jlturner

Reminds me of stumbleupon, which despite taking you to a random page, was excellent because most of the pages were worth viewing.

From the linked paper (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-11341-2):

…measures of intelligence at baseline (ages 9–10) and after two years. At baseline, time watching (r = − 0.12) and socializing (r = − 0.10) were negatively correlated with intelligence, while gaming did not correlate. After two years, gaming positively impacted intelligence (standardized β = + 0.17), but socializing had no effect. This is consistent with cognitive benefits documented in experimental studies on video gaming. Unexpectedly, watching videos also benefited intelligence (standardized β = + 0.12), contrary to prior research on the effect of watching TV. Although, in a posthoc analysis, this was not significant if parental education (instead of SES) was controlled for.

A few interesting points:

- This was measured for children 9-10 yo and then two years later (11-12 yo). Children is a very broad category, but they’re not talking about toddlers, but closer to adolescence.

- Watching videos has a positive correlation similar to playing video games (but not quite as great), but only when parental education rather than socioeconomic status is controlled for in the data. Does this imply that the more important factor is how educated the parents are? Or do they mean parental education to be involvement of the parent in educating the child?

Anecdotally, my much younger nephew (almost 5yo) watches YouTube videos on how to draw Spider-Man and cars. It’s all self directed and stuff that he’s choosing to engage with. as a parent, I definitely see the educational value, and maybe even a glimpse of how unschooling could be effective practice.

If this interests you, it’s worth taking a look at Genetic Programming. I find it to be a simpler approach at the same problem, no math required. It simply recombines programs by their AST, and given some heuristic, optimizes the program for it. The magic is in your heuristic function, where you can choose what you want to optimize for (ie. Speed, program length, minimize complex constructs or function calls, network efficiency, some combination therein, etc).

https://youtu.be/tTMpKrKkYXo

There is also a Python implementation in the repo. I’m using Kubelka-Munk for pigment mixing, but the gradients it produces are so lovely that it really should be used in generative art more.

This is pretty common in 3D work. Blender has a feature called “blend shapes” that implements a similar interface, and is commonly used for complex facial animation and general model parameterization.

The title put on here is very misleading, the actual title from the article is “Fish fed to farmed salmon should be part of our diet, too, study suggests”.

You can swap the batteries in some cars, but it’s still something to have a professional do.

For leaf info: https://github.com/dalathegreat/Nissan-LEAF-Battery-Upgrade

I bought a used EV back in 2016 (2013 Leaf, certified preowned from dealer, just off 3 year lease), and negotiated 25% off asking price, coming in at $9k.

I have had $0 in maintenance costs, the battery health meter (and approx range) is still exactly where it was when I bought it, despite tripling the miles. I drive it every day for in city driving.

Meanwhile my Jeep of the same era required a new crate motor be installed after a cooling failure, and I’m pretty sure the transmission will need replacing in the next 5 years. The repair costs on this vehicle have been well over $10k. We ended up giving it to my sister in law after fixing it up, then bought a Subaru (which the assisted cruise control on is basically highway self driving, so good for long trips!).

A lot of ICE cars end up as junk too. The EV is actually more promising to me BECAUSE of the battery swap. I can put a battery in my Leaf from a newer vehicle and increase range to a couple hundred miles (I’ll do this eventually, maybe in another 10 years). This increases the longevity of the vehicle (it’s a great car aside from range).

Honestly, the Leaf was the best car purchase I’ve ever made (I’ve owned 7 in my life, all for > 10 years, aside from the latest car and another which was stolen). I’d highly recommend people buy used EVs (but I would do a certified preowned vehicle from the dealer again, you want to know that it doesn’t have said costly damage to the vehicle, but that’s true of ICE cars that require major work too).

PS: we use the EV for city driving (easily 90% of our car use) and the ICE car to go long distances (visit relatives, camping, road trips), and only leaves the garage 2-5 times a month (but packs on the miles!).

Maybe a big Google query prefix to hide all major sites?

Just started to learn to sew as an expectant father (to make blankets and clothes) and remembered my favorite interaction design computer science researcher, Takeo Igarashi, and his awesome work on Teddy3D, and later, Plushie.

Plushie is based on the Teddy3D software, which lets you create 3D models by using a 2D drawing interface. Plushie takes it a step further and simulates stuffing and creates a sewing pattern for you to make stuffed animals from.

They have a demo video on the page showing a workshop they did with kids designing and sewing plush toys. Definitely worth a look!

Not true, I have had exes with IUIs and they all had crippling pain and much worse cramping with them. In every case I talked them into get rid of the IUI, and the pain went away.

The best birth control method (as defined by least side effects and max efficacy) I’ve come across is cycle tracking / family planning (called that because you can use it to get pregnant as well as prevent pregnancy). It’s simple (you can only get pregnant at certain times in your cycle), but there’s nothing for pharma to sell (it’s free!). Weirdly, doctors never seem to trust women to go through with it (and always try to push medicated birth control), but it’s easy, even before Apple added it to their products.

