epitten's recent activity
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Comment on What Is A Secure Note-Taking App? in ~comp
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Comment on Why did you select your username for Tildes? in ~tildes
epitten Link ParentOut of curiosity, how often are you typing your username? (As a username - if that's your real name typing it often makes sense.)Out of curiosity, how often are you typing your username? (As a username - if that's your real name typing it often makes sense.)
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Comment on Why did you select your username for Tildes? in ~tildes
epitten Link ParentI love learning about ISO standards for things, and I love that you liked it so much you made it your username. But "internationally agreed correct way" isn't quite accurate. From the Wikipedia...I love learning about ISO standards for things, and I love that you liked it so much you made it your username.
But "internationally agreed correct way" isn't quite accurate. From the Wikipedia article:
This standard is not meant to define the proper method for brewing tea intended for general consumption, but rather to document a tea brewing procedure where meaningful sensory comparisons can be made.
And obligatory Tom Scott video on trying ISO 3103 tea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAsrsMPftOI
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Comment on Complaints about Tildes and comparisons to other sites in ~tech
epitten Link ParentI love this framing of it - thanks for putting words to what I was thinking and feeling. I do think the focus on quality content and discussion is an important element of the site to keep, but I...engage with the raison de etre
I love this framing of it - thanks for putting words to what I was thinking and feeling.
I do think the focus on quality content and discussion is an important element of the site to keep, but I agree that telling people to assimilate or leave isn't warranted. I think the way to do this is for us to be clear to newer users about what we are and what we value here.
The culture and vibe of the community will almost certainly change over time, and new users can and should contribute to that change. As long as they do that by engaging with what we are now, i.e. understanding where we are now and why, that's likely to be a healthy process.
To draw another analogy, if you move into my place, you absolutely get to talk about what you'd like the place to look like and help make it a place that's more comfortable for you to live in. But the onus is on both of us to make sure you understand why this place is the way it is, and start the discussion from there.
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Comment on Has anyone here cleaned their coffee grinder? What did you use and how did it go? in ~food
epitten Link ParentA very low-tech way to prevent the buildup of oily residue is to wipe the metal immediately after grinding with a dry paper towel or similar - it won't get everything, but it keeps the buildup...A very low-tech way to prevent the buildup of oily residue is to wipe the metal immediately after grinding with a dry paper towel or similar - it won't get everything, but it keeps the buildup from affecting the functionality of the machine.
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Comment on Has anyone here cleaned their coffee grinder? What did you use and how did it go? in ~food
epitten Link ParentThis grinding method is fascinating. How coarse and how consistent does the grind end up? Having tried to grind a variety of things in my grinder (for science), I've found that rice and such...This grinding method is fascinating. How coarse and how consistent does the grind end up?
Having tried to grind a variety of things in my grinder (for science), I've found that rice and such usually works. But if your beans are oily, the rice dust will stick to the burr, and then you have to clean it with a brush, possibly some chemicals, and a lot of patience.
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Comment on Without saying where you live, where do you live? in ~talk
epitten LinkSorry to be the grumpy old person here, but I feel like this thread invites a lot of replies that don't really engage with each other and are on the low-effort side.Sorry to be the grumpy old person here, but I feel like this thread invites a lot of replies that don't really engage with each other and are on the low-effort side.
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Comment on Any cocktail enthusiasts/mixologists here? Feel free to share or workshop some good cocktail recipes! in ~food
epitten LinkI keep a handwritten notebook of recipes I've tried and liked. They're from all over the place, so for many of them I don't have the source anymore. However, two I regularly make and still have...I keep a handwritten notebook of recipes I've tried and liked. They're from all over the place, so for many of them I don't have the source anymore. However, two I regularly make and still have the source recipes are:
- Trinidad Sour (which I've seen on increasingly more menus since I first had it ~10 years ago): http://www.cocktailchronicles.com/2009/05/06/3030-20-the-trinidad-sour/
- Arsenic and Old Lace (I've played around with this recipe a lot, but it's a good starting point): https://drizly.com/arsenic_old_lace/r-00b11bc6b8aef056
For finding new recipes, my go-to site is Difford's Guide (cocktail search page here: https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/search). Being able to search by ingredient has been really helpful in expanding what I can do with my bottles. I usually find that I don't like their recipes as is, but they give me a good place to start tweaking.
