> I consider it to be very careless to entrust your emails, your chats, your calendar, your notes, your calls, your pictures, your contacts, your location history, your waking hours, your files, your TODO list, i.e. stuff including your health data to the for-profit AI companies.
Still, we all do it with Google. (I don't do it anymore but i did it for mostly two decades so I include myself)
> there might not be the free high-quality web apps from Google.
I mean, which one of the "free high-quality web apps from Google" is free high quality ?
I'm forced to use Google Workspace for work and that's an incredible pain. GMail is messy. Google Meet have an horrible UI, Google Drive is messy++, Google Chat is unusable, Google Search is unusable. The only product that is still good at google is maybe Google Maps.
It's pretty easy to read (but disclaimer : I read the french translation) but it's still nothing more than a list of useful advices on the topic. So the prerequisite is that you have to be interested by the idea of the book in the first place. But if you are, it's nothing more than a big blog post (a good one).
No it's ok, it reads like every american self-help book translated in french. The writing style is pretty bland but it's easy to read and the only difference with most of self help books nowadays is that the advices are actually good.
The good thing about the absence of style is that the book doesn't feel dated and could have been wrote yesterday.
Haha, I viewed a video recently (in French) that said « dopamine is right-wing ».
It was ironic but interesting : dopamine is viewed as THE neurotransmitter of motivation while in fact it’s only one part of the mechanism. But it’s the part everyone is bragging about because it supports the idea that you can control your dopamine levels and be responsible of your own motivation.
The whole point of the argument was that your serotonin and noradrenaline levels were as much as important if not more, and, fat chance, you cannot buy serotonin or noradrenaline supplements. You have to be in mentally in a good place to get those right and that’s not something you have that much control over. Especially your noradrenaline levels are strongly tied to the quality of your environment and that’s why you should politically fight for a better life environment.
Are you saying that non-Parkinson's patients are taking L-DOPA as a supplement? If so, that's nuts.
Also dopamine is a precursor to noradrenaline, and serotonin levels are affected by numerous drugs, the most popular of which are antidepressants. That "supplements" for these neurotransmitters has more to do with how effectively they cross the blood-brain barrier and how they might disrupt the gut, since many chemicals in the brain do double duty through functions in both brain and gut.
The news is not in the way to compare models, it’s that Kimi K2.6 (and I’d add Deepseek v4 Pro) are more or less equivalent to Opus and that’s already pretty big.
They are open source and cost waaaay less per token than American models.
I’m using them right now on the $20 Ollama cloud plan and I can actually work with them on my side projects without reaching the limits too much. With Claude Pro $20 plan my usage can barely survive one or two prompts.
And I choose Ollama cloud just because their CLI is convenient to use but their are a lot of other providers for those models so you aren’t even stuck with shitty conditions and usage rules.
To me that’s a pretty bad thing for American economy.
It's not good for current administration. The American AI growth is only thing that keeps the GDP not looking terrible.
And investor pumping money in US AI circular money flow just makes innovation everywhere else slower. If not for the GPU/Memory drought running stuff locally (or just in competition cloud) would be far cheaper
That is the very reason the open source models exist. Prestige and soft power to influence interest away from American models and hopefully slow down their progress.
DeepSeek and other Chinese model makers are massively accelerating progress in AI not slowing it down. They're the only ones who still come up with real technical innovations while the proprietary model makers are stagnating.
I'm as happy to see cheap open weight models any anyone is, and I'm in Europe and certainly not cheering the US on, but that's a bunch of unfounded hyperbole you just said.
>> DeepSeek and other Chinese model makers are massively accelerating progress in AI... They're the only ones who still come up with real technical innovations.
> that's a bunch of unfounded hyperbole you just said.
Calling the quote on top "unfounded hyperbole" betrays lack of knowledge and awareness about the subject. Keep in mind that when we talk about real technical innovations, we have in mind published research - not closed or hidden models, some of which we know only from hype but cannot even test. A cursory look at said research reveals more Chinese names than I can count.
Deepseek did introduce real technical innovations, they're in their papers, and there was plenty of talk about another "Sputnik moment" when their first model appeared. If you don't know what that means - it's the moment when the industry mobilizes to "accelerate progress" due to the unexpected appearance of strong competition.
There's a lot more to be said, but it wouldn't do much good to a person who's not following the trends.
You should read the research papers that come out with Deepseek releases. There is a reason why the first Deepseek release briefly caused existential panic.
I did not and am not inclined to invest the time to do so.
