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WastedCucumber

374 karma · joined September 13, 2024

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WastedCucumber··on Tuxedo No. 2 – Cocktail recipes
Maybe everyone just really, really needs a drink right now?
WastedCucumber··on Data centers make nearby neighborhoods hotter
I largely don't find that surprising. Industry and mechanical activity (cars) cause direct warming - see "urban heat islands", "weekend temperature effect", and as a bonus the "weekend ozone effect". The latter two aren't necessarily as consistent as the former.

But what I do find surprising is

>A separate study by an international team of researchers found that data centers outside urban centers raised the surrounding area’s temperature by 2 degrees Celsius on average and, in some cases, by up to 9 degrees Celsius.

9 degrees F would be already be wild, but 9 C sounds crazy! I wish I could figure out what source they were talking about, but I haven't been able to.

WastedCucumber··on Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)
The first time I built a freestanding bookshelf, I put a lot of effort into making the feet level and the back straight and at a right angle to the feet. Once I put it up against the wall I'd built it for, I realized I'd solved completely different problem than the problem I really had. I needed crooked bookshelf, since the wall was totally tilted.

In the end I screwed some wall shelves in and called it good enough.

WastedCucumber··on Taxonomy of the Occlupanida (parasitoids on bread bag tags)
We have bread like that even in the more civilized parts.
WastedCucumber··on What is it like to be a bat? (1974) [pdf]
Probably it's a bit like this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_echolocation?wprov=sfla1

But on a more serious note that's a great paper and well worth the read.

WastedCucumber··on The Biggest Tell That Something Was Written by AI
https://archive.ph/VlvTj
WastedCucumber··on Show HN: 500 years of Joseon court omens as an observability dashboard
Thanks for that hilarious history tidbit. The actual record makes it even better. From the wiki page for Taejong of Joseon:

The king himself rode a horse and shot arrows at a deer. However, the horse stumbled, causing him to fall off, but he was not injured. Looking around, he said, "Do not let the historians know about this."

WastedCucumber··on Sauna effect on heart rate
I think that's also consistent with the idea behind a hot shower. The shower doesn't help by increasing your body temperature, in fact it does the opposite. The hot shower induces the body to try to cool down, so near-skin blood vessels swell, and that dumps heat into the cold air, which reduces your core temperature, and a reduced core temperature helps you fall asleep.

I think where I read about this was Why We Sleep from Matthew Walker. But he suggests just washing your face with warm water, as opposed to a shower.

WastedCucumber··on We accepted surveillance as default
that was my experience too!
WastedCucumber··on The Uncanny Valley and the Rising Power of Anti-AI Sentiment
I think these studies aren't meaningless at all, but the fact that "AI" is a loosely used term means that many people might view even more simple ML methods with skepticism, as opposed to just, say, chat-like LLM tools.
WastedCucumber··on For the first time in the U.S., renewables generate more power than natural gas
It doesn't seem like a silly argument to me, and certainly not moralizing. Rather "I wonder..." seems to be an indirectly phrased request for information, an open invitation for somebody who has seen the numbers to provide a link.

But I do think I get your point - the subsidies are there so we should compare the costs as they are.

WastedCucumber··on How to break America's great scientific stagnation
This is vapid politics, not a thoughtful analysis, which you would expect from the title.
WastedCucumber··on Microsoft says Windows 11's bugs are all "resolved"
That's what I told my advisor about the model round about once a month, and round about a week later I'd tell him about the new bug I'd found.
WastedCucumber··on Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones
>They could make huge improvements in safety by actively preventing the use of illegally modified e-bikes that travel too fast.

Or by regulating bicycle food delivery services so thatheir employees' continued employment and wage magnitude doesn't hinge quite so thoroughly on how rapidly they deliver.

WastedCucumber··on Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones
In Germany we have rules, and one of those rules is that pedestrians on the sidewalk who are in the cyclepath (usually a too-subtle red stone) do, in fact, have to get out of the way for cyclists.

I imagine there's also a rule about directing airhorns against law abiding cyclists.

WastedCucumber··on US and Iran agree to provisional ceasefire
Or else they'll eventually alienate a majority of their patron state's voting population, and finally get hemmed in / risk losing your military (and other) funding that their state is dependent on.

Heavens to Betsy please don't be so passive.

WastedCucumber··on Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing
I was just talking to a kiwi yesterday about diesel. The price has more than doubled already there. So there goes large chunk of the US beef supply.
WastedCucumber··on Slovenia becomes first EU country to introduce fuel rationing
I think the point is that a world with renewable electricity wouldn't need as much oil, thereby making smaller sources of carbon sufficient.
WastedCucumber··on 4Chan mocks £520k fine for UK online safety breaches
At first I took the comment about transferring nukes as a bit of a joke, but you make a fair point. Let Iceland have em!
WastedCucumber··on Grandparents are glued to their phones [video]
The article in question:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2025/12/do-your-paren...

WastedCucumber··on Hollywood Enters Oscars Weekend in Existential Crisis
I don't watch a movie a day, but I'm at my friendly local indie theater at least once a month. It's got a more comftorable audience, more consistently interesting films, and it costs less than the big theater. If I went just a bit more often, I'd for sure get a subscription. There's already so many good films, and so many good indie films being made, I just don't need the big cinemas.
WastedCucumber··on The government uses targeted advertising to track your location
Just one more example here, which I think is a big one for some people - chat apps. Without Whatsapp, Telegram, and Signal, I can't really use my phone as telecommunications tool with friends and colleagues, because everyone is on them. The group chats are where a lot of discussion happens, so I can't just switch to SMS/calls.
WastedCucumber··on Number Research Inc
Oh lord I feel old, I couldn't figure out why 67 was special until I read this.
WastedCucumber··on Guilty Displeasures
+1 For Untilted Goose Game, it's wholesome and brilliant, also as a solo game.
WastedCucumber··on Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
People want to determine if the inportant events surrounding them are bad or good, even if they don't have a say in them. Perhaps it's even a way to cope with the lack of influence we have.

But I do like the idea of imagining how to limit the executive branch. Spitball here - we use sortition, and permission to use force of any kind has to go through a council of say, ten, randomly chosen, representative citizens.

WastedCucumber··on Nature's many attempts to evolve a Nostr
For who might be pulled in by the vague title, not knowing what a nostr is, thinking this article has anything to do with evolution - it has nothing to do with evolution or nature. Not one example of nature trying to evolve a nostr is descibed.

Maybe like... the author thought a nostr is similar to, I dunno, a pack or tribe or something?

WastedCucumber··on The Checkerboard
I think the point is that private owners might run into the same issue of needing to cross private land to get to their private parcel.
WastedCucumber··on The Checkerboard
I wonder if they really have all that much value now. Barring any particularly lucrative natural resources, if one publically owned square is surrounded by private owners, who have the right to restrict travel, then that kind of heavily limits the market, doesn't it? And by that, presumably the price is limited as well.
WastedCucumber··on Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri
I think the comment points to the other possible motivation - undo everything that was done under the Biden admin out of principle/spite.
WastedCucumber··on Discontinuation of ARM Notebook with Snapdragon X Elite SoC
I ran into this problem on a Slimbook some years ago now. I found that my battery drained way too fast in standby, and I remember determining that this was some (relatively common) problem with sleep states, that some linux machines couldn't really enter/stay in a deeper sleep state, so my Slimbook's standby wasn't much of a standby at all.

But that's just one problem, I bet.

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