Cocodapuf
@Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
- Comment on xkcd #3151: Window Screen 1 day ago:
If home improvement and DIY were actual categories for the Nobel Prize, i’d be running out of places to put all my Nobel prizes.
I’d probably have to put in a new shelf. Maybe use some nice cherry planks…
- Comment on Bezos plan for solar powered datacenters is out of this world… literally 3 days ago:
Well that’s all true, we don’t actually know what the real filters are, are we already past them, or are they still ahead of us? Certainly people have speculated about this for a long time, and I won’t pretend to have any more real answers than anyone else. But honestly, I’d have a hard time believing that the really rare event, that the great filter lays somewhere between the development of the brain and the development of the kind of intelligence humans have. It just seems like a relatively small jump (relative to all the other hurdles) between many of the smarter animals on earth and human beings. For example, many species use tools a whole lot actually. Only a few other species actually make tools or alter them to a large degree, but you know, give it 10 million years and see if that changes. Likewise, many species have languages, some species even give themselves names, so they can intentionally address other individuals in their social group.
If you don’t mind a bit of total speculation on my part, in my opinion, the explanation to the Fermi paradox is actually pretty simple, there really is no paradox. Intelligent life is probably relatively common in the universe, the reason we don’t see aliens all over the place is that intelligent life thrives too well for that. Once a species is capable of traveling other stars, it’s just a matter of time before they settle most of their galaxy, like within a million years (which is very quick on evolutionary scales). We’re just the first intelligent life in this galaxy, we can assume this because if there were others, they’d already have colonies right here on earth, because it’s a great planet.
- Comment on Bezos plan for solar powered datacenters is out of this world… literally 3 days ago:
Well, I’m not sure you’ve considered the time-frames involved in that concern. We have a whole lot of time before the sun goes out on us. It took Earth about 2 billion years to develop multicellular life. It then took another 2.5 b before we got vertebrates. That was the hard part though and it’s done, I don’t think there’s any undoing it. There aren’t many things that could wipe out all forms of vertebrates on earth, so I’m confident that would be as far back as the planet could reasonably be set back by any disaster.
Just 60 million years ago, mammals were not at all a dominant form of life, yet that’s all it took for early rodent-like mammals to evolve into human beings (as well as all the other mammals we know today). So based on that timeline, if all human life on the planet were wiped out tomorrow, I’d estimate (pessimistically) it would take less than another 200 million years before another species gained a similar level of intelligence and began a new era of civilization (and perhaps as little as 10 m years, as some species are already quite intelligent). In fact, if the next species screws up, and gets themselves killed, I expect earth will get another go at it in another 10–200 million years, over and over again.
On the other side of the equation, the sun will expand into a red giant and consume the earth in about 5 billion years. That gives us a whole lot of tries to get it right.
- Comment on xkcd #3150: Ping 5 days ago:
A reminder that all packets are delivered on a “best effort” basis, and some packets will be simply dropped en route.
- Comment on Steam is now blocking NSFW updates for published adult-only games, according to a raunchy RPG developer 5 days ago:
Uh, I think it’s called the world wide Web.
I mean, I’m joking, but I do remember buying games directly from a developers website, that’s a thing that used to happen.
- Comment on Life imitates art 6 days ago:
I would have if I hadn’t gleaned the premise instantly as soon as I saw the logo.
- Comment on Life imitates art 6 days ago:
I mean, as it’s made by ubisoft, it would be pretty funny if they leaned heavily into the evil Abstergo storyline.
- Comment on xkcd #3148: 100% All Achievements 1 week ago:
I think that’s what most people do, they get their piece of paper.
A 4.0 GPA is nice, but a bachelor’s is a bachelor’s.
- Comment on Enthusiasts bond twelve 56K modems together to set dial-up broadband records — a dozen screeching boxes achieve record 668 kbps download speeds 1 week ago:
I hate to be that guy, but… Is it time to get DSL?
- Comment on A sausage is meat in an intestinal casing so when you have anal sex with someone you turn them into a you sausage. 1 week ago:
To not post this?
