Hacker News: b_emery

New comment by b_emery in "Twenty eight slightly rude notes on writing"

b_emery — Sat, 10 May 2025 19:59:56 +0000

Thanks for sharing this, it's one of the most interesting, funny and enjoyable things I've read in weeks.

New comment by b_emery in "The future of solar doesn't track the sun"

b_emery — Sun, 04 May 2025 00:38:02 +0000

Like a big, very simple clock basically.

New comment by b_emery in "How the U.S. became a science superpower"

b_emery — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 13:56:02 +0000

If you read nothing else in this excellent post, read the conclusion:

> A key component of this U.S. research ecosystem was the genius of the indirect cost reimbursement system. Not only did the U.S. fund researchers in universities by paying the cost of their salaries, the U.S. gave universities money for the researchers facilities and administration. This was the secret sauce that allowed U.S. universities to build world-class labs for cutting-edge research that were the envy of the world. Scientists flocked to the U.S. causing other countries to complain of a “brain drain.”

and:

> Today, China’s leadership has spent the last three decades investing heavily to surpass the U.S. in science and technology.

In my field (a type of radar related research) in which I've worked for almost 30 yrs, papers from China have gone from sparse and poorly done imitations of western papers (~15-20 yrs ago), to innovative must reads if you want to stay on top of the field. Usually when I think of a new idea, it has already been done by some Chinese researcher. The Biden administration seemed to recognize this issue and put a lot of money toward this field. All that money and more is going away. I'm hoping to stay funded through the midterms on other projects (and that there are midterms), and hoping that the US can get back on track (the one that actually made it 'great', at least by the metrics in the post.

Recession Watch

b_emery — Sat, 05 Apr 2025 23:47:30 +0000

Article URL: https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2025/04/recession-watch.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43597784

Points: 21

# Comments: 3

New comment by b_emery in "Ask HN: What to do when you're out of money and can't find a job?"

b_emery — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 18:07:03 +0000

Similarly, I regularly see lots of HPC support job openings at universities in the US. These pay much less than similar jobs in the real world and they are not particularly well advertised -- you have to go looking for them. Could keep the op in the black until something better is found.

New comment by b_emery in "The case against morning yoga, daily routines, and endless meetings"

b_emery — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 14:09:45 +0000

There are several conflated ideas in conflict here. First lets be clear and define 10x work as work on something very impactful, say a business idea, an important piece of art, or a scientific breakthrough. My model here could be Richard Feynman for example. If you 'stumble' on one of these ideas (e.g. after potentially years of routine, hard work training you to have a) the skills required to act on it and b) the knowledge to notice it) the by all means, drop the routine and let the excitement take you. Any project such as this will have such a phase. Note however that the routine 'grind' (hate that word) was required to get there, and at some point, the proof of concept will be done, and the routine will be required again to keep it going and get it fully out into the world.

I used to hate routine by my kids showed me how necessary it is. Maintenance is essential to life. Routines get the maintenance done, and free up your brain to have ideas and energy for the hard work. An observation: Where I work there is a Nobel laureate who takes walks at almost the same time every day (past my window). I would think he knows about '10x work', and also about the utility of routine.

New comment by b_emery in "Ask HN: What is the best financial advice someone has ever given you?"

b_emery — Sun, 23 Jun 2024 22:01:15 +0000

... or by marrying into it. Or, by owning things that increase in value.

Pi Gazing is a project to build meteor cameras using Raspberry Pi

b_emery — Sat, 22 Jun 2024 16:44:44 +0000

Article URL: https://pigazing.dcford.org.uk/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40760320

Points: 113

# Comments: 30

New comment by b_emery in "Satellites Spotting Ships"

b_emery — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 13:57:49 +0000

You can also see ships in the SAR data available here: https://ovl.oceandatalab.com/ (eg from the ESA satellites).

Be forewarned, there is also a ton of other data to wade through, but if you find and click all the right boxes the results can be pretty interesting (island wind wakes, ocean current visualizations, etc):

https://ovl.oceandatalab.com/?date=2024-02-13T12:00:00×...

