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AceyMan

1,278 karma · joined October 23, 2014

Philosophy undergrad FAA Licensed Aircraft Dispatcher DevSecOps Team
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AceyMan··on More questions about whether researchers can trust OpenAI with unpublished math
Enterprise Agreements can have binding terms for this. When I launch the ChatGPT desktop app, and open the options pane it says "Corpname data is not used for OpenAI training".

I would expect academic institutions to require equivalent contractual terms.

AceyMan··on We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
While we can quibble (and are) over the details of this particular occurrence, I'm beginning to take the opinion that used/rare booksellers need to implement some form of "KYC" to help guard against the epistemic threats posed by this practice.
AceyMan··on British runner Josh Kerr breaks world record for mile which stood for 27 years
Not when you consider that El Garrouj was a freak. The reason it stood for so long is that it was a helluva record.
AceyMan··on Newly discovered spider builds spring loaded snare to catch ants
Spiders are insectivores and have little to no interest in you. That's why I love them. When you have spiders, you don't have pesty insects, in the same way that when you have cats you don't have rodents.
AceyMan··on The Dumb Little Skill That Made Humans Terrifying
As I recall (and not mentioned here) it's said that people have a lot of grey matter to be a good controller for the "arm/shoulder ballistics system," a detail which ended up out providing myriad other benefits.
AceyMan··on The most spectacular rocket explosion since N1 just happened in Florida
It's been said that the most amazing engineering of the whole Shuttle program was the external fuel tank (and there is one with the static display of Endeavour here at the California Science Center in LA).
AceyMan··on Why are we still using Markdown?
Try finding the backtick on a mobile phone keyboard in less than a minute, tho. So very annoying. (SwiftKey I'm look at you, bud.)
AceyMan··on Simplenote is no longer in active development
Considering they only shipped about every two years—I'm not kidding—so long as they keep the lights on, that's good enough for me. (I'll still look for a replacement, but I won't feel super rushed to switch away.)
AceyMan··on Men in their 50s may be aging faster due to toxic 'forever chemicals'
Finasteride, in the US at least, has only a 30 day refractory period. My MD let's me stop for 30 days so I can donate, then resume the regimen.
AceyMan··on Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona
Oof.
AceyMan··on Discord cuts ties with identity verification software, Persona
I'd think that original creators such as J.K. Rowling, Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen & Taylor Swift (among others) would be other members of the !evil bucket.
AceyMan··on Discord Alternatives, Ranked
obligatory citation: "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded." —Yogi Berra, MLB HOF catcher & manager
AceyMan··on Start all of your commands with a comma (2009)
The comma has an unusual but super handy usage in PowerShell. When it precedes a variable of any array (list) type, the code it's the input to handles it as an array object, defending against the usual tendency to "unpack" the array and read in the elements that compose it.
AceyMan··on Stockfish 18
Release announcement for our aquatic overlord of the classic, ancient game.
AceyMan··on Chuck Klosterman on why we've never actually seen a real football game
The very best gridiron football is NCAA (SEC specifically) but getting tickets is basically unobtanium. I was lucky to have a FIL who was an alum, and donated enough yearly to get "rights for" season tickets for UGA games (Go Dawgs!). As the saying goes, "There's nothing like cheering on your team with 92,000 of your closest friends." An absolutely amazing experience every time that I got to go. [edit:clarity]
AceyMan··on Chuck Klosterman on why we've never actually seen a real football game
My grandmother (b. 1906)—a very intelligent lady (held her J.D.)—always had MLB game the broadcast tuned in anytime I was visiting her. The tempo and information needs of the game makes it perfect for delivery by radio.
AceyMan··on People who know the formula for WD-40
A germane chemistry story but not about lubricants. I grew up in Atlanta. My mom was a scientific librarian and for a while she worked in the chemistry department at Coca-Cola. She worked with the guys who knew the syrup secret formula ("7x"). She told me she had to burn her carbons (this was before duplicating machines). She could take shorthand and perfectly type organic chemistry expressions using just a regular typewriter; truly lost skills, anymore.
AceyMan··on When employees feel slighted, they work less
It's surprising how dumb management has gotten in the Almighty Chase for A Quarterly¹ Profit.

Remember, "it is very difficult to get a man to understand a thing when his job depends on his not understanding it." [editor:and that goes doubly for MBAs] —Upton Sinclair

¹—added adjective

AceyMan··on Anyone have experiences with Audio Induction Loops?
I just got my first pair of HAs in November and I opted for the T-coil enabled model. It also (already) has working Auracast (not just "available in a future firmware update" like the other mfgrs). The T-coil model was not much bigger than the one without, and it also had two buttons on each unit rather than one on the T-coil-less model.

