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ianbooker

362 karma · joined August 9, 2012

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ianbooker··on PageRank explained
PageRank is fascinating, since it is so easy to explain.

Yet, this is not even half the work. It like a third of the way.

Before you could have invented PageRank, you must think in graphs. That is possible in 1996, but not as widespread as today.

After you invented PageRank, you still need to deploy it. Again, possible but challenging as well. Is Python performant enough in 96? Can you afford more than 4MB RAM?

At least Lego will not sue you for using their bricks to build a server rack in 1996.

ianbooker··on Jurassic Park computers in excruciating detail
> Since John Hammond "spared no expense", it is fair to say he picked 1GiB version at $3,598 a piece. That would give them 7 GiB of storage for a 2026 equivalent of $33,223.70. In 2026, 7 GiB of HDD would cost $0.49.

Did anyone ever try to estimate storage inflation across time? 7GiB could be one or two pc games in 2026, in 1992 one games likely was 1.4MB.

ianbooker··on I'm a USB-C Maximalist
I use USB to teach students about European Union regulatory policies, because this is one obvious standard they all can connect to. (Pun intended).

Throughout the years they were cautious when it was introduced, thankful after it was established, and now they are too young to know any other world.

And yes, USB as main connection standard was driven by Apple. But USB as main charging standard was set by the EU.

ianbooker··on Train sim created by just one person is being called the best ever made
> This couldn't have happened 10 years ago.

I agree. Something similar could have happened 30 years ago, and it did, see Transport Tycoon (or a lot of early games). But from 2000 to 2020?

ianbooker··on Too many R packages: CRAN is inundated with submissions
I see "AI and R" in three perspectives:

First, usage: Using R for our undergrads in time of LLMs is brilliant. ChatGPT slops out working code for their needs. Not pretty but works better that in 2022.

Second, development: Mastering R is hard, because its kalkül. Tidyverse mediates some of it, but still. This is the perfect breeding ground for slopification. Lets see.

Third, errata: I would love to know the percentage of science built on R to this day. I mean insights and analysis supported by it and it vast packages. What if somewhere, deep down in the stack there is an ancient bug that dented all of this? I think AI might help us here, or review slop will negate this?

ianbooker··on Optocam Zero: a Pi Zero based digital camera made using off the shelf components
Things lost to time: The Minolta Dimage A1 had contacts for detecting when gripped, so it could ready itself without any button pressed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minolta_Dimage_A1 (You see it in the pic, but its not described in the article).
ianbooker··on 560-610 minutes of exercise a week needed for substantial heart benefits
Confounders are included and therefore controlled for, and causality can be assumed since the DV is an event/hazard. This is also the reason you end up with the seemingly high average...
ianbooker··on Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning
Why is Nvidia so central to LLMs? Because they embraced ML a decade ago. Apple did as well, machine learning is central to so many things in the iPhone. Its not so surprising then, that a strong showing in ML sets you up good for LLMs..
ianbooker··on New YC homepage
Its been years since I felt urged to congratulate someone for their "webdesign", but this is really good. No boring glossy landing picture, but a distinct claim, and the the before / whoisit / after Element is unique, in a good way.
ianbooker··on Kidnapped by Deutsche Bahn
Kidnapper is likely not Deutsche Bahn but a regional subsidairy.

This is an effect of privatization gone wrong, with the national service, the infrastructure, the regional services (each), the network (not in infra), cargo and then some (sub)companies split for privatisation and an IPO that never happened. The highly segmented network is not digitalized in to any standard, so regional trains have to operate in policy frameworks and network cells that favor long distance trains. Its utter chaos on a daily basis.

ianbooker··on An SVG is all you need
The reverse is kind of true: In the beginning, SVGs were not really an option since it lacked adoption across all major browsers, or more specifically its integration was very heterogenous.

So a SVG you authored 20 years ago for some browser will likely work everywhere today.

ianbooker··on Impacts of adding PV solar system to internal combustion engine vehicles
Solar sun roofs for ICEs were a thing 20 years ago. Solar was able to ventilate your car on sunny days.
ianbooker··on The AIpocalypse is here for web sites as search referrals plunge
Not so sure if Google "still controls 90 of web search" and if this means what it meant three years ago. Many prompts could have been a web search. The metric of interest must evolve here.
ianbooker··on Ancient law requires a bale of straw to hang from Charing Cross rail bridge
The article states that the purpose of this is "lost to time". I can image that by now its function is equivalent to a "brown M&M clause".
ianbooker··on Microsoft is killing Skype
Zoom is a thing in Germany.
ianbooker··on Spotify's Beta Used 'Pirate' MP3 Files, Some from Pirate Bay (2017)
The early version of Google Play Music asked for your MP3s, so you could have them in the cloud for streaming. I guess they did this for a baseline of data and music and now I wonder if this was an elaborate hack to circumvent legal implications. Should have read the terms back then.

