2021-08-13 Nerd Roundup!
A bash script walkthru, why are people so stupid, how Daniel fell off the roof, the next Mars helicopter, and DRY's no fun. All this week on Nerd Roundup
What a show! We skipped the first few articles, wandered far off-course on the others, and generally had a rockin fun time. Many thanks to both Jon Kern and James Grenning.
This should work in iTunes. (This link http://danielbmarkham.com/podcast/rss is a podcast feed) If it doesn't work, here's a direct link to the mp3: 2021-08-13 Nerd Roundup!
| STORY | BUT WHY? |
| Stay Alert | Yes, yes, this is hand-wavy, clickbait-y, and alarmist, but there's also something very real here too. Good freaking grief. Is there no point at which we can delcare the browser itself a settled standard? Just what actual cool new stuff is the average consumer getting for the changes that make redefining the entire experience worthshile? Why not just start some new app, the gamester/video-watching, metaverse panopticon, and leave this one set in stone? Taking the same name, browser, and changing what it does so drastically over the years does nobody any good at all. |
| Hundreds of thousands of users affected. | Related: nothing to see here! |
| Startup gets $60 million from the Air Force to build hypersonic passenger plane | One-hour flight from the eastern U.S. to Australia, please. Hypersoncs are everywhere. I'd be happy for just a new Concorde. (Keeps fingers crossed) |
| Why the hype around hypersonics? | Nice overview of the math around hypersonics along with a giant wet blanket on the idea that anything super-cool is happening anytime soon. I think our problems here revolve around definitions. Hypersonics does not necessarily mean lower atmosphere sustained Mach 5+ flight. I doubt it will mean that in my lifetime. The materials science just doesn't work out |
| Object-Oriented Software vs. What I would do | Yet another in the long-running and perhaps infinite series of essays created by programmers that should be titled "In which I go to try to figure out what the heck we're all doing" I always love these things whether I agree with them or not. Interesting here is how sole-practice software development is a completely different beast than group or corporate work ... yet the differences are never really acknowledged |
| Throwing 99 Bottles of OOP in the Trash | followup. ha! Tell us how you really feel! |
| Why some of the smartest people can be so very stupid | This is a very simple essay, and covers ground we all already knew, but sometimes those kinds of essays are the best |
| Framework Patterns | What is the definition of framework, anyway? Are HoFs frameworks? Seems to me frameworks already know what you want and tell you what you need to do to get there. Libraries, otoh, know nothing of what you're doing and just help in very particular things no matter what your goal |
| Scientists discover a “mind-blowing” link between gut health and age reversal | Is there no end to the magic promises that fecal transplants make? I always thought eternal life would involve electricity, maybe vampires. Not poop. |
| Colliding photons were spotted making matter. But are the photons ‘real’? | Photons don't like bumping into one another. It's a virtual mess. |
| Decades of research bring quantum dots to the brink of widespread use | Quantum dots have been the sleeper cool new tech of the last two decades |
| JPL's Plan For The Next Mars Helicopter | Octacopter Mars Probe! Whoa! We've come a long, long way since that first tiny little rover guy |
| New Battery Chemistry Could Double EV Range | Some big-hitters on this paper. Not the usual BS Batteries Press Release |
| ‘Tortured phrases’ give away fabricated research papers | Hello, I would like to talk to you today about your long lost Uncle, the Rich Sultan of Nigeria, who also discovered faster-than-light time travel. Didn't new textual analysis tech "out" Stephen King as Richard Bachman? Haze figuring. Clown computing. |
| The typography of the movie Alien | Bonus content: forgot to add to the list |
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