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squidfood

717 karma · joined October 27, 2011

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squidfood··on ‘In London there is no space at all’: the rise of self-storage as rents soar
When we recently looked into self-storage to store our junk, the high prices per cubic foot (in a very HCOL area) made us recontextualize our junk in terms of how much rent each item was paying to live with us. Far more in rent over a few months then just buying a new one of whatever it was, when we needed it.

We got rid of a lot of junk.

squidfood··on Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs
The problem is that "sustainable" is always based on past observations. There were 40+ years of observations for these crab and a stable fishery. But if the environment changes for the worse, the data-based definition of "sustainable" for a stock might not change fast enough to compensate.

So the "new sustainability" under climate change has to be much more precautionary than before, and yet not shut down on false signals. It's tricky science even when intentions are good.

squidfood··on Heat dome causing record breaking heat wave
On the Pacific NW coast where this is happening, cool marine air will push in and eventually overwhelm the system holding in the heat. The change can be quite abrupt, as the two systems wrestle for dominance, I've felt it (in Seattle) is as a sudden breeze followed by what feels like turning the AC on - literally a 5-10deg temp drop in minutes and can drop 30deg in a couple hours. It doesn't generally end with full-on rain but with cool coastal clouds rolling in.
squidfood··on Illegal number – Represents information which is illegal to possess
> It's not considered a "number" when society thinks of it in a higher conceptual abstraction than a number.

Which just shows that "number" itself is a conceptual abstraction, no higher or lower than the others.

squidfood··on How to build a darkroom for £100 or less
It's been over 30 years since I spent much time in a darkroom but just starting to read that article and my smell-memory conjured up that very distinctive developer/darkroom chemical smell and all of the associated memories - for me too it was always evocative of magic.
squidfood··on The Weirdly Enduring Appeal of Weird Al Yankovic
In the early 80s, I knew "Yoda" before I knew "Lola". Thanks to Disney's persistence, my kids now know and giggle at "Yoda" (picked up from the internet, not me) and only vaguely know that it came from some old song somewhere.
squidfood··on Shutdown Will Be Worse for Economy Than First Thought, White House Says
Our lab has been collecting an ecological time series every January for 35 years. Continuity is critical for monitoring change and the health of the population (under hunting, so there's an economic incentive). Now we have a permanent, unfillable gap. There are many such examples.
squidfood··on Ask HN: Is There a Hacker News Equivalent for Politics?
I've been a long-time member of a smallish but active forum (I won't post the address, maybe several hundred regulars). We've had very rational discussions and good exchanges of views between (U.S.) left and right in the 15 years I've participated.

However, since the presidential election, things have devolved into sheer anger. On the right, it's defending indefensible behavior (IMO, obviously). On the left, it's grasping more and more ridiculous legal theories and overreacting to trivial culture-war provocations. On both sides, the tit-for-tat has increased exponentially.

This forum has some very rational people who (outside of the politics threads) are very intelligent and sane on many subjects. The fact that this group can't manage it tells me that right now, I don't think anyone can.

squidfood··on Australian government proposes to limit cash payments for purchases to AUD$10K
U.S. government salaries are publicly available. Google and you can get a search tool and find the salary for any employee.
squidfood··on Exercise Increases Brain Size
I read it as normalizing the null hypothesis, which is that exercise doesn't increase brain size.
squidfood··on [dead]
The problem is that Reddit Admins have glommed onto IAmA as a celebrity vehicle, including providing Reddit resources (e.g. helpers for celebrities) to strongly blur the line between independent moderators and official actions. The admins are trying to have their cake and eat it too ("hey... this is official Celebrity Admin-sanctioned reddit... but if there's a problem, nothing we can do, it's not us, it's the mods").
squidfood··on Visualization of Harvey, Irma, and Jose
"Because of the passage of an upper-level trough to the north, with Irma starting to feel the steering effects of the westerly flow of the midlatitudes." Described in detail with figures here: http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2017/09/american-versus-europe...
squidfood··on U.S. House approves proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars
Well that's one way to look at creating jobs, I suppose...
squidfood··on Ask HN: What Happened to the Hacker News Colour Scheme?
If you'd enshrined those speeds 10 years ago, you would have chosen lower numbers and we'd have a basic uniform service that was slower. Have we reached the "good enough point" with basic speeds that we should draw a line in the sand now?
squidfood··on How Much Does a Politician Cost?
We also have no notion of correlation/causation here. If a rep has shown herself previously to support my interests, by speeches, ideas, or whatever, I'm more likely to donate to her next campaign. The question is: are there lawmakers who voted one way (or "neutrally"), then changed after the cash came in?
squidfood··on Reverse engineering the 76477 “Space Invaders” sound effect chip from die photos
I picked up a few during that run, as I remembered picking one up from Radio Shack in the 80s and having fun with it. A really delightful chip to explore, you can get so much out of it just messing around with RC circuits for the various timings. The original docs are quite opaque; just a few minutes with this new article is really revealing.
squidfood··on Why Won't You Answer My Question?
A variant of rubber-duck debugging: Ask the question and hit Send. Invariably, no matter how long I've thought about it, the obvious answer will occur to me minutes (or seconds) after I've embarrassed myself my asking. (is there a term for this?)
squidfood··on Twitter drops lawsuit, saying summons has been withdrawn
On the other hand: "We are taking a break! The past few days have been extremely difficult and full of anxiety. Thank you again America!"

