Recent Comments by bmacs27 subscribe to this feed

4 Revolutionary Riddles

bmacs27 says...

What if you ran it backwards... IN TIME!

newtboy said:

In that case, averaging your speeds would lower the average speed, not raise it, since lap two would be a negative distance, but not a negative time, so a negative speed in the equation.

4 Revolutionary Riddles

Trigger Happy Cop Attacks Private Investigator

bmacs27 says...

I think this is similar to many victim blaming conversations. You are trying to offer practical advice to avoid confrontation with police. However, you have to admit that even if you are polite and respectful, escalations happen, particularly for people of color. When your expectation is that no matter your behavior, this encounter is likely to lead to you taking a ride in a cruiser, frustration and defiance are at least as natural a response as the officer's nerves. The man certainly had more available evidence that his day was going to end badly than the officer had evidence of imminent threat and justification for the use of force.

MaxWilder said:

My point is that we have become accustomed to these dangerous escalations because of bad training, so much so that they are getting predictable, not justifiable. Even so, I still think there are elements we can't see about the situation from this single point of view video.

Pardon me for trying to have some nuance. Next time I'll rant about crooked cops and avoid implying that the issue might not always be perfectly clear.

The Bayesian Trap

Computer color is broken

bmacs27 says...

The only thing I would add is that the inverse gamma encoding has more to do with band width than disk space. It's about how many gray levels you can send to the monitor per draw frame.

Computer color is broken

bmacs27 says...

You would be surprised at how many people get this wrong. I'm actually amazed this video even exists. I preach about this all the time to deaf ears.

Sam Harris: Can Psychedelics Help You Expand Your Mind?

Can You Trust Your Eyes?

bmacs27 says...

I think he chose his wording a little poorly. The purpose of perception is to estimate physical properties of the environment. It's just not meant to estimate the exact intensities and so forth. For example, in the Adelson checkerboard illusion, you are reporting your perception of the surface reflectances irrespective of illuminant. That's a perfectly sensible environmental property to estimate. It just isn't a direct mapping to the image falling on your retina.

How to (Properly) Eat Sushi

bmacs27 says...

@arekin @NinjaInHeat -

"Sushi is all about the fish." False. Sushi is as much about the rice as the fish. In fact, it literally means "vinegared rice." Certainly the fish is important, however my understanding is that much of the subtlety that distinguishes various chefs is their preparation of the rice, not the fish. This may be why it is more acceptable to apply wasabi and soy to sashimi rather than to nigiri or maki. So yea, it's like a hamburger on a really fancy bun. I still want my barbecue sauce.

Everything You Need To Know About Digital Audio Signals

bmacs27 says...

I'm still worried about phase. The argument is that he can represent any phase he wants. I challenge him to represent different phases of his Nyquist frequency without the reconstruction losing power. He keeps saying "band limited", which I don't believe to be exactly true. I agree, the ear can only detect powers at frequencies below 22.1k, I'm not convinced it's ability to detect phase shifts is limited in the way you would expect with a digital signal with a cutoff at that frequency. For instance, the human ear can localize an impulse with accuracy down to about 10 microseconds. I can't see how a Dirac function can be localized that accurately by a sampled wave unless the system acted like a 100K sampled system. The latter, IMHO, is supported by the neuro-anatomy. There are different mechanisms for identifying pitch and onset. The quote-unquote Calyx of Held neurons carry the phase information, and are designed to fire with astonishing precision. Much more temporal precision than would be predicted from the "nyquist frequency" of the place coding subset of 8th nerve ganglia. I understand that this is what he was trying to address with his bit at the end, but he kept insisting on "band limited" inputs. Pressure waves aren't band limited dodge-rammit.

15 Things Every Coffee Drinker Should Know

"Doodling in Math Class" Vi Hart - Möbius Story

bmacs27 says...

Well, they do and they don't. They are on the same strip, but suddenly Mr. UG, and the puppy and everything else are on their own side of the world. Unless they master drilling through the planet core, or somehow take advantage of the tertiary conformation of the strip to jump to the other side when it comes close, the wind will never see his puppy again :-(.

Doodling in Math Class: Snakes + Graphs

peggedbea (Member Profile)

  • 1


Send this Article to a Friend



Separate multiple emails with a comma (,); limit 5 recipients






Your email has been sent successfully!

Manage this Video in Your Playlists

Beggar's Canyon