curiouscats

Joined 17 years ago

Karma
461
Submissions
193
Member since
Dec 5
see johnhunter.com/john_hunter_online

Interests: management improvement, Deming's ideas on management, investing, economics, travel, photography, engineering, science

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Recent submissions

Comment · 1 day ago
Certainly it seems likely treating it for those instances where a heart attack would result is cheaper.

But there is no evidence presented that say for every 1,000 of these test we correctly find 1 that wouldn't have been found (and we have zero false positives) or whatever. So then 1,000 * 100 = $100,000 and saves $50,000. Even in this case there are benefits beyond the expenditures (if you save someone from the $50,000 you probably give higher quality of life...).

Basically my issue is not with the idea that more testing and preventative action would improve our current system. I believe that.

But in order to make that argument in a specific case you need more complete data. Things get complicated so I understand why people don't want to do that for a simple story. But the problem is when you leave off all sorts of costs, issues (false positives, treatment options), etc. the statements you make are not very compelling to those that know a test that tells you something bad is more likely for this person is not nearly sufficient to claim why this test is good.

Comment · 1 day ago
Comment · 3 days ago
I agree with the concept and idea expressed; paying for prevention is good and wise and we do far to little of it.

I don't like the title. I can't believe it is really $100. Even if the scan is $100 that doesn't fix things itself. There is the cost of whatever the treatment is etc. There are likely added expense from false positives (or similar idea), where it flags someone as needing more testing, new interventions when in fact they didn't...

I wish the article was more detailed on those costs (or at least not claim the cost is $100 when it is much more in reality, unless I am wrong about that and the fixes are free somehow). It feels like a biased promotion of this thing we like and/or have a financial interest in so lets make exaggerated claims that hopefully people won't notice.

Comment · 3 months ago
Or create a new partnership with various like minded organizations and create a new index that each can use in their own way (perhaps those you mention plus DuckDuckGo and others that my brain isn't bringing to mind right now [maybe Wikipedia, EFF, internet archive, maybe Nebius would help...]).

I know this wouldn't be easy but maybe such an arrangement would be possible where there is some shared index and then the partners can each use it, extend it... in their own way.

Comment · 6 months ago
I agree that Apple (and probably Anthropic) don't hold to the expectations some have. But I wouldn't say they are "just another company." I care about privacy more than Apple. But I think Apple does more to help privacy than any other huge company (and I can't think of another huge tech business to consumer company that does less to invade privacy, but I would be open to evidence I am wrong on that).

Apple is far from perfect but that doesn't mean they don't have a position (say privacy) that they care about and give a lot of weight to when making decisions. But as a huge company they also have many competing priorities.

Caring about privacy or potential abuses of LLM/AI services does not mean that a huge company is going to perform on those areas the way those that want maximum privacy or... want.

I do also believe Apple's marketing reasons to promote their focus on privacy make sense. And even if they don't do as much as I would want they do make a big difference (on privacy) it seems to me. And I believe long term there is big value to Apple building systems to stop users private data from being abused.

Comment · 6 months ago
Good thoughts.

The last sentence doesn't make that much sense to me though. An agreement with Apple to be the lead AI partner would likely juice the IPO a great deal. The financial details wouldn't matter much for the IPO (as the initial financial commitments are going to be small but the halo effect would be real - I think it would in the market anyway).

I think Anthropic has real commitment to their way of doing things which can cause short term issues (and hurt the IPO). And they seem willing to keep those values rather than just making deals to pump the IPO. As you say Apple also sticks to their way of doing things even if it frustrates their partners.

I think not being the lead partner with Apple may well be good for Anthropic long term. But if all you cared about was the IPO just agreeing to Apple's terms likely would have been the best option.

These SpaceX, Anthropic and Open AI possible IPOs are so extreme it is hard to make judgements about them; so maybe there are Anthropic IPO issues to an Apple agreement that I don't appreciate.

Comment · 1 year ago
Enamelon Toothpaste from the 1990s:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/127083185095

"proven to strengthen tooth enamel" I remember researching the stock and deciding not to buy.

Patents from the 1990s https://patents.justia.com/assignee/enamelon-inc

It seems the company is still around https://www.enamelon.com

Comment · 1 year ago
Actually it was a huge tax addition in 2024 (from Europe over dispute about how Ireland had taxed Apple for many years). In 2024 Apple added 14.4 billion in additional taxes accrued over many years.
Comment · 1 year ago
Car insurance costs more if you have bad credit score. My guess is that they have data to justify that. I think some states may have disallowed this practice.

Anyway that lends some credence to your beliefs.

Comment · 1 year ago
Interesting, good job.

Minor suggestion: I would make the home page feed show popular stocks (so that it is more interesting to new visitors and also engaging to regular visitors). You could just pick 100 stock symbols or combine that with something like what you are seeing people search for (I would manually check the popular search ones - some may not make sense to add to the home page feed).

Comment · 2 years ago
It could offer a couple options. One being the main view is like you are there. You see the court in a huge view in your main view. Then, similar, but way better than in person, you have several big views off to the side, for replays, stats, maybe following a view of your favorite player... I would think they we have a way to make it so your view (switches as the action on the court switches to the other basket). That will have to be a good design but just the idea of something like teleporting from your seat with a great view of this half of the court to now having it on the other half.

And for other sports even better I think. With say soccer/football and football (USA) you can have a big overview (like you are sitting at midfield) but then camera angles for closer view of the action...

I think sports viewing could really be incredible. Figuring out exactly how to do it well will take awhile. But it seems to me the kind of thing Apple could do very well.

Comment · 2 years ago
Is there an app that monitors your apps to see if any have been sold to such unethical companies to alert you to delete your accounts with those apps?

That would seem like a useful app.

Frankly Apple and Alphabet should offer such a service but I don't have much confidence that they will.

Comment · 3 years ago
I looked into subscribing because I don't mind paying to avoid the ads.

I don't like the spying that will go along with paying, given that it is Alphabet/Google. If they offered a plan to pay without the spying I would have signed up years ago.

I didn't try so I could be wrong but my guess is your payment will be tied directly to your login and so you need to have that login on the browser at all times to view the videos (without ads) and given all the decline of "do no evil" I don't trust them at all.

I also don't trust they wouldn't mess things up. I travel a lot. I paid for YouTube TV and the ludicrous junk they do to try and verify you are able to view things was a huge pain and failed quite a lot until it failed nearly always I and dropped it.

I imagine if they push me I will pay and then have to copy and paste every YouTube url into a sanitized browser instance only used for YouTube. But I don't trust Alphabet/Google to not constantly be attempting to use that subscription to improve and deepen their spying which annoys me quite a bit. I just trust them a tiny bit more than Microsoft (and I ditched using anything by Microsoft decades ago - other than my use of LinkedIn continuing after they bought it and very occasional uses of Bing to check on it).

Comment · 3 years ago
A higher savings rate directed toward retirement-savings/pension and increasing immigration are two.
Comment · 4 years ago

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