holowoodman

I want to get some work done: Just as an example, this work consists of reading some email like "pls review this document, and create a presentation in response". I'll follow up the email with an answer and some clarifying questions. Then I'll read the document, making some notes. I'll read some additional documents, google stuff, look up some numbers, do some calculations, make more notes. Then I'll start drafting the presentation, refining it until ready, reading my notes, firing off another email with a few more questions. Then I'll send over the first version of the presentation.

Now all of those things live in different applications. All of those applications might be local file based or web-based. Some can do both. So I could try putting all the relevant files in a folder, holding all the files I need for this task. But wait, when I save an email as a file there, I cannot properly respond to it anymore. It is just a copy of the original email. Same for all the web-based stuff that even allows local copies. If I use hyperlinks, in the URL-as-a-unique-resource sense that was originally intended, I could link it all together in my notes. But many, if not all, modern web applications do not work that way, I cannot really link anything. And even if, most URLs are not stable. If I google something, I'll find a page I can bookmark or copy the URL of, but that page will change. To save the current state of that URL, I'll have to jump through a lot of hoops to maybe get a PDF printout file or something. And changing any document usually overwrites the previous version, so I'll have to do *-copy17.odt or deal with 20 different broken internal mechanisms of "version tracking". I can check everything into git, but then all the applications will have no clue how to deal with it, no proper diff, nothing.

One thing that I actually want was implemented in the first version of PalmOS as a hack: every application could contain links to every other application's content. You could link from a calendar entry to a contact who you wanted to visit. You could link from a contact to a note, detailing your last talk with each other. You could link the note to the last offer you sent the customer. etc. Of course this was rudimentary, but it was a start, which unfortunately died with later versions of PalmOS where those hacks were no longer possible. So for my original example, I want the original email to be annotated with a link to all the files I've created in response, all the web searches I did, etc.

Another thing is the notion of version control, extended to all desktop and web applications. I want to know what I did, when I did it, why I did it, and what related changes go together. I want to see the same thing for all my colleagues. I don't want any "this file conflicts with what your colleague did, which should I overwrite?". I want proper merges. In each application.

The only thing that even comes close to this nowadays is something like Emacs Org-Mode. If you stay strictly in Emacs.

Or is it just that I didn't try enough stuff and there is a real solution?

Yes, but it took far less than using your meat brain to prove the Navier-Stokes Clay problem.

Performance of zvol is worse than for LVM logical volumes. Last I've looked, zvol for swap is just asking for trouble, up to and including deadlocks. ZFS filesystems do have weird edge cases and incompatibilities, e.g. around free space reporting, quota and the like. And support with software vendors e.g. for enterprise distributions or backup software is spotty at best.

But even for the "frequently reinstalled cattle"-usecase, LVM has benefits, e.g. snapshots for backups, debugging and forensics.

But better watch the whole video. Then get snarky again ;)

Are you sure? They will seek out open WiFi and other neighboring LG TVs as relays.

Many German manufacturers (esp. the "premium" ones) don't build for people. They build mostly cars that get leased as company cars. So price isn't that much of an issue, longevity beyond the 4 year leasing term isn't a problem, excessive maintenance isn't a problem since it'll be included in the lease. Oh, and the trunk is just for a laptop bag and the overnight clothes for that one passenger anyways, so nobody cares it's impractically small.

Also, from what I know, design cycles for German cars are relatively long. A model won't just be changed, at least not once per year (as USians seem to expect to the dismay of German manufacturers). While this is great for cost-optimizing the manufacturing process and might be nice because replacement parts are easier to find, this has a downside: Japanese car makers practice continuous improvement, meaning that a change can go in at any time, as long as it seems advantageous. So maybe they learn more quickly from their past mistakes and overall build a more solid engineering experience through this continuous fiddling...

Which is why back in the day, there were some car/washing machine/tool brands and models that seemed to last forever. Whereas now the current models last exactly their warranty/leasing period.

Edit: Other manufacturers do this, too. But for them, it's often coming from the other side of the reliability curve, so they are improving, the ones that were better back then are getting worse.

German engineering culture is to think things through. To take everything into account. To do it properly, and not mess around. To rather think a bit more and make sure you get everything right.

Basically very similar to German rules culture.

Problem is, both of these cultures have their downsides as well. Rules as well as plans get overengineered. The belief that "one more rule can't hurt". The belief that "taking a step back yet again and discussing it a bit more is always worth it". At some point, you get stuck in a maze of rules, contradictory plans, meetings over meetings with no action. Engineers are scared to invent and engineer, because there surely will be some rule that could be violated...

> Don't nearly all electronics fall under it too, this is the second item after children toys in the link you posted.

No. That page just says: There are tons of EU laws about everything, including electronics. By putting a CE mark in your product, you certify that your product complies with all applicable EU laws.

In most cases, this certification can be a self-assessment, meaning that you can just assign the CE mark by whatever internal process you deem sufficient. I.e. you are allowed to rubber-stamp, but of course you are fully responsible for all consequences.

