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It's the little things
My wife has been watching the Netflix show Lucifer. I watch it with her as I read my tablet/post on SoylentNews.
One moment caught my eye and made me appreciate the show more: at one point Lucifer plays "All along the watchtower" on the piano. I enjoy that song and it caught my attention...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SFDOSIecALU
...the song ends and Lucifer's mother walks in: and it's Tricia Helfer, '6' from Battlestar Galactica.
NICE little touch!
I like it when there are little touches like that (another one: Archer doing a Bob's Burgers cross-over).
Anyone else notice things like this?
2018: The Final Chapter
It's that time of year again. The time of year when everyone and their dog waxes nostalgic about all the shit nobody cares about from the year past, and stupidly predicts the next year in the grim knowledge that when the next New Year comes along, nobody will remember
that the dumbass predicted a bunch of foolish shit that turned out to be complete and utter balderdash. I might as well, too. Just like I did last year (yes, a lot of this was pasted from last year's final chapter).
There are even fewer articles this year than last year, as most of what I was doing was feverishly getting my cookbook ready to publish.
Some of these links go to /., S/N, mcgrewbooks.com, or mcgrew.info.
As usual, first: the yearly index:
Journals:
Articles:
Scince Fiction:
Last years' stupid predictions (and more):
Last year I said I'd publish Voyage to Earth and Other Stories, and I was right,
I predicted that Trump wouldn't be worse than Bush, this is still undetermined. He hasn't started any shooting wars (yet; if he doesn't he'll be the first Republican President since Ford not to start one) and he hasn't gotten our country attacked (yet, he's trying awful hard). He hasn't ruined the economy... yet. I do predict a stock market bubble that will crash the economy when it pops. I hope I'm wrong; so far I am.
I'm also predicting that I won't have a book ready in 2019. I haven't even got a start on one.
I'll also hang on to most of last year's predictions;
Someone will die. Maybe you, maybe me. Not necessarily anybody I know... we can only hope.
SETI will find no sign of intelligent life. Not even on Earth.
The Pirate Party won't make inroads in the US. I hope I'm wrong about that one.
US politicians will continue to be wholly owned by the corporations.
I'll still be a nerd.
Technophobic fashionista jocks will troll slashdot (but not S/N).
Slashdot will be rife with dupes.
Many Slashdot FPs will be poorly edited.
Slashdot still won't have fixed its patented text mangler (I haven't been there for a while, did they fix it?).
Microsoft will continue sucking
Happy New Year! Ready for another trip around the sun?
Great VPN and get 60 days free!
and get 60 days of Private Internet Access free! (and you also gift ME with 60 days free: the gift you always wanted to give me! :)
Only until 12/31/2018, 11:59PM MST, sadly.
You want a great VPN that has survived court cases and has always been reliable, this is it.
Soylent's Fiction: 2018
“But you said I can’t make it look like this is real,” I said. Okay, maybe I whined it. I was confused, as I almost always am talking to this guy.
“It’s all right,” Rority replied. “Nobody will believe it, anyway. Well, except Noboty.”
“Huh?”
“My butler Noboty. He’s a robot made out of nobots.”
“Oh yeah, you mentioned him...”
“Yeah, you’ll write about it. You got it all wrong, but not bad for a protohuman.”
“And you’re really taking me to the future?” I asked, incredulous.
“Well,” he said, giving me a sly look... or what I interpreted as one. “Kind of. It’s nobotic.”
“So it won’t be real?”
Rority took a hit off of his stratodoober, laughed uproariously, and things got weird.
As I write this, it’s February 2000. Five years ago I foresaw some really big problems, because they had designed all the world’s databases with only two characters in the date fields, as if it was going to be the twentieth century forever. Luckily, so did everybody else who knew how computers work, and governments and industry industriously got to work and fixed it.
I got a huge raise a few years ago, and I understand the recession is over for everybody else, too, since Clinton was elected. We’re buying a house this year.
I logged on to the internet to work on my web site, the Springfield Fragfest. The new 56K modem was screeching as Rority appeared, as weird as ever. It looks like smoke or fog assembling into him, and then becomes solid.
Rority says I can’t let anyone see this until at least late 2018, which will be the Illinois bicentennial.
I should mention what nobots are, I guess. Nobots are microscopic robots, each having a computer orders of magnitude more powerful than all the computing power that exists today, and they’re all networked together. They can assemble with other nobots to make solid things. Rority says that in his time, everything but food and drink is made of nobots.
Rority is from ten million years in the future and looks like an Area 51 space alien. Most of what he does looks like magic to me, but I’ve read Clarke. Ten million years is a long time. But time travel, and going faster than light that he says are related, seem like impossibilities to me. But I’m really primitive to him. I think he sees me as a pet.
“We need at least ten cubic meters of space to do this,” he said.
“I know just the place,” I replied. “There’s a cornfield not too far from here, and they won’t be planting for a couple of months.”
We got in my car and drove out there. I hopped the fence and Rority walked right through it like it wasn’t even there. About twenty yards in, Rority said “Okay, we’re far enough. Just a second while I... okay, here we go.”
And I thought how he shows up and walks right through things is weird! Everything turned to fog, kind of the opposite of when Rority shows up.
The fog solidified into a room. There was a desk with a computer on it, and the screen was really strange, only about an inch thick and perfectly flat. There were some strange, cylindrical light “bulbs” in the room’s lamps. Various little lights on the computer were blinking. It took a minute or so to take it all in.
