hvs

On the plus side, it's a step up from the general public's: "X is bad because it contains chemicals!"

It's really not a big deal. They just watch as you take the test and then you go home. There's very little socializing (unless you want to, hams seem to love to talk to each other).

Also, you can take the tests online as well, you usually just have to have a camera setup so they can see you aren't cheating: https://hamradioprep.com/ham-radio-license-test-online/

Previously (5 years ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19014278

A big part of Ham radio today is what are known as POTA (Parks on the Air) activations where hams go to different parks to make contacts with other hams. These are often low-power transmissions (Known as QRP, or 10W or less). I think a big driver of this is the fact that our cities have become so noisy.

https://parksontheair.com/

Side note: if you read Hacker News, enjoy tinkering with electronics, and want to meet/talk to more people like you, I recommend becoming a Ham. The Technician and General exams from the FCC are relatively easy if you have any technical background and it's a great outlet for experimenting.

Off-topic, but when components are sourced directly from the manufacturer do you have to buy in bulk? I figured you didn't just go on Mouser or DigiKey, but I would think manufacturers don't like dealing in small amounts.

Jailing people for mistakes is a good way to ensure that mistakes are kept hidden.

That's a lot of work to get kicked out of a concert that you paid hundreds of dollars for.

The vehicles still running from the 1970's suffer from survivorship bias.

A related book that I found interesting is "The Ego Tunnel" by Thomas Metzinger [1]. He's a philosopher but also brings in current (for 2010) neuroscience research into the study of consciousness and the feeling of a "self".

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Ego-Tunnel-Science-Mind-Myth/dp/04650...

If you are interested in the source (and can read 6502 assembler):

http://www.6502.org/source/games/uchess/uchess.htm

Winter Storm. Blizzard has a specific meaning:

  In the United States, the National Weather Service defines a blizzard as a
  severe snow storm characterized by strong winds causing blowing snow that 
  results in low visibilities. The difference between a blizzard and a snowstorm 
  is the strength of the wind, not the amount of snow. To be a blizzard, a snow 
  storm must have sustained winds or frequent gusts that are greater than or 
  equal to 56 km/h (35 mph) with blowing or drifting snow which reduces 
  visibility to 400 m or 0.25 mi or less and must last for a prolonged period 
  of time—typically three hours or more.

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

The home computer boom of the 70's and early 80's was the product of cheap microprocessors entering the market in the 1970's (chiefly the 6502 and Z80). In some cases it was scrappy startups (e.g. Apple) and in others it was an attempt to get in on the gold rush. There were no "standards" yet; IBM had yet to enter the fray, and when it finally did in 1981 it was still way too expensive for most of the home market, so wasn't really a factor for years.

So the way to think about this period is like the Internet boom of the late 90's or the AI gold rush of today. Things got greenlit because no one quite knew what would be successful (frankly, most companies/people struggled to find a use for the 8 bit machines besides gaming, which is a hard sell to a lot of parents). The quirkiness of the architectures is a direct result of the industry being the Wild West. You wouldn't see it today because the industry has been established.

This is basically what the "early Internet" looked like that people often write paeans to. Lots of pages written by people very dedicated to a weirdly specific thing while also peppering it with nonsequiturs and their crazy theory about who runs the "real" government. It was fine, but hardly the glorious wonderland often portrayed. (Not that the current Internet is without its flaws, but if I want to learn something from someone it is a million times easier today than it was in the late-90's and early-00's.

This is the first I've ever heard that term but it instantly makes a lot sense. Found my wiki rabbit hole for today.

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

Reminded me of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17776

Oh, I remember. I built client-server applications in Delphi. Distribution was a huge pain. Easily the worst part (as you mentioned).

Delphi was a wonderful language in the late 90's for desktop application development. It was easy to build desktop applications quickly and was very fast for both compiling and the executables it generated. Definitely a product of its time, but I look back on it fondly.

They weren't really "APL Machines" but computers used to run APL like IBM's APL2 had special keyboards like: https://www.clickykeyboards.com/product/1989-ibm-model-m-139...

