untangle

Apple fell behind in voice on Jobs' watch and prior to the Siri acquisition. In fact, it's probably more accurate to say that Apple was behind on iOS progress and facing a ho-hum 4s launch. Hence, the quick 8-figure Siri buy and hurried integration that put them behind the 8-ball on voice ever since.

The broader context is that Apple doesn't seem to get: "It's the 'AI,' stupid!"

As an aside (OT), it's interesting the way Mashable essentially republished paywall-protected content. If there was new reporting there, I missed it. But that's the nature of modern media.

You might find Min to your liking.

https://minbrowser.github.io/min/

I advise new team members to begin their tenure by improving one or two key existing processes. Ideally, make life easier for a couple teammates. Right an age-old wrong within the system.

This provides an efficient way to learn the team, garner respect, and create a platform to do bigger things down the line.

I have seen far more accomplishment using this formula than the blunderbuss "we have to make changes now" approach.

> I built a platform where I ask myself deep questions https://www.deepthoughtapp.com

Nicely done.

For my reflections of life, I favor "what have you done?" and "what are you willing to do?" questions over "what do you think/believe?"

> Reminds me very much of what Eckhart Tolle says. “You are not your personal history. You are not your story.”

If not that, then what? Your aspirations? Your beliefs? Your intentions?

> Google is no more evil now than it was in the past.

Maybe not, but its capacity to do evil has changed dramatically. Size matters. Absolute power - in citizen data and web advertising - corrupts absolutely.

> ...it might as well not exist, because the only remaining thing that would distinguish it from other desktop OSes is iCloud integration.

This is truly scary when one of your weakest products (features) is supposedly your main differentiator.

I do not have a problem with LastPass on input fields (including this one), nor do I recall one. Perhaps a setting was amiss or it was a platform-dependent issue. Grammarly, OTOH...

The author leaves the punchline a little vague, possibly in deference to a16z portfolio interests. My rendition is this.

Value capture for any tech almost requires owning the customer relationship. Customers (non-enterprise anyway) buy must-have solutions, not fancy bolt-ons. Ergo, inventors must sometimes build the mundane parts of an app/platform in order to fully cash in on the fancy new parts.

This need goes against founder/inventor philosophies. It's wasteful and boring. That's what makes it so hard. It's also more difficult to fund building the broad solution.

I think that many of today's AI companies are going to come up against this dilemma soon. Can a tool that analyzes CRM data make as much money as one that handles the whole problem?

(Think of how many times CRM tools have been reincarnated in the last 30 years. Building yet another is not that crazy.)

If the company is venture funded, growth is the imperative. VCs aren't looking for margins, they are looking for massive growth that leads to big multiples. Hence the imperative to lean into the wind.

When I obscure the true image on the left side, it's very hard to predict the truth from the computer/brain imaging on the right. With one exception: the tech does a mighty fine job with geometric shapes.

(I wonder how it would do with playing cards.)

Oddly, with non-geometric images, I see a lot of faces (especially dog faces). Is the brain prioritising facial recognition? Is the subject a dog lover? Do the two recurring dark spots represent the eyes' blind spots?

I dunno, but I find these demos remarkable.

I applaud efforts to improve corporate governance and rationalize public market function. But I believe that this initiative to "...realign investors and companies around long-term value creation (LTVC)..." is a suboptimal approach.

First, who in the game really favors LTVC? As a generalization, I would say passive investors and/or those seeking income. For these parties, guaranteed dividends might be a more effective alignment tool than titration of voting power. The dividends would also provide more incentive for them to invest.

Second, the folks who actually run the companies – CEOs and Boards – often favor the current setup. Short term metrics mean near term personal wealth. In a world where CEO tenure can be measured in quarters, why wouldn't I want to take money off the table ASAP? And lots of it. I would offer that greed (big bonuses) overcomes fear (shareholder votes) for these players. Thus, the more powerful lever is to reduce (alter) the incentives, not dilute the fear.

So perhaps a market that limits both retained earnings and executive compensation would seem a better mechanism for alignment around LTVC.

The "buy once update forever" business model of the Mac App Store is the real financial burden, not the ~30% tariff. Dev houses need some residual income, esp in the relatively small Mac market.

I like the way the author used a Chrome extension, Python, and some ingenuity to accelerate his learning. I'm going to apply this method to another domain.

The article that you linked was well-thought and well-written. I liked the more bottom-up approach to the issues and that Mr Sarris at least offered kernels of alternatives.

Ignoring for a moment that the decision-making ability of the US legislature is all but broken, I worry that the sheer complexity of the issues surrounding UBI would make adoption – or even learned consideration – impossible.

