More on Technology
Jay Peters
3 years ago
Apple AR/VR heaset
Apple is said to have opted for a standalone AR/VR headset over a more powerful tethered model.
It has had a tumultuous history.
Apple's alleged mixed reality headset appears to be the worst-kept secret in tech, and a fresh story from The Information is jam-packed with details regarding the device's rocky development.
Apple's decision to use a separate headgear is one of the most notable aspects of the story. Apple had yet to determine whether to pursue a more powerful VR headset that would be linked with a base station or a standalone headset. According to The Information, Apple officials chose the standalone product over the version with the base station, which had a processor that later arrived as the M1 Ultra. In 2020, Bloomberg published similar information.
That decision appears to have had a long-term impact on the headset's development. "The device's many processors had already been in development for several years by the time the choice was taken, making it impossible to go back to the drawing board and construct, say, a single chip to handle all the headset's responsibilities," The Information stated. "Other difficulties, such as putting 14 cameras on the headset, have given hardware and algorithm engineers stress."
Jony Ive remained to consult on the project's design even after his official departure from Apple, according to the story. Ive "prefers" a wearable battery, such as that offered by Magic Leap. Other prototypes, according to The Information, placed the battery in the headset's headband, and it's unknown which will be used in the final design.
The headset was purportedly shown to Apple's board of directors last week, indicating that a public unveiling is imminent. However, it is possible that it will not be introduced until later this year, and it may not hit shop shelves until 2023, so we may have to wait a bit to try it.
For further down the line, Apple is working on a pair of AR spectacles that appear like Ray-Ban wayfarer sunglasses, but according to The Information, they're "still several years away from release." (I'm interested to see how they compare to Meta and Ray-Bans' true wayfarer-style glasses.)
CyberPunkMetalHead
2 years ago
I made ChatGPT copy itself.
OpenAI's ChatGPT is an amazing AI-powered chatbot. It can write poetry, stories, and marketing campaigns, and it's also adept at coding. ChatGPT's coding is so amazing that it replicated itself. What happened:
Me: Hi
Hello! Can I help? I'll answer any inquiries you have.
Me: Build a python and flask AI chatbot that responds to user messages on the frontend.
CGPT:
from flask import Flask, request, jsonify
import openai
openai.api_key = "YOUR_API_KEY"
@app.route('/chatbot', methods=['POST'])
def chatbot():
user_message = request.get_json()['message']
response = chatbot_response(user_message)
return jsonify({'response': response})
def chatbot_response(user_message):
response = openai.Completion.create(
engine="text-davinci-002",
prompt=user_message,
max_tokens=1024,
n = 1,
temperature=0.5
)
return response['choices'][0]['text']
if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run()To integrate a chatbot with a frontend, use Flask to serve an HTML page with a form for user messages and the chatbot's answer. AJAX can submit the form to the /chatbot route, and JavaScript can show the chatbot's response.
I imported code snippets at the top of the file.
Let's add a frontend interface, I said.
CGPT:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>AI Chatbot</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>AI Chatbot</h1>
<form id="chatbot-form">
<label for="message">Message:</label><br>
<input type="text" id="message" name="message"><br>
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>
<div id="chatbot-response"></div>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function() {
$("#chatbot-form").submit(function(e) {
e.preventDefault();
var userMessage = $("#message").val();
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "/chatbot",
data: JSON.stringify({message: userMessage}),
contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
dataType: "json",
success: function(response) {
$("#chatbot-response").text(response.response);
}
});
});
});
</script>
</body>
</html>To serve this HTML page using Flask, build a new route that returns the page as a GET response.
So far, so good.
Looked quite basic so I got chatGPT to add some tailwind to the project.
Me: Tailwind the chatbot.html page, please. Give it a futuristic style with purple and neon
After a few more prompts, Talk GPT aligned the form to the center, changed some colors, and added padding.
