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emptybits

6,421karma·1,004submissions·November 20, 2012
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Coded stuff. Cofounded companies and a charity. Successes & failures. http://bitmason.com

Darren Stone, Vancouver, BC, Canada

  "Once men turned their thinking over to 
   machines in the hope that this would
   set them free. But that only permitted
   other men with machines to enslave
   them." - Frank P. Herbert, Jr., 1965
  
  "The programmer, like the poet, works
   only slightly removed from pure
   thought-stuff. He builds his castles
   in the air, from air, creating by
   exertion of the imagination." 
   - Fred P. Brooks, Jr., 1975
recent activity (1,004 total)
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It's "aluminum" in American English but also in Canadian English. Canada retains UK and French-influenced spellings for quite a few other English words which America doesn't (e.g. …
7y ago·view thread
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In addition to the excellent Numberphile video suggested, I enjoyed this book quite a bit although it took me a while to get through. (I'm interested in graph theory but it's not my backgr…
7y ago·view thread
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Cool concept. Some blink trivia, if you're playing to win: ;-) Don't play against young children.[1] Do play against women taking birth control.[2] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.go…
7y ago·view thread
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And just a few years later in 1986, the "Scotty uses a Mac" scene from Star Trek IV: https://youtu.be/LkqiDu1BQXY?t=64 …
7y ago·view thread
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The British ambassador to China at the time, Sir Alan Donald, claimed that citizens were mowed down repeatedly by Chinese army tanks, turned to mush, and their remains were scooped, burned, and washed…
7y ago·view thread
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The US relies on China more than any other country for its critical minerals.[1] I wonder how much this plays (or should play) into the current US-China trade war and all its noisy politics right no…
7y ago·view thread
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FTA: The Ontario Provincial Police say, “We can knock on someone’s door and say, ‘We’re so worried about you, can we come in and chat?’” Yikes. I understand the positive spin is the police care about …
7y ago·view thread
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Yes. But also: Parents, why are you letting your kids play with hardware long known to upload and preserve this data?
7y ago·view thread
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s/can't/doesn't/ It's a company with the time, resources, and customer awareness to do this. They can . They have chosen not to.
7y ago·view thread
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Something from a similar set of values: "Why I’m Sending My Child to Forest School and not Kindergarten" https://www.cbc.ca/parents/learning/view/why-im-sendin…
7y ago·view thread
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Good job, Portland. Another approach to reducing discarded needles is to open needle-exchanges and safe-injection sites (e.g. Vancouver[1]). This also reduces infection from sharing needles, overdose …
7y ago·view thread
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If you demonstrate that government employees changed files all over your hard drive during a "search" then I wonder if recourse or compensation or legal action is possible. I understand the …
7y ago·view thread
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I'll start with my gratitude that a Canadian bookseller has found a way to make their bottom line work and afford locations in high-rent areas that stay open late. Also, I'd say their staff …
7y ago·view thread
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Enter: steganography. Useful under totalitarian regimes, I would think. Unlike the burden required to hide gigs required for large file transactions, hiding mere hundreds of bytes for textual conversa…
7y ago·view thread
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Short heart-to-brain distance may also predict an ability to handle high G-forces as a fighter pilot. https://fightersweep.com/1411/agsm/ …
7y ago·view thread
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Another fact about Bolivians ... they are, on average, the shortest people in the world. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-short... …
7y ago·view thread
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In the realm of modern human-pedaled and electric-assist tricycles (e.g. for carrying kids, passengers, cargo, etc.) the single wheel at the back configuration is called a "tadpole" and it&#…
7y ago·view thread