HN user
That's a slightly extreme route planning optimisation, but reminded me of UPS removing left turns (in Right Hand Side driving countries like US) from their route planning to save fuel, lives, C02 emissions [1]
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/16/world/ups-trucks-no-left-...
Apparently the Perseverance Mars Rover has some self-driving capability:
With the help of special 3D glasses, rover drivers on Earth plan routes with specific stops, but increasingly allow the rover to "take the wheel" and choose how it gets to those stops. Perseverance's auto-navigation system, known as AutoNav, makes 3D maps of the terrain ahead, identifies hazards, and plans a route around any obstacles without additional direction from controllers back on Earth. [1]
The mission has used AI not just for driving the rover, but also landing and targeting instruments. [2]
[1] https://phys.org/news/2022-04-nasa-self-driving-perseverance... [2] https://www.enterpriseai.news/2021/02/19/perseverance-rover-...
I'm sure you already know: Kim Kardashian will pay a fine of $1.26 million for not disclosing to her Instagram followers that she was financially compensated for promoting EthereumMax
https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2022/10/03/kim-kardashian-f...
Desalination is not without problems, producing 1 to 1.5 times the amount of brine (compared to fresh water) being one of them. How to dispose/use this brine. There are some options: https://news.mit.edu/2019/brine-desalianation-waste-sodium-h...
You're probably already aware, there is evidence that Beethoven was not completely deaf.
According to a leading Beethoven expert, the composer still had hearing in his left ear until shortly before his death in 1827.
“Not only was Beethoven not completely deaf at the premiere of his Ninth Symphony in May 1824, he could hear, although increasingly faintly, for at least two years afterwards, probably through the last premiere that he would supervise, his String Quartet in B-flat, Op 130, in March 1826,” Albrecht said.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/01/beethoven-not-...
I remember playing a version of this on the (386?) PC. Bashing the various keys did not go down well with my dad.
Just an example, I had the non-deterministic case using JAXB to generate java classes from XSD Schema files. Running an ANT jaxb task to generate the classes from the same schema files would generate different class files each time. The class files were functionally the same, however it would reorder methods, the order of the variable definitions etc. Possibly due to some internal code using a Map vs List, so order was not guaranteed. In our case the schema files were in Source Control, the Java/Class files were not, the Java/Class files were generated by the build, packaged to a jar and published to our artifact repository.
From the article: In 2005, Andrew tried to reverse-engineer the BitKeeper networking protocols in order to create a free software alternative. If it hadn't been him, it would've been someone else—it was only a matter of time. Larry McVoy had warned the Linux developers that he would pull the plug if anyone tried this, and that's exactly what he did.
Some speculation, but is there a chance that Tridgell was aware of MyVoy's condition on the use of BitKeeper as source control for the Linux Kernel and attempted the reverse-engineering deliberately to force the scenario where the development of an Open Source BitKeeper alternative was necessary?
Yes it would be nice to get a some comparison of fidelity, range etc. It mentions high-quality sound. But it does seem more efficient than traditional speaker designs.
From the article: They tested their thin-film loudspeaker by mounting it to a wall 30 centimeters from a microphone to measure the sound pressure level, recorded in decibels. When 25 volts of electricity were passed through the device at 1 kilohertz (a rate of 1,000 cycles per second), the speaker produced high-quality sound at conversational levels of 66 decibels. At 10 kilohertz, the sound pressure level increased to 86 decibels, about the same volume level as city traffic.
The energy-efficient device only requires about 100 milliwatts of power per square meter of speaker area. By contrast, an average home speaker might consume more than 1 watt of power to generate similar sound pressure at a comparable distance.
I remember reading him many moons ago in the Improper Bostonian.
Here's a bit about how he got his start writing about cars. https://www.motortrend.com/features/ezra-dyer/
Unfortunately, there are all sorts of ways to phish links. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing#Link_manipulation
The link may look similar or even appear identical, and still be under control of the scammer.
Similar to just not trusting incoming phone calls, you can't really trust incoming links via standard email, without some definitive way of validating the sender.
Yes, I believe he did multiple RH podcast episodes on this. He has also released a book: "The Bomber Mafia: A Story Set in War". [1]
I think the first I heard of the Tokyo firebombing during WWII was in the Errol Morris documentary: "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara".
Robert McNamara was an officer under Curtis LeMay. He says LeMay once said that, had the United States lost the war, they would have been tried for war crimes, and agrees with this assessment. [2]
[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bomber-Mafia-Story-Set-War/dp/02415...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War#In_The_Fog_of_W...
