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CHsurfer

203 karma · joined March 11, 2011

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CHsurfer··on Fungus breaks down ocean plastic
Is this process generating the microplastics? If so then maybe it’s not such a great way to post process our litter.
CHsurfer··on Cicero: The first AI to play at a human level in Diplomacy (2022)
I think this press release was written by an AI.
CHsurfer··on How to write unmantainable code (2015)
My son is just starting to code for a class in school. If only the author was grading his assignments…
CHsurfer··on The integrated timetable of Switzerland
Was on a Swiss train that did exactly this yesterday. To be fair, the delay originated in Italy (20 minutes late)and there was a minimal impact for people wanting to get to or leave from that city (Bern) as passenger on the affected train could get off one stop early and then catch another train to finish their leg and passengers trying to board the train in Bern just had to catch another train to the subsequent stop (Olten) to get on the late train there.

Finally, this was the first time in over 20 years of light rail use in Switzerland that I experienced this.

CHsurfer··on Voltswagen of America
Folks-Vagon
CHsurfer··on Ask HN: Has any progress been made on large format E-ink displays?
BVG
CHsurfer··on Austria to make basic face masks compulsory in supermarkets
This seems like such a no-brainer. 3Blue 1Brown did a video on epidemic simulation, and central markets, places where people in the region congregate, are major factors in the the rate of disease spread. Limiting the transfer coefficient in these places has the key to reducing this impact, assuming you can't prevent people from going there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxAaO2rsdIs

CHsurfer··on For Years WallStreet Spent More on Buybacks Than It Earned-Now They Want Bailout
Instead of a bailout, lets do a stock offering, with the government as the purchaser. This way, the government can sell it's shares later on and get the public's money back.
CHsurfer··on Clinical characteristics of 50k patients with 2019-nCoV infection
What's a morality rate? Is it a typo or an actual indicator? I found this: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/population-development/tag/mora... but it seems to be a typo.
CHsurfer··on Chart: Brexit Costs Nearly Match UK's Total EU Contributions
I came away with a very negative reaction to this infographic. I mean visually, not the data. Some how I come away feeling very underwhelmed. The embedded flags, which are at the same height, draw my eye and make it harder to gauge the relative heights of the bars. Also, there is too little white space between the subheading and the graphic. Same for the footnote. I'm far from a competent graphic designer, but I think Statista could have done better with this one.
CHsurfer··on How to Learn How to Surf [video]
Get a big board. You have more to and. Our feet don’t need to be within 2mm of the correct spot to get up and going. I made the mistake of learning on a board that was much to short (basically the same size as my roommate, who could actually surf)
CHsurfer··on FFmpeg libav tutorial – from basic to transmuxing, transcoding and more
char* convert(char* str, char find, char replace){

    char *current_pos = strchr(str,find);

    while (current_pos){

        *current_pos = replace;

        current_pos = strchr(current_pos,find);

    }

    return str;
}

convert("H264", "4", "5")

CHsurfer··on GitHub satanically messing with Markdown – changes 666 to DCLXVI
It's a nice touch that the number of upvotes (09:10 Standard European Time)is also '666'
CHsurfer··on A foundation course in reading German
I have been reading German novels on Kindle. If I don't understand a word, put my finger on it and in a few seconds I get a definition. Admittedly, only about 50% or the words I check are in the built-in dictionary, but it allows me to keep reading without too much time loss. What would be amazing is to automatically generate anki cards from this. Anyone?
CHsurfer··on Why Switzerland? (2007)
Switzerland is definitely not perfect in this respect but I see a lot of evidence that it’s a good option even if you are not a white mail, which I am (for context). First, my wife is an Iranian Born French citizen and she is now VP of Technology at a 500 person energy company. She wouldn’t leave Switzerland for anything. Also, I work with many Indian colleagues who are very happy to be here.

I’m not saying their lives are perfect and they don’t suffer from racism and prejudice but on the whole Switzerland is a very much a net positive for them.

