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clort

1,831 karma · joined March 10, 2015

I am just a hacker
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clort··on Female US rower completes historic solo journey from California to Hawaii
sealed compartments. harness and tether for outside equipment and personnel.
clort··on The brain was not designed for this much bad news
The drones and missiles helped them to not lose the war, but they were significantly damaged by the initial strikes. A nuclear capability might have been sufficient deterrent to prevent those.
clort··on UK's top data and AI regulator quits after 'inappropriate' humour
Always a good plan to fall back to the 'I was only joking' stance when you get caught
clort··on Where to Find the Colors Your Screen Can't Show You
Well, now that you mention it, I'd just like to remind you that people are a lot weirder than you might think! Having incisors to be a different colour (say, a brilliant red) under artificial lights could definitely be a thing people desired..
clort··on Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb
The article did not mention compression at all.. surely it would be worth expending the space for a small decompressor in the web server, so that books stored in the device were sent decompressed and the number of books stored could be 5x or more..

A lzs decompressor is pretty simple ..

clort··on A 'cold blob' in the Atlantic could be a sign of AMOC shutdown
Well its funny. I remember reading years ago that the big problems in Europe would start when the Greenland glaciers started melting, adding significant cold water to the Labrador Current, and pushing the AMOC to the south. Never mind the sea level rise, the temperature in Europe would drop significantly.

Now, looking at the image in the article, there is a massive cold blob right there where the Labrador Current joins the Atlantic, but no mention of the theories that I've read about years ago, just that it is mysterious

clort··on The Alchemist of Flesh: The Man Who Turned Humans into Stone(2025)
See also, Gunther von Hagens more recent plastination technique which, as I recall, replaces the water by acetone, then boils the acetone out which draws replacement plastic into the cells. If you use a hard epoxy, you get a solid piece but if you draw in a soft silicone, you will get a much softer texture, and the result can be manipulated and posed.

My friend touched the skin of one of his exhibits (a man flayed, with the skin draped over his outstretched arm) when we went to the Bodyworlds exhibition in London ~20 years ago.

clort··on German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
If you re-read the article, you might see that it mentions that the citations do not necessarily cover the AI summary. The linked pages do not make the claims that the AI summary makes. That is the context of the ruling. Google made up the claims, and provided false citations. They are not, in fact, providing a summary, but a whole new narrative. Therefore they own it.
clort··on They’re made out of weights
Surely the number of neurons is not the whole story. Human brains have approximately 86 billion and are almost definitely conscious, but there are many other animals with a lot fewer (gorilla: 34 billion, dog: 2-3 billion, guinea pig: 240 million) which appear to be conscious also.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_by_number_of_n...

clort··on Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users
In the UK, the Department of Education guidance is that schools should be mobile-phone free. Students use computers to access the web fairly regularly. Guess that would be problematic then, since many schools policies is that mobile phones should be turned off and stored in your bag during the day.
clort··on Google broke reCAPTCHA for de-googled Android users
I just opened the developer tools, then chose 'Separate Window' from the menu. The developer tools are now on my other screen, and then I clicked Reply to your message. The developer tools window that I had open is not relating to this tab, but when I opened Developer Tools for this tab, it remembered that I wanted it in a separate window and did so again. The viewport should not have changed at all..?
clort··on Singapore introduces caning for boys who bully others at school
This is only half-true. Normally, the bully can escalate further than you are capable of, since they are experienced at it. Sometimes they can even get their henchmen to hold you at a distance so your resistance has no effect.

It worked for me once. I think, bullying the loser was kind of cool in front of his gang, but rolling around on the floor wrestling with a loser in front of them was not so cool. Sure, I got pulverized but he didn't try me again.

That is an anecdote though, not data. He was a small time bully, could have simply escalated to a stabbing after school and left me permanently disabled. I don't know the real answer, but telling people is a good start. Make sure people know about every incident. Don't silently suffer.

clort··on Spain's parliament will act against massive IP blockages by LaLiga
No conversation at all needed to happen. LaLiga got a court order. The order specifically stated that if LaLiga flag your IP address, the internet providers in Spain must block it during the match. Cloudflare have nothing to do with it.

Who could have forseen, that LaLiga would end up abusing this system!?

clort··on Reverse-engineering infrared-based electronic shelf labels
I also think that was a little too far fetched for the real world currently, but .. I'm not 100% certain. I have no doubt at all that there are sociopathic CEOs out there who would think this is an entirely reasonable proposition in order to increase profits.

But I also think that technically if they are tracking you in the store and adjusting the labels when you near products, it would not be difficult to show you that price that at the till, where they are still tracking you.

The real problem would be ensuring that the other customers were shown appropriate prices. Perhaps that would not be a problem I don't know. If three people are near a product, then just show the max price you think one of them is willing to pay, the others can suck it up? Perhaps the others weren't going to buy that in any case? You know one of them wants to buy that particular item, they always do. And, many people don't really look at the price labels in any case. If the store tags a person who will reject items as being too expensive at the till, then just charge them less than the price that was shown which they didn't look at when they picked it up. Once you move into the "profit above all" mindset of tracking customers and cynically adjusting the prices, it doesn't seem to me that anything would be out of bounds.

Also, I have been reading comments online for >10yrs from people claiming to work in the field, who have been saying that this stuff is already happening. Remember this? https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...

clort··on Paraloid B-72
methmethacrylate (ie acrylic)
clort··on Paraloid B-72
Yes it mentioned firming piano hammers in the article. From what I remember, a piano hammer is a shaped piece of wood (or several?) with a leather strip around the striker part? What is the difference for you between hardening and softening the hammer, and how would it be done with this .. is it penetrating? (acetone base would enable that, it is used for carrying chemicals through a surface). Could you soften the hammers by replacing the leather strips, or soaking them to loosen & expand the presumably compacted fibres?

