Coded stuff. Cofounded companies and a charity. Successes & failures. http://bitmason.com
Darren Stone, Vancouver, BC, Canada
"Once men turned their thinking over to
machines in the hope that this would
set them free. But that only permitted
other men with machines to enslave
them." - Frank P. Herbert, Jr., 1965
"The programmer, like the poet, works
only slightly removed from pure
thought-stuff. He builds his castles
in the air, from air, creating by
exertion of the imagination."
- Fred P. Brooks, Jr., 1975
Submissions
Canada and America Are Drifting Apart. The Pentagon Just Made It Official
thewalrus.ca
10 points·by emptybits··0 comments
13th Century King Arthur manuscript headed to auction
smithsonianmag.com
1 points·by emptybits··0 comments
The end of Star Trek is now official
screenrant.com
14 points·by emptybits··17 comments
VLC media player is onboard the Artemis mission
twitter.com
7 points·by emptybits··0 comments
Study: Older Cannabis Users Have Larger Brains, Better Cognition
news.cuanschutz.edu
41 points·by emptybits··54 comments
Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee says he is in a battle for the soul of the internet
theguardian.com
24 points·by emptybits··3 comments
Why Go Is Going Nowhere
economist.com
4 points·by emptybits··1 comments
Al Zimmermann is launching a new contest 2025-11-22
azspcs.com
1 points·by emptybits··0 comments
Trump Calls on Intel CEO to Resign over China Ties
msn.com
4 points·by emptybits··1 comments
Enhanced Games (no drug testing) signs world champion swimmer Megan Romano
cbc.ca
2 points·by emptybits··0 comments
Canadian telecom hacked by suspected China state group
arstechnica.com
5 points·by emptybits··0 comments
Swarms of tiny nose robots could clear infected sinuses, researchers say
theguardian.com
5 points·by emptybits··1 comments
Ford Pulls Mustang Mach-E from Sale over Dangerous Door Lock Flaw
carscoops.com
3 points·by emptybits··0 comments
World Curling tightens sweeping rules, bans firmer broom foams ahead of Olympics
cbc.ca
44 points·by emptybits··22 comments
Border agents are going to photograph everyone leaving the US by car
theverge.com
9 points·by emptybits··0 comments
Shingles vaccine tied to fewer dementia diagnoses, study in Wales suggests
cbc.ca
3 points·by emptybits··0 comments
Facebook and Instagram to Unleash AI-Generated 'Users' No One Asked For
rollingstone.com
21 points·by emptybits··18 comments
Le Pétomane: The Man Who Could Fart Melodies
amusingplanet.com
4 points·by emptybits··1 comments
Champion barred from professional eating contest over Impossible Foods deal
Buying a used book sight unseen from Amazon or from a reseller who doesn’t have a reputation for reporting used condition reliably … that’s a buyer’s choice. It’s not left to (mis)fortune.
Anyways, my point was to counter the parent post’s claim that notes in margins are shallow or unsocratic. Some are, some aren’t IME.
Aside from shallow, uncritical notes, consider that annotating in a margin is evidence that a reader is actively engaging with a text.
Very often when I write in margins it's to question or argue against what's written (e.g. "really? what about ...", or "no, contradicts ...") which, to me, seems in line with the dialectic process Socrates promoted. Multiple sides, truth-seeking.
Sure, having a spacious notebook on the side is even better. But it's the same goal, isn't it? Engage more deeply with a text and encourage questioning as you read it, while it's still fresh.
Happy Birthday Z80! My first job out of university was in Z80 assembly. (Sega Game Gear.)
As a kid, it was all about 6502 micros, but my early professional love was Z80 and it still warms my heart to think about. Sure, the “other” 8 bit CPUs had zero page, but block instructions and 16 bit extensions FTW. <3
It's not clear what a "US-aligned market" is anymore, and I think it's reasonable to question US hegemony on any front because of its mercurial treatment toward its "allies".
Example... the USA effectively bans Chinese EVs and hoped its allies would follow suit. Canada didn't. It actually dropped its 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs down to 6% and, sure enough, seven brands of Chinese EVs are hitting Canadian shores. White House temper tantrums ensued. Shrug. And of course Europe has been importing Chinese EVs for years and loving them.
