That was fascinating.

Why “sitting is the new smoking”

Oh, I’ve been warned about this by a doctor, but I can’t do much apart than keeping my legs raised when I can. (My work involves both sitting and standing in one place. My veins are so dead.)

Almost worth the thousands of dollars it cost

:-(

The Aryans are a steppe (modern day south Russia) people who migrated to India four thousand years ago. Depending on who you ask, they mixed with / drove out the native people from India’s north and west.

Modern Indians speak Indo-European languages (often seen as being of Aryan origin) in the north and west, Dravidian languages (supposedly the native languages) in the south and Austroasiatic and other languages (from China and southeast Asia) in the northeast. In the 1950s, after India became independent, the Indo-European majority wanted Hindi, an IE language, to be the national language of India. There was opposition in the south and northeast, and the result is that India today has no national language, with the union (=federal) government using both English and Hindi, and states free to choose their own language(s). In Tamil Nadu, India’s southernmost state, opposition to Hindi was strongest, and it gradually extended to other aspects of ‘Aryan’ culture. So the names Arya / Aryan would be considered a bit ‘culturally insensitive’. They would also be rare in the northeast, but more strange than rude.

Arya / Aryan is a valid name in many* parts of India. (* It would be rude in Tamil Nadu and rare in the northeast.)

yet

It’s the fair thing to do. They get a choice. Best case they learn to live like everyone else, and maybe do something good. In which case, great! Worst case they show they can’t be let out in society, and are sent to prison. In which case, hey at least they got a second chance, which is more than what their victims got.

Hey, that’s not arcane knowledge.

Arcane knowledge is memorising the server’s IP address.

What a terrible day to have eyes.

If you lose enough money, you trigger an integer overflow and end up with a profit!

Didn’t they get a lot of computer hardware from Russia recently?

The article says he worked from China, for US and European companies. Which explains both the pay difference and the concern about the sanctions.

I think it would be more correct to say that quality control in Chinese science is very poor. I have seen top quality research, and I have also seen crap that should not have been published at all. But the sheer quantity of output means that the next big discovery in <insert field> will be from China.

OSTP is focused on removing regulations to science and tech bc they argue they are slowing us down in the AI race against China.

I don’t work on AI, but in my field I have seen the insane speed and scale of Chinese research. Now I’m from a developing country; the US can probably give better funding than we can, but I am inclined to agree that Chinese science does benefit from easier and better funding and a faster administrative process.

AI data in China is very poor likely bc of the lack of regulations

The big problem for AI research in China seems to be a shortage of high-end GPUs due to the trade wars. China is very strong in maths and comp sci, and they are finding workarounds, but it is still a pretty hard barrier.

Amazon/Bezos is probably getting some sweet federal kick backs

I think it’s more a threat against employees. The robots can be used as scabs.

which, until Jan. 2025, was one area that the U.S. had unquestionably dominated China

China had more scientists and papers well before this year. And China dominates particularly in fields like maths, computer science and manufacturing.

they are indeed going to try to replace scientists with robots

I can actually think of a lot of uses for robots in research. And, of course, there are a lot of robots in labs already; they just don’t look like humans.

but 6nm without EUV?

I read elsewhere that 5nm was already done (in the lab, not on industrial levels), and they’re planning on 3nm by 2026.

The workaround seems to be to use particle accelerators instead of EUV machines. More expensive and with lower yield, but it’ll do the job.

I only use my phone for phone calls and messaging and the occasional web browsing.

Why not use a feature phone, then? Cheaper, more repairable, and the Nokia ones will also last longer.

It depends on your definition of ‘deGoogle’. You can disable the Google apps on most Android phones. They’ll take up storage space, but won’t run.

If you’re getting a second-hand phone and want to completely deGoogle it, you can check if (1) the bootloader is unlockable and (2) custom ROMs are available online (e.g. Lineage OS compatible devices). In general, Xiaomi, Motorola and Pixel devices have unlockable bootloaders, but not all their models have custom ROMs.

I hope some OEM (especially those opposed to google) picks up and develops mainline linux like Pine Phone.

Huawei is being forced to do it. But like Android, their HarmonyOS is not 100% open-source. There’s also KaiOS, which some Nokia and Alcatel, and all Jio, devices use.

even Dalvik and the android runtime itself is an inefficient relic of 10+ years ago when mobile devices had at most 2gb of ram and a tiny low power ARM processor.

Both the ones I mentioned are designed to be more memory efficient. KaiOS in particular is aimed primarily at feature phones and entry-level smartphones.

Each Eva is the story Anno wanted to tell at each point in his life, as he grew and became a healthier person.

Sounds like something someone who sold out would say! (/s)

Anno wanted the darkness when he was younger

I still like the OG ending. I think the ‘darkness’ of EoE was partially a reaction to the death threats he got, and the Rebuilds feel unnecessarily convoluted (but the animation was great). Anyway, to each their own.

What do you mean, needlessly confusing? The release order was genius. Opening with the movie screening showed exactly the kind of show it was. It also allowed the climax to be in the last episode of the season, while still having it happen in the middle chronologically (as Haruhi wanted).

But the second season was where KyoAni outdid themselves. It was an improvement on the first season. While the first season was great, the second was even better. Sometimes you see a series dip in quality in S2, but here it was the opposite - the quality improved. For the second season showed an uptick in the narrative. The first season had already pushed the limits of storytelling, but the second went further. While the first season was greatly enjoyable, the second was even more so. Perhaps the most ardent fans may try to quantify the quality, and say that it was, I don’t know, eight times better than the first.

Most manga and anime don’t have filler. The long-running ones do, because, well, they want to milk them for all they’re worth.

A little over a thousand chapters, but a volume has about ten chapters.