Ductapemaster

Thanks for your work! I live in Santa Barbara and love the Astronomy On Tap events you guys put together. It's very cool what you have enabled astronomers across the world to do, and it's even better that you give back to the community and get people excited about space. Keep it up!

It's the softer plastics that are sometimes harder to recycle. Hard containers are pretty easy, but some places can't accept their ubiquitous plastic bags with one green onion in them (not kidding on that point).

What about ridesharing is "obviously" increasing emissions? I don't dispute the fact, but what evidence is this based on?

There's an amateur synopsis on the reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/6fnj78/tesla_2...

Absolutely! I'm trying to share more with friends and other mediums about the odd things I experience in my life. I'm coming to the realization that these are just glimpses into how the brain works that we interpret in odd ways with our higher level thought - not things that separate me and my own experience from the experiences of others. It's important to open a dialog about these things and not cycle deep in your own conscious thoughts about it all :)

I have this same experience with dreams at least a few times a month. For example I'll have a dream where I'm recounting a real-life story to a friend or family member. Later on, during my waking life, I'll tell the story again to someone and I won't be able to tell if I've told the story to them before or not, regardless if they are the person from the dream. Sometimes, I won't even remember the dream and I have the same feeling. I usually catch myself while telling them whatever I am sharing, and ask "Have I told you this before? No? Ok...". It's supremely weird, and I've just learned to either ignore it or catch myself.

Also, with the same frequency, can't distinguish if something (realistic) actually has happened to me or if it was in a dream. Something as simple, for example, as going to the beach and playing volleyball with my friends. I will catch myself going through a memory of something, only to realize it actually was from a dream. The memory is as real as any others I have - vivid detail, feelings attached to it, etc. I have to think back on what I've done that week to see if it actually happened or not.

Observing the inner workings of memory and the brain as symptoms is one of the oddest things in life, in my opinion. I've learned not to be scared of it and instead enjoy it as part of the human experience!

I deactivated my Facebook mostly because I have a hard time controlling myself. It's not the only thing I find difficult to control in the digital realm (I'm still a regular on Reddit and here), but I've found I intellectually get a lot more out of using Reddit and HN over Facebook. Maybe its confirmation bias, but I come from a family with addictive tendencies and even though I don't have a problem with substances, I definitely see it show up in my life with digital products.

I also found that spending more time on Facebook made me focus on the wrong things in life. I spent a lot of time thinking about what photos I wanted to post to garner interest (in reality few look or care about them). I spent a lot of time checking in on people that I haven't talked to in years, which satisfies my interest without actually ever communicating with them. It just became sort of depressing after a while. It's low effort to become friends with someone on Facebook, and I don't think its healthy to be constantly reminded of these connections you've made in life through various events and never actively continue in real life. You just spend a lot of time thinking about the past or what could have been. I was expending so much energy and getting back nothing but fleeting dopamine hits.

I truly believe I'm better off without it, despite the difficulty coordinating events with people and being invited to things. I communicate more with people in real life now. I find I am more motivated to text or call people to check in. I also use other communication services more because I'm not satisfying my social needs through passive consumption anymore.

Why do you think we need to increase individual clock speeds past their current limits?

Love Derek Lowe! Thank you!

Fascinating development, but Ars's writing is just plain awful. Is there a more academic article on the subject?

I would actually take it one step further than technology as the root of the problem. That technology was developed because market competition made each of the producers have to differentiate their products, which has manifested itself in a bar-raising game. The easy optimizations have all been done already, and now these companies optimize for flavor, since nutritional value won't make customers return to your products. The companies are playing a psychological and physiological game with us, they know it, and they spend millions doing so.

A good article on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary...

Is it a violation of a law to write "engineer" on a resume? It's part of my title at both of my jobs - did my employer violate a law by giving a title to someone without a license?

What a crazy world we've created for ourselves.

Just because the high level effects of a study like this are commonly understood, and predictable, it doesn't mean the science isn't valuable! Digging deeper into things like this helps us understand our inner workings better and has immense value (not speaking to this particular study - just in general).

