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Earwig commented on GLP-1 drugs: An economic disruptor? (2024)   wildfirelabs.substack.com... · Posted by u/herbertl
raphman · a year ago
Is this person an expert of any kind? They throw around dozens of numbers without any sources. For example,

> 'A movie theater chain recently analyzed their user data and discovered that 72% of their profits came from concessions, primarily from impulse purchases made by people who swore they "wouldn't buy anything."'

This combination of non-descript source, precise numbers, and 'quotes' looks like the usual bullshit one reads in self-help books. I conducted a quick online search but couldn't find any direct source for this claim (although the number might be in the right ballpark).

Earwig · a year ago
Yeah, I’m also having a lot of trouble finding sources for the specific claims they’re making (even, say, the NFL stadium redesign thing, which feels like it should be easy to find). And taking into account the AI-generated lead image, I’m a bit skeptical of all this.
Earwig commented on A Letter to the American People   18f.org/... · Posted by u/erentz
rezonant · a year ago
Firstly, since 1971 the Postal Service has operated independently, receiving no taxpayer money (other than about $100 million allocated by Congress to offset the cost of providing free mailing for blind people, overseas mailing, etc).

Until 2006, the Postal Service was entirely self sufficient, with no debt and no need for taxpayer funding.

However, in 2006 Congress passed a law requiring the Postal Service to prefund future retiree's health benefits (75 years in advance), which costs $5.6 billion per year. By 2012, the Postal Service hit its $15 billion debt limit, directly because of this.

The Postal Service itself does not lose money, and does not require funding, because it sells postage-- mailing is not free. The insane policy that Congress has foisted on it does lose taxpayer money, by requiring it to do something as far as I know no other organization does or is required to do.

If you want to fix the budget deficit at the Post Office, simply get that law repealed.

Earwig · a year ago
It seems like the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022[1] already did this, is that right?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Service_Reform_Act_of_2...

Earwig commented on Python 3.12   python.org/downloads/rele... · Posted by u/qsort
appplication · 2 years ago
> Maybe now I'll be able to actually figure out what data to send libraries without actually reading their source code.

One could hope, but any library abusing kwargs in all their methods is showing they’re willing to go through the absolute minimum to make their code usable, let alone readable and self-documenting.

Earwig · 2 years ago
This is excellent for adding typing to libraries originally designed without it in mind while keeping backwards compatibility.
Earwig commented on PSA: Don't base your business around Discord.7yr account banned for posting ASNs    · Posted by u/bottiger1
bottiger1 · 3 years ago
Yes it is very possible. I have also posted asns in private channels before and nothing ever happened. It was only after I posted it in a public channel that I got banned.

There are a few competitors that are really jealous of our success.

Earwig · 3 years ago
From googling your username, it sounds like you are connected to Skial, the TF2 server?

So I'm guessing you posted ASNs of (in your words, basically ISPs) of some players on your server, indicating generally where they live. Was it connected to specific people? I can see why Discord would consider that private info.

Earwig commented on Align Your Latents: High-Resolution Video Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models   research.nvidia.com/labs/... · Posted by u/lnyan
xyzzy123 · 3 years ago
I think deep down, everyone already knows what the "killer application" for open source AI video generation is going to be.
Earwig · 3 years ago
Don't we have enough of that already?
Earwig commented on Palm-E: An Embodied Multimodal Language Model   palm-e.github.io/... · Posted by u/alphabetting
ethbr0 · 3 years ago
How much do you know about the soil nutrient mix, pH, and microbiome under your feet?
Earwig · 3 years ago
By what measure does an oak tree "know" about any of these things?

If it does under definition X, do I also "know" about the microbiome in my own body under definition X? The nutrient mix of the food I eat, the oxygen content of the air I breathe?

Earwig commented on Lemon-derived nanoparticles block the progression of kidney stones   pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.... · Posted by u/WaitWaitWha
pvaldes · 3 years ago
In some types a lithotrity machine can do wonders. Is basically being bombed with ultrasounds while taking a long bath, so could even be doable to DIY at home if you have some maker skills and for some reason can't go to a doctor.

The main concern should be to take serious care of not being electrocuted, put the speaker far and out of the water, protect your ears and assure that everything is well isolated. Using a 12 volt car battery as source of power could add a lot of safety.

Read a book for some time and then urinate into a piece of cloth in a strainer to see if it collects some sand. Rinse and repeat after some resting days for several weeks.

Or you can go to a discotheque

Earwig · 3 years ago
I don't know if this comment is intended seriously but just to be clear. Lithotripsy can cause acute tissue damage and long-term loss of kidney function.[1] The shock waves need to be carefully targeted at the stone and for the correct amount of time to reduce the risk of this, typically with X-ray or ultrasound. You can absolutely not do this at home!

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2900184/

Earwig commented on JPEG XL support has officially been removed from Chromium   chromium-review.googlesou... · Posted by u/frankjr
masklinn · 3 years ago
> Not used anywhere? E.g. Affinity Photo has support for JPEG XL, but not for AVIF.

It also support PSDs. Should Chrome support PSDs?

> Not used in browsers because they are nearly controlled by Chromium, which is clearly biased toward AVIF.

Ah yes, Google, a major contributor to JXL, is "clearly biased towards AVIF".

I'm sure you'll find your saviours at Apple (governing member of AOM, shipped AVIF this year), Mozilla (governing member of AOM, shipped AVIF in June 2020, default-enabled in October 2021), or Microsoft (governing member of AOM).

Earwig · 3 years ago
> Should Chrome support PSDs?

PSD is a pretty heavy format, and does not have the benefits for serving images to end users (e.g. good compression) that JPEG XL/AVIF have. So probably not. But there are still use cases for serving PSDs on the web in creative communities, so it would be pretty cool to have.

Earwig commented on TikTok videos leave teens thinking they have rare mental disorders (2021)   wsj.com/articles/tiktok-d... · Posted by u/mrtedbear
kzrdude · 4 years ago
One item in the article is:

+ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1 at line 1392: bad argument #1 to 'pairs' (table expected, got nil).

That's new to me. I didn't know wikipedia had adopted lua for its templates.

Earwig · 4 years ago
Supposed to be fixed now. A bad edit to a widely used module, of course.
Earwig commented on Beginner’s guide to mechanical keyboards   coolgadget.substack.com/p... · Posted by u/Jenny1012
ericmay · 5 years ago
In case anyone stumbles into this thread and is looking for the same specs that I was but with a mechanical, check out Keychron. My requirements were:

* Bluetooth

* USB-C (for charging and wired mode)

* Mac layout

* Small form factor similar to laptop keyboard

* Not outrageously expensive

I’ve been very happy with the one I bought.

I have no affiliation with Keychron. https://www.keychron.com/

Earwig · 5 years ago
+1 for Keychron (also not affiliated), the C2 in my case since I don't need wireless. It's hard to find pre-built mechanical keyboards with Mac layouts. I previously had a WASD but made the mistake of going with clear switches that hurt my hand after extended typing sessions. That's not WASD's fault—it's otherwise a good keyboard—but there's no way to change the switches on that one. The Keychron can even be hot-swappable, and it was less than half the price of the WASD for comparable build quality.

u/Earwig

KarmaCake day52May 26, 2014
About
Software engineer with an interest in wikis and entomology.

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/earwig; my proof: https://keybase.io/earwig/sigs/4bMnOCRCXAhyCDmCq2GyTM8JxnItTruZd69yaE5v32Q ]

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