samch

I was curious about the machine itself. There is a description and picture on their lab page[1]:

“The vertical bore 9.4T Agilent MRI has been specially constructed for the microscopic imaging of fixed specimens. A bespoke gradient system, one of only two such systems in the world, provides encoding gradients up to 2500 mT/m, more than 50 times that of a clinical MRI. The system has been tightly integrated to a high performance cluster computer to enable compressed sensing”

[1]: https://www.civm.duhs.duke.edu/duke-CIVM-DIIL-equipment

We do the exact same thing. BofA is a convenience for us, but our credit union is a safe haven with better rates, better service, and less risk.

The “ahead of time” component is partially addressed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency which conducts period stress tests of banks. The people doing the testing know their stuff. These bank evaluations have likely caught and mitigated many issues like SVB ahead of time, and we will never know how many more failures would’ve occurred if it weren’t for their efforts and those of other auditors.

Source:

https://www.occ.treas.gov/topics/supervision-and-examination...

I like Stuart Semple’s store mostly because he’s anti-Anish Kapoor [1]:

https://stuartsemple.com/store/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anish_Kapoor?wprov=sfti1

The public transit vs individual car ownership discussion is long running and a bit separate. My conclusion was predicated on the assumption that for all the reasons we still have individual car ownership today, we will see that remain as such through the autonomous transition.

I’d like to offer a possibly controversial alternative viewpoint on this. On a longer time horizon than just the past few years, we saw the introduction of touchscreens for drivers way back in the early 2000s. We just called them smartphones. Before that, rush hour commuters could be spotted reading newspapers, shaving, applying makeup, and eating breakfast while driving. All of those pose real dangers to themselves and others. My point is that the fundamental issue at hand is more significant than the UI / haptics of the car, but the attention paid by the driver. Humans have already cast their vote on this. As drivers, broadly speaking, we do not want to give the action of driving our full attention. There are simply too many other things vying for our focus. The solution, in my opinion, is not about the controls in the vehicle. Rather, it’s about removing the distracted driver from the equation altogether and finally mastering the immense challenge of truly autonomous vehicles. We are at a point in history where the UI/UX has advanced faster than true self-driving. If the latter can catch up, the UI will become a non-issue, the screens will continue to grow, and the driver will merely be an operator.

Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1357/

Yep! The area around Brevard, NC has a native population. They’re really neat to see. I’ve always wondered how they made it from an evolutionary standpoint. They definitely stand out!

I can summarize my SMS marketing experiences in one word:

stop

On June 29, 2022, Earth completed one spin in 1.59 milliseconds less than 24 hours. This is the latest in a series of speed records for Earth since 2020.

Just from my memories, we didn’t have as much stuff competing for our income. There were no cell phones or ISP bills, and we didn’t have cable TV either. This made it easier to save a little bit every month to afford these more expensive items. It really was a simpler time.

Also, if a sewing machine or microwave broke, you would get it repaired rather than replaced with a new one. It was expected that these big ticket items were long-term purchases. Because of that, people tended to care a bit more about the reputation of the brand and how easily you could get things serviced. Sears, for example, had service centers everywhere.

Probably says something about me that my immediate reaction to the number 65536 wasn’t 2^16, but rather the frequency of the timer crystal you had to swap into a Radio Shack tone dialer to make a “red box”[1] that would let you make free phone calls on US pay phones by simulating the analog coin code sound of a quarter being deposited. Fun fact that the “red box” was the first hackaday article[2] posted way back in 2004. I learned about this back in the days of 2600 magazine. Fun stuff!

[1] http://www.techfreakz.org/2600faq.html#redbox

[2] https://hackaday.com/2004/09/05/radioshack-phone-dialer-red-...

I wanted to post this article, as I’m worried about the mental health aspects. Stressful work, even when remote, can lead to real health problems. If people don’t feel comfortable taking a day off to recover, that could be recipe for burn out. Taking time for our own well being shouldn’t be a sign of weakness.

I see a fishbone activity as somewhat the reverse of the five whys. Instead of starting broad and narrowing focus down a singular path, the fishbone takes the problem and looks at all the contributing factors:

https://asq.org/quality-resources/fishbone

I’m not an expert by any means. Just offering a suggestion.

