Believe it or not, that's not even the topic of the article.
The article is entirely about the AI doing the first pass of the claim intake and causing a lot more work for everyone involved instead. Mis-routing, mis-categorization, hallucinating details, etc.
When I was struggling to figure out why so many of my devices on my gigabit network were only getting 100 megabits, I learned that a lot more of my devices were on 10/100 ethernet than I expected. Including some recent purchases (TV's especially).
It took me a while because I assumed gigabit had been kind for far longer than it actually was in practice.
TV stuff doesn't tend to need more than 100Mbps, unless you're playing blu-ray 4k discs which have higher peak rates. Saving a buck or two on the SoC adds up for the manufacturer.
Exactly. You spend $3000 on a TV and now you have a crap experience playing BluRay because the manufacturer saved 12 cents on a Gigabit chip. Good way to lose customers.
It is so frustrating that this can bring down the rest of the network to the lowest common denominator. I know it is the fault of a cheap switch, not the TV, but still.
> It is so frustrating that this can bring down the rest of the network to the lowest common denominator.
It shouldn't? I have 10M to 10G in the same ethernet collision domain everything works at appropriate speeds (my 10G hosts don't always hit 10G cause some of them have anemic cpus, but that's a different story). Most of my switches are cheap gigE switches, not the 10G stuff obviously, so cheap isn't the problem.
Only thing is if some equipment thought ethernet pause frames were a good idea... Send too much traffic to a low speed switch port and get a pause frame will tend to stop all outbound traffic which is not helpful. Not a lot of things send or respect pause frames though...
Pause frames are wild. I have a cheap Legion Go dock and if I leave it with power/Ethernet connected and no legion in the dock, it brings down my whole network after about 30min or so.
Buffer exhaustion can cause it to happen pretty quickly with some normal, non-contrived usage patterns. A 10G host sending large data to a 100M peer will cause all packets between all other peers to drop once switch memory is filled up. Ideally the switch is smarter about this, but cheap switches in the real world…
Imagine 5 devices that all push at 100mbit in 100 milliseconds (1gig linerate) to the target 1gig connected device, then nothing for 900ms.
On paper they are feeding 100mbit a second each to a target receiving 500mbit a second. Easily fits in a 1gig link.
But because of the timing you've got to transmit 500mbit in 100ms, or a peak speed of 5gbit.
So instead you have to buffer and delay the packets. Your near-zero latency increases to 400ms, and your switch needs about 400mbit (50MB) of buffer, or over 30,000 packets of buffer space.
You'd need a very high end switch to avoid any drops in that situation.
I’m not an expert on switching algorithms, but there are various algos they can use for dropping or rejecting packets, or QoS prioritization that are supposed to self limit even a poorly implemented network protocol and provide fair service and reasonable latency even in such a situation.
Again, a cheapo non reputable switch probably runs with whatever settings got it working the first time with no follow up testing. Networking algorithms are an area where the simple dumb thing mostly works except in edge cases and adversarial situations, and the right/proper way to do things is fiendishly complex.
This is generally not related to the switch at all. It's upstream egress to the Internet and the most common cause is buffer bloat. Traffic on a 10Gb link between local hosts won't be impacted by a 100Mb connection going out to the Internet and also a 10Gb connection sending to a 100Mb connection won't either. TCP congestion control matches the speed of the sender and during an initial connection burst the switch will likely buffer for a short period of time (which is exactly why the buffer exists) and drains at line rate. This is normal and all during this TCP is signaling congestion / back off. However, if your egress router doesn't handle buffer bloat you can end up with poor connections leaving the network, but generally this isn't because of local Ethernet speed mismatch or related to the switch at all.
And even in cheap switches (think Realtek / Broadcom chips in $30 switches) they have dynamic shared pools. An elephant flow can exhaust some of that pool, but even the cheap stuff won't allow a single port to exhaust all resources as claimed.
10Gb to 100Gb UDP? Sure... Maybe in this scenario you end up with some odd behavior, but this isn't going to be normal usage. We've got PAUSE frames, congestion control and hardware that's been doing this for decades. Even on the cheap switching. It is imperative to have a router, however that actually deals with buffer bloat appropriately and as your Internet pipe scales you want to be cognizant your router can handle queuing appropriately at those line rates.
But ultimately...
