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quailfarmer

600 karma · joined December 24, 2022

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quailfarmer··on Linear algebra done right
+1 for Boyd
quailfarmer··on A U.S. Strategy to Prevent the Creation of Mirror Life
If I sequence the DNA of my child’s embryo, and then synthesize a mirror embryo, will my child be immune to all infection?
quailfarmer··on Atomic Clocks
MEMS! You should get in touch with the folks at SiTime.
quailfarmer··on Ten Ways NAS Is Getting Enshitified
On the first point specifically, everyone is going to need to wrap their heads around memory being more tightly integrated with compute in future generations. The modular form factor restricts DRAM speed, bus width, hurts reliability and cost. Memory modules provide flexibility, but the cost is real. I suspect in the future we will get better at re-balling memory ICs.
quailfarmer··on Delta flight hit by firework while landing at Midway Airport on Fourth of July
But if you arrest him, I’m going to set off fireworks in protest. The market of stubbornness can remain solvent for a long time.
quailfarmer··on The Bromine Chokepoint
Given the importance of DRAM, I imagine they would get their own plane if required.
quailfarmer··on How kernel anti-cheats work
The real “competitive” game is not players playing against other players, but hackers playing against anti-cheat. “Billiards is not as good a game as Physics”

(https://mag.uchicago.edu/billiards)

quailfarmer··on Baochip-1x: What it is, why I'm doing it now and how it came about
On the other hand, Pandora’s box has been opened, and the double-edged sword of cryptography has been unleashed on the world. Having open source security/trust systems is valuable.
quailfarmer··on I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978
I sent this to Apple in 2007. Never heard back :) https://i.postimg.cc/52G8rGZJ/File0004.jpg
quailfarmer··on Minecraft Java is switching from OpenGL to Vulkan
Damn, this will break Minecraft on my original machine, an Acer C720 Chromebook modded to run Linux. The Intel HD4400 iGPU doesn’t support Vulcan!

I always appreciated that MC would run on virtually any hardware, especially as a kid without access to anything nice.

quailfarmer··on Run Pebble OS in Browser via WASM
I’m very mixed about WASM. It’s clearly a very cool technology, and enables cool things by allowing native performance without needing multi-platform support.

But at the same time, it provides a vector for foreign, non-free software to run on my computer. Every time someone sends me a Google doc blocking printing/copying (on _my_ computer!), it makes me want to join a monastery.

quailfarmer··on TikTok users can't upload anti-ICE videos. The company blames tech issues
Disagree. The most valuable feature of a fraction of people having guns is that the risk of someone having a gun discourages the most extreme harassment, even if no gun is ever fired.
quailfarmer··on Doing gigabit Ethernet over my British phone wires
You don’t need niche hardware to do this, if you’re handy with a soldering iron! You can quite easily modify devices intended for use on AC lines, for any conductor!

http://www.helicopting.de/

I used this to get an Ethernet link to the roof of a building using an old antenna feed line someone had left.

quailfarmer··on Starlink satellites being lowered from 550 km to 480 km
You’re comparing to GEO communication sat orbits, which are highly coordinated and expensive real estate, reserved for small numbers of vehicles.
quailfarmer··on Starlink satellites being lowered from 550 km to 480 km
For these large constellations, vehicles are generally raised slowly at the beginning of their lives, and debris spreads out as it decays downwards. A significant increase in debris at 550km would have an impact on all orbits below it, including all vehicles raising through that debris zone.
quailfarmer··on Starlink satellites being lowered from 550 km to 480 km
Yes, it’s absolutely a trade off against prop (argon) lifetime, energy spent thrusting, and atomic oxygen degradation of plastic components. The benefits of increased drag for these shells of thousands of vehicles must be worth it.
quailfarmer··on Adafruit: Arduino’s Rules Are ‘Incompatible With Open Source’
+1, if only for the documentation. If you haven’t, skim through it: https://pip.raspberrypi.com/documents/RP-008373-DS-2-rp2350-... it’s truly unlike any reference manual I’ve ever read. I will happily pay a few extra cents at modest volumes for a chance to get the detailed technical details and opinions from the design team.
quailfarmer··on Adafruit: Arduino’s Rules Are ‘Incompatible With Open Source’
Adafruit is pretty clearly the front-runner these days in the educational/hobbyist market, Arduino (and even SparkFun) have fallen by the wayside. My only gripe is the focus on micropython these days, it can introduce a barrier later in the learning process when you eventually need to leave the nicely organized sandbox. They still support the “Arduino” C++ libraries, but uPy is the default.
quailfarmer··on EFF launches Age Verification Hub
I’m not sure why the age of majority in the region of the server would be relevant. The user is not traveling to that region, the laws protecting them should be the laws in their own region.
quailfarmer··on Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
Since about 10 years ago, online platforms are a major part of how many people speak, publish, and associate.
quailfarmer··on Roc Camera
Kudos for making this exist, it was an inevitable place for the conversation to lead, and I’m actually glad it was “hacked” together as a project rather than forced into a consumer product. The camera specs don’t really matter here, this is about having the conversation. If this catches on, it will be a feature of every smartphone SoC.