In some cases, for example childrens' toys, but only for some electronic components (electronic toys, medical stuff, high-voltage components, components that emit EM radiation above a certain threshold, ...), self-assessment isn't enough. In those cases, you need to obtain a certification from a notified body, which is an external organisation doing some design review and testing, as required by the respective laws.

It's all laid out further below under "How to obtain CE marking" and "Do you need an independent assessment?"

https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/product-rules-complian...

And in the end, all solutions we can attempt are technical and in some aspect untested. We just assume that the consequences of some of those solutions are small enough, but none have really been tested at scale.

What's more, most heating techs only know about water heating and are unable to solder a refrigerant pipe. So it is hard to find someone to install a split AC or split heatpump, and your average heating tech won't even mention anything about cooling because he can't install it and your existing setup might have to be redone anyways.

The easiest and cheapest way to get such a device is to get an air-air AC unit. More than 90% do have a reverting valve and can heat and cool. All of them will be efficient in both functions. Just look at the SEER and COOP values or the A+/A++/A+++/A+++++++ ridiculousness/efficiency scales ;)

Those air-air heatpumps/AC units can do both because they basically have the same radiator on both sides, and the same condensation removal system. Sometimes the cooling is a little more efficient, sometimes the heating is. This basically depends on the refrigerant used and on the local climate you are using the unit in.

Condensate is the reason that at least in Germany, you sometimes cannot do both. The usual heatpump you buy around here is an air-water heatpump. Meaning the outdoor unit is coupled via outdoor air. The indoor unit distributes it's energy through water, usually in water radiators or in-floor heating. Problem with that is that those water radiators are not suited to be run with cold water for cooling, and those in-floor heating systems usually aren't as well. Why? Because water will condense on those cold surfaces during summer, run off into your flooring and cause rot there. If you paid attention to make your flooring condensate-proof or have even more cooling surfaces from in-wall or in-ceiling loops, you can also run cooling this way. But most people can't.

So yes, you could do both if you put in a single air-air heatpump / AC. In certain rare circumstances you might also do it with an air-water heatpump.

Oh, and there is the theoretical option to do air-air and air-water with the same single outdoor unit and multiple air-based indoor units and one or two water-based indoor units that create warm water for heating and piping. Look for multi-split systems. But for the usual small single-family homes, those aren't cost efficient. They are therefore usually only offered for commercial applications such as hotels. But they have nice advantages like using the heat produced from the AC to heat the water used for the showers and stuff.

Back in the day, everyone used fossil fuels to heat their homes. Back in those days, AC was frowned upon as inefficient, wasteful and decadent. Something only Americans did. The greens despised them for ecological reasons. The right despised them for moral reasons.

Then the public came to know about climate change and it was decided that people should transition to using heat pumps for heating their homes. Because heat pumps are efficient, green and a necessary sacrifice of money you have to do to combat climate change.

Now with this year's heat wave, suddenly there was a discussion even among the greens about having AC in buildings as a necessary adaptation to rising temperatures. And demands by the right to get rid of the AC stigma and deploy AC everywhere. And back in the corner, there were experts laughing out loud, because a heat pump is just an "evil" AC running in reverse. Has been all along. The only problem is that usually heat pumps were deployed in such a way that you couldn't use them to cool in the summer...

Which imho goes to show that the public urgently needs more scientific and technical literacy.

That there are deviations from the median is a normal statistical thing. Even deviations beyond 3 sigma. It happens. That's statistics. Those deviations might even be frequent more or less frequent than your statistics table says, because the data might not follow a gaussian normal distribution. See the graph, there is a -3.5 deviation in there...

What would be an interesting graph is: From 1982 to 2026 on the x-axis, plot the yearly maximum and minimum daily sigma and the median. Or just plot all the overlapping segments from the original graph as a continuous sequence. That way one could see periodicity, rising and falling of those values and the overall change over time. (Edit: see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48890590 for much better graphs)

But that graph is useless to convey any information beyond "well this year the line goes up". The article also does nothing to really explain the statistical background. Quite the contrary.

The article shows things that the graph doesn't illustrate at all: Like "This is why graphs like this matter [...] What they show is that Earth is moving beyond the range within which modern human civilisation developed.". Like fucking hell it doesn't! The graph starts in 1982! Modern human civilization started in 1982?

Like "The tropical Pacific is thus no longer oscillating around a climate that existed a century ago. It's oscillating around a much warmer baseline.". Well, and why then does this graph start in 1982? Why can't you show that century?

Like "The red line is this year. It doesn't just set a new record. It has departed entirely from the range of previous observations.". No, it fucking doesn't!. Look at the graph, there is a line at -3.5 sigma! Well within range. And even so, it's statistics, outliers are to be expected.

What this article and this graph need is a permanent relocation to the trash can. And a lesson for the author in science. Real science, not misleading propaganda that hurts the cause more than it helps.

Of course circumstances, reasons, participants and histories beyond that were different.