Category Archives: News

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Thinking of Buying a Bike? Get Ready for a Very Long Wait

Posted on 2020-05-18 by pappp

Source: NYT > U.S.

Article note: I'm moving somewhere I'd like a bike for faster runs into campus and looked around a few weeks ago, it was an interesting thing to see largely wiped out. Neat to see it noticed and explained.

The United States is facing a shortage of bicycles as anxiety over public transportation and a desire to exercise has sent the demand surging.

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Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

Posted on 2020-05-18 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Oh boy, monopolistic multinationals colluding with abusive governments, we're living in the sci-fi future. Not a good one, mind you.
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Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

Posted on 2020-05-17 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: I keep using the phrase "Burn barrel" for these parasitic wastes of VC cash that seem to increasingly be the dominant species of "tech" startup. The image of burning $100s in a 55-gallon drum isn't actually adequate though, because they're actually harming adjacent industries and social function.
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It’s Time to Get Back to RSS

Posted on 2020-05-17 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: The HN comments expose the real shame of it; Everyone is trying to turn web content into a hustle, and RSS is not designed for that. It doesn't let the platforms control what the users sees. It isn't built to enable the ad spend bubble. These are _features_ from the user perspective, and why I've never stopped primarily consuming through RSS.
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Unreal Engine 5 is meant to ridicule web developers

Posted on 2020-05-17 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: This is quality satire.
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The Linux Kernel FPGA Subsystem

Posted on 2020-05-16 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Hmm. Interesting. Mainline support to program one already-generated bitstream on bring-up. I suppose for machines that use a glue FPGA.
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Snow Crash: HBO Max adaptation of Neal Stephenson’s 1992 cyberpunk novel

Posted on 2020-05-14 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: I will be extremely impressed if they can not fuck this up. It _should_ make great TV.
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Senate rejects amendment limiting warrantless government internet searches

Posted on 2020-05-13 by pappp

Source: The Week: Most Recent Home Page Posts

Article note: Disappointing.

The Senate on Wednesday fell one vote shy of passing a bipartisan amendment drafted by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) that sought to limit warrantless government Internet searches and browsing history.

The vote required a three-fifths majority, and only 59 lawmakers supported it. The 37 no-votes were comprised of both Republicans and Democrats, while four senators, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), didn't cast a vote, though it's reportedly unclear if their participation would have changed the result.

Four Senators who did not vote
ALEXANDER
MURRAY
SANDERS
SASSE

I've reached out to their offices. (Alexander is self-isolating because a staffer has COVID.)

— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) May 13, 2020

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), one of 10 Democrats to reject the amendment, said he did so out of concern that passing it would effectively kill the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act completely, while Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) thinks the FISA court will serve as a "sufficient check" against such requests on its own.

Shaheen, another Dem who opposed Wyden’s amendment, says she believes the FISA court will act as a sufficient check on the government’s requests for Internet browsing history.

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) May 13, 2020

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Federal complaint against new girls-only STEM school in Lexington says it’s unfair to boys.

Posted on 2020-05-11 by pappp

Source: Kentucky.com -- Education

Article note: I've been helping out with UK's WIE program for years. I've always been of the opinion that it would be great if we could offer it to everyone, but there are no where near the resources available to do so, and we're maximizing effect with the demographic targeting. I have very mixed feelings about single-gender primary schooling in general, and STEM-focus primary programs seem to produce interesting pathologies.

Federal Department of Education sex discrimination investigations have been opened on Fayette County Schools’ new all-girls elementary STEM program and four female-only STEM programs at the University of Kentucky following … Click to Continue »

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Rust concurrency: the single-writer principle

Posted on 2020-05-11 by pappp

Source: Hacker News

Article note: Single-Writer (or "Owner Writes") is _the_ way for doing hardware description language work, and usually the least-awful way to do most parallel programming. We've known that for _at least_ a decade, but software people hate to hear it because it means you have to do actual mental work instead of grunt programming to solve problems. It's really clear why you don't fuck around with contention when you're thinking in terms of "I'm going to have to drive this D flipflop with two different wires, so I need an extra layer of arbitration logic, so I did this wrong."
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