amacbride

I loved the 1040ST that I bought at the bookstore at Berkeley, which I used throughout college. I had a color screen for games and MIDI, and a monochrome screen that I used for writing papers, programming, and rlogging into the VAXen (4.3 BSD) and Suns. I definitely appreciated the DOS data-transfer trick!

amacbride··on Researchers are developing a battery powered by diamonds made from nuclear waste

Or Heinlein’s “Shipstones.”

amacbride··on Neuralink Progress Update [video]

Clarke’s First Law: “ When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”

amacbride··on ReMarkable 2.0 – A digital notebook that feels like paper

My best comparison would be to a fine-tipped rollerball pen (like the Pilot Precise), on rough paper.

I don’t tend to press down very hard, but I don’t really think about it as I’m writing.

amacbride··on ReMarkable 2.0 – A digital notebook that feels like paper

It’s not quite as good, but for me it falls into the “good enough/pretty good” category. I write quickly so for me latency is very important; the latency on version one is pretty good, and so if they’ve improved that on version two, even better.

amacbride··on ReMarkable 2.0 – A digital notebook that feels like paper

I have the first version, and I really like it. The experience of writing on a textured e-Ink display is completely different than trying to do the same thing on smooth glass. (iPad Pro/Apple Pencil)

amacbride··on Parabola on ReMarkable: A Guide [pdf]

As an aside, kudos on the document format —- very reminiscent of Sun documentation from back in the day. (I still miss FrameMaker.)

amacbride··on JuliaCon2020: Julia Is Production Ready

I really enjoyed the workshops and the talks; I thought the SciML and MLJ talks were particularly good.

Everything is available on their YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLP8iPy9hna6Tl2UHTrm4j...

amacbride··on Scientists pull living microbes, possibly 100M years old, from beneath the sea

[gestures broadly at everything]

amacbride··on Zucchinis linked to rare poisonings in England

Today I learned about cucurbitacins.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucurbitacin

amacbride··on SpaceX successfully catches both fairing for the first time

Very cool article. The Hiller Air & Space museum mentioned in the piece is well worth visiting if one happens to be in the Bay Area.

amacbride··on Low-Background Steel

It occurred to me as they were taking down the cantilever (eastern) section of the Bay Bridge that lots of it would have been low-background, based on its construction in the 1930s.

amacbride··on Oura Ring 2 Teardown

Ultra-low power indeed: I often get 6+ days of use before having to recharge. I’ve been very happy with mine; the sleep tracking seems quite consistent with my subjective experience, and the activity/exercise detection matches closely with the data from my Apple Watch.

amacbride··on IETF Response to “LS on New IP, Shaping Future Network”

This is a piece of art: the most polite and well-researched STFU I have ever seen.

A gem: “We also note that any real-time systems requiring sub-millisecond latency inevitably have limited scope because of the constraints of the speed of light.”

amacbride··on Harvard scientist is arrested, accused of lying about ties to China

“In an affidavit unsealed Tuesday, FBI Special Agent Robert Plumb said Lieber, who led a Harvard research group focusing on nanoscience, had established a research lab at the Wuhan university — apparently unbeknownst to Harvard.”

This is pretty egregious, and it baffles me that he thought it would go undetected (or that his home institution wouldn’t object.)

amacbride··on Unprecedented Teamwork Repairs Collapsed Freeway in Record Time (2007)

Their work on the Bay Bridge replacement structure was also amazing.

https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2007/09/04/c-c-myers-gets-prais...

amacbride··on Protobuffers Are Wrong

XDR FTW!

amacbride··on Emperor Norton

I always think of it as such when crossing it. There’s at least one petition out there to officially name it that, which I think would be awesome.

amacbride··on The new Dropbox

Do Not Want.

(Seriously, I understand the need for companies to broaden product offerings, explore new markets, etc., but it often leads to the original product that made them successful getting neglected, discontinued, or made terrible in some fashion.)

amacbride··on Nasa to Open International Space Station to Tourists

Plus, of course, you’d be in microgravity. I’m sure that adds quite a kick to the visuals (which wouldn’t be present in VR.)

amacbride··on Renewables predicted to beat coal for the first time in US later this year

For example, here’s the CAISO report for today (there are other reporting options as well):

http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx

amacbride··on Ark II

One of my Saturday-morning favorites; looking back, it certainly helped inspire me to go into the sciences. I think its environmental messages resonate even more strongly now than they did then.

amacbride··on America's Seed Fund: Up to $1.5M for Zero Equity

I’ve written and participated in a number of (successful and unsuccessful) Phase I&II SBIR & STTR grants via the NIH; can anyone who has done both NIH and NSF grants speak to any substantive differences between the two agencies?

amacbride··on I wrote a story that became a legend, then discovered it wasn’t true

They listened as a river of incandescent margarine ignited fuel tanks and burst the tires of abandoned vehicles.

This may be the most evocative sentence I've read this year.

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