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Comment on The documentation system in ~comp
epitten Link ParentAs I understand it, the https://diataxis.fr link is the original, so it probably makes more sense to link there. The GitHub repo that's the source for the page you posted even says it's forked...As I understand it, the https://diataxis.fr link is the original, so it probably makes more sense to link there.
The GitHub repo that's the source for the page you posted even says it's forked from the original GitHub repo. As far as I can tell, it doesn't contain substantively different content than the original - or am I missing something?
In any case, this seems to be a promising framework, and I'm going to try it with a few projects I'm working on this summer.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~lgbt
epitten LinkWelcome, and thanks for the thoughtful post! I'm wondering if you could explain how you view the difference between vetrois and agender. When I was taught about definitions of gender, they were in...Welcome, and thanks for the thoughtful post!
I'm wondering if you could explain how you view the difference between vetrois and agender. When I was taught about definitions of gender, they were in terms of societally-learned behaviors, roles, and expectations. Neither vetrois or agender fit into the historical male/female set of behaviors, roles, or expectations, but how do they differ from each other in your view?
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Comment on The lost 110 words of the US Constitution: The 14th Amendment says states that infringe the vote must lose representation in Congress. It’s time to make this happen. in ~misc
epitten LinkRelevant excerpt of the 14th Amendment: Setting aside the things that have clearly changed since the time this amendment came into force (e.g., males aged 21 or older), there is certainly an...Relevant excerpt of the 14th Amendment:
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
Setting aside the things that have clearly changed since the time this amendment came into force (e.g., males aged 21 or older), there is certainly an interesting legal question of what it means to participate in "other crime", which seems likely to be the focal point of any arguments.
While I'm lacking some historical context (i.e., other than what the article provides), this seems to severely limit the viability of the claim that "states that infringe the vote must lose representation in Congress". It's almost disingenuous/clickbaity to frame the article this way. But it's definitely a good starting point for thinking about how to actually bring this to the judicial system.
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Comment on 9 top subreddits for tech sustainability enthusiasts in ~enviro
epitten LinkThis article seems pretty low-effort to me. In case you don't want to read the article, here are the subreddits mentioned: /r/sustainability /r/EcoInternet /r/Green /r/envirotech...This article seems pretty low-effort to me.
In case you don't want to read the article, here are the subreddits mentioned:
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Comment on For a healthier planet, eat these fifty foods, campaign urges in ~enviro
epitten LinkHere are the foods, in case you don't want to comb through the PDF that has the actual list: Laver seaweed (nori) Wakame seaweed Adzuki beans (red beans) Black turtle beans Broad beans (fava...Here are the foods, in case you don't want to comb through the PDF that has the actual list:
- Laver seaweed (nori)
- Wakame seaweed
- Adzuki beans (red beans)
- Black turtle beans
- Broad beans (fava beans)
- Bambara groundnuts/beans
- Cowpeas
- Lentils
- Marama beans
- Mung beans
- Soy beans
- Nopales (prickly pear)
- Amaranth
- Buckwheat
- Finger millet
- Fonio
- Khorasan wheat
- Quinoa
- Spelt
- Teff
- Wild rice
- Pumpkin flowers
- Okra
- Orange tomatoes
- Beet greens
- Broccoli rabe
- Kale
- Moringa
- Bok choy
- Pumpkin leaves
- Red cabbage
- Spinach
- Watercress
- Enoki mushrooms
- Maitake mushrooms
- Saffron milk cap mushrooms
- Flax seeds
- Hemp seeds
- Sesame seeds
- Walnuts
- Black salsify
- Parsley root
- White icicle radish (winter radish)
- Alfalfa sprouts
- Sprouted kidney beans
- Sprouted chickpeas
- Lotus root
- Ube (purple yam)
- Yam bean root (jicama)
- Red Indonesian (Cilembu) sweet potatoes
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Comment on What would you think of completely supressing user invites? in ~tildes
epitten LinkI don't think that suppressing invites outright is going to help improve the community. What we likely need is a way to ensure that people are judicious in handing out invites. This would probably...I don't think that suppressing invites outright is going to help improve the community. What we likely need is a way to ensure that people are judicious in handing out invites. This would probably take the form of keeping track of invites in some way (like @dubteedub suggested) and using that to react accordingly both to users who are detrimental to the community and to users who invite such users.
