wishfish

Thanks for the correction of the correction. I thought the banners were required, but I hadn't done much research. Therefore, I thought I might be wrong after the initial correction. Nice to know my original hunch was correct. Sounds like a good business to be in.

The customer service is a potential killer for me. For a while, I was relying on Gmail. Then started seeing the horror stories of people losing their accounts with almost no recourse of getting them back.

I realize the false-positive bans are probably just 1 in a million but that's still too big of a risk for something crucial like my main email. Moved everything to a personal domain.

GeForce Now is working great for me. But for this person's dad, it probably wouldn't work well at all. The interface is cluttered with game icons. Which is fine for me. But someone averse to tech would probably find it confusing & overwhelming.

Thanks for the correction. I always assumed those banners were to comply with the regulations. Nice to know the companies are being annoying for no reason.

Speaking as an American, I'm jealous of the EU approach. Yes, I think some of the EU regulations are silly. But they're taking a default position in favor of the citizens. Not in favor of the corporations. In this day and age, that's kinda heartwarming.

Here in the US we're obviously in the opposite situation. We get some good protections occasionally, but the default position is almost always pro-corporate. With extra favor given to those who donated money to the politicians. I'd so much rather have the EU way of thinking. Even if it leads to more annoying cookie banners.

That's kinda awesome. I love the idea of bison jams. And using it as a predictor of bison sightings.

During the solar eclipse of 2017, I drove to a small town in eastern Nebraska. The town had a 10k race that day. There were about 3 cars, including mine, on this stretch of road. Stop-and-going inbetween the runners. While my wife drove, I watched Google Maps. It accurately put a short red line on our part of the road. Amused me though that it only took 3 cars to accomplish that.

I like your idea of find the human. Just building on that idea a little. I know current AI detection programs don't work well. But they would be fun in the context of a game. Call it "Only Robots Allowed" and have it be a single player version of Among Us. Pretend to be a robot while trying to sabotage robot things. AI detection is applied to your conversation with other robots. And also applied to your movements. If you fail the AI detection by not emulating an AI well enough, then it's time for "kill all humans!"

There's been some interesting updates to the story.

The Marion Record was in the process of investigating the Marion police chief. He used to work for the Kansas City (MO) PD. Allegedly, he was demoted for "sexual misconduct" before he quit and came to work for Marion.

This reveal comes in an interview of the Marion Record's publisher. It's an interesting read and he's an interesting guy. One of the old school reporters, in a very good way.

https://thehandbasket.substack.com/p/a-conversation-with-the...

The other new development is the Kansas Bureau of Investigation revealed they were part of building the case against the newspaper. KBI didn't participate in the raid, but were otherwise working with the Marion police.

https://kansasreflector.com/2023/08/13/kbi-director-on-mario...

I'm sure not many are still reading the comments on this post, but for those few who are left, here's the statement from the Marion Police. Says nothing and says everything:

The Marion Kansas Police Department has has several inquiries regarding an ongoing investigation.

As much as I would like to give everyone details on a criminal investigation I cannot. I believe when the rest of the story is available to the public, the judicial system that is being questioned will be vindicated.

I appreciate all the assistance from all the State and Local investigators along with the entire judicial process thus far.

Speaking in generalities, the federal Privacy Protection Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000aa-2000aa-12, does protect journalists from most searches of newsrooms by federal and state law enforcement officials. It is true that in most cases, it requires police to use subpoenas, rather than search warrants, to search the premises of journalists unless they themselves are suspects in the offense that is the subject of the search.

The Act requires criminal investigators to get a subpoena instead of a search warrant when seeking “work product materials” and “documentary materials” from the press, except in circumstances, including: (1) when there is reason to believe the journalist is taking part in the underlying wrongdoing.

The Marion Kansas Police Department believes it is the fundamental duty of the police is to ensure the safety, security, and well-being of all members of the public. This commitment must remain steadfast and unbiased, unaffected by political or media influences, in order to uphold the principles of justice, equal protection, and the rule of law for everyone in the community. The victim asks that we do all the law allows to ensure justice is served. The Marion Kansas Police Department will nothing less.

https://www.facebook.com/marionpoliceks/posts/pfbid0cch8ULTS...

I'm not in Marion County but I am in the general vicinity. This is both surprising and unsurprising. And probably explains why my own county's newspaper sticks to stories about school board meetings and who had the winning hog at 4H. My county may be as corrupt as Marion, or it might be fine. All I can know is gossip and reading in between the lines of Facebook comments. There's no oversight beyond unverified hearsay.

