving power back to the people.

agreed about sucking the air out by LLM. The positive side is that its a good time to innovate in other areas while a chunk of ppl are absorbed in LLMs. A proven improvement in any other non LLM space will attract investment.

Regeneron had announced positive results in its gene therapy drug for deafness in Feb 2025: https://investor.regeneron.com/news-releases/news-release-de...

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. I'm curious about the following:

(1) Seems like these very challenges also make the space more interesting because not everyone can make a good passive radar system and the passive aspect obviously provides stealth (not to the plane, but to the party doing the surveillance). Is this fair to say? (2) What if there are multiple receivers in clock sync? Does that make it easier? (3) I'm a bit confused about your comment about very large antennas -- I thought antenna size should be proportional to the wavelength. So if the system is using digital TV broadcast, then the antenna size would be roughly the size of DTV antennas, and bigger would not necessarily help? Or is this not the case? (4) Re the ionopheric issues -- do the clouds or ionophere reflect the TV/fm waves? I thought each tx-target-rx triplet having a different delay would be a good thing because it would dismbiguate multiple targets.

The code from kraken was removed -- I think because it was open source? I think its still ok to write your own code (Discalimer: I havent done this so please verify on your own obvisouly)

I agree. IMO understanding what one really wants to work on, leads to an important line of philosophical questioning to understand 'who am I'. There is a surprising amount of clutter and external influence in our minds.

I guess I want the robot to do all the work -- loading and unloading does take a good chunk of time everyday. Same thing with loading / unloading washing machines, and folding clothes. Just good ol' housework that should be automatable. I was wondering whether anyone has seriously tried - and what the sota is.

Serious Q: What are the best known approaches for getting robots to fold clothes / do dishes? Doesn’t need to be humanoid