knob

Addressing specifically your two points:

-fingerprints: because if the system fails, you have no gun. Internal malfunction? Greasy finger(s)? Gloves? Dirt? Dust? People whose fingerprints are really hard to print?

- determjne how often/when they are taken out of the house: talking specifically about the USA, that is a gross over-reach of the government (local + federal) via registration. A central database with who has what gun at what time? I'm against it.

I hope I can inspire you to look-up some additional information. Responsible gun owners are not a problem. The FBI has statistics on "defensive gun use", reporting that it happens over 250,000 times per year. Compared to what number? 35-40,000 deaths per year involving guns? And of those, 20-30,000 are suicides.

Please look up hard-data. Trying to take away guns will not solve the issues society faces. Then why do it?

Always remember: There are two types of countries in the world.

Those that use the metric system ...

And those that have gone to the Moon.

I hope this post helps someone looking to start with ML.

When I started my journey, I thought I should do what this article mentions.

>>First, you should learn the fundamentals:

>> Learn mathematics

My problem is that "learn mathematics" can take years. To me, it would be very frustrating.

So I started down that path... and got completely overwhelmed.

When everything took off and I went from 2 mph to 60 mph was when I did the fast.ai course. The fast.ai course is strongly recommended by me. You'll start seeing results and "actionable" work very quickly. If you so desire, then you can keep on with the more fundamental stuff like mathematics. Also have to give a shout-out to their forums. The people are super nice.

This is a cool real-life example of Taleb's antifragility.

In Puerto Rico, gas stations have had backup power generators for years (way before Hurricane María 2017). The power grid is so crappy that the generator turned out to be essential for normal business. And the owners couldn't increase the price over pre-set parameters (Puerto Rico's DACO sets those).

Meager profit margins on gas sales have been irrelevant in this situation. Once Joe down the avenue installs a generator on his gas station, you have to keep up with the Joneses.

So antifragility made it happen: the impact of lost-sales wasn't enough to bring down the gas station... yet enough of a stressor to push the installation of backup power generators.

As an aside: From the people of Puerto Rico, thanks again to all the beautiful people from the States that came over to help. Thank you.

That was a fascinating read. Up there with the SR-71 stories.

Did you know about these?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Ameri...

Can you further fund Purism and their phone?

This hits close to home.

Anybody has thought of sending faxes with QR codes? Receiving systems that have the ability can get the fax's information quickly via QR code, instead of having to OCR the fax. If the system doesn't support the capability, it's just ignored (by the fax machine and humans).

Might be helpful.

The fern Azolla already did this once! linky --> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azolla_event

That's not true.

My Nexus5 had "HP Cloud Print". Undeletable.

Which was the reason I installed Cyanogenmod.

> Do you just hate the idea of any built-in browser integration with proprietary services?

Yes. I hate the idea of any built-in browser integration with proprietary services.

Trying writing from right to left. That way, you leave the ink behind and don't smotch it with your hand.

As was mentioned by tony-allan, this article is from last September. I'm living in Puerto Rico and situation is now stabilized regarding communications.

I want to take this time to thank everybody that has sent help this way, and those that have enabled for help to reach this.

Everybody from ham radio operators, to the electrical service brigades from dozens of States, to emergency personnel, everybody.

Thanks.

PS: I should start finally working on my ham radio license!

Throwing my idea out there: What if the to propellers are synched. Depending on desired direction, they are "un-synched" ever so slightly. This causes additional thrust on one side of the "duct".

As a full-life Puerto Rican, living here and having been here for Maria and Whitefish...

Whitefish was doing its job. There were lots of trucks, lots of crew, going around actually repairing the grid.

Was it a contract vs no-contract? Was Whitefish overcharging? Is Whitefish a consultancy versus contractors? Was it too much money?

IDGAF!! They were doing it. Actually fixing the system. Yet for whatever set of reasons, they no longer are.

We are super thankful to the New York Power Authority, thankful for ConEd, thankful for the Georgia people, the Florida people, the crews from other beautiful States of the Union. Super thankful.

Yet Whitefish was actually working.

I don't know if it's all ex-colonies in Latin America, yet it's always the same thing. Lets destroy what those guys are doing because they're not us.

And I had generators all the time and grid-power has been restored to my house! Imagine if I didn't have power yet! How would this post go about?

