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blevin

267 karma · joined April 27, 2007

Brett Levin - blevin@blevin.org

I work in computer graphics technology and production.

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blevin··on Widely used chemical strongly linked to Parkinson’s disease
Would hexane be another example?
blevin··on New York to ban natural gas, including stoves, in new buildings
We got a $75 portable induction unit and it’s all I ever use. Our wok works great on it, as do all our other pans except 1. Using the gas cooktop now feels like cooking with a Bic lighter. Admittedly it is not a high end expensive one.
blevin··on How peptide injections became the answer to everything
I believe OP was referring to dairy, digestion of which produces opioid peptides.

“In 2021, the value of the dairy market worldwide was estimated to be about 871 billion U.S. dollars“

https://www.statista.com/topics/4649/dairy-industry/

blevin··on Costa Rica’s enigmatic addresses (2021)
Deleted comment about confusing language, since not really relevant to topic of addresses, and probably not adding much.

There used to be a great podcast, LSAT Logic in Everyday Life, that permanently changed how attentive I am to logical constructions in lanuage -- but the reply below is correctly suggesting that it's kind of a drag to point this kind of stuff out except in very specific circumstances.

blevin··on Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died
It really is amazing. Another way to visualize this success is to consider how physically close you are to one of Toyota’s products right now, sort of a K-nearest neighbors idea. And how many of those were manufactured in Japan, and considered notable within their category (ex: 4Runner, RAV4 Prime).
blevin··on Clojure Turns 15 panel discussion video
Or maybe it isn’t a war, there isn’t anyone fighting, and there’s nothing to be lost.
blevin··on Update to the .NET language strategy
What sort of system is it? Linux is reportedly around 30Mloc, Chrome around 5Mloc.
blevin··on Ask HN: Math books that made you significantly better at math?
I did not expect that to read so similarly to a good doc on coding conventions as it did.
blevin··on Silicon Valley offices less empty than other regions
One succesful mode of applying coworking spaces seems to be less for heads-down focus time and more for periodic get-together time for teams. These spaces seem not very good as a full-time micro-office due to the noise issues you mention... but as a place to go whiteboard or empathize they seem quite useful. Bonus if there are nearby interesting excursion options, food courts, recreation, etc. and multiple easy-ish commute options. Part of economic development seems to be exploring options for how to dis- and re-aggregate services like this, providing more and smaller transitions across the tradeoff landscape.
blevin··on Southwest cancels 5,400 flights in less than 48 hours
Instead of framing this as saying they "don't have" the funds and were "forced" into inaction, another framing that the board of directors must consider is that current SWA leadership failed in their responsibility to recognize, prioritize, and manage the actual needs of their decades old business.
blevin··on A non-constructive proof of the Four Colour Theorem
Your example adds more constraints than the original problem, by pre-assigning colors to regions and then asking how to solve for the black region.

In the original problem statement, you could solve by re-assigning your green region to be orange, your red region to be blue, your black region to green, and the white regions to red. Also note that regions that meet at a single point (as in your example) are not considered to be adjacent.

blevin··on Simulating Wind on Procedural Terrain Using Lattice Boltzmann Method
Project code here: https://github.com/ProjectPhysX/FluidX3D
blevin··on Cloud desktops aren't as good as you'd think
> One thing I've learned about Citrix is that its a startup company

Founded 1989, 2021 revenue over $3B

blevin··on Inflation is at a 40 year high. What can history teach us?
It depends on your admissible vintages for historic precedents. The Bank of Japan has been doing Quantitative Easing for over 20 years and has also extended it to include ETF share purchases.
blevin··on I Visited Bucha Today
They say truth is the first casualty in war. How do you get a man to attack their fellow man? You don’t, except from a throne of lies.
blevin··on Lensless camera creates 3D images from single exposure
Is there a concise term for the computation it is doing, besides something like "convolution with a gradually varying kernel"?

It's weird to think the real computation is physics, and machines or optical systems are nested abstractions hosted on that.