> A 10G host sending large data to a 100M peer will cause all packets between all other peers to drop once switch memory is filled up.
And hubs like that wouldn't work with 1G anyway. (Apparently theoretically some versions of gigabit ethernet could work with hubs but it's not clear any were ever made)
Even UHD Blu-Ray isn't likely to need sustained transfer rates over 100 Mbps. The spec allows transfer rates of about 128 Mbps, and some discs reportedly have momentary spikes above that, but I suspect the vast majority of titles would be playable over Fast Ethernet, especially if given a few seconds of buffer.
This is the biggest problem with those cheap network interfaces in tvs. They dont have any form of usable buffer, so a spike instantly creates problems.
using an usb network dongle (or if your setup is good enough wifi, but this is very unstable)
Also, most tv's are not able to push the full 100Mbps over their network interface.
Will TVs stream UHD Blu-Ray rips off the network anyway? I guess modern TVs all have H.265 decoders now, so there’s no reason they couldn’t as long as the network interface is quick enough and they know how to handle common video containers.
TVs will stream some. Exactly because the network cards are horrible without buffers etc.
But yeah, remuxes (uncompressed copies of UHD) are pretty common and people that want the best quality use them.
Also, kaleidescape highest quality options are as big or bigger than UHD rips.
Totally. It's only inconvenient for a total rounding error of a customer who's trying to stream games from cloud or sunshine/moonlight, where it can cost up to 4ms of latency for higher bitrates.
Yes - I think in cases where you have a good wireless setup at home it's actually preferable to not hardwire the TV. It's easy to get better performance over wifi when the port is only 100mbps.
Tooth to tail is crappy PC/corporate-approved rename. The concept used to have a bunch of arrow and spear related names and a bunch of informal phallic counterparts all of which are better suited to the fundamental workflow of mechanized offensive operations.
The spear analogy dates at least as far back as 1940. Heavy mechanized units as the tip and then reinforcing units behind them, further units to secure flanks, logistics flow. From the metal differences across the head of a spear (something that people who have a passing familiarity of artillery or naval gunnery will be able to relate to) the finish of the handle to keep the wood in good shape the analogies basically write themselves. The dick jokes are an obvious follow on.
Haven't tried this, but talking to Claude in its app is so much better than talking to Siri that Apple should be ashamed. It got every word perfectly the first time, including programming / project management terms.
Meanwhile, Siri struggles to send basic texts to my kids.
I have kids in school. Our school system is one of the top in Connecticut, which is the quintessential "school" state (if any rich kid on TV goes away to school, it's probably to CT).
These kids (all of them, not mine) can't really read. Not like when I was young. (I'm not even old! I graduated in the 2000's!) They certainly can't write. They have no stamina to do an essay or a test like when I was a kid. They can't be bored or be creative.
We've talked to multiple teachers who just don't know what to do about it.
It was better before Covid (my oldest's grade isn't as bad), but those kids who were in early elementary or younger when covid hit? Completely incapable of what adults would consider basic school tasks. Even the smart ones who get good grades!
But it's not (just) smartphones and tablets, imo. It's chromebooks in the classroom. School is online now, even after covid, and it just doesn't work in my opinion.
Personally, I'd drop technology from the classroom entirely.
I read an Economist article a few years ago that mentioned a literature professor at Columbia who said that most his undergrad freshmen students have never read a book cover to cover. Of those that have, their favorites were young adult fiction. Most of his students couldn't even focus on a single sonnet.
Apparently kids nowadays are having difficulty focusing on individual sentences, and a lot of them are just effectively illiterate. This just blows me away. I'm roughly your age and sometimes as a kid, during the summer, I'd do nothing for days but read nonstop, sunrise to sunset if I liked the book, and I knew a bunch of kids who would do the same thing. They weren't even what you'd call huge readers. It's just what you did if you were bored, or had an okay book with nothing else to do.
Man, I literally never stopped as a kid - I always had a dogeared paperback on my person, in case a few spare minutes presented themselves to read.
And when I say “spare minutes” I mean… any time anyone wasn’t saying “put down that fucking book!” - I don’t know if the phenomenon of hiding a novel in a textbook and looking very very studious in class is even a thing any more.
These days I read almost exclusively on my phone, for much the same reason. If you flip open a paperback because you’re out for dinner and every other fucker isn’t talking but rather doomscrolling you look weird. If you give the appearance of also probably doing instragram or whatever, it’s socially acceptable.