What the Marion County Record is doing is incredibly vital for their community. I just went to their web page. They currently don't have a fundraiser yet, but I hope they'll start one.

http://marionrecord.com/

Going to New Orleans. Seeing Crash Worship. Met a girl there. With her best friend, all 3 of us climbed a huge, ancient tree. Watched the moon rise over the city.

For me, the smaller the better. I'm fortunate enough to do most of my real work at a desktop setting, so I'd like the laptop to be as portable as possible.

With that in mind, in terms of pure form factor, the Asus Flip Chromebook (2015) was about as close to perfect as possible. Sure, its processor was anemic even at release. I'd want a higher quality screen. But the keyboard was very good by my standards. The 10 inch screen was the perfect size and was 16:10. Weighed around 1.8 pounds (0.82 kg). If I could have that form factor with modern tech, I'd be in heaven.

Second favorite is the current iteration of the iPad Mini. If I could get that with an M1 or M2, full MacOS, then I'd be happier than (insert metaphor here).

Third favorite was the 2015 Macbook. I'd wish for a better keyboard and more ports, but overall the form factor & weight was extremely good. Would be stellar with a modern Mac kb and Apple Silicon.

Fourth fave was a tiny Sony Vaio from 2000. Forget the model name / number. Also under 2 pounds with a 10 inch screen. Honorable mention to the Asus Eee of 2008. Screen was too small but otherwise it was a perfect size & weight.

I guess I'll have to try a GPD laptop one of these days. They seem to be among the only ones providing tiny & small laptops.

I adored Noctis back in the day. There was something very lonely and alien about it. Something No Man's Sky never quite captured. The lofi graphics just helped to make it more haunting and isolated. But the community was nice. I would regularly download the updated encyclopedia.

I didn't know about his depression, but I could sort of feel it through his game world. He mentioned, a long time ago, that the game was partially a product of a painful breakup. The game, especially the backstory, reflected that loss.

Allow yourself to keep one. Put an inscription in the front mentioning when you got the book and who gave it to you. Throw the rest out.

Keeping the one will remind you of the entire collection. And it's a nice memento of your childhood, and of those who helped you learn.

Russian seems to be better than even English at grabbing words wholesale from elsewhere. Maybe that makes translations easier? Probably not, but it's a fun thought.

My favorite example of that was a sign at an airport. Marking a spot off for taxis and rideshares. The latter was spelled out phonetically in Cyrillic. I was a little surprised they didn't use the Russian words for "ride" and "share".

Steam has mislabeled many of the older Mac games as being incompatible. Several of them will work just fine. It's worth double checking on one of the Mac gaming wikis if you want a particular game.

Have no idea why the mislabeling happened. Maybe Steam is working solely off dates despite many games being 64 bit before the 32 bit cutoff.

It's not Linux, but you can roughly get this form factor with mainstream devices without having to take a risk on small companies or crowdfunded projects. There are hinged laptop-style cases for the iPad Mini. iPadOS is generally good with keyboard shortcuts so that would be a decent combo as long as you can put up with the limitations of the OS.

Zagg sells a hinged keyboard that works with 7 inch tablets. I bought one alongside an Amazon Fire 7 inch during a black friday sale. Thought it would be fun to have a mini laptop for around $50. The two worked well in conjunction. Was even almost pocketable. But the Fire was slow. If someone spent all their time in Termux, the Fire might have been fast enough.

It's a pity the 7 inch Windows tablets didn't sell well and have largely vanished from the market. One could install Linux on them, and use them with something like the Zagg keyboard.

I guess there's one more possible option. Boox's eink tablets have support for BT keyboards. Pair the 8 inch model with one of the hinged keyboards. As long as the screen can keep up with the typing (I have no idea) that might work well.

For a handwriting font, it would be fun to have small variations on letters. Just to make it look like something actually handwritten.

When my father died, he had a waking dream of this. Saw a river with all his dead family across the water. Smiling and waving. Coming to the banks. Waiting for him to cross. His last words were “Cover me in a blanket of sunshine.” He died two hours later.

What’s a little remarkable to me is that he had these visions in this detail despite being lifelong blind.

As I was reading the article, I kept wondering which came first. Humans having visions of loved ones? Or the religions and stories that posit a posthumous reunion? I was theorizing that the visions were shaped by the individuals’ religious beliefs.

