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jeffwass

An interesting statistical example if you haven’t seen it before is the Anscombe Quartet :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anscombe%27s_quartet

Four sets of X,Y datapoints that have exactly (or very close) common statistical parameters (mean, variance, correlation, linear regression, R^2), but with vastly different spatial distributions and “behavior” when looked at visually.

It's the simplest AI nihilist!
FYI - The actual BBC title is “Cherry Kearton: The eccentric influence on a young Sir David Attenborough” but I felt this wasn’t descriptive enough.

The article subtitle is “As a child, Sir David Attenborough was transfixed by the work of Cherry Kearton, a photographer and filmmaker who almost single-handedly changed the way we view the natural world.” which I tried to use but was way too long, so I abridged it.

Re:Copy Fail – CVE-2026-31431 on Thursday April 30, 2026 @02:35AM (#47958980)
This submission is currently the main HN submission.

As of now the submission title is simply “Copy Fail”.

Given the severity of the exploit, can we edit the Title to add some context that it’s a major Linux vulnerability?

Eg the other submissions say this : “Copy Fail: 732 Bytes to Root on Every Major Linux Distribution.”

Re:Why Not Venus? on Friday April 24, 2026 @06:18AM (#47888156)
This is a terrible take, and I say this having a PhD in Physics.

Many physicists have written popular articles and books for the general population. Eg Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Brian Cox. Improving accessibility of advanced concepts is nothing to scoff at.

Somehow I got a 7 out of 9, even though I felt like I was mostly guessing. Surface vs deep lines have more rumble but that’s about it that I consciously knew of.
Re:Triplet Superconductor on Friday March 06, 2026 @07:56PM (#47283189)
I did a bunch of research on similar Tc superconductors back during my PhD.

7K is considered “warm” from a cryogenics point-of-view because you can just dunk your sample into a dewar of liquid helium at 4.2K. You can even get it cooler, down to about 1K, using evaporative cooling techniques. [1]

It’s getting to lower temperatures than this when things start getting complicated. Eg a closed-cycle evaporative He3 system can get you down to 200 mK, or you can bite the bullet and use a dilution fridge down to around 10mK.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-K_pot

FYI link is below, for the off-chance someone is curious.

(not sure what are the unwritten rules of self-promotion here, but hopefully providing a link in a sub-comment instead of the comment itself makes it okay-ish?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI3xj9cM0jk

Lol, my band (London-based) has a song and YouTube music video called "Streets Of London".

I had a minor panic/WTF moment when I saw the submission saying : "Streets of London [video] (youtube.com)".

Does annybody worry about sabotage if you don’t tip? Eg the cashier does something to your food? “Nice muffin you got there, I’d hate for it to get accidentally sneezed on.”

I recently bought my mom flowers for her birthday. Despite the price showing no delivery fee, the final price included $15 delivery charge, $8 service charge, taxes, and then asked me for a tip.

I chose no tip, expecting the delivery and service charge should cover everything.

The flowers were left on her front porch in below-freezing weather, they didn’t even knock or ring the doorbell. Luckily my mom happened to open the door and saw them before they completely froze.

So was the delivery person incompetent, or acting out because I didn’t add additional tip?

Some of Robert Tinney's artwork is still available for sale at his website, limited edition runs of several of the Byte covers and other art.

https://tinney.net/

Re:Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle on Monday February 02, 2026 @04:11AM (#46853948)
I was wondering this actually, why not just skip past the check entirely instead of going through the effort to pass the check without the dongle?
Re:Defeating a 40-year-old copy protection dongle on Monday February 02, 2026 @04:09AM (#46853936)
Really interesting read, wonder how many other installs are using (and trapped into continuing to use) such obscure legacy software.
Re:Doin' It with a 555: One Chip to Rule Them All on Friday January 30, 2026 @03:06AM (#46821754)
Two thoughts on situations where the 555 may be preferable, if anyone has experience how these compare :

1. Low-noise applications. I’d naively expect the 555 to be less noisy than a clocked digital microcontroller, though it’s been awhile since I’ve worked in this space.

2. Low power applications. How does latent power draw compare between a 555 and a typical low power microcontroller?

Re:I Stopped Following the News on Wednesday January 28, 2026 @04:31AM (#46793077)
At my cousin’s company there are TV’s in the lobby.

They used to show news channels.

He said clients would come in all stressed out. So they changed to a home improvement channel.

Re:Heathrow scraps 100ml liquid container limit on Tuesday January 27, 2026 @03:52AM (#46777263)
Even in your own car dropping off your friends or family at a UK airport (at least the London ones) requires paying a £6 fee now. Just to get to the dropoff area, even for 30 seconds as you say.

But hey, at least the luggage carts are free…

“The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements.”

- Brian Kernighan

Re:Project SkyWatch (a.k.a. Wescam at Home) on Thursday January 15, 2026 @04:31AM (#46630217)
This is pretty cool project. Have you been able to track satellites with it, eg an ISS flyover?
Re:Contact the ISS on Friday January 02, 2026 @01:17PM (#46467670)
They’ve been doing this for over a century, it’s probably the top deaf school in the UK, and has the support of nearly the entire deaf community.

Most of the students have either some degree of hearing or use cochlear implants. I think nearly all, if not all, students use either hearing aids or cochlear implants.

The classes are very small (eg 5-6 max usually), students are arranged in a U-shape around the teacher so they can read lips. And there’s a special wireless broadcast system so the teacher wears a microphone and sends the audio directly to hearing aids or cochlear implants.

Regarding deaf culture, most of the students use BSL on their own outside class, and my daughter learned BSL from her friends there that grew up with it. Coming from a mainstream primary, she found “her people” here, discovered deaf culture and a community that shares the same struggles she faces.

The idea is that by teaching in BSL the students are further restricted in their ability to function in a hearing society.

I’m curious if you are deaf yourself, or work with the deaf. All the teachers at the school are trained teachers of the deaf, some are even deaf themselves. And I haven’t heard any complaints about the aural nature of the learning (except from the reservations of a few parents before sending their kids there, and I don’t think any of these parents regrets this after their children started there.)

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