Recent submissions

Comment · 1 year ago
I've heard that a number of times, but the vast majority of people who get into CS do it because they want a high-paying tech job, for which most of what they'll learn at the university is borderline useless (and to the extent that cutting-edge CS research happens, the academia is nowadays usually trailing the industry).

The problem, arguably, is that we don't have reputable trade schools that would actually teach what the students need. But if that changes, I think some CS departments will be in for a rude awakening.

Comment · 1 year ago
Sort of, but if the objective is to get hired for a hardware design job, I think that even the font aside, the overall aesthetics of the PCB aren't great. There are several places where component text overlaps other markings, some components are slightly offset from others for no reason, the pattern of stitching vias is pretty chaotic... I think it's actually the software part of it that's most worthwhile.
Comment · 1 year ago
These aren't annual pay packages. It's some "can't retire on that" base salary plus a promise of gradually vesting equity on a multi-year schedule. For public companies, you'll get that amount if you hang around for x years and there is no sudden decline in market price. For non-public companies (OpenAI), the equity is more pie-in-the-sky.
Comment · 1 year ago
> an outdated relic kept alive by the electoral college.

And yet, farmers are a vocal and critical political bloc in every other EU country, too.

Farming is just important. Not as much because it employs a large portion of the population, but because it keeps a large portion of the population alive. It is the original industry that's "too big to fail" - if you let it, you get famine.

Comment · 1 year ago
I get the broader point, but the infosec framing here is weird. It's a naive and dangerous view that the defense efforts are only as strong as the weakest link. If you're building your security program that way, you're going to lose. The idea is to have multiple layers of defense because you can never really, consistently get 100% with any single layer: people will make mistakes, there will be systems you don't know about, etc.

In that respect, the attack and defense sides are not hugely different. The main difference is that many attackers are shielded from the consequences of their mistakes, whereas corporate defenders mostly aren't. But you also have the advantage of playing on your home turf, while the attackers are comparatively in the dark. If you squander that... yeah, things get rough.

Comment · 1 year ago
I hate to say this, but it seems like a pretty clear case of using the wrong tool for the job.

There's no conceivable reason to cut something this simple on a large-format CNC mill. It's literally just a couple of straight cuts. It's not going to be faster (not with standard endmills), not going to be easier, and it's not going to be cheaper unless you're making them by the thousands.

You can likely buy S4S lumber for less than an oversized sheet of furniture-grade 1" plywood.

Comment · 1 year ago
You can make some plausible arguments against glass. It scratches more easily and doesn't shimmer as much. But synthetic sapphire is the same league and costs a lot less.

The modern-day aesthetic of diamonds is just that they are expensive. They're not distinguished by utility, quality, or appearance from cheaper products. The ultimate status symbol, but also obviously a bit of an issue...

Comment · 1 year ago
Huh? Chinese citizens are free to apply to jobs in the Western world, and most companies are happy to hire them. Also, while the Chinese intelligence apparatus undoubtedly has easier access to Chinese nationals, the vast majority of these workers are not a part of a state-run syndicate to circumvent sanctions (or worse).

The NK thing is a fundamentally different scenario: you have people you're not allowed to hire lying to you and stealing identities to get hired. That's an obvious problem in itself, and the fact that it's orchestrated by the NK government to benefit the regime is only making it worse.

There are other parties that probably do the same, but NK is the industry leader, so to speak.

Comment · 1 year ago
In principle. But in practice, the industry doesn't need nearly as many mathematicians as it does software engineers, and almost no one is getting into CS out of the love of math. CS coursework reflects that. Here are some important algorithms and data structures, here's how you write Python, good luck at big tech!
Comment · 1 year ago
What you're describing is the domain of a very, very small number of hobbyists with very deep pockets (plus various govt-funded entities).

The vast majority of hobby astrophotography is done pretty much as the webpage describes it, with a single camera. You can even buy high-end Canon cameras with IR filters factory-removed specifically for astrophotography. It's big enough of a market that the camera manufacturer accommodates it.

Comment · 1 year ago
I think that term is reserved mostly for actual artwork (renderings, paintings, etc).

Some deep-space astronomy pictures are in completely made-up color, often because they're taken at wavelengths different than visible light and then color-mapped to look pretty.

But the point here is even if you're taking images with a regular camera pointed at the sky, it's pretty much impossible to match "reality".

Comment · 1 year ago
Maslow is self-propelled using cables. It's the same goal - expand the work area by getting rid of a rigid frame of the mill - but a fundamentally different way of getting there. Here, you're the one moving the mill to follow your desired pattern, and the device simply corrects for your errors to stay on target.
Comment · 1 year ago
A CNC router with a work area suitable for typical woodworking projects is definitely not $300 - you're probably thinking about 3018 kits, but with 18 cm of travel, that's really not enough for the usual scale of woodworking projects. Not even enough for a typical cutting board.

A ready-made unit in "woodworking" size will likely set you back $2-$4k.

Comment · 1 year ago
The reason Origin uses tape is to maintain precise, absolute registration over large distances - so that you can for example machine a pattern the size of a kitchen table.

I am very skeptical you can have that level of registration with mouse-style sensors that can only measure relative motion. I might be wrong, but it seems unlikely.

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