terminado · HackerTrans

Yeah, thinking about incidental chemistry occurring due to many collisions at or near the speed of sound while packed into a fluid solution or compressed gas, definitely puts things in perspective, in terms of how specifically matched and optimized everything needs to be, in order to be fortuitous as an otherwise unplanned event.

It's like stumbling into elevator after elevator, while running the hundred yard dash at top speed, everywhere you go, only to encounter the perfect dance partner to fall in love with at first sight.

terminado

8년 전discuss

Well, first, you have to believe that the EEG's predictor model is accurate and trustworthy.

You have to trust those prescribing it, which, if you don't trust the advice of a doctor with a needle, would you trust them with a brain scan that labels your child defective, before they can even talk?

Some people (those who might consider skipping vaccinations) might avoid such an exam entirely, and choose to wait until their child is age 10 or 15, to decide whether they have some sort of problem with their social skills, or worse.

terminado

8년 전discuss

Geeze, I though you needed a clean room to do this kind of work. I guess, being a hobby, with less concern for effort, loss of product, or cost versus profit, one might summon the will to try, try again, when confronted with botched fabrication runs.

Even with millimeter-scale components, I'd still think dust and debris could be a real problem. Is it just that 12 hour runs are short enough to just accept an imperfect production output, since it's a personal project, or is dust not as big a deal at this scale as I'd imagine?

terminado

8년 전discuss

Fun fact: according to unsubstantiated UNIX lore, "rm" is NOT short-hand for "remove" but rather, it stands for the initials of the developer that wrote the original implementation, Robert Morris.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Morris_(cryptographer)

I have no proof of this, but through oral tradition, such a tale has been relayed to me. Believe whatever you will.

terminado

8년 전discuss

In this cycle, we see a war of complex resources (produced by logistical wealth) emerge. Those with the most of everything, to produce the greatest fighting flexibility, eventually win. Perhaps pyrrhicly.

terminado

8년 전discuss

Why, do you particularly enjoy deer brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, tonsils and lymph nodes?

terminado

8년 전discuss

I just use bullet points (unordered list) at the top, for popular buzzwords, to serve as an ad-hoc table of contents.

  - Artificial Intelligence
  - Machine Learning
  - Neural Networks
  - Blockchain

Then just expound and brainstorm freely, in a stream of consciousness, for ~60 minutes, and it practically writes itself.

terminado

8년 전discuss

Only if you consider being kept alive on life support a sufficient implementation to back the main interface of "alive.h"?

terminado

8년 전discuss

I mean, this is still a good thing, since it charts a map of decidedly grey areas, where information may always be ambiguous, and useful information needs to be sussed out carefully.

It's better than presumptively assuming that "Science" is an infallible always black-and-white.

terminado

8년 전discuss

So, this might be a long shot, but I might hazard a guess that in hot, humid weather, with stagnant air, the dynamics of where exhaled exhaust goes, changes.

In the cold, dry air of winter your breath vents upward, but getting near sunny 90 degree weather, during summer time, it might descend and pool at the feet of gatherings of people at barbecues.

Carbon dioxide in ambient, matched temperature mixtures tends to be dense, and sinks toward the floor in many conditions (similarly true for carbon monoxide), but local conditions obviously vary, and odor travels differently than entire air masses. If mosquitos are already out, they probably travel along the odor gradient, toward the most concentrated area of scent.

terminado

8년 전discuss

...and it's not even over yet.

terminado

8년 전discuss

To frame an assessment of an individual like that, risks throwing the baby out with the bath water.

It leaves no room for externalities and circumstance, and assumes the individual had all needs met, perfectly, at all times.

Facts are facts, even if someone came up short once or twice. Maybe blame is irrelevant, and excuses aren't a substitute for productivity, but simply put, that's not how you measure humans, and any human knows that.

terminado

8년 전discuss

  “More often than not, she relies on charts, graphs 
   and quantitative analysis as a foundation for a 
   decision, particularly when it comes to evaluating 
   people … At a recent personnel meeting, she homes in 
   on grade-point averages and SAT scores to narrow a 
   list of candidates, many having graduated from Ivy 
   League schools, … One candidate got a C in macroeconomics. 

  “That’s troubling to me,” Ms. Mayer says. 
  “Good students are good at all things.”

Kind of a stunning misconception right there. A person only needs to look in the mirror, to invalidate such an idea.

terminado

8년 전discuss

I think tempest hardening is probably just entry level protection for man-portable devices and vehicles.

This sort of program probably crosses over into PERFECT CITIZEN territory. [0,1]

[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704545004575352...

[1] https://twitter.com/treekisser/status/286555593307742208 (paywall/seo referrer hack)

terminado

8년 전discuss

Blind spots are bad news for situational awareness though.

The corollary is 30 ton tractor trailer changing lanes on the highway, and concluding that there's no traffic because it would prefer not to see it.

Censoring the rear view mirrors is a bad idea no matter how much you hate what you see in them.

terminado

8년 전discuss

  ...with just 500 likes the social network can 
  insinuate more of your personality than your 
  lover.

...and get absolutely everything wrong with such assumptions in the process, including whether or not it's possible to lie when using the Like button.

terminado

8년 전discuss

( @o@)

terminado

8년 전discuss

I'd get kicked out of the apathy party, if I expressed any opinion about this. (not that I care)

terminado

8년 전discuss

There's no legal framework, to distinguish devices that matter from devices that don't.

There's no clear demarcation between devising a convenient contraption, versus implementing an inadvisable hack that leads to a hazardous outcome, especially within the scope of web based systems, since no portion of the internet is to be regarded as reliable life-saving infrastructure.

I think the mistake is to trust packet-switched networks and peer-oriented protocols as reliable systems at all.

If you cannot control the whole system, end-to-end, and any unwitting peer can over-consume bandwidth (jamming traffic and communication with interference), effectively cutting you off from a necessity, why would you bet your life on the availability of that system?

terminado

8년 전discuss

The Ivory Tower has a way of phrasing concepts such that they are framed by finality and totality. The mentalility comes with having made it through the admissions process, and passing your final exams with a good grade point average, conferring some lofty degree of distinguishment into one's possession.

So, to look at the words:

  The notion that software engineers are not 
  responsible for things that go wrong will be 
  put to rest for good.

I'd have to say that this sort of high-minded platonic concept needs some revision.

  The notion that *some* software engineers *cannot*
  be found as responsible (in part or in whole)
  for *some* things that go wrong will be 
  put to rest in *some* situations.

There needs to be a degree of responsibility ascribed to some classes of systems development.

Meanwhile, there is very obviously a line to be drawn between the programmer that programs their VCR clock to time a recording, the programmer that programmed the VCR as a consumer-grade product intended for purchase by unlicensed individuals, the TV network that broadcast the television show at the time the individual programmed their VCR to record 60 minutes of broadcast on a given channel, and the programmer who locked me out of the firmware on my smart phone.

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