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WhoBeI

264 karma · joined June 7, 2014

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WhoBeI··on France and Germany Agree to Block Facebook's Libra
I was hoping this would happen. It will probably become a EU thing now.

The idea of a privately controlled currency needs to die quickly. Never been a fan of crypto currency in general but Bitcoin, and the like, are accepted because they are not centralized. Your Bitcoin won't change in value or disappear because your country and another get in a fight.

WhoBeI··on Saudi Arabia Shuts Down About Half Its Oil Output After Drone Strikes
I don't think it's that easy..

There's numbers.. Systems using missiles can be zerged with disposable decoy drones until they have no ammo or tricked if using thermal tracking. Gun based ones can have a hard time tracking/predicting if the drones randomize movement around their attack vector and/or randomize speed.

The environment and the approach will matter as well. They come in low, tracing the terrain or snaking through it, will make keeping lock hard. What if it's rush hours and they come in just above car height along a crowded street.

Then, of course, you can just have them semi-adapt. If they see a bunch of explosions in the air around them maybe switch to pre-programmed mission #2?

Defending against drone swarms is going to be tricky. Here they only had a few low tech ones and had a significant impact. I wonder how one would go about designing a system that should go for a target but be in no rush to get there though..

WhoBeI··on Even Physicists Don’t Understand Quantum Mechanics
Ha!, yes, what does it mean to understand something? To fully understand an apple you must fully understand the entire evolution of the universe, where it came from and down the rabbit hole we go :)

Still, chasing understanding is useful as every now and then something jumps out of the rabbit hole and changes things... Trying to understand the revolutions of the celestial spheres, why black bodies don't emit endless amounts of energy or what it would be like to travel at the speed of light.

WhoBeI··on In a small trial, drugs seemed to rejuvenate the body’s ‘epigenetic clock’
Buildup of damage due to radiation, chemicals and the like would introduce more errors/damage into offspring.
WhoBeI··on Typical U.S. households don’t use most of their bandwidth
In my case 500/500 fiber @ ~$40-45/month, somewhere around $20-25/month for 100/50 4G and something like $60-65 for 1000/1000 fiber. Semi-rural areas are usually not far behind.

With neighborhood deals you can push those prices a bit.

Most (major) train lines have fiber buried next to them that is leased by the various telecoms which helped the expansion.

[Edit] Looked it up and a rural town in the southern parts where I used to live offers 1000/1000 from 5 different ISP's who are apparently fighting. They've all lowered prices recently, cheapest is at ~$30/month.

WhoBeI··on Launch HN: SannTek (YC S19) – Breathalyzer for Cannabis
Well, I do see a lot of potential problems with law enforced using ghettos as an "arrest shop" and the like but that's not really on the technology or your company. In general it's seems like a good thing, nobody wants unresponsive people zipping around in +1 tonne metal boxes.

I'm curious about the "similarly impairing dose" though. Any good research, actual test results, etc?

I'm assuming it's response times which make me curious how the response time of a 25 year old post 3 hour cannabis smoker compares to a +70 year old on a regular day and how that compares to someone at the legal limit for alcohol.

WhoBeI··on Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click
sidebar wikipedia entries and such I suppose, those little collapse thingies that gives you a short answer, AMP cached stuff..
WhoBeI··on GDPR is an identity thief's dream ticket to Europeans' data
Right, so slap the largest fine on each one. They had 2 years to prepare and obviously didn't.

Before the GDPR this would have been stamped "identity theft" putting the company in the clear. As if you were somehow responsible for the company not verifying the identity of their customers.

[Edit]

I should mention that around here there is an established 2FA solution used by banks and the government so verification has been de facto standardized.

WhoBeI··on Why Kids Invent Imaginary Friends
It's a common thing among adults across the globe though. Well, "imaginary friend" might be pushing it but lots of people let imaginary entities help them understand the world and find their place in it. It would be interesting to see how the two compare.
WhoBeI··on Work on production line of Boeing 737 Max ‘not adequately funded’
What will the certification process for the next plane from Boeing look like?

