We suck at excel because we recognize that it has a bad data model and avoid it. So when we want to calculate something we pick something with better structure. something more pleasant to use than the spreadsheets "it's a big bag of cells" approach.
Really, spreadsheets are fine, they probably hit that sweet spot for easy to get something together and deep enough to express complex needs. But I have to admit, now that I have better tools I don't enjoy doing work in them anymore.
I feel it's the extreme of "static vs dynamic languages". In Excel, even variables (cells) are dynamic, not fixed names in a lexical scope.
The reactive programming aspect is genuinely good; I wish my business logic could be expressed declaritively and the system just reacted automatically.
I also find it fascinating to consider the looks-like-a-spreadsheet-but-statically-typed-and-scoped world (airtable is a step in this direction, for example).
This is also something I really want, what is the best way to include constraint solvers? I have been messing around with sympy see what insights it provides in this domain, but to actually use it the cad DSL would have to be python, is there an easy way to build a simple constraint solver out of a normal imperative workflow?
The California law says nothing about verification or immutability, what if someone made a mistake when putting in their age? Why do we need to hide it? Better to just let the user change this at will.
Yeah the most likely thing (for the California law, at least) is that compliant OS's expose a form at account creation where you input a birthdate or age, and have either a CLI/file/setting where you can change the birthdate or age with admin permissions. No verification is needed
What I got out of it was that an os has to provide an interface to applications so that if they make an age request(note that the law says nothing about when or what applications will make a age request) the os can provide something. and it has to provide an interface for the user to enter the information.
So when we map this requirement onto the mechanism of how the os provides information to applications. and how users set up the system. I have come to the conclusion that compliance on a unix-like platforms is as simple as
echo ${AGE_CATEGORY} > ~/.config/ca_ab_1043
Then the program can get the age category anytime it wants to. the user is able to put this information in at account setup just like the law asks using an accessible interface, the same interface everything else on a unix-like platform uses, the shell.
You’d need some script that updates the age category based on the user’s provided birthday (which is not shared with the applications) but otherwise yeah
The brackets are a few years wide, so it could take a bit of waiting. But yeah I’d consider setting a slightly different day/month for a child if I was paranoid.
I guess you could also make the bracket selectable instead of requiring the age
But it's not piracy either. People just want to make the crime sound worse then "infringement" Might as well call it "software rape" as that crime is closer to what is being done than than theft or piracy.
I like to joke about what sort of idiot designs a round connector that is keyed, the worst of both worlds. Now, a round keyed connector is not necessarily a bad thing, the round shell can be very strong, but the ps/2 mini-din went too far. the shell was too small and the key not assertive enough. It was a bad connector.
The worst I have seen was an old ati all-in-wonder I had where the video input ports were on a dongle with a ps/2-like minidin but high density, with about 10 pins. It only took two insertion operations before I resolved to do everything in my power to never unplug it again. getting all those thin pins aligned was basically impossible.
I actually had to fact-check myself because I remember that infernal connector having about 20 or 30 pins, But I looked it up and it "only" had 10.
The worst connector IMO is the HDMI connector. I run the mediatec at an university and the amount of well-shielded cable I have to throw into the bin each semester because yet snother perdon levered off that plug is mindboggling.
On top of that, HDMI tries to be to much and do too much
On that topic, the 8pin modular ethernet plug has a number of downsides, but it has one huge upside that completely redeems it in my books.
It is super easy to field terminate ethernet. I wish all connector ends were as easy to replace. I have this vague boil-the-ocean type idea where we could replace usb with poe ethernet.
I have heard that story, but so far I have yet to see a broken USB-C plug. I have seen broken USB-C receptacles tho, levered off the PCB. But there are sturdy variants of those as well.
Kitty litter is not a bad choice for a class D metal fire but make sure you have the correct type. You want the stuff made out of bentonite clay, not the stuff made out of grain byproducts.
Sorry i should have been more precise. It's some sort of enterprise kitty litter, which is probably the material you reference and costs about 5x kitty litter. ;)
$500 million in clean-up costs resulting from using the wrong kitty litter. Amazing.
Sounds like the cleanup costs were largely related to the fact that the reaction caused an airtight drum to explode and spew radioactive waste throughout the facility, though, which presumably wouldn't apply to the "metal fire on an aircraft" scenario.
I'm curious what would actually happen, worst case.
Assuming the metal fire couldn't be extinguished, could it at least be contained to melt a small enough hole in the aircraft to safely land?
The scary thing about a class D fire is that it is self oxidizing. They are very hard/impossible to put out. Usually the best you can do is isolate it from anything else that can burn and let it burn itself out, if you have the space and equipment and correct environment you can try and break it up, but that is a lot of ifs. Water can be problematic because there is a good chance it will just scatter a bunch flaming goo everywhere not put anything out. Usually the best thing to do is to stick it in a bucket of sand. Second best is to dump sand on it. Clay type kitty litter would be a good substitute for sand, it won't catch on fire, lighter than sand, it will absorb any molten residue from the fire.
My guess on the plane scenario, there are enough secondary effects (smoke, insulation/trim/carpet/seats catching on fire) that would bring down the plane. but I don't think a personal battery has enough fuel to burn thru. I think the isolation bags are probably just aluminum(perhaps steel) foil. enough layers to let the infernal thing burn out without catching anything else on fire. You probably still get a lot of nasty smoke.
Needing an app for these things is stupid in the first place, but the real kick in the metaphorical nuts is that the needed app should be stored on the device. Want to use your phone to control the device load the program to do so off the device itself.
We really only have one tech stack where this actually works, the web. And I consider this to be either the great failure of the app ecosystem(why on earth do apps need a manual install step?) or amazement that the corporate overlords let the web slip through the gaps.
Is there a way to do web over bluetooth? or is that another missing piece?
For the one I have the app is completely optional. It doesn’t add any capability, it just lets you control it remotely. It will perform all its capabilities just fine without you ever taking your phone out.
For the subscription you also get additional content like recipes and such that I don’t care about. I wouldn’t pay for it.
On a pedantic note, that is unimportant to the discussion at hand, but I want to talk about it anyway. quantum computers have theoretical gains in some specific domains but would not do anything for this one. Anyhow I have doubts about even those specific domains, my gut says that quantum computing is an inherently analog process and we moved off analog computers for a reason. Bonus points if you know why that was.
Really, spreadsheets are fine, they probably hit that sweet spot for easy to get something together and deep enough to express complex needs. But I have to admit, now that I have better tools I don't enjoy doing work in them anymore.
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