I’m writing this comment so that people who want to know more about alternative theories of consciousness (to materialism/physicalism [1]) can know where to go to find well-argued positions on the topic.
(To be clear, I’m not here to argue about the topic or try to persuade anyone of any position – that’s a waste of everyone’s time).
I recommend seeking out discussions involving:
- Federico Faggin: inventor of silicon-gate technology and developer of the earliest microprocessors;
- Bernardo Kastrup: Ph.D. in computer engineering (reconfigurable computing, artificial intelligence), former CERN engineer at the LHC;
- Donald D. Hoffman: Ph.D. in computational psychology, professor in Cognitive Sciences at UC Irvine.
On YouTube you can find plenty of discussions involving these figures, some with each other, and plenty more with others.
I’d suggest it’s particularly important to explore these discussions as dispassionately as possible if you regard materialism as the only theory of mind that has any scientific credibility or validity.
As Christopher Hitchens reminds us in his legendary oration on John Stuart Mill and free speech [2], it’s only by thoroughly understanding the opposing view that we can thoroughly understand our own position on any topic.
The US anti-car narrative often refers to the Netherlands as some kind of beacon of proper public infrastructure, whilst not knowing a damn thing about it.
First, let's establish that the Netherlands is a car country. We have 11 million cars on a population of 17 million. On a typical day, 1 million people use public transport. Cars are the norm, not trains or bicycles.
Public transport is rarely faster, not even in the most idyllic example that you give where you go from big city to big city. The thing you conveniently forget to consider is that nobody lives near the station of city A and then also works very closely to the station of city B. It almost always includes additional travel towards A and from B. Cycling, trams, buses, multiple stops in both directions. It adds up.
To illustrate how absurdly slow public transport can be, a personal example. I used to live directly behind a train station in a mid-sized city. Doesn't get much better than that, right?
Let's explore the commute to work, some 60km away...
I have to get up early and be there some 10 mins before departure to secure somewhat of a reasonable spot. Next, I'm on route to the first big city station. This route is slow, it stops 5 times along the way as everybody needs to connect to a big hub to get where they need to be.
I arrive at the hub, where there's a 20 minute connection wait to take the train to the big city destination. This route is longer but fast, no stops along the way.
I get out and have a 10 minute connection wait for the bus to take me to the place closest to work, after which there's a 5-10 minute work.
Total commute time: 2.5 hours single way. To move 60km. And that's living behind a train station and working at one of the countries' largest employers.
What works really well in the Netherlands is living within a cycling radius from work, every other option sucks.
I use a Mokose 4k USB webcam with a 5-50mm zoom lens that cost under $100 for the set.
I experimented with a huge variety of mounting options before settling on a SmallRig adjustable arm clamped to the top of my monitor mount, so it peeks over the top of my monitor, basically where a built-in webcam would be.
To me it’s the best compromise between control, quality, and price. Having physical control of zoom, focus, and exposure is amazing. Meetings start up instantly, no software to mess with.
To be fair I spent another $150ish trying various mounting options, but those are shared between the camera, mic (Rode NT-USB), and lighting. Eventually I gave up on the camera light and fixed my room lighting. A more frugal person could get a similar setup for $250 all in.
Your advice is good, and I agree that you didn't use specialized software to reverse the blur, but this
> I didn't use any specialized software; it was just Mathematica with its built-in ImageDeconvolve function with guessed parameters for the Gaussian kernel.
is one of the most HN comments I've come across recently :)
1. For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.
2. It doesn't actually replace a USB drive. Most people I know e-mail files to themselves or host them somewhere online to be able to perform presentations, but they still carry a USB drive in case there are connectivity problems. This does not solve the connectivity issue.
3. It does not seem very "viral" or income-generating. I know this is premature at this point, but without charging users for the service, is it reasonable to expect to make money off of this?
(To be clear, I’m not here to argue about the topic or try to persuade anyone of any position – that’s a waste of everyone’s time).
I recommend seeking out discussions involving:
- Federico Faggin: inventor of silicon-gate technology and developer of the earliest microprocessors;
- Bernardo Kastrup: Ph.D. in computer engineering (reconfigurable computing, artificial intelligence), former CERN engineer at the LHC;
- Donald D. Hoffman: Ph.D. in computational psychology, professor in Cognitive Sciences at UC Irvine.
On YouTube you can find plenty of discussions involving these figures, some with each other, and plenty more with others.
I’d suggest it’s particularly important to explore these discussions as dispassionately as possible if you regard materialism as the only theory of mind that has any scientific credibility or validity.
As Christopher Hitchens reminds us in his legendary oration on John Stuart Mill and free speech [2], it’s only by thoroughly understanding the opposing view that we can thoroughly understand our own position on any topic.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism
[2] https://youtu.be/zDap-K6GmL0?t=120