I finally noticed the desk had no phone on it, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t pay much attention to the framed, backlit poster on the wall, until the image started moving, talking, and making music.
“How far into the future is this, anyway?” I asked. “Freakin’ Star Trek.”
“It’s 2018.” Right then I realized that the poster was really a television, tuned to CNN. The announcer said something about the president; Donald Trump was on the screen in front of the White House.
My jaw dropped. “Don’t tell me he’s president!”
Rority grinned and shrugged. “Okay, I won’t. But ignorance won’t change reality.”
“How in the hell...”
Rority seemed to be really enjoying himself. “This fall, back in your time, George Bush will be elected president...”
“Again? He could only serve one more term.”
“No, his son George. Despite what Clinton had warned him about Al Queda, he let his guard down and the country was attacked.”
“Who’s this Al Queda guy, some Mexican drug lord?”
“It’s an Islamic terrorist organization based in Afghanistan. They flew two jet airliners into the Twin Towers in New York, one into the Pentagon, and tried to fly one into the capitol building, but that one crashed. Actually, I made it crash.”
“What’s that got to do with Trump?”
“I’m getting to it. Anyway, Bush started an undeclared war on Afghanistan, then attacked Iraq. Despite, or rather because of his two wars, he was re-elected.
“Then toward the end of his second term, the economy crashed and crashed hard, starting what is called the ‘Great Recession’. Your historians say it was banking that caused it, but the real reason was that fuel prices more than quadrupled. It was either buy gas to get to work or pay the mortgage. The Republican, a war hero named John McCain, lost to Barack Obama, a black man.”
“But how did Trump get to be president?”
“I’m getting to it. Obama was a very good president who your historians say was history’s twelfth best. He managed to find and kill Osama Bin Laden...”
“Is that some federal bill?”
“No, he was the head of Al Queda and ordered the attack on the US. Obama also stopped the country from sliding into a full-blown depression (don’t tell anybody, but I had a hand in that, too) and managed to get a law passed that made sure everyone could get health care.”
“And Trump?”
“When Obama first ran, Trump cooked up a phony story about Obama being Muslim and not a citizen. The crazy racists bought it. Trump, the fraudster, huckster, and all around terrible protohuman kept it up. Obama ran for re-election against Mitt Romney and beat him handily; Obama was a popular president.
“Then in the 2016 election, Trump bullied all the other Republicans out of the race, and the Democrats chose Clinton’s wife.”
“Clinton’s wife?”
“Yes, she’d served two terms as a New York senator, and Obama had appointed her as Secretary of State. There were a series of scandals right before the election, and she was never very popular anyway. None the less, she won the popular vote but lost in the electoral college. So Trump’s been President for almost two years. Racism was his ticket to the White House.”
“Who’s this ‘Mueller’ guy, anyway?”
“He’s investigating Trump for collusion with the Russians to steal the election, bribery, campaign finance crimes, witness intimidation...”
“Sounds worse than Nixon.”
“He is. Lets go outside so you can look around.”
“Okay, but why?”
“Because it’s necessary to keep you stupid protohumans from completely destroying your environment. If you don’t stop burning fossil fuels I’ll never be born. Not just you, everybody. And Trump seems to hate the environment.”
“What makes you say that?”
“He appointed a man who had sued the EPA many times as head of the EPA, they’re now dismantling everything the EPA has done in the last fifty years, and Trump took us out of the Paris agreement.”
“Paris agreement?”
“That was another big Obama success. He got together with all the world’s leaders to find a way to stop the global warming. Only one small, poor nation didn’t sign, and Trump pulled out of the agreement as soon as he took office. Come on, let’s go outside.” He opened the door and exited.
I followed him out into the cold. There were a couple of inches of snow on the ground. “If Trump is such a danger to the future, why did you let him win?”
“The math boys say if Clinton had won, destruction would have come even sooner.” He walked up to a really cool looking car and got in the driver’s seat. I got in the passenger seat.
“Why? She had the experience.”
“How much of your history do you know?”
“What I learned in school, about the same as most people, I guess. Why?”
“Because her government experience was a close parallel to James Buchanan’s. Buchanan was the one who started the civil war; he tried too hard to please everyone, just like Clinton. The math boys say had she won, there would have been a thermonuclear war resulting in a massive extinction event that would have dwarfed even the ‘Great Dying’.”
The car started moving and didn’t make a sound. At least, not enough for me to hear. “So I take it that Trump and Clinton both need to be out of the picture? What happens to them?”
“I can’t tell you, your knowledge would be dangerous. It will work out okay after the next recession.”
“The next recession?”
“There’s always a next recession, at least until we got past laboring for goods.”
“When will it hit?”
“I can’t tell you, you’d really screw things up for us.”
A Harley thundered past us going the opposite way. “This is sure a quiet car. I don’t recognize the brand.”
“It will be another three years before they even get started building a company. This is a Tesla Model S.”
“They must have some breakthrough mufflers.”
“It’s electric. It doesn’t need a muffler. In parts of the world, it would emit no pollution or carbon at all. The trouble is, and this is what I want you to tell people in 2018, is that here in Springfield this Tesla pollutes more than any vehicle on the road.
“Well, maybe school buses are dirtier, those things really stink. But this Tesla runs on coal.”
“Coal?”
“Its batteries are charged from the local electric grid when the car’s parked. Springfield’s biggest and most used generator is coal-fired. So here, electric cars pollute more than even diesel.”
