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patosai

16 karma · joined July 28, 2015

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patosai··on Taking students from schematic to silicon in one semester (2018) [pdf]
The University of Michigan has a class where we came up with an idea for + designed a 2mm x 2mm analog/digital chip and a MEMS chip, and got to go into the school's nanofabrication facility to help manufacture the chips. Everyone got to take one home. It was the most memorable class of my undergraduate career.
patosai··on Greenland ice has shrunk beyond return, study finds
There's a Reuters article about this topic which states:

> Greenland’s ice sheet may have shrunk past the point of return, with the ice likely to melt away no matter how quickly the world reduces climate-warming emissions, new research suggests.

patosai··on Plasma Antenna
I've never worked on stealth aircraft, but energy has to travel from the transmitter, through the aircraft's radar cover, off the array itself, then get back through the cover and back to the receiver.

There are probably ways to filter for specific RF frequencies on the cover so only those in specific bands can get through, then the array itself might absorb some portion of the energy that gets through. The array also might be at an angle so waves are reflected in a different direction, or there might be radar absorbing material placed in specific spots that helps minimize reflections. I think the arrangement of elements in the phased array itself could also lead to reduced RCS at certain angles. Again these are just educated guesses, I would imagine the details are classified.

patosai··on Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”
Elm is a JS framework for rendering views. It has a type system and guarantees no runtime errors while being fast. The language compiles into JS.

https://elm-lang.org/

patosai··on In Silicon Valley, Chinese 'accelerators' aim to bring startups home
The reason why IPO'd companies have higher valuations in China is because the stock market is controlled by the government. So instead of just giving the SEC a number of financial documents to prove you're not fraudulent and getting a stock broker to help you sell your stock, you do all of that and more to hopefully get put on a waiting list. And once you're on the waiting list, which has maybe around 600-700 companies, there might be some 300 IPOs a year. Out of the 10,000+ that want to go public. The Chinese government really cares about how the stock market is performing (up and to the right, right?) and they try to source some of their legitimacy from these economic gains.

In theory, if they let companies IPO when they wanted, supply and demand shows that the price of stock generally goes down. So all the capital that would have gone into other things in the market, like let's say undervalued tech companies, instead goes toward buying a handful of tickers which have inflated value because there's nothing else people can invest in.

Now as for valuations, PE and VC firms in China get a lot of money from the Chinese government which doesn't exactly need to see a huge return on investment since they're more focused on deploying capital in industries which the government identify as important (like AI). And so firms will invest at greater multiples and with larger amounts of money.

patosai··on Japan's most valuable startup aims to teach factory robots to think
From what I've understood, the founders started Preferred Infrastructure and then spun off Preferred Networks when deep learning started getting really hot. The two founders in the article moved to PFN and PFI kinda stopped doing things in general.
patosai··on Twitter urges users to change passwords after computer 'glitch'
Same here, used to use KeePass and then LastPass, then switched to BitWarden and have been happy with everything so far.
patosai··on Shaper Origin: Hand-Held CNC Machine
Got to play with one of these for a few hours 2-3 years ago, back then it was pretty easy to make a shape and upload it to the device. The cuts it made on plywood were extremely clean and it was quite fun to use! Hooked up a vacuum to it and it sucked up a lot of the wood dust, so that wasn't too much of a problem.

Only problem was I had to concentrate when moving the device around on the wood since otherwise it would move outside the allowable range and I'd have to reset it.

I'd imagine that this would be for one-off products since otherwise a true CNC machine would save more time.

patosai··on Tokyo and Hong Kong in 2018
You study simplified Chinese in Taipei?
patosai··on Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030
I see how paper/cardboard containers would work, but how does a cardboard straw or fork work? Wooden chopsticks are mainstream but a certain thickness is required for strength, which you can't get in a straw or fork. Plus they lose strength when they get wet, so now you need to add some coating to protect them. But then that destroys recyclability which destroys the point of using such a material.
patosai··on Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030
I think the banning of disposable utensils will be hard to adopt given how big the restaurant/night market scene is in Taiwan. I doubt many people will want to carry steel straws, chopsticks, or forks. When you want to go get food, do you want to think about what food you want? Or what utensil and container you need to bring? It's far more convenient to just provide a utensil there.

There's a post on reddit which basically sums it up - https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/7zbjdj/taiwan_to...

patosai··on NSA’s top talent is leaving because of low pay, flagging morale, unpopular reorg
It's true that public service is a major part, but another way of thinking about it is if government officials are highly paid, they are less likely to be bribed or act in their own financial self interest and more motivated by what is good for the country. Plus it attracts talent.

Singapore is an extreme example of this (perhaps too extreme) - the Prime Minister earns over $1.5M a year.