DaveJarvis's recent activity

  1. Comment on Cheap / budget travel Japan ideas request in ~travel

  2. Comment on How has climate change affected your life / plans? in ~enviro

    DaveJarvis
    Link Parent
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFVe2vKhwRw I'm Canadian, and would much rather see that American drone show instead of the same ol' uninspired fireworks we get year after year. To each their own...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFVe2vKhwRw

    I'm Canadian, and would much rather see that American drone show instead of the same ol' uninspired fireworks we get year after year. To each their own though. ;-)

    3 votes

  3. Comment on How has climate change affected your life / plans? in ~enviro

    DaveJarvis
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I use fireworks as a litmus test for how seriously communities think about climate change. From earth.org: "Another better option is a drone display, similar to the one presented at the Opening...

    The fact that climate change is not the number one thing on everyone’s mind is a sign of just how sick our society is.

    I use fireworks as a litmus test for how seriously communities think about climate change.

    From earth.org:

    "Another better option is a drone display, similar to the one presented at the Opening Ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Laser spectacles can replace fireworks, too, as they reduce the risk of wildfires and do not increase air pollution. Salt Lake City in Utah, the United States, has been substituting some of the city’s fireworks with lasers during the Fourth of July holiday to reduce environmental damage, and these lasers still have the same level of spectacle as fireworks."

    People drive gas-guzzling vehicles in droves to watch CO₂ emit in dramatic pyrotechnic displays for ... entertainment. It's frightening for animals, bad for asthma, bad for the atmosphere, not essential, and cleaner (and arguably more spectacular) alternatives are possible.

    https://i.ibb.co/WNzSPy7S/this-is-fine.webp

    3 votes

  4. Comment on Union Pacific has started painting the sides of rails white to reduce heat in ~transport

    DaveJarvis
    Link
    Out of curiosity, I wondered how much painting the entire track width white would move the needle on Earth's albedo. If the entire area occupied by all North American railway systems were painted...

    Out of curiosity, I wondered how much painting the entire track width white would move the needle on Earth's albedo. If the entire area occupied by all North American railway systems were painted white (not just the rails), the cooling effect would be about -0.00016 °C. If we took the top ten countries (759844 km), we'd see about -0.00042 °C. Certainly puts the immensity of Earth's climate system in perspective.

    https://autonoma.ca/calculators/railway/

    6 votes

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

    DaveJarvis
    Link
    I'm using Gemma-4 31B (gemma-4-31B-it-assistant.Q4_K_M.gguf) with llama.cpp to attribute quotations throughout chapters of my sci-fi novel. I started with Qwen3, but couldn't get it to work. Qwen3...

    I'm using Gemma-4 31B (gemma-4-31B-it-assistant.Q4_K_M.gguf) with llama.cpp to attribute quotations throughout chapters of my sci-fi novel. I started with Qwen3, but couldn't get it to work. Qwen3 TTS Voice Design, on the other hand, is incredible (Qwen3-TTS-12Hz-1.7B-VoiceDesign). I'm using both for an audiobook generator that produces a variety of voices.

    Screens:

    2 votes

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

    DaveJarvis
    Link
    For a weekend workshop extravaganza, I wrote (pre-AI) pie chart rendering code for a moderated deliberation system that allows constituents to explore cost-breakdowns for government expenditures....

    For a weekend workshop extravaganza, I wrote (pre-AI) pie chart rendering code for a moderated deliberation system that allows constituents to explore cost-breakdowns for government expenditures. I asked an LLM to translate the charts from XSLT into JavaScript for the workshop's expenses page.

    The tickets page and expenses page both use Square's API to update the status of tickets and funding at regular intervals.

    The pie charts are particularly interesting, IMO, because the colour selection for each wedge is dynamic based on the number of wedges, and the base colour is selected from the website theme:

    https://repo.autonoma.ca/repo/shufflenblues.com/blob/HEAD/expenses/index.php

    The script iterates over all expense item totals and creates a pie chart:

    const total = data.reduce( ( sum, item ) => sum + item.value, 0 );
const chart = new PieChartBuilder( data ) 
  .withWidth( 200 ) 
  .withBase( "669eb9" ) 
  .withLine( "393431" ) 
  .withChroma( 1.45 ) 
  .build();

$( s.id ).innerHTML = chart.toSvg();

    Just about every other pie chart library requires a wedge colour list. My pie chart requires a base hue and chroma factor, instead, and dynamically determines wedge colours.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on Good time to buy a gas/diesel car (in the EU)? in ~transport

    DaveJarvis
    (edited )
    Link
    Let's say 6,000€ is your budget and you average 1.5 months downtime, making for 4 usage periods over one year. You can rent a car with unlimited monthly mileage for 568€ per month (or 2,272€ for...