We went as far as Ash street, and signs indicated that it was closed. Rority pointed to it. “They’re building a high-speed rail system through here. There won’t be any crossings, just underpasses. Ash will be open next Spring and they’ll close Laurel to construct its underpass.
“I wanted you to see the progress.” He turned left on Ash and left again on 5th. We drove down to the university.
“See that shiny wall?” he asked as we drove through the campus.
“Yeah, what’s it for? It looks strange.”
“It’s a solar panel. It generates electricity from sunlight.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of solar cells but have read that they’re way too expensive and inefficient to be practical.” By then he was heading south on I-55.
“They were, twenty years ago. In fifty years there won’t be many traditional electric generators, except some old hydroelectric and nuclear plants. Most houses will have solar panels on the roof, and most skyscrapers will have windmills on top.”
“You mean like in the old Dutch paintings?”
“No, these look like... well, they probably will look like a prop from a science fiction movie to you. We’ll come up on one soon... oh, over there, look.”
It kind of looked like a giant futuristic box fan mounted on a huge pole, only without the box. The blades turned slowly.
“Not much wind today,” he said. “Now we’re going three hundred years in your future; your future if you keep burning coal and oil.” It suddenly got very foggy, and Rority pulled off of the road and stopped. We had been going through a wooded area, snow still on the ground.
The fog lifted. I’d never seen it get so foggy so fast, or for it to lift so fast.
The highway was so cracked and disused and full of potholes it was hard to recognize as a road, let alone a highway. The snow was gone, and the sunlight’s angle suggested a summer day rather than winter. The trees were mostly gone, and what was left was dead and broken. Rority did a U-turn and went back north, still in the southbound lanes. It worried me.
“Aren’t you afraid of a head on crash?” I asked nervously.
He shook his head. “There’s no other traffic.” We came up on an overpass, and I understood why he’d said that—the overpass had collapsed, blocking the road. He drove up the entrance and back down the exit.
Farther down he exited on an entrance ramp and turned left on highway 104. “Where’ we goin’?” I asked.
“Back to Springfield.”
“Kind of the long way there, ain’t it?”
“The bridge over Lake Springfield is out.”
We passed through Auburn, or at least the town’s ruins. I wondered what had happened to the town? There were only a few structures still standing. There was evidence of a great many fires. He turned right on highway 4. I didn’t say anything until we reached Chatham, which was likewise in ruins.
“What the hell happened?” I was both aghast and awe-struck.
“I told you, global warming.” We crossed over a stream or something, the creaky old bridge miraculously still standing.
“Just the rising temperatures caused all this?”
“It started it. California and Florida were the worst hit in North America, but the rising seas and frequent, never before seen monster storms, destroyed most of the world’s coasts. Fires destroyed most of California. Crops failed worldwide from droughts.”
He got on highway 72 and crossed the median; highway 4 had collapsed on the interstate. We were going east in the westbound lanes. “The wars did most of the damage.”
“I thought you said it was global warming.”
“It was. Hungry people fight for food.”
When we reached the entrance from 5th street he moved onto 6th street at the entrance to a big Walmart, which wasn’t there in 2000 and now laid in ruins, like everything else. We continued north. The railroad overpass by Stanford Avenue was completely missing, with no debris on the road.
Further north, the next railroad overpass was down, debris blocking three of the four lanes. Most of the houses were completely gone, with nothing left but charred rubble.
I asked “Hungry people did all this?”
“Hungry nations did all this. Wars were fought, more wars were fought, nuclear arms were unleashed, and this is the result. No more people, dogs, cats, birds... in fact, there’s very little still alive. Cockroaches, Tardigrades, very few other species.
“The math boys say that in about another five hundred million years there would be new land species, even evolving to sentience later, but we’ll be gone. By the time the few surviving species become sentient, no trace of humanity will remain at all.”
He turned left on Capitol, and there it was: the Illinois State Capitol building, charred and blackened, but still standing. He headed back to the cornfield.
“So how am I supposed to stop all this?” I asked, frantic. This was about the worst thing I’d ever seen.
“Your little web site?”
“What about it?”
“It’s going to get you started writing. You already wrote the art thing and the thing about the cat. By 2018 you’ll have written and published half a dozen books. When we get back, write this down, put it away, and post it on the internet no earlier than Halloween 2018.”
By then we had reached the cornfield, now only dirt, and got out of the Tesla. There was no fence to hop. The fog rose and fell again, and the fence, snow and stalk stumps were back, the stumps flattened to the ground in a square, ten yards to a side.
“I’ll see you,” he said. “Go on home and write this down. But do not under any circumstances let anyone see it or even hear about it until after Halloween 2018.”
“But how will that stop the destruction?”
“Look, I don’t have the math to explain it to you even if you could understand it. But you’ve heard of the ‘butterfly effect’, where the flapping of a butterfly’s wings affects the weather, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but what does that have to do with this?”
“You’re the butterfly that prevents the hurricane!”
He hit his stratodoober again, laughed uproariously, and vanished in the now familiar cloud of smoke.
I sure hope I’m flapping my wings right.
Forum Moderation Score Prediction
I'm currently busy because I received start-up funding (and use of a ridiculously swanky office). The first development deadline is on Mon 31 Dec 2018. The second development deadline is on Thu 31 Jan 2019. The third development deadline is on Sun 31 Mar 2019. Funding currently lasts until Fri 31 May 2019. Unfortunately, this has greatly curtailed my annual fun programming project for Christmas 2018. Previous efforts have taken three days. This took three hours.
