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kulahan

3,539 karma · joined July 20, 2018

I’ll work very hard and on the cheap if you can actually prove your company gives a shit about QA.

Daniel.ed.callahan@gmail.com

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kulahan··on America.gov
I know you didn’t say that, I said that. I said it because I was adding emphasis to the idea that these people are, in a sense, victims.

It’s not that they can’t read anything at all, it’s that they require more basic words. A chatbot is specifically the perfect thing to keep explaining something in more and more specific and basic ways as necessary.

kulahan··on We’re forgetting what darkness feels like
Wishing you could see the stars does not mean you’ve forgotten anything. I can wish a day was warmer and cooler. Two opposing things can be wished for, because they’re wishes.
kulahan··on We’re forgetting what darkness feels like
Never considered this, but what a clear example of how drifting language can cause us to lose information, even if it’s written down somewhere.
kulahan··on America.gov
Well we can’t exactly hang those people out to dry after failing them in our educational system. I refuse to believe that many Americans are simply incapable of reading beyond that level. I believe it is a failure of our culture.
kulahan··on America.gov
Better remove humans from the equation, then.
kulahan··on America.gov
Cost, accuracy for the user, trustworthiness for the administrators, public perception, unknown future trajectory…
kulahan··on U.S. postal inspectors shut down website selling counterfeit postage labels
Fun fact: Charles Ponzi (yes, THAT Ponzi) got started buying and selling postage stamps via arbitrage. It was legal until he started doing some shenanigans regarding over-promised ROIs and needed to use new investor money to pay older investors.

He would buy a stamp in Spain for 30 centavos, then exchange it for a 5 cent stamp in the US. Spain’s currency was depreciating against the dollar, so you could make some surprising returns. Really, his numbers weren’t straight-up lies, it’s just that it would’ve been impractical at the time to transport enough stamps to make that payout occur.

kulahan··on Pirating the Pirates
I agree with this, but that’s not what I’m arguing.

Buying a pizza does not give you any rights to force the owner to maintain that recipe you purchased a slice of.

kulahan··on Does Reddit have an astroturfing problem? What the data suggests
No it doesn't. Accounts are value-less to the average user. You just make a new one. I've got probably two dozen accounts on Reddit, most of which I've forgotten over the years.
kulahan··on Pirating the Pirates
This opinion rubs me the wrong way. I don't think you meant it like this, but it really feels like when someone creates something, they now have some obligation to society, should society deem it good enough.

In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing to support this idea. If I make something, I can change it however I want, as many times as I want, and throw away old copies - even if you really really liked those old copies. It's my art, not yours.

Maybe one could make the argument that George Lucas is not the only artist here, and I'd agree with that, but to imply that society is owed something that someone created of their own volition, simply because society happens to like it, feels wrong. He can change it however he wants until the day he dies, as far as I'm concerned.

After that day, I think the argument changes.

kulahan··on Does Reddit have an astroturfing problem? What the data suggests
The major draw of Reddit is that it's a "forum" that covers every topic. These are cool, but I want a forum for succulents, and for SEA cooking, and for Eve Online, and for Hiking, and for...
kulahan··on Behold the pawpaw
This is great info. I've wanted to grow some for years, but I live in CO, and won't be moving to a region where these are viable for a few years yet, so I've got plenty of time to plan. I had no idea there even were cultivars for this fruit, but I was aware they like to start in shade, then explode once started.

In the Southwest, there are many environments where a tall, shady plant grows quickly, sets the stage for plants that need only initial shade, and then the fast-grower eventually loses out on the plot once the slower-growers have a chance to establish themselves. Once those slow growers are in place, a new generation of smaller, shade-loving plants will often follow, filling in the area that the fast-growers left.

I wonder if there are analogues you're meant to plant first, to get the pawpaw going.

kulahan··on In an $80 motel room, a discovery to shed light on the origins of life
I appreciate you breaking it down for me. I wasn't aware (though it makes perfect sense now that I'm reading it) that the capture of a foreign cell and the fusion of its DNA into the host are separate jumps, but that makes sense. I think that's where, for me at least, the confusion came in.
kulahan··on When did Google get so weird?
Why is this getting downvoted? Is it not a reasonable question? I was wondering the same thing. Both sound like jokes to me. If the LLM is trained on text, including internet comments, how is this outlandish? It seems very likely to my uneducated self that “two Ds in your mom and one in Uranus!” is a joke.
kulahan··on In an $80 motel room, a discovery to shed light on the origins of life
A cheap one.
kulahan··on In an $80 motel room, a discovery to shed light on the origins of life
Isn’t this about the origin of complex life?
kulahan··on I'm the mom in that viral Giants clip. Let me tell you about my husband
Agreed. I grew up living for the weekends. I’d wake up, crush some cereal while watching cartoons, and then I’d run out the door to find my friends. I’d usually be home by dark. Or I’d call and tell my mom I was sleeping over at a friend’s house and I’d be back in the morning. She might literally not see me for 30+ hours even when I was in elementary school.

