skybrian's recent activity
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Comment on Weekly Israel-Hamas war megathread - week of May 13 in ~news
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Comment on Computer Scientists Invent an Efficient New Way to Count in ~comp
skybrian LinkFrom the article: The paper is here and Donald Knuth wrote about it here.From the article:
The CVM algorithm, named for its creators — Sourav Chakraborty of the Indian Statistical Institute, Vinodchandran Variyam of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and Kuldeep Meel of the University of Toronto — is a significant step toward solving what’s called the distinct elements problem, which computer scientists have grappled with for more than 40 years. It asks for a way to efficiently monitor a stream of elements — the total number of which may exceed available memory — and then estimate the number of unique elements.
“The new algorithm is astonishingly simple and easy to implement,” said Andrew McGregor of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this became the default way the [distinct elements] problem is approached in practice.”
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Computer Scientists Invent an Efficient New Way to Count
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Comment on US President Joe Biden raises tariffs on $18 billion of Chinese imports: EVs, solar panels, batteries and more in ~finance
skybrian Link ParentFor electronics, particularly telecommunications switches, it actually is a concern that they could be used for espionage. For solar panels, not so much. They don’t have an Internet connection.For electronics, particularly telecommunications switches, it actually is a concern that they could be used for espionage. For solar panels, not so much. They don’t have an Internet connection.
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Comment on France declares state of emergency in New Caledonia after deadly riots in ~news
skybrian Link ParentFrom what I read online, people who are born in Guam actually are US citizens. Did you mean American Samoa?From what I read online, people who are born in Guam actually are US citizens. Did you mean American Samoa?
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Comment on Cryptocurrency mining as a novel virtual energy storage system in islanded and grid-connected microgrids in ~enviro
skybrian (edited )LinkThis paper is hard to follow and seems wrong-headed enough that I'm not seriously going to try. Any load that converts electricity into money is a useful source of revenue, but money is not energy...- Exemplary
This paper is hard to follow and seems wrong-headed enough that I'm not seriously going to try. Any load that converts electricity into money is a useful source of revenue, but money is not energy storage, and treating financial assets as energy storage obfuscates things. Let me walk though what's really going on:
The electricity market can be counterintuitive because we are used to commodities that can be stored, so a surplus doesn't get wasted. But surplus electricity is more like the market for fresh local fruit in season. The price will be low, maybe even free. Harvests are traditionally a time of temporary, local abundance of foods that don't store well.
This local abundance can be seen as a problem for the fruit tree owners (they don't get paid as much) and/or an opportunity for anyone who can figure out how to take advantage of it. Prices will tend to equalize as people figure out how to put a surplus to better use.
For electricity production, a temporary, local abundance can happen due to lack of a grid connection. Or in some cases, there is a grid connection, but sometimes it's maxed out: there is more solar power than the grid connection can handle on a sunny summer day, or more hydro power during the spring.
Customers are a common source of funding for businesses. Local cryptocurrency miners can serve as an especially useful early customer for electricity producers because they don't require a maxed-out or nonexistent grid connection. The advantages of selling electricity to miners are that they can move quickly, they can work anywhere, they don't care all that much about reliability, and they can pay.
This can be socially beneficial, provided that what they're funding is beneficial. Solar farms are useful things.
But there will likely be competition from alternative ways of putting that surplus to good use. As battery technology improves, having actual storage allows maxed-out grid connections to also be used in the evenings and at night. Or, maybe grid capacity will improve. Or, maybe some of the other suggestions people have made will work?
Eventually the surplus should go away. In the meantime, early customers are a way for an electricity producer to get extra revenue.
An especially weird thing about using cryptocurrency as "storage" is that, typically, businesses are spending money on the business, not on other investments. Cryptocurrency mining, cryptocurrency speculation, and electricity production are alternative, competing investments that tie up funds. An electricity producer will need some short-term working capital, but speculating with that money doesn't make a lot of sense. (Well, maybe it does for a true believer.)