I have implemented a small system which predicts the final moderation score of a message on a forum. This uses some search engine theory, such as postings and repetition limits. However, it doesn't use n-grams, stemming, weighting by word frequency or Bayes theorem. Indeed, a significant amount of theory has not been implemented and the result only makes predictions with a relatively weak correlation. This implementation only works with the output of SoylentNews and is heavily dependent upon certain attributes currently found in the HTML. It is also heavily dependent upon line breaks typically found within boiler-plate HTML. Regardless, the concept can be generalized and adapted for other forums.
One script collates words:-
cat /path/to/saved/soylentnews/discussions/*.html | ./collate.pl > collate.txt
The other script allows predictions to be compared against actual scores:-
cat /path/to/saved/soylentnews/discussions/*.html | egrep '(comment_score_|comment_body_)' | ./estimate.pl collate.txt | sort -r -n -k 2 | more
The second script can also be used interactively. This is minor source of amusement but is generally less insightful than browsing the collated statistics:-
./estimate.pl collate.txt
If you want to be argumentative, negative or defeatist then this script will confirm that you'll be unappreciated. For example, one of our resident trolls, SaltySpice, rarely scores above 1.2. In particular, from my cache of saved discussions, "Fuck MDC" scores 0.597.
begin 644 soylentnews-score20181224.tar.gz
M'XL("`ZZ(%P"`W-O>6QE;G1N97=S+7-C;W)E,C`Q.#$R,C0N=&%R`.U76U/C
M-A3.LW^%-KC$(0FV<R$MP6EW=K?MSG1X`*:=:1P8)Q%$7<?.2DHAW0V_O4>2
MKT`&.LNTW4'?0VR?<W0NNGQ'8?$ZQ!&/\#5KL6E,<=MQOW7;[:X]C<,PX'A_
M&5:^$`Z@W^N)I]OO]HM/`;?;Z5;<3M=UX.>@`W9NO^\Z%>14_@6L&`\H0A5.
M"?NXPEN+?4S_E6+GE;UBU)Z0R%YB&J+6;X:Q@T[5KCB&78'>Q(L%O*-3L3O0
M.\;)(N`Q%5932I8<G<5@(_<*^IDP4)%I$"IS!E;6F[K84^ALCL$N8C'E9+78
M-W9`EVXV)!:!&P;%'U<$HM1",H&-5QL8QO6<A-B:X4L2X9EEAO#PCD[/WKX_
M'M;KZ).!D#F-5Q%O-`;P3BX3DUO[:-[U)Z/SX7AO:).8*5NPYOB&>])(#-@@
M'++B*#FB.E5%7\@C<3%R6M^-&]7[SG87P0=\P3%=*`?U@12#/XO!)`34^D$H
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M<$Y*QUM*OD_NE^`RF,YA<(B1]0&O&?H&U'E-,$O9HB2+#::;0M4J<L/+UESH
M[:+QG@DNU6M:XJ90&(0HK</0R9T+U[974@]*LZUFI5GU>;7)5A/&J27&-)UF
MKZZD?\0DLFJHUE3#09C.=-JTC.?G?W4:GX-C'N/_7K>=W_\/'''_=SJNYO__
MCO]_(1,:T#7Z,:9/[`7_A/!ADZ/L=*LK_#*@P<)C<W*IR%=]W[*$)X>V?05T
M6%1Q:H]>MWX?VZ.@]=?8+H\:G0.Y@=QO^37@>V1?E0>S8C=X0'N>J6U[ZT@S
MU<E3F;89)+J+-);'G&*^HI%H&[+LC+UDV8*G/,5C9193YSQCQ1#+I/Q:(PV9
M2T%H%J093:G_0QOC48*4E_)TU+!3(*Y,ZG6*;'.OJ.S?@UI+1?+96MXQ3B[B
MTO21S(H$#.1\AX%+9%U4[ZD,!@\G*V[W#P07&Q8E&8BH:0Z*HJNE8#XO9@9?
K\$@8^4Y`]X7\B]#0T-#0T-#0T-#0T-#0T-#0T-#0T/B_X6]42<M9`"@`````
`
end
Humble bundle hacking books
I bought the humble bundle hacking books on sale for myself for Christmas because I'm tired of knowing enough to possibly get myself in trouble but not enough to stay out of trouble.
Some interesting reading, so far.
About 15 books total...DRM free and charitable giving. Nice.
Capitalism vs Corruptism
I have nothing against capitalism: what we seem to have nowadays is Corruptism.
Corruptism is the collecting of wealth no matter who or what.
Need another dollar? Bribe a politician to make the laws favour corporations over people.
Need ANOTHER dollar? Cut wages and hours.
Need ANOTHER dollar? Layoffs.
It use to be that employers made, what, 400X what their employees made? Now an employee has to work 2-3 jobs just to live while the 'boss' feeds the pork to make ONE MORE DOLLAR!
A little more kindness would see us in a better world.
I'd like to see politicians start thinking of the people who voted for them.
Lets get back to basic Capitalism: Corruptism is not working.
Edit!: The day our brains stood still
The CBC has grabbed a brain and got it moving again!
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/cbc-baby-its-cold-reinstate-1.4941087
So the loud minority is starting to be drowned out by the usually silent majority: good for all those who have brains.
Original:
So radio stations are banning "Baby, it's cold outside" because there are too many losers in the world.
My. God., People. Are. Stupid.
It's a really nice Christmas song about a girl wanting to stay with her man for....'cuddles', but she can't because society would call her a 'whore/slut' if she did.
