coffeecheque's comments

coffeecheque | 2 years ago | on: A Canadian study gave $7,500 to homeless people. Here’s how they spent it

The study paper is linked and seems to say there were 115 participants identified and then assigned into various groups. Table 1 shows the differences in the cash and non cash group.

So the control group met the same conditions - they just missed out via randomisation.

“We screened 732 participants from 22 shelters from four shelter organizations across Metro Vancouver. Our preregistered screening criteria were: age 19 to 65, homeless for less than 2 y (homelessness defined as the lack of stable housing), Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and nonsevere levels of substance use (DAST-10) (21), alcohol use (AUDIT) (22), and mental health symptoms Colorado Symptom Index (CSI) (23) based on predefined thresholds (see SI Appendix, Table S1 in SI Appendix, section 1.3.2). These screening criteria were used to reduce any potential risks of harm (e.g., overdose) from the cash transfer. To ensure accurate responses, the screening survey was conducted under a cover story without any mention of the cash transfer. Of the 732 participants, 229 passed all criteria (31%). Due to loss of contact with 114 participants despite our repeated attempts to reach them, we successfully enrolled 115 participants in the study as the final sample (50 cash, 65 noncash; see Table 1). The sample size was modest but was nonetheless adequately powered to detect statistically significant effects from the preregistered power analysis”

coffeecheque | 2 years ago | on: SpaceX based 4G/5G coverage coming to New Zealand

You are bang on about having a redundant PLB seperate from other comms channels.

I carry a PLB and an InReach when I am in remote areas. Partly because I’m often by myself but also InReach does go down sometimes and I’d prefer to have a dedicated reliable channel to search and rescue that I can just leave I my bag and forget about except replacing every 10 years!

coffeecheque | 3 years ago | on: Are we racing toward AI catastrophe?

That’s a rather cynical view of it, and I note you haven’t included the first bit of the sentence.

> “is a senior writer at Future Perfect, Vox’s effective altruism-inspired section on the world’s biggest challenges”

The point of the project/section is - in a very quick summary - to come at an issue presenting to an audience that cares about it and is looking for answers or ways to improve their lives.

This is a piece of journalism - a good jumping off point. My point is that I come to HN for comments and discussions on topics and issues like AI, hoping to hear from real experts on things on the big technology issues, etc.

I wish there was more of that - playing the ball - and less playing the writer.

coffeecheque | 3 years ago | on: Ask HN: Share your ideas for a side project

Excuse me if I’m missing something, but why do you need the internet at all? Can’t you collect your location with a GPS watch as you run and just handle the gpx file offline when you get home?

Unless you’re looking to share location with others as you run - in which case your request makes sense.

Would OwnTracks meet your requirements? https://owntracks.org/

coffeecheque | 4 years ago | on: Ask HN: How to build a light weight personal blog?

I’ve thought about writing a AWS Lambda that you POST the comment form to which then adds a file to the git repo that then Hugo can grab when Netlify is building the site, but that seems rather complex and I think it’d take me a lot more time than just doing it manually.

But I haven’t found a good, lightweight, privacy focussed way to solve this yet.

coffeecheque | 4 years ago | on: Ask HN: How to build a light weight personal blog?

This sounds like a job for Hugo, GitHub and Netlify.

Simple. Easy. Free.

You can even set up a form and get comments into your email. (Then just manually copy/paste into the markdown and commit it again and force a rebuild).

I use that setup and I love it.

coffeecheque | 9 years ago | on: Telstra’s Gigabit Class LTE Network

FWIW (and I know this is a single data point), but my experience with NBN has been positive.

It's also Fibre to the Node (FTTN) which is often maligned in internet/tech circles for being a poor technology choice. I'd prefer FttP, but it's not an option and I'll take what I can get.

I'm now getting close to my plan's speed (50/20), but you're right about the increased cost. It's roughly 45% more. But the speed from the old ADSL2 plan is probably 4-5 times faster.

The only complaint I would have is that speeds during peak are pretty off the advertised plan speed. They fall to around 18-20mbs down at night.

coffeecheque | 9 years ago | on: UnblockOz: Helps Australians reclaim their unfiltered Internet access

For those that are interested, the blocks were ordered in early December by Australia's Federal Court.

The court was given the powers when the Australian Copyright Act was amended in 2015.

The case was heard over several days, and while it was inevitable that it would order the sites blocked (there was no opposition to the blocking application, as such) - the copyright holders didn't get everything they wanted.

They wanted an injunction that they could effectively add to or amend over time (such as when mirror sites pop up), but the Federal Court didn't go that far. The blocking orders require a certain level of oversight.

It seems that new domains will require either a new case, or another affidavit to be filed. We're yet to see what the process will be.

Also there's a multi year timer on the domains that are blocked. Rights holders will need to file an application to keep the blocks in place.

Many people have discovered the blocks aren't really that effective. It seems for many ISPs a simple DNS change will get around it. The court didn't order a specific technical means to achieve the blocks, leaving it up to ISPs to choose. They've obviously chosen methods which aren't all that effective.

coffeecheque | 9 years ago | on: Best Wifi Mesh Network Kits

I agree. I've have much success with Ubiquiti - everything from bridges to really solid wifi in the home.

And FWIW, they have recently started shipping a UniFi Mesh product called... UniFi Mesh. I haven't used it so can't really speak for it, but its marketing site is here: https://unifi-mesh.ubnt.com/

coffeecheque | 10 years ago | on: 10 gigabit Ethernet 80 GHz point-to-point bridges

I love Ubiquiti's products. They're easy to setup and cheap too. From experience, they're also quite reliable.

The company's community forums can be quite helpful too.

What kind of link are you after? (Speed, distance, how far over water, are both sites powered, etc)

coffeecheque | 10 years ago | on: Review and teardown of a cheap GPS Jammer

This part is ... a worry.

> He was working on a job inside the Newark Liberty International Airport when his jamming signal interrupted air traffic control.

Shouldn't it have better protections against a $25 internet purchased jammer? Are such protections possible?

Also, what would happen if you used this while in an Uber?

coffeecheque | 10 years ago | on: Arq 5: Massively faster backup and restore for Mac and Windows

I was a user of Arq 3, but it was slow and seemed to eat up resources on my computer. I eventually turned it off, deleted the backups and deleted it. Not a great backup plan.

So I'm keen to know how much faster Arq 4 was, and in turn Arq 5. I'd be happy to try again (I think I'll have to pay full price again as I'm not an Arq 4 user) - but might wait until someone can let me know just how much faster it really is.

This whole thread has also reminded me to run my backups to local Time Machine!

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