But I did read some second hand reports that what was new and exciting was that they found some really good performance optimizations. The thing about deekseek publishing this is that now everyone has this.
from the "DeepSeek is a ploy to undermine usamerican models' duopoly" theory's perspective, "now everyone has this" helps them achieve this goal more efficiently.
especially if it's something that the major companies had already stumbled upon (something equivalent to) and regarded as a trade secret.
That is a petty big assumption (aka bullshit) unless you have direct insight the inner workings of the big US labs. Just because it isn’t published doesn’t mean that innovation is not happening.
That's an unfalsifiable assertion with no evidence to support it, while all the visible evidence we do have points to stagnation and merely incremental pushes among the big proprietary model makers. Even Claude Mythos, which was 'teased' to the public but not released, is reportedly mostly a scaled-up model that takes massive compute resources to run (and lengthy agentic loops to achieve its reported results in computer security). The polar opposite to what the Chinese labs are releasing now.
Sam Altman certainly got all lovey-dovey and less arrogant after DeepSeek came into prominence at most 3-6 month gap, if there was something mind blowing, Sam would’ve gotten money out of Apple and the same thing applies to Google if they had something mind blowing, they would’ve gotten more than a $1 billion refund neither happened. The bubble is near…
Can you name some tangible AI idea that came out of Chinese labs?
I can name thousands that came out western universities.
I see a lot of rhetoric that only the Chinese labs are contributing to AI while companies like Google and Microsoft are still pulishing their research.
Unfortunately the domain of scientific papers is cluttered with AI slop but still occasional serious paper that i find are from western labs particularly Google Research or Microsoft Research
It doesn't mean only Chinese companies are contributing. Take TurboQuant, a serious theoretical paper not just GPU optimization, it was google research as the original transformers as MoE and many other techniques we use daily in deep learning as for libraries like TensorFlow which were pivotal to fast development of AI
I am using both on OpenCode Go plan and they're pretty good, but I would say still not at the same level at GPT-5.5 in my experience, I don't know about Opus.
Most of the stock market valuation is big-tech, and most of people's retirements are the stock market, so... if the AI bubble bursts a lot of the US will be affected.
Idk in the US but in France you are allowed to have personal data on your work computer.
Though you have to label it as personal (like creating a « Personal » folder or label and your employer can still access it in case of suspicion but he must do it in your physical presence and accompanied with a witness, generally a representative of the employees.
So you theoretically don’t have full privacy on this computer but you can’t be sanctioned for this usage.
I don't think we have sweeping regulations about it, at least in California.
Most companies I've worked at have a policy of some "reasonable personal use" being permitted. The concern is usually focused on the other way around: Companies do not want their IP on your personal machines.
They can certainly look at whatever is on their own machines, however, regardless if it is your personal data or not.
One large caveat: If you do any work on your company's equipment, they may possibly own it, no matter how relevant it is to the company. It's one of the legal tests used to judge the ownership of your work.
It is even worse in France: if you code open source "on the side" of you work, at home, the company which employs you may claim the copyrights of it. I had to add explicit exclusion of this claim of copyrights in my job contracts to protect my personal work.
That was a few years back, dunno if that was fixed.
That is not correct; assuming you are not using an employer’s equipment on employer’s time, and/or working on what the employer pays you to do for them or are working on something that is competing and a few other reasonable caveats.
As far as I was told, this is not enough, you have to add extra legal care, even more if you are on an 'executive' type job contract, and you have to double that if there is "too much" connection/"look-a-like", between the software at work and the open source software you contribute to "at home".
On an french executive like contract, the boundary between "at home" and "at work" is very, very blurry.
AFAIK it's the same in the USA, that's why one of the first questions when interviewing with a company is to ask them about their moonlighting policy if you do want to work on a side project.
It varies by state in the USA. Some states have strong protections for work you do "on your own time, on your own equipment, that isn't connected to your work." Others, not so much...
This is common in North America too. In Canada, people really should be going through their personal projects and getting a moonlighting clause added before they sign any employment agreements. Employment has gotten tough so a lot of juniors aren’t doing this with their first jobs and we’ll start to see the ramifications of that in about five or ten years.
Can depend on the field too. I work in drug discovery and if the FDA was to request data that requires my computer they would have access to everything I had on it...Including my texts if I happened to log in to my personal apple account since it's a Mac.
Same in Germany, although the employer can forbid this but needs to do this explicitly. Most employers don't forbid personal data on work machines or using your work email for personal things.
