@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

davidr

@davidr@hachyderm.io

Heinlein is problematic for a lot of reasons, but I've always been inspired by this:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

he/him

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

dansup, (edited ) to fediverse
@dansup@mastodon.social avatar

Would you be comfortable joining an instance that required you to provide your mobile phone number to send a code you enter during registration, knowing your # wouldn't be stored and only used to verify you are not a spammer?

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@dansup How would I "know" this?

I see these claims on websites all the time "we'll never XYZ your ABC". How are they verified?

petersuber, to random
@petersuber@fediscience.org avatar

I'm corresponding with an #Arizona prison inmate who tries to read and share as much science as he can. From his latest letter:

"If I let another inmate read my magazine I will be given a ticket [demerit] for bartering and trading. I have been giving away my magazines for free to everyone for 17 years after I read them. I get 200-300 magazines a year sci biz tech stuff. Now I have to trade in my magazines to get more magazines and they just throw them away and no one else gets to read them."

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@petersuber Can he donate them to the prison library?

vaurora, to random
@vaurora@wandering.shop avatar

Is anyone else noticing that software just... doesn't work right anymore? Every single booking system I've tried to use in the last week has had a serious revenue-affecting bug (airline, cab reservation, temporary rental, doctor appointment). Two of them were time zone bugs, one was a form field validation bug on a required field, the last was "you can't get an assigned seat unless you call us"

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@danjac @vaurora It's the lack of care that's the main issue. If the CEO were required to use the system, it would work. Eat your own dog food.

davidr, to random
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

Here's a thing that apparently still exists.

timbray, to infosec
@timbray@cosocial.ca avatar

It dawns on me that many of you youngster developers out there probably don’t know about the Ken Thompson hack. If you’re one of them, reading this should make you shudder:
https://wiki.c2.com/?TheKenThompsonHack
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@timbray I think of this story everyone our local people let us install from source but not binaries.

(I don't tell them this story, since I want to get actual work done.)

inherentlee, to random

hey who decided art needs names and statements and stuff, I wanna apply to an island art show and they want an artist statement, an artist biography, titles for each piece, titles for the overall show, and a show description

I just want to make my birds, please

(wife and I have come up with the idea of giving the birds human names. the flicker might be Reginald.)

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@inherentlee Right? They asked me to make slides about my project and I made a face. So they said "don't you want to let people know about all the great work you've been doing?"

I can't think of anything I want less.

I'm happy to have them know, I'm loath to tell them.

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@inherentlee Exactly! I'd much rather someone discover that I'm awesome than be told (much less told by me).

(and now I've discovered your stamps and they are awesome. you see, the system works!)

davidr, to ADHD
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

Last time, I asked the Dr about an dx. He said there's only one person in the entire state and it would take a year+ just to get an appt..

He offered to write a prescription and just see if that helped. I declined for reasons I'm not clear about. I think I just don't like taking things. I want someone to snap their fingers and Make It So.

I have another visit this week. Considering asking again.

It feels like cheating. And like maybe knowing is more important than treating?

gregeganSF, (edited ) to random
@gregeganSF@mathstodon.xyz avatar

On Tw*tter, Mike Lawler linked to a nice Physics Today article that points out that the planet whose average distance to Earth over any long period of time is the shortest is Mercury, not Venus.

I agree with their conclusions … but I wonder if there is an error in the specific formula they give for the average distance as an elliptic integral.

If we specialise to the case where one orbit is a unit circle and the other has radius r, Mathematica gives a somewhat different formula than theirs (actually two different formulas, for r>1 and r<1, blue and gold in the plot), which give close results to the Physics Today formula (green in the plot), but not exactly the same.

Numerical integration seems to confirm the formulas Mathematica gives.

Have I made some dumb mistake in the way I’ve set up the problem, or is the formula in the article wrong?

@buster and @duetosymmetry; the conventions for Mathematica’s EllipticE function and the elliptic integral function in the article are different; Mathematica’s function expects an argument that is the square of the one used in the article.]

https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/Online/30593/Venus-is-not-Earth-s-closest-neighbor

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@gregeganSF Did you include orbital velocity (i.e. time spent at each radius) in that average?

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@darabos @gregeganSF In that case, the integral doesn't matter, only the radii.

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@darabos @gregeganSF If we are approximating as circles, then only the radius of each matters. If we aren't, orbital velocity matters.

