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ruggeri commented on Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Update   half-life.com/en/halflife... · Posted by u/Philpax
bdjsiqoocwk · 10 months ago
Steam can delete a game from your account, they can't delete a cd that I physically have with me.

Why does this even need to be spelled out...

ruggeri · 10 months ago
Not contradicting your point, but adding tangential interesting information.

Blu-Ray UHD discs can no longer be played on modern computers as Intel has removed the trusted execution environment needed to decrypt them. Blu-Ray UHD players do a handshake that verifies the use of Intel SGX.

One might have always been skeptical of these discs, especially as AMD had never implemented those TEE instructions.

But I believe the interesting takeaway is that even physical media is becoming something you can’t count on using without the continued permission/assistance of some outside party.

Without regulation I would expect that all new media will eventually require players to be always-online.

ruggeri commented on Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions   twitter.com/kakashiii111/... · Posted by u/mgh2
powerapple · 10 months ago
Hong Kong was set as an example how Taiwan can be integrated as a separate economy, separate government and separate everything as long as it is part of China. The reason why it happened in Hong Kong was that the political movement was out of control, you have some members of the parliament saying "fuck China" when they swear to service during the ceremony. It is more about how Hong Kong sees China, not how China sees Hong Kong. China would be very happy to see Hong Kong works in the two system model. How China is thinking now is that, giving Hong Kong the freedom to operate does not work, the same apply to Taiwan. Most Chinese people have negative views on politicians, the multiparty democracy system in Taiwan is not seen as a positive thing to be honest.
ruggeri · 10 months ago
First, I believe you are right that the CCP believes that "giving Hong Kong the freedom to operate does not work." I believe you are right that the CCP believes that "the same applies to Taiwan." I believe you are right that the CCP does not see the multiparty democratic system in Taiwan as a positive thing.

If Taiwanese people really care about retaining multiparty democracy, then everything you said is a good reason for Taiwan to be wary of PRC attempts to gain more control over Taiwan.

--

Second, I don't know what the average person on the street in mainland China thinks about the HK protest movement or Taiwanese democracy. Today, when the successes of the PRC are more salient to most people than its failures, the average person in mainland China may well look down on the perceived disorder of democracy.

What comes up may come down. Mainland China has had some incredible decades as it industrialized and caught up. That is a typical phenomenon (not a uniquely Chinese one) when an authoritarian country introduces liberalization to their economy. It is harder for authoritarian countries to maintain growth when they are already mostly caught up with peers, because decentralized economic decision making becomes much more effective than centralized decision making. Decentralized economic decision making is a form of decentralized political power, and the authoritarian country is eventually forced to choose between maintaining a monopoly of authority or pursuing further growth.

At least, that's the thesis of economists like Daron Acemoglu. And the PRC is currently trending away from economic decentralization and toward a re-centralization of decision making.

Mainland China now faces some severe economic and geopolitical headwinds; maybe the PRC will navigate them wisely and earn yet more prestige. Or maybe the PRC will fail to respond adequately to new challenges because of the weaknesses of its authoritarian model. And since the PRC's authoritarian system relies almost solely on efficacy as a source of legitimacy, its legitimacy may prove extremely fragile in the face of a downturn in fortune.

Whatever comes to pass, it will not be a result of a Chinese exceptionalism. Perhaps centralized, one-party states without elections and with limited free speech will prove the dominant governmental model in the next era of history. But, historically, states like that seem to have been mostly outlasted by more liberal peers.

ruggeri commented on Nvidia and its partners built a system to bypass U.S. export restrictions   twitter.com/kakashiii111/... · Posted by u/mgh2
mullingitover · 10 months ago
> China doesn't want the model of a free, democratic society of chinese people to exist, because it proves that the CCP's authoritarianism isn't the only "good" model.

So was everything with Taiwan hunky dory when they were a murderous military dictatorship for all those decades[1]?

I thought the under-mentioned beef China had with Taiwan was the fact that the ROC took (and retains to this day) all the priceless cultural artifacts. The CCP would like those back in order to tie themselves to China's history.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)

ruggeri · 10 months ago
> So was everything with Taiwan hunky dory when they were a murderous military dictatorship for all those decades[1]?

