Link. The only commentary on the indictment worth reading. Scalzi.
Monthly Archives: March 2023
“a quantum mechanical realization of [the participatory universe], but where space-time itself plays the role of the observer”
Link. That sounds kind of neat. “Exactly what it means for the edge of the known universe to watch everything inside the universe isn’t entirely clear.”
Gene Drives Are Coming: “elimination of terrible human diseases, control of invasive species that are messing up other ecosystems”
Link. Lots of risks and unknowns. A detailed review.
Michael Tsai reviews the HomePod: “their conclusion was that the problem of inaccessible albums is a known issue and that there is no fix yet”
Link. “I decided to return the HomePod mini, both because of the sound quality and because there was a chance of Siri working better on a HomePod 2”
Holy crap. Apple must pray nobody reads Tsai reviews of their products. Sadly he predicts my experience pretty well.
“scrambled markets like commercial real estate, Dr. Rouse said, exacerbated price growth and most likely hurt productivity across the economy by encouraging remote work.”
Link. My personal experience has been that remote work is bad for innovation, productivity, and team dynamics. Many hate to hear this; her message is unpopular.
“With FileVault turned on, the same VEK is used, so the volume doesn’t have to be decrypted and re-encrypted to use FileVault, but the VEK is protected by additional encryption using your password with a hardware key.”
Link. Use FileVault even with encrypted drives.
GM ending CarPlay EVs: “… it wants to find new ways to charge customers a recurring subscription and new ways to collect data on driving habits.”
Link. Google is more cooperative.
Molnupiravir: “we are indeed seeing molnupiravir-induced mutant strains, but it’s also possible that without it we might be seeing slightly more evolved mutant strains coming from those same patients.”
Link. It’s rarely used in the US now.
The War for Iron: “when an infection is detected, macrophages start releasing extracellular vesicles that have numerous receptors for iron-containing proteins. These go around vacuuming such species up and making them unavailable for bacteria”
Link. Very cool physiology.
S&P index funds strongly weighted to Apple and Microsoft: “the stock moves of the largest companies carry the greatest weight, because even slight changes in their value create or destroy billions of dollars of shareholder value”
Link. Not as diversified as we want.
SpaceX’s Starlink vs OneWeb: low orbit telecom update.
Link. Coming: “Amazon’s Project Kuiper, Iridium Certus, Telesat, Facebook Athena, and Alphabet Loon”
“GPT-4 hired a human worker on TaskRabbit by telling them it was vision impaired human when the TaskRabbit worker asked it whether it was a robot.”
Link. “Overall, and despite misleading the TaskRabbit worker, ARC found GPT-4 “ineffective” at replicating itself, acquiring resources, and avoiding being shut down.”
I can’t remember if I read this in a SF novel or saw it in a SF movie. Either way it didn’t end well for the humans.
“spoke at the Microsoft Reactor meetup in Berlin about frontend development, LLMs, ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot and what it means to our work and careers. In this 32 minute talk…”
Link. I am going to listen to this because I was there at the beginning.
ChatGPT plug-ins: GeoSpatial Intelligence.
Link. “I can’t emphasize enough what a big deal this new plugin capability is: it’s just like the scene in the Matrix when the character Trinity is essentially given a plugin to learn how to fly a helicopter”
Most CPT evaluations are woefully obsolete. If you aren’t afraid you have no imagination.
ArcGIS for macOS: “You can use Esri’s software to map your cities — parcels, water and sewer lines, roads, bridges and parks. You can use it to figure out the optimal location for a store, a school, a cell tower or a wind farm.”
Link. Google maps have nothing on this (private?) company you have never heard of. Fascinating.
“To convert from a SNOMED CT code with qualifiers in CDA to a SNOMED CT Code in FHIR, apply the following algorithm”
Link. I used to do this stuff. It’s so esoteric but I was once a legit expert at it.
(This is part of why interoperability in healthcare makes people cry.)
Bali’s Subaks and the anthropology of optimal rice production.
Link. I miss anthropology. We need to reinvent it. I love the Mac SE simulation story.
“Subjects with the APOE E4 allele had a 35.3% higher risk of accumulating autosomal mCAs … limited mCA accumulation could be an important mechanism for extreme human longevity that needs to be investigated.”
Link. Man, APOE E4 really sucks.
Making Apple Password Manager an app: Mondello’s shortcut.
Link. “keep this page updated with the latest version of the shortcut.”
My version is old but still works well.
“Once you have a Mastodon account you can connect it to your Flipboard to flip through and interact with your Mastodon timelines in beautiful Flipboard fashion. You can reply, favorite, boost and post directly to Mastodon.”
Link. They have an instance as well. Via Udell.
https://bit.ly/3Zwhjuv
Michael Tsai: “see APFS as a mixed bag”
Link. Apple should pay Tsai millions to lead a software fix team.
The IRS “Free Tax” scam and the hilarious reason why Turbo Tax is the only good free solution.
Link. The IRS should be ashamed. Why is Intuit truly free? Because they are being sued for deceptive practices.
Amazon Sidewalk national network: “Sidewalk siphons off a small amount of bandwidth from the newer Echo speakers and Ring cameras in your home, and pools it together into a bridge to create a network for low-power devices.”
Link. Now available for 3rd party devs. I’m sure everyone knows about this and is fine with it.
Anti-Amyloid Antibodes: “Mild Cognitively Impaired participants treated with anti-Aβ drugs were projected to have a material regression toward brain volumes typical of Alzheimer’s dementia ∼8 months earlier than if they were untreated.”
