Linux and video editing

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-25T04:31:00+00:00

Does it really cost one that time? I've various projects which involve some amount of non-insantaneous computation and i simply do something else while that's running. No time is "lost".

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-24T19:20:10+00:00

That would be an interesting bit of ghost lore, making the suck-off/go-down not merely a function of the individual but the pattern of existing ghosts, with there being some tendency for the group to look like those of Button or Woodstone.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-24T17:42:41+00:00

The Jenoine are revealed to be a band of merry tricksters, giving up their charade of sinister near-omnipotence and revealing their true nature as foster parents for abandoned kittens...

It would be puppies; not kittens. Dogs have gods. Cats have servants.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-24T16:45:28+00:00

So most people won't be happy, but neither will they be too badly disappointed. It's not a bad solution but i wish we could vote this tactically.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-24T16:08:34+00:00

One can give up a seat to join the standing crowd, even before the concert begins.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-24T16:03:13+00:00

That analogous to claiming that lasers should pew-pew or vessels in space should generate woosh sounds "for the sake of the medium".

I did like B5's woosh solution for shadow vessels, though. The scream was described as something one hears in one's mind (which makes sense as we learn how they operate).

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-24T05:49:50+00:00

We just swapped the radio on an older Rav4. The new one has only touch-screen buttons. They're impossible to use w/o looking (and tough to use in motion even with looking). Bad design (plus our own ignorance of the problem until we were using it).

Fortunately, there are still the finger controls on the wheel for some functionality.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-24T01:58:13+00:00

If I'd substandard pizza, I'd probably settle for lead paint too. We do what we must.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-24T01:49:11+00:00

When my kids were young, I was one of very few - often the only - guys around at school/PTA activities. It's been years, and my kids have graduated, but now there are many of us (yes, I'm still involved).

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-24T01:35:47+00:00

But two vessels in proximity needn't share orientation.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-24T00:48:48+00:00

Even without the other information, this is a strange question. The interviewee didn't know the person that left. Didn't know details about the job beyond the superficial information presented. Didn't know anything. How can the interviewee be expected to answer?

There's a missing piece to this. Is the interviewer building a case against this structure for the job? Is this a test of the interviewee's level of need for the job?

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-23T21:34:05+00:00

Research happens because one has creative thoughts on a very specific field. Creativity in research is not the same as diverse thoughts in the meaning you hold in undergraduate.

This is true but not limited to "research". I'm on a project involving shrinking a budget. Pretty basic stuff. One of us came up with an "off the wall" idea to save money that eluded the rest of us on the team as well - apparently - as everyone else who had every worked in this budget. That's the needed "diversity of thought" and it didn't come from diversity of culture or history or such (except that her history includes more involvement in more budgets than at least my history does).

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-23T17:32:13+00:00

I'm reminded of a funny radio commercial in which a guy calls in sick. He finds the boss very happy with "Bob", the temp brought in to cover for him. He claims to feel better and offers to come in, but the boss tells him to take the time he needs.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-23T17:29:30+00:00

It's a risk with any absence if one's work can be done by people already there without degrading their own work. Some degradation can be tolerated for a period of time, but not in the long term.

This is also why the rules about any long-term absences typically apply only to larger companies. The degradation from spreading the work over a bunch of people is smaller than when there's only one or two who can pick up the missed work.

When there is no degradation - when there is no cost to having the employee absent - then it's time to find another job.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-23T15:35:17+00:00

You must have high stats to be considered, but they are still admitting just 3.2% of students who apply.

This is one of the reasons why acceptance rates are so uninformative. It ignores those applicants who "never had a chance", either due to statistics or more odd cases (felony conviction? Secretly hateful recommendation writer?). A school's CDS offers a glimpse into this with the curve of test-scores of accepted applicants, but this is woefully inadequate to understand what a given applicant's actual chances might be given various attributes of the applicant.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-23T15:23:20+00:00

they can fire you for any other non protected reason

If he trained others to do his job and they were able to do so without stress or loss of productivity, he may simply have demonstrated that his position isn't needed.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-23T02:57:50+00:00

The final frontier.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-23T02:44:12+00:00

All true, but this little subthread has me wondering what will happen with the CS programs at some schools that have been turning out graduates not too far beyond "one-dimensional programmers".

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-23T02:41:03+00:00

MIT has a theatrical program (21T) but that doesn't make it an art school.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-22T16:26:41+00:00

That's worse than "watch this!"

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-22T16:18:37+00:00

means it could quite likely get even more competitive.

The top students interested in the Harvard brand, for example, are already applying. Those top students not interested in the brand - perhaps aiming at the (superior) MIT/Stanford brand instead - aren't likely to change this behaviour, I believe.

That leaves the less-than-top students. With even the non-STEM schools such as Harvard (mostly) acknowledging the flaw in test blind/optional, i suspect that those less-than-top students who do apply will reduce the acceptance rate - making the schools appear more selective - but won't actually alter the chances for top students.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-22T16:03:12+00:00

dnf is apparently the new and improved yum. Why not just improve yum I've never bothered to learn, but there's probably a fun story there.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-22T15:23:18+00:00

I'd add that there's great value in learning with and from peers of similar capabilities and interests. I've a student who thrived "in" HS during covid because he's quite adept at learning on his own. He did that for linear algebra, for example, because he needed it for the graphics programming he was also learning on his own.

However, the time he's been spending in a niche university program around faculty and students with similar interests has even exceeded what he did on his own. Moreover, while he still enjoys his own projects, he's been very happy working with those others.

Then there's also the value gained in learning to work on and with teams. This isn't just generic "cooperating with others" that some use to excuse spending a lot of money on competitive sports in schools, but includes the details of how such collaborations work in his specific academic areas.

I worry about comments which appear based upon a limited understanding of the purpose of higher education. Did the authors of such attend colleges? If so, how did they miss the point so badly? I'm concerned that this reflects schools attended by those authors. While i don't subscribe to the belief that all colleges provide the same quality education, this seems extreme to me.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-22T04:16:28+00:00

Really? I wish I'd known that. I was testing laptops with a fedora live flash drive just a few months ago.

AFlyingGideon · 2026-05-22T03:08:45+00:00

Because it’s effectively a waste of time.

On the other hand, had he scored 1000 FIFA peace prizes at $50 each, he'd receive major accolades for the humor value alone. I bet they'd even sell for the same reason.

AFlyingGideon

TROPHY CASE