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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.comDarren 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., 1975recent activity (1,004 total)
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It has been suggested that, in Xinjiang, "owning too many books" or "receiving email from abroad" contributes to one's likelihood of a police visit and ending up in such a cam…
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Canadian here also. I like your analogy. Opiates don't stop at national or socio-economic boundaries. So a prediction I hope I'm wrong about: We temporarily enjoy driving the bully uncle…
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Yikes. If that's the case then trainers and everyone up the chain needs to answer to the community (i.e. who they ultimately serve and protect) on this one, then. Thank goodness for 1) body cams …
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That's sort of my point. I was responding to the "training" comment. So if those officers genuinely believe that their armed and armoured team needs to electrocute, subdue, and inject a…
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> Training about recognizing and handling disabled persons should be mandatory Sure, but in this case, the man's ability level doesn't even seem relevant. Officers see a nonviolent man ta…
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The Dutch Reach is a reach to ask for, IMO. I write this as a cyclist living in Vancouver (one city named in the article) who has been doored and nearly doored. IME, shoulder checks while actually dr…
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Seventeen (!) years later, in 2013, memory compression became part of OS X Mavericks. And they refer to Connectix RAM Doubler. https://www.cnet.com/news/memory-compression-brings-…
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> I went into my contacts and changed the ringtone associated with them to be one that makes noise. That gets the job done, but rather than modify each of your existing contacts (and each new one),…
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ByteDance also made news for "highest salaries in the world" and "unlimited salary for unlimited talent". $1M USD salaries plus options. https://www.washingtonpost.com…
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> There are more hams in the US, and more active hams, than ever before I apologize for repeating the doom and gloom then, because I know it can be self-fulfilling. The AARL has optimism but it als…
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It's also illegal in Canada. With amateur radio "dying" as an interesting hobby (my opinion, but widely held) it is often speculated that if encryption was permitted in amateur radio co…
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Sounds interesting. FWIW, A search for "Magazyn Enter" (the publisher is Lupus?) at archive.org turns up a handful of downloadable cover CDs from 1999. I didn't see any references to Mi…
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In a nutshell: > the “Buy” button in digital stores is, at best, mislabeled
2 pts
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Concerned Canadian here. You're referring to Bill C-76 (the "Anti-Foreign Interference" and/or "Election Modernization Act")? Is there a good critical analysis (WRT free …
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In Canada our federal government also monitors wastewater for drug use and claims it's a practice from Europe. Though it doesn't carry a "war on drugs" tone. https://www…
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Indeed. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/comp.os.minix/dlN... …
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Not just "eavesdrop on workers". Also "eavesdrop on customers". The patent itself tells us: "the sound sensors can capture sounds resulting from guests talking while waiting …
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It is common in the US and Canada to use progesterone during early gestation for IVF pregnancies, to support the endometrium after embryo implantation.
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Where is the NYT article about the US' dystopian dreams? The NYT writes plenty of articles about US surveillance gone-too-far. Even a naive query like this: https://www.nytimes.com…
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Big Fred Rogers fan here. I saw "Won't You Be My Neighbor" in a theatre last week and it cemented my belief that his love and dedication to childhood development is just as necessary to…
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> You're mentioning things like organized crime reporting, which are not emergencies. I may have been unclear but I said crime "taking place", implying crime in progress. I think any…
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Will it be possible to make an anonymous 911 call? There can be scenarios, I think, where we (society) do not want to deter someone from reporting an emergency due to fear of being identified. Off the…
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Some societies do. I'm writing from Canada. Mother and/or father can share up to 35 weeks of paid leave under the national insurance program. This maxes out at, I think, approx $500 per week…
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"The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution." - Igor Stravinsky
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FWIW, this is a common paradigm taught by instructors of meditation. That is, thoughts in general are transient and not something to necessarily identify as "me" nor to assign undue importan…
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Here in Vancouver, we have been building apartments to house homeless using modular construction. http://vancouver.ca/people-programs/temporary-modular-housin... Start-to-finish …