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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • I’m a mech E in the medical field. We’re consistently understaffed. If I validate an Excel worksheet in Excel '08 or a Python program in 3.5 with a specific version of NumPy, we’re probably sticking with those versions for a while. Every time I bring up re-validating with the latest version, keeping one old system running the old software requires fewer resources than me or a colleague re-validating.

    My whole department is stuck on one version of Python because that was the most recent version when I had an emergency project and developed a data analysis algorithm. We validated it, then as new members were added to my team, they needed a copy, so we had to keep using it. I’ll probably re-validate it to the next Python release. It’s not only unit tests, or we could automate validation. Unit tests are a tiny part of validating software for making medical decisions. And software that directly runs a medical device (like firmware on an insulin pump) is an order of magnitude more rigorous than what I do.

    Side note: there are people who somehow root their insulin pumps and run algorithms on them. There’s a group that can get a PID control loop on an insulin pump that has a more simple control scheme on it (because that’s how the FDA approved it). The company has been trying to get approval to use PID control in the US for years.




  • Red Dwarf is pretty good. Fawlty Towers is great. Someone recommended “Yes Minister” and the first season is awesome. The Hallmark of great comedy writing is if it holds up, and Yes Minister still is hilarious 40 years later.

    Dark is a German Netflix show. It unfolds into something akin to “Lost” over the first four episodes. The ending doesn’t suck, and they set up the end to where it’s almost impossible to get it right. It’s not an amazing ending, but it’s impressive that they managed to make it not terrible, since it builds up to a near-impossible ending.

    Squid Game is pretty great but gory. Letterkenny and Trailer Park Boys are quirky comedies with some rough language throughout.


  • There are methodical ways of valuating a private (and public) company. Some are pessimistic and some are wildly optimistic. Your can legally use whichever one you want, only you must only use that valuation method for everything. It’s illegal to value the company low for taxes and high for loan collateral. And if you sell it, you can owe back taxes if your valuation was off (sale price is the new valuation).

    This is overly-simplified US accounting rules (from finance class 10 years ago)



  • Out of curiosity, have you watched the Simpsons recently? I think, after season 31 or 32, it started getting better again. There are some really great episodes from two seasons ago.

    The latest season of Futurama had two good episodes, but the rest were kind of weak. About the same level as season 9-10(Hulu season numbering). Those seasons were “meh” mostly but with three really amazing episodes (Free Will Hunting, Game of Tones, Meanwhile).

    I watched Futurama trying to stay sane in grad school, as it was released on DVD. It’s straight-up comforting to watch now. Watching it when I’m stressed connects me emotionally to almost 20 years ago. I was stressed then but I made it out ok.


  • Seriously? I was looking at a Surface product recently, and it appeared to have an access panel for the NVME drive. I read a ton of complaints about the dimensions of the drive being unusual, but access to it was easy. I don’t think I was looking at a Surface pro though.

    If a surface pro wants to be a full OS and not a tablet OS, it should be easy to replace the storage device.



  • Kale@lemmy.ziptoProgrammer Humor@lemmy.mlC Compilers be like
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    11 months ago

    I haven’t dealt with HPC in a while, but Intel C compiler against MKL libraries were fastest CPU, and Nvidia CUDA was slightly easier to develop than OpenCL for other cards. I’m not sure if the situation’s changed.

    For my current applications, I use NumPy compiled against Intel MKV installed as a binary. It works great.





  • Relationships take effort and luck. You have to work on yourself to be prepared, put a lot out of effort into social things to meet people and develop relationships, and then most don’t work out and you’re sad for a bit.

    The luck part is a huge part of the equation. Two people are perfect on paper but the “spark” doesn’t happen. Maybe they could have a great relationship but the starting conditions weren’t right to form a relationship. Having a close relative die, or having a mental health issue really early in a relationship can force a wedge that can’t be overcome yet. A normal wedge that all relationships deal with regularly once they’re established, but can’t deal with in the first few weeks.

    The only advice that worked for me (I was raised with very few other kids my age) when I started dating in college was that the skills to make a romantic relationship were just people skills. That I should intentionally strike up conversations with anyone I don’t know. Most people have something to occupy their time. I try to find that out in the first conversation I have with someone. You can see when someone’s expression changes when the ice breaks and they shift into excitedly talking about a new personal best in a 10k run, or getting a major part in King Lear, or published their first full comic book or novella.

    I had to hone my ability to talk about my hobbies. At the time I was finding gargantuan prime numbers. I had to work on how to describe it to people to make it slightly approachable.

    I also figured out that a huge part of wanting to be in a relationship was family pressure. I had to be at a place where I wanted it, and not because aunts and uncles poked fun at any young single people in the family.




  • Positive spin take: will encourage higher quality content and comments. Will incentivise spending more time posting and commenting and greater care put into both.

    Likely reality: Rush to lowest-common-denominator posts. Sensational titles to grab attention. Comments are less likely to write things the hive-mind doesn’t want to hear, so less variety in comments. White-knighting increases. More porn by professional posters.

    Almost-certain to happen: change in content. It’s a gamble that the new content will be as popular as the old content. Reddit had a platform up until June this year. No matter what happens, they abandoned that platform to re-shape it into something else. Which seems like it would be a hard sell to investors. “You know our core product and user base that you’re interested in? Well, what if we told you that we were creating something to gather an unknown amount of new users! And all we have to do is alienate our current user base!”



  • Kale@lemmy.ziptoMemes@lemmy.mlit's that time of year
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    1 year ago

    I don’t have a refined palette, and I like fairly hoppy beers. It has to have a good flavor to it though. If it’s made hoppy for the sake of IBUs, then it’s probably bad. Like joke hot sauces are disgusting, but there are some that are delicious but really painful for me to eat, even one bite.

    Older IPA hops like cascade are great but only slightly hop heavy with their classic hop flavors. The hops used more recently (I think citra and mosaic?) have great flavors when pushed to high IBUs.

    Hops have amazing range. Fuggles smell like dirt. Lemondrop has a strong citrus smell.

    About half of beer variety is from hops. Unless your talking about Belgians. Then it’s all yeast.


  • A decade ago I had a little extra money and chose to buy a 144 hz gaming monitor and video card. I don’t have great eyesight nor do I play games that require twitch reflexes, but at that time 144 hz frame rate (and configuring the game to be >100 fps) was very noticable. I’d much rather play 1080 at >100 fps rather than 4k at 60 fps or below.

    This may be different between people. I don’t believe I have great eyesight, depth perception, color perception, etc, but I am really sensitive to motion. I built my second computer (AMD Athlon 64 bit I think?) and spend a significant sum on a CRT that had higher refresh rates. I can’t use a CRT at 60Hz. I perceive the flicker and I get a headache after about 20 minutes. I couldn’t use Linux on that computer (I was stuck at 60 hz on that kernel/video driver) until I saved up even more to buy an LCD monitor. I can’t perceive a 60 hz flicker on an LCD, and 60Hz is fine for work.

    But for gaming, high refresh rate is noticable, even for someone that normally doesn’t notice visual stuff, like me.