MarkLowenstein

7 ms·

31.
by MarkLowenstein 2y ago
This presumes that a very large fraction of Roku users asked for motion smoothing/soap opera effect. I would be surprised. (1) Most people I've pointed it out to say "I can't tell the difference". (2) None of thos
32.
by MarkLowenstein 2y ago
I don't have a good solution for that. Perhaps we're finding out why people have come up with weird terms like "naughts" or saying "aught-five".
33.
by MarkLowenstein 2y ago
Could make the convention to say "the twenty hundreds" when referring to [2000, 2100), and "the two thousands" for [2000, 3000).
34.
by MarkLowenstein 2y ago
A lot of this runaround is happening because people get hung up on the fact that the "AD" era began as AD 1. But that year is not magic--it didn't even correlate with the year of Jesus's birth or death. So let's jus
35.
by MarkLowenstein 2y ago
It's also a logically trivial statement. There is no threshold for "best"--food quality is a matter of degree. So you can cite any date at all and justifiably say the food is "best" before that date.
36.
by MarkLowenstein 3y ago
2023: fascinating We really live in a new world today It's crucial that we look ahead to the threats of tomorrow 2024: cyber attack on a ship? Conspiracy theory Grow up Live in the real world
37.
by MarkLowenstein 3y ago
I would not be able to tell if these slider toggles were saying "yes" or "no" without them going from gray to green. How do colorblind people deal with them? That the whole world adopted these abominations, when there wa
38.
by MarkLowenstein 3y ago
PDQ Bach is funny to young people and musical neophytes, and even funnier the more erudite you are. Every time I read or hear another PDQ score, book, or record, I find jokes that I wouldn't have gotten even two weeks before.
39.
by MarkLowenstein 3y ago
Hilarious writing by the Kingdom of Nouns guy. Dave Barry-esque.
40.
by MarkLowenstein 3y ago
Interesting contrast. No question that Windows wastes a lot of one's time. Probably most people guess that Linux will waste more of their time, because they may not be able to learn easily enough what you've learned about how to
41.
by MarkLowenstein 3y ago
Whatever you don't pay for in money, you pay for in your time. I was pointed to this phenomenon by the book Suburban Nation thirty years ago, and it continues to explain so much.
42.
by MarkLowenstein 3y ago
Anything subjective that doesn't fix an identifiable execution problem must be explicitly labeled as a suggestion . You don't get first choice over the code because you are asked to be the reviewer. You are there to (1) catch mis
43.
by MarkLowenstein 3y ago
More like eliminate everything except Daylight Savings Time.
44.
by MarkLowenstein 4y ago
Voice assistants do have a lot of potential due to the fantastic ergonomics. "Voice command line" is used as a pejorative here but it's true and a good thing. The original visionaries were right to pursue this idea. To me
45.
by MarkLowenstein 4y ago
Great point. People still confuse primary colors and click-and-drag with easy learning. But here's how everyone understood a computer would work, before they saw anything else: GREETINGS PROFESSOR FALKEN. Hello. HOW ARE YOU FEELING TOD
46.
by MarkLowenstein 4y ago
This C64 simulator is proof that there is a legitimate need for the Caps Lock key.
47.
by MarkLowenstein 4y ago
Or just tax the original sugar production or importation and be done with all the complexity of chasing down a million food companies across thousands of jurisdictions. (Or let people eat whatever they want and stop being a busybody.)
48.
by MarkLowenstein 4y ago
Great article. Hits the best points without wasting time on minutia. That is the other heuristic when describing a problem and reporting what you already learned, that makes the whole process an art: keep it short!
49.
by MarkLowenstein 4y ago
It's a deceptive title, but it comes straight from the blog post. It's not going to teach you about straws (thankfully...are straws that interesting?). It tells you about the sources of plastic waste in general and justifies the m
50.
by MarkLowenstein 5y ago
I believe the major advantage of lists is that they make it easy to block out all the chaff from the rest of the prose, allowing you to comfortably concentrate on the current item. That's the same advantage provided by well-chosen ta
51.
by MarkLowenstein 5y ago
They were saved only by an emergency captive-breeding program. I'm hoping liberalism doesn't require the same intervention!
52.
by MarkLowenstein 5y ago
Very few people understand why free speech/assembly is valuable anymore. That's why it is going extinct faster than the California condor. The intelligence of the people is the security of the nation. --Daniel Webster
53.
by MarkLowenstein 5y ago
This is why I haven't let my Firefox update itself for the last 1.5 years. The kids are in charge; you can't trust the product.
54.
by MarkLowenstein 5y ago
Was that really the point? When people anxiously awaited their chance to get the vaccine in January 2021, were they thinking "ooh I can't wait to free up hospital beds"? Or was it "great now I can be immune and be done
55.
by MarkLowenstein 5y ago
Have you ever hand-written a word but want to hide it? One cross-out line doesn't do the trick. In fact, a full minute of trying to hide it with an ugly darkened-in box usually doesn't even do it. But if you just write a couple ra
56.
by MarkLowenstein 5y ago
Also PRQL/Prequel is a great name. Just that can take you far.
57.
by MarkLowenstein 5y ago
IMO you are at the forefront of where query languages need to and will go. Some programmers like you see that SQL ordering is backwards to human thinking, except in the simplest cases. But many people with practice and sunk costs in their S
58.
by MarkLowenstein 5y ago
This is often the opinion of people who don't see a cost to them. I'm going to guess that (1) You don't live near one of these tracks where violence may occur and violent individuals are congregating. (2) You don't know
59.
by MarkLowenstein 5y ago
I'm with you. If I got basic income I would absolutely quit work and not go back. The burden is now on these researchers to find at least two people who would go to work only if basic income were instituted, to balance us out.
60.
by MarkLowenstein 5y ago
Look at this like playing Tetris. If you're at the bottom on a fresh screen, you can lay out nice layers and drop that vertical in for four-liners at a pretty regular pace. Optimal results, and you can handle the less-convenient pieces

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