She is wrestling with WANTING to stay but 'having' to leave because society is filled with losers.
Look:
"I really can't stay - Baby it's cold outside
I've got to go away - Baby it's cold outside
This evening has been - Been hoping that you'd drop in
So very nice - I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice
My mother will start to worry - Beautiful, what's your hurry
My father will be pacing the floor - Listen to the fireplace roar
So really I'd better scurry - Beautiful, please don't hurry
Well Maybe just a half a drink more - Put some records on while I pour
The neighbors might think - Baby, it's bad out there
Say, what's in this drink - No cabs to be had out there
I wish I knew how - Your eyes are like starlight now
To break this spell - I'll take your hat, your hair looks swell
I ought to say no, no, no, sir - Mind if I move a little closer
At least I'm gonna say that I tried - What's the sense in hurting my pride
I really can't stay - Baby don't hold out
Ahh, but it's cold outside
C'mon baby
I simply must go - Baby, it's cold outside
The answer is no - Ooh baby, it's cold outside
This welcome has been - I'm lucky that you dropped in
So nice and warm -- Look out the window at that storm
My sister will be suspicious - Man, your lips look so delicious
My brother will be there at the door - Waves upon a tropical shore
My maiden aunt's mind is vicious - Gosh your lips look delicious
Well maybe just a cigarette more - Never such a blizzard before
I've got to get home - Oh, baby, you'll freeze out there
Say, lend me your coat - It's up to your knees out there
You've really been grand - Your eyes are like starlight now
But don't you see - How can you do this thing to me
There's bound to be talk tomorrow - Making my life long sorrow
At least there will be plenty implied - If you caught pneumonia and died
I really can't stay - Get over that old out
Ahh, but it's cold outside
Baby it's cold outside"
Read it!
There are no rape drugs in her drink: she's making an excuse for not leaving, just like in the lines:
"But don't you see
There's bound to be talk tomorrow
At least there will be plenty implied
I really can't stay"
She wants to stay, but feels she can't.
Only stupid people could object to this song.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid people.
My. God.
We Are Hiring
███████.com is a proper stealth mode Dot Com style start-up with more Aeron chairs than people based in Central London between the Ritz Hotel and Fortnum & Mason. We seek someone who:-
- Can write POSIX C to a subset of the MISRA standard to target GNU/Linux, BSD, MacOSX and the cheapest micro-controllers we can find; probably 16 bit AVR or possibly 32 bit Xtensa.
- Can write useful documentation in US English as plain text, HTML or OpenOffice format.
- Can occasionally invoke horrors written in PERL4 and make.
- Is willing to solder, flash and test micro-controllers.
- Alternatively, wants the thankless task of implementing a Unix GUI.
We strongly encourage part-time tele-work, part-time hours and job sharing. We encourage you to use your favorite text editor and email client. Furthermore, we:-
- Prefer HTML2 rather than HTML5.
- Prefer UDP rather than TCP.
- Prefer IPv4 rather than IPv6. (This seems to get howls of protest from people don't understand RFC1365.)
- Prefer wired rather than wireless.
- Prefer Unix rather than Windows.
- Prefer RISC rather than CISC.
- Prefer compiled programming languages.
- Prefer strong typing and static checking.
- Attempt to follow the 12 Step Joel Test without being a cargo cult.
- Are strongly skeptical about cryptographic currency and weakly supportive of block-chain.
- Are strongly pro-privacy.
- Are strongly against cloudy computing.
- Appreciate junk food including our local source of caffeinated bacon.
- Prefer jello rather than Trello. (Sorry, Joel.)
- Prefer slack rather than Slack.
Indeed, we are chilled and low drama with collective experience of South California counter-culture and hydroponics. We are very accommodating towards alternative lifestyles and disabilities. For us, wisdom is highly prized and we appreciate that wisdom is often accompanied with ailments of age. Regardless, we retain some exhuberance and immaturity. Last week, in jest, I was intentionally struck with a scrunched food wrapper. Also, a spherical cow plushie was thrown around the office. This week, it is joined by a spherical sheep, spherical ladybug and spherical tiger. We are willing to reduce such shenanigans if people require concentration. Unfortunately, this is the first of many steps going from innovation to stale, hollow corporation. However, we are doing our utmost to ensure that people don't have to tone down appearance or mannerisms for our traditional New York investors. (We're not encouraging an us-and-them mentality but you can definitely tell who has the money and who has the ideas.)
We've been given a very long leash to make the most awesome, reliable, valuable, legal product and/or service by Mar 2019 with ongoing work subject to outcome. Personally, I'd like to deliver (five sets of) micro-processor, operating system, filing system, database, streaming video desktop remoting system with HDR, 3D sound and much more besides. However, in the four months covering Christmas, it would be optimistic to deliver a draft version of one piece. Indeed, even in the long-term, we cannot be all things to all people. So, where is the best place to concentrate effort? Consider broad market trends:-
- IBM peaked in the 1960s. It is still around but it isn't feared.
- With the licensing of PCDOS in 1981, IBM ultimately aided its successor, Microsoft. Microsoft is still around but it isn't feared.
- With the distribution of Internet Explorer in 1995, Microsoft ultimately aided its successor, Google.
- Google has peaked and has difficulty obtaining and retaining staff due to ethics, censorship and brogrammer culture.
