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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • Eh, it’s the same on the Android side of the fence. There are big and small features that Google has been comically slow to crib from iOS.

    I’ve definitely said “fucking finally” to things like overflow scrolling animations,

    Those things like overflow scrolling, keyboard peak, etc… were only held back because Apple would patent it prevent it from being put into Android and would file frivolous lawsuits against other phone manufacturers to try and get them not to use them, even when some android variants already had it built in before apple patented it in the first place. (I still facepalm at apple trying to sue others over a rounded rectangle shaped phone)

    And those patents lawsuits only stopped because other phone companies called bullshit and started threatening apple with their own patents.

    and the “wild” idea that users should get 5+ of major OS releases.

    TL;DR on this point: not much of an issue anymore.

    This isn’t an android/iOS thing, it’s a manufacturer thing. If a chip isn’t supported by it’s manufacturer, then no software on it can be supported. Different manufacturers had different support windows, but Qualcomm became notorious for making chips, then only supporting them for 2 years so they could sell a new “supported” one (and watch the money roll in). Once they saw other the larger players getting pissed off and poking around with the idea of making their own chips, Qualcomm quickly decided that they could support their chips for longer. Now they have to since both Google and Samsung have made public promises for 5-7 year support cycles. Of course, that hasn’t stopped other phones from already reaching 7 years of official support before. (A notable example being Fairphone 2 who used a Qualcomm chip while they were still in their shitty behaviour phase and managed to support it for 7 years, 2 years Qualcomm support then 5 years of their own support despite Qualcomm.)

    Also, when Google was pissed at Qualcomm they decided to start modularising their OS and pulling chunks out of it out of needing direct hardware support. This means that even if chip support were to stop, it would only affect the background / lowest-level-invisible-to-the-user parts of the OS, and all the user visible parts of the OS could be updated independently (starting with Project Treble, and going all out with Project Mainline). This basically means that entire chunks of the OS can be updated the same way an app can be, early 2010 Qualcomm companies be damned.

    This also has the weird thing of android not really being a “version” per se, one phone might have different components of Android 10/11/12/13/14/etc… running at the same time. The components themselves have their own versions.



  • Your question:

    what things did the LHC discover that have real practical applications right now other than validating some hypothesis

    Is really multiple questions:

    1. Is doing fundamental research with no application in mind useful?

    2. Has the LHC led to practical applications usable today

    The answer to question 1 is yes.

    There’s different types of research programs made to target different goals. Some aim for short or medium term applications, and others are just pure fundamental research.

    Just because pure research doesn’t have an application in mind, doesn’t mean it’s not useful. The application isn’t the goal, the expansion of our knowledge base is. Everyone who ever thought up of an application for something did so based on their own knowledge base. If the knowledge base never expands, then we run out of applications to think up. This is why pure research is useful.

    And all of history supports this:

    • The discovers of rays shooting off cathode-ray-tubes in the 1800s were just doing pure research and had no idea it would lead to TVs
    • particle accelerator research lead to invention of cat scans
    • chemists trying to research heavier elements leading to the discovery of nuclear fission, leading to nuclear power
    • electrolysis research lead to the invention of lead (and rechargeable) batteries
    • etc…

    The answer to question 2 is also yes:

    The obvious ones are:

    • improved manufacturing processes
    • improved supercooled superconductors
    • improved large scale vacuum chambers
    • Improved data processing
    • Trained a new cohort of experienced scientists/engineers/workers/etc (who can now work on new projects outside of the LHC)


  • I have yet to be given an example of something a “general” intelligence would be able to do that an LLM can’t do.

    Presenting…

    Something a general intelligence can do that an LLM can’t do:

    Play chess: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvTs_nbc8Eg

    Why can’t it play it? Because LLM’s don’t have memory, so they can’t work with logic. They are the same as the little “next word predictor” in your phone’s keyboard. It just says what it thinks is the most probable next word based on previous words, it’s not actually thinking or understanding anything. So instead, we get moves that don’t make sense or are completely invalid.







  • I wonder if they’re lying about this. Maybe the fans are super loud or something and they didn’t want the reporter to know.

    That’s far too conspiratorial for me. Loud fans in an engineering sample aren’t a reason to break a fan.

    A fast fan blade on a laptop would snap easily if it was handled, which is exactly what would be happening on both a laptop where assembling and disassembling it is a feature and a laptop being actively tested.

    If it was a blade that broke, that wouldn’t stop the fan from working, so it was probably the servo, power, or bearings which is exactly what you’d expect to find broken in an engineering sample. Why? Because engineering samples almost always have issues in them. That’s the whole point of the samples, to find out what the issues are so they can be fixed before mass manufacture.




  • E2E:

    As far as I understand, Google wants to treat RCS similar to how it treats web:

    1. Have a standard
    2. experiment with some extensions
    3. learn what works and what doesn’t
    4. build what works into the standard
    5. repeat

    In that case, e2e encryption is coming to RCS.

    I know Samsung is also experimenting with e2e encryption too.

    Other:

    iMessage itself also has more features than RCS. Built in e2ee would be a big one, and aome other more vain ones.

    What other notable features (besides e2e which is discussed above) does iMessage have?

    […] Signal or even WhatsApp would still be superior.

    (Besides e2e,) What features to Signal and/or WhatsApp provide?


  • You’re both right and wrong.

    Right:

    1. Google does have a management problem that incentivizes creating new messenger apps instead of supporting existing services, this has nothing to do with RCS though.
    2. Google is trolling Apple.

    Wrong:

    1. RCS is not a downgrade to Apple’s proprietary protocol (unless you consider sending a laser show screen overlay animation as a specific feature, and not an easter egg)
    2. Everyone inside only Apple or only RCS has the same features (message reactions, high quality media, x is typing, seen timestamps, etc…)
    3. RCS is open, Apple’s protocols are proprietary. No one but Apple can access their own proprietary protocols. Apple could support RCS if they wanted to. Apple is entirely responsible for the friction between their own protocol and RCS.

    Prediction:

    Apple will continue trying to control their own bubble to force people to purchase iPhones as long as possible. They will attempt to stall any EU regulations on standardized messaging with deceptive rebuttable that will take politicians time to realise that they hold no real weight. Eventually those arguments will be pulled apart and Apple will be forced to include a future RCS version as a supported fallback. (just like how the EU is forcing apple to allow third-party app stores, and USB-C connections)