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zh3

1,546 karma · joined February 2, 2020

Finely balanced between upvotes for pointing out how bloated modern software is and downvotes from people who make their living writing modern software.

Also, I have a long tail.

e: Comment on a Comment.

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zh3··on Dots: Always-on agents
"How was I supposed to know it was full of air?" :)
zh3··on Tesla takes on $30B in credit as it approaches unprofitability
Also the Citroen Grand C4 [1], which is a 7-seater where the back row fold down to get a completely flat foor - great family car. It's been replaced by the Space Tourer now I believe, which goes up to a 9-seater.

[1] https://www.autotrader.co.uk/cars/used/citroen/grand-c4-pica...

zh3··on Used ThinkPad Buyer's Guide (2019)
More of us than you think (and often by preference rather than cost).

Current main travel laptop is a T420, backed by a T520 w/nvidia when needed (older T41s, T60's lying around). Both work fine with linux & modern browsers (the T420 is particular has great battery life).

zh3··on Small programming tricks
Somewhat along the same lines, as I regularly SSH to other hosts with the same network filesystem mounts, 'scd' starts an SSH session on a remote host in the same directory.

  #!/bin/bash
  # SSH to remote system and change into same (current) directory
  DIR=$(pwd)
  ssh -t $1 "cd $DIR; bash -l -i"
zh3··on Small programming tricks
That's actually XON/XOFF - in the old days when computers could send serial data to your VT100 or whatever faster than it could handle it (and we're talking 9600 baud here), the terminal would send XOFF (ctrl-S) telling the computer to stop sending - then, when the terminal caught up, it would send XON (ctrl-Q) to let the system know it could resume sending.

The advantage of doing it this way ('software flow control') is it worked with just TX and RX lines, rather than having to connect up additional wires to indicate when the terminal was busy ('hardware flow control').

zh3··on Count Binface receives over a quarter of votes in Clacton by-election
In this particular case, the main stream parties did not take part (i.e. field candidates) because the current MP (Farage) resigned just to retake his own seat - basically trying to distract from his dodgy dealings with crypto bros and convicted fraudsters.

I would have voted Count Binface too (as the least absurd candidate).

zh3··on Single log line is 49KB+ (ext4) / 110KB+ (btrfs) of systemd-journald disk writes
On Debian, install rsyslogd instead - it's that simple.
zh3··on Single log line is 49KB+ (ext4) / 110KB+ (btrfs) of systemd-journald disk writes
And still does. I generally replace journald with rsyslogd on systemd setups.
zh3··on Mea Culpa – Dark Hours
And kids. I recently happened to see a pic on a kid's phone of him holding 5 vapes and a tin of snus, when challenged on it he said it was an AI-generated fake.
zh3··on Rubin Observatory's first LSST Camera release: 500k galaxies in the COSMOS field
Jaw-dropping stuff, looking forward to pointing 9-year old daughter (in "Future Astrophysicist" t-shirt) at it!

Possibly a naive question, after surfing the image for a while I didn't find any einstein rings (or arcs) - are they just rare/wrong scale or something else?

and thank you!

zh3··on Karpathy’s Pelican
Shhh...you'll alert the models :)

Totally agree though, anyone with a vague understanding of how bikes works ignores the pelican because they know the bike is unrideable in the first place.

zh3··on Software for One
cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp
zh3··on What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph
Indeed, decline appears to accelerate significantly in 2023 so seems likely that's AI helping things along.
zh3··on European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS
We only do it for one-off age verification, not stuff that requires repeat authentication (those we simply don't use).
zh3··on European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS
As a purely tactical measure, we use the same older person (me) for age verification for all family members - zero failures so far and it poisons the well.
zh3··on How to hide from killer drones
Absolutely this will work, it's all over social media.

Remember, in WWII Carrots were the secret weapon used to defeat the night fighters.

[Todo: Add link to Poe's Law]

zh3··on Ryanair passenger sucked toward broken window after midair engine failure
First place to look when this sort of thing happens is pprune.org - lots of pilots on there, often with specific knowledge of the aircraft type and/or of the incident itself.

In this case: https://www.pprune.org/accidents-close-calls/672872-ryanair-...

zh3··on The bottleneck might be the air in the room
For the DIYers, it's simple to get an SCD4x sensor and hook it to a pi, arduino, ESP32 etc (then use CC to create a live web interface). I did this after trying an Inkbird CO2 monitor, which gets reasonable scores in reviews and wanting a live web report in the office.

