JWLong's comments

JWLong | 10 months ago | on: Automated Antenna Design with Evolutionary Algorithms [pdf] (2006)

I'm rediscovering it. I remember reading about this in some flashy, superlative Popular Science article, from the early/mid 2000s. So I was quite excited to click on the link and see that shape again.

But also, something something lucky ten thousand.

https://xkcd.com/1053/

JWLong | 2 years ago | on: After 151 years, Popular Science will no longer offer a magazine

I ran to the mailbox for these. Sad day. And yet, as others have said, “It felt inevitable.”

Popular Science was never the bastion of journalistic integrity, and yet this leaves me worried about print publishing in general. If a periodical can’t make it, what happens to print news?

JWLong | 2 years ago | on: B-trees in Factorio

The people I know that have played it, have all dumped 1,000+ hours into it.

JWLong | 2 years ago | on: WebSDR – Internet-connected Software-Defined Radios

There’s quite a bit of overlap, actually. For some reason all of the old hams want to do .NET applications, though.

I really think this is one of the reasons for the stagnation in the field.

JWLong | 2 years ago | on: Automakers invented the crime of jaywalking (2015)

> To me it's the same if a driver cuts in front of me and then slams on their brakes, there was nothing I could have done about crashing into them no matter how safely I was driving.

It shouldn't be. The risk to you is much greater if you hit another car, than if you hit a pedestrian.

Addtionally, while you are right that a car can't stop on a dime, speeds have a large influence on the size of coin needed for a car to come to a complete stop. And I think we both know that they are not linear.

Over the decades, posted speed limits in North America have only increased.

https://www.brake.org.uk/files/images/Speed/Infographics/_la...

JWLong | 2 years ago | on: People are happier in a walkable neighborhood: the US community that banned cars

And yet I can show you image after image of treeless streets and sidewalks. Therefore, there is room for improvement.

Is it possible that Dallas has the largest urban forest in the US, because it has the most urban sprawl? (I know nothing of this urban forest claim).

JWLong | 2 years ago | on: People are happier in a walkable neighborhood: the US community that banned cars

1) While, I can't personally speak (much) to walking around Dallas, I can speak quite a bit to walking around Austin, Texas. Walking around on a day that is 110º is doable, because the humidity is rarely ever that high, when the temp is.

2) Shade trees lower the temperature for the air under them, by as much as ten degrees.

JWLong | 2 years ago | on: People are happier in a walkable neighborhood: the US community that banned cars

It’s possible that some trees might help that.

JWLong | 2 years ago | on: People are happier in a walkable neighborhood: the US community that banned cars

Okay. Here is similar propaganda from an American source https://youtu.be/tI3kkk2JdoI?si=HP0eaph7OnWPPFXB

JWLong | 2 years ago | on: Dianne Feinstein has died

I’m fairly certain that percentage will still be less than the number of minors, which no one has a problem with excluding in the same way.

JWLong | 2 years ago | on: Google preemptively banned hundreds of millions of 'pirate' URLs last year

Early last month, I found myself turning to Yandex in a search for the out of print manual for a 1980s mobile radio. Google had nothing. Yandex had almost nothing. But it was enough to piece together an answer.

JWLong | 2 years ago | on: Texas could get a bullet train between Houston and Dallas

You can frame this as a lack of political willpower, but that won’t get you closer.

China will have spent far less per commuter, in this process. Whether you want to chalk it up to the lack of certain standards in China, or onerous regulations in the US, doesn’t matter. End result will be the same. Just like Europe is not a fair comparison for the US, neither is China, or Siberia, for that matter.

JWLong | 2 years ago | on: Google CEO: “can we change the setting of this group to history-off” [pdf]

“If simply having a lawyer present made a conversation privileged, then every mobster would pay one to follow them everywhere and sit in the corner of the room.” ~ Opening Arguments

JWLong | 2 years ago | on: EVE Online player uses obscure rule to pull off biggest heist in game history

Your character has a name, and even a portrait made by you, of your player's 3D model, but after those initial ten minutes of character creation, you basically never interact with the 3D character again. As soon as you begin the tutorial, you're floating in space in a ship. When you switch ships, the game unloads one model and loads the next. When your ship gets exploded, players see an escape pod. Then you get back in another ship.

JWLong | 3 years ago | on: Almost 25% of world’s seafloor now mapped

JWLong | 3 years ago | on: Failing Intro Economics

> Our study at Davidson College showed that in-class transmission of Covid, for instance, was very low. Despite that, attendance was very poor in my introductory economics course.

COVID transmission over video conferencing is typically zero. Still blames students for not showing up to class during a pandemic.

JWLong | 5 years ago | on: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

In this case, I will tell you that I don't think that Satisfactory is better than Factorio. I was incredibly excited for the idea of 3D Factorio, but so far, it just leaves me asking, "What's the point"? It doesn't get me anywhere near as excited as a new build in Factorio.

JWLong | 6 years ago | on: Eve Online’s communications blackout explained

And yet the majority of players wind up only logging in when they feel they need to.

The lack of (required) grinding for XP makes the game a lot more relaxed than most other MMOs.

JWLong | 6 years ago | on: No Strong Opposition to 144-146 MHz Reallocation Proposal at CEPT Meeting

Most of the radio clubs here in the US have been griping about this for the last three months. It's just a question of how much pull the european clubs have.

JWLong | 6 years ago | on: Walmart announces next-day delivery, firing back at Amazon

The 5000 sq ft in the back of every Walmart is nowhere near being a fulfillment center. It's already full of items for the low turn-around shelves in the store. Instead, they'll be relying on their warehouses to handle this change. They were already dicking around with modifying scheduled loads to accommodate the internet sales orders, back in 2016. This will just be more of the same, really.