That would be an interesting story!

ianbooker··on Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update
How is the photo quality? I love the pictures from the old 12MP sensor + Googles software, but I understand this is not in Lineage?
ianbooker··on Nokia Design Archive
https://repo.aalto.fi/uncategorized/IO_ebb0df1b-4db3-4b3c-ad...

Is this a Nokia Watch or rather a Nokia Cuff?

ianbooker··on 'AI-powered judge' takes boxing closer to brave new world it appears to seek
Most sports would profit from a deeper understanding and application of statistical inference. Or even of descriptive statistics. The fun lays in the operationalization, a step most applications of AI will likely omit, since AI will work out the dimensions of the data by itself.

Boxing for example could calculate the amount of kinetic energy brought to the table and how much of it landed or was sidestepped. How much was absorbed? Not easy to do, but also not impossible.

ianbooker··on Show HN: A Marble Madness-inspired WebGL game we built for Netlify
Great work, it really captures the feeling of Marble Madness. Its maybe to deep of a thought, but I really fancy the spin of the marble, something that the original was not conveying as fancy as your version does.
ianbooker··on The Frankfurt Kitchen (2011)
There is also a German word "Frankfurt bath", when you place the shower in the kitchen, with some of these arangements still present in flats today.
ianbooker··on I have 2000 old VHS tapes in my garage and don't know what to do with them
My first job was to write news to teletext for German public broadcast. It required the author to compact even complex news into essentially two old tweets (I think around 300 characters) and deliver some context. Very good training!
ianbooker··on Stepwise selection of variables in regression is Evil
There are many concepts called stepwise regression, its so weird that statistics, as a field, are so bad in delineating concepts.

I teach my students what you see in most social science papers, and in the light of the article at hand, I would call it "stepwise presentation of multivariate regression".

When it comes to the task of explaning, I think presenting different models, with a discussion what your pick is, provides good value to readers.

That said, I agree to the sentiment of the article but not the wording. "Blind" or manipulative stepwise deletion will decrease falsifiability of your work. That should be more provocative to scientists than evil.

ianbooker··on Closing factories will not be enough to save Volkswagen
This is exactly the Volvo / Polestar philosophy. There is a Decoder podcast with their CEO about just this sentiment.
ianbooker··on Closing factories will not be enough to save Volkswagen
VW has Chinese joint ventures since decades. They already sell their "jv-EVs" in China, just not in Europe. I think in that regard, they are undecided wheter these products will meet brand standards in Germany.

VW as a brand went upmarket in the 2000s, with Skoda / Seat / jvs going for the meat. They became world class in repackaging and rebadging, and EoS helped a lot. That also made them kind of conservative in engineering, since everyting everywhere is super path dependent. You could find the same switch in a Seat Arosa and in a Bentley.

They are not trying to make a good EV, they try to replicate their ecosystem as a whole and that needs EoS above anything.

ianbooker··on You've got to hide your myopia away: John Lennon's contact lenses
Read the abstract and then imagine someone or somebot would study your medical condition in similar depth. This is myutopia.
ianbooker··on How great was the Great Oxidation Event?
This is a expertly crafted narrative of presumably complicated research.
ianbooker··on Ask HN: Has anyone gotten complete, permanent relief from tinnitus?
I had tinnitus as a post stress reaction after my thesis. Its well known in my family and so I was extremly woried. I got a shake of different supplements, just to rule this out, did not help. After a week I accepted this as permanent and after two weeks it did not matter to me anymore.

I notice it every second month or so and see it as a stress indicator and friendly reminder to go for a walk. But I can easily imagine that this does not work for everyone.

ianbooker··on Metric Time
I just realized that the standard time watch face feels like it will follow the sun rising from left to set on the right side. But since the sun is rising in the east, it should be horizontally reversed. Or you should always look to the south / to the sun. Or it feels right because of my western idea of writing from left to right?
ianbooker··on A Repairman's View of Portable Minidisc Recorders (2000)
There was a time when it was clear to everyone that MiniDisc failed, but when alternative technology had not caught up for some of the applications. We hunted portable MiniDisc recorders on EBay for our student radio station, since some Sony models had perfect A/D for microphone INs. I would have payed 10x for the equipment, but most of the times we got them for 50 euros...
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