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bluenomatterwho's comments

bluenomatterwho | 2 years ago | on: Kremlin runs disinformation campaign to undermine Zelensky, documents show

> Russia isn't where Russian is spoken, it's where the 1991 borders are.

There are ethnic Russians who lost family in the Euromaidan incident who may disagree with that. They also didn't appreciate having a Georgian installed by the west. But what do they know? Clearly you and Victoria Nuland know better!

> Again, who cares? Are you saying Russia was "provoked"? By Ukraine?

The fighting went on after the western-backed color revolutions, with many Russians dying inside of that 1991 Russian border. So provoked by Ukraine? Not exactly. More poignantly, Russia was provoked by PNAC heavyweights like Nuland. If you don't know about this I don't think anyone is going to take you seriously, whether you support that Bush/Wolfowitz doctrine or not. Clearly you do, whether you know it or not. That is yes, by definition, antagonistic toward Russia, regardless of what Russian speaking Russians on whatever side of the border want.

bluenomatterwho | 2 years ago | on: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

As I mentioned above, most of my teachers supported me dropping out and told me of the successful types they knew like me. However I would like to stress that this kind of path isn't for everyone and having a low-enough common denominator and standardization does have utility. For most people, not finishing high school could very well mean a lack of commitment. Especially if they need external motivators as most do. However in my adult life as an autodidact and "life long learner" I don't see a lot of self-direction or commitment coming from the general population of graduates.

bluenomatterwho | 2 years ago | on: U.S. army drops requirement for high school diploma (2022)

When I dropped out all of my teachers said "you know, some of the smartest and successful people dropped out" etc. The fact that "education" is compulsory isn't really a good indicator, depending on what kind of abilities we're talking about. Years of "knowledge" "accumulated" sounds a little unmalleable. A ship in a harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are for. On the other hand, standardization, setting a low enough or average enough common denominator, socialization, behavior modification, etc are all features of the education system which do provide some utility. I'll be the first to say an org or team of outliers isn't generally going to be effective.

bluenomatterwho | 2 years ago | on: The IBM–ification Of FAANG [video]

"Once upon a time, FAANG companies used to be the playground for the smartest engineers, inventors, and product managers. But, as these companies reach market saturation and growth starts to slow, it seems that FAANG is entering a whole new era. An era marked by bureaucratization, degrading talent, and cutthroat corporate culture. This is precisely what happened to Gen 1 tech companies like Cisco and Intel 20-30 years ago. As these companies became more established, they no longer appealed to individuals who wanted to create the next big thing. These individuals naturally moved onto Gen 2 tech companies like Google and Facebook. Meanwhile, Gen 1 tech companies were left with people who were largely there for the paycheck. It appears that this same transition is happening with FAANG as well as the smartest talent moves over to gen 3 tech companies leaving FAANG companies to become the next IBM or Cisco. This video explains the slow degradation of FAANG and the IBM-ification of modern big tech."

bluenomatterwho | 2 years ago | on: Jupe: Off-grid shelters that pop up anywhere on Earth

Methinks the kind of financial 'sophistication' which systemically leads to $2 million dollar luxury apartments does not foster the type of person who wants to deal with paying a manager to manage the staff to maintain a personal estate. Yes, I'm kidding, as they certainly wouldn't do these things themselves. Something something about the 'Apollonian' and the 'Mercurial'.

bluenomatterwho | 2 years ago | on: How to Make a Cantenna (2013)

Wavelength (mm) ≈ Velocity of wave (Mm/sec) / Frequency (GHz)

w = v / f

We know v will be 300 (rounded up based on the speed of light mentioned above). For f, we need to plug in the Wi-Fi frequency.

