Those Japanese vending machines blow my mind. I got lost on takao mountain once and was utterly hopeless of ever finding civilization again. I found abandoned and rotting tractors the forest had taken back, weird half completed concrete structures, the trail was gone, I was well and truly lost. Then, I turn a corner, and find a goddamned vending machine. Powered. With stock.
I followed its power cord back for a solid ten minutes before I found the little building on a trail it led to.
Somebody restocked that vending machine. Somebody installed it.
It's like this throughout Japan. Boggles the mind.
>> Since graduating from undergraduate studies (which marks exactly one year as I write this post)
Author sounds young .. yes, absolutely try to consume less and create more, it's way more life-affirming than the opposite configuration, but:
Getting better at your job, like everything else in life, is just a function of time. Show up, and then show up consistently. Put in the time. Be patient. Lead with an open mind and an open heart -- opportunities go to those who are present way more often than those who aren't. Willingly take on shitty jobs, do them well, and you'll find yourself being trusted with bigger and better jobs. Learn when to be the worker bee and when to be the queen bee. Say "yes" until you're truly able to say "no". Try to accept that, at the end of the day, things don't matter as much as you think they might -- I'm talking about projects, stress, deadlines, shit that floods your veins with cortisol. The only thing people will truly remember is how you made them feel during a crisis, not the minutiae of what you actually contributed -- and those personal relationships will be the gasoline in the engine of your career.
I really believe people will go far if they focus on this kind of stuff, and way less on structured self-improvement, productivity hacking, finding "secrets", shortcuts via programs, seminars, coaches, and tools, and all that shallow, nutritionless baloney.
- Apple is essentially Globalstar's largest customer, with over 50+% of revenue from them alone. All other segments are a drop in the hat in comparison.
- Apple was so far in bed with Globalstar that they actually got GSAT to drop an entire next generation product line instead for Apple's service needs.
On the second point -- Globalstar offered a "satellite hotspot" service called the Sat-Fi. The second-gen Sat-Fi had launched and only stayed in service for a couple years before it was killed with basically little to no warning or fanfare. Their "duplex" service offering still remains today, but with a very small amount of subscribers. (Duplex to them is their ancient satphones - voice and 'data' dialup calls at up to 9600 baud. They don't make Duplex hardware anymore and are winding out the Duplex service by increasing prices so as to force customers away. Current pricing is $100/mo for 120 minutes or $200/month for unlimited voice. It's a raw deal. Gen2 got us about 72kbps over the air, but RIP.)
More wild in the 10K is this gem -- Apple has up to 85% of Globalstar's total system capacity.
"We are the operator for certain satellite-enabled services offered by Apple Inc. ("Partner") (the “Services”) pursuant to the agreement (the “Service Agreement”) and certain related ancillary agreements (such agreements, together with the Service Agreement, the “Service Agreements”). The Service Agreements generally require us to allocate network capacity to support the Services, which launched in November 2022, and Partner to enable Band 53/n53 for use in cellular-enabled devices designated by Partner for use with the Services."
"We retain 15% of network capacity to support our existing and future Duplex, SPOT and IoT subscribers. This capacity can support a substantial increase in our own subscriber base, particularly following recent and planned investments in our space and ground segments. The retained satellite capacity can be used by us directly or through additional wholesale arrangements."
Simplifying greatly, but
1. LLMs “create” these cultural artifacts by recombining their inputs (text, images, etc), all of which are cultural artifacts created by humans
2. Humans also create cultural artifacts by recombining other cultural artifacts. The difference is that they combine another input which we can’t really prove AI has: qualia, the individual experience of being in the world, the synthesis of touch and sound and feeling and perspective.
I’m not saying computers can’t have something like it, but it would be so fundamentally different as to be completely alien and unrelatable to humans, and thus (IMO) non-contiguous with human culture.
I bought pet insurance at one point for a dog and now I regularly get quizzed on pet names when I get those questions. It will be things like “have you ever owned a pet by the name of a b c” and the answers are absurd because they are pet names.
The best one was Ulysses S Twinkletoes. I still have a screenshot of that years later
There is a good example of this in Ancient Rome. By around the time of Augustus Romans were fervent believers in astrology. One of the most notable cases of astrology becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy has to do with the death of the emperor Domitian.
An astrologer named Asclation had earlier predicted that Domitian would die on September 18, 96 AD, and Domitian's enemies used this as a sort of nucleation point to organize his assassination. So although the date was made up, it had the effect of focusing the efforts of the assassins on a particular date, and they were successful in assassinating him on September 18.
The full story that survives probably has some embellishments, but is entertaining. As the day approached Domitian became increasingly nervous. On September 17, he called Asclation before him and asked him if he stood by his prediction. Asclation said he did. Domitian then asked Asclation how Ascaltion himself was to die. Asclation responded that the stars said that he would die by being torn apart by dogs. Domitian then had an idea, and condemned him to death by burning.
Asclation was immediately led to a public square, tied to a stake, and a bonfire was built underneath him. Not long after being lit, however, it suddenly began raining and the downpour quenched the flames. In the wet mess, Asclation's stake tipped over and a pack of dogs found him and devoured him.
This development naturally did not put Domitian's mind at ease. The next day he became a nervous wreck. Around noon, he asked an attendant what time it was. The attendant, who was part of the conspiracy, lied and said that it was an hour later. Seeing that the danger had passed, Domitian relaxed and decided to take a bath. As he was about to go out, an official rushed in and asked for his signature on some documents. The official appeared to have an injury to his arm, but this official was also in on the conspiracy, and his sling concealed a dagger. When he got close to the emperor he stabbed him to death.
I followed its power cord back for a solid ten minutes before I found the little building on a trail it led to.
Somebody restocked that vending machine. Somebody installed it.
It's like this throughout Japan. Boggles the mind.