I'm surprised the author didn't mention the other argument for paraxanthine being less addictive than caffeine: it has a less acute/peaky curve of adenosine blocking.
I'm not a biologist, but I'm under the impression that your body uses the heuristic of "the more acutely a neurotransmitter is suddenly flooded into our system, the more of a homeostatic counter-response we're going to launch in the form of things like dopamine downregulation (etc, depending upon what neurutransmitter we're talking about)".
I'm not entirely sure this is true, but it seems to be corroborated by other researchers (e.g. Anna Lembke in her book Dopamine Nation, which isn't about caffeine though).
This is why substances like theacrine claim to offer even less tolerance than paraxanthine: it has a super gradual adenosine-blocking curve, with super long half-life (like 12-16 hours, IIRC). So when you take one theacrine, you won't notice it for hours, but its effects will last longer than one day (though I forget what its interaction with sleep is supposed to be?).
We're looking for an EE at SimulaVR, to help develop the Simula One: an x86-based VR computer, intended as a laptop replacement.
Responsibilities are roughly:
- Take complex, high-speed PCBAs from conception to design and manufacturing
- Perform component selection, schematic capture, layout, and fabrication support
- Develop custom IP and integrate vendor IP cores for our FPGAs
- Work with the rest of the team to integrate the PCBAs into the overall system
You do not need to be an expert in all of those things, but you should be able to learn on the fly.
Here's an example of projects you'd be working on:
- Carrier board for our NUC compute element (basically an Intel CPU + RAM + VRM) which provides power management, routes PCIe Gen 4/etc signals to the respective connectors, etc.
- FPGA (something along the lines of Lattice CertusPro-NX, or Intel Arria 10) board that, among other things, interfaces our cameras to the host via PCIe
The project is going to be as open source as possible, barring things that cannot be published due to NDAs. Expected volumes are in the 1k-10k range for now, so there's no need to particularly cost optimize it. We're going for speed of development, reliability and functionality over minimum cost. The company is based in the US, but production (and this position) will be in Germany.
We expect this to be an onsite role (due to the equipment involved), although remote is fine initially. Work from home will probably be fine as long as you're close to the office. If you're willing to relocate, we can to assist with that.
Budget in the 50k-80k EUR range for this role, along with some equity. If this doesn't match your expectations, talk to us anyway and we might work something out.
Please direct any applications to apply <at> simulavr <dot> com, along with a note that you came from HN.
> Why is it better to let people be sickened, even if they can later sue, than put some stops up on risky behavior in the first place?
Consequentialist reason: you don't put barriers and friction in front of (e.g.) biotech and drug innovation. See the pandemic for this (FDA has killed approximately a million people alone by preventing covid vaccines from being available in the market sooner).
Deontological reason: you don't have the right to tell people what they can and can't do with their own bodies (w.r.t. products they want to consume, at their own risk, etc).
There's also regulatory capture, which reliably and predictably occurs in mixed economies (see e.g. public choice economics).
That's true. But leftists are entrenched in Austin as well at the city level. I suppose, at the state level, once the state flips blue, the "default"/status-quo position will still be more low-tax/low-regulation, and that's an advantage for Texas (again speaking from a libertarian view point; I understand you won't agree if you share a different politics).
It still seems to me that Austin will converge to SF, given enough time, given that the people in both cities believe the same things, and in only a few years Texas will be blue.
Warning: This post is written from a libertarian/center-right viewpoint.
While this move is great, I'm skeptical of the idea that moving to Austin is a political panacea for moderate/center-right/libertarian governance.
- The same percentage of people who voted for hard leftist candidates in SF also voted for hard leftist candidates in Austin. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Texas_Democratic_presiden... This means that, fundamentally, people in Austin believe the same things that people in California do.
- There are homeless issues in Austin, just as there are in SF (though not as bad as SF, it's getting worse every year).
- Many people don't realize how regulatory constrained Austin is for new buildings/housing. The same NIMBYism exists in Austin too, just like SF! But this isn't surprising since people in Austin basically have the same politics as people in SF. The only reason why rents are cheaper (though that's changing as more people move in), is because Austin isn't as big as SF. If all of the intelligent tech people moved to Austin, it would have the same supply & demand problems that SF has (since you'd have the same number of people mixed with the same regulatory constraints on new housing supply).
- Yes, it's true Austin is a place with zero income tax and fewer business regulations, but that's only because it's held at bay by the surrounding red regions of Texas. But it's only a matter of time before Texas turns blue. So in the long-run -- when the state house will be controlled by the same party running California -- why would you expect tax rates and regulations to stay low? In 10 years, Texas will have the same political makeup (at the city, state, and federal levels) as California!
- The bulk of taxes and regulations aren't at the state/city levels. They're at the Federal level. A zero percent state income tax is cool, but it only goes so far. Is the entire tech ecosystem really going to sustain this movement for a mere 10% drop in total taxes? The SF/NYC network effects are still very strong. I'm not sure such a marginal/incremental decrease in taxes is enough to affect this sort of change.
Power to Tesla though. I really, really hope to be proven wrong.
https://simulavr.com is looking for an extremely capable Hardware Engineer to help build the world's first portable Linux VR headset. If you are interested in AR/VR primarily for intelligence augmentation & productivity enhancement (as opposed to just gaming, entertainment, and social media stuff), then Simula could be your cup of tea. Our goal is to build a VR computer which can help office workers get 10x more done than they can now with traditional laptops & PCs. We are interested in building a high-fidelity headset that competes with the best HMDs on the market.
We're looking primarily for ME, optics, and design. We don't expect you to be a trained expert in all of these fields, but you should have a focus in one of them. Being comfortable around EE and firm-/software is a plus, as you'll have to work with the team to integrate these into your work.
I recently discovered a Linux debugger & tool which allowed me to solve problems 10x faster than gdb: pernos.co (which is layered over Mozilla's rr time-tracking debugger).
Pernosco's tool is described pretty well on their website (which is full of minimal fluff and marketing -- another good sign). But basically it allows you to view a program inside and out, forwards /and/ backwards, with zero replay lag. Everything from stack traces to variable displays (at any point in time in your code execution) is extremely easy to view and understand. The best part is the lightning fast search functionality (again: zero lag).
On top of this: extraordinary customer service if anything breaks (in my experience, they fix bugs within 24 hours and are highly communicative).
I'm not a paid Pernosco shill. I'm just so blown away by this product that I wanted to word-of-mouth spread it around because it's saved so much time for me.
I quit using clojure because (i) no C/C++ FFI, (ii) lack of strong type system, and (iii) horrific startup times (although clojure itself is fast, its startup time is not fast).
I'm not a biologist, but I'm under the impression that your body uses the heuristic of "the more acutely a neurotransmitter is suddenly flooded into our system, the more of a homeostatic counter-response we're going to launch in the form of things like dopamine downregulation (etc, depending upon what neurutransmitter we're talking about)".
I'm not entirely sure this is true, but it seems to be corroborated by other researchers (e.g. Anna Lembke in her book Dopamine Nation, which isn't about caffeine though).
This is why substances like theacrine claim to offer even less tolerance than paraxanthine: it has a super gradual adenosine-blocking curve, with super long half-life (like 12-16 hours, IIRC). So when you take one theacrine, you won't notice it for hours, but its effects will last longer than one day (though I forget what its interaction with sleep is supposed to be?).