In general:-
- Trends oscillate between server and client. IBM in 1960 (centralized) to Microsoft in 1985 (decentralized) to Google in 2010 (centralized) to ??? in 2035 (decentralized). Between IBM and Microsoft, infill all of the mini-computer companies (DEC, Data General) and dedicated word processor companies (Wang, Commodore). Between Microsoft and Google, infill all of the power desktop companies (Intergraph, SGI, Sun, Dell). From Google to its logical successor, infill rich client companies (Apple, Amazon, Facebook). Indeed, Apple's peak valuation and social media valuations rely on a hybrid of local software and vast server farms. MAGAF [Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook] have more than six million servers, 10 million storage units and create an electrical base load which requires 10 nuclear power stations.
- Companies at the extremes of the trend become monopolies before falling into maintenance mode. Many of the remainder chase a changing market.
- Tech monopolies create to environment for their successors.
- A successor is *almost* the opposite of the predecessor.
- Hybrid apps have reached an inevitable peak. This is likely to concede to systems with more autonomy.
- The current environment suits development of a decentralized, privacy respecting system. This is increasingly likely over the next 20 years.
- Security and privacy are awful. This is due to externalized costs and historically weak regulation. Retail banking is a relative leader in security; in part due to disproportionate impact on its own staff. However, legislation is tightening in North America and Europe; in part due to the vitriol on social media towards legislators. This regularly includes credible death threats to immediate family. In the UK, several people have been arrested or imprisoned for credible threat of rape towards politicians. Given that politicians are rarely sexually attractive, it should indicate that the problem is widespread.
Security and privacy are increasingly marketable. However, it is like King Canute attempting to fight a rising tide. It cannot be commanded or legislated. Best option is to isolate. Cannot redact data which has escaped. This is espcially true if it would be good manners.
With a rising tide of privacy infringement, the perfect product and a hypothetical contract with one bank does nothing for customers of other banks, retail breaches, medical breaches, government breaches or any other problem. There is no silver bullet which covers all cases. Regardless, anyone can be "king of their own castle" and home security is a domain where everything is within reach of a customer. If implemented correctly, the customer has complete control. Furthermore, an installation should function beyond the viability of the manufacturer. Convenience features, such as remote access, rapidly devolves into a security quagmire. Convenience features may also require more than four months of effort.
Home security dovetails with the trends of decreased driving and driving licenses, decreased drinking in bars and nightclubs, increased parcel delivery, increased food delivery, binge watching drama, increased remote study, streaming exercise classes and generally following the trends of the film: WALL-E and the short story: The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster. Overall, there is demand for a home automation system and a home security system which connects to a big screen television. The laziest method to implement such functionality is as a Kodi module. Kodi is typically deployed on a Raspberry Pi where extensive interfaces (USB, I2C, GPIO) are often unused. Obviously, this would be a lame, unreliable and insecure implementation but it would certainly be an impressive and convenient demonstration. Geeks may find Kodi's menu system to be quite tedious (and laggy). So, an expert mode is definitely required. It would be particularly useful if a scripting interface was available.
The objective is to have one system which can be used to watch films, watch television, listen to radio, listen to albums and also dip lights, adjust room temperature, brew beer, water plants, feed fish, set burgler alarm, review external security cameras and check who is at front door. Further options are possible but these compromise privacy. It is possible to forward dubious camera footage. It is also possible to integrate a house intercom, voice activated commands and video conferencing. However, interior cameras and microphones are specifically excluded because that's creepy. Even the creepy king, Mark Zuckerberg, covers his laptop camera but he'll willingly make a buck by pointing a camera at you. Our intention is to only integrate functionality which increases security without compromising privacy. How is this achieved? Everything from television to leaf node (lock, trip switch, light bulb) is fairly unconstrained. However, it would be a significant bonus if a system is:-
- Cheaper than a NanoLeaf.
- More open than Philips Hue.
- More reliable than both.
It is also a bonus if functionality overlaps with industrial, office, retail, automotive or aerospace use. For serious use, a Raspberry Pi would be replaced with a 1U rack server with ECC RAM. For very serious use, servers could be clustered with fail-over. Leafs should be as economical and as useful as possible. A friend who runs a virtual reality start-up gave a demostration of an Xtensa micro-controller with USB, GPIO, wifi and 256KB flash serial ROM. When flashed with a Lua interpreter it is possible to run scripts which are stored on a local filing system. Virtual serial over USB also allows access to a Lua REPL. From this, it is possible to join a WPA2 network, run a DHCP client and run an HTTP server. Indeed, without stopping the HTTP server, it is possible to modify the URL-space so that arbitrary paths may be handled by arbitrary functions. A fall-through case serves static files from the local filing system. My friend estimated that the minimum configuration used less than 64KB ROM.
What can be achieved in a smaller space? Chess computers have been implemented with 128 bytes RAM and a popular chess program for the Commodore VIC20 was supplied as a 2KB ROM. Graphic competitions have a 4KB category with impressive entries. (Although, Subdream's 64KB Raum Zeit octree renderer and Porter Robinson & Madeon's animated music video for Shelter remain favorites.) A smaller system is not an academic problem. A smaller system uses less energy. A smaller system also creates savings which ripple through manufacture, wholesale, retail and integration. Reducing cost of a micro-controller by 5¢ may reduce retail price by more than US$1. Alternatively, savings can be allocated to improved cipher suites. For many devices, almost any cipher would be an improvement. I hope that it is possible to include a CLI, graph library and SMART style EDI interface in a micro-controller with 4KB RAM and 16KB ROM. I also hope to implement a network switch with 2KB RAM. Even if these estimates are repeatedly raised, the result remains competitive in a market with dual-core light bulbs, quad-core watches and where 1GB RAM is regarded as embedded.
