Disqus - Latest Comments for eas

Re: Harvard Misinformation Expert Joan Donovan Forced to Leave by Kennedy School Dean, Sources Say

Erik S. — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 21:05:17 -0000

Why is that clear? Do you have information you aren't sharing with us?

Re: Harvard Misinformation Expert Joan Donovan Forced to Leave by Kennedy School Dean, Sources Say

Erik S. — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 21:04:02 -0000

What do you dispute? What information are you privy to? How do you know that this is intended to undermine Elmendorf. How do you have that knowledge?

Re: Russia Deploys Mobile Crematoriums

Erik S. — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 13:01:33 -0000

As the article notes, this seems most useful improving the optics of Russian casualties back home in the motherland. 2 litres of ground bone ash has much less visual impact than a coffin, particularly in batches of a dozen, or a hundred. An SUV could hold the neatly packaged ashes of a thousand dead soldiers; much less dramatic than truck/traincar/airplanes full of bodies.

Re: Comparing Linux Environments on macOS Host

Erik S. — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 00:16:28 -0000

Thanks for doing these.

Wow. The MacOS native file creation/reading benchmarks are significantly worse than for the virtualized linux instance. That's not a great look for MacOS.

Re: Apple Music Now Streams Higher-Quality Lossless Audio: Here’s What You Need to Know

Erik S. — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 17:41:58 -0000

Apple's support documents outline a variety of ways for playback of lossless tracks from Apple Music. AirPlay isn't mentioned, at all.

AirPlay originally used the lossless ALAC codec, but AirPlay 2, released in 2018, added support for AAC. My research shows that the Music app is actually using AAC when sending over AirPlay 2, even though it's receiving a lossless format from Apple's servers. It does still use ALAC if you are playing back an ALAC file you ripped yourself.

Hopefully this will change in the future, but it's true as of the time I'm writing this.

Re: Today’s Javascript, from an outsider’s perspective

Erik S. — Tue, 26 May 2020 18:43:55 -0000

So, it works great, as long as you know to avoid the broken parts.

Re: The Best Smart LED Light Bulbs

Erik S. — Sun, 15 Sep 2019 12:01:04 -0000

Ikea's system is ZigBee based, though they make little/no effort to provide easy interoperability with other ZigBee systems.

As for not requiring a password, the security implications are mitigated by the fact that their system only works within one's LAN. They rely on the security of other systems, like Google Home, HomeKit and Alexa for control from the Internet at large. Inside the LAN, they rely on scanning a QR code printed on the Gateway. Ultimately, physical access is enough to defeat the security of any of these systems, so I'm not sure that Ikea's approach is significantly less secure than the other systems.

Did you actually test the Ikea system, or did you just rely on web searches? If you haven't you should. They are worth a closer look. The cost of entry a bundle with a gateway and two white 1000lm, 90+ CRI bulbs is comprable cost of a Phillips Hue bundle with dimmer (800lm) white bulbs with less color fidelity (80+ CRI).

Things may change quickly, though, Phillips has a lead on features, particularly customization ability, and they are getting really aggressive with their pricing. At the same time, Ikea is making a big push with their smart home products.

Re: Essential Tools for Cyclists at Any Skill Level

Erik S. — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 01:23:47 -0000

"No fuss, no muss?" Fixing a flat is fussy and messy. The difference between doing so with a new tube vs a patch kit is marginal, at best.

Re: Essential Tools for Cyclists at Any Skill Level

Erik S. — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 01:20:28 -0000

There are certainly times I'd carry an extra tube(s), but I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I regretted not bringing one. They add bulk (and weight) and save only a couple of minutes.

Most things that can make a hole that's too big to patch are also going to mortally wound the tire.

Re: The Best Portable Solar Battery Charger

Erik S. — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 19:34:13 -0000

Your numeric results are suspicious. Their are some major discrepancies between measurements, the nominal power ratings, and what one might expect given the solar cell area for each unit.

The Big Blue has four panels to the X-Dragons three, an advantage of 33%. and the rated power of the Big Blue is 40% higher than the X-Dragons.

This advantage is not reflected in your measurements, where both have essentially identical measured power output. The Big Blue does open a bit of a lead for the energy captured over 4 hours, but its only about 10% ahead, far less than one would expect based on rating and # of panels.

Now look at the Anker and Eceen, both with just two panels. The Anker's rated power is 15% higher, which is almost perfectly reflected in its advantage in measured power. The difference in total power captured over 4 hours is also in line with the difference in ratings.

So, why is it that the performance of the dual-panel chargers can be predicted reasonably well given their nominal ratings while the BigBlue seems to significantly underperform its rating?

I think the answer is that your testing methodology is, if not flawed, then at least insufficient. Standard USB devices shouldn't draw more than 10W, though some devices will push that limit to 11-12W, which is the maximum power you measured from any of the panels. This is consistent with the testing you described, which used a single USB device to load each panel.

If you are going to limit your tests to devices with at least two USB ports it makes sense to me that you include a test of what the chargers are capable of with multiple devices attached.

Having a working hypothesis about the system you are measuring makes it possible to see inconsistencies between what you expect given the hypothesis and what you actually measure. Once you see inconsistencies you can investigate them and use what you learn to either adjust your hypothesis, or improve your measurements.

There is another benefit to measuring how much power the chargers can deliver when both ports are fully loaded, it will allow you to identify chargers that make unrealistic claims.

