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Comment I don't get it (Score 1) 19

What sort of idiot would attempt to understand the language of another person and not even consider that the frequency of the different sounds was important?!?

I always thought this was a hard problem, but now you're telling me, most of the people researching this are complete idiots that couldn't decipher rot13 if they tried?? Egads.

Comment Re:Random Number Machine (Score 1) 83

>But in a good model, esp. a thinking model, one
>would expect it to think over which sorts of
>numbers are statistically over-chosen (birthdates,
>etc) and avoid them in giving its answers.

and even then, it doesn't affect the chance of *winning*, but rather the chance of being the *sole* winner, as opposed to having to share the price.

[there *is* another possibility, though, albeit unlikely: it could come across a flaw in the RNG that lets it avoid less likely combinations, or choose a more likely one. Again, though, this requires an RNG flaw.]

Comment Re:Make them occasionally? (Score 1) 179

>Mexico has a half peso coin, worth about 2 cents.

and a peso was like a dollar.

I recall my aunt feeling guilty about what she was paying down there when it dropped to about eight to a dollar.

And then they lopped three zeroes off to get the new peso.

I *think* this is half of those one-thousands of the prior peso . . .

After extreme inflation, small matters of rounding aren't even on the radar for what's important.

[Let alone the 27 or so zeroes lopped off in Germany {where, near the end, workers were reportedly paid twice a day, with their wives bringing wheelbarrows to collect, and rushing to spend it before it fell further! (which may be an urban legend; I've never been able to confirm it, but it's not inconsistent with the daily inflation)}. Or Yugoslavia, which lopped off 30 digits . . . ]

Comment Wrong Algorithm (Score 2) 86

Bitcoin relies entirely on SHA256 ASIC's for hashing and they typically need replacing every year or two because more efficient models come out making the old ones unprofitable, especially at halvings. Due to the RoI and first-mover advantage the profitable ones are very expensive.

If you want to heat your home with proof-of-work, use a coin that uses RandomX or some other deliberately ASIC-resistant algorithm (usually CPU mining).

You can pool mine on an old CPU and still get a few pennies for your efforts, though if you want to invest in an EPYC and have other uses for it (maybe you have work jobs to run during the day and want more heat on cold nights) it could actually be profitable.

Resistive electric heating is still a very expensive way to heat, though some people don't have better options. There's a development near where I am that was built shortly after Nixon announced Project Independence and every house (cold climate) has wall-to-wall electric baseboard heating.

Comment Re:Separate grid, please. (Score 2) 71

It probably makes more sense given their scale for them to have their own power generation -- solar, wind, and battery storage, maybe gas turbines for extended periods of low renewable availability.

In fact, you could take it further. You could designate town-sized areas for multiple companies' data centers, served by an electricity source (possibly nuclear) and water reclamation and recycling centers providing zero carbon emissions and minimal environmental impact. It would be served by a compact, robust, and completely sepate electrical grid of its own, reducing costs for the data centers and isolating residential customers from the impact of their elecrical use. It would also economically concentrate data centers for businesses providing services they need,reducing costs and increasing profits all around.

Comment Re:Anything but the proper solution (Score 1) 36

> Why not just build the proper infrastructure with what we know works?

I tried to do this locally. The government allows the pole owner (electric or telephone usually) to charge $50/mo/pole to the startup that wishes to hang wires.

The owner pays $5/mo in property taxes to the town.

There are exceptions for large corporations that are in the state's good graces.

It's just to keep competition limited to the cartel.

Short answer: corrupt government.

Comment Re:Good Idea (Score 1) 92

A guy I knew had an early Model S.

When he wanted to impress me with the acceleration he tapped a couple settings on the screen to put it into Ludicrous Mode

This was around 2013 or so.

I'm not seeing how this is a problem.

I have a V6 and a V8 truck and both need a manual low gear selection to take off like a rocket. OK, the V6 not so much but the V8 can spin the rear tires in 2WD mode.

I don't let the average drivers in my life use it.

They would hit a tree if they were given a Tesla that was always in Ludicrous Mode.

Comment Wire (Score 1) 8

I'm not sure if Wire has new management but I just recently learned they've gone fully open source, are working on federation, and are using an RFC-specified tree-based efficient group chat encryption algorithm. RCS is eventually meant to adopt the same algorithm.

Folks using Telegram Groups (which are unencrypted, actually) might have a look. Yeah, somebody needs to run a server if you don't want intelligence agencies to provide one for you.

I uninstalled Wire years ago when they wouldn't take privacy seriously (yeah, I filed a bug) but it seems like a second look is warranted.

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