- Comment on 'Windmill': China tests world’s first megawatt-level airship to capture high winds 1 week ago:
Yeah, I get how that’s their intended use, I’m just saying I have my doubts about that business model. If this is their pitch, I don’t think they’re gonna sell many.
The thing is, they will be expensive. And it’s not an expensive service, it’s an expensive product. A state or a nation will have to buy a bunch of these, likely for hundreds of thousands each. And then just sit on them millions of dollars worth of energy infrastructure just sitting around not generating energy… Then when it’s time for them to be deployed you have a whole bunch of government workers saying “uh, I’ve never set one of these up, where’s the user manual?”
If instead you had them in regular use, when it comes time to deploy them in an emergency, you’d have people who actually know how to use them. Plus you could be generating power with them wherever extra power might be needed.
- Comment on xkcd #3146: Fantastic Four 2 weeks ago:
Hah, nerd puns…
- Comment on 'Windmill': China tests world’s first megawatt-level airship to capture high winds 2 weeks ago:
I did catch that, I was just pointing out there are additional problems with the statement as well.
- Comment on 'Windmill': China tests world’s first megawatt-level airship to capture high winds 2 weeks ago:
Hmm interesting. I don’t see how it could be economical as an emergency-only power source. To build them and store them for occasional use seems pretty unappealing. Surely if you had them, you’d use them to generate electricity/passive income.
You could think of them as easily mobile power systems, available to respond to emergencies, but used wherever is convenient the rest of the time.
So yeah, they’ll still be a hazard for air traffic, but luckily we do have an established solution for that, the blinking red light. Also, controlled airspace around airfields.
- Comment on 'Windmill': China tests world’s first megawatt-level airship to capture high winds 2 weeks ago:
Would it be possible to use heat to get it to float, instead of helium? Heat it up with electricity.
Sure, that would be possible. The generators themselves will produce a fair amount of heat. It’s also going to have a fair amount of passive lift, as it’s essentially a kite. So simply being able to maintain a rigid shape and airfoil will do a lot to produce the desired lift.
I have to wonder though, how much the power transmission lines weigh, that seems like a serious limiting factor on maximum attainable altitude.
The transmission line question is interesting though, there’s a complex optimization calculation there. Traditionally with wind, larger turbines are more efficient. As you increase the turbine blade size, the area that the blades cover (and thus power generation potential) increases more than the mass of the blades do. So the result is (generally speaking) a larger wind turbine is more efficient than a smaller one. But now factor in the transmission line… The larger the turbine the more power it generates AND the thicker (and heavier) the transmission line has to be for its entire length. To complicate things more, higher altitudes mean stronger and more reliable wind. So now how do you optimize for turbine size/cable gauge, and cable length/altitude?
It seems tricky, but like perhaps there’s just a right answer, an optimal size.
- Comment on 'Windmill': China tests world’s first megawatt-level airship to capture high winds 2 weeks ago:
So those units didn’t scale right, clearly. But you also can’t possibly call those “high altitudes”. Small planes like cessnas fly at low altitudes, like 5000 ft, a 747 flys at a high altitude, 40,000 ft; 1600 ft is nothing, that’s lower than some buildings.
- Comment on Internet Archive’s big battle with music publishers ends in settlement 2 weeks ago:
I think I agree with Cory Doctorow’s opinion
I’d say that’s always a good position. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him come out on the wrong side of a topic.
- Comment on Education doesn't increase intelligence by making people memorize things, but by constantly reminding people that they might be wrong. 3 weeks ago:
(not the op) but yeah, I agree with that.
That said, with the example of your mom, it sounds like it could be insecurity as much as it could be a closed mind. Some people really struggle with the idea that others might think they’re dumb, especially their children. So they assert things as fact, because they want to maintain the image that they have all the facts. Especially when kids are bright, some parents will fight tooth and nail to maintain an air of intellectual superiority, to assert intellectual dominance.
It may seem sad, but it’s pretty understandable, relatable even.
