All these tech "influencers" and CEOs have such laughable opinions on AGI. First, they cannot really seem to give a formal definition of AGI (are we talking about some network that can problem solving in n > 2 problems or defining and creating consciousness)? Second, it's clear many of these people are just bandwagoning onto the hype. They started with crypto, then maybe some VR, and now are moving to AI/AGI coat-tailing on the accomplishments of OpenAI and DeepMind. What exactly about AGI do they find compelling or find feasible? Are they asserting that a deep learning networks of 2 separate problem spaces can be combined in an elegant manner? It's all just spew that looks like some article that can be posted on Vixra.
These tech "influencers" and "big CEOs" know no shame in their constant attention seeking. I guess to be fair, many people on HN or other platforms talk about AGI and other popular things, but the statements and arguments generally are a lot more specific or nuanced, relative to these quackery beliefs from "influencers" who are clearly attempting to gather a digital "I am smart" badge. Just lol.
That sounds like it's more a problem with your country's ongoing deinternationalization than EVGA being bad. Would you expect a company to open a Russia-based repair center right now?
When a country is deliberately harming its international trade ability, it's not on companies for not playing ball—it's on the country not to pull the ground out from under its citizens and companies doing commerce there.
EVGA did nothing wrong. Your country changed the deal, EVGA chose to not humor it.
Almost all activity online has shifted away from the Social Graph to a Content Graph. Almost nobody wants to see what their friends are doing online anymore. In a lot of ways it can be cringey. People just want the latest, catchiest content. TikTok and Youtube are the OGs here, but it's everywhere when you start to look. Twitter timeline changes being an awkward but working example. Discovery > Static friends list.
The entire premise FB was founded on is eroding. This isn't just Apple privacy and some regulatory strangulation. It's seismic to the business. The reason most people are still going to Facebook is incompatible with their primary activities online which is: consuming content from people-you-don't-know.
Facebook is where you find out your highschool friend is super in to a MLM, your uncle has drastic political views you don't share, and that your historical social class and network is largely irrelevant to your life a decade later.
They are doing everything they can to try to move in this direction, but the more they push it the less useful Facebook is for the average user. Instagram's discovery page is a prime example. But Reels are less good than TikTok, and whatever they are doing for short form video in Facebook is surely a hopeless game of catch up. This is classical innovator's dilemma.
The very idea that Zuckerberg straight up said they need to copy the competition harder is incomprehensible considering the resources they have.
They are going to try to do a few things. One is to anti-trust Apple (in the media at least), and the other is to hand wave (Metaverse).
The reason the Metaverse was such a non sequitur is that it is so clearly a last minute thrust coming out of the C-Suite. If you've ever worked at a highly visible tech pubco, you've seen this happen before. Weak quarters mean that product announcements get pushed up. When it is as all encompassing as the Metaverse announcement, you know something is up.
> An engineer that has been at a largish company for 1 year is worth 20-30% more than the year they were hired because they have specific knowledge of the tech stack. Yet that engineer will likely be offered a 3-5% raise.
Although I agree with your overall point, I disagree with this line of reasoning. I think the pay offered to an engineer already takes into account that they will understand the tech stack after six months to a year. The situation is essentially the reverse of what you said: they're being overpaid initially compared to their productivity (but, quite rightly, that's the company's problem). Then their productivity catches up with their salary.
But I agree with your point in the years after that.
Sadly, my internet degree in armchair economics doesn't give me the ability to come up with a functioning tax system (however much I think I can beat the status quo) so I have no further pearls of wisdom.
>I'm not so sure. The illusion of action could be worse than indifference.
absolutely right. the concept of 'squatting' on an idea so that it remains untouched in the market is an obvious strategy and likely used by many large groups.
Starting a company is a crucible in every sense, brutal but transformative. For some people, they come out the other side a better person in almost every sense, with a much stronger identity and mental fortitude. For other people, and I might argue most people, it is destructive in a very real way and I know of many examples. People who haven’t done it truly underestimate the level of pressure across many aspects of life that entrepreneurship entails, even if you are vaguely successful. It isn’t to be envied per se, though I’ve done it multiple times and would place myself in the former category.
It is a calling. I don’t recommend it for almost anyone but some people are compelled to do it. There is little to recommend that lifestyle. Society won’t reward it one whit unless you are spectacularly successful.
But… There is much to be said for the opportunity to take that risk nonetheless. You can’t do that everywhere.
Most people need at least one thing in their life to put their name on which acts like an external incarnation of their self-worth. I feel this way about my side-projects. Luckily those can't "die", though they can be threatened by eg an excessive employment contract.
Other humans acknowledging your existence and even agreeing with your various opinions is a very very euphoric experience, it is true of any social media. Suddenly you have hundreds or even thousands of people that "get" you, that understand how great and clever you are. This is the drug that people can't quit.
People won't quit because they'd be unable to tell people that they've quit.
Another take could be that we are just all very lonely and that when you stop using social media you are left with emptiness that is harder to fill with real connections with friends especially during covid.
I have been off Facebook for years. I was forced to rejoin because our head of marketing departed and I had to take over our company page. OH MY F*** GOD. I could not believe the mess of user engagement triggers and dark patterns that confronted me. (I'm an ops guy, a dev and a successful entrepreneur, currently a high growth CEO) I was literally nauseated. I've actually postponed the job just to avoid the damn thing.
As someone who left for a long time and looked at it with a fresh set of non-desensitized eyes, I can tell you with absolute certainty that FB is bad for your mental health.
I think the trouble with social is that it's really hard to tell people what they don't want to hear. Anyone who lived through the 80s knows how pissed a smoker would get when you'd tell them they're killing themselves. You felt like an asshole. Same with Facebook, Insta, Twitter, etc. Tell someone who's into it (most of us) they're self harming, and it doesn't exactly improve your relationship with them.
But I think the ship has sailed. These are companies making north of 100 Billion per year (in FB's case) with massive lobbying cannons, who are now entrenched and ingrained in our culture and day to day life. It may sound overly dramatic, but I think the truth is that, this sucks for the species boys and girls.
[Sorry, had to add the boys and girls. Little Starship Troopers hat tip]
I have not heard this speaker, but like many portable speakers, the design is distinctly suboptimal even by portable standards. In a portable device, stereo is actually not desirable. Two reasons.
One, you will certainly not experience the intended effect of stereo (the illusion of spatial separation) when the drivers are so close together.
Two, the drivers will actually interfere with each other. Not only are you not getting the effect of stereo, it's making things worse. The phenomenon is comb filtering:
You can visualize the effect by imagining two stones, dropped into a swimming pool, a short distance apart. As the ripples spread outward, they will cancel each other at some points and reinforce each other at other points. These areas of reinforcement and cancellation alternate, and that is essentially what happens (in three dimensions) with the sound emanating from two drivers playing the same sounds in close proximity.
(The actual detriment will depend on how the recording is mixed. If the recording has no stereo separation for a particular sound or instrument, the effect will be worst. If a particular sound is hard-panned 100% left or 100% right, there will be no detrimental effect)
If anybody is interested, for the price of this device ($999) you can get a heck of a home stereo. Wirecutter has excellent recommendations for affordable bookshelf speakers, receivers, etc.
Obviously they don't "speak" either. Both "think" and "speak" are used as shorthands here for what the language models actually do.