Idk. I’m in my 40s now, I remember being mocked for being a bookworm when I was a kid, and I suppose this is just the same pattern - reading, knowing things, expanding your horizons - these things are not cool, and I don’t know if they ever were.
Yea, I take my iPad everywhere for the same reason. I’ve gone digital simply because our house already has bookshelves in every room and they are all full, so I literally find it difficult to buy physical books anymore. But I’m always reading, though I confess to reading more non-fiction than fiction these days.
> as a kid, during the summer, I'd do nothing for days but read nonstop
Same! Our local library had a thing where you'd keep a list of all the books you read over the summer, and the week before school started you could turn the list in for a prize. I don't at all remember anything about the prizes, but I remember all the fun and joy I had reading the books and imagining other lives and worlds than my own.
"Young adult" fiction is supposed to be for like 11-15 year olds. By high school I'd think you should be reading regular "adult" material. I think the curriculum generally agrees and assigns what we'd call adult literature in high school English.
Not only that. The strict adherence to things like ESRB ratings dumbs down today's kids.
I'm firmly in the camp that I am a better person today because things like parental controls did not really exist in the world when I was a kid, and I was playing GTA at like 10. While kids today at that age are forced to read, listen, watch or play dumbed down crap.
Young adult is NOT 11-15 year olds. By literally any definition.
> I think the curriculum generally agrees and assigns what we'd call adult literature in high school English.
The curriculum assigns what they should read to get overview of history of literature and general education. You are not meant to like most of it, you are meant to learn about the writer and period from it. The curriculum does not assigns what they "should" read for pleasure or like.
"Young adult" in this context is a publishing industry marketing tactic. It doesn't refer to actual adults. The target audience is mostly children who want to feel like they're getting away with something they're not supposed to.
Young adult literature is not "books for target range of 11-15". OP made that claim up to make it sound terrible that people who finished high school report liking to read books literally written for their age bracket. Official young adult age range is 13-18, which means literally high schoolers. And yes, they are already grown a lot, so those books frequently end up being popular among reading adults too.
I am from generation that read a lot. Huge bulk of what people, both adults and teenagers, read was something called "junk literature". It is fascinating how the "kids don't read for pleasure" panic instantly jumps into "it is horrible that when kids read for pleasure, they report liking books that are age appropriate and written so that their generation likes them".
I remember plenty of "young adult" books in the school library in elementary and middle school in the 90s. e.g. I read A Wrinkle in Time in 4th grade, and The Giver was assigned in 7th. I think Hatchet may have been a choice of assigned reading in 5th. IIRC (and a quick search confirms) all of these were marketed as young adult. I've always thought of YA as targeted at roughly 9-12 years old. I remember thinking the term was patronizing when I was a kid.
You seem to assume that reading fiction is some kind of competition. You read it as 9 years old, therefore it is shameful to read it as teenager or adult. That is genuinely absurd.
I never said a kid should not be allowed to read books outside of their demographic bracket. Kids can read books "officially" for younger kids, older kids or adults assuming it does not contain genuinely 18+ content. A kid reading book meant for young adults will typically miss some themes, topics or relationships. It will relate characters differently, will miss some motivation and some stuff flies over their head. I personally missed most of the sex in Witcher when I read it the first time when I was too young to figure them out. I thought some characters are just mean when adult me understood exactly why they do what they do.
Young adult category is not meant or written for 9-12 years crowd. That does not mean kids brain will melt. My own kids have seen and enjoyed entertainment meant for older people - but it was super apparent a lot of it went right over their heads when I talked with them.
I don't view it as a competition. I've never been big on fiction in the first place. I'm just listing books I remember being present if not assigned in classrooms when I was that old, and I remember these things being characterized as Young Adult, which struck me as condescending as a 10 year old.
By contrast, in high school we were assigned books like Brave New World, which makes a lot more sense as a book for that age range and is more what I'd think "young adult" should mean.
It will rot your mind! It will make your eyes square! Stop doing something that I am not doing!
> "junk literature" ... fascinating ... panic
Yes. It's funny how old this meme is. It's about as old as novels, at least. It's fun reading centuries-old novels and finding references (well, thinly veiled protests) to the holier than thou impeccable paragons of virtue that have nothing better to do than hassle someone who wishes to read a book.
