elevensies

Three books I enjoyed this year:

this census taker, China Mieville

To Say Nothing Of The Dog, Connie Willis

The Possibility of an Island, Houellebecq

If you enjoy science-fiction, it is quite possible that you wouldn't enjoy any of the books above or even classify them as science-fiction (I would though) -- so definitely look them up or try the kindle sample to see if they appeal to you.

Also, I see Ann Leckie's Ancillary trilogy mentioned elsewhere, I second that recommendation.

[Also, honourable mention to the TV show Westworld -- if it were a book I would have included.]

One thing that affected me was drinking coffee through the day, and then stopping in mid-afternoon, I found that from around 8PM to midnight that left me in sort of a zombie state. I eliminated caffeine for a few months and now I consume a smaller amount.

On the landing page they say there will be overages for excess data transfer. In terms of how it is different, I think a lot of people here have probably been using AWS for 5+ years and the jargon etc. is familiar, and we can calculate the price and understand what it is, but for people who are just getting started this will be a product that is directly comparable to i.e. Digital Ocean and can serve as a gateway drug to AWS.

I'm curious but not motivated enough to really search for it, but for ambiguous hash abbreviations, why not select the oldest, since presumably it was unique at the time it was created?

edit: I guess that information must not exist or I assume they'd be doing it.

It has been hilarious to see the government become the opposition and vice-versa. It is like around midnight on election night they've just exchanged their scripts and switched places overnight.

I think there is a time and a place to nag people about changing their habits, and it is absolutely not when they are at their weakest and most vulnerable.

Who would benefit from the departure of Spez? Overall, except from this one incident, he has allowed the continued existence of The Donald. I'm not sure the next CEO would do the same. The only person that I think would benefit from the departure of Spez is Spez.

Because it is his fault, that is why I think he shouldn't try to personally deal with it. The Donald was attacking him personally, which is against Reddit policy (no personal attacks,) but he fumbled the ball and weakened his ability to reform them. I don't think there has ever been trust between the mods of The Donald and the reddit admins.

I'm saying its a curse because:

- Yishan Wongs various missteps and eventual bizzare (looking) departure

- Ellen Pao had haters on the site from day 1, Hitler memes etcetera. And then when they fired u/Chooter all hell broke loose and some subs were shut down by their own mods. The integrity of AMA was permanently ruined by this IMO. Anyway, Pao was hated by the idiots immediately, but hated universally after this.

- Spez started strong but this is going to affect his credibility, and seems to me to be part of the same downward spiral that happens to the CEOs when they get caught up in some bullshit happening on the site.

The CEO of Reddit is officially a cursed position, on par with the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts.

In other circumstances this might have gotten laughed off, but The Donald has really developed a bunker mentality IMO after having mods doxxed, the algorithm changed to end their front page dominance, lots of other subs being anti-Trump, and the general tenor of the campaign against Trump.

I hope Spez can take a nice relaxing weekend holiday and let someone else deal with this shit-hurricane.

It looks like 3D models.

You can see the models through google maps on the normal web interface. If you go to a city, zoom in so your screen is a few blocks across and select "3D" view from the lower right corner. It should load 3D models of the buildings. Then if you hold Control which clicking and dragging, you should be able to freely rotate your view around the map's center point and see the buildings from any angle.

EDIT: and I should mention, it works all over the place, not just cities, i.e.: https://www.google.ca/maps/@41.0775591,-71.9351097,67a,20y,2...

Your mention of GPS just reminded me, there is an app "maps.me" which allows (requires I think) you to preload the maps on a state by state basis. It can do turn by turn navigation on a smartphone without a network connection. It can also do a search for i.e. gas stations nearby.

Personally I have some canned food that I just don't find all that appealing, which I could eat if I needed to. Probably enough to get through a week. What I don't have, but I'd like to have, is a reserve of fresh water. A plastic 5 gallon carboy would be enough. I also have my hiking, camping, and skiing equipment which I could use inside my apartment if the heat went out in the winter for an extended period ... although after a day at -20 I'd probably start burning books and furniture. I also try to keep at least 1000 cash on hand at all times, and try to refill my meds when I still have 1 week left.

