Waldowal

Vaguely remember getting a phone book until about 2000. After that, there were these off brand phone books that started showing up in my driveway for a few years. Those stopped around 2003 I think.

Aww. Tell them I said “Wheek wheek”!

This guy won $“John Dreher”.

Yes, and add an Agile framework. Extreme Monkey typing.

Some additional info based on their published material (screenshot below). The software gets its data from “publicly available sources” which includes tracking information from many different online advertisers, public social media posts, etc. As we know, the advertising data can sometimes have your personal info attached - sometimes not. Babel Street claims to anonymize the data, but let’s assume there is a $$ amount at which they won’t.

So, theoretically, if you can successfully avoid ad trackers, and you don’t post on social media platforms except where you want to be “seen”, you can avoid this tracking (granted that seems quite impossible these days).

Circuit City blew all their money trying to create a disposable DVD called Divx. It was intended to replace video rental stores.

It’s not about diarrhea?!

“The Projects” is a term used to describe government provided (or subsidized) housing for poor people. The term is generally used to indicate “a place in a city where income is low and crime is usually high”.

Didn’t Vance respond with something like “I’ve never had sex to completion with a couch” - or was that bullshit?

This portal is a dumb idea, but most developers know you don’t let on when a hack is attempted and you detect it. It’s common to return a “success” message in hopes the “hacker” stops trying and moves on. Meanwhile, you log the attempt (and don’t actually cancel a voter registration).

Though, I don’t have high hopes the state actually built a secure site here.

You mean by people disagreeing with me on points I never made?

Dear Mr. High & Mighty, I’ve actually seen all those things - on UL certified devices.

But again, not my point. My point was a lamp isn’t complicated enough for the UL to charge so much that the price goes up 10x. If they are charging that much, there should be tons of competitors trying to get a piece of that pie. If they aren’t charging alot, then many of the products on Amazon, that are often certified by authorities in other countries, would also get UL certified. It has all the hallmarks of a racket.

That’s not really the point I was going for. I’m not saying bad companies won’t make shit products. I’m just pointing out a lamp doesn’t require alot of effort for the UL to certify, so it can’t justify a 10x increase in cost. But they must be charging a ton or more companies would just get their products certified.

Maybe unpopular opinion, but I’m on the fence about this. I slightly subscribe to the conspiracy theory that many “certified” products are just ways to stifle competition while also justifying higher prices for “certified” products.

Take UL listed electronics for example. Sure, that might mean something on a full computer full of electronics, but a lamp is two fucking wires and a bulb. It’s not complicated. Even confirming proper metals are used to prevent shrinking and expansion is not complicated. But the same $15 lamp is $100 once it’s UL certified. The math doesn’t add up.

Like I said: On the fence. Maybe it’s the best way to ensure safe products, but it also seems like a great system for lining specific peoples pockets.

EDIT: Jesus people, read my post before you get all triggered. I’m not saying shit products don’t exist.

I’m no expert in this subject either, but a theoretical limit could be beyond 200x - depending on the data.

For example, a basic compression approach is to use a lookup table that allows you to map large values to smaller lookup ids. So, if the possible data only contains 2 values: One consisting of 10,000 letter 'a’s. The other is 10,000 letter 'b’s. We can map the first to number 1 and the second to number 2. With this lookup in place, a compressed value of “12211” would uncompress to 50,000 characters. A 10,000x compression ratio. Extrapolate that example out and there is no theoretical maximum to the compression ratio.

But that’s when the data set is known and small. As the complexity grows, it does seem logical that a maximum limit would be introduced.

So, it might be possible to achieve 200x compression, but only if the complexity of the data set is below some threshold I’m not smart enough to calculate.

Did he hit his head? The lead kick in?

I’m only half joking. I had a neighbor who I used to describe as slightly conservative-leaning. He suffered a brain injury on the job and is now a full tilt QAnon MAGA goofball.

Just guessing but maybe (G)ood, (A)cceptable, (M)arginal, (P)oor? Or perhaps (G)od-tier, (A)ss, (M)eh, and (P)wned?

Same. Not sure why it would go viral.

If you love dark milk, then sugar love than actually more.