GO! Super happy to see the progress in this project. I was one of the early backers (as soon as I saw the news link). Keep at it everyone. Doesn't matter what Google announces or Apple... keep at it. This is going great places. =)

>I already treat women as equal (actually more)

I don't think that word means what you think.

TIL! Thanks!

This is an interesting link: http://gajitz.com/about-face-defeat-face-recognition-softwar...

Good questions on AdaFruit's side. I am interested in knowing what is the result of this inquiry.

> it only takes one or two malcontents

You are going to enjoy this link from Nicholas Taleb. I also recommend his books!

I just want to say: I owned a 1975 Cadillac the 500 ci engine. I wish I had never sold it, yet I am glad I did.

The biggest engine ever in a production vehicle, until the second-gen Viper came around.

You would probably enjoy the book "Iron John", as written by Robert Bly. Your entry for today in the Improbable Ideas forum, was how things happened in the past. Children would go to work with their parents, in the pre-Industrial Revolution era.

Father was a blacksmith? Children would go with him, and sweep the floor, pump air into the furnaces, and organize things. As they matured (both in age and skills), their tasks would grow. Father's brother was a leather worker, so it was easy to send your kids to work with your brother, so they would see if they wanted to be blacksmiths or leather workers.

The Industrial Revolution destroyed the father-son relationship. Fathers would leave the house at 6:00am, and come back at 8:00pm. Young boys would have a blackhole regarding what their fathers did during the day. This blackhole, Bly argues, would get filled with "demons". Not voodoo-demons, yet "demons" in the sense of a "lack of knowing what my dad does every day".

In part, we as a society in the West have been suffering the effects of this destruction ever since. In the 80s and 90s, with the increase of mothers in the workforce, the same thing is now happening to the mother-daughter relationship. We have to wait a couple of generations to see what effect this has on women.

I will admit that you are right on that. It's a tough spot to be in.

I bought, and yet to fully read, "Debt - The first 5000 years". One of the things the book states at the start is what you are saying: Not every debt has to be paid off. One of the risks creditors take is the possibility of having a debt not paid back.

I also remember how Haiti was, to this day, punished via monetary means. Haiti wanted freedom? Fine... they will (and did) cripple the entire country.

Another example from the book: Madagascar. The French invaded, and took out their Queen. Then imposed taxes on the population as to get back the money they invested in the invasion/war. wtf

I have lived all my life in Puerto Rico, and as you can imagine, this issue is quite controversial. We owe money to the creditors... and what you do with a debt is to you pay it off. Yet the amount is so staggering, that I wonder if it's actually possible.

As is typical, decisions by politicians placed us in this situation. Decade after decade, 4-year term after 4-year term, the government has spent money it does not have. Be one political party or the other, it is the same thing.

There was a big manifestation this past Monday, where various Unions, groups, and students did a "Paro Nacional". Truthfully, I don't think they accomplished anything, other than various idiots vandalizing property they don't own. We are in deep shit, and it's going to get worse.

Lots of people are leaving the island, which just compounds the problem (less revenue).

I don't leave because: it's where I was born, where I have lived my entire life, and it is, honestly, paradise.

Obligatory John Oliver's Puerto Rico segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt-mpuR_QHQ

What will happen? I have no idea. Good to see this in HN.

What was the Google Play store alternative you tried? Please do share. I always search the Play store via browser, because it sucks on the phone.

> I had a Pavlovian response to the sound of email arriving on my phone,

I hope somebody finds this useful: I setup a 1 second "silent" mp3 as the notification sound for emails, messages, etc. If the phone actually rings, I pick it up. Yet the email notifications (got seven email accounts on the phone), the text messages, Telegram, Whatsapp... they are just silent now.

Hope this helps someone!

Honorable mention goes to Adnauseam (https://adnauseam.io/). It is an extension for Firefox and Chrome, which clicks on almost every ad. Hopefully, costing advertisers money. The interesting part is: Google removed Adnauseum from their Chrome Extensions. If you anyway install it, every Chrome restart requires that you re-enable the extension.

I like the extension... the advertisers are costing me money by consuming bandwidth, and slowing down everything... well I will try to hit them where it hurts.

> It's an interesting idea that maybe we could employ a form of point-and-call checklist system in software development or operations.

Maybe copy/pasting. Highlight part of the code, copy. Go to gedit (or whatev) and paste. Doing this while "calling it".

Check this out: https://www.amazon.com/802-3af-Splitter-MicroUSB-Devices-WT-...

Hope it helps you! =)