CGPT:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>AI Chatbot</title>
<link href="https://unpkg.com/tailwindcss@^1.0/dist/tailwind.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
</head>
<body class="bg-black flex flex-col justify-center items-center">
<h1 class="sm:text-center text-purple-500">AI Chatbot</h1>
<form id="chatbot-form" class="border-purple-500 bg-purple-800 rounded">
<label for="message">Message:</label><br>
<input type="text" id="message" name="message" class="min-w-30 rounded"><br>
<input type="submit" value="Submit" class="bg-purple-500 border-red-500 transform hover:scale-110 rounded">
</form>
<div class="flex justify-center">
<div id="chatbot-response" class="text-white rounded"></div>
</div>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
var colors = ['red', 'orange', 'yellow', 'green', 'blue', 'indigo', 'violet'];
var colorIndex = 0;
$(document).ready(function() {
setInterval(function() {
$("#chatbot-form").css('border-color', colors[colorIndex]);
colorIndex = (colorIndex + 1) % colors.length;
}, 1000);
$("#chatbot-form").submit(function(e) {
e.preventDefault();
var userMessage = $("#message").val();
$.ajax({
type: "POST",
url: "/chatbot",
data: JSON.stringify({message: userMessage}),
contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
dataType: "json",
success: function(response) {
$("#chatbot-response").text(response.response);
}
});
});
});
</script>
</body>
</html>Improved:
A few more prompts like “Add more vertical and horizontal padding to the submit button and vertical margin, and vertically align this file's body.”
The result:
Is it effective? Now, I'll chat with ChatGPT's AI Chatbot. I intervened minimally throughout construction. Chat GPT created numerous files, connected and interacted with its own API, and presented the user request response on the front end by itself.
Me to AI Chatbot: Hey, can you give me 6 name suggestions for a black horse?
Me to AI Chatbot: Write a poem in the style of Jim Morrison. Make sure to mention cacti and black holes
ChatGPTs Chatbot:
In the desert night, I am confronted by cacti,
Their arms reaching out, As if to grab me and take me away.
The stars in the sky, Beckon me to come,
To a world of black holes, Where I can be free.
I am in a trance, My body and mind,
In a state of limbo, As I wander the night.
I hear a voice, Calling me to the unknown,
I cannot resist, The lure of the black hole.
The cacti watch, As I take my leave,
To a place of mystery, Where I can find peace.
Of course, the next question I gave it was to build a chatbot!
Me: Build a python and flask AI chatbot that responds to user messages on the frontend.
ChatbotGPTs:
import os from flask
import Flask, request, jsonify
from chatterbot
import ChatBot
from chatterbot.trainers
import ListTrainer
# Create a new chatbot
bot = ChatBot(
"My Bot",
storage_adapter="chatterbot.storage.SQLStorageAdapter",
logic_adapters=[
"chatterbot.logic.BestMatch",
{ "import_path": "chatterbot.logic.BestMatch",
"statement_comparison_function": "chatterbot.comparisons.levenshtein_distance",
"response_selection_method": "chatterbot.response_selection.get_first_response" }
],
database_uri="sqlite:///database.sqlite3" )
# Train the chatbot with a few sample conversations
conversation = [ "Hello", "Hi there!", "How are you doing?", "I'm doing great.", "That is good to hear", "Thank you.", "You're welcome." ]
trainer = ListTrainer(bot) trainer.train(conversation)
# Create a Flask app
app = Flask(__name__)
# Define a route for the default URL
@app.route("/") def index(): return "<h1>Chatbot</h1>"
# Define a route for the /get_response URL
@app.route("/get_response", methods=["POST"])
def get_response():
# Get the user's message
user_message = request.form["user_message"]
# Get the bot's response
bot_response = bot.get_response(user_message)
# Return the bot's response
return str(bot_response)
# Run the Flask
app if __name__ == "__main__": app.run()No matter how many times I tried, the second generation always used chatterbot instead of the ChatGPT API. Even when I told it to use the ChatGPT API, it didn't.
ChatGTP's ability to reproduce or construct other machine learning algorithms is interesting and possibly terrifying. Nothing prevents ChatGPT from replicating itself ad infinitum throughout the Internet other than a lack of desire. This may be the first time a machine repeats itself, so I've preserved the project as a reference. Adding a requirements.txt file and python env for easier deployment is the only change to the code.
