aaaxyz's comments

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Event-based camera chips are here, what’s next?

I wonder if this could be used to increase the effectiveness of LIDAR in vision applications. Rather than continuously scanning the entire FOV, prioritize areas with more brightness changes. Kind of like how animal eyes have low resolution in the periphery for event detection but high resolution in the center.

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Ask HN: Why isn't all the land south of the St. Lawrence River part of the USA?

The US did try to annex the province of Quebec in 1775 but retreated after failing to take Quebec city (which was the biggest city at the time and controlled access to the saint Lawrence river). That was probably the closest Quebec got to joining the USA. The other two attempts (1812 invasion and 1837 rebellions) were even less successful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Quebec_%281775%29

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: A study of data collection by Android devices

By default lineageOS comes with neither Google play services nor microg. The choice of what to install is left to the user.

MicroG is a bit more complicated to install since it requires package signature spoofing, which official lineage builds don't enable since it's seen as a security vulnerability.

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Low-cost brain computer interface for everyday use

You have to click 'Request full-text PDF' then enter an email address

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Apple shareholder resolution calls for company to support right to repair

Nowadays it seems to mostly be a way for "ethical" fund managers to justify the higher fees compared to simpler index funds.

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Google Pixel 3 (XL) bricking out of nothing

Two of my relatives had Nexus 5 and the power buttons on both devices stopped functioning shortly after the warranty expired

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: We Could Brighten Clouds to Cool the Earth

That's one of the main plot elements of The Ministry for the Future.

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: The red warning light on Richard Branson’s space flight

That's a bit of a tautology isn't it?

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Wildfire restored a Yosemite watershed

That's how it's supposed to work in Canada. Most of the land is crown land managed by the government who should carefully manage it but in practice lease it to anyone as long as it brings in money.

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Wildfire restored a Yosemite watershed

Southern Ontario has forests?

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Turkey has unveiled a stealth carrier-based unmanned aircraft program

I was under the impression that western suppliers stopped exporting to Turkey after the Artsakh "conflict" so that they now manufacture most parts themselves (reverse-engineered or not)

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Turkey has unveiled a stealth carrier-based unmanned aircraft program

You could argue that 2 of these wars (as well as the standoffs in the Mediterranean with the Greek navy) are aiming to remediate the oil/gas problem.

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: AI tools have been built to catch Covid, but none of them helped

By the time you experience symptoms you've already been contagious for a few days. It's like trying to detect fires by looking for piles of ash.

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: strcpy: A niche function you don't need

I'm curious, what type of application would require printing strings over 2GB in size?

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Most People Don't Understand How Bad Climate Change Already Is

I like to think that most readers don't get instantly alienated as soon as they read something criticizing them a bit too harshly

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Fire use: The first signal of widespread cultural diffusion in human evolution

I used the word culture but I really meant population in the sense that the original commenter used it (i.e. a group of people replacing or displacing another, rather than imposing their customs on another).

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Fire use: The first signal of widespread cultural diffusion in human evolution

>I wonder can it instead of "transmission" be that the fire-capable just out-competed the rest and dominantly spread all over the place as a result

One argument against that is that transmission is much more frequent than replacement in human history. We have countless examples of technologies (agriculture and writing notably) being transmitted to different cultures, whereas the examples of cultures out-competing and replacing others through technology are rare.

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Why does “Turn! Turn! Turn!” equal 241217.524881?

About half the time in my experience

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Empty storefronts are killing neighbourhoods

That neighborhood is hip _because_ rent is cheap

aaaxyz | 4 years ago | on: Too much coffee can cause brain to shrink, raise risk of dementia by 53 percent

If I read the abstract correctly they found an inverse correlation between coffee consumption and brain volume, but since it was not a longitudinal study it doesn't prove that coffee is correlated to brain shrinkage?