panzagl's comments

On: Lost Doctor Who episodes found

[panzagl]

Risk or benefit?

On: Lego's 0.002mm specification and its implications for manufacturing (2025)

[panzagl]

> My kids have a photographic memory of each of those special pieces and which set they came from.

Read the whole sentence- this is clearly an informal use of 'photographic memory' to indicate that his kids are really into Lego and keep track of details in the way only kids can.

[johnisgood → panzagl]

That is what I was thought, but I thought I was wrong.

On: To understand our fascination with crystals, researchers gave some to chimps

[panzagl]

The study was in Spain- do European countries have the same sort of backlash to this stuff? Is there a province in Spain that has the equivalent to 'the senator from Indiana' that is the stereotypical anti-NSF figure in US politics? Genuinely curious about this.

On: MacBook Neo

[panzagl]

There are schools where close to 100% of the kids are qualified low income.

[tw04 → panzagl]

And I'm guessing those schools have never had Apple products and never will.

It turns out "every school district in America" probably wasn't the target they were shooting for. And frankly even if they do have a cheap replacement plan, schools that are 100% low income aren't spending $500 per student on a laptop, they'll be buying the cheapest chromebooks they can find if they provide any takehome option at all.

[panzagl → tw04]

Well, exactly. A lot of comments in this thread are 'these will take back the education market' when in reality it will just slightly extend it to a slightly lower income demographic than the upper middle class districts that use Apple now.

[bigC5560 → panzagl]

I think most people are talking about individuals purchasing them for college, not necessarily middle/high schools assigning them. Maybe they could get them cheaper in bulk.

On: Overall, the colorectal cancer story is encouraging

[panzagl]

I hate to break it to you, but Millennials aren't a younger generation anymore...

though I'm not sure they drank any more than the 2-3 generations that proceeded them.

[caminante → panzagl]

> but Millennials aren't a younger generation anymore...

Not younger than GenX/Baby Boomer? How?

[cogman10 → caminante]

We millennials are all middle age.

There's roughly 4 to 5 generations alive at any point and the middle generation is going to be considered both old and young by the generations surrounding it.

Once Gen beta starts we'll be officially old.

[caminante → cogman10]

Middle age != Middle generation.

I understand your point. But you're redefining widely accepted usage of these terms. Nobody would call a 30 year old "middle age."

[dexwiz → caminante]

You're right. 8 year olds would call you ancient and 80 year olds would call you a baby. Middle age is relative and unless you're over 45 you don't admit to it, and then hold on to it for too long.

On: How did Windows 95 get permission to put Weezer video 'Buddy Holly' on the CD?

[panzagl]

Probably a US high school, where off-campus lunch is usually reserved for older students.

[JCattheATM → panzagl]

That's fine...never heard high school grounds referred to as a campus before so assumed college.

[jhbadger → JCattheATM]

This is fairly common in warmer climes in the US like California. Rather than have a monolithic high school building with lots of wasted space for hallways they will have a bunch of smaller buildings that students go between outside. They are "campuses" in the same sense that various tech companies call their cluster of buildings a "campus".

[seanmcdirmid → jhbadger]

I remember watching a TV show set in socal (Beverly Hills 90210 maybe?) in the late 80s I think? And them having high schools and even lockers outdoors just blew my mind.

[Conan_Kudo → seanmcdirmid]

The climate makes it work. I wish it was like that for my high school, but alas we just had the stifling building.

On: AI needs to augment rather than replace humans or the workplace is doomed

[panzagl]

> I expected more/better from folks who digest mathematical proofs and Arxiv papers for funsies

Hate to break it to you, but the real hard problems are in the humanities.

[stego-tech → panzagl]

As someone who flunked out of psychology and squeaked by with a D in sociology in college, this hit me right in the bones.

I've come a long way since, but yeah, more of the humanities are sorely needed in tech.

On: 2 in 5 Americans did not read a single book in 2025

[panzagl]

Well, some of the words are duplicates.

On: Stargaze: SpaceX's Space Situational Awareness System

[panzagl]

I think this is more that the offending satellite was at that point the responsibility of the satellite operator, not the launch operator.

On: Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over "heroes"

[panzagl]

Charlie Brown is actually pretty big right now- my gen z daughter has her entire classroom decked out in him and he's over Target, etc. He fits in with the cozy subculture part of gen z.