Chilling effect achieved.

squidfood··on Do Millennial Men Want Stay-At-Home Wives?
Connection method seems an odd choice. In terms of cultural changes, I'd pick from not remembering a time before (1) Amazon/web-selling, (2) laptops over desktops, (3) Google or (4) smartphones.
squidfood··on Do Millennial Men Want Stay-At-Home Wives?
Then the second paragraph states directly that this category is over-broad, and that lumping so many age groups is problematic, and dissects younger versus older "millenials". Sometimes more than one sentence is needed for context :).
squidfood··on Climate Impacts of Biking vs. Driving
Here, they took a 3-lane two 2-lane+bike. Center wasn't turn lane, it was an alternating-direction in morning/evening. It was definitely part of a citywide "make bike lanes" initiative, if slowdowns were considered, that was the icing.
squidfood··on Climate Impacts of Biking vs. Driving
In this city's case, they've dragged their heels on public transport - nothing near what I found in Amsterdam, for example. Slowing down car drivers by 5 minutes will not get them to switch to the public transport that would add 30+ minutes. Include better public transport, and more people would switch. But throwing up obstacles without providing alternatives doesn't do the job (and based on my city, there would have to be some mind-control to get more public transport funded, unfortunately).
squidfood··on Climate Impacts of Biking vs. Driving
Except: I don't see any evidence that it has worked at all - at least not in the 2 years the lanes have been there. Nice idea, but data would be nicer. (aside: always nice to see downvotes for wanting observations and data - if the data belies my observations, I'm all for that).
squidfood··on Climate Impacts of Biking vs. Driving
In my city, they've just taken some two lane roads down to one lane and eliminated car turning lanes, to add bike lanes. Those bike lanes see maybe 1 bike every 15 minutes, while the cars are now significantly more backed up (I've noted an extra 5-10 minutes of idling to travel a mile during busy times, no idea how many cars total in a day).

Without denigrating the need for bike safety and separated lanes, I really wonder about the numbers on the carbon trade-off there!

squidfood··on The Purpose of Sleep? To Forget, Scientists Say
The article starts "over the years, there have been numerous theories ... here's a new one." Then later, has the usual "other scientists say it's too soon to tell". The real problem here is the headline - but then, that's true of almost all headlines, scientific or not.
squidfood··on Just how smart is an octopus?
The style guides to most scientific journals will assert "octopuses", so you're unlikely to get "octopi" past that collective editorial authority, in any case - the others are however deemed acceptable alternates in common use.
squidfood··on Just how smart is an octopus?
I heard this story in three different marine biology labs going back to the 1980s (prey type differed depending on location). All were "it happened a few years ago", it was "caught on camera back then" and no actual eyewitnesses who could attest to seeing the film.

Then again, I've also had to clean up a couple (witnessed) octopus escapes, though not with the full "got out, got prey, got back in." So they are at least somewhat prone to roaming.

squidfood··on Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters
Having inappropriately-named users acting professionally is an acclaimed and talked-about part of the reddit "charm". You may or may not find it actually charming.
squidfood··on Reddit overhauls upvote algorithm to thwart cheaters
Anyone can complain about a security vulnerability or so forth. However, in getting it fixed, it is reddit that did it, because the "doing it" was getting the high-profile attention of someone who could fix the problem, which requires a reddit-level audience.

Similarly, if a newspaper publishes something about how a local company hurt a customer, it's the clout of the newspaper that "did it", not the customer.

squidfood··on Ecuador Says It Still Backs Assange, but WikiLeaks Says It Cut His Internet
Fine, but then one can't claim his philosophy has anything to do with "releasing everything without any consideration or censorship." He is de-facto censoring/holding back knowledge that he possesses, with a specific agenda in mind.
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