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Comment on Europe’s banks find breaking up with Russia is hard to do in ~finance
skybrian LinkFrom the article: It seems like kind of a "monkey trap." They don't want to write off their Russian assets, and they don't want Russia to have them, either, which would happen if they just abandon...From the article:
Two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, big European lenders continue to operate hefty, increasingly profitable units in the country despite public pledges to wind them down. The combined head count of the five European Union banks with the largest Russia operations has fallen by just 3% since the invasion, and earnings have roughly tripled, thanks to the fat interest rates they’re getting on their piles of cash stuck in the country.
The slow pace has spurred the European Central Bank to press the laggards to hasten their departures. One worry is that a continued presence in Russia risks exposing the banks to US sanctions and heavy fines, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the information is private. The watchdog has asked all banks with sizable businesses in Russia “to speed up their de-risking efforts by setting a clear road map for downsizing and exiting,” Claudia Buch, the central bank’s top oversight official, told euro-zone finance ministers on May 13.
Western sanctions that sharply limit companies’ scope of business in Russia, combined with local rules and punitive taxes on sales, make it tough for the banks to get money out of the country. Subsidiaries of foreign banks in Russia must of course adhere to local regulations, which can run counter to the ECB’s pressure on the parent company. And they face the risk of retaliation: The Kremlin sometimes seizes assets of companies or individuals from countries it considers unfriendly. Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo SpA in September got authorization from President Vladimir Putin to sell its Russian unit to a group led by the unit’s local managers, but the deal has been slowed by bureaucratic hurdles, according to the bank’s chief executive officer, Carlo Messina. “It’s not easy to complete a disposal,” Messina told Bloomberg TV in February.
It seems like kind of a "monkey trap." They don't want to write off their Russian assets, and they don't want Russia to have them, either, which would happen if they just abandon them.
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Europe’s banks find breaking up with Russia is hard to do
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Comment on Cyberattack forces major US health care network to divert ambulances from hospitals in ~health
skybrian LinkFrom the article:From the article:
A major US health care system said Thursday that it is diverting ambulances from “several” of its hospitals following a cyberattack this week.
The cyberattack on Ascension, a St. Louis-based nonprofit network that includes 140 hospitals in 19 states, is also disrupting access to electronic health records, some phone systems and “various systems utilized to order certain tests, procedures and medications,” Ascension said in a statement distributed Thursday evening.
The sprawling health care network, which also owns 40 senior living facilities, said that it would be using “downtime procedure for some time,” because of the cyberattack. Downtime procedures are typically when health providers revert to backup processes, including paper records, that allow them to care for patients when computers are down.
Four sources briefed on the investigation told CNN that Ascension suffered a ransomware attack, in which cybercriminals typically try to lock computers and steal data for extortion. Those sources said that the type of ransomware used in the hack is known as Black Basta, which hackers have used repeatedly to attack health care organizations in recent years. Black Basta, also the name of a broad criminal group that uses the ransomware, includes Russian-speakers, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
On Friday, the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a cyber threat sharing group for big health care providers worldwide, published an advisory warning that hackers using Black Basta ransomware have “recently accelerated attacks against the healthcare sector.”
That includes at least two health care organizations in Europe and the US that in the last month have “suffered severe operational disruptions” because of Black Basta ransomware,” the advisory said, without naming the health care organizations.
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Cyberattack forces major US health care network to divert ambulances from hospitals
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Comment on US President Joe Biden raises tariffs on $18 billion of Chinese imports: EVs, solar panels, batteries and more in ~finance
skybrian LinkFrom the article:From the article:
The Biden administration announced stiff new tariff rates Tuesday on $18 billion worth of Chinese imports. The White House said the tariff hikes were necessary to protect American industries from unfair competition.
Starting this year, President Joe Biden will quadruple tariffs on imported Chinese electric vehicles, from 25% to 100%. The import tax on Chinese solar cells will double, from 25% to 50%. And tariffs on some Chinese steel and aluminum imports will increase more than three-fold, from 7.5% today up to 25%.
The president also directed U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to more than triple the tariff rates on lithium-ion batteries for EVs and lithium batteries meant for other uses. Starting in 2025, tariffs on imported Chinese semiconductors will jump from 25% to 50%.
First-time tariffs will be imposed on Chinese imports of medical needles and syringes, as well as massive ship-to-shore cranes, the White House said in a fact sheet. Chinese rubber medical gloves and some respirators and face masks will also be hit with higher tariff rates.