BC resident. I do look forward to not adjusting to a twice-annual time change. BUT, I would have strongly preferred sticking to Standard Time, year round, instead of DST. That option was apparently not on the table, and strangely got little mention or investigation by media.
So a daily event approximating High Noon is literally gone forever here. Yes yes, depending on longitude, it was never there, but now it's even farther away. Life goes on...
Of all the objective and subjective metrics a home coffee drinker is trying to optimize, never once have I heard anyone care in the least about the watt-hours consumed during the brew process. "I really wish I could drink coffee at room temperature all the time and save a penny on electricity while doing it!" Someone will do the math, I'm sure it's not exactly a penny.
TL;DR: Aiming for a high-volume industrial goal, tone-deaf to coffee enthusiasts.
If you're looking for a specific product to try, check out Ombrelle and also La Roche-Posay's Anthelios line. I share this as a Canadian (bemotrizinol has been available here for years), but check the ingredients because it may vary by country because of regulations.
Aside: I did a bunch of sunscreen research some time ago for my family. I like the non-absorbing/non-reactive aspect of mineral screens but settled on a chemical screen and bemotrizinol seemed favoured but we landed instead on the Kinesys brand of sprays which we love because they're very waterproof and sweatproof in our experience but they feel like almost nothing. YMMV.
Indeed. The corporation name is literally (in literature!) an example of all-seeing surveillance tools causing harm when (not if) they fall into evil hands.
Fair enough and thanks for the correction. I think my point may still stand: between the LLM or the Chief ... which decision maker will be most in tune with the long-term common good of the populace?
Agreed. But I'm not sure sure which decision maker is more myopic toward the big picture and long-lasting implications of a decision: an LLM, or the top brass at the Department Of War.
Yeah, I agree. We have a large and persuasive LNG industry influencing government policy.
Not a lot of critical discussion is permitted because of the sheer money at stake. So many resource corporations, their employees, towns, and a heavily lobbied government don't want to sit and have a rational discussion about, oh, say, "How and when will we ween ourselves off LNG because we should?" :-|
Sure, but nearly half the population of Canada west of Ontario is in BC (5.0M out of 11.8M west of Ontario), and 92% of BC's electric generation comes from hydro (89%) and wind (3%). I like these numbers.
The bulk of the rest of the west's population is Alberta and they generate most of their electricity from natural gas. That province is Canada's sore spot from an emissions and CO2 perspective.
I disagree. Witness western democracies which have seen incompetent majorities lead populist rebellions to control powerful seats in government, including the highest. Incompetence in large numbers definitely leads to big changes.
There may be a very very small amount of competence orchestrating and puppetmastering, but the rebellion works best when the majority of its supporters act on impulse and stop reasoning and thinking critically about the consequences of their vote (or decision not to).
Tell gamers how many months, for the advertised price, they will receive a guaranteed level of service and features for.
Then let gamers decide.
Example: If I'm reminded, at purchase time, that this $70 game will work online for 24 months and single-player offline for 36 months, then I can make an informed decision before I buy. Studios would be forced to bring their business plan into visibility and be held to a level of service, and then gamers can't complain when a game is "switched off" according to plan.
This is already implied, just not explicit and quantified in advance.
Personally, I wouldn't buy a game that had early expiry of online already contemplated. And offline play should be rich and complete indefinitely. But I still live in the glorious console cartridge era in my head and in my emulators.
Appreciate the pushback, saltyoldman. Yes, we want to respond to credible threats. And, as always, courts and law enforcement can invade privacy when there's reason to believe someone is worth surveilling. But we're talking here about widespread, extremely cheap, technically easy surveillance of potentially everyone at all times. That's the endgame that some commercial and government interests have in mind.
Would you agree that sometimes an uptick in theoretical safety is not worth a downtick of definite lost liberties?
Perhaps, depending on specific intent, credibility, and the nature of harm threatened.
But since this is about surveillance, I hope that detection of verbal threats is not a goal of government surveillance because it's difficult to imagine how that could be accomplished without significant loss of privacy or other liberties.
Coded stuff. Cofounded companies and a charity. Successes & failures. http://bitmason.com
Darren Stone, Vancouver, BC, Canada