I suppose there's been some progress, if the fiction police have had to retreat to a limited subset of fiction to call sinful.
What an odd insult to identify a group of people solely by the fact that they read (a particular subset of) books, and then say they can't read. The ability to read is one of the only things this group of people has in common!
How did you travelled from "this is their favorite book" to "they dont find enjoyment in anything else"? That is absurd.
Second, why is it shocking that smart educated Ivy League student would enjoy a book written for the young adult category? They read manga, superhero comicd, they watch same series on TV. Are you similarly shocked they watch football and their favorite movie is not from 1959?
Yep, it’s a crisis. We’re raising kids that are illiterate and frankly just dumb. You ever watch those YouTube videos where they interview college kids (who were actually accepted to a college!) and they can’t correctly answer who fought in the US Civil War and other basic knowledge questions? They don’t know the difference between continents and countries (e.g. Europe and a country within Europe). They can’t tell you who the Vice President is, never mind their Senators or their state governor. Clearly the education establishment has failed in a big way. And clearly, technology in the classroom has not improved anything.
At the risk of a flamewar I want to say that I still don't accept audiobooks as a 100% drop in replacement for actually reading. I know a lot of millenials my age who insist that listening to an audiobook while <driving/cleaning/walking/biking/cooking> is completely the same as actually sitting down and focusing without distractions on a paper book for hours. But it isn't! Firstly, much is lost without seeing the formatting of the page, and without being able to flip back to an earlier page easily to re-read something. Secondly, sitting down and reading develops concentration and focus.
I'm interested in hearing the opinions of people who agree or disagree with my take. I'm not saying audiobooks are bad, but, they are not at all equivalent to real reading.
I agree with the sitting down and focusing part. For me, I've always been extremely inclined to audio processing, so I can sometimes just lay in bed or in a chair, or on the train, and... listen to an audio book. I really don't think it makes a big difference, at least for me. I used to be attached to the sensory experience of flicking pages, but there's also a big factor in letting the book (or, the narrator) take you to their own pace. A good narrator really completes a story.
All that stuff about listening to an audiobook while working out, or cooking, driving, or anything is crystallized bravado from people who think it makes them look clever that they can do two things badly at the same time.
I think reading develops internal monologue and you also can change the tempo according to understanding, slow down when a pasaage is hard etc. With audiobooks something that is not very clear escapes away as the audiobook moves on. Maybe multiple listenings can fill the gap but am not sure if re-listening to audiobooks is a thing.
Yes, well put, this happens to me too. I have to re-read tough or confusing passages, and I can slide quickly through simple parts. The forced pacing of an audiobook throws me off because of that.
This should be entirely non-controversial. Listening is much more passive. You can zone out more easily without re-reading. You don’t have to work your brain to figure out pacing or anything like that.
I think the only people who claim audiobooks are the same as actual reading are people who have never bothered to do much actual reading.
I exclusively read physical books, but not as a matter of principle, simply practice. I very much agree that they are different. The bigger thing, of course, is that no matter the medium, that the individual pay attention.
It is okay to listen to audiobooks, but there are other things going on with reading, and more with a physical book. When I read, I choose what to emphasize, and how to pace. I parse out the clauses, the phrasing, the pronunciation, enunciation. If I read Tolkien I give the songs tunes. I give voices to the characters. I remember where on the page something happened, and may go back for it, especially in nonfiction. I pause to digest.
Audiobooks are a different experience. And I, personally, am prone to breaks in concentration. But I think any adult should be capable and should actively practice all forms: silently reading books, listening to a book being read to you, and reading aloud to another. Consuming books is not just a matter of downloading information. It also is to be actively digested and felt. For TV shows, for example, some people watch on high speed, or play it in the background, but I feel that even if they get the plot points they miss a lot. So too with books when not given proper attention.
Edit: I’ll add, some works are meant to be listened to, they may have some tone or rhythm, trope or cantillation. Maybe even gestures. If I said “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair,” you know how how it sounds. And I think practice in recitation lets us preserve this in the art.
I personally can't stand audiobooks (or podcasts, or videos), so I'm with you there. I just read way too fast, and they feel so slow.
On the other hand, one of my kids has a pretty severe eye problem mixed with dyslexia, so audiobooks are basically his only real option (large print is hard to find, especially for books aimed at younger readers, and tablet reading is tiring). So, I'm glad they exist, at least.
