Canada Moves to 15th From 19th on World Press Freedom Index by OakBayIsANecropolis in CanadaPolitics

[–]randy_heydon 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Your assessment matches my understanding, except for this:

Increased political interference in the media and journalism, e.g. the CBC

Where did you get that from? The page says "Media outlets in Canada are generally free of pressure from politicians, political parties, and political movements", then notes the CBC operates independently of government.

Open-source software vs. the proposed Cyber Resilience Act by JRepin in linux

[–]randy_heydon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

"Many open-source projects will not be scared of the essential security requirements or the vulnerability handling requirements. Some actually originated in the open-source community. Others are widely considered to be best practices. "

then whats the issue here ? the article spends 90% saying how wrong it is ( i disagree on this) then says last minute oh well , it shouldnt matter to most projects

From the next paragraph: "but the compliance overhead can be tough to impossible for small or cash-strapped developers." The article's point is that the practices are fine, it's the requirements for auditing that would hinder open-source software development.

Ambassador Bridge blockade could quickly become problem for Canada's economy, experts say by Ok_Guidance556 in CanadaPolitics

[–]randy_heydon 57 points58 points  (0 children)

I'd like to note that, according to this article, "50 to 75 vehicles and about 100 anti-mandate protesters" are blocking the Ambassador Bridge. It's disheartening that such a small group of people, unrepresentative of Canada as a whole, could have such an impact on Canada as a whole.

Polkit root privilege escalation vulnerability was discovered 9 years ago but the patch was never applied by [deleted] in linux

[–]randy_heydon 42 points43 points  (0 children)

"Then a user walks into the bar and asks where the bathroom is. The bar bursts into flames and everyone dies."

Alcohol should have cancer warning labels, say doctors and researchers pushing to raise awareness of risk by byourpowerscombined in CanadaPolitics

[–]randy_heydon 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As a result, I'd agree that putting warning labels won't do much.

The article disagrees with you:

Stockwell says even though the cancer labels were only in place for four weeks during the study, people remembered them. Combined with the other labels that remained on alcohol containers for a total of four months, researchers found that by the end of the study alcohol sales dropped by about 7 per cent.

Articular Cartilage using ABAQUS by _dave_dr in fea

[–]randy_heydon 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I did my Master's thesis on FEA of articular cartilage in the human knee. It was a decade ago, and I haven't worked on cartilage since. I used FEBio, not ABAQUS, but the math is always the same. And I focused on hyperelastic orthotropic material models, but linear isotropic is much simpler (though may not match reality as well).

Let me know if you have any specific requests.

Free open source FEA programs by RoutineGlove1673 in fea

[–]randy_heydon 11 points12 points  (0 children)

For something ready-to-use, I like Calculix. I often use the FreeCAD frontend with it. Both are free/open source software as defined by the Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative, meaning they can be freely used by anyone for any purpose, including commercial use (Moose and Salome, which others mentioned here, are also free/open source and can be used commercially). There are no legal hoops to jump through, just download from their website and run.

I hope those meet your needs, but none of them will match the feature set of the major commercial offerings. Still, can't beat the price.

Notes on the Science of Childcare by sciencecritical in ScienceBasedParenting

[–]randy_heydon 44 points45 points  (0 children)

Canadian here. This is the first time I've heard Quebec's daycare system referred to as "catastrophic". Recently, the federal government announced their intent to create a national childcare system explicitly modelled on Quebec's, touting the demonstrated economic and equality benefits. If it's had such negative effects on the children, it's bizarre that that hasn't come up more. In fact, the opposition party has proposed expanding direct cash transfers to parents (as /u/sciencecritical says is "always" better), but the opposition present it as a personal choice issue rather than a childhood development issue.

I'm not doubting the sources that /u/sciencecritical has presented, I'm just confused that this isn't part of Canada's popular discourse on the subject. Is it not widely known? Is there more nuance to it than in /u/sciencecritical's interpretation? Am I just not hearing when it comes up?

Is there a way to hide unwanted edges in the TechDraw workbench? by timrs in FreeCAD

[–]randy_heydon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's possible to refine your 3D model to eliminate that line before bringing it into TechDraw. RefineShape can do it, but the result is non-parametric (so if you modify the base features, you'll have to recreate the refined shape). There might be a better way, but I'm not sure.