Our preferences for hiring are as follows:-
- UID1111 who is bold enough to show work, introspective and, despite protest to the contrary, cares about detail, such as string buffers.
- UID2828 who is working on the closely related problem of vehicle networking.
- UID5227, Linux device driver contributor. (I noted the quality of this work at the time.)
- Anonymous Coward who shared a fast and concisely documented matrix library.
We are heavily constrained by time. We would otherwise like to exhaust these options before seeking people more widely.
I'd like to finish with a message to people with similar sentiments to SoylentNews' Not So Anonymous Coward, SaltySpice. (When did we start naming our trolls?) We strongly agree that there are too many oxygen thieves in software development and corporate administration. If they could FOAD, we'd make more progress. In particular, computer security is a sticking plaster for developers who don't care. From our unused collation of soggy.jobs, the most generous lower bound for fake or speculative job adverts is 5%. We would be wholy unsurprised if the majority of job adverts are fake. Particular ire goes to Infosys and IBM subsidary, Aspera, for listing fake jobs. Paraphrasing from email:-
Me: Are you *sure* you're rejecting UDP, file transfer, POSIX C programmer with professional experience of your CLI and GUI?
Michelle Munson, co-founder of Aspera: Yes.
That's like the alleged musicians, Duran Duran, who came second in a lookalike competition or the guy in Charlie Brooker's ScreenWipe USA who failed a screen test to portray himself in a fictional version of his own life. However, when unemployed people are expected to seek work but employers are not obliged to hire, don't be surprised when the result is nepotism, time-wasting and abusive practices. Also don't be surprised when the unviable dregs are advertised for an extended period. My personal favorite was a job advert for a tri-lingual, Adobe, Java, Cisco expert which paid San Francisco minimum wage. This idiocy is made significantly worse by "signposting" "services" which provide another level of indirection where none is required.
It is damning that the majority of programming jobs are obtained via family, friends and interview prowess. Ability to do the job is very secondary. Caring about the project is also secondary. I would be inclined to hire SaltySpice in preference to MDC but, c'mon, meet me half way. Give me *anything* which puts you ahead of my least competent, least employable ex-colleague.
Notes On Spherical Cows And Plushies Thereof
From the Wikipedia article about spherical cows:-
Milk production at a dairy farm was low, so the farmer wrote to the local university, asking for help from academia. A multi-disciplinary team of professors was assembled, headed by a theoretical physicist, and two weeks of intensive on-site investigation took place. The scholars then returned to the university, notebooks crammed with data, where the task of writing the report was left to the team leader. Shortly thereafter the physicist returned to the farm, saying to the farmer, "I have the solution, but it works only in the case of spherical cows in a vacuum".
Since then, a spherical cow breeding program has been successful.
Spherical cows are often the stereo-typical black and white Holstein Friesian cow pattern but may also be the brown and white Jersey cow pattern or numerous other patterns including plain white, brown or black. Unfortunately, spherical cows in a single color are often mistaken for mutant hamsters and shot on sight. This contributes the Holstein Friesian pattern being predominant.
Although genetic throwbacks may exhibit hooves, ears, a tail or an undesirable ellipsoid profile, a pure-breed cow is completely spherical. They are often grown in proximity to cuboid watermelons; an innovation which makes more efficient use of space within a domestic refrigerator. A side effect of the spherical cow breeding program is that spherical cow milk has an unusually high surface tension. The milk often sits as droplets rather than a homogeneous liquid. This may be corrected with a very small quantity of surfactant. However, this additive often falls afoul of legislation regarding dairy products and therefore spherical cow milk may be restricted to illicit channels; similar to raw milk.
A perfectly spherical cow has no (identifiable) legs. Indeed, a perfectly spherical cow in an idealized meadow has no cross sectional area with the ground. Therefore, spherical cows are frictionless with the ground. In a valley, a spherical cow placed near the top will roll down the valley and up the other side. If the valley is in a vacuum then this process may continue indefinitely. If the valley has idealized wind resistance, spherical cows will typically be found in a local minima. Furthermore, a herd will be arranged in a manner approximating sphere packing. If idealized air is still, a spherical cow placed near the top of a valley or hill may be found in one of the surrounding dips. However, if wind is strong then an entire herd of spherical cows may be stuck against a fence. It is strongly recommended that any fence exceeds the radius of the largest spherical cow and can withstand the force of an entire herd during strong wind. Despite being domesticated, it is completely unknown how spherical cows eat or breed. The leading theory is that spherical cows are trans-dimensional beings but agricultural researchers are unsure how to test this hypothesis.
The easiest method to determine if a spherical cow is pregnant is via the increased radius of the cow. However, it is incredibly dangerous to be around a pregnant spherical cow. When a spherical calf is born, it may shoot out like a ping-pong ball. It may travel an incredible distance across countryside; 200m has been recorded. For this reason, spherical cow birthing sheds are strongly re-inforced and the interior is covered with damping material to reduce the total number of ricochets. A newborn spherical calf is approximately 1/2 of the radius (1/8 volume) of an adult. Spherical cows are most likely to be born during a full moon. This may be the basis of an unexplored joke.
A spherical calf grows to full radius over 18 months or so and it sufficiently mature to breed in its second year. In idealized conditions, breeding pairs of spherical cows may increase in a manner which strictly follows a Fibonacci sequence.