Related, this is a great example of why I’m skeptical when an analyst tells me they’ve done a “5 Whys” exercise to identify the root of an issue / optimization problem. The process follows a path to a solution with horse blinders intentionally on. If, in this case, the issue was the high use of steel, an analyst might drill down to the time it takes to retool or switch over a production line as the root cause of needing to use more than the ideal ratio. Clearly, however, the reality is much more complex.

Slight tangent: Maybe it’s just me, but I’m somewhat uncomfortable with the label “crypto” being co-opted as official shorthand for cryptocurrencies. I see how it’s a natural truncation of a long term, but to many of us the word crypto can mean many other things. When I saw the headline, I wondered if they had released their own cryptographic library or something else to that effect.

This is great! Only suggestion for an added feature would be to have a couple different versions of nginx to compare / test for regression.

I remember this happening previously with a company named Isis Associates [1]. They opted for a name change in that case. Obviously, it wouldn’t get to that with Delta (their brand isn’t Covid after all). Still, interesting to see how global events can impact branding.

[1] https://paravispartners.com/news/isis-associates-is-now-para...

Ha! It’s been so long, I can’t remember if I ever hit that milestone. I had honesty completely forgotten about that aspect of it!

Can’t see this without immediately remembering countless hours playing toward a city full of Arcologies in SimCity 2000. Fun times!

So, does this mean that even a small catamaran is a “ship”? I like this definition and haven’t heard it before.

For legacy ICE car companies, there is an additional headwind with which they must battle: their dealer network is far less incentivized to sell electric vehicles due to the lower long-term revenues based on service and maintenance. Dealers have a say in what is promoted and sold. If they have two otherwise equivalent models, one ICE and one electric, they are far more incentivized to sell the ICE version to lock in those lucrative service plans at time of sale. So, traditional auto manufactures not only have to catch up in charging infrastructure, they also have to figure out how to change the dealer incentive model to help move units.

To add to this, there is even more going on behind the scenes in the Tesla Supercharging scenario that makes it so incredible effective. A lot of it has to do with charger use optimization. As sales of Teslas outpace growth of the Supercharger network, optimization of the chargers is increasingly important. Much like Apple, the fact that Tesla has fully integrated the entire ecosystem (car, mobile app, Supercharger, payments) means that they can also optimize the end-to-end process. For starters, the in-car display shows where the nearest Superchargers are and automatically plans your trip to incorporate them. After a recent update, you can now see the real-time number of open spaces. When the Tesla has its next navigation destination as a Supercharger, the car will automatically begin conditioning the battery pack (heating it, I believe) to allow the battery chemistry to more readily accept the pending influx of current. While the car is charging, the owner has constant visibility and notification of progress via the mobile app. This helps the owner plan to be back at the charger when the process has completed. Finally, Tesla has implemented monetary penalties for leaving a charged Tesla in charging spot after a certain grace period.

I suppose that what I’m trying to illustrate here is that the overall level of optimization of the charging experience might just remain unique to Tesla, enabling them to scale their user base more efficiently than competitive, non-integrated solutions.

The pardoning scenario is interesting. He may well be pardoned for federal crimes by Pence or Biden, but Presidential pardons do not extend to state crimes. It’s possible that the NY State AG might have some issues to resolve once he is out of office.

Agreed. History does not tend to look favorably on those who appease bullies.

I’m not so sure, as it would be the VP and members of the Cabinet (all Republicans) who would initiate this process. That kind of leadership in support of democracy could help de-escalate this.

I think, for the safety of all involved, it may be time to enact section 4 of the 25th Amendment.

Amendment 25 - Section 4: Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thank you. My wife worked for the Special Olympics for several years, and we were privileged to meet so many wonderful athletes in the program. I doubt a single one would think this usage of the r-word was appropriate.

Previously:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23897779

I just noticed this capability in the release notes for 2020.24.6.9. Personally, I’m not too comfortable with this. I might, however, be willing to exchange free Internet or Supercharging in exchange for turning the camera on. I genuinely wonder how many people will enable this voluntarily.

Release notes:

https://teslascope.com/teslapedia/software/2020.24.6.9