    Let's say 6,000€ is your budget and you average 1.5 months downtime, making for 4 usage periods over one year. You can rent a car with unlimited monthly mileage for 568€ per month (or 2,272€ for your annual periodicity) and not have to worry about long-term parking, cleaning, maintenance, or theft during the off-periods. After 3 years you'll be at 6,816€, which is a bit above your max budget, and is likely a wash after you factor parking (20/month = 80€ * 3 = 120€), cleaning, and maintenance (50/month = 200€ * 3 = 600€). The nice thing about renting is that you can pick an EV at any point for your next monthly ride, reducing fuel costs.

    You'll still need something for short trips, but that's an easier and less expensive problem to solve than month-long road trips.

    10 votes

  8. Comment on AI Coding agents are the opposite of what I want in ~comp

    DaveJarvis
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    In my experience, it depends on whether you make that a priority. I've worked on an incident management system for one of the world's largest ferry organizations, crafted a passenger manifest...

    Sometimes you do get to work on a project that feels like it will really change the lives of the people who use it, but that's rare.

    In my experience, it depends on whether you make that a priority. I've worked on an incident management system for one of the world's largest ferry organizations, crafted a passenger manifest system to ensure no lives are lost in a sinking, ushered high school graduates away from expensive paper-based transcripts to inexpensive electronic post-secondary applications, revamped a kidney transplant system, helped a ministry track cut blocks for sustainably managed forests, developed radio communications software used by first responders, and worked on a critical event resolution system used by Fortune 500 companies. (I've had some schlep software contracts, too, from time-to-time, but I tend to pass them by when offered.)

    These days, I'm reveling in the advent of AI/LLMs to take away the grunt work of software both professionally and personally. Take for instance my vibe-coded, self-hosted, PHP-based, dependency-free, FOSS Git repository viewer that was made in about three weeks:

    https://repo.autonoma.ca/treetrek

    My favourite part was telling the AI to write the syntax highlighter for the various languages and file formats across all my repos:

    https://repo.autonoma.ca/repo/treetrek/tree/HEAD/render/rules

    Coding those rules and the highlighter class by hand would have taken me weeks alone and brought very little joy. With the LLM, it took about 10 minutes.

    4 votes

  10. Comment on What’s your preferred work monitor setup? in ~comp

    DaveJarvis
    Link
    An outdated photo of my desk. Since upgraded the monitor to a ROG Strix XG43UQ, vari Active Seat, a heavy gas strut arm for the monitor, and a light gas strut for the keyboard/mouse tray. Both...

    An outdated photo of my desk. Since upgraded the monitor to a ROG Strix XG43UQ, vari Active Seat, a heavy gas strut arm for the monitor, and a light gas strut for the keyboard/mouse tray. Both arms are affixed to the gray steel tube, which doubles as a cabling channel.

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

    DaveJarvis
    Link Parent
    Who wants to write a dependency-free syntax highlighter in PHP for 40+ languages and configuration file formats? What human can do so in less than 5 minutes?...

    So I've resisted using AI for anything major for a while now.

    Who wants to write a dependency-free syntax highlighter in PHP for 40+ languages and configuration file formats? What human can do so in less than 5 minutes?

    There were numerous issues with producing the full raw Git repository viewer fully using AI: memory leaks, performance problems, encapsulation violations, bloated source files. The memory issues were hardest to have the LLMs fix. They were stumped on how to fix the code until provided with the call stack produced by the memory profiler. Once the afflicting call stack was known, they pinpointed and solved the problem. Another way to coax them was to have them inject logging statements to diagnose problems and feed them back the output.

    The syntax highlighter alone would have been about six weeks to research and implement correctly. There was no way that I could have written the entire application in two weeks.

    https://repo.autonoma.ca/repo/treetrek/tags

    2 votes

  12. Comment on llOOPy lOOPs in ~comp

    DaveJarvis
    Link
    Show the prompt? Can you show the code?

    So I think you can get this if you want, but you have to ask for it?

    Show the prompt? Can you show the code?

  14. Comment on Canada agrees to cut tariff on Chinese electric vehicles in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products in ~transport

    DaveJarvis
    Link Parent
    Fair. My point was more about searching for a used EV than any specific non-Tesla brand. Even though the OP wrote, "Canada's used market isn't as great," I suspect that with a bit of legwork...

