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westbywest

628 karma · joined November 3, 2009

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westbywest··on Cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use
The "Vintage Space" channel host Amy Shira Teitel recently posted this long form video expressing her frustration with YT so heavily incentivizing SFVs with its creators. She goes into considerable detail about the intentionally addictive nature of the format, and how it clashes with her own publishing process. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FRHHD3F2gM
westbywest··on Astronomers observe the Radcliffe Wave oscillating
The "Soliton Wave" from TNG was very far down on the list of things I would have expected to see in real life.
westbywest··on Owners report rust forming on Tesla Cybertruck
Good thing the 304L (etc) comprising Starship's shell won't be subjected to repeated heatings. https://app.aws.org/forum/topic_show.pl?tid=7585
westbywest··on How SSH port became 22 (2017)
Although the end of the Weimar Republic was essentially an electoral choice, significant chunks of the electorate by then had been skewed, divided, disenfranchised, or even displaced it wouldn't be accurate to call the elections fully representative. And yes, similar efforts are underway in the US too.
westbywest··on 'Baby Bust': Why Fewer Young People Expect to Become Parents (2013)
An underlying motivation to this new power-mongering in school district politics is that education is typically the 2nd largest budget item in most US states. The "troublemakers" despite their theatrics also as a category tend to overwhelmingly support schemes that divert education funds to private entities, e.g. vouchers, tax-credit scholarships.
westbywest··on 'Baby Bust': Why Fewer Young People Expect to Become Parents (2013)
The increasingly toxic politics (arguably by design) emerging around school board elections is very recent addition to disincentives. I live in a Midwest city where suburban school districts that previously wooed young professionals away from urban core now frequently feature nasty culture war fights, book banning, etc. It's notable for impacting generally wealthier households that could bear the expense of relocating to suburban municipalities with higher cost of living/taxes to access better schools.
westbywest··on Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power
The conflict of self-interest and common good becomes especially perverse when power utilities themselves start mining coin at their own facilities (for additional profit). https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/ameren-deploys-bi...
westbywest··on RustPython
At a previous job I was checking out MicroPython due to its support on LEON4 RAD-hardened CPUs like GR740. It was appealing as a possible design path from proof-of-concept implementations with desktop python/numpy (etc) to space-certified platforms, ideally reducing the quantity of code to reimplement in C. https://essr.esa.int/project/micropython-for-leon-pre-qualif...
westbywest··on 240-Gbit/s sub-THz wireless communications using ultra-low phase noise receiver
60GHz wifi products are pretty common now. With the notable quirk of having difficulty passing through paper.
westbywest··on Dutch designer drives his car on the plastic waste he collects
Highlighting Vienna's district heating system which does this, partly because the facility in Spittelau had artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser design it to look like a psychedelic castle. https://hundertwasser.com/en/architecture/910_arch73_fernwae...
westbywest··on Mozilla debuts implementation of WebThings Gateway open-source router firmware
Probably the flexibility of that router having 3 MiniPCIe slots for the wireless card(s), from the standpoint of ease in firmware development. The cheaper routers with embedded radio chipsets range from very good to crappy support for open source firmware. But, few people are going to be interested in a 350$US product, when equivalent is available for a fraction of that.
westbywest··on Why GNU grep is fast (2010)
I think the author phrased it somewhat differently, but my understanding is grep's high throughput also comes from its use of what we (Computer Engineering grad research group) referred to as a variable state machine. A colleague was researching implementing analogous on an FPGA, for gigabit line-speed throughput. Preferred Computer Science term is apparently Thompson's NFA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson%27s_construction#The_...
westbywest··on How to open a microchip and see what’s inside
MSCoE here. FPGAs have limited applicability due to their high cost per unit and relatively low clock speeds. They were all the rage ~15 years ago during my grad study, but then flattened out. Although, it does look like they're bouncing back, likely due to newfound popularity for mining, and cheaper/better product lines coming out. Cheap, embedded stuff based on MIPS, ARM, even mobile processors like NVidia Tegra, will probably enjoy an order of magnitude broader market footprint, however.
westbywest··on How to open a microchip and see what’s inside
I diverged from a very similar career path due to layoffs spurred by my employer being acquired, the remaining HW design team told to promptly relocate to Bay Area, whereupon they were gradually weaned out by extremely large work loads. Those to made it were then told to promptly relocate to SE Asia. The layoff, in hindsight, seemed the most appealing option.
westbywest··on How to open a microchip and see what’s inside
At a prior job last decade involving FCBGA packaging design for the company's ASIC, and I witnessed exactly this to debug ESD problems, etc. That is, prototype dice failing test would be ground down until a black spot was found. Very expensive design cycles, so lots of incentive to extensively model such issues before fab.
westbywest··on CenturyLink is blocking customer internet, saying Utah legislators told them to
Your reasoning would be fine, were it not for the fact that an ISP's mere existence in an area, no matter how crappy, generally satisfies FCC's mandate to promote/fund broadband penetration. So, Crappy-ISP, LLC existing and being able to pencil-whip FCC filings about minimum speed expectations across its coverage area means the FCC will make no effort to provide funds for Less-Crappy-ISP, LLC or Moderately-Crappy-ISP, LLC to come in and fill gaps.
westbywest··on Boeing 737 Passenger Jet Damaged in Possible Midair Drone Hit
Measures 3x9x11cm, so likely too bulky for many drones.
westbywest··on Prions, Nearly Indestructible and Universally Lethal, Seed the Eyes of Victims
I've heard more about my home state's alleged consumption of squirrel brain outside the state than in it. And I have a couple kitschy KY cookbooks with recipes for burgoo, entirely rodent free. Every place will have hillbillies who eat odd game meat, if you search hard enough. KY just seems to be a popular target for this topic.
westbywest··on Thieves boosting signal from key fobs inside homes to steal vehicles
Leaving car doors unlocked is SOP in urban corridors with high incidence of petty theft. I.e. don't leave attractive objects in your vehicle, and leave it unlocked so that would-be thieves can learn it themselves w/o smashing a window. The problem here being able to start the engine wirelessly, not simply getting in.
westbywest··on Farm bankruptcies on the rise according to new Fed report
Vaguely similar observation from a previous employer in engineering: job health is effectively a derivative of the general economy. That is, if your job entails design/construction of something new, you job would be stable in an economy under flux, where clients have desire to hire your services. Not strictly just a growing economy, because effects like transition to new technology can also ensure stable job prospects. A stagnating or impeded economy, while possibly still ensuring stable jobs for other fields, would mean job reduction in design and engineering.
westbywest··on Rent Control: An Old, Bad Idea That Won't Go Away
Legal expenses, if the eviction sees court challenge. Especially if any claims of discrimination are sustained against the landlord. Also, labor cost of emptying the unit, repair/cleaning to make the unit ready for a new tenant, etc. Folks being evicted usually aren't in a cheery mode about it, so stuff might get broken.
westbywest··on Rent Control: An Old, Bad Idea That Won't Go Away
Leases aren't offered with such flexibility in markets where the supply of available housing is small. I'm also interpreting "available" to mean available at a resident's income level, i.e. overlapping with "affordable." You sign the lease that's offered, or it goes to next candidate tenant.
westbywest··on 3D-printing a stainless steel bridge full of sensors
Likewise, I'm curious about the energy consumption of fabricating structures of this size (and greater) via laser sintering, when compared to conventional techniques of casting i-beams and welding only at the joints. The power required to effectively melt each cubic millimeter inside the structure, and also to position the robot arm throughout, doesn't look like it would be streamlined much if done at scale.
westbywest··on Fukushima’s nuclear signature found in California wine
Whiskey is aged in barrels using white oak from North America. The mash is made of grains like corn, barley, rye, etc. I'm guessing the grains came from areas upwind of the plume. Everything pretty much blew out onto the Pacific.
westbywest··on TCP small queues and WiFi aggregation – a war story
Looks like OpenWRT snapshot versions since Nov/Dev 2017, and now their 18.06-rc1, should have this incorporated. https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/blob/a367645f23d2ed93ea29...
westbywest··on Operating Broadcom Wi-Fi Chips as Arbitrary Signal Transmitters, Like SDRs
To its credit, OpenWRT/LEDE community implemented DFS per the requirements they were able to glean from regulatory bodies. Open firmware can indeed be hacked to operate against its authors' wishes, but as other comments indicate, closed firmware isn't inherently immune to the same exploitation. https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/dfs
westbywest··on What Airbnb Did to New York City
> This is just a ridiculous HN meme at this point: every problem is caused by regulation and the only tool we're allowed to use to solve problems is incentives.