You're right that a lot of material really does require a physical book. Anything even remotely technical.
That said, I would argue that a voice actor is far more significant than page formatting when it comes to novels. A good voice actor can turn a good story great, and sometimes a poor story to... acceptable.
I've read thousands of novels over the decades, both with and without audio, so I'm reasonably confident about the above.
I disagree. I don't read because I like to read books, I don't listen to audiobooks because I like listening to audiobooks, I don't talk to people because I like talking with people, heck, I don't take pictures because I like taking pictures.
I like stories and all of the above are simply ways of hoarding more stories. The way I'm getting the story is not important, the story is.
> Personally, I'd drop technology from the classroom entirely.
Definitely. When I was in school we started to have projectors in classrooms but I honestly don't think they added much at all. Seeing a "modern" classroom with electronic whiteboards and tablets everywhere is horrifying.
I doubt any paedagogues were asking for this. What's more likely is Microsoft and Google realised there were education budgets all over the world they weren't yet harvesting.
Projectors and electronic whiteboards elevated lessons for me. Ever see a science teacher try to draw a galaxy or nebula on a blackboard, and try to describe the awesomeness of it using just words?
Math concepts, especially visualizations, become so much more accessible.
One math teacher in my school used an analog overhead projector as part of his workflow: he would write math on a long transparency roll, sitting at his desk, facing the class, so every student could see exactly how their work should be reasoned-about and laid out properly. He could rewind (literally) to any previous point in the lesson.
As always, it comes down to one's ability to use the tools effectively.
FOMO at its best, fuck their personalities and development and having happy childhood as base layer of personality for rest of their lives, its grades at all costs!
Famously most of asian kids wear glasses from studying all the time, well we need up up that up! What if they overtake us in some rat race. Not the best parenting but some folks are like that and then it shows on kids, thats true.
>FOMO at its best, fuck their personalities and development and having happy childhood as base layer of personality for rest of their lives, its grades at all costs!
It's about making sure kids can read. It's about making sure our tax dollars are spent on making the next generation of people into functional adults.
I don't want the country spending billions on an education system that churns out adults who are genuinely illiterate and can't write.
The rat race is nothing to be sneezed at. Social welfare systems across the world are strained even in places like Europe that historically have benefitted from the long tail of colonialism. The kids are going to have to be competitive and that means at the very least being able to read and do some math. Also it’s not like kids these days are frolicking in the fields and outside the home all day with their friends, you would just be cutting into some TikTok time.
fellow Fairfield County native here. Likely around the same age as you. I went to a great public school (I was a terrible student, crippling ADHD but that's another story for another day) in the southern half of the county. I'll let you guess which one. Also spent a few years in another of the top districts (west of the capital, again, easy to guess ;P) before making the move south.
It's NOT the schools. They are well funded and as you say, pretty helpless because teachers, even younger ones, just aren't able to deal with kids whose parents shoved a smartphone into their hands at age 3.
It's NOT the parents - in order to keep up with the jonses in those towns, you have to work like a dog and most likely, both parents are in high stress demanding environments in order to make enough to live there. I was fortunate that my dad did quite well for our family, but there's no way I could raise a kid in that environment.
It's the fucking devices, and the drive to put tech everywhere in the classroom. When I was a kid we had a single Mac in the classroom (besides the teacher's computer), mainly to dick around with Oregon Trail, Math Blaster, or some typing app. We wanted to play games? We went outside and played sports, or stayed inside and played games like scrabble or chess.
In high school we had to do genuine research 15-20+ page papers as early as Sophomore year. There was zero Wikipedia, much less ChatGPT or Claude.
Of course, a book, which requires attention, effort, and has no distractions, is not going to capture the attention and imagination of someone who has had the world and all of its distractions at their fingertips since they gained consciousness, and weren't made to socialize without devices.
And no, we cannot allow people to pass to the next grade without mastering the skills required of their current grade. This needs to be completely iron clad and not up for debate. I was nearly held back 3-4 times. I am an idiot. I was miles ahead of where elementary school and middle school kids are today. I don't care if a wealthy Ivy grad and his management consultant wife donate a bunch of money to make sure their kid can pass - if their kid can't read or write, their kid can't pass.