From the article: That makes Starship, which conducted a successful flight to the edge of space last year, especially threatening to the contractors and their allies in Congress.
So far Starship has flown to 12.5 km [1], which seems to be a stretch to describe as "the edge of space" [2].
It seems like the FAA Environmental Assessment for the "SpacePort" at Boca Chica has been delayed again from Feb 28th, by a month to March 28th [3]. If they recommend a full Environmental review that will delay progress even further. I believe Elon mentioned in the recent Starship update that they will move Starship testing to Cape Canaveral which already has permissions to launch Starship there if this is required [4] [5], but that will require building out an orbital pad for Starship.
It will certainly be interesting to see how long it takes Starship to get to orbit. I would guess that the raptor 2 performance/reliability and also the heatshield performance will be significant challenges to overcome. When/if SpaceX do overcome them, the incumbents will be justified in "shitting the bed", as per the article.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_SpaceX_Starship_flight...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line#Interpre...
[3] https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholder_engagement/spacex_star...
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N7L8Xhkzqo (SpaceX Starship update)
[5] https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-starship-orbital-cape-c...
The Irish elk, now extinct, was quite an impressive sight, with antlers wider that it was tall.
The Irish elk stood about 2.1 m (6 ft 11 in) tall at the shoulders and carried the largest antlers of any known deer, a maximum of 3.65 m (12.0 ft) from tip to tip and 40 kg (88 lb) in weight. For body size, at about 450–600 kg (990–1,300 lb) and up to 700 kg (1,500 lb) or more, the Irish elk was the heaviest known cervine ("Old World deer"); and tied with the extant Alaska moose (Alces alces gigas) as the third largest known deer, after the extinct Cervalces latifrons and Cervalces scotti.
It was not just native to Ireland, but many skeletons were found preserved in Irish peat bogs. The Irish elk had a far-reaching range, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the West to Lake Baikal in the East.
I'm reminded of Louis Slotin experimenting with the "Demon" core. The core was surrounded by 2 half spheres of beryllium. The core would go critical if the 2 spheres were not separated from each other.
The standard protocol was to use shims between the halves, as allowing them to close completely could result in the instantaneous formation of a critical mass and a lethal power excursion. Under Slotin's own unapproved protocol, the shims were not used and the only thing preventing the closure was the blade of a standard flat-tipped screwdriver manipulated in Slotin's other hand. Slotin, who was given to bravado, became the local expert, performing the test on almost a dozen occasions, often in his trademark blue jeans and cowboy boots, in front of a roomful of observers. Enrico Fermi reportedly told Slotin and others they would be "dead within a year" if they continued performing the test in that manner. Scientists referred to this flirting with the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction as "tickling the dragon's tail", based on a remark by physicist Richard Feynman, who compared the experiments to "tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon".
On the day of the accident, Slotin's screwdriver slipped outward a fraction of an inch while he was lowering the top reflector, allowing the reflector to fall into place around the core. Instantly, there was a flash of blue light and a wave of heat across Slotin's skin; the core had become supercritical, releasing an intense burst of neutron radiation estimated to have lasted about a half second. Slotin quickly twisted his wrist, flipping the top shell to the floor. The heating of the core and shells stopped the criticality within seconds of its initiation, while Slotin's reaction prevented a recurrence and ended the accident. The position of Slotin's body over the apparatus also shielded the others from much of the neutron radiation, but he received a lethal dose of 1,000 rad (10 Gy) neutron and 114 rad (1.14 Gy) gamma radiation in under a second and died nine days later from acute radiation poisoning.
I wasn't aware of the name of this. But often during code review have asked why some code is being removed, and asked the developer why that code was there in the first place.
Some googling found this article on the origin of the phrase "Chesterton's fence".
Apparently Tesla was: founded (as Tesla Motors) on July 1, 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in San Carlos, California.
It gets a bit more complicated however: Ian Wright was the third employee, joining a few months later. The three went looking for venture capital funding in January 2004 and connected with Elon Musk, who contributed US$6.5 million of the initial (Series A) US$7.5 million round of investment in February 2004 and became chairman of the board of directors. Musk then appointed Eberhard as the CEO. J.B. Straubel joined in May 2004 as the fifth employee. A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five (Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk and Straubel) to call themselves co-founders.
So I guess it depends on your definition of "created".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc.#The_beg...
