referencedesk.bsky.social
@referencedesk.bsky.social
What, no top note of Deadline Sweat on a base of Senseless Optimism?
September 25, 2025 at 11:44 PM
What, no top note of Deadline Sweat on a base of Senseless Optimism?
If you pedantically keep repeating the question, you will eventually get to an answer, "yes, of course" followed by the rationalization that there are "many places far apart" from which such a throw would be unsuccessful. In other words, "silly human, you do not understand what you just asked."
September 23, 2025 at 8:45 PM
If you pedantically keep repeating the question, you will eventually get to an answer, "yes, of course" followed by the rationalization that there are "many places far apart" from which such a throw would be unsuccessful. In other words, "silly human, you do not understand what you just asked."
Turns out that they were using us as an "anchor baby" with the FCC, to demonstrate that they _did_ provide internet services in our zip code, without having to actually roll out the FIOS services they'd promised years before.
July 15, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Turns out that they were using us as an "anchor baby" with the FCC, to demonstrate that they _did_ provide internet services in our zip code, without having to actually roll out the FIOS services they'd promised years before.
After much back and forth, they finally offered us a decrease to 350 kbps DSL plus landline for a couple dollars a month; just the landline without DSL would have been $35 or more.
July 15, 2025 at 9:02 PM
After much back and forth, they finally offered us a decrease to 350 kbps DSL plus landline for a couple dollars a month; just the landline without DSL would have been $35 or more.
We used to live just outside Boston, with the only Internet option at the time being Verizon DSL. When we finally were able to ditch it, Verizon was ADAMANT that they did not want to terminate the service.
July 15, 2025 at 9:02 PM
We used to live just outside Boston, with the only Internet option at the time being Verizon DSL. When we finally were able to ditch it, Verizon was ADAMANT that they did not want to terminate the service.
Ah yes, citing the unfair competitive advantage of your competitor choosing to hire from a larger qualified applicant pool.
March 2, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Ah yes, citing the unfair competitive advantage of your competitor choosing to hire from a larger qualified applicant pool.
...and then you start finding old-school connectors where the "female" external portion is full of pins, and the "male" external portion that goes into it is full of sockets. Or they both have brush style hermaphrodite contacts, or flat gold compliant pads, or who knows what else.
February 28, 2025 at 4:16 PM
...and then you start finding old-school connectors where the "female" external portion is full of pins, and the "male" external portion that goes into it is full of sockets. Or they both have brush style hermaphrodite contacts, or flat gold compliant pads, or who knows what else.
When I tried this, Amazon prompted me to identify which Kindle device the file is intended for, a reminder that the downloaded file is still DRM'ed to that particular target device. So, if that device should fail, you'd still have to strip the DRM to side-load into a replacement.
February 17, 2025 at 6:13 PM
When I tried this, Amazon prompted me to identify which Kindle device the file is intended for, a reminder that the downloaded file is still DRM'ed to that particular target device. So, if that device should fail, you'd still have to strip the DRM to side-load into a replacement.
...and until Explorer I succeeded, the US orbital satellite program was a continuous stream of on-pad explosions, low altitude breakups, etc. As TracketPacer says, this stuff was and is HARD, and debugging tends to be explosive.
January 26, 2025 at 1:03 AM
...and until Explorer I succeeded, the US orbital satellite program was a continuous stream of on-pad explosions, low altitude breakups, etc. As TracketPacer says, this stuff was and is HARD, and debugging tends to be explosive.
The IEEE on the other hand is way more structured around in-person working group meetings. So, much harder for someone without corporate backing (and a travel budget) to be really active. That also means much more input from corporate research groups rather than lone wolfs.
January 22, 2025 at 9:30 PM
The IEEE on the other hand is way more structured around in-person working group meetings. So, much harder for someone without corporate backing (and a travel budget) to be really active. That also means much more input from corporate research groups rather than lone wolfs.
It's pretty easy for an individual to participate in IETF activities, even purely via online attendance. Even as a noob, I managed to participate in the work leading up to a couple of RFCs.
January 22, 2025 at 9:30 PM
It's pretty easy for an individual to participate in IETF activities, even purely via online attendance. Even as a noob, I managed to participate in the work leading up to a couple of RFCs.
But, just as today's LLM's are dying from insufficient data to scrape, Expert Systems died because there just weren't enough experts who could break down what they did into tiny little non-overlapping choices.
Sounds like we keep hitting the same natural limit....
Sounds like we keep hitting the same natural limit....
January 12, 2025 at 3:26 PM
But, just as today's LLM's are dying from insufficient data to scrape, Expert Systems died because there just weren't enough experts who could break down what they did into tiny little non-overlapping choices.
Sounds like we keep hitting the same natural limit....
Sounds like we keep hitting the same natural limit....
Ah, but we _did_ have it, but they were called "Expert Systems." The conceit was that if you got someone knowledgeable to condense their expertise into a couple thousand crisp decision points, you could solve any problem in that specialty.
