AA5B
@AA5B@lemmy.world
- Comment on 10% of Firefox crashes are caused by bitflips 7 hours ago:
I wonder if ai can actually help here. As the industry abandons consumer hardware in favor of datacenter equipment to profit from the ai bubble, perhaps ecc memory will become cheaper
- Comment on I was on social media before web browsers existed. I am Legion. 7 hours ago:
I remember the rise and fall of icq. I laughed from the real internet as you kids played, knowing it was a fad wouldn’t last, not worth taking seriously.
I played online before the internet, when it was scattered individuals, or when you needed access to separate telenet and arpanet, when you could keep in your head all the accessible nodes
Now get off my lawn
- Comment on As Moon interest heats up, two companies unveil plans for a lunar "harvester" 7 hours ago:
For sure, any longer term presence outside orbit will hinge on finding resources. And i don’t think it even matters if we’re able to harvest helium-3 or something that might be worth bringing back, but to be able to use enough resources to make it affordable. Every pound lifted from earth to outside orbit will always be too expensive and local resources much much more affordable. While it starts with shelter and radiation shielding (ie live underground), we’ll need to generate bulk consumables like water, oxygen, fuel, and we’ll need to grow at least some of our own food
But we don’t even know if we can live on the moon. Microgravity has bad long term health effects such that we really don’t want to spend more than a year there. Does the moon have enough gravity to be substantially better?
If we do establish a larger off earth presence, we’ll have to compromise on enough gravity for long term health and livability vs as little gravity as necessary to keep space accessible
- Comment on As Moon interest heats up, two companies unveil plans for a lunar "harvester" 23 hours ago:
I agree that large colonies are an enticing science fiction image that doesn’t look likely.
But we’ve proven that we can support an “international space station” to maintain a continuous scientific presence in space. A great next step is the same but on the moon. It seems quite possible with relatively little technical development. This is desirable to advance our technology, our science, our society, to use our imagination to look forward , to have hope, to see a positive future for humanity.
Here’s the problem with fixing local problems first: you can’t. You either stagnate, looking within, looking behind, looking down, and still have the same local problems or you take a portion of your civilizations product and also move everyone forward.
Here’s the problem with using those resources: it’s not enough to matter. The space program is a tiny percentage of the government budget, almost invisible next to what is needed to fix our problems. If you want to fix our local problems, it starts with social justice, environmental justice, safety nets, quality of life and most importantly equity in taxes, and greatly reduced income inequity. Elon musk’s wealth will soon be 40x NASA’s entire annual budget yet is barely taxed
- Comment on It's all SO simple! 1 day ago:
True, it doesn’t have the side effect of continuous hunger, feeling deprived, constant cravings, until you explode with binge eating. That would never happen
- Comment on BYD Reveals the ‘World’s Longest-Range EV’ as American Auto Industry Struggles to Keep Pace 1 day ago:
Fast chargers aren’t the only option
- Tesla already has fast chargers with megapack, and with solar. There are fast chargers that don’t impact the grid much
- we definitely need to build out destination chargers. Charging at work is no different from at home, except for when. And build out of solar can make peak energy available just when needed
- there are proposed answers such as streetlight chargers
Obviously we don’t have an answer yet, haven’t built out the infrastructure, but we do have options
- Comment on Americans: How the hell do you meet new people or get into relationships after college? 1 day ago:
I’ve been wondering that too. There are always co-workers but none I really connect to. Lots of parents but now that kids are grown there’s nothing in common.
Now I’ve really gotten into cooking but my kids are in college and I have no one to cook for. Who’s hungry?
- Comment on Can some please explain to me why it is that your health insurance can deny you medication, even if your doctor says you need it? 2 days ago:
The is healthcare system is clearly a disaster but …. Since those drugs are not approved treatment for a health issue you have (your diabetes is under control), they have. Bit of an excuse. The real reason of course is that most of the population is overweight so they can’t afford to pay for everyone who needs it.
Can I suggest other strategies that may help you lose weight?
When I was planning to have kids I successfully lost over 100 pounds and kept it off for a decade! For me the key factors were doing it with my wife so we kept each other on track and food tracking. We joined weight watchers but it was the food tracking that made the difference for me and there’s many ways to do that. Even when you think you’re doing well you probably consume a lot more calories than you think, and it adds up. Food tracking can highlight this, identify where to make more effort. On the other side of things, losing weight requires following good habits over time: food tracking also helps you stay on track over time but this is also where peer pressure from someone else can really help.
Of course I’ve gained it all back now that my kids are in college but I did pretty well for their entire childhood, which was my motivation. I currently may have better nutritional habits than I did back then but I’m clearly way off in portion size and calories consumed
- Comment on BYD Reveals the ‘World’s Longest-Range EV’ as American Auto Industry Struggles to Keep Pace 2 days ago:
I’ve read the same but am skeptical because no one ever pulls out any numbers. I know every country does that same thing to some extent so just saying they do it doesn’t mean anything.