And, as you and Sarris mention, the relationship between UBI and healthcare and housing (rents) is a whole other can of complexity.

> Take a search for "Las Vegas shooting". What is the impartial process for deciding the most relevant result for that? Relevance is inherently editorial.

In that case, the search should be done on the NYT site (or similar).

Or perhaps Google should add a "Use Edited Sites only" preference as a category of SafeSearch.

Try http://searchhn.com/

This comes close to your specs.

Huh, so FedEx and Uber are aligned in labor policies, at least in a macro sense. Both achieve cost benefits, and the two face many of the same legal risks around job classification (and potential exploitation and tax evasion).

In theory, both are therefore one major legal decision away from a very bad set of financials. In practice, hoards of lawyers and lobbyists undoubtedly man the wall (and keep winter at bay).

Perhaps the new OS prototypes could be built on top of a hypervisor. Yes, it's a layer. But building hypervisor-up would be a nice jump-start.

> Gmail is blazingly fast

I would say that gmail performance is well above adequate – especially in search. But try Fastmail if you want to see blazing.

> "It's important that what we did today not set a precedent," Prince added. "The right answer is for us to be consistently content neutral."

Huh? What changed then – why even do it? Cloudflare's action today could set a dangerous precedent. Prince now seems to be arguing for a committee of some sort to arbitrate who gets taken down. To me, that's not much better.

IMO the internet should be free. Let filtering be conducted at the edge and driven by users.

> Some people embrace moral absolutism in a desperate effort to find solid ground. They feel a rare and comforting sense of moral certainty when they are purging an evil person who has violated one of their sacred taboos.

I find this observation on-point and profound.

I expect this level of moral reasoning in my teenager. But I was shocked at its embrace by much of Google. It seems unlikely to me that CEO Pichai would be caught up directly in this stream of moral certitude and virtue signaling. Far more likely that influencers carried the torch.

But while I disagree with Pichai's decision, I think that firing him would be an inappropriate remedy that would represent a form of counter-extremism. I do suggest that Pichai surround himself with more able counsel (and not just legal). And that this episode be discussed at the Board level within the context of Google's culture.

The singular focus on "drug deaths due to overdose" tells an important part of the story, but not the whole story. For example, per Wikipedia, drug use may have doubled after decriminalization.* If so, that's an acceptable tradeoff to me but may not be to others.

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

So shocking it's funny – in the same vein that "American Psycho" was funny. The next step for ICO's will surely be a reality-TV show.

The military is another largely "zero-sum" activity. If all militaries were disbanded immediately, no change in economic value would occur. In fact, the economic value of "winning a war" is questionable, let alone losing one. I'd extend this argument to the "war on drugs" as well. And the "war on terror" (as currently fought).

I'm impressed. I would certainly have loved this when I was a practicing "data miner" (I'm old-ish). Anything that allowed me to better understand my data and models was welcome. I used DataDesk (https://datadesk.com) back then.

This tool should be useful to classic statistical modeling as well as DL.

Given how easy it is to point-click-slide complex data transforms into existence, there's also a danger of mucking things up and creating overfits and so on. But that's a minor consideration given the rather obvious benefits.

Cap table economics are an equally-important reason to fear angel investing. Unless the company is very successful, angels tend to get diluted-out of the money by VC rounds. In the baseball vernacular, angel investors must pick triples and homeruns to make money. Singles and outs will result in total loss. Doubles may break even. It's a tough way to get ahead. Impossible without some insider edge (YC, pundits, stars, etc.).

Mikrotik hEX RB750Gr3 5-port Gigabit Router feeding an AmpliFi Mesh Wi-Fi System (router plus two meshpoints). Performance, configurability, and reliability have been excellent. ~$350 total cost.

I'll let others address keyboard heights and such, but here are some body-centric things that helped me:

1. If you are overweight, fix that first. 2. Do yoga 3-4 times per week. 20-min sessions are OK. Even sun salutations will help a lot. 3. Work on strengthening your posterior chain. I don't mean lifting heavy, just getting tone and activation. 4. Learn what it feels like to have good (better) posture. Work with someone (pro or not) to pose you and work with you. Or just use a mirror. 5. EASIEST: Learn simple tricks like rotating your wrists outward (thumbs forward) when standing or walking. And get your eyes up near the horizon, etc.

IME, these things can make your posture visibly better. But habit and genetics are tough to overcome. As in most things, expect modest early success but steel yourself for the long haul.

There are very similar products on AMZ (USA) for $15-$30 USD.