cynar

@cynar@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Thousands of UK farmers protest against inheritance tax hike⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Because that leads to a snowballing effect. Money begets money. Over generations, it gets sucked into an ever smaller pool of people. This (among other things) led to serfdom etc in the Middle Ages. We only broke out of that due to the Black Death.

  We need a way to allow money to spread back to the general populous. An inheritance tax is a crude, but effective, way to do that.

  How would you go about achieving this?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Where can I buy a mosquito laser system?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  It used a microphone of IR laser. Your eye couldn’t see it, nor focus it properly. However, it had just enough power to overheat and damage the mosquito wings.

  I believe the issue was with the targeting. It could don’t, but not cheap enough for the mass deployment they intended. Mosquito nets were far more effective, once cost was accounted for.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The problem is that nuclear reactors can’t be built fast. We’ve also lost a lot of the expertise to age and retirement.

  Nuclear should have been a major factor in dealing with climate change. Unfortunately, we no longer have time for it to take up the slack. It will need to catch up with other renewable energy sources, we can’t wait for it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon questions our energy sector⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Particularly since coal power stations emit FAR more radioactive material, routinely, than most nuclear “leaks”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Scientists Want to Teleport a Whole Human. A Quantum Breakthrough Could Make It Reality.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Complete BS article.

  Quantum teleportation is very different from scifi teleportation.

  Quantum teleportation is a way to bypass the heisenburg uncertainty principal. You take a particle and entangle it (in a special way) with a carrier particle. You then send the carrier (generally a photon) to another particle of the same type as the first. When they interact, most of the properties of the first particle are transferred to the second.

  This is extremely useful for things like quantum computing, but has no real path to teleporting a human.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it okay to take drugs to make yourself a better person? Does it make a difference if "better" is mental or if it's physical?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  In short, yes, but it has to be carefully controlled, and on your terms.

  I have adhd, I regularly take medication for it. It has a significant effect on my personality. I takes away the “excited labrador puppy” energy, which is replaced with a more calm and considerate version of me.

  It’s worth noting that this change is something I wanted. The improvements for others is a nice side benefit. It’s also done with medical supervision.

  It’s also worth noting that the change does become more permanent. Even when unmedicated, I can mode switch far more easily than before. My brain understands the new state better and so can recreate it, even without chemical support.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is space 2 dimensional?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s a combination of both, I believe.

  The initial conditions had a definite rotational bias. This is preserved in the current orbital plane and direction.

  On top of that, anything massively off that plane is liable to hit or interact with the material in the plane, given enough time. It will be flung around, eventually either out of the system or into the plane.

  Stuff orbiting relatively close to the plane will have a biased pull towards the “average” plane. This will slowly flatten the orbits out.

  All these processes take a lot of time. The solar system, in general, has had enough time to settle. The ort cloud and other outer bodies are still quite chaotic. We see a lot more off plane than within the traditional solar system. They experience the latter effects far less, and so take longer to equalise. They still have a bias towards the initial spin however.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨From a cyber security aspect how hazardous are random mini PCs from Ali Express/Amazon if you are starting with a fresh OS install?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It depends on your exposure profile.

  Installing malware and bloatware into an OS is relatively easy. Doing the same to a bios is doable, but a LOT harder.

  If you’re after a mini PC for home use or even a small business, wiping the os is likely fine. The concern would mostly kick in with larger organisations or government level targets.

  It’s a question of how many man hours of effort hacking you is worth. Even if they are compromised, they are unlikely to risk outing the breach for anything less than a high value target.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why isn't apple a popular ice cream flavor?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I suspect it’s related to the difficulty in processing. Kiwi fruit are quite small and non-trivial to extract the flesh from. This would make it more expensive to extract.

  This is less of an issue now that a few decades back. However, most people are quite conservative on their juice choices. Low sales still mean higher cost, which reduces sales.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do phone manufacturers use in-display fingerprint readers instead of fingerprint readers on the power button?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It became a big thing on android just before covid happened. Unfortunately, masks completely confused it.

  I currently have both active on my phone, it’s about 50/50 which unlocks it first. I tend to unlock my phone as I bring it out of my pocket via fingerprint. If that fails, then face ID kicks in.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fears for patient safety as GPs use ChatGPT to diagnose and treat illness⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s depends purely on how it’s used. Used blindly, and yes, it would be a serious issue. It should also not be used as a replacement for doctors.

  However, if they could routinely put symptoms into an AI, and have it flag potential conditions, that would be powerful. The doctor would still be needed to sanity check the results and implement things. If it caught rare conditions or early signs of serious ones, that would be a big deal.

