futune's comments

On: Where does next-token prediction leave us?

[futune]

The first person videos of drones hunting terrified soldiers coming out of Ukraine seem relevant. Apparently the last moments of the hunt are pretty much automated now, which increased the kill-rate considerably.

On: Motorola phones have started hijacking the Amazon app to insert affiliate codes

[futune]

I had the same reaction.

On: Motorola phones have started hijacking the Amazon app to insert affiliate codes

[futune]

I was thinking the same. But it worries me that these news about Motorola in particular doing shady shit. I was looking forward to the upcoming GrapheneOS/Motorola partnership :(

[cyberclimb → futune]

How about the FairPhone running /e/os (which is de-googled)? You can buy it preinstalled directly from Murena.

Although this is not at your target price point. But /e/os can be used on hundreds of android phones (as opposed to GrapheneOS). So you can probably install it on your current phone

https://doc.e.foundation/devices

[VortexLain → cyberclimb]

Having no GMS implementation at all or using microG introduces compatibility issues for a lot of proprietary software. GrapheneOS is the only ROM which supports running GMS in an isolated manner, without giving it direct access to privileged system APIs such as geolocation (which is sent to Google just because they can).

[y0eswddl → futune]

graphene will still be a separate OS outside of Motorola's control.

GrapheneOS team is helping Motorola build secure phones to spec. but Motorola won't have some special bloated flavor of GrapheneOS installed

On: Why Do We Sleep Under Blankets, Even on the Hottest Nights? (2017)

[futune]

This is a fascinating topic which was covered in-depth here: https://acoup.blog/2021/03/05/collections-clothing-how-did-t...

If I remember correctly, it claim is that about 50% of all labour over the course of history has gone into making textiles. More than food!

On: Apparently Google hates us now

[futune]

Having a stupid name is tables stakes in the search space.

On: Saying goodbye to asm.js

[futune]

So the death of asm.js is upon us? We are drifting away from the timeline of the prophecy:

https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death...

(And to those who haven't encountered this before, I strongly recommend a watch. It may be the greatest tech talk of all time, for certain values of greatest.)

[muvlon → futune]

With this technology's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created.

[tadfisher → muvlon]

Yagrum Bagarn has something for you.

[mikece → muvlon]

Not really: ASM.js became WASM. What killed the possibility of WASM being The One Way to run everything is AI... the one wildcard that Gard Bernhardt didn't predict.

[DarkUranium → mikece]

To be honest, with how bad a target WASM is for any existing compiler, I feel like what killed that possibility was WASM itself.

Its IR design is horrendeous.

[nextaccountic → DarkUranium]

Can you talk more? I've seen people say only good things about wasm

[avadodin → nextaccountic]

Not op, but I only know it as the 32-bit single-threaded binary replacement for JavaScript that can't interact with anything naturally yet people get all excited about when they manage to turn their LLVM slop output into it.

Maybe we've been reading different HN submissions.

[nextaccountic → avadodin]

That was only the MVP.

Wasm nowadays is 64 bits (except for Safari, the IE6 of our time) and has threads.

True about the wasm inability to call JS APIs with no overhead. This sucks

[mikece → futune]

I re-watch that presentation two or three times a year because it's a great example of how to give a presentation, how to structure your slide deck to complement your presentation, and a surprisingly educational tour of the permission rings architecture of operating systems.

And at some point we're going to have a period or war and our psychological attachments to old programming paradigms will be released so that we can move on to a more advanced way of doing things (but that won't stop your bank from running YavaScript for at least another 85 years).

[phoe-krk → futune]

Just substitute asm.js with WASM and you're still on the right track.

[bvisness → futune]

Don't worry, YavaScript will live forever.

[egeozcan → bvisness]

In Germany, it's still not uncommon to hear Yava and YavaScript.

[bonesss → egeozcan]

I understand that Jawohl is still quite popular there, but JawohlScript adoption is sadly lagging.

[dagurp → egeozcan]

It's the only pronunciation you'll hear in Iceland

[mikece → bvisness]

I still refer to it as YavaScript much to the confusion of junior devs. I just tell the new kids: "you had to be there..."

[ksec → futune]

If we substituted war with COVID we aren't that far off as both happened in 2020. We still have to wait till 2035 to see if true.

On: Iran starts Bitcoin-backed ship insurance for Hormuz strait

[futune]

If you phrase it as an "insurance scheme", then sure they can? All insurance schemes work by giving you money if bad stuff you don't control happens. I'm sure they could.

They probably won't.

On: Microsoft surprises with its first server Linux distribution: Azure Linux 4.0

[futune]

I remember a reading a similar prediction from several years ago, too, with more or less the same reasons. If I'm able to dig it up, I'll post a link.

It does make complete sense, doesn't it?...

[doubled112 → futune]

There were a bunch of jokes about Windows being the most popular Linux desktop environment when WSL was released too.

On: Make zip files smaller with zip shrinker

[futune]

I use ect on a monthly basis, at least. Especially for png files. It's pretty great!

[zamadatix → futune]

Yeah, for how well it does with PNGs it really doesn't get nearly as much attention as the other tools for the same do.

On: Someone Shared a Real Monet Painting as AI and Asked for Critiques

[futune]

Are the comments real?

I guess this is kind of the recursive version of the purported phenomenon, but, are we sure all those comments aren't just bot generated outrage so people can have big engagement by feeling superiour or whatever?

[SilasX → futune]

Yeah I'm hesitant to take a strong opinion on this given how many of the replies could themselves be AI, or humans counter-trolling by baiting him to say "aha! I got you!" to the most over-the-top examples.

That said, it has definitely pulled some real humans out of the woodwork to give their real opinion that "yes, I'm influenced/duped by context and that's a good thing". And that's an accomplishment.