Some items, like batteries and natural graphite, will have longer phase-in periods for tariffs. The White House said this is partly to give the U.S. manufacturing sector time to scale up to a point where enough batteries are being produced domestically to meet consumer demand.
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US President Joe Biden raises tariffs on $18 billion of Chinese imports: EVs, solar panels, batteries and more
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Comment on The West doesn’t understand how much Russia has changed in ~misc
skybrian Link ParentCoca Cola sells syrup to local bottlers. When they pull out, the local companies don’t shut down. Maybe the syrup isn’t quite the same, but the can find something similar. Similarly for...Coca Cola sells syrup to local bottlers. When they pull out, the local companies don’t shut down. Maybe the syrup isn’t quite the same, but the can find something similar.
Similarly for restaurants. Often they are franchises. The local company might not have the brand or same supply lines anymore, but they still own restaurants and they can do something slightly different.
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Students invent quieter leaf blower
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Comment on America's never-ending battle against flesh-eating worms in ~science
skybrian LinkFrom the article: ... ... ... ... ... ... ...From the article:
Screwworms once killed millions of dollars’ worth of cattle a year in the southern U.S. Their range extended from Florida to California, and they infected any living, warm-blooded animal: not only cattle but deer, squirrels, pets, and even the occasional human. In fact, the screwworm’s scientific name is C. hominivorax or “man eater”—so named after a horrific outbreak among prisoners on Devil’s Island, an infamous 19th-century French penal colony in South America.
For untold millennia, screwworms were a grisly fact of life in the Americas. In the 1950s, however, U.S. ranchers began to envision a new status quo. They dared to dream of an entire country free of screwworms. At their urging, the United States Department of Agriculture undertook what would ultimately become an immense, multidecade effort to wipe out the screwworms, first in the U.S. and then in Mexico and Central America—all the way down to the narrow strip of land that is the Isthmus of Panama. The eradication was a resounding success. But the story does not end there. Containing a disease is one thing. Keeping it contained is another thing entirely, as the coronavirus pandemic is now so dramatically demonstrating.
To get the screwworms out, the USDA to this day maintains an international screwworm barrier along the Panama-Colombia border. The barrier is an invisible one, and it is kept in place by constant human effort. Every week, planes drop 14.7 million sterilized screwworms over the rainforest that divides the two countries. A screwworm-rearing plant operates 24/7 in Panama. Inspectors cover thousands of square miles by motorcycle, boat, and horseback, searching for stray screwworm infections north of the border. The slightest oversight could undo all the work that came before.
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A transcontinental screwworm barrier has been in place for 50 years—longer than many of the people who now maintain it have been alive. They work for a joint commission of Panama’s agricultural department and the USDA known as COPEG, or the Comisión Panamá–Estados Unidos para la Erradicación y Prevención del Gusano Barrenador del Ganado. The day before I landed at Tocumen International Airport, two small COPEG planes had taken off and released their precious loads of screwworms over the Panama-Colombia border.
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In the early days of the eradication effort, USDA scientists were not so certain of success—or longevity. They had to bootleg money from other programs because they didn’t have enough funding. In press interviews, they worried about what laughingstocks they’d be if their “idiotic insect-sex scheme” failed and, God forbid, became an extremely mockable symbol of government waste.
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The U.S. government’s decision to eradicate screwworms in Central America was ultimately about money. Protecting American livestock by dropping sterile flies over the narrow 50-mile Isthmus of Panama is cheaper than maintaining a barrier, even a virtual one, along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.
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The U.S. had officially declared victory over the screwworm in 1966, but the barrier of sterile flies it established on the U.S.-Mexico border quickly proved ineffective. Ranchers in the U.S. Southwest continued to see outbreaks. With Mexico’s cooperation, the eradication front moved south to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where Mexico narrows to 120 miles. The two countries split the bill based on the value of the livestock that would benefit in each country: 80 percent U.S., 20 percent Mexico.
In 1985, USDA scientists proposed moving the barrier south again—to the even narrower Isthmus of Panama, where it would be cheaper to maintain. But it would require convincing the governments of seven more countries to agree to—and help pay for—screwworm eradication.
