Hacker News: apienx

Show HN: The Meme Vaccine

apienx — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 15:06:39 +0000

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 mind-calibration tool in service of the cause.

It's an app that quizzes the user about myths and misconceptions. By exploiting the resulting cognitive dissonance, it helps retune the user's confidence levels in their beliefs and improves their mental models. The tool uses Brier's so-called "proper" scoring system, a ruthless squared-error-loss scale (Brier scoring is widely used by intelligence agencies to align their operatives' beliefs with reality). In my tests, 100% of users experienced a permanent reduction in truth bias (among many other benefits).

Help champion truth and promote critical thinking. Get the Meme Vaccine now!

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/meme-vaccine/id6444249109 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sapien.dbnk.ap... Support: memevaccine.com

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42793583

Points: 6

# Comments: 0

New comment by apienx in "Tesla Robotaxi"

apienx — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 08:33:34 +0000

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.

New comment by apienx in "Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon"

apienx — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 16:32:41 +0000

"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 comes on the same day that Israel has extended its war aims to including expelling Hezbollah basically from the border." -- BBC's Security Correspondent Frank Gardner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNEb-dY3tRY

New comment by apienx in "How to think in writing"

apienx — Sun, 07 Jul 2024 10:34:02 +0000

"Writing is thinking." -- David McCullough

New comment by apienx in "LLM-generated code must not be committed without prior written approval by core"

apienx — Sat, 18 May 2024 12:25:55 +0000

“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 LLM code generation/review (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VHHT6W-N0ak).

NetBSD still has an edge with its memory hardening, NPF, kernel-level blacklist, and “legacy support”. But I fear that this out-of-touch policy might eventually tip it into irrelevance.

New comment by apienx in "Globalization was supposed to align the values. They're diverging"

apienx — Fri, 03 May 2024 14:11:40 +0000

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 universal values is clashing with certain cultures that feel threatened. These cultures respond to perceived existential threats by rallying around authoritarian leaders, implementing stricter regulations.

Frustratingly, the study focuses too heavily on GDP per capita and largely overlooks the devastating effects of nationalism and religion. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46581-5

New comment by apienx in "The IMEI Code: Your phone’s other number"

apienx — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 19:40:10 +0000

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 IMSI metadata. Silent SM, are literally defined in the RFC and primarily used to covertly track user locations without judicial oversight.

GSM, SS7, etc. are massive privacy holes _by design_.

New comment by apienx in "Show HN: I made a programmable computer from NAND gates"

apienx — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 18:53:32 +0000

Thank you. First principles FTW!

New comment by apienx in "European police officially opposing E2EE [pdf]"

apienx — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 12:04:32 +0000

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 decentralized. :-)

European police officially opposing E2EE [pdf]

apienx — Mon, 22 Apr 2024 12:04:32 +0000

Article URL: https://www.europol.europa.eu/cms/sites/default/files/documents/EDOC-%231384205-v1-Joint_Declaration_of_the_European_Police_Chiefs.PDF

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40113522

Points: 10

# Comments: 2

New comment by apienx in "Everyone has JavaScript, right?"

apienx — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 11:22:05 +0000

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 (and certainly not overtly codified). IMHO, 90%+ of the data captured in the “West” is from exploits and such.

New comment by apienx in "Everyone has JavaScript, right?"

apienx — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 09:23:07 +0000

> Required by law (and corporate compliance departments) in many industries.

Could you please provide details about this?

New comment by apienx in "RFC: Banning "AI"-backed (LLM/GPT/whatever) contributions to Gentoo"

apienx — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 10:32:02 +0000

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.org/get-started/philosophy/

And this is what Torvalds had to say about LLM-enhanced submissions to the kernel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7-gJicosyA

New comment by apienx in "How much faster are the Gnome 46 terminals?"

apienx — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 10:42:12 +0000

I use Tmux. It's a terminal-agnostic multiplexer. Gives you persistence and automation superpowers.

https://github.com/tmux/tmux/wiki

New comment by apienx in "Blink to generate power for smart contact lenses"

apienx — Sat, 06 Apr 2024 12:01:20 +0000

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 starts at potentials as low as 1.23V (the paper reports 2.2-3.3V).

New comment by apienx in "Surveilling Alone"

apienx — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 15:14:29 +0000

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 simple RF detector (or even a Software Defined Radio).

You might find this presentation useful (!PDF!). https://defcon.org/images/defcon-22/dc-22-presentations/Pols...

Privacy is a human right. Best of luck!

New comment by apienx in "Swedish data brokers claim journalists' legal protection to evade EU law"

apienx — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 11:36:18 +0000

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-till-varld...

What you're asking for will not be easy to enact. In a monarchy, the concept of "natural rights" remains somewhat culturally foreign.

New comment by apienx in "Physical Intelligence is building a brain for robots"

apienx — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 13:47:59 +0000

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 current bottleneck for robots that want to make sense of the physical world. Glad somebody's looking into it (no pun intended). I just hope their plan is more sophisticated than throwing more computational power at the problem.

New comment by apienx in "Binance executives were arrested for allegedly destabilizing Nigeria's currency"

apienx — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 08:52:49 +0000

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 residents don't trust the judicial system. The "destabilizing" is mostly achieved by a general lack of integrity, widespread corruption and normalized incompetence.

In other recent news, the leader of the Riksbank, the world's oldest central bank located in Sweden, has stated that Sweden benefits from having fewer decentralized financial instruments. https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/bitcoin-not-welcome-s...

New comment by apienx in "Bees and chimps can also pass on their skills"

apienx — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 08:13:15 +0000

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).