But what does it mean to be detrimental to the community? Is it someone who joins, views, and even votes on posts but never comments? Or is it only a user who actively detracts from the community (by trolling or stirring up controversy)? Is someone who makes many claims but rarely posts sources to back up those claims detrimental to the community?
I'm personally only in favor of imposing sanctions for users that actively harm the community, but would be in support of a system that assigns "levels" of features for users depending on how much they have contributed, either by thoughtful posts or by inviting users that contribute positively to the community. For example, maybe each user gets one invite at first, and then the new user is vetted for some time before the original user gets another invite. This would take a significant amount of effort, but would hopefully ensure a quality community.
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Comment on I think we need more conservative voices to balance out the intense liberalism of tildes in ~tildes
epitten Link ParentI'm a bit late to the discussion, but I wanted to focus on this discussion because I think it motivates some important goals for what I (and hopefully other users on Tildes) want discussion here...I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I wanted to focus on this discussion because I think it motivates some important goals for what I (and hopefully other users on Tildes) want discussion here to be.
I've spent some time thinking about what specific aspects of the comments posted by @CR0W would be discouraging, and the following phrases from those comments jumped out at me:
When your beliefs are based on taking rights from others - a hallmark of many social conservative ideas
general right-wing f*ckery
Thos comes off as very racist to me.
If you think that forcing children to conform to their parents transphobic expectations of what they should be and not let them be who they are then you are part of the reason 40% of trans people try to kill themselves, full stop.
While I'm going to refrain from passsing judgment on the facts or the strength of the argument of these comments, I think that @CR0W's point, if I have interpreted it correctly, stands: the above types of remarks carry an (understandably) emotional tone and may indicate to some users a lack of good-faith willingness to discuss. That being said, I do think this emphasizes the responsibility of each user to strive to (1) consider these comments based on the points and arguments they make, without getting too caught up in the tone they take, and (2) interpret these comments with the best possible intentions.
To focus on the last comment (about trans being a choice), I think that @dubteedub has raised a good point and shown a good faith effort to have a thoughtful discussion, but I do think that the sentence in their comment that I highlighted above was a bit strong. There is a great deal of nuance that can be discussed about that point.
For example, what evidence indicates that trans may or may not be a choice? To what extent or under what circumstances should parents let their children be who they want to be? What factors, including bullying from others, hope for societal change (or lack thereof), suppressive policies, etc., cause trans people to attempt suicide? How can we contribute to the minimization of those factors, or provide better political/emotional support to trans people?
Despite the possibility for rich discussion, it seems that @CR0W may have interpreted the comment as arguing that if one does not vehemently oppose parents who don't give full freedom to their children's trans identity, then they are contributing to trans suicide. Again, while we should try to interpret these comments in the best possible way, it's easy to see how such an interpretation could make one feel hesitant to, or actively discouraged from, discussing these points.
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Comment on Police allegedly left a “bait truck” filled with Nike shoes in a black Chicago neighborhood in ~life
epitten Link ParentThanks for the post, OP. To me, there were two parts of the article that I found particularly thought-provoking. I'm not convinced that bait items are bad for the purposes of reducing crime...Thanks for the post, OP. To me, there were two parts of the article that I found particularly thought-provoking.
“Anything over $500 is a felony, and they’re going to get some guys who don’t [already] have a felony and charge them,” he said.
The value of stolen property determines if a theft is a felony or misdemeanor. States establish their own thresholds for what constitutes felony theft. Illinois sets the bar for felony theft at $500, a conviction that can lead to a prison sentence of up to five years.