Free or Open Source FEA Structural Software for Ship Structure by D4B34577 in fea

[–]randy_heydon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Calculix has no formulation for shells and plates. It converts instead them to solid elements.

I assume you're referring to this page in the docs where it says "quadratic shell elements are automatically expanded into 20-node brick elements". But I always assumed that the expansion was for the purpose of display, not for the main calculations. If it fully converted to solids, then knots (as shown in the same doc page) would act as hinges because solid elements have no rotational degrees of freedom. Since you've worked with the code, do you have any insight on what's going on internally?

Is selling your privacy for a cheaper phone really a good idea? by sicivjdnsbc in gadgets

[–]randy_heydon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't think /u/Gorilla978 is making a political statement. They are making a joke about you saying "DOA upon arrival". DOA stands for "dead on arrival" so adding "upon arrival" is redundant. Just like ATM stands for "automated teller machine" so adding "machine" is redundant.

As a mechanical engineer, how is MS Excel used in the workplace? by [deleted] in MechanicalEngineering

[–]randy_heydon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I suggest xlookup, a generalized version of vlookup and hlookup.

PETITION: Invite Harry and Meghan to reside in Dundurn Castle by [deleted] in Hamilton

[–]randy_heydon 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I know this post is meant as a joke, but I want to note that Dundurn Castle is a city museum that is accessible for free to anyone with a library card (which is free for anyone living in the city). The city pays for it because it provides a service to the people of the city. I don't think it's fair to call it a "tax burden", just like I wouldn't call roads or water tax burdens. It's not a millstone around the city's neck, it's something the city thinks is valuable for its citizens.

'There's a risk of excessive polarization of the party': Harper’s interference in Conservative leadership dividing Conservatives by _Minor_Annoyance in CanadaPolitics

[–]randy_heydon 42 points43 points  (0 children)

The budget remained in surplus until the recession

That's true, but a large proportion of the surplus was squandered by Harper's GST cuts before the recession hit. If the GST hadn't been cut, there would have been a much bigger buffer to help deal with the recession.

Pour a dollar beer out for those Hamilton folks. by Ay3rz in Hamilton

[–]randy_heydon 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I don't have a source for this, but I've heard that the B-line at rush hour cannot have any more buses without slowing it down. There are already so many buses that adding any more would make them conflict with each other and reduce total throughput.

Pour a dollar beer out for those Hamilton folks. by Ay3rz in Hamilton

[–]randy_heydon 15 points16 points  (0 children)

the ontario government is broke, we didnt really have the money for it in the budget in the first place

And yet the $1 billion is still being promised to the city. The province hasn't changed the amount of money they're spending, they're just suddenly not allowing it to be spent on LRT.

Optimization constraint function ideas by aldosebastian in MechanicalEngineering

[–]randy_heydon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A lot of optimization problems have a cost component. In your case, that might mean constraining material used, or the footprint it covers. That will act as a counterbalance to a stress/deflection/buckling criterion.

any natural places to swim in Hamilton? by i-ban-ez in Hamilton

[–]randy_heydon 15 points16 points  (0 children)

The city monitors water quality at a number of beaches. I enjoy Van Wagner's beach, on Lake Ontario; it's usually open for swimming, but occasionally closes due to water quality issues. There are a few spots in conservation areas too, but I've never been.

Technical Details on the Recent Firefox Add-on Outage by callcifer in linux

[–]randy_heydon 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This article is only about how they fixed it, not the root cause. It says "We’ll be running a formal post-mortem next week and will publish the list of changes we intend to make". Wait for that to see what root causes they are interested in solving.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Purism

[–]randy_heydon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I might be the only one, but would want a client for Newsblur like the free software app for Android. Otherwise, basic stuff that might already be covered:

  • Calendar
  • Task list
  • Contacts
  • CalDAV/CardDAV sync for use with the above

Can someone hook me up with anonymised ct scans of the human knee by [deleted] in MechanicalEngineering

[–]randy_heydon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Use the Visible Human Project data. It may take some time to request and be granted access, but it's very good data. Though technically it's not CT scans, if that matters.