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matthewmcg

2,999 karma · joined June 6, 2012

Atlanta corporate attorney focusing on energy and technology work.

matt at mcgrath dot tech

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matthewmcg··on Wall Street closes sharply lower as AI cash burn fears spark tech selloff
Yes, in particular they own Solar Turbines which makes gas turbine equipment.
matthewmcg··on US Government is hiding a secret court ruling about how it spies on Americans
He should go further and describe or read these secret rulings on the Senate floor, where the speech and debate clause protects him.
matthewmcg··on Man discovers his parents' coffee machine used 1TB of data in 10 days
Wow, maybe this is the push I need to finally set up an isolated "IOT" VLAN at my home.
matthewmcg··on Tokens too cheap to meter
"Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976, if these trends continue...AY!"
matthewmcg··on Chevron signs 20-year power agreement with Microsoft for West Texas data center
They’ve said the company name comes from San Diego being so sunny.
matthewmcg··on Live: Artemis II Launch Day Updates
That’s fair but the amount of interest in this crewed mission vs. prior uncrewed and robotic moon missions shows that many people find manned missions more compelling.
matthewmcg··on Artemis II Launch Day Updates
It’s interesting to compare to Apollo 8 (circumlunar Apollo mission). That mission culminated a year that saw escalation of the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
matthewmcg··on London's most controversial cyclist
I’ve fantasized about carrying a bullhorn on my bike and just calling people out: “hey you in the Tesla, put your phone down!” Sadly the enforcement of the hands free law where I live is nonexistent. What’s surprising to me about this article is that the police will actually act on this guy’s tips and evidence.
matthewmcg··on Delta single handle ball faucets (1963)
The terms of sale are so clear and concise. But I don’t see a warranty period. Would they still replace a part on a 1961 sink?
matthewmcg··on Shifts in diatom and dinoflagellate biomass in the North Atlantic over 6 decades
If you’re interested in more context for this, the book The Blue Machine by physical oceanographer Helen Czerski. There’s a great discussion of this and other ocean issues.
matthewmcg··on White House has asked U.S. military to develop options for the Panama Canal
Very interesting perspective, thank you.
matthewmcg··on White House has asked U.S. military to develop options for the Panama Canal
Zonian: my father was born to an American family but outside the Canal Zone (Panama City). I asked my Dad whether they considered themselves Americans or Panamanians growing up. He said his parents (my grandparents) considered themselves Panamanians and that they strongly supported handing over the canal during the treaty negotiations. What was the feeling like among the “Zonians”?

We just had a family reunion of sorts in Panama and needless to say the relatives that still live there (all over the political spectrum) were not enthused by the new U.S. posture.

matthewmcg··on "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
Right, but what is “executive power”? It is the power to put laws into effect—to execute them. And Congress writes those laws. Article 2 Section 1 does not confer power beyond what the laws provide.

And “vested” does not mean exclusive. Many U.S. laws grant executive power, including the power to promulgate regulations, to persons in the executive branch other than the president. For example, the Communications Act of 1934 creates the FCC and gives the commission the power to “perform any and all acts, make such rules and regulations, and issue such orders, not inconsistent with this chapter, as may be necessary in the execution of its functions.”[1]

There is no authority in the statute for the President to override these determinations made by the Commission.

[1] 47 U.S.C. 154(i) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/154

matthewmcg··on "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies" – Executive Order
What about the constitutional directive that the President shall ensure that the laws are faithfully executed? Congress has prescribed how agencies may issue regulations and interpretations through statutes shouldn’t these statutes control?
matthewmcg··on Alcohol-free booze is becoming big business
The pricing makes sense for the better brands as they have to basically make a nice wine, and then take additional steps to remove the alcohol. At least that’s what they do for the better alcohol-free Rieslings. See https://thezeroproof.com/products/buy-eins-zwei-zero-rieslin...
matthewmcg··on Scale Model of Boeing 777-300ER, Made from Manila Folders
This is wonderful. The loving dedication to getting the details right reminds me of the engineer hobbyist that built a functional scale model of a Ferrari 312PB race car as shown on this classic Top Gear episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeUMDY01uUA
matthewmcg··on Young Doctors Want Work-Life Balance. Older Doctors Say That's Not the Job
The reality is created by policy. The AMA zealously protects MDs and (Medicare-funded) fellowships as a cartel exempt from antitrust laws. Any they fight PAs and NPs tooth and nail.
matthewmcg··on Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?
He says it a few paragraphs in: “To give a sense of how strange this is, here is the only “officially sanctioned” way to represent a multistage thermonuclear weapon, according to US Department of Energy guidance since the 1990s:

Figure 13.9, “Unclassified Illustration of a Staged Weapon (Source: TCG-NAS-2, March 1997),” from the Nuclear Matters Handbook 2020 (Revised), published by Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters.