I'm curious regarding the motivation behind this. You are receiving and storing emails, looking at them, and optionally forwarding them for processing. Why not use an email client, and only forward your chosen stories into a linear ingest and publish lambda job? I ask because I'm considering building something similar and I'm thinking about the rationale.

Also I should mention: that is my prediction as someone who wouldn't be effected (I'm Canadian). If it were otherwise, I would be preparing for the worst -- for abortion that would take the form of looking at international travel options, and thinking about how to conceal it.

Looking at the rust belt states that Trump managed to peel off, I think she had two things working against her:

1. Her policies were less vivid and memorable. Her tax policy versus Trump's belligerence at trade partners Mexico and China where the factory work moved.

2. Her credibility regarding her ability to actually bring about change. I think Bill Clinton tried to address this in his speeches, but she is part of the establishment and therefore expected to continue the status quo.

This is apart from her health, which I think affected her ability to fight the media war, and being a woman, which makes her an icon for social issues whether or not she wants to be -- those maybe a factor but they are outside her control.

Looking at the results, I can agree that focusing on Michigan would have been more optimal, but to win I think she needed MI+WI+PA, so if she overfocused on PA and still didn't take it, broadening her effort may have lessened her loss but I don't think it would have been a path to victory.

1. They created a sophisticated system to allocate effort.

2. The system selected Pennsylvania as an important target.

3. They expended lots of effort there -- and still lost it.

I don't see how it is the computer's fault. Even if the system predicted the results exactly, you still need to do something about it.

I have to say a big "I told you so" to everyone in the tech community who said Snowden was wrong to do what he did. As of January 20th the NSA works for Donald Trump.

If Trump actually makes a dent in the low-skill unemployment rates, it could actually fuck with the economics of on-demand economy companies, I think you're right about automation.

Here is a document from the Trump campaign about his short term goals, I hadn't read it yet when I posted above but I think most of my points survive: https://assets.donaldjtrump.com/_landings/contract/O-TRU-102...

No mention of ending abortion. I agree that it would be sexist and catastrophic if it happens, especially given the state of american health insurance coverage.

EDIT: from this document it looks like he plans to target undocumented immigrants who have a criminal record -- the process will probably be very disruptive, I think this is the single policy of Trump that could cause the most human misery, but it seems possible that the process could give the others a more secure status.

Predictions:

- @POTUS twitter account is going to start tweeting at 3AM

- I think illegal immigration enforcement could see the most drastic and immediate change. To my knowledge the status quo is not legislated in any way, and was created by preventing enforcement rather than any legal means. When low-skill unemployment bottoms out the motivation will start to weaken.

- whatever was done by Obama by executive order, I presume will be quickly undone, they will probably have reams of documents ready to be signed on day 1.

- Hillary Clinton: in order to prosecute Trump will need to nominate a new Attorney General to the DOJ, and then ask the FBI to re-assess I guess? I don't think she will go to jail, in some countries when power changes the losers get jailed but it hasn't been the case in America, and I don't think high level politicians want it to become the case. For all practical purposes I think Clinton will continue to be above the law.

- The WALL ... boy I don't know. I will be fascinating to watch if he tries to do this. The only utility will be economic stimulus.

- Trade war: I think the American dollar will go to a lower level which will decrease imports and increase exports.

- Muslim ban: I think he will disallow visas from active conflict areas and nearby. I don't think i.e. Malaysia will be effected, or Indian muslims for example. Maybe countries that aren't functional enough to carry out a criminal background check will be disallowed.

EDIT:

Also, I don't think Trump+GOP will enact or seek to promote any racist or sexist policies, I don't think they will mount an attack on the recent marriage equality ruling. I think the following people will suffer financially:

- undocumented immigrants

- industries that depend on a close relationship with the government: the guard is changing -- if you had relationships with the Bushes and the Clintons, you've had access to the most powerful organization to ever exist in the world for the past 27 years, that may or may not continue.