I hope you enjoyed this.
Ossiana Tepfenhart
3 years ago
Has anyone noticed what an absolute shitshow LinkedIn is?
After viewing its insanity, I had to leave this platform.
I joined LinkedIn recently. That's how I aim to increase my readership and gain recognition. LinkedIn's premise appealed to me: a Facebook-like platform for professional networking.
I don't use Facebook since it's full of propaganda. It seems like a professional, apolitical space, right?
I expected people to:
be more formal and respectful than on Facebook.
Talk about the inclusiveness of the workplace. Studies consistently demonstrate that inclusive, progressive workplaces outperform those that adhere to established practices.
Talk about business in their industry. Yep. I wanted to read articles with advice on how to write better and reach a wider audience.
Oh, sh*t. I hadn't anticipated that.
After posting and reading about inclusivity and pro-choice, I was startled by how many professionals acted unprofessionally. I've seen:
Men have approached me in the DMs in a really aggressive manner. Yikes. huge yikes Not at all professional.
I've heard pro-choice women referred to as infant killers by many people. If I were the CEO of a company and I witnessed one of my employees acting that poorly, I would immediately fire them.
Many posts are anti-LGBTQIA+, as I've noticed. a lot, like, a lot. Some are subtly stating that the world doesn't need to know, while others are openly making fun of transgender persons like myself.
Several medical professionals were posting explicitly racist comments. Even if you are as white as a sheet like me, you should be alarmed by this. Who's to guarantee a patient who is black won't unintentionally die?
I won't even get into how many men in STEM I observed pushing for the exclusion of women from their fields. I shouldn't be surprised considering the majority of those men I've encountered have a passionate dislike for women, but goddamn, dude.
Many people appear entirely too at ease displaying their bigotry on their professional profiles.
As a white female, I'm always shocked by people's open hostility. Professional environments are very important.
I don't know if this is still true (people seem too politicized to care), but if I heard many of these statements in person, I'd suppose they feel ashamed. Really.
Are you not ashamed of being so mean? Are you so weak that competing with others terrifies you? Isn't this embarrassing?
LinkedIn isn't great at censoring offensive comments. These people aren't getting warnings. So they were safe while others were unsafe.
The CEO in me would want to know if I had placed a bigot on my staff.
I always wondered if people's employers knew about their online behavior. If they know how horrible they appear, they don't care.
As a manager, I was picky about hiring. Obviously. In most industries, it costs $1,000 or more to hire a full-time employee, so be sure it pays off.
Companies that embrace diversity and tolerance (and are intolerant of intolerance) are more profitable, likely to recruit top personnel, and successful.
People avoid businesses that alienate them. That's why I don't eat at Chic-Fil-A and why folks avoid MyPillow. Being inclusive is good business.
CEOs are harmed by online bigots. Image is an issue. If you're a business owner, you can fire staff who don't help you.
On the one hand, I'm delighted it makes it simpler to identify those with whom not to do business.
Don’t get me wrong. I'm glad I know who to avoid when hiring, getting references, or searching for a job. When people are bad, it saves me time.
What's up with professionalism?
Really. I need to know. I've crossed the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, but never on a professional platform. I got in trouble for not wearing bras even though it's not part of my gender expression.
If I behaved like that at my last two office jobs, my supervisors would have fired me immediately. Some of the behavior I've seen is so outrageous, I can't believe these people have employment. Some are even leaders.
Like…how? Is hatred now normalized?
Please pay attention whether you're seeking for a job or even simply a side gig.
Do not add to the tragedy that LinkedIn comments can be, or at least don't make uninformed comments. Even if you weren't banned, the site may still bite you.
Recruiters can and do look at your activity. Your writing goes on your résumé. The wrong comment might lose you a job.
Recruiters and CEOs might reject candidates whose principles contradict with their corporate culture. Bigotry will get you banned from many companies, especially if others report you.
If you want a high-paying job, avoid being a LinkedIn asshole. People care even if you think no one does. Before speaking, ponder. Is this how you want to be perceived?
