scott-smith_us

8 ms·

31.
by scott-smith_us 4y ago
Sodastream. I was tilting back five or six cans of diet soda every day. The cost and caffeine were getting to be a problem.
32.
by scott-smith_us 4y ago
You can learn all the biochemistry about a strawberry, but actually _tasting_ one is going to be a new experience. I don't see any need to bring in metaphysics to explain this (in fact, doing so indicates a confusion of ideas to me). W
33.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
Maybe it's just me, but... When you're writing anything non-trivial, you ought to have something new and/or interesting to say, otherwise you're just adding noise to the environment. I can see this being useful in findin
34.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
> Also everyone should read Vernor Vinge's "Rainbows End" I often wonder if the AI in "Rainbows End" becomes the "Power" that gets resurrected in "Fire upon the Deep". . . . *SPOILER!* The
35.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
I've read Blindsight, but wasn't aware of Echopraxia. I'll look for it. One common disappointment I have with sci-fi is how often AIs or alien intelligence are so close to human intelligence. In the Star Trek universe, every
36.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
I was reading through a list of Hugo and Nebula award winning books (fairly late in life) when I discovered Vernor Vinge. "A Fire Upon the Deep" and also "A Deepness in the Sky" were both astonishingly great books. After
37.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
This makes a lot of sense to me. MS Windows could really use a "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT?" feature. From the first version of Windows with networking, a Windows install had a lifespan of a few years, after which simple
38.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
This was certainly true when I was a kid, and "universe" meant "all existing matter and space (observable or not)". As a youtube-couch expert on astrophysics, I hear "universe" redefined as something like &quot
39.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
...but then wouldn't it make sense to say something like "nearby region of the universe"? Somehow the word "universe" in the phrase "nearby universe" seems redundant (e.g. where ELSE would it be?)
40.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
"Nearby Universe"?
41.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
There's a quote that I'm too lazy to look up that essentially says software development is the management of complexity. That, more than any other description, has always resonated with me. Any beginner can create a bird's ne
42.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
> I know people who never update their machine because of this. HA! I was just testing a VR app that has a Windows component when things started failing in VR. I took off my headset and noticed my test machine going through power-on self
43.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
I used to work with a "GUI Expert" who designed everything like the 100-radio-button example, except that he didn't line anything up. I'd look at something he'd done with controls snaking left and right as you scann
44.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
I had one of these when I was in my early twenties. I had been trying to locate a persistent crash that seemed to occur randomly in a modem terminal written in 6502 assembly. I'd been at this non-stop for weeks, and had been just worki
45.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
Every time I see stuff like this, it reminds me of Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer". If/when technology switches over to the micro-mechanical, we'll suddenly all be scr
46.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
Ah. I wondered about their choice of chain type vs a ball/bead chain. Now it makes sense.
47.
by scott-smith_us 5y ago
In high school I took electronics and learned enough about capacitors, inductors and transistors to design and test simple circuits. I'd gotten a Radio Shack "100-in-1" kit when I was in fifth grade, but the projects within w
48.
by scott-smith_us 6y ago
I've always said this.
49.
by scott-smith_us 6y ago
Posted stories get so much more love if you don't mind misleading people in the title
50.
by scott-smith_us 6y ago
There isn't any direct evidence that it was leaked from a lab, but there isn't any evidence that it wasn't... Sheesh. We're in Glenn Beck territory now.
51.
by scott-smith_us 6y ago
"New, reformulated George Orwell v2" (since it's an entirely new product, copyright starts over)
52.
by scott-smith_us 6y ago
> ...accused the website of hosting sexual videos of underage and nonconsenting women... So, it sounds like credit card companies' main goal is to not support exploitation of underage and non-consenting women. Pornhub is removing al
53.
by scott-smith_us 6y ago
> "Mars is the only planet in the solar system which is entirely populated by robots from Planet Earth." I guess this is really saying that there are no active probes on the surface of any of the other (inner/rocky) planet
54.
by scott-smith_us 6y ago
It really bugs me when I hear of institutions paying these ransoms. Regardless of the damage, I'd just take the bullet, fix my security, and not pay. Be consistent in this, and keep it up for a while. Long term: no more extortion for a
55.
by scott-smith_us 6y ago
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I'm just glad that Hynix is still intact.
56.
by scott-smith_us 6y ago
> if I free myself from intellectual rigor and data/evidence based claims, and allow myself to focus on emotion, vague statements, and anecdote, I can paint whatever picture I want Well said. This needs to be carved in granite somew
57.
by scott-smith_us 6y ago
There seems to be a belief among a small percentage of otherwise non-magical-thinking scientists that life or intelligence requires some extra ingredient that isn't covered by chemistry or physics in general. They assert that no machin
58.
by scott-smith_us 6y ago
BeyondCompare is an absolute workhorse for me. It's kind of amazing how many unrelated tasks involve directory and file comparison.
59.
by scott-smith_us 7y ago
LOL. I thought I was the only one...
60.
by scott-smith_us 7y ago
I struggle with the same problem. One trick I've learned is to keep a separate list of "low-barrier" tasks for those times when I just can't get started on something important. I get a big emotional boost from getting th

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