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feedbeefon Running servers and services well is not trivial (2018)

Real account of just how "not trivial":

https://nickcraver.com/blog/2016/02/03/stack-overflow-a-tech...

That said, thanks to VPS and Raspberry Pi, it's fun and extremely inexpensive to privately deploy and maintain semi-reliable personal services. Anything beyond that requires immense planning, expense, and dedication.

feedbeefon BLUF: A military standard to make writing more powerful

As does CIA

https://fas.org/irp/cia/product/style.pdf

feedbeefon Estimates that mineral levels in vegetables have dropped by up to 90% since 1914

To learn more about soil health, watch Dr. Elaine Ingham's talks available on YouTube. Also see: https://permies.com/wiki/redhawk-soil

feedbeefon Vandalize Your Car

My general experience as pedestrian is that while commercial vehicle drivers speed, they seem focused and give a wide berth when passing, whereas regular drivers often explore their sociopathic tendencies when passing.

feedbeefon Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

Or from the air.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wireless_System

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla_electric_car_hoax

feedbeefon Chicken Hypnotism

The chicken gravitron is full of flair, but to work gardening into the picture, I've settled on this for now:

http://www.bbqzoo.com/22-UFO-BBQ-COVER-UF22A.htm

https://www.backwoodshome.com/save-time-and-energy-with-the-...

feedbeefon The subversive messages hidden in The Wizard of Oz

This documentary seems relevant:

Bill Still: The Secret of Oz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkq2E8mswI

feedbeefon The IT Guy vs. the Con Artist

Watching a scambaiter won't help recover their loss, but it may offer some form of vicarious revenge:

https://www.twitch.tv/kitboga

feedbeefon Amazon offered ‘Amazon’s Choice’ to vendors who bought ads and lowered prices

Before returns enter that ecosystem they may be stolen en route, placed back in an Amazon FC, resold on Amazon as new, returned by customer, stolen en route, placed back in an Amazon FC, resold on Amazon as new...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20601200

feedbeefon Hiring Is Broken: What Do Developers Say About Technical Interviews?

Seems like a good approach but beware "any issue" that's really a decoy filed by applicants aware of your hiring process. Unlikely yes, but worth considering, if only to appreciate the initiative behind such ruse.

feedbeefon Mosquitoes Changed Everything

Spraying poisonous chemicals can be very effective, but may harm life forms other than mosquitoes.

I wear a bug shirt as an effective alternative to bug spray.

https://www.bugshirt.com/

Some DIY trap/attractant research and ideas:

  https://permies.com/t/115296/critters/trapped-mosquitos
  https://www.bg-sentinel.com/ (see design of device)

  -yeast (do not stir), brown sugar, filtered water
  -common trap design uses 2L bottle cut near top with top inverted and placed into lower section. mosquitoes fly into funnel-like area and lay eggs. important: opaque cover to block light, black supposedly attracts mosquitoes.
  -things to experiment with:
    -5 gal bucket design: inverted funnel, insect screen lid, fan to disperse attractant
    -other attractants: used clothing / shoes (soles) / octinol lures
    -soap to reduce surface tension to drown mosquitoes
    -some say bread works instead of yeast
    -other types of sugar
    -baking soda / citric acid or vinegar CO2 source (quick reaction, need to slow down)
    -mason jar (hydroponic) net pot - line with screen and make hole in bottom
    -fungus / mushroom CO2 sources
    -bt dunks in areas with standing water
    -3d print container/components
    -build bat house (benefit: guano for compost)

feedbeefon Tree planting: Where can I do it and which type is best?

Trees can be planted a lot easier than you probably think (e.g. cuttings from existing trees). Trees grow best in established forests or areas with shrubby growth, as this indicates the soil is generally more fungal than bacterial, which trees prefer.

Check out the efforts of Akiva Silver and Geoff Lawton on YouTube. Also:

http://www.woodlanders.com/episodes

feedbeefon How much bandwidth does the spinal cord have?

> > With the era of mass communication upon us, the collective human organism . . . rose into existence.

> I like thinking about us this way too, as being both individuals but at the same time also forming a sorts of organism together.

You may be interested in Paul Stamets' thoughts on this, essentially, that the invention of the Internet was an evolutionary inevitability.

https://youtu.be/90vhfdj1zic?t=977

feedbeefon How much bandwidth does the spinal cord have?

I keep thinking of this:

https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html

feedbeefon New Raspberry Pi 4 Firmware Lowers Temperature by 3-5°C

Sadly, I can’t measure [power consumption] as my power meter is dead.

