mrexroad

Try reversing the polarity

ST:TAS had some surprisingly good scripts for something that was somewhat a 70’s kids cartoon. Very much enjoyed how animation allowed them to run wild where practical effects wouldn’t have been possible (for better or worse at times, lol).

I adored Lower Decks. It was the right way to approach fan service for a franchise as I hate seeing fan service awkwardly ham fisted into every corner of nutrek. Some of the later seasons were a bit awkward, or rushed?, but overall I adored it. Terrific character development and overall really told that story of that period between being a bunch of green academy grads and being adaptable, competent professionals.

I’ve leaned heavily on em-dashes over the years to help reduce my lisp-worthy overuse of parentheses. My add brain loves adding tangents, (likely unnecessary) context, and excessive completeness. I like both em-dashes and parenthesis b/c they’re visually easy to parse and skim past if the reader finds the extra detail unnecessary.

Funny enough, my kid asked me to proofread their essay the other week, and I noted some awkward comma usage and inconsistent voice. We talked through options for breaking apart sentence clauses as well as punctuation that could do the heavy lifting—specifically semicolons and em-dashes. They thought the em-dash looked cool af and semicolons looked harsh. “I love em-dashes, they’re so cool!”, was fun to hear a middle schooler say.

Ofc their teacher said that their essay was “likely 85% AI assisted.” Fortunately, the change log showed continual revisions during school hours on a managed device (ChatGPT blocked). I emailed their teacher that I had proofed it, highlighted an awkward spot or two, and pointed my kid to grammar devices they could explore themselves and apply if they wished. No harm, no foul.

Fast forward, my kid and their friend were talking about it and the friend told them to do what they do: intentionally sprinkle in grammar / spelling mistakes. le sigh I suggested to them that LLMs can easily do that too and they’re better off just learning to write well as it’s em-dash today and something else tomorrow; that the worst thing would be to dumb down style/vocab/grammar for fear of appearing LLM generated.

So it goes.

Tbh, feels like the market is pushing for that and Apple is responding.

Been thinking of doing the same. My 12 is showing its cycles, but it’s either I have a phone that lives in my front pocket, or I can go phone-less.

I refuse to have a phone I have to constantly carry, hold, or move from back pocket when I sit. This damn thing is in my hands enough, I don’t need to increase the surface area for potential distractions.

I showed my Costco membership QR code to the cashier the other day, and they suddenly exclaimed, “oh my! What a cute little phone!!”

It took me a second to even process why someone might say such a thing about my case-less generic 12 mini. Most of my close friends have 13 mini’s so I often feel my wife’s “regular” size iPhone is the odd one out.

One of my early mentors worked on it. They mentioned the pulsation for the sleep indicator was modeled not just on the human respiratory rate, but specifically that of a sleeping adult. It came up when we were playing around with on/off dimming curves for a room based video conferencing product and discussing physical analogies we could model a curve on. Fun afternoon exploration, but in the end we just stuck with ease-in/out. I miss when you didn’t need to overly justify taking an afternoon detour to explore whether something could be improved.

That’s quite the Scheme…

it's pretty cool how the paper faces effectively provide all the strength by creating a torsion box w/ the gypsum in the middle.

new? that was literally two decades ago.

pretty sure it's an established rule now that drywall cannot be discussed w/o linking to vancouver carpenter.

but, yeah, his videos are great. i've done more than my share of everything from sound abatement channels/glues/etc, hanging rock on vaulted ceilings, to level 5 finishes, but I still like to flip though his videos every now and then and pick up logistical / speed tips.

re: finding studs. unless it's balloon framing, you'll hit the bottom plate in normal stick home construction (and if not, you probably should air seal that gap...). The most consistent and easiest way to find studs is hovering a neodymium magnet across the wall to find the drywall screws. I haven't used my stud finder in years b/c of how much more reliable this is. Plus, it works even if you've doubled up your drywall (e.g. 2x 5/8in w/ green glue for sound abatement, etc).

IIRC BMW used to have a form of this in their cars about 25-30 years back so that the hvac would be able to blow heat before the engine coolant was up to temp after sitting overnight.

