Hacker News: vostrocity

New comment by vostrocity in "Ask HN: If the models are so good, why doesn't OpenAI just start 100 companies?"

vostrocity — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 21:07:34 +0000

Michael Nielsen is up there among my favorites as well.

New comment by vostrocity in "Ask HN: If the models are so good, why doesn't OpenAI just start 100 companies?"

vostrocity — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 19:32:39 +0000

Wow I had no idea Mechanical Turk closed. I assumed it would be quite valuable for doing a lot of data labelling type of work that percolates into AI models.

New comment by vostrocity in "Ask HN: If the models are so good, why doesn't OpenAI just start 100 companies?"

vostrocity — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 19:24:23 +0000

The arms themselves are open source and nearly free to operate.

New comment by vostrocity in "Ask HN: If the models are so good, why doesn't OpenAI just start 100 companies?"

vostrocity — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 19:16:18 +0000

George Hotz wrote a similar perspective

>I think this is basically what it will be for most knowledge work, knowledge workers are so grossly overpaid compared to the energy they consume, and AI will rectify that. This explains why the Chinese are giving the (much more moderate resources to train) models away for free. They love to see deflationary economics in the US.

https://geohot.github.io/blog/jekyll/update/2026/06/11/ai-wi...

New comment by vostrocity in "Ask HN: If the models are so good, why doesn't OpenAI just start 100 companies?"

vostrocity — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 19:10:24 +0000

There have been stories like Medvi which did $400m in revenue last year with only a two person team and a bunch of contractors, but it is such a specific niche around arbitraging medical prescriptions, I don't think it could be done in-house at OpenAI without it being a huge distraction.

New comment by vostrocity in "Apple Music 404 Not Found"

vostrocity — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 18:48:51 +0000

There's even a product that lets you retrofit an old iPod with a modern motherboard

https://certainthings.studio/sprout

New comment by vostrocity in "Porsche Mission S"

vostrocity — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 07:22:55 +0000

In a video, a Porsche official said they haven't decided on the engine yet.

New comment by vostrocity in "Recreational Programming"

vostrocity — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 05:16:21 +0000

This looks like it was meant to be presented to a live audience.

New comment by vostrocity in "OpenAI engineer arrested in bugging of executive conference room"

vostrocity — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 00:07:40 +0000

If designed well, it could be audited hardware with on-device processing.

New comment by vostrocity in "OpenAI finds recording device in one of their offices"

vostrocity — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 21:13:30 +0000

That does make more sense. But if any company were to take surprising security measures, it should be the frontier labs.

New comment by vostrocity in "OpenAI engineer arrested in bugging of executive conference room"

vostrocity — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 21:09:59 +0000

Free startup idea: Anti-espionage cameras for corporate offices. Put it behind TVs and plants etc. and it will notify the security team if it detects new objects.

New comment by vostrocity in "OpenAI engineer arrested in bugging of executive conference room"

vostrocity — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 21:04:53 +0000

How did they get that capture of Alfozan looking behind the TV? Does OpenAI install its own surveillance cameras behind TVs to prevent espionage?

New comment by vostrocity in "Apple Watch Series 12"

vostrocity — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 21:31:51 +0000

I've definitely had situations where I zoned out for a few seconds during a meeting or seminar, and want to see what was just spoken. That seems like a much stronger use case where you wouldn't want to interrupt the whole room to ask what was just spoken.

New comment by vostrocity in "Fastpotify"

vostrocity — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 21:22:55 +0000

People often cite they were first to market, but isn't the bigger factor that they are backed by all the big music labels?

New comment by vostrocity in "Fastpotify"

vostrocity — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 21:13:52 +0000

I use Pocket Casts all the time and have never heard an ad inserted to a podcast.

New comment by vostrocity in "Beware Management Consultants"

vostrocity — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:21:58 +0000

Actually had no idea Dr. Bronner's was this weird. The guy started it as a tax-exempt religious organization!

New comment by vostrocity in "The Amazon tax"

vostrocity — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 22:32:07 +0000

Surprisingly, their "Alexa for Shopping" feature has been quite good for finding products that contain a specific set of desired features.

I was looking for a device that plugs into my car's 12V cigarette lighter outlet, connects with my phone's Bluetooth, outputs the audio to 3.5mm aux (my car has aux input but no Bluetooth), has no battery, automatically turns on with my car, has next and previous track buttons, and outputs USB-C with at least 30W.

Amazon's search filters were useless for this, but their LLM was able to read through reviews and suggest products that come very close. Unfortunately, no exact product exists that fulfills all the requirements.

New comment by vostrocity in "Apple is getting this wrong"

vostrocity — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:17:42 +0000

Seriously, that was the only person with a level head. When has it ever been okay to discuss work details with an ex-coworker months after they left?

New comment by vostrocity in "Apple is getting this wrong"

vostrocity — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:14:46 +0000

The odd thing is one of the guys has the first name Chang, and the other guy has the last name Chang.

New comment by vostrocity in "Apple is getting this wrong"

vostrocity — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:04:02 +0000

Maybe someone could help me understand what this message means.

> I think I’m going to have to hit the workday button before I’m complete. I just got a weird message that is making me nervous (see below), so I am going to go hit the workday button now.