@axtremus said in $1 Million Israel Prize awarded to Fauci: there is no lack of mainlaind Chinese who also spoke truth to power against the wishes of the Chinese Communist Party while taking on considerably more personal risks than Fauci. Where are their dollar million prizes? No one to collect. They're all either dead or imprisoned, LOL.

@george-k said in Comey lied: @axtremus said in Comey lied: this article pretends that the Steele dossier is the only evidence No, this article also says that Comey's allegation to the FISA court that Carter Page was a Russian asset was the lie. Doesn't Page have a suit ongoing?

@taiwan_girl said in For Larry: For @Larry also, but on a completely different topic. I watched a documentary the other day about a music place in Nashville USA called the "Bluebird Cafe". It has become famous as a place for songwriters (mainly country) to come and try out new songs. Quite interesting and I would be wondering if he has heard of that place. link text Everybody in country music knows about the Bluebird.

@taiwan_girl said in RIP Aunt Jemima: I like real maple syrup but it is super expensive to get. (I know it is long and difficult to make, so I understand the price) Yep... I have a bottle around the house, but don't use it for pancakes or waffles. I will use it for cooking...

@loki said in Meanwhile, in Seattle: Violence begets violence. We know Americans are often not too smart and are guided by social media...how do you think this makes right wing folks react and want to behave? Silly person. Don't you know violence is the sole province of the Left?

@lufins-dad said in The Vaccine - what it looks like.: Why would they commemorate a loser vaccine? Worst COVID 19 vaccine ever! Because the other vaccines do not look as visually interesting? It’s not always the actresses with the greatest acting skills who get top billings.

That was fun.

Awesome indeed. I wonder who's steering the wheels on the trailer. In the US, long ("Hook and Ladder") fire trucks have someone steering the rear of the vehicle. Link to video Link to video

My dad worked on them in the 50s when they still had that new-airplane smell.

@axtremus said in The Next Trump: I look forward to various Trumps primarying various GOP incumbents. It will definitely happen. And in may cases, the President Trump backed person will win. The problem is the regular election. Many of those candidates will lose, which to me it goes to the problem of having President Trump remain the leader of the Republic party.

@mik said in Play stupid games...the "Gorilla Glue Edition": @axtremus that’s pretty obnoxious. May as well be Amos and Andy. Right? Surprising.

The number one requirement of power generation is reliability. Not reliability only under normal conditions.

@doctor-phibes said in Somewhat Unusual Tea video for Aqua: Another unusual tea video.... Link to video See you and raise you the obligatory: Link to video

@klaus said in Fast Inverse Square Root approximation from Quake III engine: @axtremus said in Fast Inverse Square Root approximation from Quake III engine: That pretty much comes down to the business model. Only after a careful analysis of the performance relevance, and a consideration of all alternatives, can it ever be justified to write code like that. Business considerations determine which aspects of the system's performance are prized. The planes and rockets business prioritize different aspects of the system than the gaming business. It's not like the Quake III engine's developer team did this sort of "unusual" coding all over the place. This inverse square root function garnered extra attention in large part because it's an outlier compared to the rest of the code base. The video called out why this is justified -- because the inverse square root function is used to calculate light reflection off every polygon surface in 3D-space -- considering a game can cycle through millions of polygons per second and this "unusual" implementation gets the inverse square root approximation "three times faster" than the standard sqrt() function, it seems sufficiently justified. There is no shortage of "cowboy" software coders who like to write "unnecessarily clever" code, but there are also real resource and time constraints that strongly incentivize professional software shops to reuse code rather than write new code. "Student projects" and "hobbyist projects" aside, mentally reviewing professional software shops I have come into contact with over the years, I really cannot recall seeing "overly clever" coding being anything but generally discouraged, and have no reason to suspect the Quake team operated differently in this regard.