tonyc

tonyc

  • Commented on Artificial Intelligence: Threat or Menace?
    Working in consulting and large scale business transformation for the past three decades, I've often thought that the biggest challenge with ANY decision system is not "is it right" but "is it reliable" - because mostly right is pragmatically fine,...
  • Commented on What can possibly go wrong?
    yes... unless you make a knot! (technically not a simple fold, but it IS a fold, and is a bit difficult in practice) lots of geometric solutions for building pentagons exist, luckily (simplest being the root5+1 / 4...method [was that...
  • Commented on What can possibly go wrong?
    we did use that to make a 'geodesic dome' out of paper for a high school project once! (I wanted him to call it a buckyball - no such luck)...
  • Commented on What can possibly go wrong?
    but that won't make you an authentic looking snowflake! (I made some snowflakes with my soon when he was in pre-k. He then proceeded to make them that way every year in school - his were obvious, as they were...
  • Commented on What can possibly go wrong?
    i'm atheist and humanist. My devotion is to humanity (and to everything that we need to maintain healthy societies - so also to being kind to the planet, and to animals, etc). Devotion to religion appears to me* to be...
  • Commented on What can possibly go wrong?
    60 degrees is easy... simple math (half way from the center to the edge of the circle, draw a chord. the chord will intersect the edges at 60 degrees) it's one of the easiest sine/cos relationships to remember!...
  • Commented on 2117 revisited
    regarding 'trains' in specific and travel in general. I see a transition from trains and railway lines (which are single use infrastructure) to 'road trains' which is multi-use infrastructure. From self-driving cars, to convoys of self-driving cars, all the way...
  • Commented on 2117 revisited
    instead of surface ships, think semi-submersible. Huge cargo "balloons", with neutral bouyancy somewhere around 10-20m. That's more than enough to avoid major storm impact, with powered tugs that float or swim depending on surface conditions. Low drag skins are already...
  • Commented on Popcorn Time
    Regarding "Scots in Govt leadership", I would like to amplify and enhance your comment: When acting in a leadership capacity, an MP generally will act LESS for their constituency, and MORE for the country as a whole - that is,...
  • Commented on Popcorn Time
    Rather than adding to the M8/80 corridor - why not actually improve the A9 into M9 north/south? That would enhance a whole swathe of Scotland and make a lot of existing small towns and villages much more accessible to both...
  • Commented on Popcorn Time
    On Scotland's trading position... Unlike the rUK, Scotland is a net exporter (including to rUK). While we trade more with rUK than the EU, it's pretty much one way. In terms of raw resources, Scotland has a larger per-capita share...
  • Commented on Popcorn Time
    Coming late to the party, but what a good (if ultimately depressing) read so far! On Scotland's right to hold a referendum, there are probably two (or three) additional options should TMay unilaterally decide to deny Article 30. A consultative...
  • Commented on Empire Games sneak peek
    really looking forward to this! I just finished re-reading the reworked trilogy (having already reread the original sextuplet* less than a year ago). The teaser at Tor is great, but too, too short! I think the tone is already perfect...
  • Commented on Ever Young?
    I think I'll steal that!!! Brilliant!...
  • Commented on Ever Young?
    Exactly! My internal model of me has improved but (as far as I feel) hasn't appreciably changed in thirty years. Said that way, it makes me seem extremely conservative (when in fact I'm almost too open to new ideas) In...
  • Commented on Ever Young?
    Adult(ing) things I've had: - mortgage (many) - responsible job (I suppose the care and feeding of multi-national projects, annual budgets in the tens of million bananas, with direct/indirect teams in the high double digits, counts as responsible) - wife...
  • Commented on The iron law of development
    Many Americans have an outsized expectation regarding personal space - 2000sq.ft. is now considered a 'small' home - and the love affair with the car makes many 'communities' hugely sprawling (we are at least a ten minute drive from our...
  • Commented on The iron law of development
    hmm. Interestingly much of the challenge for electrical farm equipment is in the interconnect (for power distribution and control dataflow). Given the environment, there are a lot of challenges regarding safety - but it looks like the trend is definitely...
  • Commented on The iron law of development
    somewhat O/T, but I've always thought that farming (machinery and processes) would be ideal for solar applications: 1. availability of land/buildings (for solar panel deployment / wind power deployment) 2. connection to grid (for additional/transitional power requirements in AND out)...
  • Commented on Constitutional crisis ahoy!
    Greg: Hong Kong vs London has one major and critical difference: leaving the EU means that London will no longer be a EuroBond market (and all of the ancillary market making that surrounds that). There was no equivalent trading constraint...
  • Commented on Constitutional crisis ahoy!
    I've been watching this unfold from across the pond, and I see three main themes: The EuRef was always intended to be a referendum on Callmedave's leadership of the Tory party. That he failed to call it correctly, and blithely...
  • Commented on A question about the future of the world wide web
    Another note on subscription vs micro-payment. Like others here I support some creators through a Patreon subscription (currently larger than my equivalent Amazon/Netflix costs). I don't mind subsidizing those folks who get to see the content for free, mainly because...
  • Commented on A question about the future of the world wide web
    Cory Doctorow proposed a similar "reputation currency" called Whuffie in his debut novel: "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom:...
  • Commented on A question about the future of the world wide web
    Amazon (apologies) recently launched "Underground" https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/underground Essentially, part of a PRIME members' subscription, content providers (game/app developers at the moment) are paid by Amazon according to the amount of time a subscriber spends in the app/game. The rules are that...
  • Commented on The present in deep history
    To get back on topic, I think that #3 will be less about the "end of patriarchy" and more about the end of gender-roles at all. While I think it will be quite some time before we're able to build...
  • Commented on The present in deep history
    The problem with whole house automation, as you posit, is that house scale integration is susceptible to horrible failure modes (if one part fails, what is the impact on the rest of the system). The kitchen unit sounds great, but...
  • Commented on Any Sufficiently Advanced Technology Is Indistinguishable From Cthulhu
    Hugh, welcome back! I enjoyed the short, and I noted that the denouement of the protagonist was particularly apt! RTFM, as we often tell the Lusers! Bravo! Regarding the segmentation of sub-sub-genres... I think there have always been such outliers....
  • Commented on Interlude: Franchise novels, my writing process and why I self published my writing manual
    Often it's an inconvenience, for example when defending a position, I often have to work backwards to recall the now-internalised and forgotten evidence that created the world view that put me there.) This! So very much this. I also hate...
  • Commented on On the Great Filter, existential threats, and griefers
    The LHC had two primary experiments, ATLAS and CMS, whose teams were sequestered, whose experimental methodologies were completely different from each other, and whose only real point of contact was CERN leadership. In both teams, their many, many experimental runs...
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