January 12, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Ah, but we _did_ have it, but they were called "Expert Systems." The conceit was that if you got someone knowledgeable to condense their expertise into a couple thousand crisp decision points, you could solve any problem in that specialty.
Cloves, peppercorn, poppyseed, star anise, black cardamom, nigella. What if black garlic is the same as garlic itself?
Gastrophysics, you say? This could be the breakthrough that has long eluded Bistromathematics!
(Obviously, further work must be done with pencil on a waiter's notepad......)
Gastrophysics, you say? This could be the breakthrough that has long eluded Bistromathematics!
(Obviously, further work must be done with pencil on a waiter's notepad......)
December 25, 2024 at 9:55 PM
Cloves, peppercorn, poppyseed, star anise, black cardamom, nigella. What if black garlic is the same as garlic itself?
Gastrophysics, you say? This could be the breakthrough that has long eluded Bistromathematics!
(Obviously, further work must be done with pencil on a waiter's notepad......)
Gastrophysics, you say? This could be the breakthrough that has long eluded Bistromathematics!
(Obviously, further work must be done with pencil on a waiter's notepad......)
This suggests some form of garlician "dark matter" that modulates garlic space into the waves and swirls we experience. But, if this modulation has any curl at all, then somewhere in garlic space there is a discontinuity with greater garlic density than garlic itself.
Isn't Gastronomy wonderful?
Isn't Gastronomy wonderful?
December 25, 2024 at 5:34 PM
This suggests some form of garlician "dark matter" that modulates garlic space into the waves and swirls we experience. But, if this modulation has any curl at all, then somewhere in garlic space there is a discontinuity with greater garlic density than garlic itself.
Isn't Gastronomy wonderful?
Isn't Gastronomy wonderful?
There are those of us who believe that garlic is essentially a scalar field, rightfully infusing itself everywhere. But what then of things like chocolate chip ice cream, that seemingly has no garlic at all?
December 25, 2024 at 5:34 PM
There are those of us who believe that garlic is essentially a scalar field, rightfully infusing itself everywhere. But what then of things like chocolate chip ice cream, that seemingly has no garlic at all?
So guess what happens when somebody queues up a four hour streaming tape backup session? Yup.
So, when the geniuses pontificate, listen politely and then do what you know is right anyway. Because you probably know six corner cases that they never learned about, and you've got them covered.
So, when the geniuses pontificate, listen politely and then do what you know is right anyway. Because you probably know six corner cases that they never learned about, and you've got them covered.
December 23, 2024 at 2:25 AM
So guess what happens when somebody queues up a four hour streaming tape backup session? Yup.
So, when the geniuses pontificate, listen politely and then do what you know is right anyway. Because you probably know six corner cases that they never learned about, and you've got them covered.
So, when the geniuses pontificate, listen politely and then do what you know is right anyway. Because you probably know six corner cases that they never learned about, and you've got them covered.
Unfortunately, when you're sending 10 E 9 bits/second over a link with a 10 E -14 BER, you can expect a bit error around once every 10,000 seconds, or three some hours.
And remember, TP4 doesn't have a resend mechanism, it will just shut down the link as having a fatal error.
And remember, TP4 doesn't have a resend mechanism, it will just shut down the link as having a fatal error.
December 23, 2024 at 2:25 AM
Unfortunately, when you're sending 10 E 9 bits/second over a link with a 10 E -14 BER, you can expect a bit error around once every 10,000 seconds, or three some hours.
And remember, TP4 doesn't have a resend mechanism, it will just shut down the link as having a fatal error.
And remember, TP4 doesn't have a resend mechanism, it will just shut down the link as having a fatal error.
Their replacement for TCP was called TP4, and it didn't use any of that complex handshake stuff -- it just sent data, fast, raw, and "error free." And none of that ACK/NOACK/resend stuff -- the data is gonna get there first time!
December 23, 2024 at 2:25 AM
Their replacement for TCP was called TP4, and it didn't use any of that complex handshake stuff -- it just sent data, fast, raw, and "error free." And none of that ACK/NOACK/resend stuff -- the data is gonna get there first time!
So, they copied the Ethernet framing stuff, changed the CRC to "guarantee" 10 E -14 bit error rate, and then wrote their own look-alikes for all of the TCP/IP stack.
December 23, 2024 at 2:25 AM
So, they copied the Ethernet framing stuff, changed the CRC to "guarantee" 10 E -14 bit error rate, and then wrote their own look-alikes for all of the TCP/IP stack.
Ok, an "old Engineer story" for you. For my sins, I at one time got involved with the Fibre Channel folks. And they HATED Ethernet -- "too slow, all that collision stuff, even the CRC isn't good enough for REAL data like we have.
December 23, 2024 at 2:25 AM
Ok, an "old Engineer story" for you. For my sins, I at one time got involved with the Fibre Channel folks. And they HATED Ethernet -- "too slow, all that collision stuff, even the CRC isn't good enough for REAL data like we have.