The FAA certified a plane that had obvious flaws. From what I understand they out sourced the certification process to Boeing but that doesn't remove their responsibility, it's still their "stamp". The real certification process started after the accidents and only needed a few weeks to find additional flaws. I'd assume the process is normally months long so "a few weeks" would be finding it early.

But why should I trust the FAA? They seem to be working hard now projecting an image of a for-the-people agency while throwing as much dirt as they can on Boeing but I haven't really seen anything addressing their own problems with out sourcing, corruption, and political interference.

Have I missed something?

WhoBeI··on One player spent 10 years exploring every corner of Eve Online
It's a bit odd to go solo in Eve and I'd agree that you probably don't get much out of it. The medium to large PvP side of the game includes a lot of planning and communication though which should translate decently into RL for the leaders at least. The main Goon FC of BR- talked about it at Eve Fanfest if you're curious:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oz4rzP-CAY

WhoBeI··on A Navy veteran refused to accept a ‘no’ to his battery invention
Thanks for that link. It mentions a postal van lasting a week on one battery stack and testing with full loads. Cynical me says politics and oil industry but manufacturing and logistics surrounding it must have been challenging as well.

[edit] [0] Mentions the Deutsche Post thing as a pilot project with a "regeneration" plant for recycling. So might just have been funding drying up when the project ended.

[0]: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/661884

WhoBeI··on U.S. billionaires worry about the survival of the system that made them rich
Both options seem radical. Either penalize success or forcefully take things from people their families have, possibly, owned for generations.

If you compensate the owners of the land and take your time building the government institutions that will manage it the second option seems possible. Maybe something like what Scotland did in the 90's (I think it was) when they abolished the last parts of the feudal system.

I don't see how that would be possible in the US though. US politicians are typically funded by corporations and corporations own land. Besides, from what I understand, the right to own their own land is very important to quite a few Americans.

Put differently: I'm pretty sure an adult American in the 80's would scream "communism" at your ideas. Some of those work as politicians today. :-)

WhoBeI··on Half of England Is Owned by Less Than 1% of Its Population, Researcher Says
The right to roam is said to have it's origin in the middle ages when merchants and other travelers where allowed to grab a hand full of hazelnuts from anywhere to sustain themselves. Similar traditions where common throughout the land. The name "allemansrätten" (right to roam) was invented in the 40's and in the early 90's written into law. Funny thing is that it's not defined in the legal text, it just says: everyone has access to nature as described in the "allemansrätt". We're expected to know what that means.. :)
WhoBeI··on Has the Salvator Mundi Really Gone Missing? Unpacking the Latest Theory
My teachers skipped past the paintings and went straight for helicopter and grave digging. Strange that it was a sword wielding turtle that got me interested in learning more.

I have to agree with another childhood hero though:

"That belongs in a museum!"

WhoBeI··on The Robots Are Coming and Sweden Is Fine
If people aren't scared of automation there won't be any political pressure to restrict automation. This will probably increase the adoptation rate so I'd say it matters a lot in the discussion.

There will be problems because of automation and I think most Swedes realize this. The safety nets that are in place provide a buffer, and possible solutions, if you should loose your job because of it. I'd say that's where the optimistic attitude in this article comes from.

Sustaining those safety nets is indeed going to be hard if unemployment increases. There probably won't be any "silver bullet" solution to the problem either.

[edit] spelling

WhoBeI··on Dice Become Ordered When Stirred, Not Shaken
But a cow is still basically spherical.
WhoBeI··on Facebook’s New Captcha Test: 'Upload a Clear Photo of Your Face'
Are they allowed to sell the "fingerprint" packaged with your name to advertising agencies? If so it should only be a matter of time before those Minority Report inspired advertising screens start popping up everywhere..

