function_seven

VMs are too resource hungry.

No, the many-worlds interpretation shows that our universes are merely containers with copy-on-write behavior :)

Wikipedia has good info on how RespOrgs handle this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll-free_telephone_numbers_in....

The fictional block exists, but it's not the entire 555 prefix. It's 555-01xx.

It was the entire "Klondike-5" block, but got narrowed.

If you place a device with a high-gain directional receiver pointed toward the fob, and a high-power transmitter pointed toward the car, wouldn’t that work?

You're doing important work throughout this thread. Thanks.

I haven't had a checkbook in 5 years. I did have one for the 25 years before that. But then nobody wanted a check from me anymore, so I decided not to spend the money on a box of checks when I moved.

I have one person I need to pay each month with a check. They get it mailed to them from my credit union's bill pay service. Anyone else can either accept cash, ApplePay, Zelle, or a card.

This to me seems similar to the app I use to fax things. It costs $1 a page I think? And is totally worth it for the one time I need to fax a document every five years or so.

I was told that a long time ago. But it turns out if your routing and account numbers aren't MICR'd, and you in fact hand wrote the entire instrument, it will not work.

(We tried it a couple times at two different banks. With n=2, our p value was < 0.05 :)

Is there some sort of standards document somewhere that outlines the minimum viable check? Because handwritten in crayon on a napkin... I don't think that even "technically" counts. At least not anymore.

But on the other hand, I suppose a payee could accept your Crayola-napkin-check and just punch the numbers into their electronic check submission system?

Same story here. Christmas 1985. I remember distinctly how my dad showed me how to type "DPaint" at the "CLI>" line, and the magic that followed.

He made friends with a sales guy at Federated, so we got a bootleg copy of Workbench 1.2 when it came out.

I used that computer daily for over ten years. From 1st grade through my junior year of high school. While the TV played advertisements for Windows 95 in the background, I was still plugging away on my A1000 (with upgrades, of course. I had 2MB of RAM and a second floppy drive. Never had a hard drive or modem, though!)

I still have it in a closet. It booted up about ten years ago, but I'm afraid to power it up now without taking a look at all the capacitors.

So the article says, “[authorities] have also not confirmed whether any payment was made” and also says they’re looking for the kidnappers.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that ransom was paid and that’s how they were able to locate the Ballands.

I was clarifying the sense I was using the term "force field". Not a generic field of electromagnetic forces, but the fantastical one that can contain arbitrary matter.

Like the one described in the article, that a person was leaning against and could not pass through. If this were something that we could reproduce, it would have awesome real-world uses. Like a real hover board! Or the best anti-theft protection for my parked car.

Of metal, yes. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about force fields in the sci-fi sense. An invisible wall that a person can't pass through.

Not only that, but it’s also warmer! If you take two identical sodas, one in a glass bottle, the other in a plastic bottle, the second one will always seem not-cold-enough.

A thermometer might report the same temperature, doesn’t matter. Kinda like how smell influences taste so much, the heat conduction of the container changes my perception of how cold the contents are.

And yeah, I realize that a glass bottle or aluminum can is actually transferring more heat into the soda. It’s weird, but I just hate drinking from a plastic soda bottle so much.

The other example in the parent comment was about fuel economy and trucks. They're just generalized laws about unintended consequences.

I used to walk and ride my bike to school. I was in 4th grade. 9 years old.

You show me a 9-year-old walking alone to school today, and I'll show you a parent who's getting investigated for child neglect. It's maddening.

So that chain of consequences means today's kids are meant to be watched 24/7, and that usually means they're cooped up inside. They're still facing "Stranger Danger" (except through Snap or whatever games they're playing), and now they're also in poorer health.

Yeah, even in 2007 Apple was a huge success already. Worth about $200 billion at the time, was earning about $3.5 billion a year in profit, and had $15 billion cash on hand.

https://www.apple.com/uk/newsroom/2007/10/22Apple-Reports-Fo...

If you don't want to go full-blown Home Assistant or anything "smart", you can still handle this with a self-contained switch.

I installed a Honeywell similar to this one [1]. You tell it the date and your lat/long, and it knows the times for dawn and dusk.

I had a previous version of it 10 years ago [2]. Worked great.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004AP92N2/

[2] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004SOZHXY/

Meh. Years ago I had my bakeries churning out undecillions of units no problem in Cookie Clicker. No big deal!

They're not randomly generated. They're generated using a Feistel cipher. [1]

He's ensuring the uniqueness by indexing from 0, and applying the cipher to come up with a more "random" looking UUID.

[1] https://eieio.games/blog/writing-down-every-uuid/#toc:feiste...

Well I thought I was somewhat, but that didn't ring a bell. I take my well-ackshually comment back :)

The moon has two sides from our vantage. The near side is the one you see, the far side is the one you don't. It has nothing to do with our distance from the object, just the orientation of that object.

I always play the (2n+1) game myself. (Or do I??)

