Berdes's recent activity

  1. Comment on Russian court fines Google $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 in ~society

    Berdes
    Link
    Maybe the Russian government hopes to use this fine as collateral for new debt. "Don't worry, the debt is backed by this gigantic fine and even if we receive pennies on the dollar for it, we can...

    Maybe the Russian government hopes to use this fine as collateral for new debt. "Don't worry, the debt is backed by this gigantic fine and even if we receive pennies on the dollar for it, we can still easily pay you back".

    Although I'm now wondering if this could have some real impact on accounting for the Russian state.

    7 votes

  2. Comment on US airlines now required to automatically refund you for canceled flight in ~transport

    Berdes
    Link Parent
    Hedging against bad weather doesn't sound particularly difficult (for an airline). They surely have tons of data of how frequently flights get cancelled due to bad weather and they can raise their...

    Hedging against bad weather doesn't sound particularly difficult (for an airline). They surely have tons of data of how frequently flights get cancelled due to bad weather and they can raise their prices to compensate for that. Or they can find an insurance company to outsource the risk assessment.

    Bad weather affects many other industries, like farming and energy production, so I would be very surprised if there aren't already people and companies dedicated to managing risks associated with it.

    15 votes

  3. Comment on Minecraft "Skyblock" creator in trademark battle with Microsoft in ~games

    Berdes
    Link Parent
    That's also my understanding of how trademarks work in the USA: if you don't defend it, you lose the trademark. The underlying concept is that trademark protection is there to avoid consumer...

    That's also my understanding of how trademarks work in the USA: if you don't defend it, you lose the trademark. The underlying concept is that trademark protection is there to avoid consumer confusion. If people are alredy used to seeing things named "skyblock" that are not made by the original creator, then there isn't much risks of poeple seeing skyblock and wrongly assuming it's from the trademark holder.

    The other way he could try and defend his creation would be through copyright. As far as I'm aware, there isn't the same "if you don't defend it, you lose it" rule. However, I don't think the word "skyblock" can be copyrighted. The copyright would apply on the concept itself and it would be difficult to defend it outside of pure rip-offs. Or maybe, it can't be copyrighted at all.

    4 votes

  4. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    Berdes
    Link Parent
    I managed to create the e-prime in the same spirit using 2718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699959574966967627724076630353547594571 I need to dust off some of my old prime testing...

    I managed to create the e-prime in the same spirit using 2718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699959574966967627724076630353547594571

    I need to dust off some of my old prime testing functions to try to generate some other cool primes.

    3 votes

  5. Comment on Watch a six-axis motor solve a Rubik’s Cube in less than a third of a second in ~tech

    Berdes
    Link Parent
    A somewhat naïve algorithm for this would be a bidirectional BFS. That would only require exploring roughly the square root of all possible states, so about 6.5 billion states. Well implemeted, I...

    A somewhat naïve algorithm for this would be a bidirectional BFS. That would only require exploring roughly the square root of all possible states, so about 6.5 billion states. Well implemeted, I would expect this to run in 1-10s without any multithreading on a good computer.
    I'm sure people have developed significantly better algorithms to solve this problem than my initial suggestion. So yes, finding the best route to solve a Rubik's cube is 100% something that can be done in fractions of a second.

    5 votes

  6. Comment on Watch a six-axis motor solve a Rubik’s Cube in less than a third of a second in ~tech

    Berdes
    Link Parent
    Interestingly enough, the fastest solution in number of moves might not be the best for such robot. I remember reading about some previous records where they tweaked the solving algo to prefer...

    Interestingly enough, the fastest solution in number of moves might not be the best for such robot. I remember reading about some previous records where they tweaked the solving algo to prefer some move sequences that the robot could perform faster. One of the most obvious case is the possibility of turning opposite sides at the same time. Similarly, measures of "numers of moves" will topically count a 180 degrees turns as either 1 move or 2, but for the robot it's likely somewhere in between those two values.

    6 votes

  7. Comment on Cargo ship hits major bridge in Baltimore, triggering collapse (gifted link) in ~transport

    Berdes
    Link Parent
    Interesting. While watching the webcam video I noticed the lights of the ship going on and off and was wondering if that had anything to do with the accident. I guess that could be explained by...

    Interesting. While watching the webcam video I noticed the lights of the ship going on and off and was wondering if that had anything to do with the accident. I guess that could be explained by power issues.

    6 votes

  8. Comment on Sony is laying off 900 PlayStation employees in ~games

    Berdes
    Link Parent
    Yes, when you press a button to sell (or buy) a share, it only happens once another market participant is doing the opposite. The reason you don't notice is that for most products, there are...

    Yes, when you press a button to sell (or buy) a share, it only happens once another market participant is doing the opposite. The reason you don't notice is that for most products, there are participants that are constantly offering to buy and sell shares, so when you press you button, the action happens immediately. I say "participant" and not "person" because those tend to be hedge funds, hft, banks and other large financial institutions.

    Those participants make a profit by offering a slightly lower buy price than sell price and pocketing the difference.

    1 vote

  9. Comment on Sony is laying off 900 PlayStation employees in ~games

    Berdes
    Link Parent
    That's not how it works, shares don't just get converted to cash: if someone buys or sells a share, there is someone else on the other side of tbe transaction selling or buying the share.

    That's not how it works, shares don't just get converted to cash: if someone buys or sells a share, there is someone else on the other side of tbe transaction selling or buying the share.

    13 votes

  10. Comment on What is a classical music piece you like? And why? in ~music

    Berdes
    Link Parent
    Wow, this is the first time I hear Kapustin's concert etudes and they immediately reminded me of Zelda BotW's OST. Not everything is exactly the same, but there are just so many similarities that...

    Wow, this is the first time I hear Kapustin's concert etudes and they immediately reminded me of Zelda BotW's OST. Not everything is exactly the same, but there are just so many similarities that I would find it very surprising if it wasn't an inspiration.

    1 vote

  11. Comment on A University of British Columbia study gave fifty homeless people $7,500 each and debunks stereotypes about homeless people’s spending habits in ~science

    Berdes
    Link Parent
    I think Minty's suggestions was more about giving $7500 to all homeless people in Canada, rather than the potential statistical results from the study.

    I think Minty's suggestions was more about giving $7500 to all homeless people in Canada, rather than the potential statistical results from the study.

    19 votes