On one hand, it’s a cool application of cryptography as a power tool to balance AI, but on the other, it’s a real hit to free and open systems. There’s a risk that concern over AI spirals into a justification for mandatory attestation that undermines digital freedom. See: online banking apps that refuse to operate on free devices.

quailfarmer··on $912 energy independence without red tape
The fact that this is the most appealing option is an indication that our electrical system, both equipment and code, are failing to address people’s needs. If you get a quote for a hybrid (on and off grid) system, they’re absolutely unaffordable.
quailfarmer··on Solar panels + cold = A potential problem
High voltage, low RDSON FETs are (slightly) more expensive, and these products are cheap. A better design would use a higher-voltage rated input switch with poor (slow) switching performance, like an IGBT. Don’t design critical infrastructure around EcoFlow hardware.
quailfarmer··on Evolving the Multi-User Spaceport
> Liquefaction is a process where saturated, loose soil loses its strength and behaves like a liquid, often occurring during events like earthquakes.

That would be quite an environmental impact!

quailfarmer··on I tried to replace myself with ChatGPT in my English class
Part of the issue is with the purpose as you describe it. Sure, at top 10 schools, a trial by fire would result in much needed “growing up” as the gifted but undisciplined (speaking for myself and many users of this site) students find their way to more durable motivations. But at the vast majority of schools, a trial by fire would end with a lot of students burned.

Perhaps that begs the question, if those kids can’t handle self-directed education, why are we putting them there in the first place, but that’s definitely a grey area, and there are hundreds of thousands of students who are smart enough to do well in higher education and skilled work, but weren’t disciplined enough to handle what you’re describing as freshmen.

quailfarmer··on Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year
Milwaukee isn’t in Minnesota, Eh!
quailfarmer··on Open Sauce is a confoundingly brilliant Bay Area event
But how will they avoid the unfortunate end that Maker Faires faced last time around?
quailfarmer··on Chasing Hobbies over Achievement Boosts Happiness (2023)
Not a controlled experiment, just a study of self-reported “values” and well-being survey data. It appears it was only tracking very short term effects, on the order of days, which seems like it would ignore the presupposed benefits of long term achievement.

If I play video games every weekend instead of developing a career and building a family, maybe I’ll feel better in the short term (though, having done that, I doubt it?), but how will I feel in 10 years?

Also the title lists “Hobbies vs Achievements” which isn’t exactly what the study seems to be, they list “self direction vs conformity” which isn’t really the same thing at all.

But based on the quality of the pseudoscience ads, maybe neurosciencenews.com is more of the latter.

quailfarmer··on Are we the baddies?
Paperbacks are _not_ a regressive tax. The book is equally readable in both forms, and often more portable in paperback. Hardcover books are (mild) luxury items that can command a higher profit margin and thus are easier for publishers to justify. Very few individuals are buying hardcover books in order to maximize utility over many decades
quailfarmer··on JWST reveals its first direct image discovery of an exoplanet
The resolution of the image (the ability to resolve two points) is greater than the size of the planet, thus it appears as a point spread function, no detail can be resolved.
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