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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • I feel like using that statistic is misleading in terms of efficiency just from the factor of “gallons of gas per pound of food transported”.

    Sure there’s spoilage from product going bad, but marginal efficiency gains there are so far down the list of things to worry about that they’re not really worth going into. The reason people don’t have food isn’t because enough isn’t produced, it’s because they’re not allowed to have it because they don’t have enough money. Less food spoiling doesn’t fix that problem.









  • “Computer” meaning a mechanical/electro-mechanical/electrical machine wasn’t used until around after WWII.

    Babbag’s difference/analytical engines weren’t confusing because people called them a computer, they didn’t.

    “On two occasions I have been asked, ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.”

    • Charles Babbage

    If you give any computer, human or machine, random numbers, it will not give you “correct answers”.

    It’s possible Babbage lacked the social skills to detect sarcasm. We also have several high profile cases of people just trusting LLMs to file legal briefs and official government ‘studies’ because the LLM “said it was real”.





  • That’s what config files are for. It would be a nightmare to hardcode weight and balance and have to recompile the HUD every time you change the loadout or refuel the plane.

    Most code, algorithms, etc are not any more sensitive than the concept of desks and file cabinets. No, guidance programs for missiles probably shouldn’t be put on GitHub, but there’s a reason RSA and other encryption algorithms were open sourced. It’s better to have more eyes looking for inefficiencies, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities than to just assume it’s good because no-one on the team responsible is smart/engaged enough to find them.



  • The moons of Jupiter and Saturn were called satellite planets from their discovery until sometime in the 20th century.

    The first several asteroids were called planets, until enough were discovered that the term ‘asteroid’ was invented and they were renamed.

    The first Kuiper belt objects were called planets, until enough were discovered that it turns out Pluto is mostly just a particularly reflective example.