Better advice:
If your politics might turn off an employer, stop posting about them online and ask yourself why you hold such objectionable ideas.
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CNET
3 years ago
How a $300K Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT was accidentally sold for $3K
The Bored Ape Yacht Club is one of the most prestigious NFT collections in the world. A collection of 10,000 NFTs, each depicting an ape with different traits and visual attributes, Jimmy Fallon, Steph Curry and Post Malone are among their star-studded owners. Right now the price of entry is 52 ether, or $210,000.
Which is why it's so painful to see that someone accidentally sold their Bored Ape NFT for $3,066.
Unusual trades are often a sign of funny business, as in the case of the person who spent $530 million to buy an NFT from themselves. In Saturday's case, the cause was a simple, devastating "fat-finger error." That's when people make a trade online for the wrong thing, or for the wrong amount. Here the owner, real name Max or username maxnaut, meant to list his Bored Ape for 75 ether, or around $300,000. Instead he accidentally listed it for 0.75. One hundredth the intended price.
It was bought instantaneously. The buyer paid an extra $34,000 to speed up the transaction, ensuring no one could snap it up before them. The Bored Ape was then promptly listed for $248,000. The transaction appears to have been done by a bot, which can be coded to immediately buy NFTs listed below a certain price on behalf of their owners in order to take advantage of these exact situations.
"How'd it happen? A lapse of concentration I guess," Max told me. "I list a lot of items every day and just wasn't paying attention properly. I instantly saw the error as my finger clicked the mouse but a bot sent a transaction with over 8 eth [$34,000] of gas fees so it was instantly sniped before I could click cancel, and just like that, $250k was gone."
"And here within the beauty of the Blockchain you can see that it is both honest and unforgiving," he added.
Fat finger trades happen sporadically in traditional finance -- like the Japanese trader who almost bought 57% of Toyota's stock in 2014 -- but most financial institutions will stop those transactions if alerted quickly enough. Since cryptocurrency and NFTs are designed to be decentralized, you essentially have to rely on the goodwill of the buyer to reverse the transaction.
Fat finger errors in cryptocurrency trades have made many a headline over the past few years. Back in 2019, the company behind Tether, a cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar, nearly doubled its own coin supply when it accidentally created $5 billion-worth of new coins. In March, BlockFi meant to send 700 Gemini Dollars to a set of customers, worth roughly $1 each, but mistakenly sent out millions of dollars worth of bitcoin instead. Last month a company erroneously paid a $24 million fee on a $100,000 transaction.
Similar incidents are increasingly being seen in NFTs, now that many collections have accumulated in market value over the past year. Last month someone tried selling a CryptoPunk NFT for $19 million, but accidentally listed it for $19,000 instead. Back in August, someone fat finger listed their Bored Ape for $26,000, an error that someone else immediately capitalized on. The original owner offered $50,000 to the buyer to return the Bored Ape -- but instead the opportunistic buyer sold it for the then-market price of $150,000.
"The industry is so new, bad things are going to happen whether it's your fault or the tech," Max said. "Once you no longer have control of the outcome, forget and move on."
The Bored Ape Yacht Club launched back in April 2021, with 10,000 NFTs being sold for 0.08 ether each -- about $190 at the time. While NFTs are often associated with individual digital art pieces, collections like the Bored Ape Yacht Club, which allow owners to flaunt their NFTs by using them as profile pictures on social media, are becoming increasingly prevalent. The Bored Ape Yacht Club has since become the second biggest NFT collection in the world, second only to CryptoPunks, which launched in 2017 and is considered the "original" NFT collection.
ANTHONY P.
3 years ago
Startups are difficult. Streamlining the procedure for creating the following unicorn.
New ventures are exciting. It's fun to imagine yourself rich, successful, and famous (if that's your thing). How you'll help others and make your family proud. This excitement can pull you forward for years, even when you intuitively realize that the path you're on may not lead to your desired success.
Know when to change course. Switching course can mean pivoting or changing direction.