Devil’s advocate: what’s the point? Is it important to have reading and writing skills if everything can be transcribed through AI? Or maybe it’s not directly important, but the ability to hold your attention on something for 30-60 minutes is? Is reading the best medium for education, or something more like Kahn Academy videos?
I also wonder how the Montessori schools are doing, since I believe they focus less on rote skill acquisition and more on creativity.
Reading/writing is a much more dense and navigable way of taking in and recording information than speech. Efficient use of AI requires being very good at reading quickly and having the comprehension skills to pick up on nuances that suggest a hole in the AI's work.
In a world where AI is empowering existing experts while risking junior hiring, the young should be aiming to be competitive with those experts, not aiming below even current juniors. If, as a human, you're just acting as a glorified harness around an LLM, you're more replaceable.
In my opinion it is. Reading can convey information faster than even sped up videos, is easier to skim, and has high precision.
Im not saying it is the best for everyone, but it has been proven repeatedly to beat out any other method in the majority of the population. Plus its time stability and storage is much easier and reliable.
It also could have other side benefits like focus or perhaps something like visual acuity, much like how writing by hand can develop good hand-eye coordination. If someone struggled to write with a pencil for example I would be very wary about handing them sharp tools or knives.
When I used to read for pleasure, I did it because it was pleasurable. Not because it would be the hard thing. It was fun and easy.
What this particular chain of thoughts shows is that adults don't read for pleasure either, they associate it with an uncomfortable hard thing one should to do "build character".
This is conflating hard with unpleasant. A child just learning to read is going to find it hard to do, yet through adults pushing them to do the hard thing, they learn to read and sometimes begin to find it to be pleasurable. Building most skills is hard, yet that doesn't exclude taking pleasure in it. Many of us taught ourselves to code, the fact that we enjoyed it doesn't mean it wasn't also hard.
We've all learned the lesson that sometimes you have to struggle through something hard, to be able to access better pleasure.
I don't think this is accurate. In basically every single game or sport with measurable outcomes, doing things are relatively simple to you (and often enjoyable) endlessly - drives improvement.
If you want to make the argument that it's muscle memory in e.g. shooting freethrows in basketball, then you can see the exact same thing in doing chess tactical puzzles. There's even one successful learning method called the Woodpecker Method where you endlessly repeat over the same series of tactics working to get the time it takes you to do them down to essentially instantaneous. And it works excellently for improvement, and I obviously don't just mean improvement at doing that set of tactics.
The original donkey kong is pretty difficult compared to some of the wide-audience games that have been coming out. As far as I can tell, if the audience of a particular franchise includes younger generations as a majority or near-majority, the difficulty plummets. I don't think "plummets" is even that sensational. See pokemon, kingdom hearts, mario games, final fantasy games. Some franchises and genres have survived but not all of them.
I might be missing some other reasons why this could be happening, like increases in game balance and coordination.
Play Mario Odyssey for an hour or two then play Super Mario Bros 1, 2, or 3 as one startling example.
Mario games have reduced the difficulty a lot, although you should probably compare Mario Wonder with SMB 1-3. Odyssey is more comparable with Mario 64.
One of the things though is when most peopley play SMB 1-3 today, they're playing with input lag. Mario Wonder was designed with input lag in mind, SMB 1 was not and it increases the difficulty.
Mario Wonder lets you choose to use invulnerable characters, etc. There was only one level I remember needing to try many times to beat. OTOH, there's lots of difficult levels in smb 1...
That's mostly the MBAification of games that I think is completely disconnected from what most kids want. But the MBA logic is about maximizing market reach. Relatively few people will choose not to play a game because it's too easy, but ostensibly the same isn't true of games that are seen as difficult. Of course Elden Ring, Dark Souls, et al completely proved this to be nonsense (to say nothing of pvp games), but who's gonna let a bit of reality get in the way of pie charts, bar graphs, and powerpoints?
In the world of games outside the big money AAA MBA stuff, there's plenty of highly challenging franchises that maintain true to themselves and thrive, even with plenty of kids playing. E.g. - I suspect the median age for Binding of Isaac is well below the age of consent.
Shifting to a position below where it previously was? I don't get your point... Is there's a new bar? What would you say the new expectation is that doesn't build on previous core skills?
Reading, writing, and math are foundational skills that, aside from having enormous utility in their own right, are also crucial for developing sharp, creative, and analytical minds.