We’d spend our time playing spies and hiding in the bushes watching neighbors do whatever, or looking for crawfish in the creek, or just breaking sticks on trees in the woods lol.

kulahan··on I'm the mom in that viral Giants clip. Let me tell you about my husband
Danes being willing to leave their kids unattended outside, as good as it may be in practice, is a horrifying idea to people in the US at least, and is liable to get Child Protection Services called on you. Different culture.
kulahan··on Toyota is taking the Corolla electric
So… it’s not really high-tech, it’s just a screen? I guess I need to see what the actual offering is.
kulahan··on Toyota is taking the Corolla electric
Maybe they could shave $3-5000 off the cost by not giving it a "high-tech interior", going completely against the design philosophy of the car in the first place.
kulahan··on 'We hacked the FBI:' Hackers say they have data on all FBI employees
This simply isn’t the case. There are plenty of secrets that every military keeps just fine. See how long we’ve gone without anyone ripping off the F-22? That’s not even a new airframe anymore.

This is EXACTLY what I was talking about. The tech that makes the F-22 an unmitigated terror of the skies is of utmost importance, so it’s still kept secret. The barriers around that information are obnoxious, but effective. What blood type a subsection of your military has is of much less importance. That’s why that data was stolen (See: OPM hack) and our best weapons remain secret.

kulahan··on 'We hacked the FBI:' Hackers say they have data on all FBI employees
>what highly sensitive work can you even do on a computer not connected to any network?

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

kulahan··on 'We hacked the FBI:' Hackers say they have data on all FBI employees
Then there's no such thing as security.

By the way, there are countless ways to account for humans. There are entire branches of engineering devoted to this. If you don't want someone to leave the bank with a pen customers use for signing checks, you just chain it to the desk. If you don't want the installer to forget to put the pen-chain in, make a photo of the chain part of the checklist required to get paid. If you want to... etc.

The idea is that you determine an acceptable level of risk, then secure to that level. Maybe the acceptable level of risk chosen by companies is wrong. Maybe we need to increase that risk exposure via heavier fines and regulations. Maybe the cost of reducing that risk is too high already. Maybe we need to fund that. Maybe it's too confusing and we need to research better standard practices. I dunno. But this is not some unsolvable problem.

kulahan··on People hooked on vapes try a new way to quit: cigarettes
Honestly, the mental aspect of addiction is what makes it difficult. Anyone can get through a couple of weeks feeling like shit, especially if you have support. But for years and years, you can be addicted to something that never even entered your body.
kulahan··on Black Holes or Black Hole Stars? Astronomers Spar over 'Little Red Dots'
Roger, that makes sense. I… might actually watch this now LOL
kulahan··on Black Holes or Black Hole Stars? Astronomers Spar over 'Little Red Dots'
I’m not really down to watch a 90 minute video on the dramas of astrophysics, so I’m not sure what it says, but interestingly Sabine Hossenfelder took an extremely minor swipe at him not too long ago. Guess the dude is at least legit-enough for that? Haha
kulahan··on Black Holes or Black Hole Stars? Astronomers Spar over 'Little Red Dots'
I worked for a financial org with over a trillion in assets, and they had a 100% acceptable variance on project length predictions. Made for a laid-back atmosphere at work but boy. How they ever swung that is beyond me.

“We predict a year, so it’ll take anywhere between 8 seconds and 24 months!” AND IT WORKED???

kulahan··on Black Holes or Black Hole Stars? Astronomers Spar over 'Little Red Dots'
Thanks to blackbody radiation, every human skydiver briefly becomes a star by this definition! ;)

It needs a core generating energy through fusion, which has density requirements, for what it’s worth.

kulahan··on Black Holes or Black Hole Stars? Astronomers Spar over 'Little Red Dots'
To add on to the other response, think of it like the star “leaking” into space. It’ll be defined as a pretty radically different size at some point in the future, even as it’s still undergoing fusion.
kulahan··on Human brain is two separate organs, Stanford Medicine-led research finds
In the context of a link aggregator, it’s arguably the only thing that matters
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