    I have an ICE Chevy, would not recommend. :/

    Fair. My point was more about searching for a used EV than any specific non-Tesla brand. Even though the OP wrote, "Canada's used market isn't as great," I suspect that with a bit of legwork (searching), there's a solid used EV that's within the person's budget.

    3 votes

  15. Comment on Canada agrees to cut tariff on Chinese electric vehicles in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products in ~transport

  16. Comment on Letter to a Liberal member of Parliament in ~enviro

    DaveJarvis
    Link Parent
    I appreciate the context regarding the non-binding nature of the MOU, but I must push back on the idea of "premature panic." It’s Not Panic, It’s Foresight: My letter is driven primarily by...

    So while continued pressure on Liberals is key, I think this is a lot of premature panic.

    I appreciate the context regarding the non-binding nature of the MOU, but I must push back on the idea of "premature panic."

    • It’s Not Panic, It’s Foresight: My letter is driven primarily by physics. We are already at 425 ppm CO2​, an exponential rate of increase, and the physical impacts are already measurable. Recognizing this trajectory and demanding a change now is foresight, not panic.
    • Timing is Strategic: Delaying opposition until a project finds a private proponent may be too late, strategically. Vocally opposing the MOU while it's "non-binding" is a critical and timely moment to prevent it from ever gaining momentum and becoming a political and economic behemoth that cannot be stopped. I feel we must object to the direction before the engine starts.
    4 votes

  17. Letter to a Liberal member of Parliament

    ~enviro Text 233 words
    Dear Mr. Sawatzky, Both atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) and temperature are increasing at an exponential rate, in lock-step. Atmospheric CO₂ levels during the Eocene have been estimated up to 840...

    Dear Mr. Sawatzky,

    Both atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) and temperature are increasing at an exponential rate, in lock-step. Atmospheric CO₂ levels during the Eocene have been estimated up to 840 parts per million (ppm); sea levels were close to 60 metres higher than today. CO₂ concentrations are over 425 ppm and still climbing. Pause a moment to consider what this will mean for all coastal cities.

    What part of “keep the oil in the ground” that scientists have been shouting for decades do politicians not understand? What part of physics are politicians trying to deny?

    I am opposed to allowing more oil tankers near our beautiful, fragile coast. I am vehemently opposed to marring our landscape with pipelines for transporting oil. Yes, $14 trillion dollars is a lot of money, but it will pale in comparison to the economic damage that exacerbating climate change will cause. Carbon capture and storage cannot offset our burn rate with any significance.

    Earth has had a remarkably stable climate for tens of thousands of years; burning fossil fuels is destabilizing it.

    I ask you to acknowledge that physics cannot be bargained with, show some foresight, protect our children's future, and care deeply about our planet's health. I ask that you tell our Prime Minister in no uncertain terms that selling fossil fuels is the wrong choice for the world and the wrong economic direction for Canada.

    12 votes

  18. Comment on Have you ever designed/created a spaceship for fiction, RPGs, etc? How did you do it? in ~creative

    DaveJarvis
    (edited )
    Link
    For my hard sci-fi novel, I wanted to determine whether a rocket and its payload could make it to orbit. Most rocket calculators assume an initial velocity of 0 and a liftoff around sea-level. In...

    For my hard sci-fi novel, I wanted to determine whether a rocket and its payload could make it to orbit. Most rocket calculators assume an initial velocity of 0 and a liftoff around sea-level. In my case, I wanted to launch a rocket at a specific elevation with a particular starting speed, to reach a given orbital distance and velocity. It's a fairly simple calculator, allowing me to tweak the rough physical characteristics of the rocket, enough to get within the ballpark of (near-future) reality.

    https://autonoma.ca/calculators/rocket/payload/

    A second calculator could take those same rocket characteristics and provide a rough estimate of how much heat the craft would experience, again to verify whether the parameters could be achieved by near-future material science (extrapolated from current trends).

    https://autonoma.ca/calculators/rocket/aero/

    Beta readers wanted. DM me with your name and email and I'll send you a copy.

    1 vote

  20. Comment on California Department of Motor Vehicles approves Waymo operation in many more cities in ~transport

    DaveJarvis
    Link
    My near-future sci-fi novel explores some of the ramifications of driverless vehicles: the good, the bad, and the harrowing. Beta readers wanted! DM me your name and email if interested.

    My near-future sci-fi novel explores some of the ramifications of driverless vehicles: the good, the bad, and the harrowing. Beta readers wanted! DM me your name and email if interested.

    1 vote