(A couple years ago my brother sent me a job listing for a product reviewer at The Wirecutter. I wasn't interested. Now here I am working for free. Whoops.)

Re: Apple iPhone XR camera review

Erik S. — Sun, 31 Mar 2019 18:48:52 -0000

Night Sight is also available on the new Pixel 3, but it's not included in their summary test results because it isn't enabled by default.

Re: Don’t Exploit Christchurch: The New Zealand massacre was an act of pure evil, but it should not serve as an excuse to silence frank discussion about Islam and mass immigration. | City Journal

Erik S. — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 14:22:19 -0000

20,000 : 1? Only if you ignore whole nations.

Re: That’s not how any of this works.

Erik S. — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 20:15:01 -0000

CORRECT!

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths - Issue 40: Learning - Nautilus

Erik S. — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 14:01:11 -0000

KateGladstone contradicts you. I find her argument more persuasive.

And stepping back, society is rapidly moving away from handwritten signatures as reliable attestations of identity. This is happening for a number of reasons, one of them being that they can't be easily and reliably verified.

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths - Issue 40: Learning - Nautilus

Erik S. — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 13:56:22 -0000

TED talks can be thought provoking. They can also take a great deal of liberty with the facts. The standards for TEDx are even lower.

For what it is worth, the piece we are commenting on references an expert that contradict what you represent Jake Weidmann as saying.

In a brain-imaging study on older children, James says that she observed “no brain differences between the two styles of writing.”

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths - Issue 40: Learning - Nautilus

Erik S. — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 13:51:00 -0000

Citations, please. The article gives plenty of reason to be dubious about such assertions. Even when based on evidence, the evidence is either too thin to support the conclusion, or may actually contradict it.

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths - Issue 40: Learning - Nautilus

Erik S. — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 13:49:01 -0000

Did you read the article? Did you understand it?

As for longer school days and longer school years in order to make time to teach ... cursive!?! Computers and robots handle the rote and repetitive. We need fewer drones these days, not more of them.

As for reading cursive letters from grandparents or historical documents, I think motivation and curiosity are the biggest hurdles -- and the sort of things that dogmatic orthodoxy stifles. If someone is interested, if someone wants to read their grandparents cursive, or the original script of a historical document, learning how isn't a huge task. Probably hours, or days of effort. That hardly justifies the amount of time spent on learning cursive, and certainly not extending the school year and school day.

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths - Issue 40: Learning - Nautilus

Erik S. — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 13:41:01 -0000

My father thought extensive sentence diagramming in jr. high english was a counterproductive waste of time. He would have been appalled at your teacher, both for wasting time, and for going out of her way to find some questionable authority (lined paper) to submit herself and her students to.

Re: Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths - Issue 40: Learning - Nautilus

Erik S. — Thu, 10 Jan 2019 13:36:34 -0000

I'm sure the author would agree that people have no trouble inventing evidence-free, after-the-fact justifications for teaching things like cursive.

What you have is an untested (but intriguing) hypothesis. If it were to prove a sound theory, there should still be pragmatic considerations. Is teaching such a thing worthwhile? Is it already taught in other ways? Is cursive an efficient and effective way to teach it? Are there other, more valuable ways to spend the time and effort devoted to children's education?

Re: The trick to get your wordpress behind a reverse proxy

Erik S. — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 23:17:31 -0000

Nice!

I ran into a ridiculous number of dead ends trying to get this working with nginx as a front end to apache. I even tried SetEnvIf, but I failed, because I was trying to modify the pre-existing request_scheme variable, something setenvif won't do.

I finally surrendered to doing this at the wrong layer, and added some PHP into wp-config.php I've reverted it now, and added this to an apache config file instead.

Re: Movies for me at 20

Erik S. — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 16:32:40 -0000

And, of course, he isn't actually a self-made man. He's an heir to a great silver fortune.

Re: Movies for me at 20

Erik S. — Fri, 02 Mar 2018 16:29:29 -0000

Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility.
It's A Wonderful Life
Shane
Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life
oh yeah, "In The Mood for Love"

Re: How I Shot the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch and Got Retweeted by Elon Musk

Erik S. — Tue, 20 Feb 2018 18:59:31 -0000

What an exciting experience, and great photos, too.

You shoot loose some memories of going to the Hansen Planetarium when I was a kid, and watching their show about the Apollo moon launches. I wonder if I can find any info about it...

Re: It Wasn't Just Alex Jones -- Smears Against Chobani Were Also Driven By Fake News And The “Alt-Right”

Erik S. — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 04:15:43 -0000

Did that make sense to you when you wrote it? Maybe cut out the Nazi meth, get some sleep, and replenish your precious essence with some delicious, nutritious, Chobani Greek-style yoghurt -- each cup is packed with active cultures, you know! It might help, it couldn't hurt.

Oh, and another thing, if you are worried about loosing "the culture" or anything else, try not taking the bait and trading away more of you freedom, opportunity, and prosperity to every con man who strokes your fragile ego while picking your pocket, you self-emasculated fool. Naw, I'm kidding, you can't help yourself. Too bad we all suffer for the bad choices of people like you.

Re: The Best Portable Document Scanner

Erik S. — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 13:47:51 -0000

I'd appreciate if the review had more to say about paper handling. Particularly frequency of misfeeds and whether the scanner handles batches of mixed length documents. For example, a mix of letter sized sheets, and letter sheets with a check or payment stub removed.