And nobody makes Monty Python or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy references anymore. I had a boss 15 years ago who had watched all things Star Trek, just like me; Knew all the things. But at one point he mentioned he wasn't really a fan, it was just "required reading, part of the literature". This is an interesting one. There used to be certain things that all nerds knew, and could talk about, use as analogies and metaphors. Something to talk about just like sales people (stereotypically, used to) talk about sports. I realized early in my career that's why some people in business follow sports, so they didn't get cut out of conversations. I always had nothing to say when that topic came up. But it's tricky because geeks and nerds shouldn't be gatekeepers about what the entertainment is, or the literature, because that cuts out a lot of people who should feel included. But at the same time most people think it's generally nice to have some common things to reference, talk about, and normalize on. I think social media, politics, streaming services, etc. have totally blown away these shared frameworks in society, and it's kind of a bummer, even though it's great to have lots of choices. People used to watch the same TV shows and talk about it the next day. I guess sports is basically the last thing that's shared. Thanks for attending my Ted Talk...
I stayed in Kauai in 2012 and the locals said they do not eat the chickens. They said the meat is very tough and doesn't taste very good. They also said the chickens are useful because they eat millipedes, which are everywhere. They claimed that the sting from being bitten by one of those millipedes is unbelievably painful, and feels like a gun shot. I'm not sure about the gun shot part, but everyone seemed pretty serious about how painful it feels.
1999 indeed! I haven't heard that term since around 1999 when I was hired as a "web engineer" and derisively referred to myself as a "webgineer". I almost asked if I could change my title to "sciencematician".
My friend's advisor in grad school (Physics, not CS) used to ask his students for various project estimates, and then he would double it and increase the units: 2 hours = 4 days; 1 day = 2 weeks; 2 weeks = 4 months; 2 to 3 months = 4 to 6 years = thesis project. My friend's estimated 3 month project turned into his 4 to 5 year thesis project. I mean, hey, it was experimental physics and his project ended up using a shipping container-sized faraday cage, scanning tunnelling microscopes, a clean room wearing a bunny suit, building stuff himself in the machine shop, writing software. All this for something that literally had not been done before and no one was sure it would work or what exactly would need to be done to get there (which starts to sound similar to some aspects of software projects). Plus the usual overhead like teaching ungrateful engineering undergrads (guilty!), hosting movie night at the lab and making liquid nitrogen ice cream, etc.
That will not happen in the US court system. Also, the Guardian article below about this happening to scientists was in the Italian court system, not the US.
The Chappe telegraph supported 98 possible signals with 6 of those being reserved for service purposes (like signalling end of message), so 92 possible message signals. If you could get that to 96 then you could transmit ASCII characters using one signal from Decimal 32 to Decimal 126, and use one signal to enter the original "two signals per symbol" mode for the rest of ASCII and other symbols. Then automate it with machine vision and we'll have an 1800's style steampunk Internet.
When my wife lived in NYC she was walking home one night when there were an unusually large number of rats running around. She noticed that Fred Armisen (actor, comedian) was walking down the middle of the street next to her, and he looked at her and said something to the effect of "What's with all these rats?!".
I had the same experience when doing a career report in junior highschool. I spoke to a vet who had graduated from UC Davis a few years prior and they did everything in their power to talk me out of becoming one.
That's too bad. My parents were farmers and my dad brought some home one day, even though we no longer had cattle when we lived on our ranch. He thought I'd like to play with them, and he was right! Even my friends who weren't from farm families thought they were cool. I'm going to order some for my kids. These were the classic ones in the 1980's: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_disease#/media/File...
I've used GPT-4 to help with selenium and it gets the answer eventually, but almost never on the first try. So automating this without human intervention sounds tricky.
I was curious about power outages as well, and why tugboats aren't required for all container ships that navigate under bridges. I'm not arguing that tugboats MUST be mandated; just wondering about the cost/benefit analysis. This claims that power outages are more common now (but doesn't cite sources/stats) in areas (specifically California) where diesel fuel is required, rather than bunker fuel: https://baykeeper.org/news/column/tugs-test-towing-giant-shi... It also makes it clear that relying on tugboats to be on standby and "swoop in to the rescue" is seriously wishful thinking where bridge safety is concerned. This article from 2019 is about a power failure due to an Oil Mist Detector that didn't have a "harbour mode" option of keeping the engine running at reduced RPM so you can still maneuver. It also shows the link between engine failure and a need for tugboats under "lessons learned":
"– Although it is tempting to free harbour tugs as quickly as possible, in the restricted waters of a small port their assistance can be invaluable should something go wrong."
On the other hand, what safety or economic issues do tugboats cause? It will probably become a topic of discussion or investigation at least.
I can only speak for my narrow corner of the world, but highschool babysitters are definitely normal in my suburban town just south of Nashville, Tennessee. The article also talks about babysitters in the 11 - 13 year old range. We were at a birthday party recently where one mother was recommending her daughter for less demanding baby sitting, and she referred to the role as a "mommy's helper". She described the role as doing laundry, dishes, helping with cooking, watching / playing with the kids and helping with homework, but that there would still be an adult in the house. So I guess that kind of matches the point of the article that 11 - 13 year olds aren't really seen as "on their own babysitters" any more. Our baby sitters have always been at least highschool age.
"The stark shift happened fast; in 1995, the number of pay phones in the U.S. peaked at 2.6 million, Slate reported in 2022. In less than three decades, that's dwindled to fewer than 100,000."
Nice! I just ordered a copy and can't wait to read it! Getting Steve Wozniak to write the forward is quite literally a "ringing" endorsement. ;-)
Woz spoke at UC Berkeley (might have been 1998 commencement), and I asked him to sign an issue of 2600 magazine. After he signed it he flipped through it and asked if 2600 was still good and worth reading because he was thinking of getting a subscription for his son.
Fair. I just edited my comment because I combined two concepts and muddled them together. It's more common to suffer a poorer yield than total crop loss. But crops like tomatoes can die from lack of water during high heat days if the heat lasts for several days. Also, irrigating only at night (not just evening, but over night) can contribute to fungal and disease issues with some crops.
Drip is used quite a bit in Northern California for higher value crops like tomatoes, but it's too expensive for normal crops. It also seems like a non-starter for smaller scale and poorer farmers in developing nations; that's a lot of CapEx for generally lower value crops.
Agreed. And everyone needs to be aware that this is a global problem. California has some of the best farm land in the world, but many of the years in the past decade have been brutal from water shortages. Some years have had 50% water deliveries and some have had zero, depending on the water district, water contracts, water rights, location, etc. Being told you can you use 50% of your normal water supply generally means you plant half your fields and leave the other half fallow, because most crops aren't viable if you only use half the necessary water.
Looks very cool. Am I correct that this is more like a client and that the persistence (user storage, sessions, etc) is handled by the proprietary non-open source cloud backend? Not a criticism, just trying to understand.