blendo

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31.
by blendo 1y ago
In the 1980s, I very much took to heart Grace Hopper’s advice that it’s easier to apologize than to get permission. This suited 20-something me just fine. Now I’m more in the camp of “Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes f
32.
by blendo 1y ago
I started programming professionally in 1980, so this video hits close to home. My own observation is that more “aesthetic” code is often more readable.
33.
by blendo 1y ago
AC is overly complex and too reactive.
34.
by blendo 1y ago
I’ve seen cars improve a lot over that last 10-20 years. Faster, smoother, quieter, and safer, they can cruise all day at 80-90 mph. Sadly, this is completely incompatible with 25 mph city speed limits. Thus, the need for engineering kludg
35.
by blendo 2y ago
“The event started Tuesday morning and ended Thursday afternoon. A source in the room this week explained that the event was “very unstructured.” On Tuesday, engineers wandered around the room discussing how to accomplish DOGE’s goal.” It’s
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by blendo 2y ago
As a private pilot, I always carefully watch the safety videos on the off-chance they’ll help me avoid dying.
37.
by blendo 2y ago
What’s the margin of error of each question? What is the risk the stats have been gamed by bad actors?
38.
by blendo 2y ago
Text entry fields that don’t look like text entry fields.
39.
by blendo 2y ago
I knew it as “The principle of least astonishment”.
40.
by blendo 2y ago
Back in the 90s, they were the “suits”. Andreessen, Scott McNealy, & Ellison were, to me, the ones that left a particularly bad taste.
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by blendo 2y ago
It appears there are no checks and balances in place. Congress could impeach, or the Supreme Court could enjoin (is that the word?), but I see no prospect of either happening soon.
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by blendo 2y ago
“SOA does not collect any vehicle-generated data unless the vehicle is associated with an active STARLINK subscription service. To sign up for the STARLINK service, you must have a MySubaru account.” https://www.subaru.com/s
43.
by blendo 2y ago
Did users have to explicitly sign up for Starlink in order to enable tracking? Or is that the default behavior for all new Subarus? And, can this tracking be deactivated? I have a Mazda, and it required a phone call to Mazda to get it disab
44.
by blendo 2y ago
Prior to retirement, I cut back to 32 hrs/week at 80% pay (well, closer to 85% because I kept my full health). I backfilled the pay cut by beginning a small 401k withdrawl. All of a sudden, every Thursday evening felt like the start o
45.
by blendo 2y ago
Is that why all the “next arrival time” displays on SF’s bus stops stopped working several years ago?
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by blendo 2y ago
I used to try and stare at the inside of my eyelids, as if looking at a TV screen. It seemed like once images started to appear, while my eyes were closed, my brain began to think it was dreaming and just gave up on being awake :-)
47.
by blendo 2y ago
“The city already has more than a dozen red light cameras that automatically ticket motorists who run the red. Since 2019, those cameras have been used to issue over 56,000 citations, according to Sernoffsky. That figure, which isn’t includ
48.
by blendo 2y ago
In 1985 I had fun implementing Tower of Hanoi on a Tektronix 4115 using Fortran. With recursion, even! What a wonderful waste of government hardware.
49.
by blendo 2y ago
Yikes! Did it also have a blast suppressor? Those things make gunshots MUCH louder to folks beside you.
50.
by blendo 2y ago
In my experience, the rubbery Apple ear tips in the AirPods have better sound isolation and audio quality, but foam aftermarket tips better keep the AirPods from falling out.
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by blendo 2y ago
Yes, +1 for etymotic. I’ve used them for years.
52.
by blendo 2y ago
I used the WSPR protocol to send a message from San Francisco to Georgia using a 250 milliWatt transmitter, operating in 20m. It sends tiny messages (current lat/long, transmitter power, and your call sign) with so much error correctin
53.
by blendo 2y ago
I’m imagining quite the redneck-y front yard.
54.
by blendo 2y ago
I read Orwell’s 1984 in junior high in the 1970s, during the Nixon/Viet Nam era. I started it thinking it was just another scifi book about the future, but it served as a really good inoculation against governmental lies and cant.
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by blendo 2y ago
“Radian’s solution is a rocket-powered sled that runs along a two-mile rail and accelerates up to Mach 0.7 — 537 mph (864 kilometers per hour) — before releasing the space plane”. Once released from the rail track (a flat track at ground le
56.
by blendo 2y ago
And also says struggled with speech and language began BEFORE the pandemic.
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by blendo 2y ago
If they had ultra-wideband transceivers on each vehicle, wouldn’t that let them determine direction and location down to maybe (i’m guessing) 10 cm? If all cars could detect these kinds of beacons, i’d want a transmitter on my bicycle. Or,
58.
by blendo 2y ago
Still, I’d rather see empty Waymos bumbling around a parking lot than seeing empty Waymos clogging up our SF streets, and (observed twice recently) blocking pedestrian crosswalks. Still, I wish Waymo had at fielded a vehicle smaller than a
59.
by blendo 2y ago
I’m a little concerned the turbocharged engine are built to run just a little too close to the edge. Sad to see, as the GT Corolla will soon have an optional automatic transmission. That, and 4 doors, make it a barely acceptable family car.
60.
by blendo 2y ago
Check your owners manual to see if this type of data collection can be disabled. For our 2021 Mazda, it required a phone call to Mazda. For real security, I’d like to pull the modem fuse, but i know neither which fuse to pull, nor if other

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