WingNews logo WingNews GitHub [2]

ranger47's comments

ranger47 | 3 years ago | on: Did the Music Business Just Kill the Vinyl Revival?

Same here. In fact, I still repair record players, cassette decks and 8-track units as a hobby. That said, I'm not about to sit here and say the modern vinyl thing is anything but a gimmick. As I said further in my reply, it's fine to like the gimmick, but let's not sit here and pretend something is somehow being kept alive or pure by particiating in it. Vinyl had its time, and that time has passed. There are better ways to listen, now.

ranger47 | 3 years ago | on: Did the Music Business Just Kill the Vinyl Revival?

It is a gimmick, and it seems like you bought it, hook, line and sinker...but it wasn't always a gimmick. At some point, vinyl was the standard. It has lost that position since, but to not admit that these record producers are capitalizing on nostalgia (both real and fabricated) is folly. You can easily have some 'me and my music' time with superior digital mediums without the need to get up every ~16 minutes and deal with a mechanical limitation that can break immersion. It's fine to like a gimmick, but don't dismiss a reasoned explanation of why vinyl is not superior just because you got sold on something the rest of us left behind.

ranger47 | 3 years ago | on: Liu Cixin's Technologies of the Future

>the author puts in the most thought and energy are about human interactions

During my reading, I thought this was the point. I'm not sure the stories were trying to be in any specific genre, maybe genre-adjacent at best, but the author wanted to focus on what happens to the human and humanity with all this advanced, arguably fantastic tech.

ranger47 | 3 years ago | on: My bad habit of hoarding information

This article hits close to home, but there is one crucial component missing; free time. For the most part, I'm at my laptop or mobile about half of my primary work day, and take regular breaks from actual work to check out HN or any other gathering of techheads I follow. Here's where the data collection happens, mostly, as another commenter mentioned, projects I was to try or have been inspired by, skills to brush up on, etc.

There's this odd notion of "saving for someday" that kindles hope of some rainy weekend where I suddenly have 48 hours all to myself, and to focus on making again. That's what drives the data collection.

ranger47 | 3 years ago | on: Microsoft is preparing to add ChatGPT to Bing

It's interesting that people don't have the patients to vet or even start to question the veracity of their information sources. I think this part of the "how do you expert?" problem is the one that needs to be more carefully examined and solved. We can probably come up with 10 different ways for our algos and AIs to present "experts," but is everyone going to trust those methods? Not likely, so we fall back to the problem of "my expert is better than your expert" regardless of the talent pool or selection process. So, how do we solve that? Would people make better choices if the were given better options, or does human irrationality always win, in the end?

ranger47 | 3 years ago | on: Investigation on the effect of oral breathing on cognitive activity (2021)

What opened things up for you? I suffer from allergies, and have a slightly deviated septum, and I've tried so many sprays (caused dependency), breathing strips (falls off in the night), and even 3D printed a small cradle that would force my nose to open wider as I slept, which proved to be nothing short of annoying. I'm always open to trying new methods.

ranger47 | 3 years ago | on: Social Security denies disability benefits based on list with jobs from 1977

Hmm, this is not correct. I work as a employment specialist for individuals with developmental disabilities, and they rarely, if ever, lose SSI or SSDI if they start working, so long as they stay under certain thresholds (hours, wage and assets). We work closely with benefits counselors to figure out where the line is with each individual, then leverage our relationships with employers to help said individual hit that sweet spot where they are working as much as allowed while still able to collect.

This always results in the individual making far more than just collecting disability alone, even if the payments are reduced.

The idea of "all or nothing" is a myth that prevents a lot of folks on disability who want to work from doing so. If you happen to be such an individual, please reach out to a benefits counselor in your state and set up a meeting.

ranger47 | 3 years ago | on: U.S. bans equipment from Huawei and ZTE, citing national security concerns

ELI5: The US and China are not very good friends, but Chinese goods still get sold to US markets. China's gov't has a hand in every company in its borders, or so it is suspected, since this is routinely denied by the companies and the Chinese gov't. Some of those companies make computers that can watch and listen to us, whether we ask them to or not. The US is no longer comfortable with that arrangement.

Of course, it's a little more complex than that...

ranger47 | 3 years ago | on: Ooh.directory

Spreading misinformation is a VERY different thing from constructive discussion of different takes on an issue. Anyone taking offense to a request like this can't tell the difference.
page 1
more