FTA:

  Once PRs start to exceed 10k lines of code, they seem to become slightly “safer.”
  I suspect this is because the extreme end of PR sizes includes refactors, which
  maybe start including less functionality change and therefore have a slightly
  lower chance of breaking. Alternatively, engineers may become progressively more
  reluctant to revert PRs after 10k lines because of emotional anchoring and merge
  conflicts.

As someone with a cochlear implant (single-sided deafness), I can't speak for everyone but I would say the opposite of "horror" is how I feel since it returns the ability for me to hear out of that ear. Most that I have talked to are usually happy to get the implant (it is especially life-changing to those with bilateral deafness), the only exceptions are people that are less happy with the results than the actual implant.

It sounds like you probably have a phobia around implants.

"GO: A Complete Introduction to the Game" by Cho Chikun is a good place to start. Then just start playing games. You can be auto-matched on online-go.com with players of close to your strength (and you can request a handicap in the settings as well. You are what is known as 30 kyu player (think "white belt" in karate). The great thing about go is that the handicap system allows you to play people of greatly varying skill and have a chance at beating them. Right now you could probably play up to a 21 kyu player with a 9 handicap (19x19 board) and still be on equal footing [1].

I can't stress enough the need to just play games. Have fun. If you don't enjoy it you won't keep doing it, so don't stress out about "doing the right thing." Just try stuff and see if it works. If it doesn't, oh well. Don't do that next time. I know I said "don't just try things" above, but that was specifically in learning to read life-and-death problems. At your level you should just be having fun playing games right now. Life-and-death problems can be boring (but necessary) for a lot of players so the important thing right now is that you enjoy playing. The other stuff will come along naturally as you develop the desire to get better.

Oh, and don't play against AI (even weak ones). They don't play like normal humans and will just confuse you more than help. At much higher levels, AI has been very helpful in finding new tactics and strategies that more optimal, but at your level, playing other humans will get you better much faster.

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

As low-DDK player, what has helped me most is

1) Playing lots of games (https://online-go.com and https://gokgs.com are good for this). I usually have a few correspondence games going and then try to play a normal speed game daily. Don't worry about winning and losing, just play. Begin to internalize how standard tactics reappear regularly on the board.

2) Do tsumego (life and death) a lot. But don't just try things and see what happens. Try to read out the entire sequence before looking at the answer. (SmartGo One is a good app). Cho Chikun's beginner ones are good [1]. Try to work on a subset of problems (<100) until you can just look at the formation for a few seconds and see the answer. Play out all sequences to really understand why they don't work. Getting the answer isn't really the point, it's that you internalize the tactics involved in all tsumego.

3) As someone who spent WAY too much time reading books about Go strategy and tactics before I could barely play the game: don't do that. Books become much more useful once you are a SDK (single digit kyu) player. Until then, just play and study life and death. Reading books isn't bad, it just isn't that helpful when you can get beat in a game because you don't have the basic tactics down.

[1] https://tsumego.tasuki.org/

Historically, in the UK, Australia, and other countries, "one billion" meant "one million million" (i.e. 1,000,000,000,000). Officially, at least in the UK, it now means the same as the US (i.e. 1,000,000,000)

Relevant: https://online.interlisp.org/

You want craftsmanship? Pay for it and make time for it. Too many companies claim to want that but are both unwilling to pay top dollar and then don't provide enough time to actually do it.

It's a basic rule of economics. Veterinarians need to eat too.

The new owner pays for it.

I think you mean "executive branch". The legislative branch IS congress.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but it's not a complete wash. I know if I go off my meds I go to a bad place pretty quickly. That's not society, that's something a bit off with pile of cells that I currently call "me."

Humans and society are messy. There aren't easy answers and we are a culture dying for easy answers. Sometimes it really does help to have an impartial person sitting there just letting you bitch once a week. Sometimes it doesn't.

Cancer treatment isn't a complete positive. If you subject large numbers of people to it some of them will die from the treatment. If you save 1 person from cancer but kill 5 more that didn't have it, is that a net positive?