I'm not convinced that bait items are bad for the purposes of reducing crime (though certainly, as you highlight from the article, they are bad for the purposes of fostering good relations between the people and the police). But even if they do help reduce crime, I think that doing so with felony-level values of items is too much. Given the state of correctional facilities in the US, I suspect this will do more harm than good in a given community.
“Police are not bound by probable cause or reasonable suspicion requirements before they engage in a sting.”
To me, this is the bigger issue. Police don't have to meet a standard of evidence to do a sting, and that lack of accountability opens the door for possible discriminatory targeting. Holding police accountable by ordering them to meet certain standards of evidence is how we can deter them from misbehaving, in the same way that the presence of these bait items is intended to deter people from stealing items they might come across.
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Comment on Has anyone tried the keto diet? If so, would you recommend it? in ~health
epitten Link ParentIf you cook for yourself regularly, that's already a big step towards eating better. If you already do so, try approximating foods that you often go out to eat. This will help you get a better...My main goal is to just eat better and lose that last bit of body fat
If you cook for yourself regularly, that's already a big step towards eating better. If you already do so, try approximating foods that you often go out to eat. This will help you get a better sense of what's going into your food. (You can usually find recipes for the more popular chains online.)
If you want to lose weight, then definitely keep track of what you eat. You should count alcohol, as well as tea if you put milk/sugar in it.
I'm still using MyFitnessPal to track my calories, but other users have suggested good apps too.
Also, this article about fat loss is entertaining and informative. I haven't verified all of this guy's claims, but it's a good starting point to learn about the common mistakes people make when trying to lose fat.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~news
epitten LinkThe cited study (full report PDF here) defines the fair market rent to be "typically the 40th percentile of gross rents for standard rental units" including utilities. The author defines...The most expensive state is Hawaii, where the fair market rent for a two-bed rental is $1,879 a month, meaning workers need to bring in $36.13 an hour for rent to be affordable. The current average hourly wage in the state is $16.16. Workers earning the minimum wage would need to work 143 hours – or 3.6 full-time jobs – a week to afford a two-bed rental.
The cited study (full report PDF here) defines the fair market rent to be "typically the 40th percentile of gross rents for standard rental units" including utilities. The author defines "affordable" to mean "not more than 30 percent of income."
Based on these assumptions, a worker bringing in $36.16 an hour works around 173 hours a month to have $1879 be 30% of their salary.
(In case you're interested, minimum wage in Hawaii is $10.10 per hour according to the Department of Labor's website. It looks like the author uses this number to calculate the number of hours worked to afford rent.)
My problem with this reasoning is that it compares the average hourly wage to the 40th percentile housing price, and that it uses a two-bedroom rental unit as the standard. It may indeed be the case that rent is becoming increasingly unaffordable in the US, but it would have helped to have data about one-bedroom units and median income.
Based on a quick search, I could only find median income data here (disclaimer: I didn't verify these numbers against the original US Census data). Based on the median household income for 2016, the affordable rental price is $1862 per month, which is right about the fair market rental value.
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Comment on Has anyone tried the keto diet? If so, would you recommend it? in ~health
epitten LinkOP, do you currently track what you eat? Regardless of what diet you choose to go with, you will need to keep track of what you eat to some degree. In my experience, just keeping track of what I...OP, do you currently track what you eat?
Regardless of what diet you choose to go with, you will need to keep track of what you eat to some degree. In my experience, just keeping track of what I ate turned out to be a big change that required getting used to. I'd thus recommend getting in the habit of logging your meals and snacks before trying a diet.
Also, what's your goal in going on keto? You said you wanted live a more healthy life, and diet and exercise are just two factors. Considering things like sleep, substance use, and mental and emotional health is also part of a healthy life. Improving your health in each of these areas takes a different level of effort from everyone, so it may be helpful to consider changes in these areas to see if there may be a better way for you to improve your health.
