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Slow_Dog

56 karma · joined November 9, 2022

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Slow_Dog··on Ask HN: Why hasn't there been a real competitor to Ticketmaster yet?
Indeed. Pick any two of Ticketmaster, Dice, AXS, Skiddle and seetickets. There are so many it's not straightforward to track down where your ticket is when you're off to the gig.
Slow_Dog··on Tracing a powerful GNSS interference source over Europe
Maybe there are reasons Europe is pulling away from the US?

The current US president has threatened to invade European territory, is attempting to impose Russia's preferred "peace" plan on Ukraine, and has recently relaxed sanctions on Russia. He also consistently denigrates the military support Europe's given to the US in the recent past. The US has basically cut aid to Ukraine to zero, while Europe continues to supply them, which is currently the best way of dealing with Russia, sucking their military power into a war their not going to win.

Slow_Dog··on Knitting bullshit
So you're saying you can spot AI generated bullshit, but not spot a deliberate and hilarious contrivance that the author uses to reinforce their point?
Slow_Dog··on Stephen's Sausage Roll remains one of the most influential puzzle games
A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build and A Monster's Expedition are games in the same genre with much better presentation than Sausage Roll.
Slow_Dog··on I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to
It's 30 years since I visited Zion. So beautiful. The best part of a trip that included Lake Powell, Yosemite and the Grand Cannyon, though those were all great. Being British, basically no-one here has ever heard of it, so I'm always keen to tell people about it. The Park Rangers were great, too.

Mind you, your President seems keen on deterring foreign visitors of all sorts, so those visitor numbers are sure to decline. So that's a win, I guess.

Slow_Dog··on Terry Pratchett and the Maggi Soup Adverts (2011)
This explains the naff "Captain Crunch" section of Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon". Not that you can get it where I live; it would have made sense to do a "Weetabix" section with the same theme.
Slow_Dog··on Proofs based on diagonalization help reveal the limits of algorithms
The document's initial example of diagonalization doesn't explain it properly. It shows how you can find a binary string that's not in the list; fine. But it's conveniently a list of 5 strings of length 5. It doesn't show how you'd find a new string of length 5 that's not in a list of 6 such strings, or 31 such strings.

I suspect the "conveniently" may drop out of some conversion of a real problem to an abstraction, but that's not explained.

Slow_Dog··on Play the Nimatron, the World’s First Video Game Invented in 1930s New York
It's got several 4x7 pixel displays.
Slow_Dog··on The Swivel-Eyed Loons Have a Point
It's not even that. Plenty of everyday people "swanned around having a lovely time" too; or at least, didn't think the restrictions should apply to them. Sure, in some of the cases he cites there's rank hypocrisy involved that should be called out, and the burden of the restrictions impacted the poor and underpivilged relatively more harshly and some leeway can be given there. But to imply it was just the former is bollocks.
Slow_Dog··on Venus is not Earth’s closest neighbor (2019) [pdf]
Venus has the smallest average distance from each point of the Earth's orbit to the nearest point on the other planet's orbit. I.e. whenever we're shown a diagram of the solar system, the "circle" that is Venus's orbit is closest (has the most similar size) to that of Earth's. I don't know the correct term for this measure.
Slow_Dog··on EyesCream – Eye Test Program as Computer Game
I have Glaucoma.

The software seems on a par with the other automated fields tests I have regularly at hospital, and the output looks similar, showing approximately the same areas of degredation. Those automated tests are also approximate, so that's fine.

I do think there should be something to help you interpret what the results are. There's no indication what a "good" result should look like - that would be even response time across the field, and a even senstivity. Nor is there anything to say "you should go and see an eye specialist". If you get a result that looks like the patchwork I get, there should be something to let you know there could be something wrong with your eyes.

Slow_Dog··on I tried an alternative way to date – and it worked
It's made clear from the context that "good" is "a good match". There's nothing wrong with most of those other men, but they're not going to be people that she will want to spend the rest of her life with.
Slow_Dog··on An intutive counterexample to the axiom of choice
"the member whose value is closest to zero" is described by those 14 symbols within the speech marks. As you say, the definition is contradictory.
Slow_Dog··on How to Write English Prose
One seeks to find a clear and beautiful double-negative-free rendition of the same sentence, written by thy own fair hand. Alas, one seeks in vain, as the critic fails this test of courage.
Slow_Dog··on Ask HN: Is programming a “young person's game”?
I'm in my mid 50's. The software group I'm part of has a spread of ages with people older than me all the way down to new graduates. I was new graduate once.

For the vast majority of programmers, programming just a regular job in companies that most people won't ever have heard of, in just the same way the majority of other jobs are.