I’ll believe it when I see actual data
It’s also not necessary for the current reality to have happened. Following the K.I.S.S. principal, the current Chinese car industry is explainable by consistent government policy over many years, out in the open, so why are we blaming it on things we don’t o ow or don’t see? I’m not saying it’s not there, just that we’d be in the same boat whether it is or not
- Comment on xkcd #3214: Electric Vehicles 2 days ago:
I’m pretty sure maintenance still is a bottleneck. I did have to get warranty work done and the wait was significantly longer than I’ve waited for warranty work on traditional cars. I haven’t read much about it in the last year or though, so who knows.
But do you even have to goto Tesla? Certainly the drivetrain and any software is highly proprietary but it also rarely needs attention. The shop I use for inspections claims they can do wear items like tires, brakes, suspension
Body work on the other hand is probably a nightmare. Actually it’s a nightmare for traditional vehicles and can only be longer for Tesla based on lack of parts inventory
- Comment on BYD Reveals the ‘World’s Longest-Range EV’ as American Auto Industry Struggles to Keep Pace 2 days ago:
Everyone has different definition of lifetime and very few keep theirs 40 years
I personally buy new and keep it for its lifetime, as defined by “needing more work than its value “. That has worked out to be 12-15 years for ICE cars. For an EV I’m reasonably confident will last longer and the vehicle Will still have a small amount of resale value based on batteries degrade rather than stop
Also I’ve seen quite a few articles like
- Comment on BYD Reveals the ‘World’s Longest-Range EV’ as American Auto Industry Struggles to Keep Pace 2 days ago:
wouldn’t necessarily say that from what’s visible outside the information confines of the CCP is cheating.
I do have to say I’m skeptical of all the claims that they are subsidizing industry and this is a problem. They are. In the open. And that’s normal. I have yet to read a convincing story that they are doing this enough to be substantially different from every other country.
Chinese companies have a deserved reputation for industrial espionage and not respecting intellectual property. I haven’t read complaints recently so does that mean they’ve cleaned up their act?
- Comment on BYD Reveals the ‘World’s Longest-Range EV’ as American Auto Industry Struggles to Keep Pace 2 days ago:
Maybe, but there’s a lot more chance to solve it 20 years out
More importantly, generating and transmitting more power is not the only option. It is for ai since a datacenter needs huge power continuously. However EVs need much smaller amounts of power intermittently. If I plug in overnight, I don’t care when it charges or how fast as long as it’s done by morning. Not everyone does that at the same time, and we ought to be able to create a “smart” solution to coordinate this and minimize the impact
EV potentially could coordinate with the grid so we don’t need much or any additional power but just use it at different times
- Comment on BYD Reveals the ‘World’s Longest-Range EV’ as American Auto Industry Struggles to Keep Pace 2 days ago:
I don’t think anyone is denying Chinese aggressive intent here, just our response. Give us a response where we can get onboard, a response that is more legitimate than their approach, and wecan all be mad at China.
Or think of it this way. We all agree on all the ways China are the bad guys, but our behavior is making them look like the good guys. wtf are we doing?
- Comment on BYD Reveals the ‘World’s Longest-Range EV’ as American Auto Industry Struggles to Keep Pace 2 days ago:
While I’m positive they are playing dirty in many ways, the fundamental difference is they saw a long term transition, welcomed it, guided it. Whereas us sees a long term transition, pulls our head into our shell, holds on tighter to old ways of doing things, keeps focussing shorter and shorter term. Whatever China may be doing to “cheat”, it really seems like this is mostly self-inflicted
- Comment on BYD Reveals the ‘World’s Longest-Range EV’ as American Auto Industry Struggles to Keep Pace 2 days ago:
Not practical, no one wants it.
People are already bitching and moaning about how hard it is to build out charging, when it’s based on existing electric system that’s is already everywhere. You really think it’s at all practical to build out everywhere a network of station width a large inventory of one ton batteries to fit every age of every vehicle in every location no matter how rural? You want to hold battery technology stagnant to support this? You want to lose the efficiency and reliability benefits of structural batteries.
The reality is current batteries already last longer than the first owner keeps a vehicle and newer ones easily exceed lifespan of ice vehicles. The reality is charging is already more convenient that battery swapping. The reality is building out chargers is much easier than any other infrastructure
- Comment on BYD Reveals the ‘World’s Longest-Range EV’ as American Auto Industry Struggles to Keep Pace 2 days ago:
grid systems couldn’t handle a complete EV swap by 2035. Look at the issues these stupid ai server farms
While we’re so stagnant it would be a challenge, do you not see the difference between
- a known, gradual transition with a 20 year timeframe (10 to end ice production + 10 for most existing to age out)
- an immediate demand for for large amounts of power for a bubble technology that didn’t exist a couple years ago
- Comment on BYD Reveals the ‘World’s Longest-Range EV’ as American Auto Industry Struggles to Keep Pace 2 days ago:
If it has to be forced, then it probably isn’t a good idea
It’s not like people want to do that for shits and giggles.
