colinb

It is free, but it's also easy to throw money at George, as you've probably already done. The About menu has links for Patreon and Github Sponsors. I've only ever used the former. Given how much of my time is spent in the terminal, and how good it is, it seems like some money well spent to me.

Before reading the article, I was going to talk about my very disappointing visit to the Franklin Institute a few months ago. Then I read the article and discovered that it's about the disappointment of visiting the Franklin Institute. My strongest impression of that museum is that it mostly consists of corporate sponsorship displays and a few neglected lessons in how things actually work.

I did enjoy walking around the enormous steam loco in the basement. That one room, where they seem to have stuffed all the old 'museum' stuff was the highlight of my visit.

The best science museum I've been to in years is in Glasgow. Walking across the I-beam compared to the sheet (or was it a bar?) of steel actually taught my kids something.

I’ve been using Chezmoi. It has lots of niceness. Two things are awkward for me. Maybe you have solutions.

I know my way around emacs. vimdiff is a foreign country.

Often my changes are speculative or experimental. So I checkout, edit, apply and only then discover I’ve messed up. Or I can edit in place. Voila vimdiff!

What’s the better way?

More intersex people than redheads, no? Spend time in Ireland or Scotland and tell people they don’t count.

Your assumption is that the only thing that stops someone from bombing the US or Israel is moral scruple? I'm not interested in arguing who-went-first or root causes, because that can go on all day, and we all already believe that we know the answer. But really? You don't think Iran would've bombed the US, or Israel in a heartbeat if it had the means? You don't think the Huthis would bomb the Saudis if they could? You don't think the IRA would mortar the hotel where the British Prime Minister was sleeping if they could? Ooops. Of course, they actually did that.

I don't actually know enough to hold an informed opinion on the F35 and all this other war-porn [though my inner 10 year old thinks it is kinda technically cool] but the politics you bring forth are sickening to anyone who tries to remember /all/ the bad things, not just the ones done by people we don't like.

I cannot tell if you’re being randomly vague or dog whistling here. Who do you think is occupying? Ahem., “occupying”?

On one hand, I’m not against such a ban, if enacted by a democratically elected government in such a way that they, or their successors can change things back. I’d vote for it.

On the other hand I hope these “fathers”, as though fertility equates to wisdom ffs, put all their savings into funding this and lose every penny.

I left around the time of Brexit so I have no useful opinion on the recent financial/admin state of the UK, though it seems from afar that austerity has done the place no favours. But...

- this kind of authoritarian nonsense is just what Home Secretaries do. David Blunkett brought in RIP (then, to his very slight credit, changed his mind). Jack 'boot' Straw was famous for his I-AM-THE-LAWing. I don't think the Tories are any better.

- No, criticizing the NHS is not against the religion there. The newspapers are forever getting in digs about long waits, unpopular (but perfectly rational) decision from NICE about what drugs to pay for, and junior doctors and their apparent insistence on being paid properly.

- And with that in mind, having lived in three countries (four if you accept that the NHS in England and Scotland are different) I personally think the NHS is fucking fantastic. Someone close to me was diagnosed with a serious illness and immediately swept up in a production line of modern, effective treatment. Sure, it was somewhat impersonal, the biscuits are rubbish, and they were a widget on the production line, but they're also still alive ten years later, and we still have a house and savings.

- kudos to your sister. The UK is an ethnically diverse place, one of the least racist and divided that I've seen, but - like everywhere else - imperfect. The NHS always seemed to me to be a reflection of what things could be elsewhere with doctors, nurses and cleaners hired from all over the world. [which reminds me that while the right-wing press hates the NHS for being free, the left wing press occasionally hates the NHS for bringing in medical staff from poorer parts of the world. They just can't win]

Air Canada’s unofficial motto “we’re not happy’ till you’re not happy”.

Any link that isn’t the Daily Heil?

Onion futures are illegal. TIL.

US$58. A bit more expensive than I’d like. Still, a cute device.

I think that ship sailed so long ago it’s done a few circumnavigations already.

> peacefully

Well, apart from the fighting and that young woman who was bayoneted while carrying her infant sister.

I’m not here to carry water for the asshat truckers, and I don’t understand the Canadian constitution or legal system, but the Oka Crisis was resolved with enough brutality for at least one crow pie.

yeah, this is a hot take that would be rejected by the great majority of Europeans. The only country to join the EU and then leave now regrets doing so. Incidentally, their economy is on fire - not the good kind, they still have lying liars who lie trying to push them into leaving the ECJ (not an EU institution, but certainly a surrender of some national authority for, you know, accountability).

I don't know if you live in the EU. I do, and I like it lots.