  AI excels at pattern matching. Letting doctors use it to do that efficiently, to work beyond there current knowledge base is quite a positive use of AI.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bluetooth 6.0 adds centimeter-level accuracy for device tracking — upgraded version also improves device pairing⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Of course not, that would be immoral. They’ll track trollies and baskets, then tag it to the till and your loyalty card. It would be a lot more consistent, and harder to dodge.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bluetooth 6.0 adds centimeter-level accuracy for device tracking — upgraded version also improves device pairing⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I can see multiple uses for the tech. Unfortunately, many are a but dystopian, but some are legitimately useful.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Don't look now⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  For those confused, it’s worth noting the difference between observed as a layman concept and as a quantum mechanical one.

  In QM, to observed is to couple the observer to the “system” being observed. Think of it like “observing” your neighbour, over a fence using a BB gun. When you hit flesh, you know where your neighbour is. Unfortunately, the system has now been fundamentally changed. In a classical system, you could turn down the power, until your neighbour doesn’t notice the hits. Unfortunately, QM imposes fundamental limits on your measurements (heisenburg and his uncertainty principal). In order to observe your neighbour accurately, you need to hit them hard enough that the will also feel it and react differently.

  QM behaves in a similar way. Initially, the system is just a single particle, and is not very restrained. This allows it to behave in a very wave like manner. When you observe it, the system now includes the whole observation system, as this coupling propagates, more and more atoms etc get linked. The various restraints cause an effect called decoherence. The system behaves ever more like a classical physical system.

  In short, a quantum mechanical “observer” is less sneaky watching, and more hosing down with a machine gun and watching the ricochets.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come it seems that there are little to no serial killers who are women in the modern age? Are they not caught or is it just the men that make the news?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This also massively effects the risk/reward balance. Ultimately, a woman’s ability to have children is limited by her biology. The limit on men is FAR higher.

  For women, once they hit the resource requirements to support 2 dozen children, there was relatively little real gain. A successful man could (in theory) have hundreds of children. Genghis khan being the most egregious example. Taking large risks for large gains makes sense for men, in a way that just doesn’t for women.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come it seems that there are little to no serial killers who are women in the modern age? Are they not caught or is it just the men that make the news?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Women were functionally disabled by having children, spending a significant amount of time either pregnant, or breastfeeding. This makes them the natural parent to focus on raising children. Also, in nature, losing 1 parent has a relatively minor drop in survival chances compared to losing 2.

  This ends up with men being more “disposable” than women. If 1 group needs to flee with the children, while the other holds off an attack, it’s most sensible for the men to defend. The women would provide a final line of defence.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Government should “urgently” legalise e-scooters says shared transport charity - says serious safety incidents are rare⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It stops a lot of people. Unfortunately, they are also the ones who would actually follow the rules. This just leaves the rule breakers and idiots, giving everyone else a bad name.

  I would personally love a micro mobility option. An option between walking and driving my van somewhere would be extremely useful.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do to if I survive a nuclear blast in my city?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The frustrating thing is that masks don’t protect you particularly well. What they do is protect others from any infection you are carrying. This is why it was more important to provide them to those interacting with infected or vulnerable people. It limited the risk of spreading it further.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨brewing tea with space vacuum?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  In short, no.

  The water needs to he hot enough to extract the optimal flavour from the tea fast enough. If you leave it longer, the bitter, oil based flavours start to come out excessively.

  This was actually a noted problem for Victorian (British) explorers. They couldn’t brew a proper cup of (black) tea up a mountain! I believe there were also patents issued, at the time, for tea brewing pressure vessels!

  Basically, you want the water as hot as possible, but not so hot it scolds the leaf. Black tea doesn’t scold (at normal water temperatures), so is brewed at 95°C+. Green tea scolds at around 80, so needs cooler water. White tea is even lower, again. By around 60°C your into stewing temperatures. You’ll get a lot more oils compared to flavour. You want to have your tea leaves out by this point.

  You also want to avoid agitating the leaves. Stiring, or squeezing the leaves tends to ruin the flavour. You know you’ve completely F’ed up a cup of tea if it has an oily scum floating on the top.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I get rid of my dead name in iPadOS settings?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not generally. It generally refers to first names more than surnames. It also strongly implies that you actively want to kill the name off, not just move to the new one. It’s changing names with prejudice against the old one.