CHsurfer··on Warp, Cloudflare's Free VPN, Is Now Publicly Available for iOS and Android
I signed up some months ago and am using the DNS service on my iphone, but is says that I am #192604 on the WARP waitlist and that they will let me know when it's ready.
CHsurfer··on Swiss Copyright Law: Downloading Stays Legal, No Site Blocking
Many in Switzerland would be happy if the CHF lost value. Of course, that's only true if we can somehow maintain the same level of trading rights.
CHsurfer··on Swiss Copyright Law: Downloading Stays Legal, No Site Blocking
One of the problems is that much content is not available via legal means in Switzerland because the media companies have not got around to it, so many will use torrents as it's the only way to get the content. If they completely block legal access to content, then torrenting will only increase.
CHsurfer··on 123-Reg and NamesCo registered millions of .uk domains without asking customers
Happy Gandi customer here. Price is fair, good docs for a smaller provider and friendly service.
CHsurfer··on How we built a GDPR-compliant website analytics platform without using cookies
I think the GDPR was enacted into law not to prevent cookies, but to prevent collecting data on regular people. This seems to circumvent the technicalities of the law but not the spirit. The risk is that they enact a new law that puts even further restrictions on website operators.

I'm not sure this is a good idea.

CHsurfer··on How I Run a Company with ADHD
My son has many of your challenges and reading this helps put in perspective his challenges. I'm not sure what to do about him not 'reaching his potential'. I want to be understanding, but at the same time, I want to push him to try. It's tough. Your advice about finding work that you like seems to be extremely important. He's only 12, so we have some time, but I will discuss this with him so that he starts to pay attention and learns to identify what he likes and doesn't. Also your list of skills is great. I will try to get him to also identify his strengths as he matures and make sure he understands that everyone has strengths and weaknesses and that it's important to play to his strengths.

For me, this was a really great article. Thanks for sharing.

CHsurfer··on Launch HN: Prometheus (YC W19) – Remove CO2 from Air and Turn It into Gasoline
Modern power plants work hard at getting every last bit of that energy before it escapes. Current Combined Cycle plants, that generate steam from the exhaust of a gas turbine, are currently getting over 60% efficiency.
CHsurfer··on Calling a real estate robocaller back
I want a phone service that automatically charges the caller a small amount ($1-$2). I can waive the charger for known numbers. Each time an unknown caller calls, I get an SMS right after the call to waive the charge for this and all subsequent calls or to proceed with the charge.
CHsurfer··on Amazon ‘flooded by fake five-star reviews’ – report
This sounds like Lance Armstrong's description of what lead to his doping scandal. The point is that it's ok to do it because everyone else is, until it isn't ok any more.
CHsurfer··on A national housing crisis is brewing
Things aren't likely to get better soon, particularly for lower- and middle-income households struggling to make the rent and become homeowners.

This sounds backwards. If housing prices stop going up, won’t it be easier to make the jump from renter to buyer?

CHsurfer··on Everything you should know about certificates and PKI but are too afraid to ask
At work, on Chrome I get this error: `ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR`... oh the irony.
CHsurfer··on Porn-loving US official spreads malware to government network
My company, which is quite large, disabled all USB storage, with some exceptions. We survived.
CHsurfer··on Norway's Plan for a Fleet of Electric Planes
This was my idea as well. It should make for exciting takeoffs!
CHsurfer··on India unveils $2.5B plan to electrify all households by end 2018
Actually, you can get about four single shaft combined cycle plants with a fairly large class GT. $2.5b seems rediculousely small for the task at hand, assuming that they will want to have power flowing to all of those newly connected households.
CHsurfer··on Rosetta catches dusty organics
“These particles have remained pristine and untouched for billions of years until they were released in the days or weeks before being ‘caught’ by COSIMA,"

I hope they will release the particles back into the wild once they are done with their analysis.

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