Spherical cow leather was the preferred material for equipment used in many types of sport. Most typically, it was used for sports balls due to its equal weight distribution and equal curvature. It was also the preferred material for chess-boxing gloves. Nowadays, sports are more likely to use synthetic materials; especially in upper leagues. Foreseeably, this has contributed to a decline in spherical cow herds.
Spherical cow steak is of unusually high quality. Spherical cows may have recessed legs and therefore edible parts of a spherical cow consist almost entirely of rib, back and belly. Approximately πr3/3 of any given cow is rib meat. However, to properly sear a spherical cow rib eye steak, a particularly large circular searing pan is required. Some advocates of paleolithic diets are particularly keen to promote the benefits of spherical cow steak. One of the disadvantages of intensive farming is that beef, pork, chicken, turkey and other meat is almost exclusively single sex. This may have long-term consequences for all humans. To avoid adverse effects of xeno-steroid hormones, it may be beneficial to eat historical proportions of male and female beef. Given the foreseeable difficulty of identifying male and female spherical cows, males are often allowed to grow to adulthood. However, the increased cost associated with spherical cow farming may have fringe health benefits.
Attempts have been made to cross-breed spherical cows and flying pigs. So far, this has been unsucessful. However, this may change as genetic engineering advances. Nevertheless, it has re-ignited a debate over collective nouns. It is generally accepted that the collective noun for pigs when flying is a flock. However, accepted use beyond this case is varied. In the case of flying cows, moderates suggest that the portmanteau, flerd, be used in all cases. Unfortunately, this reasonable proposal has been met with almost universal disdain from farmers. While diary farmers look forward to new varieties of stationery, dairy farmers are concerned that any re-classification of farming may adversely affect economic subsidies for agriculture. This may further contribute to the decline of spherical cow breeding.
It is possible to make a dozen spherical cow plushies for £20 (US$30). This is a popular hobby project because they are relatively easy to make. Only cuboid plushies are easier to make but both require relatively large amounts stuffing. Spherical cow plushies require two self-similar pieces of synthetic fur material. Ideally, the synthetic fur material will have a Jersey cow print. (Among professionals, Jersey print material is known as plane cow plush.)
The two pieces fit together in the manner of a tennis ball or hacky sack. In the trivial case, this requires an ellipsoid template consisting of a semi-circle joined to a rectangle and another semi-circle. For each piece of fur, ignoring allowance for sewing seams, the straight and curved sections should have the same length. The straight section of one piece should fit with the curve of the other piece. This sets the constraint for the relative lengths. For a semi-circle with radius r, the rectangular section should have width 2r and length πr. When a piece of material is curved to fit the other, it would be reasonably assumed that πr is the curved distance between polar opposite focus points of a curved ellipsoid. However, this is not the case.
Making the reasonable assumption that the seam does not stretch but that synthetic fur may stretch to become approximately spherical, it is neccesary to include the (appropriately named) Skinner's constant or other Flannagan Finagling Factor. The four inflection points (where the seam changes direction) are equally spaced around a great circle. Relative to the radius of the ends of an ellipsoid, the inflection points are sqrt(2)r from the center of the sphere. Therefore, for a tennis ball, spherical plushie or similar with a required radius r, all the previously stated measurements for ellipsoids should be scaled down by a factor of sqrt(2) (approximately 1.41). Common worked examples follow.
When making cutting templates from paper, length should be 1+π/2 of width - prior to ends being rounded. For an A4 sheet of paper (297mm×210mm), cut to 297mm×116mm before rounding ends. For a US Letter sheet of paper (11 inch × 8 inch), cut to 11 inch × 4.3 inch before rounding ends. This is suitable to make a plushie with 16cm (6 inch) diameter. Template and/or material should be cut with allowance for seams. Professionals typically include a 6mm (1/4 inch) seam in the template. A wider seam (included or excluded in the template) may be desirable due to inexperience and/or to increase sturdiness.
It may be useful to tack a few stitches where the straight/curved point of one piece meets the curved/straight point of the other piece. It may also be useful intermediate points. Each tack works as a rip-stop. It also reduces mismatch of material when sewing along seams. Optional adornments, such as legs and tail, can be sewn separately and then stitched into the seam. The tennis ball seam provides suitable placement for four legs, two ears and a nose. Miniture cow bells can be purchased in bulk from morris dancing suppliers.
The cheapest stuffing by volume is synthetic car washing sponge. However, the result may feel lumpy and distinctly not spherical. One sponge may be cut in half and each half may be trimmed into a dome shape. Another sponge may be cut to approximate a disc. The three layers (dome, disc, dome) may be squeezed through the hole of the synthetic cow hide before the final section of the seam is sewn closed. While attempting to close the seam in the least obvious manner, increase the difficulty of the task by simultaneously considering the hairy ball problem.
Worryingly, the result meets European safety standards for flammable material and also toys with small parts. However, it does not meet the widely flouted labelling regulations. Without exception, all waste material (fur, foam, cotton) may be stuffed into a spherical calf plushie. However, this does not meet safety standards and should not be given to the type of child inclined to stuff things up its nose; nominally a child less than three years old.
Synthetic fur may be occasionally brushed with a wig brush. Stains can be removed by soaking the surface material only. Deep ingress of water is likely to encourage mold. Synthetic fur is likely to curl or melt in a clothes dryer or under an electric hair dryer. Do not spin wash or tumble dry because it makes plushies very dizzy.
