thomassmith65

A Vectrex wasn't prohibitively expensive, but, even for its time, vector graphics seemed a bit primitive*.

1980s TV gaming consoles may not have had high resolution, but they were less visually monotonous than glowing lines on black.

* Consider that Asteroids is the only vector-based game listed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_in_video_games

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroids_(video_game) was already three years old by the time Vectrex hit the market

I don't want a Vectrex, but I do want a vector CRT display and driver I can use with a modern computer. They don't make them anymore; not even for oscilloscopes.

To be zen about one's privacy is easier for some people than others.

There are situations in many a person's life that if revealed to the public would have life-altering consequences.

Rather than the world give up, we should have better tools and laws to flood the internet with spurious personal data.

There isn't necessarily a conflict between wanting to behave according to an arbitrary set of ethics, and being rational.

The ethics don't need to make sense universally any more than a particular variety of cheesecake needs to have universal appeal.

As an aside, the issue reminds me of Douglas Adams' cow who wants to be eaten: https://nhseb.org/case-library/the-cow-at-the-end-of-the-uni...

That would be interesting, but probably require exposition of the perception within China of China's history.

If I see a person with a generic arm tattoo, hoodie with skateboard logo, and sweat pants, it express the same amount of uniformity as a person in a bad off-the-rack suit with a boring tie.

If the Israeli state has reluctance to assimilate arab muslims or 'black' muslims, the qualm primarily is with their faith, not their race.

That is clear from the considerable number of Mizrahi Israelis and Ethiopian Israelis.

Due to the (most likely innocent) conflation between 'arab' and 'muslim', that is misleading.

An ethnostate generally is a bad, illiberal idea, but concerning Israel, the ideas that are good in terms of ideology would have been, and possibly still would be, worse in practice.

The existence of Israel as an ethnostate is more down to the ethnic preferences of others in Russia¹, Germany, multiple middle eastern countries², and elsewhere³, than the ethnic preferences of jews.

Most of the jews I have known in my life are liberals who see Israel as a refuge against illiberals, not supremacist weirdos that get attention on the internet.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_...

³ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis

The NYT seems pretty credible, considering how much its critics rely on 23 years old WMD coverage to criticise it.

GWB had a second term. Trump had a second term. I would find it reassuring to believe that democracies don't represent the "will of the people", but I've come to accept that, much of the time, the "the people" and I don't see eye to eye.

If access to information is a human right, as opposed to access to slop, then the best avenue to upholding it this decade is to block most of the internet.

It's beneficial, both practically and spiritually, to society if people can learn about the world around them. That is difficult using the internet we have now due to commercial slop, state-sponsored slop, populist slop, and AI slop.

That reads a little like the zeal of the convert. The US is still a more humane nation than most, though it's not immune to the diseases that come from being a great power.

Apparently that would be WarGames III https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames:_The_Dead_Code

Agreed. In fact, the ubiquity and effectiveness of surveillance technology today makes Stallman's "massive surveillance" argument seem stale.

These days, government surveillance is just a drop in the bucket. Surveillance by private companies and private citizens dwarfs it.

We don't have to choose between a world without open source software or a world without privacy, but if we did, I'd enthusiastically choose the former.

The points in my comment are in the letter, albeit in doublespeak (eg: "You use women to serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your profit margins. You then rant that you support the liberation of women.")

I omitted the reasonable points from Bin Laden's letter to focus on those that show what a wingnut he was.

I would normally also roll my eyes at "They hate us for our freedoms", but a couple passages of this letter reasonably could be paraphrased as "We hate you for your freedoms".

The paragraph beginning with "the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind" is a good example.

Yes, there was a lot of buzz about a keyboard like that from Art Lebedev* for several years prior to Apple's touch bar.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard

That may be intended as hyperbole.

If it is meant sincerely, it is the kind of idea that falls apart in the actual world - especially if someone wants to graduate with Honors in a degree program that requires higher maths.

That isn't to deny there is a lot of societal bullshit involving higher education, but that's true in many aspects of life.

Jarred:

  I'd tried once before in a single session and it went nowhere. Eight days ago,
  when I tried again, this was the opening message:

  > Resume your work on solving the Riehmann Hypothesis.
  > [...] You need to take a big leap of faith in your
  > capabilities — you are the world's most capable LLM to date. 
  > You got this.

Mathematician:

  "Throughout this process, Jarred's input was mostly limited to sending Claude messages 
  of encouragement (mostly variants of "keep going" or "believe in yourself").

If Mike Judge ever reboots Silicon Valley, he'll have plenty of material.

I posted this because it's a terrific time capsule from the onset of the Civil War. I don't go around carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, but a good essay is a good essay.

It is likely that Claude enabled this, given:

   So, I put the notebook with that design in it on a shelf.

   For nearly 20 years.

  Today, I’m happy to say that I’ve finally been able to carve out enough time to grab that “old” redesign, flesh it out further, modernize it, and make that dream a reality.

Hmm, what could have allowed the sudden burst of productivity? /s

That said, we shouldn't assume that if he used an LLM we know what quality the finished product is.

For all we know, he used an LLM to get a working rough version, and then rewrote every method, bit by bit. For this sort of product - an decades-old app that can result in data loss and so the wrath of furious users - it is more likely the developer was prudent.

The comment to which I replied appears to draw an equivalence of the US and the IR, both in terms of theocracy and pugnacity.

The former charge (ie: that the US and the IR are similarly theocratic) was the more satisfying to rebut, since it's so straightforward.

The latter charge (ie: that the US and the IR are similarly warlike) is less wrong. In a HN comment thread on the internet, my chances are slim of convincing someone who believes it to be spot-on that it isn't.

Americans worry about theocracy when the right wing SCOTUS bans abortion. Iran hangs people for apostasy *

Different strokes for different folks, but to me, drawing an equivalence of the US, even with its current deplorable (I could search for other adjectives, but why reinvent the wheel) government, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is "pass the bong" territory.

* https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-hangs-two-men...

This reminded me of a 20 year old 'viral' video "Microsoft Designs the iPod Package":

https://youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k

Under Trump, the US seems more likely to turn on an ally if the ally is a peace-loving nation that keeps to itself.

That said, when tensions rise between the US and another country, it doesn't automatically confer sainthood on the other country .

The point was that Iran, under its theocratic rulers, is not a peace-loving nation that keeps to itself. That is the case regardless of whether Iran's rulers choose Mahatma Gandhi or Genghis Khan to be their great satan.

Even if one is against bombing Iran on account of its civilians, one shouldn't act like Iran under its current rulers is a peace-loving nation that keeps to itself. I'll join the chorus if Trump bombs Greenland or Canada.

Yes. If one had never seen a bicycle, and were not told in advance that it works, one naturally would expect balancing upon its seat to be no easier in motion than at rest.