Recent submissions

Comment · 2 years ago
Location: Romania

Remote: yes

Willing to relocate: not in the next year or so (toddler duty), but open in principle and available to travel frequently in Europe

Technologies: Python, JS, Rust, Bash, DevOps, Linux, embedded C, PyTorch, electronics and robotics, transport and parking infrastructure and technology, navigating political bureaucracies

Resume: http://www.linkedin.com/in/p918345638147

email: mres at gmx.com

I am looking to return to technology after an 8 year stint into public service and political office. An engineer by formation, I am a very broad generalist, taking interest into various technical fields as well as social sciences - hence my venture into politics. I have managed transport infrastructure projects for my public sector employers but I also know my way around a git command line and a large codebase written in a dozen languages.

I am particularly interested in fast-moving startups that can benefit from my broad skill set. I am ready to get hands-on and handle any development and engineering tasks to support growth. Ideally, I would like to manage a team of like-minded engineers eager to make an impact.

I am available to work through my own company as a business-to-business contractor, handling my own taxes, etc., if that is beneficial, for example, to a US-based company.

Comment · 4 years ago
Instead of banning proof of work they should firewall crypto assets from the traditional financial system.

"Let crypto burn" as they say, both figuratively and in the practical sense, let them burn resources but only it they can pay for them by creating value outside their own bubble, services for which people are willing to pay. Currently the massive impetus of the resource burn is crypto speculation, the hope that a substantial part of the traditional financial system will move to crypto systems and take advantage of the low regulations. That's the major promise of crypto that's driving adoption in the traditional space, regulatory arbitrage.

Comment · 4 years ago
Expecting Galactica to produce truthful academic papers is just about as sensible as expecting to find a significant other among your kitchen appliances. Language models are a way to emulate the writing style of human produced content, only a fool would expect them to reason about the text to any level resembling a scientific standard.

Written language is a doorway to the full extent of human cognition; unless the problem domain is severely constrained (ie "What is the distance to Mars?"), you are very likely to fall into reflexive traps that rapidly devolve into AGI ("I think, therefore I am?").

Comment · 4 years ago
If one could reliably detect this DLL injection in the process address space, then the correct "fix" is to crash immediately. Authors of such tools should seek another way of accomplishing their goal, preferably one that does not export their own bugs to innocent bystanders.
Comment · 8 years ago
Google flights already has an "access to the overhead bins" tick box, but yes, there is space to improve the comparison.
Comment · 8 years ago
Weight is largely irrelevant. The difference between a airliner full of 45Kg people versus 90Kg people constitutes about 5% of the total plane weight. Some fuel savings but would not be worth the aggravation, client humiliation, lawsuits etc.

What it boils down to is volume and time. A passenger takes up a seat regardless of how large he is (...) so he's charged for a seat. Luggage changes that equation far more than passenger body weight.

Comment · 8 years ago
You aren't going without any luggage, but just what you can fit behind the seat in front - and you can fit multiple change of clothes there, I assure you.
Comment · 8 years ago
>So how far and for how long do you think someone can fly with a luggage that fits under their seat?

In any 1 week vacation to any destination around the world? People are diverse and you shouldn't presume everything about yourself applies to everybody else. I've been on dozens such vacations.

Comment · 8 years ago
Firstly, travelers are consenting adults that should understand and accept the baggage policy - or use a different airline. The market is extremely competitive.

Secondly, as a person who has traveled backpack for years, I find the whole "luggage is an essential element of air transport" line quite offensive. It's a service I want to purchase but you won't let me because some guy might be confused by a price comparison app to buy a baggage-less ticket (mind you, not even by Ryanair themselves, on their website it is very clear what you get for the price). It's revolting.

Comment · 8 years ago
This industry can only exist because labels and artists are not willing to sell tickets at the market clearing price, since they would be seen as exploitative by their own fans. So they sell the tickets are significantly discounted prices, in the hopes that at least some of them end up in the hands of the fans, saving face but creating a niche for a super-sleazy industry.

The solution I believe is to directly engage the fans and include with the price of the ticket benefits that only have value for fans. For example, when purchasing a ticket the market price is $100, out of which $40 is the price of the ticket and $60 is the "anti-scalping deposit" that fans get back when purchasing from their account with the band's site. So you would get $60 back in your account that you can use to purchase items valuable for fans such as limited edition CD, merchandise or even other tickets in the future (this is a bit tricky since scalpers can automate it, but exposes them to a major risk of detection and loosing the deposit, unlike the automation of the single ticket purchase, which either works or is risk free).

Providing this service seems like a nice idea to build a company on.

Comment · 8 years ago
I think a solution that actually helps the commons is to time-bomb the "Commons Clause" for a 3-5 year period, after which the software reverts to full open source (similar to the GPL Time bomb discussed some time ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12459492 ) This way, the developers get paid fairly, for what they actually deliver, but they can't lock the users in. If the developer dies, goes bankrupt or falls into a predatory phase where it milks the product for cash without reinvesting sufficient back (Adobe), then the project can be salvaged as open source by those who use it. An even better option is to allow any commercial developer, after the 3 year period passes, the option to fork and develop it's own version with similar licensing conditions.

This will ensure a healthy, competitive environment where the software can be monetized traditionally, yet the 4 freedoms are (eventually) satisfied. As a user, this is what you care about above all else; you will pay the commercial license fee to get the bleeding edge product, knowing you are in a way "leasing to own" the software and you will be able to fork it in-house if the way you use it diverges from what the publisher will want in the future.

Comment · 8 years ago
Wikipedia quickly gets political. Even in technical articles, there is an incentive to impose one's own perspective for his field as the "authoritative" version. An important part of contributors, it turns out, are academics working in the field that more often than not are deeply vested in their version.

This is a great system for an encyclopedia that must find the best approximation of the truth, but I wouldn't call it "incentive free". Similar incentives in the social world (pushing out people that don't conform to the moderator's world view) could be disastrous.

Comment · 8 years ago
Again, if we can't conserve it, it's impossible to waste it. It's a logical contradiction. It's like wind power, you either tap it and use it or not, either way it's gone.

The fact that it's difficult (impossible) to store helium long term is an argument against government intervention because it disrupts present consumption for no clear reason and with meager future benefits.

Comment · 8 years ago
> If one's account is suspended they cannot - by definition - access Trump's tweets.

Since that is clearly not true, one practical effect is that it's setting a very low bar the difficulty one should overcome before claiming they are excluded from official communication by the government.

If the necessity of logging out then logging back in (or merely opening an Incognito window with a single click) is a rights violation, then surely not having any kind of access to online communication by the government is a much worse violation. So the government should either cease to use the internet or should make it available to all citizens as a basic citizen right.

Comment · 8 years ago
So if mr. Trump declares his Twitter account "not a public forum, but a section dedicated to publishing official supportive replies, that by default publishes all replies and selectively deletes those who aren't supportive", will that make things ok?

It's not like a town hall because there is no official charter for what the realDonalTrump Twitter is. It seems some people want to enforce their view that it's a public forum, while clearly violating mr. Trump's own 1st amendment rights by forcing him to promote on his Twitter page content that is damaging to him.

The "on his Twitter page" distinction is critical, because you can still use the wider Twitter public forum as before, and you can engage in the wider conversation, you just don't have the same visibility to his followers. You were evicted form a personal performance of the President juggling pink dildos.

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