New comment by b_emery in "Lewis Carroll – computing the day of the week for any given date (1887)"

b_emery — Fri, 24 May 2024 14:05:56 +0000

> partly because once you have the skill you find it's surprisingly useful.

A statement I find to be true in general.

New comment by b_emery in "Ask HN: Books on how science works and how it is different from faith"

b_emery — Thu, 15 Feb 2024 15:06:15 +0000

I think the best reference for this, where I picked it up at least, is The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan. He investigates all sorts of things like alien encounters, goes into the history, etc. I think this is the book that made it all finally click for me, but it has been some time.

New comment by b_emery in "Could a Giant Parasol in Outer Space Help Solve the Climate Crisis?"

b_emery — Sat, 03 Feb 2024 17:29:14 +0000

"“I’m not saying this will be the solution, but I think everybody has to work toward every possible solution,” said Dr. Szapudi, the astronomer who proposed tethering a sunshade to an asteroid."

Fully agree with this. We need solutions, long term and short term. It's time to consider and fund climate engineering.

New comment by b_emery in "Ask HN: How do you adapt after early retirement?"

b_emery — Sun, 24 Sep 2023 17:03:04 +0000

It seems to me, having observed other's retirements, that you still need to have a purpose, and a community of people to be with. This can mean many different things but having a compelling 'why' for what your are doing is the root of motivation. Ideally the community of people are also in a similar situation and working toward the same purpose. It often takes people a while to find such a thing.

It seems that you already know this but perhaps spelling it out is helpful.

New comment by b_emery in "Climate Change Tracker"

b_emery — Sun, 03 Sep 2023 17:08:14 +0000

Can you speak to their data source? They're using other people's data:

"For the years leading up to 1850 we use PAGES2k Consortium reconstruction data. It is based on models where temperatures are reconstructed from proxies. Proxy analysis has higher uncertainty, and we display the smoothed set to highlight the longer-term fluctuations."

New comment by b_emery in "Windy.com: global weather website with live filters"

b_emery — Sat, 19 Aug 2023 17:01:43 +0000

Rain model forecasts are there too, e.g.:

https://www.windy.com/-Rain-thunder-rain?rain,34.427,-119.70...

New comment by b_emery in "Windy.com: global weather website with live filters"

b_emery — Sat, 19 Aug 2023 16:59:09 +0000

Windy visualizations and UI are times better than the National Weather Service (NWS). I still like the Forecast Discussion however. The money weather quote today (from the NWS) is:

"Precipitable water values are expected to peak on Sunday night at around 2.50 inches, which would be 5 standard deviations from the mean for this time of year."

New comment by b_emery in "More than 500 daily high temperature records were set across the U.S. this week"

b_emery — Sat, 05 Aug 2023 15:08:15 +0000

It's time for the dialog to move on from 'proving climate change', to what 'we're going to do about it'.

New comment by b_emery in "Ask HN: What is the best sporting moment of all time?"

b_emery — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 17:04:49 +0000

Commentary here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKRh9U59zSk

New comment by b_emery in "Ask HN: What is the best sporting moment of all time?"

b_emery — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 16:17:41 +0000

I'm going to add Laird Hamilton towing in to Teahupoo 17 August 2000. While it has since been exceeded or replicated, at the time this was a big step above what anyone else had ever done. Most mere mortals (like myself) didn't even know a wave could do that, let alone be surfed. It was as if the entire ocean decided to shift 30 ft in the air before detonating on the reef. Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8HCF2cef74

(The wave at 2:46)

Surfer magazine ran it on the cover that month with the caption "Oh my God ..." https://northshorehawaii.wordpress.com/laird-hamilton/

The surfing world was forever changed.

New comment by b_emery in "Ask HN: What is the best sporting moment of all time?"

b_emery — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 16:11:59 +0000

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlbC8q4VkL4

Tears of joy ...