A different perspective is the market shift is inevitable. We can work with it to make the transition smooth, to help existing manufacturers retool, to more quickly build out the necessary infrastructure, ensuring least disruption and existing manufacturers are still in business. Or we can let the market be disrupted by new companies predominantly in other countries. The transition will be longer and rougher as jobs are lost, infrastructure lags, existing manufacturers cling to old technology, until eventually that entire industrial base collapses
Or of course there’s the perspective of acknowledging long term climate trends and understand the responsibility to our children, our society, our descendants, to make small steps to mitigate the harm we do them
- Comment on BYD Reveals the ‘World’s Longest-Range EV’ as American Auto Industry Struggles to Keep Pace 2 days ago:
Someone should tell them “struggle to keep pace” is different “abandoning the attempt”
- Comment on (serious) What would we be losing in a world where most people didn't own a car? Please read the OP before posting. 2 days ago:
Maybe not as much as you think, but they’d have to reorganize for sure. Every tiny village could have a walkable center if they wanted to, so even in rural areas, you might have a decent part of the population living where cars are less necessary
- Comment on (serious) What would we be losing in a world where most people didn't own a car? Please read the OP before posting. 2 days ago:
On the other hand, Yosemite is an example where I believe they banned cars
- Comment on (serious) What would we be losing in a world where most people didn't own a car? Please read the OP before posting. 2 days ago:
Effing Pennsylvania is a state to avoid then. I don’t know whether they’ve changed anything but I did that a few years back and they said they weren’t allowed to sell me more than two sixpacks. While I don’t actually drink much,beer stores well for weeks to months and I had found a brewery I liked but haven’t been to since
- Comment on (serious) What would we be losing in a world where most people didn't own a car? Please read the OP before posting. 2 days ago:
There is no plausible situation where over 50% of people willingly decide to: … 2) live in a suburb or rural area
I’ve seen urbanism streamers claim that even in the US, we’re above 70% living in urban and suburban areas dense enough that transit makes sense. It is possible we could make transit useful for most of the population. We won’t. But we could
- Comment on (serious) What would we be losing in a world where most people didn't own a car? Please read the OP before posting. 2 days ago:
NL’s national rail company became essentially non-operational
Don’t forget the Internet and ability for some of us to work from home, which is a relatively recent change. If I depended on rail service and there was an outage, it would be no big deal since I can work from home
- Comment on (serious) What would we be losing in a world where most people didn't own a car? Please read the OP before posting. 2 days ago:
Highly depend on where you live. In the US especially, we had a lot of post-wwii growth designed around cars so a lot of places make anything else a challenge.
Cars may represent freedom and self determination, but can seem awfully limiting in a city with good walkability and transit, even in the US. When I lived in Boston, it was so much more freeing to walk out my front door and have the entire city accessible. More than that, since Acela and the airport were also accessible.
I never gave up my car though, between things like shopping and visiting people outside the city. But now that we have options like delivery, ride share, e-bikes, and hourly car rentals, those would be much easier.
But now I live in a suburb, and even here I walk a lot more than typical Americans. The key is older towns built out before cars. I live in the first ring of single family houses less than a mile from the town center. We have a “Main Street” shopping and restaurant area, a common, and train station. There’s also a trail Along the River and a rail trail through town that are easily accessible. Over pandemic my family started a tradition where every weekend we walked down to our favorite Pakistani restaurant, grabbed takeout, and ate dinner on benches on the town common.
- Comment on xkcd #3214: Electric Vehicles 2 days ago:
Too true
- Comment on xkcd #3214: Electric Vehicles 2 days ago:
The most hopeful part about those other chemistries is we already have nmc demonstrated to last beyond the average life expectancy of a vehicle…. And most of those newer chemistries should last significantly longer
- Comment on As Moon interest heats up, two companies unveil plans for a lunar "harvester" 3 days ago:
I don’t know whether that is currently a bottleneck or will be any time soon. I only know we’re “20 years away” from using it regularly, just like we have been my entire life
- Comment on As Moon interest heats up, two companies unveil plans for a lunar "harvester" 3 days ago:
NASA as a whole is a tiny fraction of the federal budget but has always generated outsized contributions to humanity. It’s an easy argument that money spent on nasa is money earned elsewhere. It’s a good investment
SpaceX has revolutionized space launches and I don’t believe that is government supported at all. It does fill government launch contracts but more cheaply than they could have done so themselves, and reliably enough to capture most of the world’s market. This does not add to the deficit and the early investments have been handsomely rewarded
Both SpaceX and blue origin, as well as other new generation space companies have been much much cheaper than old style projects. Just look at Artemis for example. Huge developments costs, continually More expensive, and $1B-$2B per launch. Yet I believe the total nasa funding for the entire starship program is around not like $2B. That is a very good use of our money
- Comment on As Moon interest heats up, two companies unveil plans for a lunar "harvester" 3 days ago:
For sure it was over-hyped and jumping the gun on what’s possible. But if we ever do live off earth, mars is more likely than the moon
Mars is also an inspirational challenge - doing something that has never been possible. Going to the moon is something we already could to half a century ago. What’s the point of doing that again?
Assuming we do go to the moon, it had better be noticeably more than what we did 50 years ago. Personally I’m looking for a permanent moon station, similar to what ISS did for human presence in orbit