Two circles in a box, maybe inside of a reentry vehicle. That’s it. Nothing that gives any actual sense of size, location, materials, physicality.”

matthewmcg··on An abundance of Katherines: The game theory of baby naming
Author listing: Katy Blumer, Kate Donahue, Katie Fritz, Kate Ivanovich, Katherine Lee, Katie Luo, Cathy Meng, Katie Van Koevering

For people unfamiliar with common English names, all of the authors have first names similar to or derived from Katherine.

matthewmcg··on From RSS to My Kindle
I looked into this in 2013. At that point there was a "My Clippings.txt" file stored on the kindle that was accessible as a USB storage volume when plugged in. This file stored each annotation in plain text, along with the document ID and the start and ending location of the annotation.

Trouble was, the location was in the Kindle's "Loc" format which is nontrivial (at least to me at the time) to connect to specific text in the document.

I'm sure someone's probably worked this out by now?

Update: yes, at least 160 projects

https://github.com/search?q=%22my%20clippings.txt%22&type=re...

matthewmcg··on The Rise and Fall of Silicon Graphics
Much of this history is also described in Michael Lewis’s book the New New Thing (2000) which profiles Clark and his various ventures. It’s really a snapshot of pre-.com crash Silicon Valley.
matthewmcg··on Visiting Scarfolk, the most spectacular dystopia of the 1970s (2016)
This strikes me as a darker version of the late 70s early 80s British educational videos aesthetic captured in the Look Around You series.

Example: https://youtu.be/FBaVwwuErmU?feature=shared

matthewmcg··on Sell for half a billion and get nothing (2021)
The liquidation (or dividend) preference is the differentiating feature of preferred stock. In corporate finance, preferred stock is, for the reasons you give, treated as a hybrid of equity and debt.
matthewmcg··on Show HN: I made an app to use local AI as daily driver
The headline had me thinking you had a DIY self-driving car for a moment there. Didn't initially register that this was just the common metaphor. Looks like a great app.
matthewmcg··on The Einstein-Szilard Refrigerator (2020)
Here’s a much better article on the collaboration from 1990s Scientific American: https://www.physics.smu.edu/scalise/P3374fa17/EinsteinSzilar...
matthewmcg··on TSA introducing self-service screening technology in Las Vegas
Instant glue got you too?
matthewmcg··on Return to office is 'dead,' Stanford economist says
Great point on potentially overlapping board membership. More broadly, there's also a theory that growing common ownership by index funds and others with significant commercial real estate exposure is driving this pressure.
matthewmcg··on In 1903, NY Times predicted airplanes would take 10M years to develop
Right! Even taking "return" very literally, the lunar rock samples brought back are incredibly valuable to science. And the spinoff/technological stimulus value of the program is even harder to quantify--consider that during one year, Project Apollo purchased >60% of U.S. semiconductor production. This was a critical early market for Fairchild Semiconductor, e.g. [1]

[1]:https://books.google.com/books?id=gXYItzQARVoC&pg=PA127&lpg=...

matthewmcg··on How Jensen Huang's Nvidia is powering the A.I. revolution
My all time favorite from Ian Parker’s NYer profile of Johnny Ive:

I asked Jeff Williams, the senior vice-president, if the Apple Watch seemed more purely Ive’s than previous company products. After a silence of twenty-five seconds, during which Apple made fifty thousand dollars in profit, he said, “Yes.”

matthewmcg··on Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API
They can lock you out of the API, but they can't stop you from installing hardwired devices that simulate a press of the open/close button.

I just chucked my MyQ device and replaced it with a Meross MSG100HK--it works perfectly and natively with HomeKit--no cloud service required. Incidentally, the latency is much lower too.

The device is basically a wifi-enabled, USB powered "dry contact" switch. You connect the pigtail in parallel with your existing wired open/close button. There's also a magnetic sensor (similar to what old door alarms used) that goes near the door to verify it has closed.

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