I guess one person's low-level / "metal" / "wire" is always someone else's API.

blevin··on A Soviet test pilot ejected two seconds before the crash of his MiG-29 (2019)
After your first example I expected the famous French birth prior to be Corsica.
blevin··on Niantic undergoes layoffs, cancels four games
I know you just meant “very many” here, but the phrase “near infinite” sent me off for a bit of a think. Thanks, brain.
blevin··on Starlink Maritime
B2B sales is a different game that can be a two-way conversation rather than just supply and demand curves intersecting at a price. Often there is competitive analysis involved before choosing among alternatives and a vendor will want to make sure their product is best represented in that view. It’s also a chance for them to learn any other decision factors (besides price) they might be able to address. In this case, I suggest the novelty of pricing out a rocket launch is partly clever promotion, though also aspirationally a first step towards regularly booked space services.
blevin··on Unity employees ‘mad and stressed out’ amidst unexpected layoffs
Makes sense. My thought was just that the business probably had some sort of commercial property loss coverage that might have covered that case (even though -EV). I’d guess a far more common case of employee theft (retail shrinkage / fell-off-the-truck) is self-insured, as some kind of operating provision.
blevin··on Unity employees ‘mad and stressed out’ amidst unexpected layoffs
This makes me wonder if there are any books collecting management mistakes. A lot of leaders have to pick this up on the job by making their own blunders. I understand that some MBA programs may attempt to look at case studies, but the ones I’ve read have seemed about anodyne strategy things rather than human-level, savvy operator, street smarts & empathy stuff. Regardless, the winter holidays are clearly a time of year to be extra compassionate and considerate; it’s definitely no good to have layoffs right before xmas. I wonder if the biz had insurance coverage for getting looted this way. Or maybe that physical stuff didn’t have much remaining value anyway.
blevin··on Meta slashes hiring plans, girds for 'fierce' headwinds
Nobody knows for sure, and a single summary statistic of a huge economy cannot capture the dispersion of lived experiences, but yes, there are objective indications suggesting recession is possible.

For one example, the Atlanta Federal Reserve runs a real-time GDP forecast called GDP Now. The update today is -2.1%

https://twitter.com/atlantafed/status/1542922843511574528

blevin··on SomaFM
Still have cassette tapes of Thump Radio shows on KUSF, and memories of enjoying the RealAudio sets. I also remember them calling out the show identification in various languages, where the only words I understood were at the end: “… Thump Radio.” Great stuff — thank you.
blevin··on U.S. interest rates have soared everywhere but savings accounts
https://treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds/res...
blevin··on The computers used to do 3D animation for Final Fantasy VII in 1996
Feature parody is such a good turn of phrase.
blevin··on Apple AirTags draining battery of devices close by
Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Content Restrictions is an example of a nested settings labyrinth that is somewhat hard to navigate for parents just trying to keep their kids from seeing bad stuff, esp. as it interacts with individual app behaviors. Ex: set TV restrictions to 9+ and the Netflix app entirely vanishes, instead of just filtering its content. Scalable trustworthy content filtering delegation for families seems unsolved.
blevin··on Sunsetting the Bethesda.net launcher and migrating to Steam
Developed by House House, published by Panic
blevin··on Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022
Some have argued that scalpers, like other risk arbitrageurs, accelerate market price discovery. If you buy the argument that markets are net positive for society by relaying information about economic trade offs, scalpers aren’t necessarily bad even if they are indeed annoying to market participants by lifting the ask. Of course there are extreme conditions where we also might decide that using money as the universal conveyance of value is a bad thing because it reveals how unequal outcomes in society have been… And the usual response is to shift to rationing rather than price to allocate scarce resources. But with rationing you get sidechannel markets and not necessarily efficient allocations.
blevin··on Oracle loses bid to upend HP’s $3B win
Do you have any thoughts on litigation funding as an investment portfolio component -- e.g. via Lexshares, Burford, or Pravati?
blevin··on Empty storefronts are killing neighbourhoods
Large co's play different games than mom & pop. They can afford some near-term losses if they can make the case it prevents competitors from gaining a foothold. Banks can justify rent on a seemingly empty branch in an expensive retail area if it supports catchment area of desirable clients that visit in person once every 18 months. Etc.
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