Cosine Thoughts

My take on generative AI is really not any different than my take on the current AI landscape in general; people (even otherwise smart ones) are missing the bigger picture. Current high-quality AI models have 2 very important direct factors and one important indirect factor: They are "expensive" They are trained on existing data-sets There are very few top-tier models available at any given point in time 1 - "Expensive" Models To start, I put "expensive" in quotes because they are not only costly in terms of compute power, but also still quite specialized in terms of skill in coming up with new approaches, knowing how best to select training and test data. This is the direct cause of point #3 which is more indirect, but I'll cover why that is important in a bit. The key thing being that training a top-tier model is not something most companies can afford today. Beyond stating that, there isn't much else to cover here. 2 - Trained on Existing Data T...

The latest talking point in the anti-EV world seems to be tire pollution and tire wear. I hate idiots. I really do. I hate people who throw "facts" in my face without researching themselves, refuse to understand the counter arguments or even attempt to understand the premises the arguments they are making are built upon. So, to start. The are 2 premises for this argument. The first is the tire compounds and the second is the combination of the weight and acceleration leading to increased wear. On the topic of tire compounds, this is simultaneously the more legit and the more derpy of the two. Legit because automakers are likely to slap these tires on the cars because they generally make the car perform better. But then derpy because most people just replace their EV tires with whatever is cheapest. People are shit at maintaining vehicles and tires are expensive.  The second argument is bad for a different reason; it assumes all EV drivers will drive like shit heads just becau...

Last week I repaired an LED TV that broke on me after about 7 years. The experience was... confusing. In a good way. First, some context; the TV in question is a Sony Bravia. Sony, in my experience, is really good a making things proprietary and not wanting people to tinker with them. Secondly, people (at least in my experience) do NOT have a tendency to repair TVs. So, there doesn't seem like there should be much resistance to going proprietary in this area and making TVs super difficult to repair. Thirdly, while the landscape has certainly changed, CRT TVs were historically also very dangerous to repair.  Not that the past need necessarily dictate the future. Though it sets a precedent which, once again, should seem appealing for TV manufacturers to continue.  Given all this, I was surprised at how easy the process was. First, there was the broken TV itself. When it broke an LED in the IR sensor bar flashed a certain number of times indicating the rough nature of the problem...

So, we're at the 1 year mark in owning our first all electric vehicle. And I wanted to take some time to break down the math and see how well it worked out. I haven't actually crunched the numbers yet. And while I feel pretty good about the outcomes, only time will tell. So, to start, here are my points of comparison: Last ICE Vehicle -  Hyundai Santa Fe.  Averaged ~9L/100KM Average maintenance costs for us ($600-800/yr) Last Vehicle - Kia Niro PHEV.  Averaged ~6.4L/100KM on trips which exceeded battery range  Plus a tank of gas probably every 3 months in winter for heating (no heat pump on this car).  Typical maintenance costs. ($600-800yr) Current car- Kia Niro EV Averaged 17KWH/100KM (combined winter and summer and highway and city driving) Maintenance during 1st year $0. This year we put about 12K KMs on the car. This included 3 longer trips during the year: 1200KM -> Niagara Falls 2x900KM -> Tire changes Which leaves 9000KM local driving For longer tr...

Odd discovery today. Having a stiff neck provides excellent incentive for good posture during Kyudo. Woke up with a neck so stiff that virtually any movement caused pain. It was amazing how good this made at maintaining my posture through a practice of the Taihai movements in my basement. Can't say I recommend getting a stiff neck on purpose. But if you happen to wake up with one anyway, I can recommend practicing Kyudo while it still hurts.

So, I just took my car in for my first EV maintenance. We're at the 1 year mark and almost 12k km.When we bought the car we got more or less scammed into a package of 10 "battery checks". And, it seems like this is the bulk of the maintenance #1. So, our final cost was $0. That being said, my dealership tried to talk me into a brake maintenance for $270CAD and an air filter changed for $70CAD. The air filter change I can do myself for a fraction of the price. And so I will. The brake service... now here is the fun bit. It includes working the pads and rotors which, because I have an EV and only about 12k KMs on it, are in perfect condition. And the tech says that the caliper pins are bone dry. Honestly, I doubt that they even inspected the pins. But, regardless... they basically tried to charge me $260 before tax to lube up some pins which would take less than 15 minutes. In all honesty... I probably would have paid for both services if they had charged reasonably for the...

Right now my biggest (though certainly not only) issues are the fundamentals. The basics. Posture, speed and form. I know form is a very broad term, but I'm talking about specific forms like my ENSOU, or even TENOUCHI. On the posture front, I'm a software guy. I sit at a desk all day and have developed a bad posture for years. This isn't impossible to overcome. But it is far from trivial. And breaking out of a good posture mid performance can make an otherwise acceptable showing into a bad one. Correcting my posture, similarly, draws attention to its absence prior. On the speed front, this isn't technically a fundamental, but it is an area of focus at the moment. I'm doing video shinsa this year. And apparently I need from my YU at HONZA until my HANARE on my OTOYA to be about 3 minutes. Right now... closer to 4. My pauses between movements tend to be too long. I like to make my pauses pronounced to punctuate the division between one movement and the next. And this ...