Hacker News: esturk

New comment by esturk in "Quaternions in Signal and Image Processing"

esturk — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 17:01:50 +0000

Assuming this is not a tongue in cheek question, you can read about it more here:

https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/8173/did-maxwell-ori...

The answer also includes a link that shows many other representations including Einstein's "4d generally covariant tensor calculus".

The point is that the most common formulation today is not the one Maxwell made (with 12 equations). The idea is preserved, but it was Gibbs and Heaviside that formulated the current 4 equation representation.

New comment by esturk in "New cancer drug kinder than chemotherapy"

esturk — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 05:04:24 +0000

Chemotherapy means "Chemical Therapy" so this is still technically categorized under that. But the general term has gotten really negative in recent decades so I suppose it's why they're distancing the branding from it.

New comment by esturk in "Google lays off Bay Area workers, closes Mtn View child care center"

esturk — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 00:13:51 +0000

Wasn’t it around this time last year that Google had their big layoff? I suppose the rumor that Google implemented stack ranking might be true after all.

New comment by esturk in "Innovation of the Year: BYD Blade Battery"

esturk — Sun, 10 Dec 2023 18:41:06 +0000

It doesn't matter how much you "pack the cells very tight", there's a geometrical limit here.[1]

And in practice, you'll have modules of sections of the battery for repairing which drops the efficiency to below 90%.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_packing#Densest_packing

New comment by esturk in "FDA approves a CRISPR-based medicine for treatment of sickle cell disease"

esturk — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 20:12:51 +0000

Except those 10 poor kids aren't spending their own money to save themselves. The patient is though which is the point.

New comment by esturk in "FDA approves a CRISPR-based medicine for treatment of sickle cell disease"

esturk — Fri, 08 Dec 2023 19:51:53 +0000

Such a crass statement. What if you're the patient? Would you spend 2 million to live 30-40 more years? It's so easy to step back and weight the lives of other as if you're making the decision for others.

New comment by esturk in "Researchers identify 'switch' to activate cancer cell death"

esturk — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 22:52:53 +0000

But size/height does play a role in humans. For example, shorter people tend to live longer average lifespans.[1]

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12586217/

New comment by esturk in "US Smartphone Shipments Decline 19% in Q3 2023 as More Americans Delay Upgrade"

esturk — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 14:42:05 +0000

Did you even read the article?

First thing, Apple is the smallest loser in this upgrade cycle. Being only downed 11% compared to downed 37% for Google.

Second, the only manufacturer growing is Motorola. Not Pixel/Next.

New comment by esturk in "Michael Bloomberg pumps $500M into bid to close all US coal plants"

esturk — Sun, 15 Oct 2023 22:58:19 +0000

I just want to point out this is only aimed at coal power plants. This has nothing to do with other uses of coal which is used for steel making. According to the EIA, a little over 90% of coal is used for power[1]. But there is close to 10% of that used for Steel.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/coal/use-of-coal.php#:~:....

New comment by esturk in "Living in privately rented homes linked to faster biological ageing, study finds"

esturk — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 17:34:24 +0000

"Link" implies correlation which in this case doesn't explain the causality of renting private homes part.

The underlying "hidden variable" might just be "poverty". So the causal relation would be something like:

Poverty -> Stress -> Faster biological ageing

Poverty -> Renting private homes

New comment by esturk in "Valve releases Counter-Strike 2"

esturk — Wed, 27 Sep 2023 22:47:21 +0000

This has been an incredible year for gaming already but even more so for classic series. So far we've seen a new Zelda, Diablo, Final Fantasy, Balder's Gate and Counter-Strike come out. The last time this happened was back in 2000.

New comment by esturk in "Plug and socket types around the world"

esturk — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 17:28:59 +0000

After the whole lightning to USB-C plug fiasco for the iPhone, I wonder if the EU will ever throw their weight to force certain smaller countries to adopt more popular socket standards. It might even be done in the name of "reducing e-waste".

Just looking over the list above, it seems like Type-J (Swiss & Liechtenstein only) and Type-K (Denmark & Greenland only) are prime candidates. I'm only looking at sockets within the EU border btw.

New comment by esturk in "ZX81 Mechanical Keyboard"

esturk — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 00:20:00 +0000

I know it feels a bit reductionist, but what % keyboard would you call this? Feels like its somewhere 40% to 45%.

New comment by esturk in "Ten Thousand Ways to Use Chopsticks"

esturk — Tue, 09 May 2023 19:39:14 +0000

The "roll" angle (as in roll/pitch/yaw) w.r.t. your elbow is relevant.

New comment by esturk in "Ten Thousand Ways to Use Chopsticks"

esturk — Tue, 09 May 2023 19:34:10 +0000

So you admit the standard grip is "better" than the scissor grip.

New comment by esturk in "60M Americans have taxes so simple the IRS could do them automatically"

esturk — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 03:08:03 +0000

It occurred to me the other day that if someone owes unpaid taxes, it is probably cheaper to wait for the IRS to send you an unpaid bill than to pay Turbo Tax. According to the IRS collection procedure [1], the interest on the unpaid amount is only 3% and the penalty is 0.5% per month. Unless the owed amount is really high, exceeding 10,000$, the bill due is still less than what they would pay for service at Turbo Tax which costs over 100$ easily nowadays.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/faqs/irs-procedures/collection-procedura...

New comment by esturk in "75% of the Most Played Games on Steam Are Playable on the Steam Deck"

esturk — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 17:54:08 +0000

If you click on the line item "OS Version" (for all 3 platforms), you'll see the "Steam OS Holo" is missing. I suspect the aggregated stat might not be updated properly. For one thing, the top Linux OS is still "Arch Linux 64 bit" at 0.13% when it should be "Steam OS Holo" as you mentioned at 0.254%.

New comment by esturk in "75% of the Most Played Games on Steam Are Playable on the Steam Deck"

esturk — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 17:32:03 +0000

For those curious, you can see the Steam Linux OS usage here. [1] As you can see, it (Steam OS Holo) is already 20+% of the Linux OS market share after 1 year.

[1] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/?platform=linux

New comment by esturk in "75% of the Most Played Games on Steam Are Playable on the Steam Deck"

esturk — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 17:27:08 +0000

I agree it is pretty nice, a minor nic I have with it is that sleep time counts toward the 'hours played' in the steam profile.

New comment by esturk in "We need a new economics of water as a common good"

esturk — Sat, 25 Mar 2023 15:18:55 +0000

Apparently, you disregarded the entire first part of my point which was that they were bombed so heavily that set them back decades. They need outside investment to jump start development. Just like Japan and Germany did after WW2.

You speak as if Thailand and Vietnam didn't hold important geopolitical values that the West and China want to exploit which makes them attractive to investments.

Those same countries still need to court outside investments to build out infrastructure and industries like recent efforts to move manufacturing to southeast Asia.