- Comment on 'Borderlands 4 is a premium game made for premium gamers' is Randy Pitchford's tone deaf retort to the performance backlash: 'If you're trying to drive a monster truck with a leaf blower's motor, you're going to be disappointed' 3 weeks ago:
people still buy those games full-priced, so…
Wait, does nobody pirate games any more? I don’t think I bought a single game until I turned 25.
- Comment on 'Borderlands 4 is a premium game made for premium gamers' is Randy Pitchford's tone deaf retort to the performance backlash: 'If you're trying to drive a monster truck with a leaf blower's motor, you're going to be disappointed' 3 weeks ago:
Well to me, borderlands 2 was the most fun I’ve had with a shooter since half-life 2 or CoD4. It’s one of the funniest games I’ve ever played as well. I think the writing in general is really top notch (props to Anthony Birch), the characters are memorable, the weapons and abilities are fun. All and all, BL2 really hit the mark in a lot of ways for me.
Borderlands 3 on the other hand, just wasn’t as good. It had a ton of great quality of life improvements, so that was nice. The player abilities were also largely really good, I liked most of the classes. But it had a ton of weaknesses… The level design was pretty awful, the much bigger maps really spread out the action absolutely killed the pacing. The story was pretty dumb, and while the villains were detestable, it was only in the way that all obnoxious teenagers are detestable. And the greatest sin, the loot was a mess. They actually threw way too many guns at you, so many that you never really get a chance to enjoy any of them. And way too many of them were uniques (with mysterious effects they never bother to explain).
- Comment on Roku wants you to see a lot more AI-generated ads 3 weeks ago:
Have they? Is Roku dominant in this market?
- Comment on What would stop you from switching to a flip phone (or dumbphone) in 2025? 3 weeks ago:
I might switch to a flip phone if it had gps and maps.
That’s simply the killer app for smart phones, at this point it’s a necessary part of my life. Without it I need a separate device just for that, and that device is actually less useful.
- Comment on This game is fantastic. 3 weeks ago:
A long time back I got this game for free from the epic game store, it totally blew my mind. The world this game exists in is so well developed, I think the setting is my favorite character. I loved the panopticon, I loved offices covered in insane sticky notes, I of course loved the ashtray maze, oh my God that was freaking awesome.
This game is something special.
- Comment on xkcd #3141: Mantle Model 3 weeks ago:
All atoms are multiple particles at quantum scales, even a single hydrogen atom is comprised of four.
And I imagine we don’t have great methods for manipulating subatomic particles… Quarks and such don’t have magnetic charges, they’re probably hard to control as well as probably unstable on their own. So as a result I’d wager it’s hard to run experiments with those.
- Comment on xkcd #3141: Mantle Model 3 weeks ago:
Also also: this isn’t just photons, everything is like this. It may not align with how we observe things on a microscopic scale, but this is fundamentally how the universe works.
Wow, I think this answered my first before I asked it. So yeah, I was wondering about that double slit experiment, I’ve seen it demonstrated with photons and visible light, but do the principles demonstrated by the experiment actually apply to other particles? In the right environments, do atoms behave similarly?
- Comment on Roku wants you to see a lot more AI-generated ads 3 weeks ago:
I’m about to be seeing a lot less Roku…
They know they’re entirely replaceable right? Like the Amazon fire tv, apple tv, Chromecast… Making their platform shittier really shouldn’t be their top priority if they want to stay in business.
- Comment on Uh Oh: Nintendo Just Landed A ‘Summoning’ And ‘Battling’ Patent 3 weeks ago:
I think palworld needs to start filling for ridiculous patents, go on the offensive.
- Comment on 3 weeks ago:
In all fairness, that is one of the strong use cases for computers in general. Doing simple yet tedious tasks accurately. When looking over 50 names checking for a particular letter, humans get bored. We actually aren’t great at that sort of task. I think simply calling this ineptitude both misses the point and under appreciates the reality of being human.
Alas, it is easier to call someone dumb than to try to understand them.
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 4 weeks ago:
It’s those skateboards that done it, and the comic books the hooligans are readin. And all them lady folk wearin trousers! It’s the devil I tells ya!
- Comment on RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings. 4 weeks ago:
God damnit Bobby…