alexose

Joined 13 years ago

Karma
1,989
Submissions
379
Member since
Feb 22
alex at alexose dot com
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Recent submissions

Comment · 18 days ago
I've been daydreaming about starting a US company around the idea of being able to hire a "medical coach".

Not a doctor, and not a case worker, but someone with a deep knowledge of the American health care system and infinite patience. A trusted person to take you to and from appointments, to chat with you about how things are going, and handle paperwork.

It would be expensive, but I think it would pencil out for most working professionals who don't have the time or energy to navigate everything for themselves or for a loved one.

Comment · 4 months ago
I suspect the loudest voices would be from the automakers and dealerships, who make their biggest margin from SUVs and oversized trucks. They have powerful lobbyists and spend a lot on PR, so it often seems like their anti-transit, anti-pedestrian positions are more popular than they are.

I'd love to see a real grassroots effort to tax (toll?) based on GVWR or vehicle length. It would be met with tremendous opposition by special interests, but I could see it succeeding in the right environment. Maybe it could be framed as a rebate for small vehicles, rather than a tax on large ones.

Comment · 4 months ago
Ticketmaster obviously sucks, and their monopolistic business practices deserve a close look by regulators.

But the core of it is that an unregulated ticket market actually supports these prices. Fans keep showing that they're willing to dig deep and outbid each other to attend these events in person. Ticketmaster realizes this, and have set up a business model that extracts accordingly.

I think this is where us Americans get turned around. We tend to believe that it’s fair to charge the full market value for a thing, but we also have a sense that cultural experiences are "meant" to be shared equitably. But until we actually put a value on the latter, we're only ever going to have the former.

Comment · 6 months ago
Oh man... this will be so awesome as a pedestrian/cyclist. When I see a Waymo coming, I can actually have some reasonable expectation that it will stop for me!
Comment · 6 months ago
I'm a MAX apologist, but you're right. It sucks. I live on the yellow line, and I estimate that there's a visibly (or audibly, or orfactorily) unstable person on the train 50% of the time. I'll ride the train by myself sometimes, but always avoid it with friends or family because it's gotten embarrassing at this point.
Comment · 6 months ago
I liked the shoutout to On Cinema at the Cinema. Truly one of the most hilarious and fascinating pieces of comedy in the last couple of decades.
Comment · 6 months ago
Yeah, the dang thing can reach all the way to the net while standing three feet behind the table
Comment · 7 months ago
Toni is very well regarded among Automattic employees. I'm personally stoked to see him work on Bluesky.
Comment · 8 months ago
If there's one good thing that could possibly come out of this AI revolution, it would be the ability for people to automate this across all their feeds. I'd love it if I never had to waste time on toxicity, spam, or propaganda.

Although, recent history would suggest that we'd just end up with even more powerful echo chambers.

Comment · 8 months ago
I've always been fascinated with these things. Is there any way to make your own H2 to fuel them? I suspect the purity requirements are too high for at-home electrolysis...
Comment · 8 months ago
> A slight increase in average speed really only makes a significant difference over long drives.

Yes! I feel like I can't shout this loud enough. In addition to maintaining a safe driving distance, just leave a little earlier. The stuff I've seen people do in order to save 20 seconds boggles the mind.

Unfortunately, I think commuters fall into a gamification mindset. They're trying to set a new lap record each day, and you can see the results just by driving (or walking) during rush hour...

Comment · 9 months ago
It's refreshing to see one of the top minds in AI converge on the same set of thoughts and frustrations as me.

For as fast as this is all moving, it's good to remember that most of us are actually a lot closer to the tip of the spear than we think.

Comment · 10 months ago
The Hawaiian language has a concept called Kaona, which is essentially embedding deeper meanings in contextual word choices. It can go way beyond the literal meaning of the words, and tie into bigger concepts of culture, lineage, and places. It's super cool hearing about it from native speakers.

We don't really do it intentionally in English, at least to the same degree. But there's still a lot of information coded in our word and grammar choices.

Comment · 10 months ago
In addition to coming so far down in price, it's amazing to me how good the technology has gotten. Batteries that can easily discharge 5C in cold weather, cycle 10000 times, survive harsh conditions with zero maintenance. Panels that last for decades.

Which is why it makes me especially angry that the current US government is throwing away this gift in order to appease a bunch of aging leaders of petro-states. Literally poisoning the world for a 10-15 year giveaway to the richest of the rich.

I take some solace knowing that fossil fuels are now a dead end. And even though certain people are trying to keep the industry going, that end is sooner than ever.

Comment · 11 months ago
The original stated goal was to 10x the speed of existing tunnel boring machines by bringing up the cutting head RPMs, automating liner installation, and speeding up spoil removal with electric sleds. Which would seem like a good bet, except that there are a million other bottlenecks to the process. On top of that, it doesn't seem like they even solved their core problems.

It would be cool if they'd post a postmortem or something, but I get the impression that reporting bad news is a good way to get fired in an Elon-run organization.

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