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lostemptations5

128 karma · joined January 29, 2024

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lostemptations5··on Priced out of home ownership
Singapore is not really typical of anything anywhere, it's a small island nation with insane population pressure with regards to housing.

Almost any other Asian city from Bangkok to Ha Noi has room to expand. In fact speaking of Bangkok buying a condo there is widely considered a bad investment because there is so much supply.

lostemptations5··on Reverse engineering ESP32 Wi-Fi driver: the road ahead
Bingo :)
lostemptations5··on The internet is overflowing with bad content. Users are fighting back
Isn't it more users are giving up? I'd love to find a way to inspire people to participate again like the old internet.
lostemptations5··on The New 'Dream Chaser' Spacecraft Prepares to Visit the ISS
It's cool finally to see another space plane in orbit aside from the X-37.
lostemptations5··on NYPD will deploy drones to respond to 911 calls in 5 NYC precincts: officials
Right -- harassment, racial profiling, etc. Good point.
lostemptations5··on GPT-4o hit 54% accuracy on CodeContests with AlphaCodium, up from 48% for GPT-4T
Right, I would think a 20-30% difference would be significant.
lostemptations5··on Demystifying the protobuf wire format
Its a great question-- our developers had never used it before and found it counterintuitive and hard to find good information on how to use. Projects are under time pressure so it's hard sometimes to have the mental space to properly grok a new framework, especially if its quite different.

I'm sure it works well for Google.

Also the support tools are lacking generally compared to say JSON or SQL or Python or any other technology.

Bugs were hard to diagnose-- I'm assuming if you were a grpc pro this would be ok.

lostemptations5··on NYPD will deploy drones to respond to 911 calls in 5 NYC precincts,officials say
How so? How are drones supposed to arrest people?
lostemptations5··on Ideas and Creativity (2019)
Logical deduction is not at all creativity. Toddlers create interesting and unexpected things because they remove the rules-- in fact have no rules to begin with.

Using a bunch of deductive logic to come up with a good solution is quite different, and don't worry a sign of good intelligence.

lostemptations5··on Demystifying the protobuf wire format
We had a client choose protobufs / grpc which totally stalled the developers and created alot of problems and complexity. The client insisted for whatever reason and eventually ran out of money. Their unfinished code is sitting in some Github repository somewhere.

Run very fast from it, unless you have a VERY good reason to use it.

lostemptations5··on Beekeeper furious over destruction of $2M honey crop
What does market access mean?
lostemptations5··on Researchers find high levels of lead, mercury and arsenic in Beethoven's hair
Ok fair enough. Put that way it makes sense.
lostemptations5··on A low budget consumer hardware espionage implant (2018)
But not specific ones
lostemptations5··on Researchers find high levels of lead, mercury and arsenic in Beethoven's hair
There are a number of people commenting about how Beethoven could hear music in his head, being deaf, and thus compose entire symphonies.

But at that time the musical instruments of the day were incredibly "standardized".

Basically it was all orchestral instruments such as violins, percuasion, and all the usual fair -- and by the time Beethoven went deaf he was intimately familiar with these such that he could IMAGINE it all in his head.

Even if you went deaf tomorrow, in 20 years time you would still be able to imagine a violin -- it is a very distinctive instrument.

So I think this feat -- while wonderful-- is pretty explainable.

lostemptations5··on A Man Who Raced to Tell the World That Mount Everest Had Been Climbed
So we should just ignore previous accomplishments I guess...
lostemptations5··on A Canadian lobby group is promoting "widespread adoption of age verification"
Ah yes those cowards -- like all the multicultural immigrants that built Canada and have made it a prosperous country. Cowards to leave their counties, etc /s
lostemptations5··on Electric 10000 ton container ship has begun service with over 50MWh in batteries
True, but these feeders are quite numerous and there could be 10 anyways for each large sea going container ship on a global average. And they would be working constantly to bring capacity out from larger ships anchored in bays and bring it up rivers or canals.

So it's a good start though. From looking at its design this one is mostly for river use or litterol water operation.

lostemptations5··on Apple iPhone sales fall in nearly all countries
None of this is really true globally where the main sales falls are indicated. Particularly in Asia there is a huge growth in apps still from ride hailing to social media (TikTok is still allowed there, btw), and data plans are cheap and ubiqutous. Unlimited data can be had for just $30 a month in many countries. Even $10 in some.

What is true-- outside of the US -- is an extraordinary galaxy of Android phones available for every price point from cheap $80 (and quite capable RedMis) to $2000 Samsungs. All with dual SIMs and 1 TB capable SD Card slots.

Maybe people just don't want to pay for expensive and limited hardware (expansion wise), especially where their monthly salary maybe just $500 USD.

lostemptations5··on Response to Scott Alexander on Medical Effectiveness
But it's not an either / or thing. All of these should be uses holistically among with a good diet and other healthy lifestyle factors.
lostemptations5··on Korea sees more deaths than births for 52nd consecutive month in February
Re: Tourism -- I'm not sure 20% is a "relatively small" amount.

Also it has alot of other impacts such as bringing in foreign investment, new skills, and so on.

lostemptations5··on Webb captures iconic Horsehead Nebula in unprecedented detail
Honestly, I'm happy to be alive to see these kinds of images! I wish my dad was still around he'd be fascinated.
lostemptations5··on It's not your age that's slowing your metabolism, new research says (2021)
No. Just go and shop for 3000 calories worth of food. All the packages contain kcal/100g, etc -- so its easy to calculate.

Then divide it in two.

Eat 50% of your 3000 calories of food on day 1 and the remaining 50% on day 2. Rinse repeat for other days.

When I do this I literally start seeing steady weight loss after 3-4 days.

Cheat on weekends -- start again on Monday. Lost 20kg over 4 months that way with exercise like walking and running.

lostemptations5··on It's not your age that's slowing your metabolism, new research says (2021)
So you're basically saying give up! Thanks :)
lostemptations5··on My mother declared my bedroom a disaster area (1984)
People should never, ever write letters? You're kidding me. What is going to happen over the mail?

When I was a kid I wrote letters all the time to anyone I met and kept up some good correspondences. I felt it really enhanced me as a character and grew my literary skills.

Anyways the point -- I'm sure -- is moot as no one does that anymore, I'll bet.

lostemptations5··on The Guide to Stock Options Conversations
This really depends on an individuals risk tolerance.
lostemptations5··on I continue to no longer attend vintage computer festivals
This is a TikTok generation answer (even if you are 70 years old) -- the thinking is: discard anything that is more than x years old. It's not useful.

But all these things are precious historical documents of the development of technology and of course ourselves. They are vitally important to keep.

Of course they aren't "useful" in the classic sense such as their original purpose -- but they are useful to remind us how things were and how far we've come and what kind of problems were solved in what way by our predecessors.

lostemptations5··on Vietnamese property tycoon sentenced to death in $27B fraud case
Yeah these are complete fabrications.
lostemptations5··on Home insurers are dropping customers based on aerial images
I'm curious-- have a link?
lostemptations5··on 65 years ago, America announced the names of its first astronauts
But at least we are healthy and not all radioactive -- aside from the microplastics and forever chemicals.
lostemptations5··on The baffling intelligence of a single cell: The story of E. coli chemotaxis
Or maybe it wasn't done maliciously -- rather that's the way they thought it should be taught...
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