As you consider these, try to dig into the research a bit. There are diets out there with little to no evidence for their effectiveness, and often time the research helps you set an expectation for how much a new diet will help.
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Comment on Blockchain in ~talk
epitten LinkIt's great that you're thinking about how we can and will use blockchain technology in the future! I don't know your current level of background in this field, but there are some great resources...I'm still learning about the blockchain day by day and it's quit interesting to try to "predict" the future use of this technology. But i have my own doubts.(maybe I'm still lacking in research)
It's great that you're thinking about how we can and will use blockchain technology in the future! I don't know your current level of background in this field, but there are some great resources out there to learn more. At the moment, I recommend Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies by Narayanan et al. as a starting point, and their pre-publication draft is freely available on the authors' website. However, you should note that this book mostly covers Bitcoin and only has a bit of material on smart contracts and other cryptocurrencies, so you'll need to broaden your search if that's your interest.
Before I answer your questions, it's important to distinguish blockchains and cryptocurrencies. A blockchain is a data structure used to authenticate a sequence of events (i.e., associate "snapshot" representations of the events in a way that allows us to prove the order of those events). A cryptocurrency is a currency that uses data structures like blockchains (umbrella terms for these data structures include cryptographic data structures or authenticated data structures) to record events (and in particular, transfers of the currency from one party to another).
In the past, blockchains and other authenticated data structures were used for applications like tamper-proof logs (recording events so that they could not be retroactively created, changed, or deleted) or timestamping services (showing that data or files were received at a certain time). These applications relied on a single trusted server (or set of servers controlled by one entity).
In my opinion, the important insight to get from blockchains to a cryptocurrency was to realize that by recording transactions in a blockchain and creating an incentive system (mining) to facilitate the creation of new blocks (i.e., record new events), a public and open community could maintain applications such as what I described above. (This is a vast oversimplification, and there are some clever and critical insights in the mining system, but from the currency perspective this insight was the important one.)
Now onto your questions:
If everything will be decentralised, how will you make the profit out of it?(business point of view)
That depends on what you mean by "decentralized" - it's a term with many nuances, and I've seen many discussions where two sides disagree because they're interpreting this word differently.
For your question, I'm going to assume that you mean the decentralization of services - that is, rather than paying a single entity like Dropbox to store your files, for example, you make multiple, smaller payments to other individuals who store your files on their machines. (Again, this is an oversimplification and perhaps not the strongest example, but hopefully you get the general intuition.) In this case, there's still a flow of money, and there's little to stop a group of users from banding together to collectively provide a service.
There are many benefits to using a service run by a single entity, not all of which can be easily recreated using a group of peers. While perhaps a controversial example, I think that payment processing is a good example. If Alice and Bob both have the same bank, it's much easier for the bank to just update the account balances of Alice and Bob than for Alice to send a cryptocurrency payment and wait for the network to clear the payment (though there is a lot of work going into speeding up this process). So to answer your question, (1) it might be a long time before everything is decentralized (and this will probably never happen), and (2) there are still ways to make a profit, just not at the scale that a large single entity would be able to do under comparable circumstances.
If you have million dollar today to work on blockchain technology what business would you get into to get appropriate profit in near future?
My personal advice is to really learn the field well. This is difficult because it's a rapidly changing and extremely broad discipline, but in my experience, the people who can design a blockchain application, defend the use of blockchain for the application, and articulate the technical, political, and economic tradeoffs in their design are few and far between. With the growing interest in this field from individuals with a poor grasp of computing, economics, policy, or some combination thereof, and from big players who are still catching up to 21st-century technology, we need more experts (especially unbiased ones) to be the voice of reason.
It'd help to know what other features besides encryption you're looking for. I would not recommend Evernote, as the quality to price ratio has been declining for a while now.
I've heard good things about Obsidian, but if you're okay with a smaller feature set, Joplin is a nice free and open-source alternative that can sync to Drive, Dropbox, etc. and also has encryption. I personally sync it to my local file system and let my own file sync service sort it out.
Notion is also fine too, but I found that to me it wasn't worth the price. Many others I know are perfectly happy with it, though.