thevoidzero

@thevoidzero@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨don't be a coward⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not an author, I’m a scientist. So I don’t know what the through process of authors are. But I it probably would take long time to actually find alternative ways to do the things same as us but underwater. The civilization won’t be like us, they would not have same technology, they wouldn’t have same values. Authors are probably trying to capture general population’s interests by making things they understand.

  And do you think “hey I haven’t heard anyone say something to me about earth rotating sun” would have been a good counter argument in the past.

  Water is incredible, we don’t know all the ways we can use it. Sometimes it takes hours to simulate what water does in seconds. Unlike other materials like metals, which are lot easier to predict. And if we’re talking about aliens, don’t even have to think water, it could be something else as flexible as water, while having properties that makes it easier to use.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨don't be a coward⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Does your glasses need electricity to function? Before electronics came and we started making everything need electricity do you think we were not advanced civilization because we only used mechanical power? If you had come that far and suppose had limitations like “can’t use electricity coz I said so”, the development would have stopped? They would have found other ways.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨don't be a coward⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Again, that’s because you are human, and you think your way is the only way.

  To make hydraulics you need metal

  How does your arm work? How does octopus move? You think you can’t make an structure like human arm, or octopus tentacles without metal, and then have a tube going through it in a way the water in it can move them. Look up soft robots. There isn’t just one way to tap into mechanical energy and move things. We did what we found first, improved on it. But thinking that’s the only way just shows narrow mindedness.

  You need to heat metal

  You don’t. You know aluminum used to be so expensive because you couldn’t really extract it from the ores like iron. Wasn’t found in pure form like gold. Then someone found you can use electrolysis to get aluminum from its ore. Then it became so cheap.

  You don’t just heat metal and put it in mold for every type of metal work. In micro scale there are 3d printing methods similar to electroplating, it’s very precise.

  And even if there is a need of heat, how can you say ocean doesn’t have it. A species could find out a way to tap into volcanic vents. Similarly how we use groundwater and rivers. They could use volcanos and geothermal energy. We do many many manufacturing processes under water in a tank containing water. They could make air tank and do things there too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨don't be a coward⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Tech needs electricity and fire is not universal. That is what we use.

  Our brain is lot more complicated and efficient than the computers we make and it uses ions, in liquid media. So something that lives in water could definitely be able to make something that would be able to use similar things to do processing. Water is also really good with doing things, it’s flexible but doesn’t compress/expand like air does. Think about hydraulic systems. You can make them smaller and smaller as your tech progresses. Mechanical things using metals and such would work in water as well. Think about gold and such that can be used for electricity as well, we don’t use it because it’s valuable, but an alien world could have abundance of gold for them to use.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Click here?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Also, for printing configure footnote for links.

  For example in latex, if I’m printing something I redefine \href as \fn so the text is the same but the link is on footnote.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Clever, clever⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And is harmful for people like me, who like to copy paste the pdf into a markdown file write answers there and send a rendered pdf to professors. While I keep the markdowns as my notes for everything. I’d read the text I copied.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's been 30 years and I still can't get over the fact that the French word for "potatoes" is "ground apples." Have The French never had an apple?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Well apple is succulent stem of apple tree. Potato is succulent root of potato plant. Root is stem inside ground. Q.E.D.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Publishers Always Innovating⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not just semantics. PDFs doesn’t even have segmentations like spaces/lines/paragraph. It’s just text drawn at locations the text processor/any other softwares inserted into. Many pdf editor softwares just detect the closeness of the characters to group them together.

  And one step further is you can convert text to path, which basically won’t even have glyph (characters) info and font info, all characters will just be geometric shapes. In that case you can’t even copy the text. OCR is your only choice.

  PDF is for finalizing something and printing/sharing without the ability to edit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Most file types are just a renamed .zip⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There are basically two types of files. Text files and binary files.

  Most information are stored in text files so humans can easily understand it, and it’s easier to find errors, review, parse. But text storage takes more space than binary files. And many complicated softwares normally need multiple text files or data files, many of them just store them together as a zip file so that it’s easier to handle. Examples are .docx,.pptx, etc files in MS Office, try unzipping them and see what they contain. Zipping also has advantages of reducing file sizes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube has found a new way to load ads | AdGuard Blog⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That depends on what video player you use. Of we have control of that, then sure it works. I use mpv to play things, so for radio streams or live videos I can go back/forward as long as it’s cached.

  But if it’s the web service, even though the browser video player has something cached, the player is still controlled by the website. And considering most of the people use chrome/chromium derivatives or YouTube app, it wouldn’t be hard for them to make it so that the player itself will collaborate with whatever they want to do.

  If YouTube was a separate organization it wouldn’t have been the problem it is because of how Google has been taking over all the different parts they need for advertising.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gallileo⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I know, and no one will believe me

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I wish I could screenshot my dreams⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s hard to screenshot dreams because you are in your dreams and have very low conscious control over your real body.

  But you can start the screen recording before you goto sleep so that it’ll be recorded automatically. You can extract frames. Good luck.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I've noticed my boomer parents using Instagram and tik tok. I can't tell you how excited I am for them to kill those platforms like they did facebook.⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s horizontal growth vs vertical. Growing by getting more coverage is growth but it’s not sustainable growth that you get by getting the next generation into it.