It's good to remember that Taiwan's adoption of multiparty democracy is very recent, and that a one-party dictatorship preceded it.

And of course the PRC has always had lots of reasons to want to take back Taiwan, regardless whether it fears that mainland Chinese might see the Taiwanese system as preferable to their own.

But the gp's statement that Taiwan's example today threatens the raison d'être of PRC authoritarianism is also quite valid. PRC's authority does not rest alone on a monopoly of force and surveillance, but also reputation for stability and for organizing economic growth. Now PRC population is aging, growth is slowing and suffering from serious structural problems, economic management is becoming more centralized/ideological/less effective.

A successful, freer counter-example of what a Chinese nation might look like is actually quite dangerous to the PRC. Likewise, I think this is exactly why the PRC has kneecapped democracy in Hong Kong.

ruggeri commented on Harmonic Function Theory   axler.net/HFT.html... · Posted by u/ibobev
lanternfish · a year ago
My High School teaches it as the introductory Linear Algebra course and - while it is a bit difficult - it does an excellent job priming students to think about Lin Alg as a higher order discipline.

After doing it both ways, I really appreciate introducing vector spaces and linear transformations before even touching matrices.

ruggeri · a year ago
May I ask what high school? We did not have a linear algebra course in my New York high school. I would have liked to have been able to take linear algebra then.
ruggeri commented on Show HN: Name That Nation   namethatnation.com/... · Posted by u/andrewtbham
ruggeri · 2 years ago
I liked it a lot, especially the UI.

I disagree with any suggestion that makes the game easier. There are a lot of websites with name-that-country games. For people who are pretty good at locating and naming countries, they want to improve their ability, and they need a tougher game to do that.

It would be fun if there were some country factoids or images, probably. But for people who are trying to get really good at locating countries, they probably already do know facts about various countries, so there isn't a lot of value there.

Spaced repetition of mistakes would be valuable. Very few alternatives offer this.

Maybe you could also offer to filter on a population cutoff? I frequently cut off countries with less than 200k population, because I am not that interested in the various island countries.

Here is my very half-assed version I built once upon a time: https://github.com/ruggeri/world-map-game. Yours is a lot better.

ruggeri · 2 years ago
Oh, another suggestion: show the country and let them name the capital!
ruggeri commented on Show HN: Name That Nation   namethatnation.com/... · Posted by u/andrewtbham
ruggeri · 2 years ago
I liked it a lot, especially the UI.

I disagree with any suggestion that makes the game easier. There are a lot of websites with name-that-country games. For people who are pretty good at locating and naming countries, they want to improve their ability, and they need a tougher game to do that.

It would be fun if there were some country factoids or images, probably. But for people who are trying to get really good at locating countries, they probably already do know facts about various countries, so there isn't a lot of value there.

Spaced repetition of mistakes would be valuable. Very few alternatives offer this.

Maybe you could also offer to filter on a population cutoff? I frequently cut off countries with less than 200k population, because I am not that interested in the various island countries.

Here is my very half-assed version I built once upon a time: https://github.com/ruggeri/world-map-game. Yours is a lot better.

ruggeri commented on Ask HN: Any good Silicon Valley Photo coffee table books?    · Posted by u/vclouder
ruggeri · 2 years ago
I bought San Francisco Dream (Yoko Takahashi) a while back. It had a lot of photos that reminded me of what it felt like when I had just moved here.

Possibly not an answer to your question, but just in case someone else reading finds it interesting.

https://leicastoresf.com/collections/lssf-photobooks/product...

ruggeri commented on Tallest wooden wind turbine starts turning   bbc.com/news/science-envi... · Posted by u/andsoitis
dylan604 · 2 years ago
I don't know if your listing these as "fun" facts, or as a means to try to denigrate wind turbines. If it pays for itself in 7-8 months while operating for 20 years that's 3% of its lifespan. That's 232 months of clean energy being generated. That's impressive to me. So I don't know what your intent is here, but I'm on board for all of it as a good thing
ruggeri · 2 years ago
I didn’t read the comment as trying to denigrate wind turbines. It says 20yr operation with 7-8mo payback which sounds excellent.