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The eradication effort did have enthusiastic local allies, Wyss told me: Livestock owners in every country loved the idea. The negotiations went slowly, but by 1994, all of the countries had signed cooperative agreements with the U.S.
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The screwworm program costs $15 million a year, a small fraction of the estimated $796 million a year that it saves American farmers. (That estimate, from 1996, is equivalent to $1.3 billion in today’s dollars.) Still, the program is constantly looking for ways to cut costs. At the production facility, Phillips showed me prototypes of small, climate-controlled rearing cabinets, which could eliminate the need to heat or cool entire rooms. Biologists are also developing a genetically modified male-only strain of screwworms, which would require fewer flies to be raised and released. A cheaper program is a more sustainable one, and sustainability is essential.
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The wildlife were not as easy to spot from the plane, but their lives would also be altered by our flight. Welch had told me that howler monkeys in Panama sometimes fell from trees after screwworms ate out their eyes. That doesn’t happen anymore. Jaguars, sloths, tapirs, horses, coyotes, buffalo, rabbits, and squirrels up and down the North American continent are now spared from screwworms too. In the U.S., the main ecological consequence of eradication has been a dramatic increase in the wild-deer population, which once fluctuated with screwworm numbers. The parasite used to kill a large proportion of newborn fawns, whose unhealed belly buttons were open wounds. In the Keys, the recent screwworm outbreak became obvious during mating season, when males began fighting one another with their antlers. Their small, usually harmless nicks and cuts turned large and horrific once screwworms invaded them.
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Comment on Experimental real property tax basis-set rate based on usable area per person in ~finance
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Comment on Generative AI for Krita in ~tech
skybrian Link ParentI installed it locally and it did run but was unusably slow.I installed it locally and it did run but was unusably slow.
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Comment on Experimental real property tax basis-set rate based on usable area per person in ~finance
skybrian Link ParentMy main point is just that however you do it, there are hidden incentives that you might not think of, but other people can find. Maybe they're not that big a deal in the end, though. Interior...My main point is just that however you do it, there are hidden incentives that you might not think of, but other people can find. Maybe they're not that big a deal in the end, though.
Interior versus exterior can be gamed: smaller house, larger porches. Also, temporary structures.
I wouldn't want to give people the incentive to lie to census workers. If you count actual people, there are still edge cases like college students.
In theory, you can also just ask people where they live and update government records when they move. In some countries, that's how it works. The US is less organized that way, due to deep-seated skepticism about government. Even assigning people numbers for government purposes is bit fraught.
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Comment on Internet use statistically associated with higher wellbeing, finds new global Oxford study in ~tech
skybrian Link ParentAlways good to scroll down to methodology in the paper and see how they did it. Apparently Gallup has done polls in many countries for many years and this is based on an analysis of a dataset not...Always good to scroll down to methodology in the paper and see how they did it. Apparently Gallup has done polls in many countries for many years and this is based on an analysis of a dataset not specifically designed to answer this question?
Also, lots of good things correlate. They controlled for that, but did they control enough? You'd need to know more about statistics than us to judge that.
Still, good to know that they aren't seeing strong negative effects of Internet usage.
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Comment on Experimental real property tax basis-set rate based on usable area per person in ~finance
skybrian LinkThere are two parts to this, taxing square footage and lowering the tax based on the assumed number of people. Regarding taxing square footage, there are edge cases like how do you count an...There are two parts to this, taxing square footage and lowering the tax based on the assumed number of people.
Regarding taxing square footage, there are edge cases like how do you count an enclosed porch or unfinished basement. If closet space is included, there would be incentive to have storage space that somehow doesn't count instead of closets.
Deciding on the number of assumed people in a fair way seems difficult. It would be easiest to count bedrooms. But do you assume two people for a master bedroom?
There would be incentive to have more, smaller bedrooms, even if you don't normally use those rooms that way. I would expect houses with no closets, but lots of bedrooms that could be used as storage. Also, maybe dining rooms would come back because they could be used as a bedroom?
It's not entirely a bad thing, since it means more people could live there, in theory.
All of this seems like going after a non-problem in rural areas, but there's no particular reason why different localities need to do things the same way.
US military says first aid shipment has been driven across a newly built US pier into the Gaza Strip (AP)
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