A data point amplifying this assertion is the situation in St. Louis, where tax incentives are handed out like candy to almost exclusively luxury developments. The city has seen several credit downgrades since 2015, with weak revenue raising ability cited in the most recent instance. The higher interest rates the city now pays on its financing are part of the reason why growth in tax revenue (including several sales tax hikes) has been fully nullified by cost increases, with the result being a net loss. Affordable housing development is sparse, since it's obvious to builders where they get the most favorable discounts.

westbywest··on Unnecessary medical care is harming patients physically and financially (2015)
Billing is not always similar. Many urgent care facilities are outright predatory in pricing, to the extent they begin to look like the payday lenders of medical care. It would be a poverty to consider these kinds of operations part of the solution. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/you-thought-it-wa...
westbywest··on Unnecessary medical care is harming patients physically and financially (2015)
Plenty of professions, actually. Especially those where skills cultivated by individuals become highly specialized, and companies thus maintain a large number of employees to ensure their business requirements (including billing and bookkeeping) are met by dedicated staff of sufficient skill level. Not all medical practice can be done like sole-proprietor design shops.
westbywest··on Elon Musk said SpaceX's multi 1000 satellite Internet service will be IP-less
Comments up-thread speculate Musk may be looking at something like ATM, which uses small, fixed packet sizes for better flow control, along with expectation packets may arrive out of order due to traversing multiple paths. ATM has implementations for reordering packets, and the fixed packet size ensures reordering can be accomplished within a fixed latency.
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