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tbirrell

944 karma · joined August 25, 2016

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tbirrell··on Texas Power Prices Briefly Surpass $9k Amid Scorching Heat
> more cost effective and less environmentally destructive methods

There are few options that are both these things. Which is not an argument to not fund R&D to reach that point, simply that as of right now, precious few things have both these properties. And once you add in the requirement to be able to sustain the power grid, I'm not sure you have any options.

That said, arguing that Big Oil has a strangle hold on politics, while not wrong, is misleading. This simple fact of the matter is that it is the least of many evils right now. Its like salt. Very useful for meat preservation, and the best they had for millennia, though not up to par with modern preservatives. Some day we will have something that is a legitimate contender, and at that point we can go after Big Oil for its influence. But until we have a legitimate contender, taking out Big Oil will only cause problems.

tbirrell··on Texas Power Prices Briefly Surpass $9k Amid Scorching Heat
Thats is the only reason not counting infrastructure, storage, peak-usage logistics, winter-usage logistics. Oh, and the fact that weather is temperamental, not consistent, not under our control at all, or able to change to meet our demand.

Oil and Gas already has infrastructure, and solves literally every one of those other issue due to the fact it can ramp up quickly if necessary.

If renewable advocates actually cared about something besides being anti-oil, they would see that the best renewable strategy is something to the effect of 70-80% nuclear, and 20-30% wind/solar/hydro with efficient storage options.

And finally, here is a Practical Engineering video that says the same thing but with data to prove it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5cm7HOAqZY

tbirrell··on How annoying is too annoying?
Eh, its not really that bad. The variable latency needs to be much more extreme to be noticeable. 250ms is about the threshold where I start to feel hampered. So going from 34ms->78ms->150ms->56ms->14ms really isn't an issue. If I was seeing 100-200ms jumps, I think that would have a much bigger feedback effect, similar to to hearing your own voice on delay. Especially if it changes on a `space` rather than every character. Just long enough for you to get used to, and anticipate, the delay. Then a wild change.
tbirrell··on Fewer Than Half of Google Searches Now Result in a Click
No it isn't. It tells us that more than half of searches are 0-click. It may not be _exact_ but it is meaningful.
tbirrell··on Try Micromastery
Medium keeps track by setting a cookie. If you have a ad-blocker that blocks cookies, or use incognito, or clear the cookie by hand, then medium won't know the difference.
tbirrell··on The Birth of the Semicolon
This. Expanding words and phrases out of their acronyms, abbreviations, or shorted versions lends an air of genuineness and intention to what you are saying.
tbirrell··on Breaking Down the Chrome Web Store: An Exploratory Analysis of Extensions
> SUPPORT US BUILDING FEEDER BY GETTING FEEDER PRO: https://feeder.co/
tbirrell··on Are You Rich? This Income-Rank Quiz Might Change How You See Yourself
Well sure, when talking about experience. But not wealth. A millionaire living in my city is objectively wealthy regardless of age. I'm not "wealthy" by any means. Despite that, my income is top 1% for my age-group. However the median income for my peers is also barely above minimum wage, so thats not a terribly helpful metric. Knowing I'm in the top 11% regardless of age is far more helpful in understanding how I fit into my local community.
tbirrell··on Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking Freelancer? (August 2019)
Extensive experience supporting and updating legacy PHP. Previous experience with WP. https://www.linkedin.com/in/tbirrell/
tbirrell··on Are You Rich? This Income-Rank Quiz Might Change How You See Yourself
I feel like age shouldn't factor in, only location. Granted expenses will be different based on age, but they don't seem to be using expenses to determine "rich-ness" at all.
tbirrell··on Attorney general: Americans should accept security risks of encryption backdoors
This is not an example of Appeal to Authority because Ben Franklin is an accepted authority. If all parties agree on the reliability of an authority in the given context it becomes a valid inductive argument. Otherwise every Citation or Source or Bibliography would be a "logical fallacy". An Appeal to Authority would be if the quote was attributed to someone like James Polk. Sure he was president, but he has no authority on this sort of subject.
tbirrell··on Attorney general: Americans should accept security risks of encryption backdoors
More importantly, I don't believe we could prevent another 9/11 even with government mandated backdoors.
tbirrell··on Attorney general: Americans should accept security risks of encryption backdoors
Benjamin Franklin is a Founding Father and has been generally accepted as an authority for more than 200 years, especially on the subject of freedoms and rights. He was a renown political theorist, politician, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat in his own day, not to mention the fact his reputation has stood the test of time.

