nickpinkston
Joined 17 years ago
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Sep 1
Recent submissions
Comment · 7 days ago
Very cool! There's some wild ideas about antimatter capture in space via giant arrays of superconducting magnets trapping naturally occurring antimatter.
Apparently, nanograms / micrograms is enough to create a "antimatter catalyzed" fission/fusion propulsion system with enormous specific impulse / efficacy.
PDF: https://www.niac.usra.edu/files/studies/final_report/1071Bic...
Comment · 25 days ago
Hear! Hear! I really want European models / AI labs to succeed.
I trust them and their populations to provide a more societal-friendly version of AI, putting pressure on the US tech oligarchy, while also providing democracy-friendly open models that I don't trust to happen with the Chinese labs.
Comment · 2 months ago
Two more great books to have in the mechanical world:
"Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals" - amazing photos, diagrams, explanations, etc. of every major manufacturing process - great coffee table book.
https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Processes-Design-Profes...
"Materials Selection in Mechanical Design" - great book with "Ashby Charts" that let you compare materials against their material properties - e.g. strength vs. weight.
Comment · 3 months ago
I believe it's an ESOP, but not a co-op because the workers don't have much voting control of the company.
Comment · 3 months ago
Yea, I agree, it's a great book!
It should be said that Sara [1] was also the founder of the Freelancers Union [2], offering solo benefits and other resources to freelancers.
The book is great because it's so practical, with 3 org design principles [3]:
[1] A solidaristic community [2] An economic mechanism that supports the community's mission [3] A long-term time horizon where the economic value is recycled back to the community
Comment · 3 months ago
Let's do it fairly.
Like 100s (?) of Americans killed by Iran ever.
Compare to Iranians: Affected by the aftermath of the American coup of Mosaddegh (ultimately leading to IRGC's existence), providing weapons to Iraq for the Iran-Iraq War (200K deaths), etc. + decades of stupid policy trying to take their oil in the name of "regional security" (for "our" oil).
Comment · 3 months ago
"[T]he oddity I pointed out in that piece that the chuds are both really attached to classical antiquity and also don’t know very much about it."
As a history nerd in the Bay Area tech scene, it always amazes me how so many of the e/acc, NRx, and "The West" people fit the quote above.
I think this is why Curtis Yarvin has been successful, as he states bad history with confidence to people who either don't know the difference, or have a direct interest in promoting his "The rich should rule us, actually" ideology.
Comment · 3 months ago
Shoutout to https://libro.fm/ which is a non-Amazon Audible that lets you:
- Buy nearly any audiobook that's on Audible or other services
- Donate to your favorite local bookstore
- Get the downloadable audio file without DRM
Comment · 3 months ago
This is really cool and I want one, but please someone tell them to put a clear CTA button above the fold saying "Pre-Order" or something.
Also, the bottom spinning button CTA doesn't read like a CTA to me. My skimming eyes almost missed, but YMMV.
Other than that - awesome project and godspeed OpenPrinter team!
Comment · 4 months ago
This is very cool to see - seems like soooo much efficiency waiting to be unlocked at the chip level.
What's everyone think of Taalas?
They're actually burning the LLM model into the silicon, with some onboard memory for fine-tuning. They claim huge cost / latency wins.
Super fast demo live at: https://chatjimmy.ai/
https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1r9frzk/taalas...
Comment · 4 months ago
I'm very sympathetic to cooperatives, have traveled/know the Mondragon people (largest coop federation), etc.
However, I think there's a reason why coops seem to succeed at smaller scales, but there are essentially no large innovative coops.
There are a few large boring coops, and some small innovative ones, but seemingly something is making the CEO/investor board model the one large innovative companies are all using.
I suspect that it's both (1) access to capital is far harder for coops, and (2) that workplace democracy and hardcore mission focus aren't fully compatible. That is, "you cannot serve two masters" without losing focus on one of them.
Comment · 6 months ago
Play with fire, and you get burned...
These scams are all too frequent today, and putting these guys and others like them in prison would act as a deterrent.
We'll see if our system can actually hold any white collar criminals accountable though...
Comment · 6 months ago
Unsure if this is the connection, but the guy who discovered Troy in the late 1800's (Heinrich Schliemann) actually brought Troy artifacts to a Berlin museum, which someone with more knowledge of Berlin than me may be able to draw more connections from.
Per his Wikipedia:
"In 1874 Schliemann published Troy and Its Remains. Schliemann at first offered his collections, which included Priam's Gold, to the Greek government, then the French, and finally the Russians. In 1881, his collections ended up in Berlin, housed first in the Ethnographic Museum, and then the Museum for Pre- and Early History, until the start of WWII.
In 1939, all exhibits were packed and stored in the museum basement, then moved to the Prussian State Bank vault in January 1941. In 1941, the treasure was moved to the Flakturm located at the Berlin Zoological Garden, called the Zoo Tower. Dr. Wilhelm Unverzagt protected the three crates containing the Trojan gold when the Battle of Berlin commenced, right up until SMERSH forces took control of the tower on 1 May.
On 26 May 1945, Soviet forces, led by Lt. Gen. Nikolai Antipenko, Andre Konstantinov, deputy head of the Arts Committee, Viktor Lazarev, and Serafim Druzhinin, took the three crates away on trucks. The crates were then flown to Moscow on 30 June 1945, and taken to the Pushkin Museum ten days later. In 1994, the museum admitted the collection was in their possession."
Comment · 6 months ago
It was oddly satisfying taking a file to my MacBook when a drop lifted a nasty burr on the edge.
Very minor "you can just do things" collides with the "infallible object" presence that Apple wants for its products - almost feels "wrong", but it's a nice norm to break.
(and I'm not a "Cult of Mac" guy)
Comment · 6 months ago
I see them as morally equivalent in our current system - ie an illegitimate democracy without recourse for common people.
If companies can do strategic bankruptcies, transfer pricing, etc., then regular people can do the consumer equivalents.
I don't think any of us should shill for corporate interests.
From W.PA Rust Belt. Build Manufacturing/Engineering Tools
Pro-Growth Techno-Leftist
Finance/Econ/History Nerd
Blog: http://nickpinkston.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/NickPinkston
Email: nickpinkston [4t] gmail {d0t} com