Would be nice to see those measurements, as RPi 4's idle consumption (initial reports of ~3 watts) is quite poor compared to RPi 2B and 3B's ~1 watt.

feedbeefon How Disney built and programmed an animatronic president (2014)

Don't miss Defunctland for more Disney attraction lore. [1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defunctland

feedbeefon Net worth of Americans aged 18 to 35 has dropped 34 percent since 1996: study

Trade jobs deserve more respect than they get. Skilled labor is in short supply, nearly guaranteeing vocational school graduates steady work and good income (especially in construction/machinery fields). Not to mention about $100k less spent on tuition vs college bachelor's degree.

https://www.thesimpledollar.com/why-you-should-consider-trad...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19324670

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15691817

feedbeefon Switch from Chrome to Firefox

I've had a terrible time using Firefox since Tab Mix Plus was killed. Dev is working on a replacement but many of the necessary APIs were also killed in the great add-on death of 2017 (Firefox 57), and have yet to be rewritten (and may never be).

feedbeefon What Is Going on with UFOs and the Department of Defense?

Yes, Die Glocke / the bell has been embellished beyond all recognition of whatever it really was. I bear some guilt with my comment above; it would have been more appropriate to suggest that the bell's mysticism may have inspired fringe research, e.g. Podkletnov, similar to how Rife may have inspired Hutchison, and Hutchison inspired Bushman, and so on.

feedbeefon What Is Going on with UFOs and the Department of Defense?

It never hurts to wonder. If we assume the Tic Tac is a man made craft, it doesn't seem a far stretch to also assume it may employ antigravitics. Perhaps it can be traced back to Die Glocke [1]. Your linked HN posts also mention Hutchison, an interesting character who appears repeatedly down the rabbit hole, where you'll also discover Schauberger and Leedskalnin. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors in these topics, which often delve into conspiracy and pseudoscience, making it hard to discuss them without sounding like a crazy person. In any case, it's fascinating to ponder, even if it's all just science fiction.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Glocke

feedbeefon Advances in Weather Prediction

Also check out IEMBot for live (immediate) access to raw NWS products [1]. It should be noted that the scientific discussions are exactly that - while quite valuable, it can take some effort to become familiar with the abbreviations and raw weather science.

1. https://weather.im/iembot/

feedbeefon Imperial College London Launches a Centre for Psychedelics Research

> That said, this is great news!

Great news indeed. Scientific progress into psychedelics needs to be celebrated. We also need to celebrate specific individuals in the field, like Drs. Nichols (father and son both), for their continuing scientific contributions and persistence, often in the face of governmental and industrial opposition [1].

1. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gypbnx/psychedeli...

feedbeefon Protections Against Fingerprinting and Crypto Mining in Firefox Nightly and Beta

I agree that User-Agent is suspiciously leaky, but it's microscopic compared to JavaScript. [1]

It's unfortunate that browsers are privacy-insane by default. Luckily, with a bit of effort, most browsers [2] allow you to mitigate this with plugins (e.g. User-Agent switcher, Cookie/Referrer controller, and JS/Adblocker). Pi-Hole [3] can help too.

Mozilla should be commended for trying to improve the situation.

1. https://panopticlick.eff.org/

2. Chrome's days are numbered: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18973477

3. https://pi-hole.net/

feedbeefon It seems that Google is forgetting the old web

Google search worked much better over 10 years ago than it does for me today, i.e. before it abandoned the what-you-search-is-what-you-get model. My once-masterful Google-fu seems to be borderline useless today. I'm not sure what happened over the years, but Google search has morphed into a completely different, less useful product, at least for me.

Any search term not wrapped in quotes can be randomly ignored today. It can inject keywords it thinks you want (but really don't). Google is great for searching modern sites like Stack Overflow, but it seems to have lost interest in servicing power users.

feedbeefon NNCP: Lossless Data Compression with Neural Networks

> Fabrice Bellard deserves some kind of superhuman lifetime achievement award.

Indeed. The Tesla of software perhaps.

I just launched JSLinux [1] for fun. You gotta love this dmesg line: [ 0.000000] CPU: vendor_id 'AuthenticX86' unknown, using generic init.

[1] https://bellard.org/jslinux/

feedbeefon 93% of Paint Splatters Are Valid Perl Programs

I have a lot of legacy code built on mod_perl that survived over five hardware generations without missing a beat. But mod_perl has become system-cripplingly leaky over the last couple years. I nearly entered a debug rabbit hole before considering a simple workaround. After a quick apache conf edit, mod_perl was swapped out for plain old CGI. Heresy perhaps, but everything is running smoothly again.

feedbeefon Storing UTC is not a silver bullet

I wonder what kind of fallout will come from the year 2038 problem [1]. It appears the Deep Impact space probe was lost to a 32-bit clock rollover bug, which portends some level of disaster come 2038.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

feedbeefon Four new DNA letters double life’s alphabet

Mantis shrimp pack a really strong punch too. Truly fascinating creatures.

https://www.ted.com/talks/sheila_patek_clocks_the_fastest_an...

feedbeefon 12-Year-Old Claims to Have Achieved Nuclear Fusion at Home (2018)

Looks to be around $1.5-3k USD in his setup photos, likely less if he's using some used/surplus equipment, which is quite possible. Stainless fittings and tubing are surprisingly affordable. About $250 for the Deuterium.

Edit: sibling points out it may be $10k. I wonder if that price includes other equipment not shown. If not, apologies for the gross underestimation ($1.5-3k seemed reasonable - most of the equipment pricing can be looked up).