Project Hail Mary?
Bobaverse series.
The Bob series by Dennis E. Taylor is amazing, and I highly recommend it. Very positive, very creative.
Readit Newsstoolpigeon commented on Starship Troopers Revolutionize Warfighting perfectingequilibrium.sub... · Posted by u/Michelangelo11
SpaceX is reusing spaceships, landing them, catching rockets in chopstick contraptions. But a spaceship that lands near its launchpad can also land anywhere in the world. In an hour. Loaded with military might.
No - no they can't. Referencing Starship Troopers is appropriate because this is fiction.
stoolpigeon commented on How the ZX Spectrum became a 1980s icon bbc.com/news/articles/cpv... · Posted by u/dabinat
It's interesting how one generation basically had the same experience at the same time, but how it varied from place to place.
The UK was very into ZX - first the ZX80 and ZX81, and then the Spectrum. For that generation, in the UK, Spectrum is the start of everything.
I was an Apple child myself (a function of the machine my dad brought home), a BBC Micro at school (because... education), but in the mid 80s the Apple switched to IBM, and I've been on the PC track ever since.
I've met other groups for whom Vic 20, Commodore 64 and especially Amiga hold that first-love status. I'm just blessed to be that generation where the hardware was there at the right time.
In my friend group - those with a Commodore 64 were at the top. The Vic-20 was the middle and the Sinclair the bottom. My one friend with a Tandy Color Computer had no idea what he was doing, his family just had money.
stoolpigeon commented on The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016) bbc.com/future/article/20... · Posted by u/blubbb
I write left handed, and use a fork in my left and knife in my right. Left hand for holding a phone or a drinking glass, and for shaving.
I'm right eye dominant, though, so I throw, swing, shoot, use scissors, play instruments and use a mouse right handed.
I'm not at all ambidextrous, I can't do most of those things with my other hand.
I'm the same - I call it "pseudoambidextrous".
I lived in Europe for 10 years and that was nice as far as eating goes. Here in the USA I always try to grab a left corner so I'm not bumping elbows with anyone.
I had an uncle just like us, my son is a true full on lefty.
stoolpigeon commented on GM to Cut More Than 1k Software Engineers, Mostly in US webcache.googleuserconten... · Posted by u/1vuio0pswjnm7
I'd buy a car without it in a heartbeat. Preferably one without any screens at all. I know this is wishful thinking.
I enjoy the camera for backing up.
stoolpigeon commented on · Posted by u/data_graffiti
I was surprised at how many athletes for other nations live and train the ihe US
I think it would be interesting to see all medals grouped this way, regardless of the country the athlete represented.
stoolpigeon commented on Initial details about why CrowdStrike's CSAgent.sys crashed twitter.com/patrickwardle... · Posted by u/pilfered
Surely, CrowdStrike's safety posture for update rollouts is in serious need of improvement. No argument there.
But is there any responsibility for the clients consuming the data to have verified these updates prior to taking them in production? I haven't worn the sysadmin hat in a while now, but back when I was responsible for the upkeep of many thousands of machines, we'd never have blindly consumed updates without at least a basic smoke test in a production-adjacent UAT type environment. Core OS updates, firmware updates, third party software, whatever -- all of it would get at least some cursory smoke testing before allowing it to hit production.
On the other hand, given EDR's real-world purpose and the speed at which novel attacks propagate, there's probably a compelling argument for always taking the latest definition/signature updates as soon as they're available, even in your production environments.
I'm certainly not saying that CrowdStrike did nothing wrong here, that's clearly not the case. But if conventional wisdom says that you should kick the tires on the latest batch of OS updates from Microsoft in a test environment, maybe that same rationale should apply to EDR agents?
I think point 3 of the grand parent indicates admins were not given an opportunity to test this.
My company had a lot of Azure vms impacted by this and I'm not sure who the admin was who should have tested it. Microsoft? I don't think we have anything to do with crowdstrike software on our vms. ( I think - I'm sure I'll find out this week.)
Edit: I just learned the Azure central region failure wasn't related to the larger event - and we weren't impacted by the crowd strike issue - I didn't know it was two different things. So my second part of the comment is irrelevant.
stoolpigeon commented on Anyone else lurk and feel like they understand nothing? · Posted by u/to-too-two
I wouldn't say almost nothing. But the more domain specific things get the less I can track.
My big takeaway has been when that happens, I remind myself I'm not fit to judge if a comment is good/right or not. I try to get a feel for the context of conversations and just kind of mentally file it away.
I've learned a lot here over the years and the discussions sometimes remind of the good old days on slashdot.
Why does a farmer need GPS to plow a field ?
>These automated systems have become critical to modern farming (often called “precision agriculture”), with farmers using increasingly automated tractors to plant crops in perfectly straight lines with uniform spacing. Precision agriculture has greatly increased the yield of farms
I guess this is why, but is the increased yield really worth all the issues I hear about these tractors ?
I had a discussion with an engineer from John Deer, I'm not a farmer and don't have direct experience with it so I am taking his word but he told me in most cases the person in the tractor is just there to monitor what's going on for safety. I imagine this frees up people for other work if someone maybe less qualified can be in the tractor, or just takes the load off so they can work longer, allow them to do more in less time, etc.
I enjoy the "what if we're the baddies" just as much as anyone else. But are there big stories with these exciting concepts where we aren't the baddies in the Anglosphere?
A thing I enjoy about other cultures is seeing what is unusually different about them. In the Three Body Problem, spoilers to follow for the series, humanity aren't The Bad Guys With Agency. We aren't even The Big Bad or The Big Good. We're sort of just other participants in this universe. The dual vector foil is employed by someone else, the guys who want space back from the pocket dimension to reboot the universe are just someone else, everything is someone else. We are bit part players in this play.
This goes on even to a few movies. The Wandering Earth movie (somewhat different from the short story) has this part at the end (obvious spoilers to follow) where the heroes accomplish the task and reboot their Earth Engine after conquering all odds - only for the camera to zoom out and show numerous other teams also having done the same. This wasn't the only struggle won. Cool alternative tale where it isn't so much One Team Saves The World or One Team Ruins The World.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is very compelling.
And I seconded it below but I'll mention it again - the Bobiverse series is excellent with amazing exploration.