Comments for Schimmy's Thoughts

Comment on Git’s empty tree by Is git's semi-secret empty tree object reliable, and why is there not a symbolic name for it? - PhotoLens

Wed, 16 Feb 2022 20:15:29 +0000

[…] Or, as seen here, from Colin Schimmelfing: […]

Comment on How large is 52!? by Steven Cheshire

Steven Cheshire — Sun, 02 Jan 2022 14:03:42 +0000

Very good explanation. Puts the number into a framework I can wrap my had around.

Comment on How large is 52!? by Bill

Bill — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 15:55:45 +0000

In reply to derpyBill.

Okay then…. assuming a grain of sand is ~1mm^3, then ~20 million grains fit in a 5 gallon bucket (2 X 10^7.) The largest enclosed stadium in the USA is the Dallas Cowboys stadium with an interior volume of ~104 million ft^3. A 5 gallon bucket is 0.67 cubic feet, so ~150 million buckets would be required to fill the stadium with sand (1.5 X 10^8.) So multiply those together, it takes ~3 X 10^15 grains of sand to fill Cowboys stadium. 52! ÷ 3E15 = 3 X 10^52. 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Even more zeros than his example. The whole point of the article is that these numbers are so large they defy understanding. You can’t understand 3 X 10^52 Cowboys stadiums anymore than you can understand 3 X 10^40 histories of the universe.
Image a different question… how big would the Earth need to be if it were made out of 52! grains of perfectly fitted sand, with not air space. Each grain is ~1mm^3, so we need an Earth than is 52! mm^3… The radius of this earth would need to be 4.4 X 10^30 meters. The diameter would need to be 8.8 X 10^30 meters. The observable universe is ~8.8 X 10^26 meters. The diameter of this imaginary sand earth would need to be 10,000X the size of the observable universe.

Comment on Three ways to fight climate change that Bret Victor missed by kevinstjarre

kevinstjarre — Mon, 01 Feb 2021 10:41:35 +0000

What’s up, all is going fine here and ofcourse every one is sharing data, that’s really excellent, keep up writing.

Comment on Predictions for the next year by Schimmy

Schimmy — Sun, 25 Oct 2020 00:46:59 +0000

New prediction: CA Gov Newsom will ban fracking by March 2020 – he’s been holding off partially to keep from influencing the national races, but also because the pressure hasn’t been there yet, and that will change quickly after the election concludes.

Comment on Predictions for the next year by Colin Schimmelfing

Colin Schimmelfing — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 20:41:45 +0000

Hmm, so let’s see how I did as of Oct 1st:

Overall I overestimated the COVID deaths (seems like we’ve been getting better at treating cases – although I did more or less predict the scale of COVID in the US), predicted RBG would die in December instead of September, and preditcted a stock market crash which has not happened yet (I predict this will happen in October). I also expected Congress to pass SOMETHING for unemployment benefits, and I’m frankly surprised by not even a compromise bill.

Otherwise, I think I did pretty well – although somehow I missed out on CA’s fire season … I blame that on writing this while on the east coast :)

Comment on Git’s empty tree by Is git’s semi-secret empty tree object reliable, and why is there not a symbolic name for it? – Config9.com

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 12:21:27 +0000

[…] Or, as seen here, from Colin Schimmelfing: […]

Comment on How large is 52!? by derpyBill

derpyBill — Mon, 26 Nov 2018 03:46:37 +0000

Sigh, I thought there was going to be some cool chain of explanations like explaining the size of a grain of sand, then how many grains of sand are in a bucket, then how many of those buckets would be in a sports stadium, and then how many stadiums, and so on to get to 52 factorial grains of sand. I mean this constructively, but a whole bunch of zeros doesn’t mean much to me.

Comment on A Black Mirror thought experiment – what actually scares you about “Nosedive” by Robert

Robert — Tue, 18 Sep 2018 13:19:48 +0000

Well said and thought provoking.

Comment on Automated monitoring of web pages using Page2RSS, Feedly and IFTTT by Jake

Jake — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 09:53:36 +0000

A site that I find pretty easy to use for monitoring web pages is https://pagedelta.com . I like how it emails me a screenshot of what changed.

Comment on Schimmy’s guide to personal finance by christine danner

christine danner — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 06:18:53 +0000

Good tips! Thank you.

Comment on Schimmy’s guide to personal finance by christine danner

christine danner — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 06:15:13 +0000

Good tips here! thank you.

Comment on Automated monitoring of web pages using Page2RSS, Feedly and IFTTT by Marek

Marek — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 22:46:06 +0000

One good service which is even for free is https://www.wachete.com
You can monitor part of page, whole page or crawl whole page with subpages.
Notifications via email when page changes or any other condition you set.
Cool is also that it comes with mobile apps for all platforms.

Comment on Three ways to fight climate change that Bret Victor missed by Stephan Hoyer

Stephan Hoyer — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 18:21:37 +0000

Something else worth considering is what we should do with our ridiculously large incomes. Jeff Kaufman and Julia Wise set an inspiration example (http://www.jefftk.com).

Comment on Schimmy’s Hierarchy of Jobs by Schimmy's ThoughtsThree things to fight climate change you can do that Brett Victor missed - Schimmy's Thoughts

Sat, 28 Nov 2015 21:39:56 +0000

[…] may have to accept a lower paycheck, but I’d argue that the intangible benefits are worth it. You have the means to work on one of the most important projects in human history, and the […]

Comment on Proving cultural signaling – sometimes ads can be laughable and still be effective by Schimmy

Schimmy — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 00:00:52 +0000

In reply to EvB.

Oh damn, this is a great one as well. I love the youtube comments!
“I drive a Cadillac, which makes me the prototype of American capitalism and basically is like I was an astronaut who went to the moon” :-P
The thing is, this ad GETS that attitude about America more than a 2000 word essay in the Atlantic. It really is a 30 second sociology lesson…

Comment on Proving cultural signaling – sometimes ads can be laughable and still be effective by EvB

EvB — Sun, 29 Mar 2015 23:51:02 +0000

I thought this was a brilliant ad when I saw it. Not as good as the Cadillac ad (http://operacoast.com/cards/tSRqy), but it’s going off of similar things. The brilliance in these ads is that they are self-aware and somewhat tongue in cheek. Your reaction to the ad becomes part of the cultural signal. People’s outrage at the ad outs them as pretty lame to those who “get” the ad.

Comment on Automated monitoring of web pages using Page2RSS, Feedly and IFTTT by Eleven tools for working smarter – [Pressboard]

Eleven tools for working smarter – [Pressboard] — Sun, 01 Feb 2015 00:33:46 +0000

[…] agendas and court rulings. Now IFTT sends me an email whenever those pages are updated. I followed this blog post by Colin Schimmelfing to set up my IFTTT […]

Comment on The Limit of Acceptable Terribleness (and coding) by Thoughts from the Nerd State » Are transit-first policies bad for poorer residents pushed out of the urban core?

Wed, 05 Nov 2014 05:18:34 +0000

[…] I was discussing my Limits of Acceptable Terribleness post with a coworker and we disagreed about my assertions about highways. My argument there is that […]

Comment on Automated monitoring of web pages using Page2RSS, Feedly and IFTTT by cschimm1

cschimm1 — Sun, 24 Aug 2014 20:05:33 +0000

Nice, glad you liked it!
I think Ronno’s comment is great – that looks like a better site than page2rss actually…