Take writing as an example: it challenges you to organize your thoughts, patch up the weaknesses of your arguments, and find effective means of connecting with your audience. In so doing, you restructure your own understanding of the world, deepening your expertise and mental schemas. That's something an LLM can't do.
I am not sure what to make of this devils advocate comment. Are you just throwing opposites at the wall? I genuinely don't know how to interpret the query about attention span?
Are you suggesting that a lower attention span has no impact? I don't know how I would learn things if my attention span was shit, or even sit with difficult problems or emotions and resolve them. Even just general productivity, which, sure there are some arguments about good vs bad productivity, but in general, any form of productivity will benefit from better attention span I think?
I think a world where people are just automatons who ask AIs to do things for them is a pretty bleak world.
Reading, writing, being able to focus on things... these are healthy things that healthy brains do. And I don't think that's just a case of it always being that way in the past, so any change to that is bad. I think humans as a species will die if we give this sort of thing up, and I don't think I'm exaggerating or engaging in AI doomerism here.
Not to mention that AI isn't that good. Maybe it will be, but I'm skeptical. Human progress will basically stop if we lose a generation of kids to this brainrot, with barely-capable AIs that can't even design their successors and move humanity forward. Who else will push humanity forward, if the next several generations of kids are intellectually incapable of doing so?
What kind of world are we building where advanced technology is just used to stop living as full human beings? Where’s the desire to self-actualize? Did it start dying when people got glued to the idiot box?
At the Montessori school my kid goes to, children read a lot. They have access to the Library, can ask the teacher to go there when they need/want to. The school has a no phone policy, children are not allowed to bring them to school. Computers are only in the computer room for children to access when they want to do research and there are no laptops in the class room.
It works well and the children are both happy and do well academically
My pen weighs in at 10g in my backpack and is capable of durably recording information for thousands of years. No battery to charge, cheap, and plentiful.
I use my fingers to interact with computers, and they don't have any extra weight at all, as they are already attached to me. You need to also count the weight of the paper.
And, no, your pen and paper are not able to durably record information for thousands of years. Unless you have some really bespoke setup.
Acid-free paper and a carbon-black ink, or a modern neutral pH iron-gall ink, should last 1000 years if stored correctly. 2000 might be pushing it, but under a controlled atmosphere it should be possible.
Using the built-in Screen Time tools, yes. Qustodio works pretty well though as an add-on product. Not perfect UX, not perfect functionality, but it's the best I've found.
I also use Qustodio, and it has some pretty major rough spots, imo. ScreenTime does as well.
They are both very bad at things like my kids listening to Spotify with the screen off.
Qustodio also has no way to mark an app as "allowed even when they run out of time", or "this app doesn't count towards screen time" (like Spotify, for example).
Then on the PC it gets MUCH worse. I want tracking and blocking on my PCs for my kids' profiles, but if ONE kid runs out of time, ALL the PCs lock everyone out. No message, either. Just bounced to the login screen. Took me like a whole day to figure it out.
Windows gives you nice sliders for things, which they will happily break on a whim. Linux forces you to memorize a Lovecraftian string of characters to do something, but it will generally stick for a long time.
I use both, with differing ideologies. My Linux is heavily customized with keybinds and semi-niche software that enables my workflows because I know it will stick. On my Windows machines, I've accepted that Microsoft owns that machine and I have to adapt my workflow to fit their sensibilities.
I'll admit I find ibuprofen to be a bit of a wonder drug. When I have a cold or flu, ibuprofen by itself is the most impactful medicine I take. The anti-inflammatory effects make my whole body better, including my sinuses (my sinuses are a disaster normally anyway, though). I do avoid taking it otherwise because my headache doctor says it causes rebound headaches, though.
But if I need to go out somewhere and am not feeling well? 2 advil and I'm good to go. The only medicine I've found more effective for that is (real) sudafed, but if I take that after like 10am I won't sleep that night.
As someone who has never seen these or paid attention to them I was thinking "how heavy could they possibly be?" Then I saw 13.6 oz and I was blown away. That's actually really heavy for headphones!
It was Beats. At first it was found in counterfeit Beats, but later the same was found in genuine Beats. And then guess who bought Beats for their exquisite metal weight technology? That's right, it was Apple.