411, "Loop systems" are hard-coded in the US's ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) so they are not going away anytime soon. When Auracast does proliferate it'll be alongside loop systems; not a direct replacement. (Not at least until the law is amended and we all know how long that takes.)

--

My HA model is the Starkey Omega 24 RIC-RT (the `mRIC` is the smaller version of the same, sans T-coil).

AceyMan··on There were BGP anomalies during the Venezuela blackout
I'd always been told this was planned into the implementation of the US Interstate Highway System. There are dead straight and level sections ever so many linear miles or per some gridsquare measure to serve as ad hoc landing strips in a national crisis. That's been 35+ years ago that I heard it and I haven't sought any supporting documentation since the dawn of the Internet. Any insight would be appreciated.
AceyMan··on Vince Zampella, developer of Call of Duty and Battlefield has died
> That seems to be a more recent thing. There is now a concrete barrier in front of the rock face.

Nodding thx for the correction. Understandably, I am not scanning the outside shoulder in this or any other technical section in the Angeles National Forest roadways. "Eyes on the road" is not just something your Dad would say when driving at speed on these (or any other) fast, twisty roads.

AceyMan··on Vince Zampella, developer of Call of Duty and Battlefield has died
I drive this section of road 'spiritedly' myself¹, and I can attest that this particular spot is deceptive and can easily bite you. I wet my pants a couple of times by overcooking it (in both directions) before I finally got the hang of the proper entry speed, which is much lower than it looks approaching from either side.

Coming this direction, the tunnel makes it feel like you are going slower than you are due to the lack of passing references (trees, etc.). It's also downhill, so you are going faster than your foot/throttle angle makes it feel.

There is zero straight once you exit the tunnel; the turn begins immediately, and it is every so slightly off-camber; there is also, iirc, a little swell that unloads the weight just a little, which can be enough to matter. You need to stand on the brakes a couple of seconds before exiting the tunnel to get down to a navigable speed. The road surface is a little rough there; it's not lumpy or bumpy, but it's not butter smooth either.

Btw, it's not a 'concrete' wall, in the sense of something man-made: it's the granite face of the mountain formed as a result of cutting the roadway itself. It's easily visibly in Google Maps with satellite view enabled (keywords: Angeles Crest Tunnels).

411, my work buddy was riding his '24 Gold Wing around the forest (for the first time, based on my briefing) that afternoon and got stopped (coming from the ascending/opposite direction) by the road closure just a few hundred meters from the accident site as LEOs and Emergency responders had just secured the area.

¹- I rent sports cars through Turo a few times a year and take them up there for fun. Among this year's choices were a 2024 BMW M2 (6-speed) and a 2024 Corvette C8. [edit: formatting]

AceyMan··on Intermittent hypoxia increases blood flow and benefits executive function
You mean, forcing your body into a situation where it needs more oxygen than is available is ... good for you? That sure sounds like cardio-aerobic exercise, doesn't it?
AceyMan··on Estimates are difficult for developers and product owners
"Predictions are hard; especially about the future." –Yogi Berra, MLB HoF catcher & manager
AceyMan··on NTSB Preliminary Report – UPS Boeing MD-11F Crash [pdf]
> significantly raised the stall speed

(yeah, it's one of those weird metrics where "bigger is worse", so you're absolved)

AceyMan··on NTSB Preliminary Report – UPS Boeing MD-11F Crash [pdf]
If anyone saved a copy locally, it'd be great if you could share it somewhere. (I, for once, did not, and the tab is gone now :-/ ).
AceyMan··on Analysis indicates that the universe’s expansion is not accelerating
Penrose? That guy, again. /s
AceyMan··on FAA to cut flights by 10% at 40 major airports due to government shutdown
I would expect the airlines to ad hoc create a reduced master schedule in the interim until capacity is restored. They do this for major holidays, but many months in advance. Here they will be doing 72 hours in advance. Flights won't get "cancelled" they'll be NOOP (Not Operating) which is different. As an Ops Chief, this is heaven (while losing money). Tons of spare planes available. Lots of time to work on backlogged maintenance on the planes. Major headache is parking: it's not easy to have too many idle aircraft for a sizable carrier. Stowing them overnight becomes a choke-point.
AceyMan··on You can't refuse to be scanned by ICE's facial recognition app, DHS document say
The book you want is IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black. Well-researched, well-regarded & a bestseller. 597 pages.
AceyMan··on ICE and CBP agents are scanning faces on the street to verify citizenship
You're effectively saying non-permanent residents should be prohibited from using commercial flight to move around the giant country that is the US. I'm not sure if that's your intention.
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