mwexler

Also, just saw this mention of a new book from Vaclav Smil: Speed, which delves into some of these topics.

https://vaclavsmil.com/book/speed-how-it-explains-the-world/

I'm a fan of Beaty's work from 1998. Nothing I've seen has been as easy to implement: leaving space in front of each car creates smooth motion.

https://trafficwaves.org/trafexp.html or easier at https://web.archive.org/web/20260114173129/https://trafficwa...

https://web.archive.org/web/20251214172912/http://trafficwav... has some nice visualizations.

MIT got more press when they "rediscovered" this in 2017:

https://people.csail.mit.edu/bkph/Traffic_Flow_Animation

I'm a car fan, so I'd rather reward drivers for optimal behaviors vs broad car-reductions. I'll probably turn out to be on the wrong side, but maybe we'll find a good compromise.

I wish this had a stepper so I could see how things change at each point in the cycle. But even without, quite cool to play with.

Did some digging: yeah, looks like they are keeping some things for themselves.

https://github.com/orgs/OvertureMaps/discussions/298

That being said, it's hard to fault them for trying to monetize some dimensions that are not well supplied by the public, and that companies work to acquire. Still, I agree, it's disappointing.

While default osm data is great, I've been very impressed with the partnership/collective of Overture Maps data. It's osm + esri/tomtom + corporate processing/funding.

https://overturemaps.org/

While not updated as frequently, their releases have a pretty high quality and coverage.

Every time I read a piece from Nieman, it reminds me both of how much we've lost in journalism, but also that there's always hope to swing the pendulum back towards truth (well, more truthiness).

Got a vote just for the wonderful title, which captured my feelings exactly and was SFW.

I just want the clocks. Mondaine tries, but they aren't the same. That 58.5 second rotation then pause is quite clever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock

Very handy. My math education would have gone much better if my notes weren't full of "lambda is the half stickman; sigma is upside down Q or broken E" and other really silly things

Can you explain the last one? What types of communications are you suggesting an arch would avoid?

Otherwise, a very wise list!

Looking forward to seeing this one in action

I thought this was a repost but I was thinking of dolt which has similar capabilities but a different approach. As in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38109880

Interesting that it's not a direct "you should" but an omniscient 3rd person perspective "Claude should".

Also full of "can" and "should" phrases: feels both passive and subjunctive as wishes, vs strict commands (I guess these are better termed “modals”, but not an expert)

I actually found the examples to be both on theme and reflective of "If history doesn't repeat, it certainly echoes".

With some of the newest 3.x changes like copy-on-write, I find pandas getting quite verbose now as well.

In a world where AI is writing the code, I guess I shouldn't complain, but when I am discovering something the ai of choice yet again missed, both pandas and polars still feel verbose and lacking sugar.

Wasn't aware of this level of testing. $1300 for a Beagle is a big step up.

Much like X, it's what you choose to use it for. Papers are posted, approaches are debated, and loose groups form to align. It's easy to scroll past the pandering, but there is useful stuff in the dross.

But agreed, it is getting harder and harder to dig to the gems.

Finally. I will now be able to run ~340 undecillion devices on my home network. I'll have the smartest "smart home" on the block.

I find this court response confusing, but an alt pov: Amazon wants to block _other people_ from using my ID (say, to watch prime video or access prime shipping or discounts). They can extend that logic to suggest that an "agent", with agency, is the same issue: it's just "another person".

And we've seen the continual push against "Bots" who act without agency, but are seen to abuse systems as they act as "more than a person".

But I think we'll see the usual outcome: the barrier has to be upheld, so the folks behind the barrier can exert a toll on access.

I was surprised to see this:

If joins are necessary, we learned to consider breaking down the query and move complex join logic to the application layer instead.

We often try to leverage the power of the DB to optimize joins on our behalf to avoid having to create them. At a certain point, I guess you wind up having to pull this back to your layer to optimize "the one job" of the database.

I jest, but only slightly. We don't just want to persist data, but link it for different purposes, the "relational" part of RDBMS. Good to know there's still room to grow here, for PostgreSQL and the DB industry.

These are great books. I had them in paper, and they were great for understanding both how the 6502 worked, and metaphors for managing higher level constructs in ML.

This reminds me of EFF's Cover Your Tracks, the rebrand of Panopticlick: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

This helps you see how your browser tries to block or deflect fingerprint and trackers. I miss their "You are one of x,000 users" from the old site but it still gives a nice summary of bits of info your browser leaks and how fingerprinting basically works.

Watch makers have moved to this model over the last few years as well. The Swatch group has restricted access to movements and parts by acquiring major movement manufacturers, forcing the industry to use duplicate parts, some produced in violation of patents (dep on region). The patents attempt to protect proprietary approaches adding complexity through unique pieces, which rarely add functionality or new value.

BTW, none of this is surprising from BMW. They were the first to try a subscription model for in-car features like Carplay... Or seat heaters. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30139034/bmw-apple-carpla... and https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/bmw-relents-on-heated-seat-...

It's been a few years since the "Expert Mouse" was released, and there's still no "Magic Trackpad" equivalent on the Windows side. Still, the earlier Expert Mouse trackball have been pretty good for folks wanting an HID besides the keyboard. But it's been years since an updated design.

This version improves the scroll ring, but adds many more buttons and knobs, many of which are probably extraneous (imo).

Early users point to an odd "off-axis" placement of the main sensor which results in unexpected cursor movement when rotating at the north end of the ball, so may not fit your working style. But maybe worth the eyeball if you like your trackball.

It's fascinating to see the mergers of 2 dead tech. This isn't emulation or archiving; it's something that only a few hundred people can even experience. Yet it's a fascinating journey. I'm not quite sure why I like it. The excessive detail? The passion and drive? I didn't expect to enjoy it, and those kinds of surprises are nice to stumble on.

Early strips are very different. Dark, sarcastic, double meaning, lots of depth. They changed as Schulz got older and lighter, and that's what most folks know. But worth reading the earliest entries, and then see how those themes play out in the later strips.

Calvin and Hobbes tried to replicate that darkness but were more ham-handed. Still clever, but much less subtle.

The JFK one can be seen in the lobby of the TWA hotel (https://www.twahotel.com/photos). If you have a layover, or can come early, this whole lobby is worth a good 25 minute walkthrough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9DEIWOKCIA to see a walk around and build of the diorama.

I am actually quite frustrated with the state of "Open Banking" access in the US. No matter which tool I use across open source or just something I hack myself (or a spreadsheet), I still have no easy way to get to my banking and investment data. Plaid and other "aggregator/scrapers" are not designed for a single user. Tiller and Lunchapp seem OK, but now I have yet another party involved in the process.

Why is there not an aggregation service that literally lets me go directly to my financial institutions to pull down my data and put it into whatever I want? A Plaid, Finicity, Yodlee, MX for the user, not the mass-traffic developer?

I guess, like price engines and free hosting, the business model isn't there to support a thing that just helps folks.

It blocks the most egregious and give a bot score that you can use to get more aggressive at the next layer. That score seems to miss a lot of bad traffic, making it not very useful in it's current state.

Or an even cheaper android tablet.