In my wider life in the UK, speaking to people associated with pianos (from a piano tuner, to school premises teams), it is often not worth the commercial expense to repair old pianos unless they are of particularly good quality or have some sentimental value.

clort··on Nowhere is safe
Its not AI, its humanity itself. There is no AI, because none of those tools are actually autonomous. There no AI commenters here or anywhere, it is always humans causing that slop to be posted.

Anyway, this idea goes back to long before The Matrix, try H G Wells The War of the Worlds, ably voiced by David Essex and Richard Burton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcAwrLzhnzQ

clort··on NHS staff refusing to use FDP over Palantir ethical concerns
No.

I checked, and you can of course donate to Led By Donkeys either as a one-off or monthly via their web page https://donate.ledbydonkeys.org/ but they don't have a way to contribute to specific campaigns.

Thanks for mentioning them though.

clort··on Stripe withheld $85k from our EU platform
As I understood it, even in the UK there is the concept of a 'reasonable man' as in, the contract should perform as a 'reasonable man' would expect. If it does not, that is enough to get such terms discarded. So, you cannot just obfuscate the contract with impenetrable legalese that excludes reasonable things and expect to get away with that. Which is not to say that (insurance) companies will not try.

my source for this was an ex career insurance man (retired out)

clort··on Why Lab Coats Turned White
They do this at my local hospital at least. There is a plethora of colours for different staff roles. I understand this is not consistent across the whole NHS but in general the principle is mostly followed. eg, see

  https://www.workwearexpress.com/blog/NHS%20Uniform%20Colour%20Codes
clort··on Bumblebee queens breathe underwater to survive drowning
Not to take from the thrust your comment but just so you know, bumblebees and honeybees are not the same species.. Bumblebee nests are somewhat different than hives, and the way in which they develop is different also.
clort··on $96 3D-printed rocket that recalculates its mid-air trajectory using a $5 sensor
Human Rights Watch claim it, and have analysed photographs put on social media

https://www.hrw.org/news/2026/03/09/lebanon-israel-unlawfull...

(they have also previously documented that Israel has done this in the past)

clort··on Russia's economy has entered the death zone
That they sent special forces to Kyiv to take over the government on the first days of the invasion is not implication?
clort··on 15 years later, Microsoft morged my diagram
plenty of people on the internet recognised it immediately, so sure, he may have been a rando when he created it, but not so much 15 years later..
clort··on Lost Soviet Moon Lander May Have Been Found
Yes. Generally, if you know where it is, it is not lost. If you don't then it is.

But, it also depends if you want to know where it is. If you don't know where something is and don't want to, its not lost its discarded.

clort··on British drivers over 70 to face eye tests every three years
Actually, as a British over-55-under-70 myself I would support this. I've always thought that drivers should have to take a test every ~10 years in any case.

The main problem I see with over-70s renewing their licence currently is that they have to self-certify that they are safe to drive. Many are reaching a position in which they rely on the car more and more because walking and going on the bus is harder when your agility, cognition and eyesight diminishes. Of course, they will self-certify that they are safe, that is perfectly understandable from their perspective. It needs to be independent.

clort··on On being sane in insane places (1973) [pdf]
I'd say yes. I have a book by Lauren Slater, called 'Opening Skinners Box' in which she researched many psychological experiments of the past, and subjected herself to similar conditions where she could, in an effort to understand better.

The chapter on 'Thud' ended with her visiting a psychiatric hospital of good reputation with an emergency room, she basically said the same things as the researchers in the paper. She was given some anti-psychotics and sent away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opening_Skinner%27s_Box

clort··on Autonomous cars, drones cheerfully obey prompt injection by road sign
If you are sitting in a waymo vehicle, and somebody cuts you off - do you even notice? They don't have them round here but my idea is that the vehicle itself is doing all the work, you can just continue reading your book, chat or get on something else with little awareness of the actual journey. Does the waymo curse and shake its little fist to alert you it was cut off?
clort··on NASA's WB-57 crash lands at Houston
Ok so the plane is pretty much toast, though perhaps only the bottom of the fuselage as not sure if the wingtips touched the ground.

I'm wondering about the runway at this point, does that damage the runway significantly? It seems that a runway out of order would be a massive problem..

clort··on UK Government’s ‘AI Skills Hub’ was delivered by PwC for £4.1M
Nothing takes 'a couple minutes' when you have to sit down and research the five online shops, find if they are approachable, if they will deal with the restrictions of your purchasing department, find out how to submit a query. Many online shops just have a purchasing portal. Find the product, buy it here, pay for it and wait.

So loosely I purchase items at my work from a budget that I am allocated in an organisation that is ultimately responsible to the UK government. I need to justify that the items I am ordering are reasonably priced, and the organisation would really really like to have the goods before any money goes out. That means they want to place an order, receive the goods and and invoice, and then pay the invoice. Many online shops don't want to deal with that. We have accounts set up with many companies, but not all. If I want to buy some reams of 160gsm A4 white card (for example, the other day), that whole process is going to take at least 10 minutes. Some of our suppliers don't sell exactly that. Is 240gsm ok? I've got to go back to the person who wants it (no btw, I had to go find some and take it to them for comparison). More esoteric items are going to take longer. What exactly do I want to order?

So yeah, procurement is simple when you are at home with an amazon account. The items will be here tomorrow!

edit: oh, I didn't mention the free delivery.. a box of white card doesn't get me free delivery. Is there something else I can add onto that? Ok, the order will have to wait..

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