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Type in the exact number of machines to proceed

rachelbythebay.com

101–110 of 340 posts

Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reasoning behind this proposed interlock is that any logic which concludes that it is moral and rational to harm hundreds of thousands of people must also conclude that it is moral and rational to harm the "interlock" individual. Yes, but you can know it's the right thing to do, but not be able to physically do it. The president's ability to physically cut someone open is not relevant to whether it's a good ide…

It isn't about testing if the president can do surgery. It is about forcing the president to look somebody in the eye before they kill them.

> It is about forcing the president to look somebody in the eye before they kill them.

Right, but can you understand that 'the President being able to look somebody in the eye before they killing them' is not a requisite for 'the employment of nuclear weapons being justified'?

We require the president to be able to do B before they can do A. But what if A is the right thing to do but the President is not able to do B? Being not able to do B does not mean A is wrong.

See the logical disconnect?

Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed

#102

I've seen this called "pointing and calling" [1], Japan's train drivers use the technique to force themselves to perform actions and take notice of the current environment. I personally took it to heart, it's a good system for forcing a cache miss in the brain - make sure you're on "database production" or "database localhost" etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling

>> I personally took it to heart, it's a good system for forcing a cache miss in the brain - make sure you're on "database production" or "database localhost" etc.

Yeah, ouch. More ouch if it's the other way around- you delete the test database and it's not the test database.

(long story)

Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can know that something is the right thing to do but not have the courage to physically harm someone to do it. In this specific case the "thing to do" is literally to harm hundreds of thousands of people. The reasoning behind this proposed interlock is that any logic which concludes that it is moral and rational to harm hundreds of thousands of people must also conclude that it is moral and rational to harm the…

> The reasoning behind this proposed interlock is that any logic which concludes that it is moral and rational to harm hundreds of thousands of people must also conclude that it is moral and rational to harm the "interlock" individual. Yes, but you can know it's the right thing to do, but not be able to physically do it. The president's ability to physically cut someone open is not relevant to whether it's a good ide…

Do you mean, like, the physical strength required to cut a person open? That seems like a very specific implementation detail.

Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least Facebook (where OP worked), Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Probably Netflix, maybe Apple. There might be a couple more, but no more than that because we've already accounted for a pretty high percentage of worldwide shipments for servers, disks, etc. Fun fact: when you're that big, your demand creates its own inflation and you have to consider that in projections.

If by "machine" we also mean things outside of a 19" rack, I would wager that large telecoms probably have way more devices running Linux than FAANG. Imagine the network of cable modems that Comcast alone must operate. What percentage of their 28+ million broadband customers rent Comcast owned/managed modems? Almost all of them except the tech-savvy crowd? And that's just one device type.

Not to mention the networks of cellular base stations worldwide that run extremely sophisticated systems (if not Linux itself).

Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed

#107

I've seen this called "pointing and calling" [1], Japan's train drivers use the technique to force themselves to perform actions and take notice of the current environment. I personally took it to heart, it's a good system for forcing a cache miss in the brain - make sure you're on "database production" or "database localhost" etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling

>> I personally took it to heart, it's a good system for forcing a cache miss in the brain - make sure you're on "database production" or "database localhost" etc. Yeah, ouch. More ouch if it's the other way around- you delete the test database and it's not the test database. (long story)

I worked at a company where someone deleted the production database by accident and the snapshot mechanism hadn't been working AND the alerting for the snapshot mechanism was also broken. Fortunately someone had taken a snapshot manually some weeks prior and they were able to restore from that and lose relatively little data (it was a startup, so one database was a big deal, but weeks worth of data was not such a big deal).

Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed

#108
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've seen this called "pointing and calling" [1], Japan's train drivers use the technique to force themselves to perform actions and take notice of the current environment. The concept makes sense, though I don't quite fully get how to translate it to other contexts besides train driving where unexpected and unpredictable events come up all the time. Let's say you're driving a car and the traffic light turns red. D…

I believe the trick is to anticipate failure, and call out the normal thing instead. So you’d always slow down at every light, and only speed back up after calling out green. This is what all drivers are actually supposed to do, although I fully realise nobody practically does that, which is why we get so many automobile accidents all the time.

Only speed back up after calling out green and intersection clear.

I don't necessarily always do that, and don't make audible calls, but when driving at night or in inclement weather, I try to make extra effort to check for unexpected cross traffic.

Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed

#109
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch and listen to pilots as they complete checklists. They point and callout each item, switch setting, etc.

And pilots will even callout that their action had the desired effect: "Flaps up selected" "Flaps are indicating up" There's a lot to learn from the way airplanes are engineered and operated.

And then there's the interactions with the Air Traffic Control system: flight plans, Standard Approaches, charts, etc. It's very impressive.

Re: Type in the exact number of machines to proceed

#110
post #57
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've seen this called "pointing and calling" [1], Japan's train drivers use the technique to force themselves to perform actions and take notice of the current environment. The concept makes sense, though I don't quite fully get how to translate it to other contexts besides train driving where unexpected and unpredictable events come up all the time. Let's say you're driving a car and the traffic light turns red. D…

In high school, I drove a 1993 Toyota Tercel. It was a functional, reliable car, but it had no keyfob to lock the doors remotely. Getting out of your car, pressing the lock button on the inside of the driver's side door, and shutting the door are all routine, boring actions that make it easy to forget your keys inside the car. The keys can go in all kinds of places as you climb out of the car - jacket pocket, pants p…

I'm always using the "phone keys cigarettes money" mantra together with patting on my pockets before opening any outside door.
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