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blendo

798 karma · joined February 21, 2014

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blendo··on Intel Core I7-11700K Review: Blasting Off with Rocket Lake
Is the 20Gbps on Rocket Lake’s integrated USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 “close enough” to TB4’s 40Gbps?
blendo··on The DreamBank, a collection of over 20k dream reports
I got very strange dreams while taking Chantix (varenicline) to stop smoking.

If you don’t recall any of your dreams, AND you currently smoke, you could give it a try.

blendo··on The worst of the two worlds: Excel meets Outlook
Can the js code be deployed in the same .xlsx file as the spreadsheet?

Still, I’m disappointed MS didn’t implement a typesafe lang such as C# or F#.

blendo··on America is getting a new $100B nuclear weapon
Yet again, reminded of the dismal fact that I can go several years before being reminded of the US’s 3800 warheads, Russia’s 4300, and China’s 300.

I think step 1 is to decommission both the land and air missiles and bombs, and leave only the SSBN missile submarines.

See also:

The Future of the ICBM Force: Should the Least Valuable Leg of the Triad Be Replaced? https://www.armscontrol.org/sites/default/files/files/Policy...

blendo··on What I Learned in Avalanche School (2019)
Helluva read.

“When testing snow, Ryan said, you should never look for proof of stability. With stability the goal, you’re testing for permission to do what you want to do. Instead, you should test the snow for proof of instability. You should look and look and look until you find it.”

I learned somewhat similar risk analysis as a student pilot. When on your final approach to landing, descending through 500 feet, then 100, then 10, you should always be on a hair trigger, spring-loaded to hit the throttle, abort the landing, and go around. If you’re doing it right, actually making the landing should almost be a surprise!

Then again, my flight instructor said a Piper J-3 Cub is best to learn in, because “it goes just barely fast enough to kill you.”

blendo··on L.A. County faces severe limits in first dose of Covid-19 vaccines amid shortage
"Most appointments offered at the major county-run vaccination sites will be needed for second doses, according to Dr. Paul Simon, chief science officer for the L.A. County Department of Public Health. At the county’s five mega-PODs, or mass points of distribution, only a very limited number of people will be able to receive their first doses Monday. "

The US is rapidly reaching the point where, if your state gets 100,000 doses next week, then only 50,000 people will get a first dose. The other 50,000 will get their second doses.

Since the UK started dosing a few weeks before us, and they recently decided to delay the second dose for 12 weeks, I expect increased pressure for the US to decide the same.

The article has some good news for California, though: "Officials said the state is expecting a vaccine allocation of more than 1 million doses next week, and a similar amount the week after. Previously, the state had been allocated roughly 300,000 to 500,000 doses per week." So then the state can vaccinate 500,000 (of it's 30 or so million unvaccinated) per week. Thus, April 2022 is roughly California's target date.

blendo··on The billionaire takeover of civil society
An ounce of cynicism is worth a pound of myopia.
blendo··on Ask HN: What technology made your jaw drop the first time you used it?
An electronic calculator. Early 1970’s, I think.

Also “Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Simulator” on our office 80286, around 1987.

blendo··on Ugandan government blocks Google Play Store, Apple App Store, and YouTube
Any chance of Apple shipping a default VPN in the base iOS image?

Running the required servers might be too hard, though.

blendo··on Twitter appears to have removed the president's last two tweets
I concur. At best, he’s shouting fire in a crowded theatre.

At worst, he’s fomenting violent revolution.

blendo··on Ray Bradbury at 100: A Conversation Between Sam Weller and Dana Gioia
In the late 1970s Bradbury gave a talk in our town.

Discussing the risk of nuclear war, he said (and I paraphrase) that nuclear weapons were actually doing humanity a service, by telling us to “Just ... slow ... down”.

Wise words to a thermonuclear world.

blendo··on Why Speech Platforms Can Never Escape Politics
“If we are to preserve freedom of online speech in the fullest sense—both legitimate freedom from the censorship whims of massive central powers, and genuine freedom for robust exchange and intellectual generation—the global town square must die. Our age is marked by a return to our given condition: tribalism. So be it.”
blendo··on A swarm of drones flying through heavy forest–while staying in formation
“The team, which was also behind the earlier strategy, adapted it for swarms by getting drones to broadcast their trajectories over a wireless network. That allowed the other drones to choose routes that avoided collisions while staying in formation.“

I wish my car could do this.

Maybe Ajit Pai’s FCC replacement could get V2V/DSRC back on track?

blendo··on The demographic and cultural roots of the midlife crisis
This rings true:

“Anderson's analysis shows that those born in 1891 could expect to inherit from their parents at the age of 37, while they still had children at home and when their oldest child was ‘at best only just entering the labour force’. By contrast, those born in 1946 could expect to wait until 56 before both parents had died, that is well after their children had left home, leaving middle-aged parents in the second half of the twentieth century vulnerable to economic constraints, particularly when they were sandwiched between caring for children and caring for elderly parents.”

blendo··on FDA Authorizes Ellume as First Over-the-Counter Fully At-Home Test for COVID
From AP https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/over-the-counter-home-test...:

“Initial supplies of the over-the-counter test will be limited. Australian manufacturer Ellume said it expects to produce 3 million tests next month before ramping up production over the first half of 2021.