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@gregeganSF @darabos Oh the distance between the planets. I thought we were talking about the distance of each to the sun.

davidr, to random
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

I realize I'm getting a little obsessed with , but.

The kids (15-22) and I played a few tasks from the book this afternoon. I thought we'd have a little fun but ultimately be fairly uncreative.

One person ended up inside the washing machine.

davidr, to random
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

I love the old in our . So when I needed a door stop, I made a scale of the door itself.

an old-style new wooden door stop (unpainted)
side view of both door and stop

davidr, to random
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

OK, what am I missing?

Why would a product labeled "power adapter" have a way to plug into a UK outlet (standard 220v) and have a way to plug a US prong into it (standard 110v)

BUT ALSO BE LABELED "NOT A VOLTAGE CONVERTER"?

Am I to understand that if I plug a standard US cord in I will get 220v into my device? Why would that be useful for anyone not attempting to start a fire?

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@recursive greeeaaaaattttttttt

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@recursive My wife like to sleep with a fan, but it hardly makes sense to tote one back and forth across the Atlantic anyway. Not sure what else we'd use. OTOH, who wants to find out the hard way?

davidr, to animals
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

Our alerts us to mice.

He doesn't alert on the sound of mice in the walls.

He doesn't alert on the sight of mice.

He doesn't catch any mice or even chase any mice.

Our cat is so stupid I'm not sure he would even recognize a mouse.

But when our cat is meowing around the house there is a mouse.

The mouse is always already dead, caught in one of my traps.

Our cat is a mouse spirit medium.

XanIndigo, to random

Everyone keeps talking about quote toots as if they're the solution to Mastodon's problems while ignoring the fact that the real problem here is all the mansplaining and whitesplaining. Together with the consistent animosity towards newcomers. The biggest problem with this place isn't code. It's culture.

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@maegul @XanIndigo @sindarina Self-proclaimed I Get Paid To Think/From My Parents Basement I Stab At Thee Guys "correcting" people has been a problem a lot longer than mastodon has existed.

It's definitely a culture problem. And I've rarely seen a case where one of those guys becomes self-aware enough to stop it.

In the old days blocking might have been sufficient but it definitely isn't now. The internet has evolved since then.

davidr, to random
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

Meanwhile there's a security guard here who radiates the entirely opposite vibe. I've never talked to him in person, but I see him on the internal mailing list all the time.

He's a nature photographer. He treks all over the area hiding in bushes and standing in water, etc and has all these amazing and sometimes hilarious pictures of foxes and owls and eagles and things.

He posts them in the mailing list and also offers them for sale.

What's the opposite of an energy vampire? Energy injector.

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@hl I like WERE you are going with this, but it should be non-evil. Energy Fairy Godmother. Energy Genie.

davidr, to random
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

I live in the US. I'll be visiting the UK this summer. What do I need to know/do, technologically-speaking?

I know the plugs are different. Phone service? WiFi standards? Uh...keyboard layouts should be OK.

What have I not even thought to ask?

polykit, (edited ) to synthdiy
@polykit@chaos.social avatar

My yt channel just hit 1500 subscribers!1!!elf I'm going to continue making videos about building synths and other electronics stuff. There's a bit of a boost lately for whatever reason. Thanks a ton for your ongoing support. Cheers! @synthdiy

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@polykit @synthdiy Sounds great!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFO4J-EEk-8

davidr, to programming
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

You know that thing where you find old of your own and marvel at how stupid you used to be?

I just had the opposite. "Wow, this is a good idea. Hey, that was my idea!"

What a warm and fuzzy feeling! I've grown as a professional!

Except wait. This means my peak is behind me. I'm on the down slope. These are my declining years!

Soon some young pup will burst into the saloon and challenge the old dog to a duel he can't win.

ngaylinn, to programming

The best way I've found to design software is to get it totally wrong on the first try. Once you've seen why the obvious approach won't work, and how ugly your naive workaround is, you sleep on it and a better solution will present itself in the morning. Just make sure you do this in small chunks, or the epic rewrite will take you forever.

Actually, this is the only effective way I've found to design software. :blobcat_mlem:

davidr,
@davidr@hachyderm.io avatar

@ngaylinn My maxim is: Making things is hard. Making things better is easy.

Get anything at all down on paper. Then fix it.

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