vertnerd

7 ms·

31.
by vertnerd 1y ago
I figured that one out years before chat gpt existed but it generated a tsunami of pushback from everyone. Americans, at least, believe that study time is to grades as work is to salary. Learning be damned.
32.
by vertnerd 1y ago
I've had the same Miele HEPA vacuum cleaner for 35 years. I've replaced various pieces on it over the years. The bags are still available. It refuses to become obsolete.
33.
by vertnerd 1y ago
Comic relief from the real dystopia. From my local paper (in New Hampshire) today: "There are ... bills tied to energy production that Republicans hope will boost crypto here. One would define “off-grid electricity providers” as entiti
34.
by vertnerd 1y ago
Maybe we'll be able to pay for our browser again? I used to pay for Opera, and I'd be happy to pay for a good browser like Firefox, too. Just like I pay for my Kagi search engine. If the browser is worth something to you, then it&
35.
by vertnerd 1y ago
I'm a little older now, over 60. I'm writing a spaceflight simulator for fun and (possible) profit. From game assets to coding, it seems like AI could help. But every time I try it out, I just end up feeling drained by the process
36.
by vertnerd 2y ago
I'm not an economist, and my statistics background is definitely sub-par. But as I read this article, I couldn't help feeling something was off. For something of this importance, I would think the author would want to avoid mangli
37.
by vertnerd 2y ago
Thank you so much for writing this. I am a solo game developer working on a vintage-styled spacecraft simulator, tearing his hair out over the cockpit typeface problem. I recognized the classic Apollo spacecraft from the sign engraving tool
38.
by vertnerd 2y ago
I learned 6502 as a teenager in the 70s (after learning 6800 first). When 68k came along, I immediately recognized it was a superior architecture. Nevertheless, when I went to teach a short intro to CPU class to high school students recentl
39.
by vertnerd 2y ago
I used Desmos quite a bit as an instructional tool for high school math. They are funded through relationships with several companies, but most notably the standardized testing industry, which uses it with their online tests. Over ten years
40.
by vertnerd 2y ago
Here's another quirky angle: I am developing a C#-based virtual Forth machine ( https://github.com/Eccentric-Anomalies/AMC-Forth ) that can be embedded in games made with the Godot engine. I am using it as the FMS f
41.
by vertnerd 2y ago
I did this once with a rectifier, long antenna and an earpiece. In those days (50 years ago), strong AM radio stations were common, and I did indeed listen to several stations at the same time. If nothing else, it builds an appreciation for
42.
by vertnerd 2y ago
You are correct. The best way I've found to build electrical intuition is to build circuits and experiment with them. It takes time.
43.
by vertnerd 2y ago
As a former high school math teacher, I interpreted "general math" as a class intended for students who have not been successful with the typical grade-level math curriculum. That is a situation where teachers need to get creative
44.
Thomas Kurtz, Co-Creator of Basic, Has Passed(legacy.com)
10 points by vertnerd 2y ago|1 comments
45.
by vertnerd 2y ago
As a child in the 70s, I spent endless hours at teletype terminals connected to the Dartmouth time-sharing system, writing programs in BASIC, the language he and Kemeny designed for ordinary people.
46.
by vertnerd 2y ago
I am no theologian, but this seemed like an interesting topic until I started reading the article, which likely could have been summarized in a paragraph or two. The relentless onslaught of advertisements and white space made me want to cla
47.
by vertnerd 2y ago
I am spending my retirement working part-time on a realistic spacecraft simulator (3D, VR) set in the late 20th century on a fictional moon made of Tungsten ("Tungsten Moon"). For some reason, I decided the spacecraft needs a &quo
48.
by vertnerd 2y ago
They often don't. Consider phenylephrine, the OTC replacement ingredient for the original Sudafed formula. If you ever felt like it didn't do a damned thing for nasal congestion, then you'd be right. https://www.nb
49.
by vertnerd 2y ago
Now I have to watch it again . How did I never notice.. ? I thought this was going to be about the other scratches that are visible in the film: the ones on the piece of glass that is used to create the illusion of a floating pen. I neve
50.
by vertnerd 2y ago
Feynman grapples with the question the same way we would grapple with a question from a child: "why is the sky blue?" If you drill down into the explanation, you ultimately reach a statement that everyone just accepts as true, or
51.
by vertnerd 2y ago
Eight years ago, when I bought my first Nissan Leaf, I was astonished to learn that the process of charging the car at a CHAdeMO station was entirely different from the process of filling a gasoline car. Eight years later, with a wallet ful
52.
by vertnerd 2y ago
I am building my very first computer game, Tungsten Moon, a VR+desktop spaceflight simulator with realistic physics and engineering, inspired by Orbiter, Eagle Lander 3D, and a little bit of Subnautica: https://tungstenmoon.com&#
53.
by vertnerd 2y ago
It makes living in the state extraordinarily pleasant, too!
54.
by vertnerd 2y ago
"Helium is notoriously difficult to contain. Its atoms are some of the tiniest in the universe." It's a good article, and I learned a lot, but every so often it reads like something an 8th grader would write the night before
55.
by vertnerd 2y ago
I toured the Ludington Pumped Storage Plant when I was a child, in the early 70s, over 50 years ago! It was built on land that is as flat as a pancake, with the only geographical convenience being easy access to Lake Michigan. I am impresse
56.
by vertnerd 2y ago
Do you have a CO2 monitor? I bought one during Covid to monitor the classroom I teach in. I was surprised by how bad it got: well over 1000 ppm. When I brought the monitor home, I was surprised all over again by 1000+ ppm levels with just a
57.
by vertnerd 2y ago
It is a joke or a riddle, depending on your point of view. I used to be a high school math/science teacher, so this fits in at the intersection of those. If we have national standards for physical things like length, or mass, why not a
58.
by vertnerd 2y ago
I really liked the scripting language for defining 3D scenes; I bet today you could have an interactive UI that shows the scene in real-time as you modify the script. The last scene I rendered, about 14 years ago, was a picture of the NIST
59.
by vertnerd 2y ago
We keep chickens, but I rarely find them in trees. We also keep a heritage breed of turkey, the Royal Palm, and those guys love to sleep in the trees. If you ever decide to start keeping chickens or turkeys, you will discover that most of t
60.
by vertnerd 2y ago
At the same time, the New York Times (also paywalled) is writing about how some states (California) are extending solar and existing power sources using batteries: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/0

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