A company spokesperson said the test will be priced around $30 and be available at pharmacies and for purchase online.”

blendo··on The Manifest Destiny of telecommunications networks
From 2011.

“... suggests that it is possible to determine the self-expressed political attitude of individuals, at least for the self-report measure we used, based on structural MRI scans.”

Seems big, if true. Has this been replicated?

blendo··on Xkcd: Tradition
Starting in the 1920’s, when music and theatre first became “memorialized” onto film and vinyl, entertainment culture seems to have entered a new era: one beyond our previous textual (theatrical) scripts and musical notation.

They’ll surely be a third stage at some point, and our kids may yet see it!

blendo··on California Covid exposure notification launches Thursday with Apple and Google
Sign-up details at

https://covid19.ca.gov/contact-tracing/

blendo··on Babelfish: SQL Server-to-Postgres Translation Layer
Oracle XE is free for production use, but it only makes sense if

a) you are already familiar with Oracle, and

b) you have a very small data set:

“Oracle Database 18c XE supports up to:

3 Pluggable Databases

2 CPUs for foreground processes

2GB of RAM (SGA and PGA combined)

12GB of user data on disk (irrespective of compression factor)”

blendo··on FCC Chairman Ajit Pai will step down on January 20
Cadillac shipped DSRC in the CTS sedan: https://media.cadillac.com/media/us/en/cadillac/news.detail....

Volkswagen is shipping DSRC in their latest Golf: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/volkswagen-new-golf-cars-...

blendo··on The Persian Art of Etiquette (2016)
Tarof in an intersection: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XAvzW1WZsN4
blendo··on Victoria follows South Australia and imposes electric car road tax
We could put the tax on each tire. $1 per tire for a Miata, $100 per tire for an 18-wheeler. Just look at the tire load rating.

Also, tax based on tire speed rating, to capture the 0.5 m v^2 energy.

blendo··on States Getting Ready to Distrib Covid-19 Vaccines. What Do Their Plans Tell Us?
Original title:

States Are Getting Ready to Distribute COVID-19 Vaccines. What Do Their Plans Tell Us So Far?

blendo··on US Postal Service data suggests significant population decline in San Francisco
> I wonder how much climate has anything to do with it.

I'm going to opine that climate in SF helps a lot.

I've lived in SF 25 years. All summer the uniform is long sleeve shirt w/under shirt. Light jacket for evenings/outings. Light to moderate wind. Only a week or so of hot/90F temperatures.

It's turning toward winter now, so we're adding a sweater and water-resistant jacket. Moderate winds. I've never needed a down coat.

In other words, we can pretty easily socialize outside and/or keep windows open, so any Covid virus tends to quickly disperse.

blendo··on No excess deaths in Sweden compared to the last ten years
These charts compare overall death rates over time, by country: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores...

It appears that since September 2020, Sweden’s death rate has been about 5-10% LOWER than average, which would push overall yearly rate down a bit

blendo··on No Excess Deaths in Sweden Compared to the Last the Years
See charts comparing overall death rates over time, by country: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores...

It appears that since September 2020, Sweden’s death rate has been about 5-10% LOWER than average, which would push overall yearly rate down a bit.

blendo··on California Will Burn
Hard question!

1) PG&E

2) NorCal/Sierra timeshares

3) NorCal/Sierra municipal districts

blendo··on Congress Introduces Bill to Require Digital Dollar Wallets
Some background: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2020/03/27/how-a-us-...

“In the Senator’s plan, everyone would be allowed to set up a digital dollar wallet that would be called a ‘FedAccount,’ which would be a free bank account that can be used to receive money, make payments, and take out cash. FedAccounts would be available at local banks and Post Offices, and would have no account fees or minimum balance requirements. Account holders would receive debit cards, online account access, automatic bill-pay, mobile banking, and ATM access at Post Offices.”

blendo··on A pacifist's plan to survive the violent world of prison
My personal belief is that a non violent first offense should NEVER result in jail time.

Yep, Bernie Madoff should have walked, albeit with a felony strike and ruinous restitution.

The alternative is our current gulag.

[EDIT] And the subject of tfa is, apparently, not a first-offender.

blendo··on Michigan rolls out new app to alert people of Covid-19 exposure
“Similar coronavirus exposure apps also are being used in Virginia, Arizona, New York, Alabama and New Jersey. MI COVID Alert will be compatible with those apps as well.”

By “compatible”, does that mean positive notifications can propagate to another state’s app?

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