William Barr is none of these thing.

tbirrell··on Never-Googlers: Web users take the ultimate step to guard their data
The truck would have to get 50-60 miles to the gallon to even begin to be competitive with a VPN.
tbirrell··on Let's Explore the Creativity Multiverse
What if I want to take my data back? Is there a way to export everything I've added?
tbirrell··on Forget Silicon Valley, It Still Pays More to Be a Doctor in America
But its still easier to break into tech.
tbirrell··on Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
Its missing the bar from the pedals to the back tire. If you sat on this bike, all your weight would rest on the joint under the seat, bending the front half of the frame away from the back tire, at least sending the pedals into the ground, if not snapping the frame outright.
tbirrell··on Let's Explore the Creativity Multiverse
Interesting concept. This is similar to something I've been thinking of building for some time. My concern is that its a paid subscription service. What happens to all my info if I stop paying? Can I download it? If so, what format does it come in?
tbirrell··on Hostyoself: Server in a browser – host from your computer, your phone, etc.
What prevents hostyoself.com (or more likely, a malicious actor that hacked HYS) from executing a MITM attack on everything?
tbirrell··on Dear Bureaucrat, my job wants me to lie
Depending on scale, its usually easier to spin a new server than prevent malware.
tbirrell··on Show HN: Browser Extension to Refine the HN Experience
I like it so far, but J to navigate down and K to navigate up is not intuitive at all. It should be flipped to match our Left-to-Right-Top-to-Bottom understanding of layouts
tbirrell··on Sleep tweaks boost night owls' wellbeing
I am the same way. I have trouble falling asleep (will toss and turn for 45 minutes to 2 hours), so I'm loathe to wake up before I absolutely have to, because once I'm asleep, I want to stay that way. As a result, I just schedule my day so that I work 8 hours, then do everything else. It has its downsides, but its better than everything else I've tried.
tbirrell··on If Seeing the World Helps Ruin It, Should We Stay Home?
Pursuant to the arguments that ships are "even worse" than planes, it is worth noting that a lot of ships (especially cargo) are built specifically to burn bunker fuel (residual oil left over after gasoline, diesel and other light hydrocarbons are extracted from crude oil). This is partly because the thought is that _someone_ will burn it, so you might as well use it in the middle of the ocean, away from all the pollutants generated by the land bound population.

And realistically, that's the best thing you can do for the environment until such time as literally everyone on earth agrees to not use it (which is staggeringly unlikely). Because by burning on its own in the middle of nowhere, the ecosystem is can handle it without fuss. Whereas burning it on land (in a power plant presumably), you merely help overload that ecosystem since it is already having to handle everything else.

tbirrell··on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2019)
Location: Austin Tx

Remote: Preferred, not required.

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: LA/EMP, PHP, Laravel, MySQL, Javascript, jQuery, CSS, HTML, Linux, Bash

Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tbirrell/

Email: [username] at xristos dot net

GitHub: https://github.com/tbirrell

I'm interested in solving problems with tech. The industry doesn't matter to me so long as I'm able to help improve that little slice of the world. I've worked with non-profit education to design and develop solutions, as well as more currently contributed to OSS when I have the time. I'm comfortable working with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, and can easily distill retirements into solutions and finally into results.

I'm a full-stack developer with several years of professional LAMP/LEMP experience. I'm interested in job opportunities where I can grow my skills. Ideally a 70/30 relationship between tech I know and tech I don't. However, language is only syntax, and I know how to solve problems, so if someone wants me to fill a role with completely new or foreign technology, I would be excited to work there.

tbirrell··on [dead]
Is this the actual curriculum digitized? Or the equivalent of, sourced from around the internet?
tbirrell··on Pi-hole: A black hole for Internet advertisements
I keep meaning to set one up one of these days. Does anyone know what effect a Pi-hole has on internet speed? I play a few games where latency is a big deal, and don't really want to artificially throttle my internet.
tbirrell··on Outschooling
Simple economics won't allow something to become cheaper just because its a shame that some people don't have access. The goal here isn't to provide elite, one-on-one tutoring with experts, its to provide auxiliary help for those who need it. Outschooling seems to be taking a stab at being the next best thing, not an out-and-out replacement.
tbirrell··on Microsoft hints at new modern Windows OS with ‘invisible’ background updates
The best solution I've found so far is setting your internet as a metered connection, then telling windows not to update over a metered connection. The OS complains every time you boot up, but thats a small price to pay for control over when an update is installed.
tbirrell··on UpHabit, the Trusted Personal CRM for Busy People
While interesting, how does this differ from open source solutions like Monica[0]?

[0]: https://github.com/monicahq/monica/

tbirrell··on Almost 40% of Americans Would Struggle to Cover a $400 Emergency
A lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck. Money in == money out, both by necessity and by increasing spending whenever they have increased income. Some people are deep in CC or Student debt, so extra money goes there, some are spending beyond their means (or right up to their means).

Basically, people don't or can't save (much). So any unexpected expenses need to be covered by income.

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