Random thought of the day
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@anonymous234 On a datacenter scale, I once heard they do this because doing it all over 12v means higher losses and/or thicker copper wiring required.
On a home scale, I guess it may be because most people have 110v/220v AC PSUs. Though I bet you could find 12V or 24V ATX-compatible PSUs for vehicle on-board use.
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@anonymous234 said in Random thought of the day:
then it gets reconverted into high voltage AC to go into the PSU
Is this strictly necessary? I get that AC is easier to convert, but since this is already a single unit, why not power the computer with the DC directly?
Rephrased, put the UPS after the PSU.
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@kazitor That is indeed what I was saying would make more sense.
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@anonymous234 said in Random thought of the day:
randomBool(0.6) expresses "true 60% of the time" better than
random()<0.6
.I personally think that
random()<0.6
expresses how0.6
relates to the bool that you want better thanrandomBool(0.6)
does.
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@anonymous234 said in Random thought of the day:
"It's all downhill from here" has an entirely different meaning when you're biking.
I don't think so. It means two things: the hardest part is over, and you've passed the highest point.
The main difference is that, in life, you tend to look at the peaks as your goals, while in biking, they're simply goals that must be reached because they lie along the way to your ultimate goal. Applying that concept to life would be a little too morbid for most people.
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@brie said in Random thought of the day:
in biking, they're simply goals that must be reached because
they lie along the way to your ultimate goalyou have to go up the hill to have the fun of going fast down the hill.FTFM
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@HardwareGeek I'd post "bicycle ski lifts" either here or one of the ideas threads, but naturally that just ruins all the fun.
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@kazitor said in Random thought of the day:
This is a thought of yesterday during yet another intense lightning storm, but I only just remembered it:
Some sort of combination UPS/PSU (UPSU). The problems that immediately come to mind are
- probably too big to fit in a normal case
- wouldn't power your monitors
And honestly, as I think about it I'm not entirely sure what problem I'm trying to solve.
It would probably suffer from exactly the same problem as every other UPS: By the time you actually need it, the batteries are shot.
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@brie said in Random thought of the day:
the hardest part is over
you don't downhill much do you?
First sample video from ze googles ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPlyy7cyaz8
Ok, these guys are pro-athletes but still ... at at around 3:55 they have trouble scaling the rocks during the recon round by foot. Downhill won't give you a brake (
) because of the speed.
@kazitor said in Random thought of the day:
I'd post "bicycle ski lifts" either
Oh, the first random video also answers that one: already done. Why ride uphill if you can take the lift?
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@Luhmann said in Random thought of the day:
you don't downhill much do you?
You live in B*****m; you don't even know what a hill is.
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The Old New Thing has outlived most of its hyperlinks. This put me in a strange nostalgic mood where I contemplate how brittle the world wide web really is and how wrong we were all those years back when we were saying "what once is put on the internet stays there forever". And kudos for Microsoft for keeping all those articles from 15+ years ago still accessible on newest browsers in 2019. Too bad their official materials, like Knowledge Base articles, haven't received as much care.
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Errata: internal links between old TONT posts (to the weblogs.asp.net domain) don't work.
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@Gąska said in Random thought of the day:
received as much care
Well, shims for older tech tend to last longer than future tech. Or something.
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at the Signal de Botrange, a 50-m high tower with parabolic antennas was agreed to provide data interchange by Microwave transmission between London Stock Exchange and Frankfurt Stock Exchange, because the data transmission via Communications satellite or fiber optic involves a small delay, which interferes the stock exchange trading
IDWTLOTPA
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@Applied-Mediocrity That's stock trading for you. Will spent millions to be able to arbitrate 1ms faster than the competition.
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@anonymous234 said in Random thought of the day:
It's interesting that no keyboard design has beaten a simple rectangle. People have come out with all kind of ergonomic shapes and bizarre designs, but none of them has managed to catch on.
Some website some people on the internet mentioned:
I haven't really look much at it, but this image caught my attention:
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@Luhmann said in Random thought of the day:
@brie said in Random thought of the day:
the hardest part is over
you don't downhill much do you?
First sample video from ze googles ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPlyy7cyaz8
Ok, these guys are pro-athletes but still ... at at around 3:55 they have trouble scaling the rocks during the recon round by foot. Downhill won't give you a brake (
) because of the speed.
@kazitor said in Random thought of the day:
I'd post "bicycle ski lifts" either
Oh, the first random video also answers that one: already done. Why ride uphill if you can take the lift?
Hey no fair, they've got motors on their bicycles to motor them up the hills. That's cheating.
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Woebegone Kenobi.
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When you're cold, go stand in the corner. It's always 90 degrees.
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@TimeBandit 90 degrees (Celsius) is way more than I want to be standing in.
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@TimeBandit said in Random thought of the day:
When you're cold, go stand in the corner. It's always 90 degrees.
I'm currently renting in an old house that has become a bit skewed over time. Won't find no 90 degrees here.
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@cvi said in Random thought of the day:
@TimeBandit said in Random thought of the day:
When you're cold, go stand in the corner. It's always 90 degrees.
I'm currently renting in an old house that has become a bit skewed over time. Won't find no 90 degrees here.
I grew up in one of those...