If anything, I think the understated way the grandparent comment presented the facts added to the impact of the final result.

ruggeri commented on Apple's Blue Ocean   hypercritical.co/2023/10/... · Posted by u/hutattedonmyarm
SoftTalker · 2 years ago
I'd be happy with an LED bulb that lasted a year. I haven't yet found one that can do that reliably.

Remember that 60W incandescent bulbs costing $0.25 used to be available that met that goal. We've taken huge steps backwards on interior household lighting.

ruggeri · 2 years ago
Just joining in with others who report that I haven't had any problems with LED bulb failures. I've used exclusively LED bulbs for at least 5 years now (maybe about 15 bulbs across my home), and none has ever failed on me.

They do sometimes flicker when they're in a traditional dimmer set at an intermediate level, even though the ones I've bought claim to work with a dimmer. That's frustrating.

But I haven't had any outright failures.

If it helps: I bought mostly SANSI bulbs off Amazon.

ruggeri commented on EV Chargers Should Be Dumber   heatmap.news/electric-veh... · Posted by u/CharlesW
vel0city · 2 years ago
Other than him experiencing broken NFC readers and poor app experience it doesn't sound like a lot of personal experiences being shared. Making general statements of uptime isn't necessarily personal; I also agree they should work on uptime because clearly other people do experience problems and I've seen dispensers down I've just used the open one next to them whenever that's the issue. That whole "Many Reasons We're Switching" is largely him talking generally, but a few specific personal experiences are mixed in as short quips (like the charging latches). Him talking about the networks going with more expensive cables and them being slower to replace the cables when failed isn't necessarily a personal experience, just explaining why they struggle with reliability.

As for the app experience, I wouldn't know, I don't use apps to activate the chargers. And that sounds like that was easily half his personal frustrations.

Do you have a CCS car? You mention a limited experience with charging networks. How many years have you used them? How many times have you tried charging at a non-Tesla charger?

ruggeri · 2 years ago
You're moving the goalposts. He expresses his judgements about the reliability of CCS charging networks in the video. I suppose that you don't have to credit Technology Connections' assessment if you don't think it's based on his personal experience. But I think you now agree that his assessment (right or wrong) about the state of non-Tesla charging is not positive, and can be (and is) summarized as: "it kinda sucks". And that is what we have been disagreeing about.

I don't accept or trust your pivot to personalize the discussion by focusing on my personal experience. I never said I had vast experience with EV charging (I said it was limited). But for the benefit of anyone reading this thread, I will tell you my experience, and then I'm going to disengage with you.

I have owned a CCS vehicle (Toyota Rav4 Prime) for about 6mo. I live in San Francisco. I have tried to charge it about a dozen times at non-Tesla chargers. I succeeded one or two times. I have also observed friends charge their Tesla vehicles at Tesla chargers about a half dozen times.

In my personal experience, I have had connectivity problems (unable to pay because NFC didn't work, and EA app had no signal in a garage), and chargers labeled as up in the EVgo app were not functional. On the Plug Share app I have seen a non-functional station (https://www.plugshare.com/location/37345), where it has been labeled as up for over 12mo, during which time it has never worked. It happens to be the exact station I have most wanted to use.

Those are some of the exact problems Technology Connections mentions, which is why his video did resonate with me.

It sounds like you've had a good experience with non-Tesla charging, which is great. I wish my experience was as positive as yours, because I am unable to charge at home at my rental unit. I would love to have a great experience with non-Tesla charging, both for myself, and for wide adoption of non-Tesla EVs. It sounds like where you live non-Tesla charging infrastructure works more reliably than it has for me here.

Maybe you're going to tell me I'm a moron and don't know how to charge my car. But I haven't had a great experience at it.

u/ruggeri

KarmaCake day625August 11, 2011
About
I was a founder at App Academy (http://www.appacademy.io), an immersive software engineering course. We were the first program in the space to use income share agreements, where we were owed tuition only when our students found work as software engineers.

I developed the original curriculum, taught the course, and trained several hundred students who subsequently became software engineers. It was very fun, and a privilege to work with so many talented and highly motivated students.

If you want to reach me, my email is ruggeri@self-loop.com.

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