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MarcScott

6,894 karma · joined July 4, 2013

coding2learn.org
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MarcScott··on Dmv.org
They really are good as well. I insure my car and the DVLA knows about it. I MOT my car and the DVLA knows about it. Then I hop online and pay £0 to tax my car as it is a low emission vehicle.

I used to have to collect all my certificates and physically present them at the PO, but not any more.

MarcScott··on The Mythical Non-Roboticist: Wouldn't it be great if everyone could do robotics?
I've taught kids to make line-following robots, with very little code. They are slow, don't handle crossing lines very well, and can often just flip out and do their own thing.

I'm not teaching the kids to compete in line-following competitions with robots that can run a course in seconds though. I'm not teaching them to handle multiple crossovers in their code.

What I am doing is developing a passion for robotics and programming, and hoping that a handfull go on from there. If they are inspired, they can ditch the simple APIs and move on to the more complex and powerfull stuff.

MarcScott··on Boeing Starliner launches first crewed mission
> I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of 2 million parts — all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.

John Glenn

MarcScott··on Signal: Will leave the EU market rather than undermine our privacy guarantees
Most of my family use my brother's Matrix server, but it's the Element app that makes it appealing to us all. Client side scanning could be enforced in the app, regardless of the server's protections.
MarcScott··on Teacher Pay and per Student Spending
> 73% of individuals in America earn less than the average teacher's salary of $69k.

And around 95% of degree holding individuals do less work than the average teacher, and almost all of that 73% are less qualified and probably in less debt from degree courses.

My son is currently choosing what he's going to move on to after he finishes school, and I'm honestly recommending military service over teaching.

It's a hard job, with working hours that are beyond ridiculous, and you end up spending some of your salary on school supplies for your classroom and for your kids. Not to mention keeping your desk drawer stocked with snacks for the kids that don't have food.

We need to wake up. If we want our children to be babysat, then keep things as they are. If we want our children to be educated, then we need to attract the best to the profession. "If you can't do, teach" needs to be reversed.

MarcScott··on AI Overviews: About last week
I'm pretty sure Brave has been doing this for awhile now, and it's certainly available outside of the US. It often saves me a click, which I appreciate.
MarcScott··on UK General Election called for July 4th
We're close to the 2% inflation target, thanks to energy prices dropping. The Bank of England will probably drop interest rates soon, and anyone with a mortgage will be thankfull. I suspect that this is why the Conservatives are calling it early.
MarcScott··on Toon3D: Seeing cartoons from a new perspective
Why would you have a site with a whole load of videos on it, with all of them set to autoplay and constantly loop? I was watching a video on my second screen, and it stutters each time I try to visit the site.
MarcScott··on DNA confirms there IS a big cat roaming the British countryside
Isn't that a little like saying archaeologists seem to find a suspiciously large number of historical objects, or tornado hunters seem to have a suspiciously large number of tornado sightings?
MarcScott··on DNA confirms there IS a big cat roaming the British countryside
It wouldn't surprise me if there were a large enough population in the UK to be sustainable. I've been hearing stories about black leopard sightings since I was a kid, and geographically they are quite far apart.

These animals are pretty shy and mostly hunt at night. It was only recently that we managed to obtain footage of them hunting at night in an area of the world where they are fairly common.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-68665332

MarcScott··on Raspberry Pi Ltd is considering an IPO
I think you're confusing Trading with the Foundation. Go and have a look at the websites to educate yourself on the difference.

https://www.raspberrypi.com

https://www.raspberrypi.org

There's pleanty of information in the 'about' pages.

MarcScott··on Parking reform legalized most of the new homes in Buffalo and Seattle (2023)
I take it you live in an area with good public transportation, or maybe you work from home and have shops within cycling distance of where you live.

Workers need to get to work, and there are tradeoffs. Unless you want your local sewage treatment plant, the fat rendering factory, or the refuse landfill within walking distance of your house.

MarcScott··on Veo
I'm okay with watching the majority of action movies, but I distinctly remember watching this fight scene in a Bourne movie and not having a clue what was going on. The constant camera changes, short shot length, and shaky cam, just confused the hell out of me.

https://youtu.be/uLt7lXDCHQ0?si=JnVMjmu0WgN5Jr5e&t=70

MarcScott··on Ask HN: Seeking ideas for preschool/school projects
You could look into setting up a Code Club.

https://codeclub.org/en/

And we have a tonne of resources at https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en

Playing around with teachable machine is also a tonne of fun for kids, and MIT have a platform called RAISE playground that has Scratch with teachable machine extensions

MarcScott··on Blade Runner
That was such a faithful adaption of Scanner Darkly, it was like reading the book again. I agree that a similar adaption of Do androids dream of electic sheep would be amazing. I'd also like to see the same care and attention given to some of Dick's other novels and shorts. No one has quite been able to capture We can remember it for you wholesale, and the twist at the end. I enjoyed Minority Report, but it wasn't quite up there with the story.
MarcScott··on North Yorkshire Council to phase out apostrophe use on street signs
I have a street in a town near me which grammatically should be called St. Thomas' road. However, the street signs call it St. Thomas road at the north end and St. Thomas's road at the south end.
MarcScott··on The Physics of Karate (2021)
In training a couple of weeks ago, my son accidently delivered a straight right to my forehead, with significant power.