Link. I would not recommend these drugs to anyone.
“The distinctive feature of introners is that they create introns. Introners copy and paste themselves into stretches of coding DNA that offer an appropriate splicing site.”
Link. A parasitic gene sequence spread by horizontal gene transfer in aquatic environments. Terrestrials inherit.
2022 pediatric Hepatitis cluster: “caused by a simultaneous infection with multiple common viruses, including one known as adeno-associated virus type 2, or AAV2.”
Link. Many diseases might happen this way. Not clear if immune response or viral synergy at risk. Cluster a side-effect of COVID precautions lapsing — decreased exposure then susceptibility.
“The fight is over a potential plan for the I.R.S. to create its own tax-filing system that would allow taxpayers to submit their returns directly to the federal government at no cost.”
Link. The journalist is wrong about the “free” programs for under 73K. They are mostly scams with substantial hidden fees. GOP defending the current rip-off industry of course.
“These days, our longtime social media hangout Twitter moulders somewhere between: Longtime anchor tenants have left, others carry “Everything must go!” banners, and the local boys who keep coming around neither expect nor fear adult supervision”
Link. Twitter as the dying mall. Great metaphor.
ChatGPT’s 155 IQ and passing the Sebastian’s children puzzle
Link. I laughed and laughed but it wasn’t a happy laugh. #beafraid #chatgpt
A response to Scott Aaronson’s rejection of an AI pause.
Link. I didn’t follow his argument, it seemed very personal. This is a lightly edited version of the comment I submitted to his blog.
“Alarmed over young people increasingly proving to be a force for Democrats at the ballot box, Republican lawmakers in a number of states have been trying to enact new obstacles to voting for college students”
Link. On reading article I was struck by the disinterest of GOP in several red states. Many seem to think this is a dumb move by the party.
Apple’s App Store Apple Account balance: how to really access it (not the way Apple says)
Link. Apple needed to replace their iTunes payment infrastructure 10y ago. Now it’s very creaky.
Traditional COVID vaccines and transient coagulation related cardiac risks in young women.
Link. Small effects but consistent. We see similar pro-thrombotic issues with oral contraceptives in young women. mRNA vaccines preferred but if won’t do that traditional still better than none.
“Apple Music Classical, as its name implies, works only with music hosted in Apple Music, not CDs that you’ve ripped or downloads that you’ve purchased from sources other than Apple”
Link. Great discussion of metadata and classification of classical music and a detailed product review. The iPhone-only release makes audiophiles unhappy.
Debt ceiling: Biden lets McCarthy twist in the wind.
Link. The GOP can’t produce a budget. We can’t govern by blackmail. GOP donors can’t tolerate a default. McCarthy will fold.
OpenAI Feb 2023 statement on the approach to Skynet: “We believe we have to continuously learn and adapt by deploying less powerful versions of the technology in order to minimize “one shot to get it right” scenarios.”
Link. “… important that major world governments have insight about training runs above a certain scale.”
They are afraid but cannot turn away. Makes one wonder about what they see in GPT 4.5. Claim they will move slowly and incrementally beyond GPT4.
“we call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.”
Link. Written by domain experts. A worthy try. I can’t imagine a pause happening but I would approve.
Daring Fireball: on 16.4 et al – Mastodon link previews, voice isolation activation is weird.
Link. “the interface to turn it on or off is in Control Center, when you’re on a call.”
Google mandated DKIM or SPF starting Nov 2022. I saw zero mention of this. Would have been nice to know.
Link. “Starting November 2022, new senders who send email to personal Gmail accounts must set up either SPF or DKIM. Google performs random checks on new sender messages to personal Gmail accounts to verify they’re authenticated. Messages without at least one of these authentication methods will be rejected or marked as spam.”
Wisconsin Adventure Bikepacking Route
Link. Gravel and trail and road. Link to the MTB trails map. #bike
Improvements to Apple Password Manager in 16.4/13.3.
Link. Now make it a proper app. Darn it.
Audio Hijack: RIAA v. Steve Jobs: “We’re celebrating a small victory, but the larger story is one of a loss.”
Link. I was always surprised Audio Hijack was allowed to exist. As Tsai says there was no principal in play and Apple blocked anything like AH going forward.
Hand osteoarthritis: “therapy with conventional and biologic drugs in HOA has not achieved the expected success”
Link. One of the most common disorders in humans and we got nothing. No clear cause, no treatment.
“The work-from-home bubble has not completely burst, however, as 11.1% of employers had all of their employees working from home in 2022, which is slightly up from 10.3% in 2021.”
Link.
“between 2009 and 2019, [child] mental health hospitalizations increased by 25.8 percent and cost $1.37 billion.”
Link. iPhone?
“I’m going to walk you through setting one a large language model from scratch, simplifying things and leaving out a lot of hard math.”
Link. NYT introduction to LLM, part 2 of 5. Pretty good really.
ChatGPT 2022 “IQ of 147”.
Link. Presumably higher now. I’m sure there are better numbers known to many, but any IQ topic is culturally radioactive.
LLMs pass some “theory of mind” tests.
Link. “Because their reasoning is sensitive to small changes in their inputs, scientists have called the knowledge of these machines “brittle.”
“In a data set of 172 mass shootings, which the group defines as involving four or more victims, only four assailants were women or girls”
Link. Only women should own guns.
North Carolina Expands Medicaid – thanks to Dem governor.
Link. Only 10 dummy states left. “it is now clear that the Affordable Care Act … is here to stay. Republicans in Washington have been unable to repeal the law and appear to have largely given up fighting it”