In this not-so-short blog, I'll describe the journey of building your dream. And how the journey might look when you think you're building your dream, but fall short of that vision. Both can feel similar in the beginning, but there are subtle differences.
Let’s dive in.
How an exciting journey to a dead end looks and feels.
You want to help many people. You're business-minded, creative, and ambitious. You jump into entrepreneurship. You're excited, free, and in control.
I'll use tech as an example because that's what I know best, but this applies to any entrepreneurial endeavor.
So you start learning the basics of your field, say coding/software development. You read books, take courses, and may even join a bootcamp. You start practicing, and the journey begins. Once you reach a certain level of skill (which can take months, usually 12-24), you gain the confidence to speak with others in the field and find common ground. You might attract a co-founder this way with time. You and this person embark on a journey (Tip: the idea you start with is rarely the idea you end with).
Amateur mistake #1: You spend months building a product before speaking to customers.
Building something pulls you forward blindly. You make mistakes, avoid customers, and build with your co-founder or small team in the dark for months, usually 6-12 months.
You're excited when the product launches. We'll be billionaires! The market won't believe it. This excites you and the team. Launch.
….
Nothing happens.
Some people may sign up out of pity, only to never use the product or service again.
You and the team are confused, discouraged and in denial. They don't get what we've built yet. We need to market it better, we need to talk to more investors, someone will understand our vision.
This is a hopeless path, and your denial could last another 6 months. If you're lucky, while talking to consumers and investors (which you should have done from the start), someone who has been there before would pity you and give you an idea to pivot into that can create income.
Suppose you get this idea and pivot your business. Again, you've just pivoted into something limited by what you've already built. It may be a revenue-generating idea, but it's rarely new. Now you're playing catch-up, doing something others are doing but you can do better. (Tip #2: Don't be late.) Your chances of winning are slim, and you'll likely never catch up.
You're finally seeing revenue and feel successful. You can compete, but if you're not a first mover, you won't earn enough over time. You'll get by or work harder than ever to earn what a skilled trade could provide. You didn't go into business to stress out and make $100,000 or $200,000 a year. When you can make the same amount by becoming a great software developer, electrician, etc.
You become stuck. Either your firm continues this way for years until you realize there isn't enough growth to recruit a strong team and remove yourself from day-to-day operations due to competition. Or a catastrophic economic event forces you to admit that what you were building wasn't new and unique and wouldn't get you where you wanted to be.
This realization could take 6-10 years. No kidding.
The good news is, you’ve learned a lot along the way and this information can be used towards your next venture (if you have the energy).
Key Lesson: Don’t build something if you aren’t one of the first in the space building it just for the sake of building something.
-
Let's discuss what it's like to build something that can make your dream come true.
Case 2: Building something the market loves is difficult but rewarding.
It starts with a problem that hasn't been adequately solved for a long time but is now solvable due to technology. Or a new problem due to a change in how things are done.
Let's examine each example.
Example #1: Mass communication. The problem is now solvable due to some technological breakthrough.
Twitter — One of the first web 2 companies that became successful with the rise of smart mobile computing.
People can share their real-time activities via mobile device with friends, family, and strangers. Web 2 and smartphones made it easy and fun.
Example #2: A new problem has emerged due to some change in the way things are conducted.
Zoom- A web-conferencing company that reached massive success due to the movement towards “work from home”, remote/hybrid work forces.
Online web conferencing allows for face-to-face communication.
-
These two examples show how to build a unicorn-type company. It's a mix of solving the right problem at the right time, either through a technological breakthrough that opens up new opportunities or by fundamentally changing how people do things.
Let's find these opportunities.
Start by examining problems, such as how the world has changed and how we can help it adapt. It can also be both. Start team brainstorming. Research technologies, current world-trends, use common sense, and make a list. Then, choose the top 3 that you're most excited about and seem most workable based on your skillsets, values, and passion.
Once you have this list, create the simplest MVP you can and test it with customers. The prototype can be as simple as a picture or diagram of user flow and end-user value. No coding required. Market-test. Twitter's version 1 was simple. It was a web form that asked, "What are you doing?" Then publish it from your phone. A global status update, wherever you are. Currently, this company has a $50 billion market cap.