The advertisers can always protect that system with some DRM to get the mighty DMCA on their side. That way they don't need to build a robust solution and can still wipe their hands clean if they loose it all to a 12 year old script kiddie.

WhoBeI··on What I'm Telling US Congress about Data Breaches
No, they need facts, the willingness to learn and the courage to think for themselves. "Guidance" is just another way of saying "my way".
WhoBeI··on Join the Battle for Net Neutrality
Well, it can always get worse. If this thing passes and Time Warner wins in court and gets to buy AT&T..
WhoBeI··on How to Program a Supercomputer
I always imagined super computer coding being a place where assembly is considered abstract. If you are that close to the hardware then measuring your code in clock cycles does make sense. The link below is to an article about 'div' optimization in compilers that gives more insight.

[1] http://www.nynaeve.net/?p=115

WhoBeI··on Practical Public Key Cryptography
Their 8 part series on cryptography is also very good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lICOtR078Gw&list=PLB4D701646...

WhoBeI··on ESO Telescopes Observe First Light from Gravitational Wave Source
My guess would be resolution. Gravitational waves are not only caused by the actual merger but also from the two masses losing energy while spinning closer and closer to each other. The GRB happens when they finally merge.
WhoBeI··on Gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger observed by LIGO and Virgo
According to Einstein there is no gravity that pulls us to the center of Earth. Instead mass curves spacetime in such a way to make you experience traveling along the curvature as gravity. If the mass is rotating the curvature will also drag on the surrounding spacetime. Imagine something like a whirlpool and then consider what happens if two of those merge. While merging some of their energy will cause waves in the surrounding water that eventually fades away with range. Those waves would be the gravitational waves - ripples in spacetime.
WhoBeI··on How Big Banks Became Our Masters
Yes, mentioning our taxes always seem to scare people from the US :) Had a look at my own and it's ~53% (total tax) which I would guess is more or less normal, Denmarks is higher I think. We do get a lot for it though..
WhoBeI··on We've failed: open access is winning and we must change our approach
There still needs to be some kind of repositories though and someone will need cash to operate those. We could also use a discovery method to find the repositories and a common payment protocol. Then there's reviews and trust to consider.

I agree that internet for distribution is the way to go but I wouldn't put a capital-s on solved just yet.

WhoBeI··on Will the U.S. Ever Build Another Big Coal Plant?
Sweden implemented a carbon tax in the early 90's at $150/T that seems to have worked pretty well. The goal was a bit different and our attitude towards taxes are different then yours but if you're interested..

https://www.carbontax.org/where-carbon-is-taxed/#Sweden

WhoBeI··on What Happens to Creativity as We Age?
Yeah, there seems to be a serious translation problem converting ideas into mechanical action but it's damn satisfying when you finally nail it. I guess the process in itself requires a kind of creativity because how else could we learn something new. So it makes sense it would strengthen the ability as well.
WhoBeI··on How Nature Solves Problems Through Computation
Ha! Yes. In 1.56 she convinced me their research is interesting, approachable and important. I also liked this from the projects page:

"Fundamentally, intelligence can be thought of as an organism's ability to sense, process, and respond to information to its adaptive advantage, forming memories to anticipate and optimize advantage in future encounters. By this definition, an amoeba has a rudimentary intelligence. So does a grove of aspen trees. Intelligence, then, isn’t the sole prerogative of humans, or primates, or even mammals, but a ubiquitous feature of life on earth."[0]

[0]: https://www.santafe.edu/research/projects/evolution-of-compl...

WhoBeI··on Why is the Internet so Slow?
“Why are we so far from the speed of light?“

Because we don't know how to build an optical router with the same capabilities as the ones we use today and the alternative is to give up on net neutrality. I'm ignoring endpoint performance and protocol bloat.

There is work being done in quantum computing that might eventually lead to some CPU like device operating on photons alone and hollow core fiber optics also seem to be an active field. The work on upgrading the various protocols together with limiting network requests seem to be the way to go until our technology catches up.

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