Reasonable personal use does not at all in any universe imply privacy from a personal perspective.
Is the same reason why they have to say reasonable.
It’s best to have separate devices so they just don’t have the intelligence about you. That can be permanent, left behind, and then increasingly possibly available to AI models forever.
Not having AI companies is reasonable trade off for not having all of my data including full DNA sequence being recorded 24/7 with absolutely zero care of privacy or protection and shared with everyone who has some marginal amount of money to buy it.
Thats... a poorly crafted mumble jumble without any underlying sense, even ignoring insults. Can't handle existence of society where quality of life is higher priority (and you see it on the ground very well) than some sum on account or meaningless titles and rat race achievements or office zero sum games?
It's obviously an unwitting parody account. Calling yourself "Der Einzige" while reciting an incoherent script of internet clichés is indistinguishable from satire -- hilariously unintentional parody.
Another huge exemple : in most big cities in Europe you have special parking lots around big public transit hubs outside of the city where you can park for free as long as you continue your journey by public transit.
In a lot of cities, that’s either the fastest or the most comfortable way to go somewhere in the city when you come from the outside.
Not any single navigation app support this (tbf, the few European ones don’t support it either)
There was a Not Just Bikes video about how Google Maps is optimised for driving where it pretty much actively hides the biggest walking routes and promotes roads for driving by making them bigger. Useful in the USA for sure but actively harmful in Europe, given that you're more likely to plan a route by which roads you can see, and unless you know what to look for you're not going to find them easily.
Yes. Unfortunately transit between public transit is always walking. No options to take a first part by bike or car, or folding bikes for intermediate hops.
The long tail of user desires is loooong. For example "I want to take transit, but please exclude transit options where I cannot take my non-folding bicycle". Or "I don't have a raincoat, suggest only bus stops with a roof, oh and by the way I don't like the uncomfortable seats on the purple line but will take it if there is no other way".
I think LLM's with access to lots of personal data and the ability to scout the web might solve all these use cases in one fell swoop, rather than trying to design a user interface with buttons, algorithms and data sources for every obscure use case.
Is it that long tail? Biking and riding are supported in most planners already. Park and ride, or kiss and ride, are well known concepts around the world. It seems like a straightforward extension of what already exists.
In Germany it's often not IN cities, but around. Example for Frankfurt:
The's a metro ("S-Bahn") going north up to Friedberg/Hessen. Friedberg is the capital of the country. But there's no free "Park & Ride" there. Two stations towards Frankfurt you are in village called Wöllstadt. And there you have a free Park & Ride. More south some other village, no P&R. But then again in Bad Vilbel you have one.
Is however P&R + public tansport the fastest way to Frankfurt? That depends.
First, the Wöllstadt P&R isn't easily accessible from the Autobahn, or not even from the B3, which goes around Wöllstadt. And even when it went through it some years ago, it was several turn-left turn-rights through small streets.
And then the S6 only drives every 30 minutes to Frankfurt. It's supposed to change once they double the train tracks, but that will change. On top of it: metro lines don't have precedence, the quick trains like ICE have. So the S-Bahn more often than not waits until a faster train passes.
If it isn't between 7-9 in the morning, you're actually faster by car in Frankfurt than by public transport ... So the P&R is quite helpful for people living in the neighboring villages: they go by car to Wöllstadt, park there for free, commute to Frankfurt by metro. And that traffic jam free ... but not necessarily fast. And since parking in Frankfurt usually comes with a price tag, it's also a bit cheaper.
Well at least on NRW, I can say that there are enough P&R around here.
However compared with European countries like Portugal, this is a complete different reality.
This was my main point, because there are these "in Europe public transport is so great" remarks, yes it is, provided one is lucky to be on the right parts of Europe, as you also kind of refer to by your no all roses scenario.
I’m not sure about all of this. I’ve been sedentary for 34 years, and I somehow still am.
But I discovered rollerblading at 34 and now I’m part of a rollerblading course in a skatepark at a fixed time in the week, just after my biggest day of work. And going to the skatepark is boring, I need to take a bus to nowhere land and then walk in nowhere land for 10 minutes.
I’ve always been happy to go to it. And even the days I didn’t felt it, I never regretted going for it anyway.
Because it’s FUN. I don’t feel like I’m exercising, I’m just having FUN.
To me that was a revelation that felt more important than what this article says. Exercising shouldn’t be boring.
Well I’m still sedentary because rollerblading is not the most practical sport to do everyday, especially on the countryside. But even then I’m loving it.