Here's their MVP screenshot.
Small things grow. Tiny. Simplify.
Remember Frequency and Value when brainstorming. Your product is high frequency (Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok) or high value (Airbnb for renting travel accommodations), or both (Gmail).
Once you've identified product ideas that meet the above criteria, they're simple, have a high frequency of use, or provide deep value. You then bring it to market in the simplest, most cost-effective way. You can sell a half-working prototype with imagination and sales skills. You need just enough of a prototype to convey your vision to a user or customer.
With this, you can approach real people. This will do one of three things: give you a green light to continue on your vision as is, show you that there is no opportunity and people won't use it, or point you in a direction that is a blend of what you've come up with and what the customer / user really wants, and you update the prototype and go back to the maze. Repeat until you have enough yeses and conviction to build an MVP.
OnChain Wizard
3 years ago
How to make a >800 million dollars in crypto attacking the once 3rd largest stablecoin, Soros style
Everyone is talking about the $UST attack right now, including Janet Yellen. But no one is talking about how much money the attacker made (or how brilliant it was). Lets dig in.
Our story starts in late March, when the Luna Foundation Guard (or LFG) starts buying BTC to help back $UST. LFG started accumulating BTC on 3/22, and by March 26th had a $1bn+ BTC position. This is leg #1 that made this trade (or attack) brilliant.
The second leg comes in the form of the 4pool Frax announcement for $UST on April 1st. This added the second leg needed to help execute the strategy in a capital efficient way (liquidity will be lower and then the attack is on).
We don't know when the attacker borrowed 100k BTC to start the position, other than that it was sold into Kwon's buying (still speculation). LFG bought 15k BTC between March 27th and April 11th, so lets just take the average price between these dates ($42k).
So you have a ~$4.2bn short position built. Over the same time, the attacker builds a $1bn OTC position in $UST. The stage is now set to create a run on the bank and get paid on your BTC short. In anticipation of the 4pool, LFG initially removes $150mm from 3pool liquidity.
The liquidity was pulled on 5/8 and then the attacker uses $350mm of UST to drain curve liquidity (and LFG pulls another $100mm of liquidity).
But this only starts the de-pegging (down to 0.972 at the lows). LFG begins selling $BTC to defend the peg, causing downward pressure on BTC while the run on $UST was just getting started.
With the Curve liquidity drained, the attacker used the remainder of their $1b OTC $UST position ($650mm or so) to start offloading on Binance. As withdrawals from Anchor turned from concern into panic, this caused a real de-peg as people fled for the exits
So LFG is selling $BTC to restore the peg while the attacker is selling $UST on Binance. Eventually the chain gets congested and the CEXs suspend withdrawals of $UST, fueling the bank run panic. $UST de-pegs to 60c at the bottom, while $BTC bleeds out.
The crypto community panics as they wonder how much $BTC will be sold to keep the peg. There are liquidations across the board and LUNA pukes because of its redemption mechanism (the attacker very well could have shorted LUNA as well). BTC fell 25% from $42k on 4/11 to $31.3k
So how much did our attacker make? There aren't details on where they covered obviously, but if they are able to cover (or buy back) the entire position at ~$32k, that means they made $952mm on the short.
On the $350mm of $UST curve dumps I don't think they took much of a loss, lets assume 3% or just $11m. And lets assume that all the Binance dumps were done at 80c, thats another $125mm cost of doing business. For a grand total profit of $815mm (bf borrow cost).
BTC was the perfect playground for the trade, as the liquidity was there to pull it off. While having LFG involved in BTC, and foreseeing they would sell to keep the peg (and prevent LUNA from dying) was the kicker.
Lastly, the liquidity being low on 3pool in advance of 4pool allowed the attacker to drain it with only $350mm, causing the broader panic in both BTC and $UST. Any shorts on LUNA would've added a lot of P&L here as well, with it falling -65% since 5/7.
And for the reply guys, yes I know a lot of this involves some speculation & assumptions. But a lot of money was made here either way, and I thought it would be cool to dive into how they did it.