You could just use 2.4, but in order to be a little more accurate, we will use two more decimal places. For channel 6 in the 2.4GHz spectrum, we need to plug in 2.437. Solving for w yields ~123mm.

w = 300 Mm / 2.437 GHz w = 123.102175

Now that we know the (w)avelength for our radio (f)requency, we can begin calculating the dimensions of the can based on the guidelines mentioned previously.

bluenomatterwho | 2 years ago | on: ‘Preapproved Narratives’ Corrupt Science

"This is very common" seems to be a refrain this year with Harvard, Stanford and so on. Yet we have trouble accepting this is a real problem when we approach 'climate change' from an emotional or political standpoint. I say this as an environmentalist who doesn't understand why we can't be more straightforward. Why we keep losing talented people when they can't fix the numbers to fit the narrative? This has been a 'thing' my entire life but I feel like it is reaching a crescendo, adjacent to the lack of motion in QED.

bluenomatterwho | 2 years ago | on: How (not) to apply for a software job

I used the new AI assisted LinkedIn summary and it had all the usual buzzwords I can't stand either but, alongside things like company 'culture' (we're a family here) it looked to me to be the kind of vapid and saccharine paragraph that presents the corporate image we 'want' to present. I thought hey, at least I didn't have to write it.

bluenomatterwho | 2 years ago | on: Alameda lost tens of millions because of a fat fingering mistake

Seems like a bunch of kids who were born into borderline fraudulent culture... and now damage control pieces (ordered from SBF's jail cell maybe, ha) are being tolerated... maybe with the tacit support of a culture which would rather think of these as things that 'everyone does.' Somewhat akin to the Stanford or Harvard data integrity issues, maybe? This is just business as usual and sometimes it spills over. Who cares as long as you are headquartered in the Caymans, right? To be sure, all of these 'oopsies! SBF is such a sweet, gentle soul' articles of late look a little weird. Dude threw his GF under the bus in obvious fashion.

bluenomatterwho | 2 years ago | on: Maui residents who disobeyed barricades survived fires

At least don't let a good crisis go to waste, right. We might never make it out of covid but we should try to get lockdowns going again in other ways. Something like this is a perfect example. Lock down and stay safe. Shelter in place. Save the planet.

bluenomatterwho | 2 years ago | on: The layoffs are here for those who chose to ‘learn to code’

I'm sort of experiencing a weird paradoxical feeling about this. I was spied on by Google and given the FooBar test, which I passed... and until which time I would have never thought of myself as that type of programmer. I can comprehend design patterns, or even have an intuition, but I don't generally think of them upfront (maybe I do more in recent years, maybe it is a skill which can be developed). What I have always been is curious, and just trying stuff out until it works, which I feel like I've seen spoken of a lot. I'm a hackathon winner. I've collected half of the network engineering encyclopedia, which is not really considered when we think about 'programming' exclusively, yet is ironically compared to 'leetcode' here. I've worked on industrial applications. I've gone back to first principles and maths in this AI summer and I'm having fun. I had a previous professional life in music and I've been excited about algorithmic composition (et al) for decades. I have a love for math. That said, I've never felt like the big brain stats types or many of my colleagues in programming. And for that matter, many of that type (anecdotal) have never done the creative things I have in music, etc. So all in all, maybe there are different types of talents!

bluenomatterwho | 2 years ago | on: People are sick and tired of all their subscriptions

Lately, in light of things like Substack, I'm really wondering why we don't see more micropayments. Sure, it make more sense to pay $5/month if I'm going to read everything from that author, but (at least sometimes) I would pay $1 for one article. As for services, there are a few core reasonable things to pay for: cloud storage, hosting, maybe Github copilot or Adobe. What is certain is that no one wants to pay for 500 Twitch Streamers, every author of every Substack, youTube AND Hulu etc etc.

bluenomatterwho | 2 years ago | on: The Artistic Partnership of Lady Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley

I think Tarot is a system meant to look into one's own subconscious through archetypes. Receiving a reading from someone would make more sense if they actually did "read" you rather than using a warm or cold read, or another confidence trick. But even if they can or do read you, or are literally psychic, having someone else read your cards is probably the least effective way to use something like Tarot. Yes you could do this with any arbitrary system. Sometimes people doodle or do other distracting thing as they intuit or think through things. Take for example 'reading the tea leaves.' It can simply be an arbitrary canvas which is a tool to project upon. There may be other levels, I am merely a fellow traveller, but maybe this is something the average person can use.
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