Steve Downey

JF Bastien @jfbastien.com [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 01:46 UTC

It’s now live!

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 23, 2024 at 02:21 UTC

Sunset was later today than it was yesterday. "Shorter Days" is a myth put out by big dark.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 22, 2024 at 17:13 UTC

"Tolerance" in floating point comparisons usually just makes things worse. You have no idea how to calculate what it should be. A random "0.1" is not improving your check. Floating point calculations do not have random noise.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 22, 2024 at 14:54 UTC

NY is east of DC by about 3° longitude.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 22, 2024 at 00:17 UTC

Scalia absolutely did motivated reasoning. But he wasn't so absolutely incompetent at it.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 21, 2024 at 22:26 UTC

"encrypts with metadata" doesn't make any sense. I suspect some plugin was used that adds some metadata that's triggering the AI tag ?

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 21, 2024 at 22:21 UTC

That computer generated text isn't copyrightable doesn't seem even a little close under current IP law?

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 21, 2024 at 18:25 UTC

Like the breathless coverage of Amy Coney Barrett criticizing Alito's originalism, there's no disagreement about results. ACB would be fine with "because I said so" rather than "in 1872 this quote says" as long as the FedSoc position was the result.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 21, 2024 at 00:52 UTC

It's especially hard as I remember because they take cues from you about how to react. If you cue that you are worried they can worry a lot more. If you cue that it's normal they can be just fine

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 20, 2024 at 19:57 UTC

They fear competent enforcement of the existing taxes and regulations.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 20, 2024 at 19:43 UTC

Shooting customers is frowned upon, even in the drug trade.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 20, 2024 at 12:13 UTC

Ooo! It's an extra heretical version with 11 commandments originally made to sell a movie!

bsky.app/profile/slac...

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 22:05 UTC

3000 years sounds entirely too near term, and ignores the quadrillions of people a million years from now. That's like liquidation of a quadrillion people which outweighs all other moral considerations.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 19, 2024 at 19:00 UTC

Does it specify some heretical version of the 10 Commandments, or the true one from my sect?

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 17, 2024 at 01:03 UTC

A black belt is an undergraduate degree, a B.A. It's an indication that you've learned the basic curriculum and are now ready to really start. And you get to TA a class.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 13, 2024 at 12:15 UTC

Guilt is a healthier motivation than shame. That doesn't mean shame is bad or that making it easier to avoid being shamed is good.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 12, 2024 at 13:48 UTC

A bit less than 30 years of service. Sigh.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 12, 2024 at 13:14 UTC

Even today with Unicode and UTF-8 it's a ridiculous problem. Too many things that are just rules that you cannot reason about because they describe systems that humans grew, not designed.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 11, 2024 at 12:49 UTC

Can I have hot sauce with my struggles with repressed emotions?

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 11, 2024 at 12:11 UTC

She probably thinks Cersei deserved it. She was objectively terrible, after all?

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 11, 2024 at 00:04 UTC

I'm generally a descriptivist, words mean what people use them to mean. But if we need a word for 100 millionaires, centi is the wrong one? But no one uses hecto in American English, or if they do it doesn't register as 100. So I'll just be over on my hill, peeving.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 10, 2024 at 22:16 UTC

Enough people being wrong, or two innumerates at a "well edited" publication, can get a neologism into Merriam Webster. Doesn't make it a correct formation. A centidollar is still a penny, not a Century Note.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 10, 2024 at 18:29 UTC

A centimillion is 10K. Hectomillionairs. Or decibillionair. This hill.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 10, 2024 at 18:09 UTC

One proper pencil in the whole pile in the kitchen. A Dixon Ticonderoga #2 HB Soft, from the redundant department of redundancy.

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Steve Downey @sdowney.bsky.social [ View ] Jun 10, 2024 at 17:51 UTC

"at least he made the trains run on time" was ironic, because that didn't happen either.

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