rovolo (u/rovolo) - Readit News

rovolo commented on Software development topics I've changed my mind on chriskiehl.com/article/th... · Posted by u/belter

bluGill · 7 months ago

Do you not know the conventions of your project? Doesn't your project have a convention that all time is in ms (second, weeks...)?

If your project doesn't have that convention such that everyone knows than the code should be

timeMs++;

You may also have a time type and so you can use your IDE to examine the type.

rovolo · 7 months ago

I agree that the time unit should be in the variable name. The code itself should do a good job of explaining "what" is happening, but you generally need comments to explain "why" this code exists. Why is the test advancing the time, and why are we advancing the time at this line of the test?

    networkTimeMs++; // Callback occurs after timeout

    timeSec++; // Advance time to check whether dependent properties update

    utcTime++; // Leap second, DON'T advance ntpTime

rovolo commented on Reining in America's $3.3T tax-exempt economy taxfoundation.org/researc... · Posted by u/telotortium

Jach · a year ago

Meanwhile the infrastructure is not exactly doing great in many places, and it seems doubtful that it would be doing particularly better with more taxes collected. Anyway, there's been a pretty clear trend towards not-less, even in just the last few decades (really, compare quality of services and infrastructure at revenues and debts in the 90s to now), without a clear sign that it's actually worth it or that more would make anything better. A fruitless 20 year war didn't help either.

rovolo · a year ago

There isn't a clear trend to more taxes in the US (scaled to GDP). Federal tax receipts were higher in the 90s (17-20%) than the 00s/10s (14-18%). Local and state receipts have been basically flat at ~8.8%.

Federal: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S

State & Local: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pltN

rovolo commented on 'Right to roam' movement fights to give the commons back to the public news.mongabay.com/2024/05... · Posted by u/Breadmaker

arethuza · a year ago

Did a lot of kids die in pools before that law was introduced?

NB I'm in Scotland so outside pools aren't a big risk but I also grew up in a small fishing village on a very wild and rocky coast with high cliffs and the idea of anyone trying to "protect" kids in that kind of environment seems very odd to me.

rovolo · a year ago

~60/year of <5yo Australian kids in the 90s, down to ~25/year in the 10s. That's a death rate reduction of ~3/100k, which is about the rate of <5yo deaths from cancer. 50% of the <5yo drownings in '93-'18 were in pools.

https://www.royallifesaving.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/00...

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/causes-of-death-in-childr...

rovolo commented on Can turning office towers into apartments save downtowns? newyorker.com/magazine/20... · Posted by u/pseudolus

deltarholamda · a year ago

>If you can buy the building cheap enough, conventional wisdom can be thrown out the window.

Maybe, but you can't throw out the building codes. A warehouse, certainly, can be retrofit. But office towers? Almost certainly not.

Elevators are not sized for residential; electrical service not sized for residential loads (dishwasher/dryer/microwaves/ovens); HVAC not sized for residential heat loads (same as above); metering requirements means the existing electrical rooms are not large enough (they are never large enough); plumbing and sewer are not sized for residential.

It goes on and on. Even if you got the building for free, you'd still want to run the numbers to see if it's still cheaper to demolish and build again. It's not entirely clear whether it is or is not.

It can be done if you make huge, expansive apartments, which has to be read as "really expensive". There aren't that many really rich people who can drop 5 figures per month for an apartment.

rovolo · a year ago

I understand electrical and plumbing, but why does the HVAC need to be bigger/smaller?

rovolo commented on Can turning office towers into apartments save downtowns? newyorker.com/magazine/20... · Posted by u/pseudolus

wernercd · a year ago

Crime is historically low... as crimes like theft are decriminalized.

It's easy to say there's less crime when you make stuff not a crime.

For reference: all the stores closing because of all of the theft not being prosecuted or that's no longer enforced.

IE: California where theft of under $1000 is no longer enforced.

rovolo · a year ago

The CA $950 threshold is when the theft switches from a misdemeanor to a felony:

https://www.hoover.org/research/why-shoplifting-now-de-facto...

In comparison, Texas has a $2,500 threshold for upgrading from a misdemeanor to a felony:

https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-def...

rovolo commented on Other People’s Problems seths.blog/2024/04/other-... · Posted by u/pmzy

WalterBright · a year ago

> often people think problems are easy to solve from the outside because they just don't understand the problem

May I suggest the book "The Innovators Dilemma". Sometimes people who don't understand the problem manage to solve it in a much better way.

https://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Dilemma-Technologies-Manag...

rovolo · a year ago

The "better ways" listed in this book were often worse at the metrics the old solution was targeting. They won out because they gained flexibility by loosening requirements. Personal computers were worse than minicomputers, but they were so much cheaper that they largely won out. The book is focused on the solution provider, not the consumer. The old providers lose out because they don't understand what the consumer values. OP is saying that the provider may be misunderstand the problem the consumer has when they offer a simple solution.

rovolo commented on For twenty years, PostSecret has broadcast suburban America’s hidden truths hazlitt.net/longreads/dar... · Posted by u/onthesly

moron4hire · a year ago

20 years, holy cow, didn't realize it's been that long.

But what does this have to do with "suburban" America? Very weird title.

rovolo · a year ago

The generous interpretation of "suburban America" is that both the author and interviewee live in the suburbs:

> I grew up in Temecula, a California suburb

> his house in Laguna Niguel, in a trim suburban neighbourhood

But the project started off in an urban area:

> In the fall of 2004, Frank [would] drive through the darkened streets of Washington, D.C., with stacks of self-addressed postcards

I think though that "suburban" is playing the same role as "middle-class". Despite the technical definition, I think both terms imply everyday, normal, boring, "real" Americans. I agree this usage is weird and I wish people would stop using "suburban" this way.

rovolo commented on Dark Star at 50: How a micro-budget student film changed sci-fi forever bbc.com/culture/article/2... · Posted by u/keepamovin

tgv · a year ago

Not really micro. In 1970, the US dollar was about €1.8. Inflation since then has been 560% (here), so that would make for €600k.

rovolo · a year ago

Euros were introduced in 1999, and the preceding "European Currency Unit" (just for accounting) was introduced in 1979.

rovolo commented on Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison cnn.com/business/live-new... · Posted by u/misiti3780

bluishgreen · a year ago

One more to blow your mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_mean

rovolo · a year ago

I found it a lot easier to understand the harmonic and geometric averages when I learned about the "generalized f-mean". Many averages are arithmetic averages of a transformation of the value. "f" refers to the function which transforms your values. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-arithmetic_mean

- The geometric average is the arithmetic average of the logarithm. It places emphasis on the ratio between numbers, rather than the absolute difference.

- The harmonic average is the arithmetic average of the multiplicative inverse. It averages values by a constant numerator rather than denominator. For example, the average fuel economy of multiple vehicles makes more sense per-distance, so miles/gallon should be rewritten as gallons/mile.

- The (RMS) root-mean-square is the arithmetic average of the square. Electrical power is proportional to the square of the amperage or voltage, so AC current and voltage uses the RMS average to make the power calculations correct.

rovolo commented on The rise of batteries in six charts rmi.org/the-rise-of-batte... · Posted by u/simonebrunozzi

pkolaczk · 2 years ago

Diesel has efficiency of 40% not 25%.

rovolo · 2 years ago

Taking the numbers from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192...

- Diesel has a peak efficiency of 40% but an average efficiency of 20-25% (depending on the type of driving)

- Gasoline has a peak of 35% and an average of 16%–20%

- Battery has a peak of 85% and an average of 80%