I have also lived in the UK during the Brexit campaign, and was exposed to such a shower of self-seeking arseholes - some of whom still apparently wish to take from others, but grant themselves exemptions - will I hope remain a unique experience in my life.

Yes, yes, the EU has no end of fuckery. Yes, it's true. But better that, than bend the knee to the US, or Russia (UK, Hungary. Delete as appropriate.)

Absolutely not. In my standard intro material I explicitly say otherwise, tell them that actual work involves checking external references, and that I want the interview to be as near to a collaborative experience as it can be in the odd circumstances.

I also tell them that they should tell me when they're checking external resources (the CPP reference is what I mostly have in mind, but StackOverflow or whatever is fine with me) so that I understand how they go about solving problems. Because that's the actual important bit. All the coding and the questioning is a proxy for that.

I’m reasonably certain that I interviewed someone using this or something like it in the last few days.

Lots of eye scanning while looking above the window they’d been typing into. Pauses. Big pastes. One of my excellent colleagues noticed that the candidate made use of exciting C++ casts before ever defining the variable’s types. Complete inability to explain or debug the code just written.

So. Frustrating in two dimensions. First a waste of time for everyone. Second, occasional signs of real ability make me think the candidate might’ve made it work honestly. The fool.

This, and this alone, makes me pine for in-person interviews. But I suspect those won’t be back for some time. (For good reasons that are out of scope here.)

Not opening the pdf to find out! Also, reminder of Snow Crash.

I would be amazed if the basic accusation is false. Similarly I would be amazed if the US isn’t already doing this. I am fairly certain I knew someone who was actively involved in doing this in the Uk ten years ago. Why do you think otherwise?

Asymmetrical relationships are baked into employment. Indeed, that’s the very basis of the idea. Labour laws, unions etc came into existence to change that balance of power. Without them, no paid holiday, no proper weekend, no pension. All of these things reduce productivity.

The purpose of our lives is not productivity. (I have no idea what it might be, but that’s a different thread)

Look, I lead very comfortable life compared to most. Many of the people here are like me, and I dare say, you. But we’re a blip in history. And most of that history hasn’t been particularly kind to people who weren’t born to wealth. I wish more folks internalised that lesson.

There’s a moderately good episode of Roman Mars’ podcast on the subject.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-frankfurt-kitchen...

There’s a fairly good AppleTV Jellyfin app. It’s free.

Here’s another thought experiment. We have ample evidence that the death penalty hasn’t made America safe from murder. But we don’t know if it has deterrence value for lesser crimes.

I propose death by hanging for repeat littering and speeding near a school. I bet that’d be effective.

a bit of a tangent but regarding the translation, can you compare it to the work of a human translator>? I often find translated works unsatisfying. While the fault may well be with me, I thought the Three Body Problem was a pretty poor piece of fiction (yes, I know, HN loves it, mea culpa etc) but I wonder if I dislike the original work, or the rendering in English.

What if the pockets of IRA members had exploded (yes, I know. Say 40 years ago when they were doing their share of bombing)? Does anyone seriously dispute that Hezbollah is a proxy army for Iran?

I think your comparison stops holding wage as,soon as you mention the Conservative Party. They just aren’t the same thing as Hezbollah.

There's a rather lovely Tom Stoppard play [0] that centers on the fact that James Joyce, Tristan Zara and Lenin all lived in Zurich in 1917. It's been a long time since I saw it, but I approximately recall a line were one of the characters tells [noted Dada-ist] Zara to sober up with the words "You want multicoloured micturition? Go to Moscow. They'll make you piss blood there!"

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travesties

“Ah, well the word modernist is code for non-believer” from https://youtu.be/m2dNCw0hPLs?si=0xBHOTYnG-WaOGae. The one and only Yes, Prime Minister.

Can I turn the question around and ask (rhetorically) what happened to make all those innovations happen in the first place?

I think the answer is the WW2, and then the Cold War. Those have us miniaturisation, ICs, sensors, crypto (the old kind) and software tools and techniques to drive them and design their next generations. All the big money corporations making flavours of search and social networking are by products of that impetus.

What are these pitfalls? My ignorance of the field is vast, but [opens mouth in preparation for feet] if nesting encryption weakens it doesn’t that imply that to decipher someone’s private message we should just encrypt it a few more times?

I don’t understand why this is, or perhaps seems to be, the first question that’s asked. The more useful question, to me, is should the tide be turned?

I’m not advocating human extinction, nor even a return to some (fictional) 17th century agrarian Utopia. But I think there might be a sustainable, tech oriented, post-scarcity future that could exist.

Asking how we might get there actually ought to be the first question.