I have avoided so many pointless arguments (or "debates") by leading with this question! I ask, "is there something I could say that would make you change your mind?" If the answer is no—if they can't tell me what will move them off their position—then I can say, "well let's not waste our time here, yeah?" and change the subject.

It's not perfect. But with otherwise-reasonable people, it's a nifty trick.

I had a similar experience about a decade ago. Went over to a friend's house for to play some classic board games. He brought out Life [1], and I was immediately angry at what they did to that game. Instead of cash, each player now had a Visa-branded "debit card" [2]. To deposit or withdraw money, you inserted your card into a little card reader thing and entered the amount.

My anger was actually for two different reasons! First, for similar reasons as explained in the article. Maybe I was being a bit "too nostalgic", but I also thought it was gross to start advertising payment networks to the kids who'd be playing this game.

But I was also mad because one of the things I like to do with these games is brazenly cheat at them. Steal from the bank, evade taxes, etc. I have a reputation among my friends for this and so I have been banned from banking within Monopoly, Life, etc.

Because of my reputation, everyone was happy about the new payment system, and even happier that I was mad about it. They thought I was no longer a threat.

BUT! The "debit cards" used in this game weren't mag-stripes or chips or anything fancy. They just had raised bumps on them that actuated contacts in the card reader. After looking at my card for a while, then at Bob's—I guess I'm "Alice" in this story—I realized I could modify my card to look like his if I inserted a cocktail sword [3] into the slot right along with my own card. The card reader then saw Bob's card instead of my own!

I stole so much money that night, and struck a blow against The System in the process.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_Life

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_Life:_Twists_%26_T...

[3] https://cocktails.fandom.com/wiki/Cocktail_Sword

I'm outside coverage areas all the time. I download my music to the phone and it still works.

The genetic version of the Clbuttic Mistake?

https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Clbuttic-Mistake-

So I just read the other thread about the K language[1] and how it's so-very-concise syntax made the author feel certain ways.

But that has nothing on this! From page 70 of the International Code of Signals[2], we find that PG 2 means, "I am dazzled by your searchlight. Extinguish it or lift it."

Not bad, but what if you reply with "AX 1"? Lots going on there! "Shall I train my searchlight nearly vertical on a cloud, intermittently if possible, and, if your aircraft is seen, deflect the beam upwind and on the water to facilitate your landing?"

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41886051

[2] https://rabbitwaves.ca/media/docs/ics_pub102bk.pdf

I would go so far as to say the uncorrected gaze is a lie. When I’m on a videoconference, I am looking directly at whoever is speaking, but the camera’s physical placement tells the “lie” that I’m looking down at something else. This is because we haven’t figured out a good way of placing the camera literally wherever the eyes of the other party show up on the screen. So the camera is, by necessity, in the wrong position for video conferencing. But if we can fix it in software, then we can mitigate the “lie” somewhat.

This is especially true for my set up, where I have two screens side-by-side with the camera replaced right between them. I just stare at the camera because otherwise it looks like I’m looking way off to the left or right. If I do look at the people who are talking, what they see is me looking off at “something else.” That’s a lie! :)

I love how he explains that “consideration” was conjured from thin air.

I own a car. I want to drive my own car on weekdays. To accomplish this, I give my car to Jimmy, and he promises to let me use it on weekdays?

Using the same analogy as in that post, apparently this is a valid contract with “consideration” because I gave Jimmy my car and, “in return,” he gave me my car back Monday–Friday.

I’m no lawyer, but I can’t imagine that it is illegal to donate a noncommercial license to a nonprofit organization, without contracts and considerations coming into play. But if I’m wrong, and “consideration” is a required element of a transaction like this, I don’t think this wash-sale version of it would pass muster anyway.

A massive proportion of us didn't request a refund. I don't know the percentage, but I would not be surprised is most users didn't ask for a refund of $10.

You're probably right that there was some way for Christian to navigate this and keep Apollo up. But I also don't blame him one bit for throwing his hands up after how that whole API debacle went down. Must've been pretty stressful.

I guess if you only play one drawing, you’re right. Winning is always better than losing.

But if you play the lottery week after week, year after year—and you always play the same numbers—then you’re ensuring a mediocre prize should you actually get the jackpot.

Playing the lottery is not a mathematically sound decision in any case, but there’s no reason to make it even worse by chopping your potential jackpot winnings down by over 99%

There’s a balance between jackpot size and a given drawing’s popularity for sure.

There are also bad number choices and good number choices. 1,2,3,4,5,6 is a terrible selection, for example. Not because it is somehow “less random”, but because you’re guaranteed to be splitting that jackpot with a 1,000 other nerds who were trying to prove a point!

To a lesser degree, choosing numbers under 31, or under 12, will put you in a collision space with other players who like to choose birthdays.

Just use the random pick and don’t think about it. If you do win the jackpot, you have higher odds of being the only one.