See Josef Alber’s Interaction of Color for more information and studies of relative color. It’s a fascinating subject and color theory is very useful for UX and getting more bang with less colors. (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300179354/interaction-of...)

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Aquarium aside they’re a major oceanographic research center and might be what you’re looking for in the environmental space. https://www.mbari.org/

Edit: Just to add, they are a 501(c)3 non profit, you can donate here https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/join-give/ways-to-give/g...

Click bait, the article is written about a median of 500 sampled rivers and lakes in the US. Those could be anything (such as one of numerous superfund site runoff waterways). If you fish, check your local state fish and wildlife department for the lake or river you fish; they post contamination risk per waterway.

It’s true that virtually all are contaminated to some degree, but that may be quite a low risk, and is certainly not “like drinking contaminated water for a month.”

My dad works in the Molecular Foundry division at LBNL / Lawrence Berkeley Labs (Dept of Energy and UC Berkeley), and loves it. He started there 40 years ago working in electron microscopy and oversaw the transition to digital imaging (you’d be surprised how much code they write). Good work life balance (he comes home for lunch everyday), a pension (rare these days!). His favorite part of the job is the revolving door of very smart people using/visiting the lab and getting to interact with so many ambitious (and not yet jaded) younger grad students from UC Berkeley.

+1, switched years ago, never looked back

Maybe it’s time to end variable pay and tipping in the US. It’s ridiculous that restaurant owners can pay waiters less than minimum wage and assume that tips will make the difference in salary (saying nothing of tip theft).

Yes on all accounts.

Single family home asking price is dropping (seems to be around 2019 asking prices), however mortgage costs are increasing faster (due to the Fed increasing rates to combat inflation). Renting is generally more affordable than single family home asking price + mortgage interest.

You can buy all cash (if you can afford it), but it’s still not really a great deal. Investment companies buying up residential real estate on ultra low mortgage rates artificially inflated the price). Companies and individuals who bought at high prices don’t want to sell at a loss, and many have fixed low mortgage interest rates.

It’s currently a standoff between those who want to sell and those who want to buy but can’t afford it. The result is an uptick in rentals and a weak housing market (low volume of sales). Assuming mortgage interest rates continue to climb, the asking prices will continue to fall as owners try to exit the market (hence you buying 30% under asking).

In practice it has felt more collaborative and inclusive. I’m not / don’t work with OP (early stage startup also, < 5 engineers), but our team has been using only Discord for the last few weeks (using only 1 eng room, not 1 room per person like OP).

This is definitely a killer feature on Discord for remote working. Being able to see who is in a room, join ad hoc, and work along side them has greatly reduced communication friction, and I’ve grown to love using (basically only) Discord over Slack + Calendar + Zoom/Meet to manage team communications.

I can attest to having a barking dog being an excellent deterrent. One night about a year ago, somebody was snooping around our backyard (we saw them on the security camera), one sharp bark (from the little dog no less, our bigger dog isn’t much of a barker) sent the snooper running.

I’ve long thought that this could / should be a simple home security system. Glad to see somebody did it and that it worked for them!

I still use my Pixel Qi display from 10 years ago, love the thing. I’m glad people are still working to make reflective display computing a thing.

Bummer, I’ve been a fan of Brother in the past. Owned two monochrome laser printers that have been great over 10 years of service with not a single paper jam.

I’ve been running local Gitea for about 4 years. It works great, no complaints here. I mirror my GitHub repos (and sensitive repos I don’t want to trust on GitHub) and back up the hard drives with BackBlaze.

“ But since the Cold War, both Russia and the U.S have deployed marine mammals to carry out searches underwater.”

Loads fine on my iPhone. What mobile device are you using?

Just used one of these the other day. No way you’re mistaking the liquid with a twist off cap as an eye dropper (unless you’re blindly dropping mystery liquids in your eye).

Dermal contact is more likely. They do have ample warnings on the box though and there are plenty of other toxic things in our environment that we consciously don’t apply to the skin, so I don’t really see the problem here aside from “may contain harmful ingredients use caution”.

Used and refinished. If you’re willing to put lot money in it, the Amish make some really good furniture. Personally I like this store in the Bay Area, but I think they take orders and deliver. https://fentonmaclaren.com/

Don’t connect to the internet. If you need it for reference or reading, gather it before your “work session” where you want to get in the zone. If you need Internet (ie for what you are working on) simply don’t open a browser, or if you need it for work as well, don’t open other tabs.

I always take a laptop camping, but it’s a outdoor converted (Pixel Qi display) circa ‘08 netbook. Its slow but fast enough, and I do a lot of great work on it, distraction free with no internet connection in the woods.

Backblaze on a media server with several hdd @ $6/mo