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esmi

490 karma · joined December 18, 2013

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esmi··on Effectively Using Matplotlib (2017)
When doing more complex visualizations I usually have to search around anyway, for inspiration, because I don’t know exactly what I want to draw.
esmi··on Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival
SMS?
esmi··on 16-inch MacBook Pro
How many more would there have been without him?

Anyway, You listed 14 unique devices. In the late 90s Apple probably had that many Performas alone, never mind everything else.

esmi··on 16-inch MacBook Pro
Also not parent.

I do blind type but I love the Touch Bar. There are many CAD programs that I use approximately monthly and I can never remember which F keys does what exactly. In my office I have cheat sheets on the wall but when out of office having icons makes using those applications much better.

esmi··on 16-inch MacBook Pro
That’s the estimated US iPhone install base. Apple said it was above 900M globally in January.
esmi··on What does the Laplace Transform tell us? A visual explanation [video]
Definitely. The various transforms are useful for many things besides control. Although control is an important one.
esmi··on What does the Laplace Transform tell us? A visual explanation [video]
I never thought of it that way. For me Laplace is all about region of convergence and representing things like the Dirac Delta function in a way that’s easy to manipulate.

Basically the video ignores the idea that the X(w) integral may not exist. It doesn’t for many x(t). I don’t want to type a book, but basically the X(s) integral exists (where it does is called the region of convergence) for many more x(t), so there are classes of functions which can now be analyzed where with just Fourier, they could not be.

The other thing is delta functions. With Fourier they are a pain but with Laplace they are a breeze. This is especially important if you want to mathematically model how the control system will respond to a jolt or impulse. I always figured that is why control engineers use Laplace.

esmi··on The war against today's dangerously dull playgrounds
Are you able to provide a link to pictures of a playground designed by your friend? I would be very interested in see it. The playgrounds sound very well thought out.
esmi··on I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb
This plumbing switch-er-roo scam is not new. A hotel tried the same thing on me in Paris in 2000. I booked a hotel in district 1 and they tried to move me to one on the edge due to flooding. Luckily I had been warned by a friend and refused. After I made a fuss the manager magically found an open room for me.
esmi··on Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy
How long have you been storing them and do you take any precautions? I ask because those batteries have a shelf life and storage condition can change things dramatically. See:

https://www.runpcrun.com/laptop-battery-use-and-storage-guid...

esmi··on What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?
OTOH, if you’re bad, it’s much more unlikely luck can save you.
esmi··on New Mac Pro Tech Specs
I was very skeptical of this machine and the whole Mac Pro as concept car idea [1] but the Afterburner Accelerator Card has me wondering if I was wrong. Especially if Apple finds a way to support more works flows and applications with it. That could be a real advantage moving forward and it’s not hard to understand how it could trickledown to other products.

[1] http://hypercritical.co/2013/03/08/the-case-for-a-true-mac-p...

esmi··on Strengthening Congressional Independence from Corporate Lobbyists
It’s definitely good that people are thinking about this but like with many thing, the devil is in the details.

I think there are a lot of parallels to banking & financing and the regulation and oversight of those industries.

Definitely it’s good to do something rather than nothing, and many good things happen because of oversight etc.

But just like in banking, don’t expect this to be a panacea and things are going to happen very slowly.

esmi··on Plane Tests Must Use Average Pilots, NTSB Says After 737 Max Crashes
Call it training not testing and the morale problem probably goes away.
esmi··on Andreessen Horowitz Returns Slip, According to Internal Data
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/recode/2019/5/1/18511540/si...

Anyone may not be who you think it is and their needs are likely different than the typical retail investor.

esmi··on Apple’s New Mac Pro to Be Made in Texas
I wonder how true that is. The volume is probably going to be pretty low which means it will harder to amortize the NRE. It’s not just all the hardware engineers either. There probably a ton of specific software, not to mention drivers, in this product too.
esmi··on Day Trading for a Living?
I know nothing of Medallion, but I'm curious if only private insiders can invest, how do you know they're not just lying about how much they return?
esmi··on How Apple's Apps Topped Rivals in the App Store It Controls
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20852880

:)

esmi··on How Apple's Apps Topped Rivals in the App Store It Controls
I think the security expectations for those two platforms are very different, and that's why Apple balances them differently.

MacOS gives up a lot of security for those extra abilities, and on MacOS I don't feel like I ever really had security. For example, I begrudgingly run shell injection attacks on myself every time I download some large codebase, which I am never going to review all of, or run brew, etc. It has been that way since the very beginning. Not so with iOS.

esmi··on 94k Bitcoin (1B USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet
A time proven way to get rich by old age is to not spend money. It's a decent way to stay rich too.

P.S. If it "should be" cheap doesn't it make sense to complain when it's expensive?

esmi··on How Apple's Apps Topped Rivals in the App Store It Controls
Just out of curiosity, how do you imagine that would work in the real world?

Apple's main thing is security, and one important aspect of how they achieve it is by only allowing signed code, which Apple also does some basic tests on, to be installed on the device. Many think this is a valuable service.

In the third party App Store scenario, does the developer still submit an app to Apple for approval? How does Apple then make the approved app available to the third party? How is this different from a website that gives App recommendations?

esmi··on How Apple's Apps Topped Rivals in the App Store It Controls
Actually, in the US, Microsoft lost, won the appeal, then settled.

Notice this key quote from below, "However, the DOJ did not require Microsoft to change any of its code nor prevent Microsoft from tying other software with Windows in the future."

Not really a loss I would say.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....

esmi··on What Is a Tech Company?
> I see so many delusional software "engineers" who care more about building technically excellent systems that are either delivered late or dont solve a/the real problem

That's a management failure not software engineers doing the wrong thing. Software engineers should care more about building technically excellent systems just like safety auditors should care most about safety. It's management's job to prioritize the wants of the business and the wants of the engineers and decide when they align and when they don't.

esmi··on What Is a Tech Company?
I was thinking the same thing. Apparently tech means software now, at least according to the author.

For example, what about companies like DuPont. Surely they are a technology company. Are they also a tech company? The author provides no framework to address the question which, in my mind, means they were largely unsuccessful in their attempt.

esmi··on South African authorities admit to mass surveillance
I was just about to post the same link. Outside the US the numbers are a lot lower. Outbound to some countries is 0%. South Africa wasn’t in the report though.
esmi··on The Problem with Believing What We’re Told
It’s way older than that. This is just one I know off the top of my head. I’m sure there are many other, older, examples.

https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/colonial-life-...

esmi··on South African authorities admit to mass surveillance
IRC sure, but the big win is email.
esmi··on The Problem with Believing What We’re Told
I read through the article and wondered, how did they determine which questions were fake news and which weren’t? That wasn’t really addressed. Oh well, I guess I’ll just believe what I was told by the WSJ...
esmi··on China squandered its chance to build a home-grown semiconductor industry
Posted a few months ago. Admittedly it’s not a Xeon but these things are becoming commodities.

> Ara runs at 1.2 GHz in the typical corner (TT/0.80 V/25 oC), achieving a performance up to 34 DP-GFLOPS. In terms of energy efficiency, Ara achieves up to 67 DP-GFLOPS/W under the same conditions, which is 56% higher than similar vector processors found in literature.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20126280

esmi··on Apple expands parts access to more independent repair businesses
Apple != entire electronics industry, one would hope the right to repair debate was larger than just Apple. Frankly, I hope it extends past consumer electronics as well.
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