And my older brother bought one of those (in Boston). He was fitting a shelf into a closet. Measured carefully. Put it in. And the back dropped out. Lesson: Measure all the walls.
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Whenever I see the TRWTF is the entire JS ecosystem thread, for some reason I’m thinking of Cards Against Humanity and this card:
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@topspin said in Random thought of the day:
Whenever I see the TRWTF is the entire JS ecosystem thread, for some reason I’m thinking of Cards Against Humanity and this card:
Hey, at least you can go to sleep peacefully afterward, right?
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I should make tons of ait's and create a litany of threads titled identically to other highly popular topics. This would spread out participation and provide an avenue of troll avoidance?
Nah...
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@Tsaukpaetra said in Random thought of the day:
I should make tons of ait's and create a litany of threads titled identically to other highly popular topics. This would spread out participation and provide an avenue of troll avoidance?
Nah...
I hear there's this awesome trick you can do with a cement mixer and 50 pounds of Silly Putty.
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@Tsaukpaetra The real fun bit would then be seeing how each one de-rails. Would they be similar, or would they be different?
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Aperture diameter corresponds to depth of field, right? So does that mean that, in the darkness with dilated pupils, things look blurrier out of focus?
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@kazitor said in Random thought of the day:
things look blurrier out of focus?
Not necessarily. If your eyes can focus accurately on something, it will be as sharp in dim light as in bright, but if your eyes focus imperfectly, the blurriness will be blurrier in dim light.
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@HardwareGeek that's what I meant by "blurrier out of focus" – the bits that aren't in focus appear blurrier. Are you confirming that this is the case?
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@kazitor Ah, yes, the bits that aren't in focus will appear blurrier.
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@HardwareGeek said in Random thought of the day:
@kazitor Ah, yes, the bits that aren't in focus will appear blurrier.
Are you agreeing or did you do the experiment?
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Maybe pandas in captivity lack common interests, that's why they won't mate. So maybe we need a Panda Love Channel with panda-interest topics for display in panda enclosures.
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@Gribnit Now I can't wait for Kung Fu Panda 4.
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@Gribnit
Pandabook, PandApp, Pandagram... Pander!
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I18N would be a lot easier if the mass Mexican immigration to USA happened in the 70s.
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We are numberwang.
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Libertarians argue people can act rationally in their own best interests.
If libertarianism was right, people would be smart enough to recognize it, and vote libertarian. The fact that they don't proves libertarianism is wrong.
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@anonymous234 said in Random thought of the day:
Libertarians argue people can act rationally in their own best interests.
Only when their choices affect them directly AND immediately. Voting is neither. Buying something is both. Loans and crediting is direct but not immediate, and that's why you see much more stupidity here than when people pay in cash.
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@anonymous234 Your argument is bad and you should feel bad.
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@Gąska said in Random thought of the day:
Only when their choices affect them directly AND immediately.
No, that's what everyone believes.
We have tons of laws that protect people from themselves (e.g. drugs, gambling, unfair loans/contracts, knowingly buying unsafe drugs or food, tons of other stuff) even though smart, rational people wouldn't fall for any of those. Libertarians generally argue that those laws aren't necessary because people are adults and they can make their own decisions.
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@anonymous234 you're confusing two things:
- That people tend to act very rationally with things with direct and immediate effect on them, and so in most cases, the best economical result is achieved by having little (but not zero) market regulations. Keyword: most.
- That the government shouldn't make laws against people doing stupid things of their own volition, if the only person suffering from those stupid things is the one doing those stupid things, and their personal finances (yes, shared marital property counts as personal finances; no, being talked into a shitty deal doesn't count as own volition).
These are two separate arguments based on separate premises. One isn't the result of the other.
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@anonymous234 said in Random thought of the day:
Libertarians argue people can act rationally in their own best interests.
If libertarianism was right, people would be smart enough to recognize it, and vote libertarian. The fact that they don't proves libertarianism is wrong.
Is platonic perfection required to consider something correct? If it's often but not always useful is that correct "enough?"
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@boomzilla Depends on which definition of "is" you're using.
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Whatever its strengths and faults as a VCS may be, Mercurial has a terrible name. In addition to being associated with a highly toxic heavy metal, mercurial as an adjective means "subject to sudden or unpredictable changes of mood or mind; volatile; capricious; temperamental; unpredictable; erratic; inconsistent; unstable." These are not words that describe a VCS that I'd want to use.
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@HardwareGeek said in Random thought of the day:
Whatever its strengths and faults as a VCS may be, Mercurial has a terrible name. In addition to being associated with a highly toxic heavy metal, mercurial as an adjective means "subject to sudden or unpredictable changes of mood or mind; volatile; capricious; temperamental; unpredictable; erratic; inconsistent; unstable." These are not words that describe a VCS that I'd want to use.
It's not the greatest marketing pitch, but at least they're honest.
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@HardwareGeek It's a field problem, really. Git? Subversion? These are not good product names.
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@pie_flavor naming is hard, ok? That's why management leaves it to the programmers, who are already dealing with all the other hard things. Unfortunately programmers are too honest when naming the products they're working on.
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@pie_flavor said in Random thought of the day:
Git? Subversion? These are not good product names
Git is perfectly named