The article offered one piece of evidence that my theory was wrong. The doctor claimed that almost no one saw Jesus or any other divine entity in their near death dreams. If this is universally true, then the religious beliefs about death & heaven are shaped in part by the dreams and not vice versa.

That made me laugh. And it's an interesting thought. Civ is notorious for an AI that isn't particularly good and frequently resorts to cheating. Maybe GPT has absorbed enough Civ FAQs & tactics articles to be better than the built-in AI? There's a ton of (virtual) ink spilled about the game for decades. Lots for GPT to use.

Would love to see a War of the AIs in Civ, or Crusader Kings, or any moderately complicated game which has had a ton of writing about it.

Agree with everything you wrote. Gave me the funny thought of how ultimately the AI will just be talking to itself. Someone sends me AI-written documentation to evaluate. I'll ask the AI to respond with feedback because I'm too busy playing Civ. This cycle will go back and forth until one of the AI instances gives final approval, and then the documentation will get posted publicly without a human ever reading it. End users, when confronted with the daunting wall-of-text docs, will ask for AI summaries. The lack of human readership will continue indefinitely.

Was 9 years old and living in Little Rock at the time. Just 20 or 30 miles away. Remember the news reports and my proto-survivalist mom going into action. Telling me everything we’d have to do if the nuke went off.

Had relatives who lived not too far off from Damascus. I remember driving that way past the silos. Even as a kid, you could easily pick out the silos. They were hidden behind foliage with no identifying signs. But each and every one had the exact same driveway and culverts. Very different than the farm entrances and dirt roads. It was a weird time. Driving past a bunch of possible world-enders on the way to see Aunt Gloria.

That scene in The Day After, when the ICBMs were launched from the silos based out of a farm, hit me particularly hard. That’s what rural central Arkansas would have looked like.

Gave me the fun thought that this person can only be productive working in Emacs on a vintage eMac.

On my M1 MBA, it's sluggish but still usable. Definitely worse than on Windows. It's probably the worst out of the few Rosetta apps I have. It's a little funny. The Steam client performs worse than any of my Mac games that are also using Rosetta. A simple client falls over more than a game which is (visually at least) doing much more complicated things.

I haven't used 11 yet. When I was on 10, there was a group policy that would prevent automatic updates & restarts. The OS would check regularly for updates but wouldn't automatically download them.

If this is still available in 11, that's your best solution.

I know a few people who ended up driving trucks for a living after playing American (or Euro) Truck Simulator for hundreds of hours.

I wonder how many organic farms were started due to people playing Stardew Valley.

At one point, my Gmail was my primary email. Losing it suddenly would have created some enormous pain. Since there would be no way of recovering it, short of a Google employee on HN or Twitter taking pity on me, that seemed like a highly unwelcome risk. Even if the risk was just 1 in a million, I didn't want to take that chance. Moved to my own domain name and services which will provide some customer support if there's any problem. That peace of mind is worth the small price vs. Google's free.

I've been using a Mac full time for a little over a year. I'd agree fully with you on the full screen going to a separate desktop. Extremely annoying.

However, you can switch desktops with control + right/left arrow. No need for the trackpad.

Because I'm easily distracted, I frequently have all major applications maximized. That's how I always used Windows. Fortunately, I can have the same on the Mac. Maximized with the dock showing below and all apps on the same desktop. Full screen is a rarity for me.

iPad Mini fits (barely) in my pants pocket when I'm wearing my baggy cargo pants. Also would go around nicely in a bag. There's a variety of keyboard cases for it. Including hinged ones with trackpads which turn it into a tiny laptop. Can get it with a cellular connection. Small enough to take with you everywhere but big enough to make it awkward to pull out constantly.

Only drawback for your use case is the programming part. Though you could also get a small Samsung or Lenovo 8" Android tablet which would give you much more flexibility. There's also the 8" laptops from a few niche companies, though they will probably be thicker than tablet + keyboard case and wouldn't have the same battery life or cellular options.

Smallest, easily available device I can think of in this form factor is a 7" Amazon Fire with the Zagg hinged keyboard case. It's slow, has so-so battery life, and you'd still need to get a cellular connection elsewhere. But it's about the size of a VHS tape and it's pocketable. I had one for a while because I wanted a cheap tiny laptop. Fire tablets are easy to turn into mostly generic Android machines so it would be useful.