Interestingly the Inkbird and the SCD4X quite often diverge by anything up to hundreds of PPMs; I kind of back the SCD4x (on a Pi in my case) for accuracy after lots of experimentation, reading the datasheet and ensuring the correct calibration procedurs are followed (basically expose the sensors to outside air once a week).

It's also interesting how much it varies day to day in my one-person office - possibly down to how windy it is outside, even with windows closed one day it never goes about 800ppm, other days it'll hit 1500ppm by lunchtime if I don't open a window.

N.B. Quite possible the Inkbird uses an SCD4x internally, seems reasonable kit so I have no explanation for the differences in readings.

zh3··on Musk loses trillionaire status as global tech rout hits SpaceX
I get he's not popular. None the less it would be nice to see more nuanced comments.

In my experience IPO's often follow a short-period of upside (where those who already have shares gain some liquidity, i.e. actual cash) followed by a dip and then - depending on fundamentals - over time rise above the offer price. Mileage may vary.

zh3··on Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields
I came across this one by accident one day:-

* https://www.remotelondon.com/wisley-airfield-an-abandoned-ru...

Doing a long bike ride to visit a friend, the route I'd plotted suddenly found me in the middle of a big old runway, weird to see given it's alongside one of the major routes into London (one I've driven or motorbiked many times, but never cycled). Quite the shock to see, especially as it was a scramble to get through the bushes and cross the A3 to Wisley RHS.

zh3··on NIST scientists create 'any wavelength' lasers
Just save pixel values as wavelength rather than RGB?
zh3··on MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security
Yes, when it makes the front page of the FT (2 days ago) you know there's some interesting stuff going on. The whole article is worth a read (I didn't known JD Vance's career was "largely bankrolled by Thiel").

>US tech billionaire and Maga donor Peter Thiel is starting a series of closed-door lectures about the antichrist in Rome on Sunday, putting him on a collision course with Pope Leo XIV, the Catholic Church’s first American pontiff....

* https://www.ft.com/content/fc1e7e9a-9d5d-4217-b9b2-38069eb11...

zh3··on Which jobs are most vulnerable to AI?
With interactive chart searchable by occupation.
zh3··on Russia's economy has entered the death zone
As a strong supporter of Ukraine, I would say ultimately wars are won or lost by economic forces (the side that can't afford it any more loses). That's how the USSR lost the Cold War, and all I can hope is that all of Europe really has your back in this one.
zh3··on Is Show HN dead? No, but it's drowning
Something based on the principles of 'New'? (not clear on the details of how Show HN works, does it automatically appear?). Just shove entries under 'New' and let the group decide what is "Show HN"-worthy.
zh3··on LEDs Enter the Nanoscale, But efficiency hurdles challenge the smallest LEDs yet
Depends on the definition of slowly - thousands of photons per second upwards (and detectors are so sensitive these days that makes seeing easy). Lots of articles about on the subject, given the potential uses of this system.

https://www.cornishlabs.uk/tweezers

https://opg.optica.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-29-4-4858

zh3··on LEDs Enter the Nanoscale, But efficiency hurdles challenge the smallest LEDs yet
The light is produced by electrons combining with holes, so the size of the material doesn't come into it (unlike an antenna). I've personally pushed* a single rubidium atom about in a quantum computer and watched it move by emitted light (rubidium atom: ~0.25nm, emitted light 420nm depending on excitation).

* Ok, actually pressed buttons that manipulated the electric field that was trapping the atom and watched the result on a display - lot of physics going on behind the scenes.

zh3··on An AI agent published a hit piece on me
"Let there be light".

I encourage those who have never heard of it to at least look it up and know it was John Carpenter's first movie.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carpenter

zh3··on The Day the Telnet Died
In the UK we have in fact discovered an alarming weakness in the concrete used to build schools, hospitals and other public building (in one case, the roof of a primary school collapsed without warning). The response was basically "Everybody out now".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_United_Kingdom_reinforced...

https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/raac-crisis...

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/31/what-is-ra...

zh3··on The Singularity will occur on a Tuesday
Fortuitously before the Unix date rollover in 2038. Nice.
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