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specproc

2,464 karma · joined May 17, 2021

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specproc··on Formlabs Studio 1 $699 Resin Printer
Yeah, resin is a must for minis.

I outsource to a guy a know who's a jeweller and has his workflow down. Tried doing it myself and hated it.

specproc··on Dutch intelligence service spied on phone of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner
The original Vanity Fair piece is worth a read.

https://archive.li/XRZg9

specproc··on What Is the Karakoram Anomaly?
Aye, I didn't get as far north as Gilgit, but I've been around the block a few times, and I've never seen anything like NW Pakistan.
specproc··on Are we sleepwalking into World War III?
Both can be characterised as long-running, festering land wars on our continent, causing immense destruction and going nowhere fast.

Both were about an outsider trying to rewrite the terms of system from which they felt excluded. WW1 was loosely states with an empire vs. those without.

Both have involved massive miscalculations on all parts as to how quickly and easily this will be over. Russia thought Ukraine would fold, NATO thought Russia would.

We need to be realistic here. This is bad and could get substantially worse.

specproc··on Are we sleepwalking into World War III?
Ukraine is to WW3 as Belgium was to WW1. A hot, stagnant land war in the heart of the continent.

This piece is one of several I've noticed lately in the British press [1, 2], preparing the country for a broader war.

I'm deeply fucking concerned, to be frank. I'm also upset that no major political actor seems to be putting their hand up and suggesting this might be a terrible idea.

Winter is coming.

[1] https://news.sky.com/story/army-chief-says-politicians-to-st...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmn0jke547r5o

specproc··on A 'Ludicrously Ugly' Bridge Is Exhibit a That Britain Has Lost Its Mojo
Wait till you hear about HS2.
specproc··on DeepSeek-v4.1-Flash-1017
If one is not American, why prefer American? Chinese fine by me, I trust the US providers just as little.
specproc··on Woman who rescued injured crow keeps getting 'thank-you gifts' from birds [video]
It's a very public spot. The competition is between jackdaws, pigeons, ducks and geese. It's no competition, the jackdaws run rings around the rest.
specproc··on Woman who rescued injured crow keeps getting 'thank-you gifts' from birds [video]
You wanna really befriend a bird, give 'em meat. We'd leave bits of dog kibble out for the jays and magpies in our old yard, gone in sixty seconds.
specproc··on Woman who rescued injured crow keeps getting 'thank-you gifts' from birds [video]
I love the local jackdaw crew near me. My lunchtime ritual is to sit down by the water with a pasty, and chuck bits of pastry for them. They're exceptional catches, will pluck it right out the air. Wonderful to watch, really makes my day.
specproc··on Suicide rates highest ever among middle-aged men
Fair, stopping better. It's a tough thing for many to imagine though. It took a break for me to understand I needed to do more.
specproc··on Suicide rates highest ever among middle-aged men
> I began drinking too much, but luckily I was able to get out of that habit.

Alcohol is incredibly dangerous after 40, particularly if you've got a history as a heavy drinker. I've had to cut back to virtually nothing as it's guaranteed to trigger anxiety and depressive episodes.

Almost all the premature deaths in my circle, including suicides, have been alcohol-linked.

Obviously, YMMV, everyone's different, but if anyone reading this thread is over 40, struggling, and still drinking regularly, taking a break can really help.

specproc··on CFTC Staff Were Told to Retract Analysis of Suspicious Oil Trades
Everybody pisses in the pool, not everybody pisses from the diving board.
specproc··on CFTC Staff Were Told to Retract Analysis of Suspicious Oil Trades
So the election will be meaningless. Expect bad things in November.
specproc··on Thinking will become a hobby
Thanks for clearing that up.

> Do you agree that if physical LLMs are as good at replicating human behavior as text based LLMs are, they would be able to do a lot of the vast majority of what we already do in the real world?

I don't think it's possible, let alone probable.

You're confusing proof of concept clothes folding device with smartphone++ grade adoption of a general purpose robot.

Bunch of assumptions there:

First, that they're affordable.

Second, that they'd be preferable/superior to humans for all tasks.

Third, that capable ones aren't classified as weapons and restricted use, like drones.

I like Blade Runner as much as the next nerd, but technology and society are not there, and won't be there in our lifetimes.

I think it far more likely we're all dead as the result of a nuclear war or such.

specproc··on Thinking will become a hobby
I'm not entirely sure what a physical LLM is. Would you care to elucidate how they work and when they're likely to be doing my gardening?
specproc··on Thinking will become a hobby
I do think that sounds ridiculous, but more importantly I don't see where humans are missing.

I think HN, everyone really, really needs to get a grip when it comes to AI.

Sure, it's a big deal, will revolutionise the way we work, just like steam, or electricity, or the internet, but a world without human work is a world without humans.

We've had workless utopias predicted for centuries as each big new technology has come along, yet we work far harder than many of our ancestors.

A 100 percent automated economy or government is an oxymoron, precisely because both are constituted by humans.

specproc··on Thinking will become a hobby
There is no way in hell the economy will be 100 percent automated, ever. You gotta spend zero time around non-devs/managers to think that's going to be anywhere near true.

Parts of creative/intellectual labour just happen to inimical to accelerated algorithmic production. They'll produce infinitely and endlessly, uselessly. I can't see there ever not being a need to manage these things, to check, select, edit and refine their output.

And as for the vast majority of labour that doesn't involve writing code/reports/spreadsheets. I'll believe it when I have robots fixing my roof, running a kitchen, taking blood and dressing wounds.