I was asking questions because I am not well informed on the history of this sort of thing, and considering this is a forum of people who work at tech companies, I felt that some may be able to lend some insight.

I personally have worked at one hardware company that was extremely ethical, and none of this would fly at any point. Now I work in a very regulated business making medical devices. I'm just trying to expand my perspective past where it is.

That said, this all seems very bad to me and reflects poorly on a company that has grown by consistently breaking rules.

I'm with you there - this seems like a large oversight that should have been prevented. My original comment was more referring to all the bad press in general. I just wonder how many sketchy things modern tech companies get away with that are only discovered when the watchful eyes take notice.

These stories just keep pumping out - "Uber uses internal tool X for nefarious purpose Y". I genuinely curious if the same sort of inquisition were focused on a different company, would we see similar stories? How much of this is cultural, and how much of it is a result of being examined microscopically by passionate investigators? Or is Uber really just that bad?

While that's true, you learn a lot from going through those troubles. I disagree that we need to make it "easy" for students to get into programming by glossing over very important details like environment configuration. Someday they'll have to do it at their job - why not prepare them for it?

You beat me to my comment! That's a bummer you actually got a ticket for it. It's illegal where I live too, but I've never seen anyone get a ticket for it. I did have a lady yell "get on the sidewalk!" one time while I was riding down a 2 lane 1 way road. She didn't like the fact I had my own lane, which is legally what I am supposed to do. Sometimes I wish they taught the cycling rules better at the DMV...

In addition to the other comments here, riding on the sidewalk is often illegal. I know it is in my city (CA, coastal city)

While this article is mostly fluff, I question the comparison to a "farm team". Few players from farm teams ever make it to the big leagues. Assuming the comparison is similar in this case, what happens to the tech workers who have just invested a year of their lives learning some proprietary stack and incorporating themselves into a company's culture and get let go because they didn't make the cut? That won't look great on a resume. Also, what metrics will they use? Will people move into permanent positions based on performance reviews? Hopefully they don't apply the same old-hat ideas to these groups and try to rethink how they grow their teams from the ground up.

Also, I'm not really sure how this differs from hiring interns to test them out before going full time? It just feels like the same thing with a snazzy name.

I agree with you for the IoT devices I would create in my life, as I am around WiFi in all of those cases (home, office, etc). However for sensor networks in rural areas this would be a great solution. For example, the water reservoirs where I live report live statistics to a server and I can see in real time what the levels of them are (along with other data, like rainfall, temperature, etc). There's no WiFi in the backcountry!

Just because something is healthy, doesn't mean its required. The human diet isn't ruled by absolutes.

I see from your comment history that you are a vegan yourself, and your behavior is exactly what turns people away from it. What's right for you isn't right for everyone. Take your arrogance elsewhere, and learn some compassion.

As someone who grew up vegetarian, I take a bit of offense at you calling it "lust" and that those who return are "weak". That's a very black and white view of an issue with a whole lot of grey.

I'm one of those people you mention who went back because it was hard in social settings. For context, I stopped being vegetarian because I wanted to be more free to eat with my friends and family. It was incredibly hard growing up, as I could rarely have dinner at a friends house or eat meals in Boy Scouts. People didn't want to eat food that I cooked because there wasn't meat in it, so no one ate at my house. Even going out to restaurants was hard. Telling people I didn't want to go to their favorite burger joint on a road trip is challenging when you do it all the time. I had to either bow out of social situations and do my own thing, bring my own food, or not eat.

Going through that for my entire childhood definitely changed me. You have to fight against the ingrained American mentality that meat always belongs at the table. You have to make people leave their comfort zones or do extra work in order to accommodate your needs. You have to be comfortable being "that person" who isn't normal. It wears on you over time, and at some point it just wasn't worth it any more.

Now, I eat meat occasionally when I go out and I cook it for special occasions at home. Otherwise my meals are vegetarian most of the time. I enjoy meat in a limited capacity, and I personally want to keep it that way. I wish those who advocated for vegetarianism and veganism had some more capacity to see consumption reduction as aligned their cause. Black and white views exist on both sides here, and I think the solution is somewhere in the middle. Eat meat when its special. In my opinion it tastes better and you appreciate it more!

