troydowling

Cool ideas. I like the idea of an accessible, global democracy. But I wondered about two things:

One, I think the complexity of such an identity database would be so great, it would preclude any means of reliably identifying false connections. And if that complexity wasn't boggling, would it really capture anything more than our present distributed (inefficient) system of records? You would wind up with a, admittedly more sophisticated, statistical model for identifying bogus individuals.

Another thing I wonder is how much help it would actually be. Lots of issues are more complex than "is clean water good?" If and when a decision needs to be made on something outside your expertise, or with no clearly altruistic option, you have to look for help in understanding your choices. And that makes you vulnerable to influence by someone else's interpretation. Which leaves you where we are now.

So I guess it raises some problems to solve. Can you really create a perfect record of identity without sacrificing privacy? Could you meaningfully interrogate it? How do you provide an unbiased education of every vote and referendum? How do you solve the influence problem or stop organized political machines from springing up again? Does any of this address the root cause of unbalanced wealth and power?

I have no idea how these work, but one hack idea off the cuff:

You get the light for free. At least when your lids are open; that's how vision works. A cheap digital watch lasts ages on a tiny coin cell because the polarisation of the LCD, which passes or blocks polarised light, takes minimal energy. Stack up a passive polariser, and the active LCD-like layer, (and maybe a second passive layer?) and you can cast selective shadows on the retina.

This gives you monochrome "smart vision" in the same sense as a monochrome Casio wristwatch. No idea how to tackle issues of focus at such a short focal length, or achieving any sort of active display let alone colour.

Maybe the whole thing is a pipe dream crackpot idea.

You might be interested in the story of Luigi Galvani's experiments with frog muscle tissue. It was seminal work in anatomy as well as physics.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1631069106000370?via%3Dihub

I have a whole desk full of calculators. The two I use most are:

Sharp EL-W516X A very capable little dot-matrix device, with some limited programming / macro ability. Performs all of the calculus, stats, matrix, and combinatorics functions I use regularly. This was my go-to calculator until I started using the...

Casio fx-115ES PLUS At some point, I had to write some exams which only allowed a few calculators off an approved list. This was the one I picked from the list. It is a very competent little device which can do anything the Sharp unit above can. After getting over the novelty of having to learn a new keypad, I found it nearly identical to the Sharp in usage.

I think that both calculators are effectively identical in terms of function, but the Sharp may have a slight advantage in terms of its interface. I would wager it takes slightly fewer keystrokes for the same operation on average as compared to the Casio. I also didn't really take advantage of the programmable aspect, instead using the four keys for the common multipliers I use in my work: kilo, milli, micro, nano. I liked how the display would read in "natural" terms like "2 * pi * 10k * 100μ" instead of having a tonne of "10^n" terms in the line.

The Casio has the advantage that it is typically on just about any approved calculator list; if you're taking exams down the line, consider getting used to an approved calculator now so you're not wasting time searching for buttons later. It's also the more popular choice, I think. I saw plenty of students, TAs, and instructors using this calculator which could make it easier to give and receive help on it.

One of the frustrating things about Signal is its extreme compression. I hope WhatsApp laxing up a bit will be the final push to the Signal devs to allow me to send a 30 MiB photo if I want to. Just give me a damn opt-in option buried in a settings menu for Pete's sake.

Annoys me to no end that I'm forced to crunch image quality down. The reasons I heard in discussion were to save disk space and network bandwidth. I have no sympathy for either of these points. Have a modicum of digital hygiene and delete old files, and pressure your ridiculous governments to invest and regulate ISPs, then join the rest of the world in the 21st century.

Outside of IM, in the mid-2000s and earlier, the Internet was more of a space of personal expression and burgeoning e-commerce.

There was Geocities and Anglefire where anyone could create a personal homepage with rudimentary HTML skills. You could show off your personality and share your interests, and (some) others would be excited to find you and sign your guest book. You'd be excited every time the hit counter on your page went up.

Talking in real-time, over IRC usually, was the first taste of true globalisation for many. There were other, older forums around like BBSs, but these were even more techno-niche nerd havens. The web forum (PHPBB) later came along and created what I consider to be the protoweb of what we have today. Profiles, display pictures, post counts, threads and boards, etc.

Another large difference was that the Internet was still a very collaborative space. Services usually had open APIs, so that you could write or use software that brought the services you wanted into the format you prefer. Think: all of your IM accounts in one messaging app, all of your website news feeds delivered to an RSS reader, and data that easily flowed from one space to another. Unfortunately, it wasn't long before these same services saw the business sense in restricting users from exporting their data, thus confining them to "walled gardens" where they were readily subjected to ads, and without recourse to leave. And thus the API died.

There was essentially no presence of celebrity on the net as we know it today. Before MySpace, at least, you would be required to go out and search for Sean Connery's personal blog, or Paris Hiltons fashion tips. Today, it's difficult to avoid these things being pressed upon you. At this point in time, you chased people, now it seems the web has them chasing you.

Commerce was a commonplace part of the net as early as the 90s, depending on your idea of commonplace. Nobody trusted computers with their financial data like credit cards. Giving your address to a seller felt wildly reckless... until it didn't. A little bookstore called Amazon started the novel idea of efficient online sales with less of the burden of storage, eBay rose seemingly overnight, Elon Musk made his fortune selling PayPal, we all collected Net Beans like they'd be worth anything.

Video playback and other multimedia features bled their way into the web from the millennium onward. Online journalism felt like it was in it's fittest shape.

There was a huge culture of shareware in every market. Shareware games, file utilities, media players, everything. It was how you hoped to be discovered as a software author. We'd load diskettes with BonziBuddy and cursor themes and trade them with friends in break rooms and schoolyards. The coolest among you know how to find pirated games and bootleg software.

Comment sections were truly, deeply, disgusting hives of scum and villainy.

EDIT: Some typos. Thanks, Ace!

Telus? What a bunch of crooked hosers.

"an unknown (mobile?) client"

Well, nice try anyway.

Hack.

It doesn't mean someone guessed your Facebook dictionary-word password.

It doesn't even mean some black hoodie-wearing, bad actor remotely broke into a secure computer system.

It's a clever trick. Whether it's in code or concrete. Some creative, elegant, unexpected, solution to a problem.

"I know a menu hack. Order the kids burger and add cheese to save a buck."

"We ran out of conductors in the cable, so we're transmitting power via a differential pair. I know it's a hack, but we need to ship by end of month."

USB One

Fiirefox?

A cable coil will lay flat and neat, and stay orderly indefinitely if two conditions are met:

1. The coil radius is sufficiently large such that there is little to no tendency to unwind.

2. There is no twist running the length of the cable.

The solution to 1 is simple: just create loops large enough that no energy is stored in the "big spring".

The solution to 2 is any wrap method which avoids a systematic twist along the cable. If you were an ant walking along the cable, you should find that if you start on the outside surface of the coil, you remain on the outside as you walk the loops.

One method for coiling cables that achieves both goals:

Hold one end of the cable fixed in your off-hand. Let the length of the cable loosely hang such that it may freely rotate. With your dominant hand, slide it down the cable measuring a length which will create a loop large enough that the bend radius doesn't want to spring back open. Here comes the big trick. As you bring your main hand around to create the loop, use your fingertips and thumb to roll the cable in the direction which eases the twist along the cable. Finish the loop, and repeat until done. The coil should lay flat on a table without wanting to unspool wider, or spring up and launch loops into the air (problem and solution 1 and 2 respectively.)

Practice the finger tip movement. It's like tying shoes or whistling. Once you get it, you get it.