  Refering to someone by their maiden name is generally not considered insulting. Dead naming someone (after you’re aware) is extremely insulting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Server for a boat⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  HDDs can be made tolerant to it. Constant rotation still puts significant extra strain on the bearings, when spinning however. The drive will likely fail faster than an SSD.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Server for a boat⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Your best bet might be to use a laptop as the basis. They are already designed with power efficiency in mind, and you won’t need an external screen and keyboard for local problem solving.

  I would also consider having a raspberry pi 3 or similar as a companion. Services that must be up all the time run on the pi (e.g. network admin). The main computer only gets kicked out of sleep mode when required. The pi 3 needs less power than the newer pis, while still having enough computing power to not lag unless pushed hard.

  I definitely agree with SSDs. HDDs don’t do well when rotated when running. Boats are less than a stable platform.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Caption this.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The soul of the recently deceased can be contained using high voltages. Care should, however, be taken with grounding, to avoid accidental soul transfer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨BLOOD IS BLOOD⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I have a relative who has an unfortunate condition that causes internal bleeding. They’ve had enough blood transfusions that their antibodies are completely haywire.

  Multiple times, doctors have not listened to their protests, and given them O-. They turn an impressive shade of yellow (among other, more serious, issues).

  Last I heard, there were 2 compatible donors known, 1 in a different country. Thankfully, you can store blood longer term. It’s just not cost efficient to do in bulk. They have their own little stockpile of blood at their local hospital (mostly self donated).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The 1950s were wild...⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That method is still mostly recommended, though mostly for younger children/babies. The Heimlich maneuver is difficult to perform on a small body. You either over squeeze, and cause harm, or are too tentative, and so not helping.

  With babies, you hold them lying on your forearm, facing downwards, and slap (open handed) hard. I’ve only seen it used once, but it worked perfectly then.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The sun's magnetic field is about to flip. Here's what to expect.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We get a maxima in solar storm activity. This can cause solar flares that can knock out satellites. They can even mess with power transmission lines, if they hit hard enough.

  So it won’t affect you, if you don’t use power, or data via satellite.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The RTS genre will never be mainstream unless you change it until it's 'no longer the kind of RTS that I want to play,' says Crate Entertainment CEO⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the key difference is that it’s “easier” to apply a meta to a RTS game. In shooters, the meta often involves quick reflex decisions, where to hide, where to shoot etc. This is hard, and requires practice. It also means there is a significant number of players not applying it, or doing so sub-optimally.

  With RTS games, the metas are easier to apply. This means that, in human Vs human games, the newer players often get flattened. It also means that far more complex metas can be developed and applied.

  Shooters tend to back load the difficulty curve. It’s easy to get into them, and not do badly, but hard to do well. RTS games tend to front load the difficulty. You need to get over the initial hump to get “ok” with it. Once over the hump, the curve smooths off and you get good fairly rapidly.

  One of the big differences between nerds and normals is that nerds enjoy punching through that wall. The difficulty is seen as a challenge, not an impediment. Most people want a faster feedback loop on the dopamine reward. FPS type games deliver that extremely well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gender-specific toilets to be required in non-residential buildings in England⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The Tories are desperately trying to find something to appeal to voters. Based off of the recent council elections, they are looking at being devastated in the next general election.

  Unfortunately, when you corner a wounded animal, they tend to lash out at whatever they can, before you kill them. Unfortunately, they can still drag it out till January 2025.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wave Particle Duality⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m massively simplifying, and a lot of the interesting stuff gets lost with that. Unfortunately, when you try and maintain that, the analogy gets so convoluted that it’s useless.

  The actual answer for understanding quantum mechanics is to chunk the maths, again, and again… and again. It also involves working almost entirely in the wave dominant domains. Trying to simplify that down to a quick comment is basically impossible.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wave Particle Duality⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s the Young’s double slit experiment. It proves that light (or electrons, or even small bacteria) is both a particle and a wave.

  There is a quirk of quantum mechanics. When you observe a system, you fundamentally change it. In scientific terms “observe” has a very different meaning to layman usage. This leads to a lot of woo around the topic. In practice, observing is measuring. In quantum mechanics, the measurement system is of the same scale as the system being measured.

  Imagine observing a good train, by bouncing BB bullets off it with a gun. That is classical measurement. You can assume the BBs had no effect on the train.

  Now imagine the same measurement. However you are measuring how a bunch of glass playing cards are balanced in a house of cards. You can tell a lot still, but the BBs will smash it up doing so. This is quantum measurements.

  In the first, the observer is independent of the system. In the second, the observer is a fundamental part of the system, and so can change its way of functioning.