> the social media of today don't seem all that much different from the internet forums of back in the day

I’m not trying to be a jerk, but did you actually participate in “Internet forums back in the day?” I couldn’t think of anything more different than contemporary social media. Internet forums in late 90’s and early 00’s were something special. Hell, I had more “internet friends” from online forums attend my wedding than I did friends from high school or college… and for some it was the first time meeting in person.

I have a disdain for what online advertising has become and the data industrial complex that it empowers. Tbh, I think advertising should be regulated like porn and prohibited for those under age of 18.

With that said, what in the actual fuck makes you say this when ten(s) of thousands are being murdered in conjunction with this ad-free period you’re speaking so wistfully about?

That’s pretty cool. I’d assumed there would be something similar to the run-away truck ramps you see on steep grades — basically a deep gravel pit. However, actually thinking about it, something along the lines of a gravel pit would likely cause significant damage to engines (not to mention risks created by engine damage) but also seriously impede emergency services.

> perhaps they will now form pleasant relationships and have joyful interactions

You do understand what’s happening in Iran, right? Hard to take your comment seriously.

> This "waste heat" system is a closed loop of efficiency. The 60+ kilowatts of heat energy produced by a storage cluster is not a byproduct to be eliminated but a resource to be harvested.

Are there any other data centers harvesting waste heat for benefit?

I don’t disagree.

With thy said, I’ve had a few enthusiast friends the years, and for most of them the amount of ammo was more staggering than the number of firearms. Most also had a fairly well throughout strategy around what the shtf related arms should be chambered in as well as reloading presses. Further, that made sure their trusted group of friends were familiar with their shtf firearms. To be fair, the most excessive of these friends also had an equally excessive build out for water storage.

Not to diminish the accomplishment of rolling out the Covid vaccine in such a rapid timeframe, but… there was something like 40+ years of research into creating mRNA vaccines that laid the ground work.

Those folks tend to have a confounding number of firearms, rather than just one. Not that it necessarily shifts the eventual outcome to your scenario.

Funny enough, I use HN as a gentler flashlight when I enter my bedroom after my spouse is asleep as it’s one of the few sites/apps that doesn’t have a dark mode.

> An electric space heater running continuously is enough in an emergency.

Yeah, massive battery and massive solar install might let it run continuously… even in a small well insulated house that’s gonna be using a lot of power to heat a room or two.

> Maybe go without headphones and pay attention to your surroundings instead.

This. Even when you are seemingly quiet on a trail, 90% of wildlife are hiding from you. It’s amazing what happens when you stop and sit in complete silence for 5-10 minutes — a whole hidden world comes alive around you. 10/10, highly recommend.

> I have zero patience for such excuses from people who choose to impose their preferences on other people.

This as well. Somewhere along the way, civics teachings in America’s school left folks w/ the impression that the spirit of our liberty is, “It’s a free country, I can do what I want!”, rather of, “I have the liberty to pursue happiness, up until it infringes on the liberty for others to do so.”

Huh? I’ve never met anyone in the backcountry that played music to keep predators away. Even when forced to hike at dusk, the primary risk is quietly stumbling on a predator out stalking, or worse, a predator’s offspring. At most you clap every so often, maybe talk/sing to yourself, or dangle some stuff from your pack at higher risk times. Animals will do the hard work of avoiding you When you’re nearby, but its quite unnecessary to notify everything with in a 1km radius of your presence.

You touched a nerve for me — folks hiking with Bluetooth speakers. My god that grinds my gears. I can see an argument for playing music (at reasonable volume) while relaxing at a camp site, but on the trail it’s as aggravating as a dirt bike or snowmobile ripping along near by.

These two concerns do not need to be mutually exclusive. Either one can be recognized as a threat to our liberties without diminishing the severity of the other.

The more relevant discussion is the lack of policy/legislation to prohibit government agencies from sidestepping the 4th amendment and purchasing access from private corps, like Flock, to surveil individuals without a warrant. It’s ICE today, maybe DEA tomorrow, and the FDA in some broken future. In a decade or two, when nearly all vehicles are inherently advanced optical sensors with wheels, what stops auto manufactures becoming real-time surveillance companies, like Flock?

I reread Neuromancer last month and there was a line about how the AI had to recruit a human for its plan b/c the final step had a mechanical lock that needed to be picked by feel. I’m glad to see this is a brute force approach and that us humans still have some use for a while more (not sure if my comment is /s or not).