zackkatz | 5 months ago | on: New England's last coal plant has stopped operating, according to its owners
zackkatz's comments
zackkatz | 6 months ago | on: We hacked Burger King: How auth bypass led to drive-thru audio surveillance
Great write-up! I was sorry to see there wasn’t a reward for you reporting this to them.
At least you didn’t find that the bathroom rating tablets had audio as well!
zackkatz | 1 year ago | on: Richard Sutton and Andrew Barto Win 2024 Turing Award
Very cool to see this! It turns out my wife and I bought Andy Barto’s (and his wife’s) house.
During the process, there was a bidding war. They said “make your prime offer” so, knowing he was a mathematician, we made an offer that was a prime number :-)
So neat to see him be recognized for his work.
zackkatz | 1 year ago | on: Scientists glue two proteins together, driving cancer cells to self-destruct
Strange: the New York Times wrote about this on July 26, 2023.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/26/health/cancer-self-destru...
zackkatz | 1 year ago | on: Study measuring toxic metals in tampons shows arsenic, lead, other contaminants
> The metal concentrations varied by where the tampons were purchased (US vs. EU/UK), organic vs. non-organic, and store- vs. name-brand. However, they found that metals were present in all types of tampons; no category had consistently lower concentrations of all or most metals. Lead concentrations were higher in non-organic tampons but arsenic was higher in organic tampons.
>
> Metals could make their way into tampons a number of ways: The cotton material could have absorbed the metals from water, air, soil, through a nearby contaminant (for example, if a cotton field was near a lead smelter), or some might be added intentionally during manufacturing as part of a pigment, whitener, antibacterial agent, or some other process in the factory producing the products.
zackkatz | 1 year ago | on: A Slower Speed of Light (2012)
Playing this game on my 27” iMac was the first time I experienced nausea from motion sickness. I felt ill for two days.
Player beware!
zackkatz | 2 years ago | on: The 'drinking bird' makes a comeback and could power gadgets with clean energy
Agreed. This article makes it sound like this is a perpetual motion machine.
zackkatz | 2 years ago | on: Show HN: Alzheimer's Buddy: Use Flashing Light and Sound at 40Hz
Wow, this is intense!
Think twice before sampling it if you have any sensitivity to flashing lights. Might seem obvious, but apparently needs saying!
zackkatz | 2 years ago | on: Brain waves usually found in sleep can protect against epileptic activity
I had nocturnal childhood epilepsy and, thankfully, I grew out of it.
I would have an “aura” before going to bed that I would be having a seizure that night.
Thankfully, I never had a daytime seizure.
zackkatz | 2 years ago | on: NASA: Capillary Cup
The article doesn’t address the question of how the cup truly works. It relies on capillary action but, based on the article, I’m not sure how.
zackkatz | 2 years ago | on: How do we save water: Stop growing alfalfa in Imperial County
Same in the west slope of Colorado. So much water is used to grow alfalfa, in part because there is a “use it or lose it” water rights policy:
> Failure to apply a water right to beneficial use when water was available for a period of ten or more years results in a rebuttable presumption of abandonment.
This leads to huge amounts of wasted water and alfalfa growing.
https://dwr.colorado.gov/services/water-administration/water...
zackkatz | 2 years ago | on: Skybox AI: Use AI to generate 3D worlds
Mine was stuck until I toggled the "Auto-pan skybox" setting and it appeared.
zackkatz | 2 years ago | on: Skybox AI: Use AI to generate 3D worlds
I gave it this prompt, which I didn't spend any time refining, and it came up with a world that does a pretty good job of matching it.
> A world made of very strong rock that has lots of rain. The rain contains acid, which wears the rock down. There is lots of soil, but it s in very thin layers because the world is relatively new.
https://skybox.blockadelabs.com/215b2684ceac6daac1958d020e24...
zackkatz | 2 years ago | on: CPR's true survival rate is lower than many people think
This article doesn’t really address statistics for younger people. I feel like the headline should be: should elderly people be given CPR? For me the answer is a strong no. Why on Earth would you give CPR to a 90-year old person!?
> survival after out-of-hospital CPR dropped from 6.7% for patients in their 70s to just 2.4% for those over 90
zackkatz | 2 years ago | on: Apple previews Live Speech, Personal Voice, and more new accessibility features
a) These features are truly moving. I didn’t expect to get emotional from a press release.
b) It’s gonna be a bonkers keynote if they’re releasing this before WWDC.
zackkatz | 2 years ago | on: Some employers have decided to build their own housing for workers
Headline: Innovative company reinvents company town. Visionary leaders hope to drive employees into debt and eventually forced servitude.
zackkatz | 2 years ago | on: Even Apple employees hate Siri and are skeptical of its future, new report says
You can just say “15 minutes” and it has a higher success rate for me.
zackkatz | 2 years ago | on: This website is solar powered and running on a Raspberry Pi-like computer
The PNGs aren't optimized—I crunched them losslessly and saved 8%–10%.
zackkatz | 3 years ago | on: Our Shift to Usage-Based Pricing
Hi Arpit! That’s wonderful news, thank you!
I’m running Appsmith Cloud.
zackkatz | 3 years ago | on: Our Shift to Usage-Based Pricing
I would love to use Appsmith and pay-by-usage, but I’m blocked by not being able to SSH tunnel into MySQL.
Anyone with this same issue, please upvote!
page 1
> There are more than 100 municipal waste combustion facilities in operation across the United States. Five of these are located in Massachusetts.
https://www.mass.gov/guides/municipal-waste-combustors