perrygeo

16 ms·

271.
by perrygeo 1y ago
> All the stats I'm aware of show fossil fuel usage going down but I'm sure there is more context to the data I'm missing. The research you're thinking about shows that fossil fuel usage is declining as a percentage
272.
by perrygeo 1y ago
True, the solar potential could theoretically cover what we lose from fossil fuels. We could building a dyson sphere around the sun. But the mere existence of energy is not the same thing as a proven economical way to capture it.
273.
by perrygeo 1y ago
And the manufacturing. And transport, installation, maintenance. There is no part of the "renewables" supply chain that has ever been free of fossil fuels. Curious how we hope to repair solar panels wind turbines and hydroelectric
274.
by perrygeo 1y ago
Those machines don't provide energy , they simply capture it. We get our energy from solar radiation, either directly or stored in underground carbon bonds. We burned through our oil reserves, which represent the solar energy of milli
275.
by perrygeo 1y ago
Growth and the good times are over because the resources that provided that growth are dwindling. Peak oil is almost certainly behind us and everyone knows it, shifting their foreign policy accordingly. Recent events have laid bare that the
276.
by perrygeo 1y ago
> all stand-ins for a lack of BE engineering. Well, yes, any dependency is technically a "lack of engineering". That's kinda the point - engineering capacity is limited and should be directed towards core business differen
277.
by perrygeo 1y ago
For me it's critical that the note capture mechanism be unstructured and entirely free form. Typing notes on a keyboard just doesn't work when much of the things I need to keep note of are non-linear, non-verbal, relational, or sp
278.
by perrygeo 1y ago
Drawing a sample of Saturns from an infinite set of Saturns! It's completely absurd, but that's what you get when you take a mathematical tool for coin flips and apply it to larger scientific questions. I wonder if the generality
279.
by perrygeo 1y ago
Frequentists stats aren't wrong. It's just a special case that has been elevated to unreasonable standards. When the physical phenomenon in question is truly random, frequentist methods can be a convenient mathematical shortcut. B
280.
by perrygeo 1y ago
Mermaid is the Javascript of charting languages - we use not because it's good but because it's there.
281.
by perrygeo 1y ago
Measuring tree "depth" (ie canopy height) is a critical tool for conservation biology to monitor the world's forests. We already do this using remotely sensed data correlated against ground truth, which relies on specific opt
282.
by perrygeo 1y ago
The base property you can test for on every function is "does this crash or return?"
283.
by perrygeo 1y ago
unwrap() is fine for experimental and WIP code. But it's a code smell for production. I usually do a git grep for unwrap and go one of two ways: 1. convert to an expect() - even if a panic is fine, you at least owe the future reader an
284.
by perrygeo 1y ago
> Limiting work in progress – solving one problem at a time – increases delivery throughput This. Juggling 17 tasks is not a badge of honor. It just shows the world that you have neither the focus to prioritize nor the talent to execute
285.
by perrygeo 1y ago
> The design was in my head, and with hindsight I could see all its flaws. I was therefore able to [re]create a much more efficient and effective design based on that learning. All the mistakes had been made, so I was able to get this ve
286.
by perrygeo 1y ago
I agree with this more daily. Converting a dictionary into a list of records when you known that's what you want ... easy, mechanical, boring af, and something we should almost obviously outsource to machines. LLMs are great at this. D
287.
by perrygeo 1y ago
I like WSL for this single reason too - it gives me space to run isolated experiments without touching my primary OS. So if that's what windows users get out of it, cool. You can do the same thing with many other technologies on most o
288.
by perrygeo 1y ago
> Even seventh graders can see artificial intelligence is a lesser form of care and attention. Hard disagree. They quite reasonably view mindless bullshit assignments as bullshit. AI introduced as a tool to produce more bullshit just mak
289.
by perrygeo 1y ago
Exactly. h or j repeated is widely dismissed as inefficient. But that ignores two important things: First, you can hold down h or j and use visual clues to know when to stop. It's one keypress on the homerow, no reason to even glance a
290.
by perrygeo 1y ago
Funny, I was thinking exactly the opposite. Stack traces, logs, test failures, warning, etc will always reference an absolute number. If you want to tell a coworker where to find a section of code, you use the absolute number. Relative numb
291.
by perrygeo 1y ago
I think I get the analogy, something like: you can append to the record but everything is still record-based? And what do garden gnomes have to do with it :-)
292.
by perrygeo 1y ago
When TV came to American homes in the 1950s, it was a revolution in our national shared consciousness (for better or worse). Obviously there are problems with this - it gives the advertisers and businesses enormous unchecked power to shape
293.
by perrygeo 1y ago
Despite using vim and neovim for over 20 years, I'm still apparently a caveman when it comes to navigating. I both love and hate that this plugin calls me out for it. The "Hardtime Report" is a great feature, really shows jus
294.
by perrygeo 1y ago
Good point. It's not that AI is "pushing us" towards anything. AI can be a muse that elevates our creativity. IF we use it that way. But do we use it that way? I think there will be some who do. The majority of users seem to
295.
by perrygeo 1y ago
S-expressions really are the game changer. Especially in a functional lisp with immutable data structures. You can lift and shift forms around with reckless abandon and never cause a bug. You're not typing characters that eventually ge
296.
by perrygeo 1y ago
I get that. I just don't get why you frame it as an either/or question as though they were mutually exclusive. We can reduce data center emissions, and improve tire maintenance. Por que no los dos?
297.
by perrygeo 1y ago
Mid 6 figure DB bill, let's estimate $500k. Divided into 100 million rows (ignore the rest, because db provisioning is typically dominated by the needs of a few core tables). They get 200 rows per dollar. Your table on a small VPS (whi
298.
by perrygeo 1y ago
I don't understand the "whatboutism" angle. Running LLMs requires massive amounts of electricity and water. Period. That beef consumption and other activities also require massive amounts of resources is independent. Both can
299.
by perrygeo 1y ago
Offshore workers and generative AI have a lot in common. Little formal training. Lots of book smarts but zero context. Performs ok at well specified tasks, extremely poorly otherwise. Cannot understand human-written design documents with en
300.
by perrygeo 1y ago
Wonderful insight that I'd never considered. Talk to almost anyone in America and they'll tell you about a health issue that they or their family are deferring due to lack of access. Waiting months or years to simply talk to a spe

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