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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Yeah, that’s just a shitty (or out of spec) time base. My Seiko watch gains 1-2 minutes a day, but it’s completely mechanical so it depends on temperature and winding/mechanism tension for accuracy. There are electronic timing circuits which are resistance and capacity based, and as the resistance and capacitance of the system drift (time/age and temperature) they also drift. A crystal, made to vibrate at high frequency (piezoelectrically, iirc), will provide a much more stable time base and be accurate to seconds over many days’ time.

    Interesting aside - time keeping is how ships at sea used to determine where they were in the ocean. Latitude can be found from the stars, but longitude can’t so it needs a time reference standard. The book, Longitude tells the story of the search and the competing methods for determining location prior to the invention of crystal/electronic time bases and modern GPS. I won’t say that the storytelling is particularly gripping, but the actual path to discovery is fascinating.


  • That’s probably just fluctuations in the line frequency and the method for keeping time varying between the two (one might use a crystal that drifts). Being on the “wrong” frequency will have it shift by hours every day. I had a (US/60Hz origin) microwave in my apartment in Bonaire (50Hz) last year that never seemed to have the right time, and when I did the math I realized it was the frequency - it was behind by ~4 extra hours every day (50/60 x 24 hours).









  • If you’re not writing your own software for the phone, and you don’t need access to the raw sensor data, there’s likely an equal app for iPhone now. I was in the same boat for a while - needing things that only android offered. I switched to iPhone in '19 I think, and I’ve found replacement apps for everything except detailed wifi scanning. Also, the apps I used on android which offered direct GPS tracking would show how many satellites and nominal locations are just binary - you have signal or you don’t. That’s frustrating when you’re at the edge of signal and trying to get a lock.

    I can see how it would be a deal breaker if you need a specific app for work. I can’t switch to mac as several of my (multi-thousand dollar) analysis programs are windows only, and if an update breaks something or there’s an incompatibility, it costs me $2k/day to troubleshoot.





  • some kind of libertarian

    There is only one kind of libertarian - the worst kind. Modern libertarianism is just a cover story for fascist, racist beliefs and they are anathema to a functioning society. State governments in the US have been created in a lopsided image by corporations and religious zealots by gaming the election system to promote their financial well being (yes, religion is just another business these days). A true libertarian would find any kind of law like this to be government over-reach and an imposition on personal expression and enjoyment. “Vote with your feet” is a nice sentiment for the rich and well connected, but is impractical for most people in today’s society.

    These politicians are knee-jerking to the religious right who want these things banned because it scares them. They will make up any excuse or lie to support their case. They will point to sex trafficking and slavery as the result of pornography, and will throw up foolish road blocks - like this law - as a purported way to save the children, but will never raise a finger or donate a penny to support sex trafficking victims or victims of abuse because they feel that those people deserve their fate for not following their religion.



  • That’s financially untenable. Average cost to retrain on a new system is between 500-1000 hours to equivalent competency, per user, not including translation and recreation of new templates and automated processing routines - which are the backbone of modern engineering and architectural practices. At an average billing rate of $150/hr, that’s around $100,000 economic cost *per employee * just in lost time, plus actual training budget and software licenses.

    Moving systems in established engineering businesses is wildly expensive and disruptive. I’ve worked through a couple in other offices, and had to navigate one or two in my own office. I would retire tomorrow rather than have to move my office to a new CAD system, and I don’t have nearly the legacy files of a larger firm.


  • It would have been a brilliant business move if it had worked. Shysters and cheats have been mixing in expired or substandard additives to food and drug products for all of history. As long as nobody dies, and you don’t get caught, it’s just free money in your pocket. I believe it was Heintz, around the turn of the 20th century, who lobbied strongly in favor of the Pure Food and Drugs Act in the US because he felt it would give him a competitive advantage over others by requiring the additives in food be safe. Crazy concept, right?


  • I guess it has to be said, are the videos authentic? I haven’t seen anyone in the media outlets question the veracity or claim the they have been determined to be genuine.

    If they are, this is a weird fucking twist and I can only believe the Prigozshin feels that the Russian regulars are so weakened and separated that he has the ability to extract whatever justice* he feels he is due. But, also, did he have a gay lover who was killed in that missile strike? That’s the only reason I can think that he would march to extract revenge without just being clear that he’s planning to take over the country.