Viewing profile — apienx

Hi HN, My name is Sapiens. I started learning about Reason and Science well into my 30s. I'd be fair to say that the Skeptic and Humanist communities saved my soul. So I made a min…

After predicting that, in the long term, humanoid robots will cost less than a car, Mr. Musk added: "It'll take up a minute to get to the long term". Please stop trolling, Elon.

"These devices don't appear to be designed to be lethal.[..] They are, for the most part, low charge so not packing enough to actually kill somebody.[..] Let's not forget that this…

"Writing is thinking." -- David McCullough

“Automation has always helped people write code, I mean, this is nothing new at all [..] I see that as tools that can help us be beer better at what we do.” — Linus Torvalds’ on LL…

Over time, global values are becoming more aligned, particularly around ideals like free thought, free speech, and the open exchange of ideas and goods. Yet, this trend towards uni…

SMS specifications include "Type 0" messages, also known as Silent SMS. These messages don't trigger any even on the phone when received, but they do send back an ACK that includes…

Thank you. First principles FTW!

European police chiefs jointly call for laws that force creators of communication tools to provide them with backdoors. Expect them to go after math once messaging goes decentraliz…

Thank you. I don’t doubt that certain governments twist the arms of companies for privileged access. From my understanding, however, those practices are not the norm in the west (a…

> Required by law (and corporate compliance departments) in many industries. Could you please provide details about this?

No, thank you. "The goal of Gentoo is to design tools and systems that allow a user to do that work as pleasantly and efficiently as possible, as they see fit." https://www.gentoo.…

I use Tmux. It's a terminal-agnostic multiplexer. Gives you persistence and automation superpowers. https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki

Tears contain chloride ions (>100 mEq/L). I'd be worried about chlorine gas generation (a toxic gas that goes after the respiratory system, eyes, and skin). Electrolysis of water s…

The quick and dirty method is to point your phone at the suspicious device in total darkness. A modern smartphone will pick up the infrared (your eyes won't). Or get yourself a sim…

Ironically, Sweden has the world's first Freedom of the Press Act. It's even been designated a "Memory of the World" by UNESCO: https://unesco.se/tryckfrihetsforordningen-utsedd-ti…

A 4 year old child has 16k wake hours x 3600 s/hour x 1^6 optical nerve fibers x 2 eyes x 10 bytes/s = 1^15 bytes (approximation by Yann LeCun). Processing visual input is the curr…

Despite relatively excellent growth numbers, few Nigerians (or foreign investors) are confident in the future of the local currency. Moreover, a full two thirds of Nigerian residen…

Social transmission of behavior in macaques has been documented since the 1950s. See the potato washing studies of Imanishi et al (ref. #9 in the main paper).

Retirement was a euphemism. And I think 10 billion dollars should be able to buy it.

The largest country on Earth murders people for merely expression an opinion and a massive chunk of our planet's geological wealth is funneled to fund wars of aggression. This sove…

Good point. But please consider that certain cultures may be inherently more transparent and accepting of dissent (see global indices that measure freedom of speech and degree of l…

Overcorrecting after eons of patriarchal dominance is expected and not necessarily a bad thing IMHO. In some countries (e.g. Sweden), prioritising a certain gender over another for…

“Life makes no sense if you have to tolerate endless lies. I will never accept this system, which is built on lies[..]” — Alexei Navalny Alexei believed in doing what’s right, not …