> And then guess who bought Beats for their exquisite metal weight technology? That's right, it was Apple.
It's self-evidently extremely disingenuous to claim that Apple bought Beats for their "exquisite metal weight technology", so I thought I'd double check your claim that there are "metal weights" inside Beats headphones.
All of this appears to stem from two blog posts, written by the same VC.[^1] The first time they accidentally tore down counterfeit Beats, and when they managed to repeat the process, they "stuck by [their] claim" that:
> "…these metal parts are there to add a bit of weight and increase perceived quality with a nice look."
The BOM estimate they provide lists the following metal parts:
* Inner cast metal separator
* Springs
* Torx screw
* Self tapping screw
* Cast metal supports
* Stamped metal ear cup
None of these are extraneous weights not serving a purpose. The claim of the author might be better presented as:
"Beats headphones use heavier metal components instead of plastic ones, and I think it's because they add weight."
There are a lot of very good reasons to use materials that dampen unwanted interference like parasitic vibrations. Stiffer materials such as metal parts typically flex less, and have fewer (but usually more pronounced) resonances than plastic parts, which have intrinsic damping but might distort.
A good example of this is that the driver in your headphones is moving. Therefore the housing it is placed in must consider sprung/unsprung mass. Adding metal components increases the mechanical impedance.
So:
1. It is entirely possible that your claim about the weights is correct, and Beats chose to use metal components rather than plastic purely to add weight to the product.
2. There are a great many other possible explanations for using metal rather than plastic, and I don't think that you're likely to be party to them. For example: maybe they had the parts in-chain already and didn't want to have to tie up hardware engineering or supplier quality engineering for a new plastic part.
The Beats brand was a great entrée to an entire market segment that Apple was trying to better access. I'd say it was a masterful acquisition (and integration).
Yep! I own both a pair of AirPods and a pair of Beats. The Beats were designed for a lower price point, without noise cancellation, than the AirPods so I can’t offer a head-head comparison.
Exactly. Look at something like the Sony XM5s that have a defective design that breaks in a light wind. There a class action against them for the crap they pulled and refusal to warranty. Not that I’m bitter at them or anything.
Nothing new here then. Back when I used to DJ some 20+ years ago, people would complain back then that Sony headphones would constantly break on them.
Meanwhile I had Sennheisers and they could take an absolute beating and still work fine. While also being plastic and cheap looking in comparison to other brands in the same price packet.
Yeah, I had a pair of MDR-V700 back in the day, and they broke in about 2-3 years max, without any abuse, just randomly.
I gave them to a friend who "quick-fixed" them with a screw at the pivot point, but they lost all their flexibility after that. He didn't mind because he was using them solely for drumming, but I couldn't use them anymore.
That being said, I have had some nasty experiences with Sennheiser's IEMs as well. Had to send 2 of them in warranty within a year, products that were in the 300-600 euro range back around 2010!
All genuine Beats as far I know come with the H1 chips and pair just like AirPods - even my cheap $60 Beats Flex I use on planes since I don’t have to worry about them falling out - they just fall around my neck
People wear them at work daily and it doesn’t seem to be a problem. One guy looks likes he’s Tier 3 support and uses them 8 hours a day 5 days a week for years.
People compliment my Jabra’s voice quality otherwise I would’ve switched already.
Sure, plenty of people also wear a 14 oz hard hat strapped to their head all day with no negative health impacts. Doesn't mean it's enjoyable or comfortable for everyone.
I have a pair and they’re fine for wearing when sat down. In fact they’re my preferred headphones for airplane journeys and noisy offices because the noise cancelling is top notch.
However I tried to wear them one on a train commute and it was horrid. Walking around with them really isn’t fun precisely because of their weight.
Every head movement feels like hard work and the headphones don’t even feel stable on your head during any movement due to the weight.
So I end up owned two headphones (well, technically 3):
1. AirPod Max for focus time
2. Sennheiser earphones (in ear) for commuting / exercise workouts.
3. Sennheiser DJ cans for DJing, video streaming and other times when I need wired, zero latency, audio.
I know my way around premium wireless headphones and I'd wager most of them within that price range are somewhere between 250 and 320 grams (like 8.8 oz to 11 oz).
The article is entirely about the AI doing the first pass of the claim intake and causing a lot more work for everyone involved instead. Mis-routing, mis-categorization, hallucinating details, etc.
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