I wasn't around for this specific era, but the way users of BlueSky are able to dive deep into technological waters reminds me of how people talk about learning HTML for the first time while using MySpace. Social media is a more saturated market now than before, but I wonder if we'll see a new generation of programmers sprout from BlueSky.
MySpace and old forums walked you up a ladder of abstraction from, I'm adding some text into a box and it shows up on the webpage -> I'm adding some images as well -> I'm adding some BBCode/Markup and now things look really custom -> I'm writing HTML and CSS -> I'm writing complete scripts.
Bluesky does the first step and then it's a great big leap from there imo.
I see a dozen links I suspect are required reading to try out new ideas.
With HTTP/HTML you can show somebody who knows only the most basic Python, or any other PL, how to build a server from scratch in those 14 minutes.
I'm convinced we need hash-addressable communication protocols to redefine the relationship we have with the tech-giants, and stop them exploiting our communities.
I'm not convinced the ATProtocol has hit the mark well enough to kick start a revolution like HTTP did.
I've been eyeing quant dev as a career path for quite some time, but it's always felt like a longshot given my background (non-CS degree).
As someone with frontend experience (Vue.js) at a startup and backend experience (ASP.NET) at a government position, how difficult would it be for me to get my foot in the door?
Not difficult at all. Most quant dev position require you to be decent at coding in either python/JavaScript or C#. If they see you have that capability, you can land an interview at least. They do require coming into office though.
As much as there is a deluge of brainrot, some fairly well-spoken experts do exist on the platform and have disseminated more up-to-date information about their specialty, so I'm inclined to agree.
Case in point - my friends wanted to imbibe a certain white powder with alcohol and I had to let them know that it is magnitudes more toxic to take them together. Did they have a less fun time? Probably. But I won't have their premature deaths on my conscience.
So, now we're comparing a hat dropping one or two stories to overdosing on a combination of drugs and alcohol?
It'd be nice if we could all just chill the hell out and let someone's fun, stupid, kinda pointless project just be someone's fun, stupid, kinda pointless project.
Edit: I don't mind the downvotes, but do feel free to tell me if I'm off base for thinking comparing this project to overdosing is a hell of a stretch.
I was responding with an anecdote to the comment that sometimes it's important to communicate concerns, even if it means being a killjoy. Didn't mean for it to sound like I was trying to equate the AI hat-dropper to potentially overdosing, just a recent occurrence that I was reminded of when I saw the parent comment.
Imagine walking (or in this case, standing around) on a sidewalk just going about your business. Then, imagine something drops on your head, literally out of the blue. In a city littered with scaffolding designed to prevent pedestrians being injured by stuff dropping from buildings. Further, imagine you are easily scared and/or have a weak heart. So, I think it's not a huge stretch to say that, with enough unlucky coincidences, this also might kill someone.
I think it'd almost certainly eventually kill someone with a pacemaker and a weak heart.
(Or maybe cause someone to take a sudden step away from the sidewalk)
(I wonder if the title is a bit clickbait and the hat dropper in fact tries out this new tech only on friends who are prepared already, not random strangers?)
> Here a busy New Yorker can book a 5 minute time slot, pay for a hat, stand in a spot under my window for 3 seconds, have a hat put on their head, and get on with their extremely important, extemely busy day
Ok. And after all, such nice hats are a bit expensive I guess (since they also function as helicopters).
I don't think he was making that comparison. I think this he was more referring to the mentality of "you must be fun at parties" whenever someone speaks up with some concerns about an idea.
Great take, fully agree. My wife falls into a similar camp as the person you're close to, although she did end up eventually getting diagnosed with autism. It was only because the topic had become so casual on platforms like TikTok and Instagram that she even considered the possibility - she was only exposed to autistic people who would register between Level 2 and 3, which completely blinded her to the possibility that she could also be autistic.
I fully sympathize with people who worry about this delegitimizing their condition, but I am at the same time endlessly grateful that it allowed my wife some peace and closure in better understanding herself.
I know I'm preaching to the choir at HN, but I really wish there were more "dumb" EVs. Robert Downey Jr. recently hosted a giveaway for his vintage retrofitted electric cars (to clarify, he takes vintage cars and retrofits their engine to make them EVs), and I honestly wish I could just buy one outright.
I love my Chevy Bolt EUV. Normal door handles inside and out. Manual open/close trunk. Normal window controls. Normal infotainment unit with carplay/AA. Buttons and knobs for volume, HVAC, and hazard lights. Normal stick controls for turn signals and wipers.
It’s a great, simple EV and my only knock against it is the slow max charging speed making it not ideal for multiple stop road trips.
I have a 2017 Bolt EV, and I feel similarly. GM accidentally made an ideal EV for a reasonable price, and now they are correcting course by ruining future models.
Note that carplay/AA is already killed for the next model year of the bolt (2026) and you can probably also expect regressions in the number of physical interfaces from the first gen you own.
I'm a huge Tesla fan, but the Bolt is amazing. I love renting them. I wish they could charge faster than 50kW; that would make them useful for road trips.