You mention JIT, and lead times greater than a year. Are these 2 things not at odds with each other? Are you saying the vulnerable JIT supply chain when interrupted led to hoarding? The hoarding causing lead times of up to year which is what JIT was supposed to minimise in the first place?.
Great articles, it seems that most (not just French) wines are produced by grafting wines onto a phylloxera (insects that feed on the vines) resistant rootstock. From the gizmodo article:
It's hard to compare modern wine, which is all grown on grafted vines, to pre-phylloxera wines (the notable exceptions being Chilean wine, and wine from the occasional European vineyard that was spared from the blight).
And:
Though modern chemistry and genetics have given agriculture plenty of new tools to fight pests, the ancient practice of grafting, honed during the Great French Wine Blight, remains the method of choice for protecting grape vines. "Rootstocks are the 'cure-all' for many soil-borne pests and diseases, but not all," Walker says. "In the past fumigation and pesticides controlled some of these issues, but if phylloxera are present, rootstocks are essential."
Apparently the CIA also got in on the action, producing a fake sex tape of Sukarno, in order to kick off a revolution (to oust Sukarno).
More details here (along with the KBG story): https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-cia-and-kgb-tried-to-bl...
Agreed, not being snarky, but isn't that what the "R" is in the (R)emote (C)ode (E)xecution is - The ability to trigger arbitrary code execution over a network (especially via a wide-area network such as the Internet)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrary_code_execution
The attacker can inject an LDAP URL with their own malicious code into a vulnerable website, via a request, that then is logged with logj4. The logging library if vulnerable will actually download and execute this remote malicious code, just by the attacker submitting the bad input. Obviously the vulnerable website needs to be logging this request information.
It seems that putting the test near the nest was done deliberately: Cognition is challenging to assess in wild animals because testing paradigms often require individuals living under similar conditions to be tested repeatedly. Administering cognitive tests where wild animals rear their offspring can overcome this challenge because breeders often return reliably to a known location. [1]
[1] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.211343#d...
A little perspective from the other side, why screws aren't aligned in watchmaking:
Is it possible to machine a screw, tap the threads, and control the depth of the countersink so as to produce perfectly aligned slots? It is, and it's been done, but it is also apparently a royal PITA, to indulge in some colorful vernacular. In poking around trying to find out if it's ever been done, and how you do it, I ran across the discussion forum at the Practical Machinist, where several different techniques are mentioned. You do find aligned screws in manufactured objects occasionally – Parker-brand shotguns are one example – but the various methods are extremely labor-intensive
https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/why-screw-slots-arent-alig...
It's powered batteries, from the article:
At the back of the robot are two titanium spheres—each somewhere between the size of a yoga ball and a beach ball—filled with batteries that power a year of continuous operation.
It also has a sensor so it drives into the current.
The oversized treads make a mess of the seafloor. “Even though it is moving very slowly, it doesn't take much to create this huge dust storm,” says Sherman. “We always want to be driving into the current, so that it can push the sediment that is disturbed behind us.” So before the rover moves, it uses a sensor to get an idea of the current direction of the … er, current, then heads straight for it.
The vaccine was never touted as being 100% effective. For Pfizer the (Lancet study) efficacy numbers ranged from 88-93%, the first month after full vaccination.
After 4 months the effectiveness waned to 47-67% (depending on the variant). So now the focus on boosters.
My point is that 100% vaccination should never have led to the expectation of 0 cases of covid. But the main thing was reducing ICU numbers/severe infections.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
Just a link skipping to the gear change: https://youtu.be/MQe0fLEQ2jY?t=165
I'm guessing it's being called extraordinary, because the godwits are flapping continually rather than gliding to take a break, from article:
Unlike albatross or other long-flying seabirds, godwits are active flyers, not gliders—their wings are moving the whole time. “It just beggars belief, really,” Riegen says. “I mean, though I've known that for decades now, I still find it hard to imagine how anything can keep up that sort of effort 24-hours a day, without taking a break.”
I assume you mean that the Windows API (standard for Windows apps) is case insensitive, but if using the WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) it's possible to get case sensitivity: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/case-sensitivit...
I've had issues when moving between Window/*nix file systems, where Windows file names are case insensitive and *nix systems are case sensitive.
Build script works fine locally on Windows, but then chokes in *nix test server, as it's effectively a different path.
I'm from Ireland, and it was required for me to get a mortgage in order to buy an apartment.
It's basically mortgage protection insurance - This is a particular type of life assurance taken out for the term of the mortgage and designed to pay it off on the death of the borrower or joint borrower
https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/owning_a_home/...