I absolutely know what its like. Thankfully my job now starts at 9, so I get a little extra time for sleep in the morning and I can stay up later without big consequences.

For me, ideally I would work from home until lunch, and then come into the office for the remainder of the work day. Not having to get up and get ready in the morning would push my schedule even further towards my comfort zone. Plus, my compiles are quite long (FPGA work) and I can easily shower, get ready, or cook breakfast after kicking something off. Someday!

While that sounds like a nice thing to do on a personal level, it distracts from the real issue at hand - poor service and handling of a situation that was bad from the start. I strongly disagree that the passengers should have stepped up and taken the fall for poor practices from United. People don't need to be better humans - companies need to be held accountable for their actions and act better towards their customers.

I struggle with some demons when it comes to the internet, mostly in terms of distractions and time wasting. Alcohol problems run in my family, and while I have no problems with it now or in the past, I find my addictive tendencies come out in regards to the internet and its content.

I've learned that I am very sensitive to physical spaces in my life, and I have made an effort to set "space boundaries" for myself to help with my tendencies. For example, I got rid of my desktop computer, replaced it with a laptop, and got rid of my desk in my room. It was calling me every day to sit down and use my computer for hours on end. It's been that way since childhood - the habit is deeply ingrained.

Now, I use my room for relaxation and I try to keep it that way. I'm not perfect, but when I have to work from home I make sure I don't do it in my room. I sit at the dining room table most times, and that has become a "work space" for me. I've trained myself to not work in my room, and, while I still use my computer and the internet in there, I only use it for personal things.

This solution is still in flux for me. So far it has been successful in turning my room into a relaxation space, which was a real lack in my life before. I hope that helps!

CPLDs have been pretty commonplace in complex embedded system designs for a while. They're great for consolidating a bunch of little logic bits into a single package, and allow you to build some control logic using code rather than iterating hardware when you need to make small changes. There's huge advantages for a system like a phone where you are extremely space-constrained, and also with quick turn engineering cycles where the hardware can't go through 6 revisions before being completed. Throw a CPLD or a low-power FPGA like the Lattice ICEstorm series in there and let the HDL do the rest!

bcarlton0, what area of business are you in? I'm a young engineer working with FPGAs in the medical space and I'd love to hear about what else is out there.

Sorry, I can't really recommend anything without more information. There's just too many variables.

I briefly looked at the datasheet for the regulator and it has some constraints for the output cap that should help guide your choices. For example, you need to look at what temperature range you expect the regulator/cap combo to be working at, as certain dielectrics are sensitive to temperature changes [1]. If you need stability over a wide range, you might go with an X7R or better, otherwise X5R might do. You will also have to look at derating the capacitance for the operating temperature - you might find that in a hot environment you actually need a 47uF cap or greater to meet the minimum 22uF output capacitance requirement of the regulator.

The other main thing to consider is operating voltage. The regulator you list is adjustable, so you will need to pick an output cap that has an appropriate capacitance at the voltage you plan to run the regulator at. The curves drop pretty steeply, so it's really important to analyze this.

For ESR you should look at manufacturer websites. They often have a "picker" tool that shows graphs of that (it's dependent on frequency!). You probably won't have trouble finding caps with a low enough ESR value for this application as long as you stay away from electrolytics.

Also, you can consider paralleling some lower value capacitors to achieve the capacitance you need, and reduce the ESR a little. I wouldn't use it as an ESR lowering strategy however [2]

[1]: https://www.maximintegrated.com/en/app-notes/index.mvp/id/55...

[2]: http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/152549/esr-an...

Ceramic MLCC's aren't without their problems, especially in the smaller packages. Just take a look at a voltage vs. capacitance curve in an 0402 package ceramic cap. When used at the rated voltage, they don't have anywhere near the capacitance they state. Also the temperature vs. capacitance curves are less than appealing.

That said, I think a lot of engineers out there have been burned (sometimes literally) by using tantalum caps in the past and are likely not to design them in in the first place these days. I know we moved away from them completely in my last job because enough exploded to scare people off.

EDIT: See dragontamer's comment below for more. Explained better than I did.