It took me a few seconds to recover, but when I did it was to check his hand was okay, as we weren't wearing gloves.

He was fine. I had a headache for two days.

MarcScott··on The Physics of Karate (2021)
In my experience, most martial arts tests don't require you to actually break the thing you are hitting.

The examiner is just watching to make sure you hit with the correct technique and to hit hard.

She should just focus on that, and not be disappointed if she doesn't break.

MarcScott··on The Physics of Karate (2021)
Breaking in on my Tang Soo Do sylabus at every belt grading. We do use plastic break boards rather than natural wood or concrete though.
MarcScott··on The Physics of Karate (2021)
Your board holders also have a significant input on your success. If they hold the board, but let their arms flex, then they absorb too much of the energy of the strike. They can make it easier for you as well, by flexing the board inwards towards them.

I've gone through boards with a one inch punch with barely any effort, and also failed several times, and it has always been down to the person or persons holding the board for me.

MarcScott··on Show HN: MuscleWiki Workout Generator – Generate unique workouts
> Your vision is a site for the lifting community

Is that mentioned explicitly somewhere on the site?

I'm into martial arts and never want to set foot inside a gym; I also have no equipment at home. Picking things up and then putting them down again has no interest for me.

I want exercises that use only body weight and allow me to focus on the muscle groups where I want to increase strength (I have no interest in aesthetics; I just want to punch and kick hard).

It's early days on the site, but it has already given me a bunch of exercises that do exactly what I want.

MarcScott··on A tiny ultrabright laser that can melt steel
These lasers mean that the watches that Q gave to James Bond will finally become a reality.

LLMs and self-driving cars mean that KITT from Knight Rider will finally become a reality.

All I need is for Webb to discover a planet a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away, and my childhood fictions will have been realised.

MarcScott··on Descent: A classic 3-D first-person shooter (2012)
I can't remember if it was descent or descent 2 but I remember there being a bug on the final level when flying down a super long corridor that caused a 15 minute or so reload time each time you died. Took me hours to complete and I drank so much tea while waiting.
MarcScott··on Parasite infection is associated with entrepreneurship (2020)
I want Dang's search tools.
MarcScott··on Neal Stephenson was prescient about our AI age
I didn't like either of them very much, but I've really enjoyed other books of his.

- The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

- Seveneves

- Cryptonomicon

- Anathem

- Reamde

- Fall; or, Dodge in Hell (Although the metaworld parts in that get a little tiresome)

MarcScott··on Safetyism killed playtime
My dad taught us how to make bows from long bamboo garden canes and gardening string, then notched small garden canes with fire-hardened points to use as arrows.

We used to set up ramps on the road in our estate while it was still being built, using piles of sand and planks left behind by the builders. Then, we'd get some airtime on our BMXs. I still have a scar on my chin today from going over the handlebars.

Back garden fires were a regular occurrence as well. We'd be unsupervised, playing around with flaming sticks, or throwing things into the fire, such as aerosol cans.

None of this seemed to bother my parents.

Then, when my own son was about eleven, I taught him how to breathe fire. It was heavily supervised by me, and we practised with water for an hour until he had the technique down, and I let him have a go with paraffin. He did it perfectly. I recorded it.

I showed the video to my dad, and he was extremely angry that I had taught my son this, seemingly forgetting all the wild things he used to let us get away with when we were children.

I suppose my point is that this is not really a generational thing, but a societal one. Regardless of your generation, in modern society, all adults have a heightened perception of risks, real or imagined.

MarcScott··on Untranslatable
Spotted this one:

"Not here to fuck spiders"

Asked an Ausie mate if it was real, and he confirmed he uses it often, as in:

"Look mate, we're not here to fuck spiders, might as well just crack on."

MarcScott··on Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?
I don't know how helpful this is, but you might like to work through these kid focused projects with him, so at least he has some idea about game development.

https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/collections/unity

MarcScott··on The Flappie AI cat door stops your pet from gifting you dead mice
But I bought my cats specifically to do the job they were bred for, which is to catch vermin (rats and mice). They're cute pets as well, but that's not what we selectively bred cats to be.

The problem is that humans are invasive; stockpiling rubbish, building grain silos, and creating environments where rats and mice can hide and not be caught by natural predators.

If you live in a country where wildcats, or other larger predators, are indigenous, then I don't see the problem in letting them outside.

MarcScott··on Operation Snow White
Being responsible for moderating this wikipedia article must be one of the most time consuming and mundane pieces of unpaid work on the planet.
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