retrac

58 ms·

871.
by retrac 4y ago
Others have already mentioned cheques, and those were standard for most non-urgent matters. But in a loose sense, electronic payment has been around for quite a while. 50 or 100 years ago, a business with a large, outstanding tax debt m
872.
by retrac 4y ago
Here in Canada, taxes can be paid in person at a retail bank, or the post office.
873.
by retrac 4y ago
> 1.4% of sales What are the margins in typical retail? If 10%, then that's some 10% of the margin lost to shrink. > In 2021, retail shrink hit $94.5 billion, I realize the economy as a whole is big, but that's still a pre
874.
by retrac 4y ago
> on top of this is the accent discrimination This is already illegal in any decent country. It's certainly illegal in at least the US, Canada, UK, and Germany. Assuming the person can actually communicate well enough for the job,
875.
by retrac 4y ago
It is fortunate that the retailers you've chosen haven't messed up, or gone out of business, or been malicious. But so long as the ability to access the content is in their hands and determined on their end, it is an ongoing risk
876.
by retrac 4y ago
What's a "true picture"? Even in traditional film photography, you can easily get "untrue" pictures. Film is sensitive to UV and near infrared, so filters can create very unreal imagery. And multiple exposure can
877.
by retrac 4y ago
Many major cities had systems like this. Toronto's peaked before WW II, stretching over some five blocks from Front St. to Adelaide, with branches over to Yonge and the Royal York Hotel, reaching about a dozen buildings. They ran the
878.
by retrac 4y ago
> nothing big seems to have happened yet There's been some cool stuff in the speech area: https://ai.googleblog.com/2021/02/lyra-new-very-low-bitrate-... Also from Microsoft: https://techcommuni
879.
by retrac 4y ago
The "Net" in NetBSD (the first open source BSD community to coalesce after the lawsuits settled) refers to that, it's the network operating system. And not really in the sense of an OS for networks (though it certainly is
880.
by retrac 4y ago
It's perhaps less "everything will be fine" and more "whatever happens, you're in good hands". A certain confident assertiveness, even when there's nothing to be confident about. I've not had the ex
881.
by retrac 4y ago
> not sharing data via USB USB is a very intelligent protocol, with a microcontrollor on both ends. The controller has access to at least the driver's state, which is usually in the kernel and potentially has access to system memor
882.
by retrac 4y ago
It's not even recommended for me in my country. Canada and Ontario currently recommend three rounds of the monovalent vaccine for healthy younger adults without immunocompromise. The large majority of the population has recieved those
883.
by retrac 4y ago
Whether CBC is actually neutral and non-partisan is something of a perennial political issue in Canada. I personally would say it is. A lot of the country disagrees. The opposition party wishes to cancel it. Opinion polls indicate the p
884.
by retrac 4y ago
> If people don't want treatment, we should ask what's wrong with the treatment This reasoning works with most illnesses, including most mental health problems. But it sort of falls apart with psychotic illness. A common symp
885.
by retrac 4y ago
Schizophrenia is not an all or nothing. It's not like one resistor fries and suddenly they're hearing voices completely indistinguishable from reality. Some people have partial or even significant insight into their illness. Th
886.
by retrac 4y ago
Agreed. A cheap 40 watt soldering iron is really meant for touching up plumbing. And a cheap 10 watt one will cool down too quickly. Electronics are heat sensitive. A reliable solder joint needs to heat quickly, flux stripping off any ox
887.
by retrac 4y ago
Huntington's disease looks nothing like dancing yet it's called chorea, which is Greek for dance. I believe that the term was historically used rather loosely for a variety of involuntary movement/neurological symptoms we mi
888.
by retrac 4y ago
To add to that, you add the solder to the heated part and it will flow into the point you're soldering. Don't try to transfer it from the iron or paste it on the spot semi-melted.
889.
by retrac 4y ago
I recently wanted to look something up related to Mesopotamia. Well into the weeds of scholarship. The only transcription of the text I wanted as far as I could determine was in a book written in the 1930s of which there are only a handfu
890.
by retrac 4y ago
Unless I misread things, the article is about a hypothesis, that before the current era, many tens to hundreds of thousands of years ago, humans were in a stable population state ("pre-Malthusian"), and so most humans were mostly
891.
by retrac 4y ago
The sheer number of people with free time and who are able to communicate long distances with others who share their interests (whether practical or frivolous) seems to often be left out of these discussions. Right now there are a billio
892.
by retrac 4y ago
For those wondering how it could have survived for decades with no one finding proof, it is hard to overstate how remote and unpopulated parts of Tasmania are. Almost half of the island is a national park, and has almost no roads or settle
893.
by retrac 4y ago
> make it smart via an Apple TV I repurpose the old laptops that I seem to accumulate for this. Just about anything made in the last 10 years can handle at least 1080p video, and will have an HDMI output. I add a small wireless keyboar
894.
by retrac 4y ago
Indeed. We are anthropomorphizing them. I do it all the time and I should know better. There are already a few reports floating around of people who have seemingly been driven mad, come to believe strongly that the language model they
895.
by retrac 4y ago
I don't think you will find a satisfying answer. But some random jumbled thoughts that come to my mind: Among the Dyirbal traditionally there was a strong avoidance taboo with certain relatives: > The overarching feature of all Aus
896.
by retrac 4y ago
> Having money based on a scarcity is how our human economies functioned Well, yes, but did they function particularly well? For example, if you tie your money to an economically scarce good, if technological or political developments re
897.
by retrac 4y ago
Well I'm not qualified to say. But I would note that many authoritarian regimes that could use drugs in interrogation routinely if they wished to, do not do so. In the USSR, the KGB did use sodium thiopental in interrogations, but v
898.
by retrac 4y ago
Versed, midazolam, is a very potent, fast-acting benzodiazepine, in the same class as Valium and Xanax. It causes amnesia, sedation, euphoria, muscle relaxation, relief of anxiety, and at high doses anaesthesia. There's nothing new he
899.
by retrac 4y ago
This is very close to some thinking I've had. As we're finding, there's very few fixed points between the model and its tokens, and reality. In a more traditional rules-based AI, the designers create fixed points as they go
900.
by retrac 4y ago
Some of them seem to have been drawn with a plotter.

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