This is if Trump lives all four years. All of the above doesn't apply to Pence, I think Pence could do some real damage.

I found a few of the idea repetitive to season 1 and 2, I haven't finished all episodes but I like 6 the most so far, because it presented a novel threat. And similarly and more immediately you could imagine [SPOILERISH HINTS BEYOND] a self-driving car virus that would use facial recognition to create an assassination capable vehicle botnet. Episode #2 has implications of simulated torture which is interesting but has already been treated a few times.

No, I don't use R, thanks for the reference. Most of what I've done lately has been as part of software development process, so along the lines of validating the effectiveness different techniques for solving a known problem with a smallish test dataset -- typical engineering style optimization. I'm looking to impose more structure on the process.

Any specific resources you'd recommend on data cleaning, verification, etcetera? I've just started reading this: https://www.amazon.com/Accuracy-Economic-Observations-Oskar-... . I've seen a few other books on the subject which I'm planning to get into, but I'd be interested if anyone has specific recommendations.

I would consider cold storage to be preferable, but running at a low speed might be necessary for self-defence and what essentially amounts to data verification, the ability to rebuild to a certain redundancy level.

In my view if time loops immutably I gain nothing: same program, same input, same result.

I fully expect to die and I think I am ready for it, but I'm going down fighting. In terms of abstract moral questions, ten years of Catholicism cured me of any curiosity I had for that sort of thing.

*immortality (oops :S)

Sure, I don't necessarily disagree with anything you're saying, and given all that, I still think it is the best chance.

#1: in the short term, the quantity of hardware doesn't matter. If you needed a full data center costing $10M per year, it would still be worth it for some people. The idea is to get into a host that is replaceable, and then you can work on making it smaller.

#2: in the short term, you don't need to run in real time. If you are just trying to survive until better tech comes along, running at 1% means the equivalent of 3.65 days per year: maybe enough to survive until hardware improves. Taking this to an extreme, 100 people could pool resources for protection and tech improvement while staying in deep storage and only running their minds very seldom.

Given the above two points, all that really matters to me is that I can find a way to upload my mind into binary data which I know can be simulated faithfully. All I need is upload, storage, and a recovery plan. If the recovery plan looks like it will take 1000 years, fine, I still prefer it to nothing. If I think there is a 1% chance of success over the next 1000 years for immortality, I believe I will do it.

#3: we know for a fact that the functionality of the brain/body is achievable in the space/power envelope of the brain/body. I could easily tolerate a 100x space and power increase. The human body is approximate 100 watts and 100 litres. So 100x is 10,000 watts and 10 cubic meters: 13 horsepower and the size of a compact car -- fine by me. I think I could survive immobile and incorporeal for 100 years with a good library, if, for example, I had to be anchored to the seabed somewhere and run off geothermal energy. The more you expand your lifespan, the more options open up. If you can run yourself at very slow speeds an immense amount of options open up.

If I'm interpreting the first 5 paragraphs correctly, the author has been writing continuously since about 1950.

I think brain-upload is probably the only way to do interstellar travel, even if you synthesize a new body on the other side. For someone alive today, if you want to do interstellar or non-colonization space travel, going after immorality is the best option IMO.

I don't think that earth-preservation is a worthwhile quest on a personal level. There are dozens of people who could destroy the whole planet since the invention of nukes. And with climate change for example, any kind of proportionate action would require an agreement between giant (100M to 1B+ people) political organizations to voluntarily makes themselves less wealthy -- although making tech that is greener and cheaper/better is probably the most significantly helpful option.

Apropos nothing it occurred to me there is an excellent property of encrypted drives, even if you can be forced to decrypt them, illegal data can't be added to the drive by physical capture alone until you are forced to turn over the password.

Elon heard something: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/774153847371501569

Although I also think sabotage such a weak theory.