HighPlainsDrftr

I've been a fan of the 'simply static' plugin for wordpress for a few years now. Basically, install wordpress on a server, make it accessible only to authorized users (vpn, acl, htauth, whatever works best for you), then have it deploy to an apache server or s3 bucket.

The WP designer feels at home. Has a simple deploy button. The pages load significantly faster.

Works well most of the time. Sometimes forms can be a bit tricky, but the sites I've deployed it with usually don't have many of them.

It would be interesting to test. I think the key is figuring out very localized conditions across the path. Those change quickly.

I doubt we do. That would take out all forms of bird hunting. Most firearm owner's and hunters I know would say "Shooting in the air is a waste of ammunition and stupid - unless there was a target there."

They would also be impressed. I am. I never thought this would get to HN. Really nerding out on some of the math and insight that has been commented on here.

Think about it this way. They didn't have temperature sensors and wind gauges setup every 20 ft along the path to the target.

Someone said, "How can I do this." It's not that much different than saying "I'll jog around the block." Couple weeks later "I'll jog around the block in half the time when I started." Weeks later "I'll jog around the neighborhood."

It is a hobby. It is complex. Someone made it happen.

Hah. I don't think its feasible for someone to be sniped at that distance. After 69 shots over hours on a good day, security would have well figured out they were under attack. If they didn't, the target probably would have been done with whatever they were doing and long gone.

Probably when you run out of $$$.

Think about it though, yeah they fired 69 shots. It took several minutes to setup each shot.

I can't hit a target at 50 yards. Its tough to get the mind clear and the heart rate down, breathing under control, and then try to figure out if the siting is off or you are off. Hell, siting in a firearm is a challenge. Changes in ammo have effects. The environment is always changing.

Anything at this range probably won't have any real world use cases. Nobody is going to try to shoot a deer at 4.4 miles. The military isn't going to use it in war.

What you will see is a ton of data being shared. Someone else will set a record in the future. And we will get to see that data. It really is interesting.

But I doubt you could take all the ammo in the world and randomly hit that target at that distance without a hell of alot of thought and planning.

Windy Wyoming as it's called. I live in the east side of the state - few hours away from where they did this.

While Pinedale is generally less windy, don't kid yourself, it changes constantly. Add in they did this test at like 8,000 ft elevation. The temperature is constantly changing.

I find it impressive they found a 4.4 mile stretch that was unobstructed, no risk to hitting something (person/critter) in that area. They found a ridge that allowed them a way to somewhat see the target.

No real world application for what they did, but the effort, the science, the planning - impressive.

I'm guessing they must have used GPS to find their location, and calculate the rotation of the earth. But even small changes - like repointing 1mm to the north or south would be huge over that distance.

I always phrase it as the principles (mostly add/delete) stay the same, but the methods are almost always different. Once you learn the principle, it's always about the method of getting there.

I very much agree with that statement. It's been a decade ago since I read the article about this - and I'll try to fine and post it after I post what I read.

It costs federal taxpayers around $500 billion dollars a year to file their taxes.

Why can't that be more efficient? That is a hell of alot of money that could be handed back to the taxpayers - or added to the federal budget.

Just to live, people are paying part of that. Just to be incorporated, corps are paying that. Just to file paperwork - and have someone cover it for you.

What if we could use that money to start focusing on solving cancer? Mental health issues. Instead - we pay that money and all we get is some paper that goes through a 1960's mainframe eventually (which nobody understands the IRS mainframes anymore), and risk having them just stress us out more. That doesn't help anyone.

It's a mess to get into. It's a mess if your successful. I'm not so sure this isn't a mechanism to suppress parts of our population (or all of it).

IMHO - I think this is where we are really screwing up as a society. We shouldn't need accountants and lawyers just to live our lives. We need lawyers when we are in trouble. Need accountants to keep track of our finances. But should we really need them just to live, do something new in an unknown area?

My personal opinion is that we spend too much on lawyers and accountants. Our society should be optimized to let people focus on their ideas - bring in cash flow - and lift the entire society up when possible.

That said - I'm not sure I have a good solution here. I don't think we should tax income (don't punish people for working). I go back and forth on sales taxes (I kinda like use taxes, but again, that negatively affects a significant amount of the population un-proportionately). A chunk of the world uses VAT. I'm researching VAT closer.

We can make this a more fair, easier to operate in world than we have now. I'm a supporter of that.

I've thought for a while if you want to stop drunk / impaired driving, that the system could be reworked.

1. Require an electronic drivers license that stores data on your driving skills, reaction time, and some metadata about solving problems.

2. When you get into the car, you have to solve a medium complexity puzzle. Eg hit a certain color in a row on a touchpad - think simple simon. Or a math, quiz, something.

3. If you can't solve it, the car won't start. Or have an emergency button that allows you to start the car, but then it turns on the hazards and honks the horn while your driving (showing that you haven't proven that your reflexes are up to par). This allows everyone to watch out for you, and can bring the attention to LE.

Eek. This is just captcha for driving. I don't like it. But it might save lives!

So true. Anyone that is smart enough to be president is smart enough to not be president.

Would S3 exist in 500 years? Bezos would be long gone. Our tech would be long gone. I'd think about the only thing we could do the same is walk and open our mouth's.

And who knows what the unexpected looks like...Wars, political shifts, etc. Hell, until 2019, I thought toilet paper was unlimited. Once again, toilet paper is starting to look like the currency of the new-world.

:) That's a joke BTW. But is it? I don't want to go back to using squirrels as toilet paper!

Well, everyone was hyped on perl at the turn of the millennium. Yet not many people write it anymore. I keep waiting for the re-surge, but it just doesn't look like it is going to happen.

At nuclear waste sites, even the feds have come up with a few ways of saying "Don't enter. It is bad" with different languages, pictorial signs, and such.

It is really tough to figure out what the next few hundred years looks like. And to be a bit political, I don't think anyone saw the invasion of the capitol building in January.

It isn't easy to predict the future. With the original poster in mind, I think the best bet would to be with archive.org.

Maybe archive.org should provide this service. It could be a way to generate revenue - say "here is a thousand bucks, keep it for eternity."

I'm not sure I would want my thoughts to last that long though.

(And I'm still not sure that it would survive for more than a few hundred years.) Maybe the right thing to do is do something so great for society that they want to write books on you (eg: George Washington).

Their decisions are non binding though. This is probably just a dog and pony show.