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1024core

8,659 karma · joined August 27, 2015

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1024core··on Scientists discover new way to convert corn waste to low-cost sugar for biofuel
This could be useful in India, where farmers prefer to just burn the biomass after a harvest, causing lots of air pollution in North Indian areas like Delhi, especially in winter.
1024core··on A Computational Proof of the Highest-Scoring Boggle Board
Where can I find the wordlist that they used?

Edit: Found it here: https://coursera.cs.princeton.edu/algs4/assignments/boggle/f...

1024core··on Collatz's Ant
Now if someone could figure out a link between this and Conway's Game of Life...
1024core··on Show HN: Dosidicus – A digital pet with a simple neural network
> What if a Tamagotchi had a neural network and could learn stuff?

What if this was actually a Tamagochi? Anyone have ideas?

1024core··on First hormone-free male birth control pill enters human trials
Neutering is not possible in villages. You'd be hard pressed to find a vet anywhere nearby.
1024core··on First hormone-free male birth control pill enters human trials
I'm saying that a dog contraceptive is what those places need. That fact that it's reversible is a downside.
1024core··on Slouching towards San Francisco
Read this: https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/08/23/5-charts-that-show-ho...

San Jose also runs a zoo and an airport.

1024core··on Slouching towards San Francisco
This is what you are looking for: https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/08/23/5-charts-that-show-ho...
1024core··on Slouching towards San Francisco
Agreed.

The fact is, SF's city government is fat and bloated with all sorts of cushy jobs for friends and family.

This article by the SJ Mercury News captures it best (how much we spend on staff in the city of SF): https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/08/23/5-charts-that-show-ho...

1024core··on First hormone-free male birth control pill enters human trials
> Both mice and non-human primates fully regained fertility after stopping the drug. Mice regained fertility within six weeks, and non-human primates fully recovered their sperm count in 10-15 weeks.

Great recurring source of revenue for the drug company!

Though I'm more interested in feral animals like dogs. It looks like this drug may work on dogs too? If so, it would be a huge boon for cities and villages in India.

1024core··on Potatoes in the Mail
I was working for a postal contractor and we had to go to the local P&DC (warehouse sized building where all the local mail comes in to be sorted and then shipped to various destinations).

The local foreman was giving us a lecture about safety and things not to do in there, and we were standing there listening to him. To my right about 10' away were a couple of boxes around 2' tall each. I was listening and my eyes were wandering, taking in the gigantic space when suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the box move! It like tilted a little and there was definite movement inside (it had a slit in it)! I yelped like a little kid: "that box moved!"

The foreman nonchalantly dismissed it saying, "yeah those are ducks being mailed". I was shocked to say the least.

1024core··on Potatoes in the Mail
They better hide this fact: https://facts.usps.com/diverse-workforce/
1024core··on There are two types of dishwasher people
I have heard that there are "commercial" dishwashers which can clean a load of dishes in under 20 minutes. Is that true? Has anyone tried one of them?
1024core··on Scientists find strongest evidence yet of life on an alien planet
What about just looking for oxygen in a planet's atmosphere?
1024core··on Googler... ex-Googler
> somebody like Marissa Meyer

Marissa Mayer left Google like, 13 years ago...?

1024core··on How to Bike Across the Country
Ah OK! Thanks!
1024core··on How to bike across the country
Author was in the middle of prepping for the NYC marathon, so they were in decent shape physically.

My fat ass would have given up before I even reached the Bay Bridge.

That reminds me: the author did not mention how they crossed the Bay Bridge. There is no cycling path from SF to EB AFAICT.

1024core··on Bonobos use a kind of syntax once thought to be unique to humans
Isn't writing barely 10,000 years old or so? For the longest time, humans memorized their stories and passed them down to younger generations by rote memorization.
1024core··on Gemini Live with camera and screen sharing capabilities
Is there a way to record the screen WITH AUDIO and save it?
1024core··on Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte
The Government _can't_ be streamlined because the right incentives are not in place, and human beings respond to incentives.

For example: if a bureaucrat does not use up their budget, it is (often) reduced proportionately in the next iteration. So these people have an incentive to use up the entire budget, if they want to have any hope of getting their requests next year. As a result, they will often do wasteful spending. I know this from experience, because in my previous life as code monkey in a small-ish government contractor, my boss had made it an art form to figure out who had extra money left over near the end of the fiscal year and pitch them ideas. A few 100K here, a few 100K there and the company was making decent money just mooching off of the leftovers from Federal budgets.

If you want to fix the Federal government, you have to incentivize the officials to be rewarded for saving money.

1024core··on Pentagon to terminate $5.1B in IT contracts with Accenture, Deloitte
TIL people contribute to Open Source for money.

Just FYI: everyone who contributes to OSS makes the same!

1024core··on Trump temporarily drops tariffs to 10% for most countries
> 3 hours before he announced easing tariffs, Trump tweeted that it's a good time to buy stocks. If he gave someone insider information, they could use that tweet as a cover.

Got a link to the tweet? I don't have a Twitter account.

Edit: apparently it is true, and it is on Truth social. Someone sent me a screenshot.

To the downvoters: what is wrong with you? It was an honest question.

1024core··on Basic Income Pilot Project: Study results
What I'm worried about is: who will produce our food? Who will fix our potholes? Who will fix our cars?
1024core··on Basic Income Pilot Project: Study results
If they really wanted to answer the question, they'd have to gather several millions of dollars, and then go to some island somewhere and provide UBI to everyone (without publicizing it, if at all possible). Then observe the changes in that group of people. For best results, choose an island in a developed part of the world.
1024core··on Brazil's government-run payments system has become dominant
I was in Mexico City recently, and boy did I hate rummaging around for cash to make payments. True, many places accept credit cards, but that seems like an unnecessary tax on the merchant (credit cards charge nearly 3% in fees).

A system like Pix (or UPI from India) would be a godsend for Mexico. However, any such system should have support for tourists (non-residents visiting the country briefly).

1024core··on The Llama 4 herd
Anyone know what they mean by this:

> We developed a novel distillation loss function that dynamically weights the soft and hard targets through training.

1024core··on xAI has acquired X, xAI now valued at $80B
> and xAI doesn't have much of any revenue or assets.

xAI does have some pretty massive datacenters with 200K+ GPUs.

1024core··on How Kerala got rich
That's how "communism" is in India. Two states (West Bengal and Kerala) are run by "Communist" parties. But these parties are quite different from what people typically mean by "Communists".
1024core··on How I got 100% off my train travel
Oh yeah? https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/17/611860169...
1024core··on I'm the Canadian who was detained by ICE for two weeks
> The reality became clear: Ice detention isn’t just a bureaucratic nightmare.

Why is it so hard to write "ICE" ? It is an acronym.

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