I feel the same way about e-bikes: expensive, proprietary parts and form factors everywhere. Oh, your battery is worn out? You need one that's custom molded to your downtube? That's too bad.
I think that at least some of this comes about because it's still relatively early days for the form-factor. As the industry matures, as it becomes more cutthroat everything will become more comodified and therefore standardised.
Look at some of the cars of (say) the late-19thC where not even the steering wheel was standard. So, while e-bikes are probably not quite that early stage right now, they've not advanced terribly far from the plain vanilla bicycle yet.
There are thousands of e-bike manufacturers. Many use the so-called "dolphin" battery pack which is fairly standard and always removable. The dolphin doesn't look as sleek as an in-frame battery but it's replaceable and it will usually provide longer range.
I've been expecting a ebike that could take the tool eco-system batteries: DeWalt 60v, Eco 58v, Milwaukee 18v. Probably would need to dock several of them with the exception of the Eco.
Unless you find out it's potted, the BMS needs to be reprogrammed and there's a custom mesh or holder that doesn't work with some standard cells because of tolerances...
Companies that specialise in this do exist, the one I'm most aware of is Electric Classic Cars in the UK (https://www.electricclassiccars.co.uk), who started/specialise in rear-engine VWs, original Minis, and original Land Rover Defenders.
Obviously very tailored for a nostalgic UK market, but if there's not equivalent companies in the US and elsewhere I'd be surprised!
Retrofits for cars are around $50000 to make them barely street legal. You are looking at double the price for that retrofit and you might not get the range. You also have to buy a car (some retrofits on YouTube get around this by buying broken cars and restoring them) buying a broken car could be done if you don't have to do much work or if the engine is broken already.
More realistically, a car manufacturer could make an EV that is basically a vintage car but made to modern standards. Obviously you can’t make the exact same car if you want to have things like crumple zones, but a lot of the changes to car designs have been for fuel efficiency and that’s not as important in an EV. And things like huge internal displays or automatic doors are just preference.
The changes to ICE vehicle designs for fuel efficiency are needed even more and are made more drastic for EVs. EV designs have painful, often ugly, aerodynamic considerations that have to be made. They go so far as to let aerodynamics completely dictate wheel design.
Your 1967 Pontiac GTO sitting on Kragers isnt going to go very far on batteries.
Yeah, but due to range and slow charging vs. refilling, electric cars are mostly used for city/commuting, where speed isn't that high to make a difference in aerodynamics.
You don't need to retrofit, you can just build a reasonably-featured car to begin with. I imagine most people just want a corolla with a battery (or cheaper).
Trouble with my ('95) Corolla is that it's the body that's showing its age. (Rust, and not the good kind.) The ICE is just fine and probably good for another 1/2-million km, but the whole thing has got to go soon.
"Let it rust"? If you live near the sea, cars rust and there's not a lot you can do about it. You can attend to visible rust timeously, but there are plenty of hollow spaces where it can fester for years, all unnoticable, before it pops out through the paintwork.
There’s a quickly growing ev conversion industry. Lots of shops that will take your vintage ride and convert it. the amount of wrecked evs showing up in wrecking yards is resulting in a new era of hotrodding. check out www.openinverter.com
I'm in agreement with this, provided that the same level of scrutiny is applied when assessing the circumstances that led to a misstep in judgment/sentencing.
That man may not have the respect of any academic community but damn it if he isn't entertaining to watch.
On a more on-topic note, our growing understanding of animal intelligence has definitely made it harder for me to justify eating certain kinds of meat. My day-to-day is a bit too stressful to make the switch entirely to vegetarianism, but once my financial and personal situations have settled I'm looking forward to a less guilty lived experience. (This is of course not to say that you should feel guilty for eating meat - just my personal take)
As a person who made the switch after realizing how intelligent these animals are, I can honestly say that it's worth it if you do decide to. However, I also understand why you would continue to eat meat. It was probably one of the harder things I've done in my life.
If you're interested in creative writing or reading critically, I highly recommend the Writing Excuses podcast [0]. The podcast was started by Brandon Sanderson (he wrote the Mistborn series as well as The Stormlight Archive), Howard Tayler (he made the webcomic Schlock Mercenary), and Dan Wells (he wrote I Am Not a Serial Killer). The episodes are on the short side (15 minutes), but I find that it strikes a nice balance between feeding you information and giving you something to ruminate over.
There are 5 hosts in the current season (I am admittedly a bit bummed that Sanderson isn't participating right now as a main host), with a comprehensive range of perspectives across media. For example, DongWon Song[1] is a literary agent and former editor, while Mary Robinette [2] is a puppeteer, short story writer, and a voice actress.
As a little bonus (with longer-form content), Brandon Sanderson has a series of recorded lectures from his 2020 college creative writing course [3]. He does a nice deep-dive into the minutiae of constructing a story from start to finish, with additional considerations for publishing near the end. I have to admit I'm a little biased as I'm trying to write more in my free time, but the lectures offer a lot even for those who don't write or plan to write. Just getting a closer look inside the mind of an author has greatly impacted the way I read and scrutinize books.