I also like biking. Not as an exercise but just to evade. I think I will insist on going for some calm rides.
Yeah, the way we talk about exercising and fitness in general often pre-supposes that it's an unpleasant chore.
The "secret" to long-term fitness is finding activities you enjoy doing for their own sake that happen to involve moving your body and then incorporating them into your lifestyle such that you're doing them frequently and consistently.
This is like "find work you enjoy". If it works for you great, but for many it doesn't really and at some point you have to accept exercise is non-optional and just pick something you can tolerate if you don't find anything
This is definitely a good approach but I don't think it's the only one!
I absolutely agree that the idea that exercise has to be unpleasant is wrong and harmful. But there's a middle ground where the things you actively enjoy aren't sufficient to keep you fit, and so you develop a habit of doing regular exercise even when you don't feel like it and even if it's a bit boring and effortful.
Everyone's different but IME this works well provided you build up the effort level gradually, and never feel the need to push yourself to a really unpleasant degree. Eventually habit, the knowledge that it's good for you in the long run, and the fact that it usually makes you feel better in the short run make it pretty easy to stick with.
> Because it’s FUN. I don’t feel like I’m exercising, I’m just having FUN.
This is hands down the most important advice and what I tell everyone around me. Find something active that you ENJOY. Even better if the thing you enjoy requires your body to progressively improve to unlock more enjoyment from your new active hobby.
Beyond that it can be anything: dancing, martial arts, swimming, cycling, football, handstands, skateboarding
Exercise for exercise's sake is really awful and abstract for most people. Like why carry a bunch of weights if you never feel like you need that strength.
The best thing I find (where possible) is a bit of competition to necessitate progress but that's only one possible solution..
A wise grinder once told me a powerful secret, the key to perfect running form: the sides of the mouth curling up in a giant smile.
Phoebe running, rejecting social norms, gettin’ dirty, futzing with trail plans… there’s no rules, have fun. Whatever that means exactly on your own terms.
Unfortunately this sort of advice also leads to people not exercising. I don't enjoy lifting, and I don't see an easy way to make it fun, but I feel better and I'm healthier for it.
… “Smile while you train”, ie make training fun, results in not training? That is nonsensical.
You can’t figure out how to make lifting fun? Bruv, google Eric Bugenhagen. Shirtless, 70s rock, singing out loud, a tye-die hairband, strong coffee and fun exercises. Lifting is awesome, it happens in a gym, and there are 9,000 colours of fun. Homegyms rule, hip thrusts in between air-guitar with the toddler, air kicks and slam balls… and it is as easy as a patch of alley and a kettlebell or tire, if you let it be.
The entire point of my post is the opposite of your takeaway. Learn what you find fun, what makes you smile hard when lifting and by definition you will be having fun lifting.
Lifting is easy mode for fun. Speakers, smoothies, cuties, technique variants, bar variants, ego-stuff, posture-stuff, program stuff, dips, pull ups, and bouncy crap too. Ultra running, where that quote is from, involves eating a slight bit more shit for more than an hour (in AC).
Plus, you do NOT have to “lift” to “pick up something heavy, move it around, and hold something above your head”. Feeling better and healthier, hypertrophy, and targeted resistance exercise are available from a near infinite variety of activities. Some are very enjoyable, the rest can be made so with effort, creativity, and will.
That's true, there is also bodyweight and machines and just hard labor.
And of course there's cardio but that's not terribly difficult to fit into any lifestyle—lots of fun options. That's just not going to hit all your needs by itself.
Exactly. I've always loved racquet sports- how it makes me feel, the improvement of hand-eye coordination, the competition, sure, all of that- but most of all, because hitting a ball with a stick with a bouncy strings around in a court is a damn good time. So it's never felt like an effort to me.
> Because it’s FUN. I don’t feel like I’m exercising, I’m just having FUN.
First step is throwing away the idea it has to always be fun. You even said right before this:
> And even the days I didn’t felt it, I never regretted going for it anyway.
So it's not always fun and you always don't feel like it, but you connected it to other side of not regretting. That's discipline. The next step IMO, is to embrace when it sucks. Look at the upside that you're not only exercising your body, but also exercising your discipline when you don't feel like it - good for you!
A small example of embracing when it might suck is to not avoid rain. Instead of running, embrace the rain. Relax, smile, and be ok with getting wet. It's temporary. Same thing when you don't feel like doing something you know you need to do, like exercising.
Still, we all do it with Google. (I don't do it anymore but i did it for mostly two decades so I include myself)
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