In theory a robot could do some small components of that, maybe. But the cost, compared to a human, would be insane, and the result much worse. That even modestly rolled out in West Yorkshire before I'm long dead. No chance.

---

Edit: Down-voters, I would love to hear your vision for a fully-automated economy without human involvement, preferably this side of armageddon.

specproc··on Yandex bot traffic down 99% after data center attack
One of the reasons we need to better relate social media companies, is so we can get at this data. Twitter was incredibly open, pre-Musk. If you're running a platform like that, you're a publisher, and should be required to provide API access for accountability and transparency purposes.
specproc··on WSL3 Performance is about 5-60% faster than WSL2 depending on the workload
Yeah, WSL was the gateway to daily driving for me. I'd played with Linux as a kid, came back via WSL, and quickly came to the conclusion I'd be best off without Windows.

Haven't regretted it for a second.

specproc··on So you think you could be an electrician?
Yeah, YMMV. It's not going to prevent you from putting your back out picking up something ambitious, or deal with more severe issues.

What I'm saying is that stretching is going to give you a very good defence against back problems. Been totally life-changing for me.

specproc··on So you think you could be an electrician?
Lazy is not a very nice way of putting it, but I would urge anyone without a simple stretching routine to develop one.

Five to ten minutes a few times a week, and I've not had a back problem in years.

It's a simple and easy way to keep a healthy baseline. Good for all sorts of physical and mental issues. I feel like shit if I've not done them for a while.

specproc··on September 2026: The world today, as seen by one Polish guy
That Putin has personal investment in this is not under question. I agree, there are things that he won't compromise on.

Does this mean the war continues till he dies? We could yet wait a long time.

Say he does fall over tomorrow, there's no guarantee what comes next is any better. Defeat in WWI brought about Nazi Germany. A Marshal Plan would more likely come from China.

He's had attempts on his life made. Do you think Russia will fall over if that's successful? Look at what's happened with Iran. Would Russia believe he had a heart attack if he had one?

It would be in everyone's best interests if this war was frozen exactly where it is, now. A continued war in Europe is bad for everyone, and could get much worse.

specproc··on September 2026: The world today, as seen by one Polish guy
Not Russian, but spent a lot of time out east.

Russia is reflexively anti-NATO as NATO is reflexively anti-Russia.

NATO is an alliance that was created in opposition to the Soviet Union. NATO has absorbed parts of the former Soviet Union.

Western companies pillaged Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Rightly or wrongly, Putin owes a lot of his original popularity to dealing with the aftermath.

Russia, rightly or wrongly, sees colour revolutions as intelligence operations, and territorial conquest.

Russia cannot accept NATO forces on its borders.

NATO is providing decisive material, political, logistical, financial and intelligence support to Ukraine, precisely to bog it down and drain it.

These are all pretty normal perspectives for most Russians. They're arguably pretty based, and not necessarily a product of internal propaganda campaigns.

The thing that westerners don't get about Russia, and the reason we're stuck in this Godforsaken conflict, is that we personalise things around Putin. We think that if Putin dies, everything will magically improve.

The decision to invade was Putin's, but the rationale goes much deeper and will outlast him.

specproc··on Ask HN: What are you reading?
I've just started on There is no antimemetics division, and I'm underwhelmed. It risks not being read properly.

Have been on some good stuff recently: Whitt by Iain M. Banks was nice, lighter than a lot of his other stuff, and genuinely funny at times.

Best book this year was The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. Couldn't put it down.

specproc··on California farmers are struggling to sell grapes as demand for wine drops
You. Yes you, alcohol-consuming Californian. Go buy some grapes whilst they're cheap and make some wine.

I barely drink these days, but wine production is great fun and pretty damn easy. I've done it a couple of times, it was super rewarding.

It's much more straightforward than most booze (e.g., beer). You just need clean gear and mashed up grapes, and some sulphites on hand if things get a bit wonky. There's very little else to it.

I think anyone who drinks should make wine once in their life.

specproc··on In an $80 motel room, a discovery to shed light on the origins of life
The cheapest, check out Blackpool
specproc··on In an $80 motel room, a discovery to shed light on the origins of life
I dunno about the states, but in most parts of the UK, it's considerably cheaper than 80 dollars a day to rent a small workspace.
specproc··on People hooked on vapes try a new way to quit: cigarettes
I lived near 20 years in a country where cigarettes are cheap and not stigmatised. Coming back home, I've found I'm one of the few smokers left.

All my friends have moved to vapes, and they vape harder than I smoke, and I was on 20 a day before moving to roll ups.

I need to quit, but don't see vaping as viable.

specproc··on War may be coming. Are we psychologically ready?
Incorrect, there are lots of people in the West with a vested interest in keeping this war rolling. We're selling guns, doing R&D, Europe now buys its gas from America (at a higher price) instead of Russia, Zelenskyy does not need to face election.

Groups of people in the West are benefiting massively. Most Ukrainians are not. Most normal citizens of Western countries are not, we're shouldering the cost in rising cost of living, elevated military spending.

We have a hot war on our continent. I repeat, this is very fucking dangerous. WW1 was a brutal, grinding land battle with immense costs for all its European participants. It also led to WW2, which culminated in the absolute decimation of European cities and the eventual use of nuclear weapons. This is the path we're retreading.

You continue to personalise this around Putin. It is incredibly naive to think that Putin disappearing will resolve the problem. It will not.

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