DennisP

26 ms·

541.
by DennisP 2y ago
And at the sizes CFS is building, we're already maxing out the structural strength of the reactors. We can't go much smaller with tokamaks, even if the superconductors get even better.
542.
by DennisP 2y ago
Helion's timelines were always conditioned on funding, which they didn't get until years had passed. Adjusted for when they did get funding, they're pretty much on track. Building seven prototypes, each larger and more advanc
543.
by DennisP 2y ago
Might be, but probably aren't. The most troublesome fission products all end up chemically bound in the fuel salt, and most designs are passively safe, and inherently pretty stable since the reaction slows down significantly as the fue
544.
by DennisP 2y ago
Fusion fuel will be close enough to free. Deuterium is less than a thousandth of the hydrogen in water, and there's enough in your morning shower to provide all your energy needs for a year. A liter of heavy water costs about a thousan
545.
by DennisP 2y ago
Fusion fuel is so compact, there's really no need for that. To get an idea of it, deuterium is less than 0.1% of the hydrogen in water, and there's enough in your morning shower to provide all your energy needs for a year. Nuclear
546.
by DennisP 2y ago
Do you believe MIT? They used to run the Alcator C-Mod, which had the highest magnetic field of any tokamak in the world, did preliminary work with the new superconductors, and based on all that they designed ARC before they spun off a comp
547.
by DennisP 2y ago
Some people take it way too far, but I think my invocation was just trivially true. We can't come to any conclusion about the prevalence of life elsewhere in the universe, just based on the fact that we exist.
548.
by DennisP 2y ago
Definitely not, but it's possible to focus exclusively on liberties that the right wing prefers. I guess we'll see whether Bezos is willing to promote the liberty of a business to hire based on DEI criteria if that's what it
549.
by DennisP 2y ago
If it's small enough to fit in every ship used in a carrier group, you could revolutionize US naval operations. The carrier is nuclear powered and can travel at its top speed indefinitely. But it doesn't except briefly in emergenc
550.
by DennisP 2y ago
It'd be nice if it weren't in the next decade though.
551.
by DennisP 2y ago
No, he expects the AI to kill us all even if it was built by a good guy. How much this result improves his outlook, we don't know, but he previously put our chance of extinction at over 95%: https://pauseai.info/pdoom
552.
by DennisP 2y ago
Actually the Drake equation may not say that: > When we take account of realistic uncertainty, replacing point estimates by probability distributions that reflect current scientific understanding, we find no reason to be highly confident
553.
by DennisP 2y ago
In this case the Copernican principle is at odds with the anthropic principle. If there were only one place in the universe with intelligent life, then necessarily that's where we would be. GP may be thinking of this paper, which uses
554.
by DennisP 2y ago
Most cryptography experts are probably not experts in quantum computers as well. We already know the algorithm to break RSA with a quantum computer. We just don't have the hardware yet. Nobody knows when the hardware will be available
555.
by DennisP 2y ago
I think the library would get upset at the way I highlight my books.
556.
by DennisP 2y ago
We need an AI that produces the text of a book, from a video of it as you flip through its pages. No special hardware, just a phone and a thumb. If a few pages get missed it can ask you to do it again.
557.
by DennisP 2y ago
It seems more general than that. Right now returns go partly to capital, partly to labor. With "transformative AI" the returns go almost entirely to capital. This is true whether it's mostly from labor shrinking or total outp
558.
by DennisP 2y ago
You can at least display the parameters that you're passing into a contract function. That keeps you from getting hacked when interacting with a well-known trustworthy contract.
559.
by DennisP 2y ago
Sometimes you have the right contract, but an attacker is making you pass in different parameters than you think. The most popular hardware wallets don't help you with this; the Ledger Nano S for example just alerts you that you'r
560.
by DennisP 2y ago
They could have used a hardware wallet like the Lattice1 from GridPlus, which actually shows the function parameters on a big screen instead of blind signing.
561.
by DennisP 2y ago
I'd say character is necessary but not sufficient. You also need knowledge and motivation. Knowledge keeps you from investing in ways that mostly lose money. Plenty of young people try to do the right thing, and screw it up. Understa
562.
by DennisP 2y ago
Thorium does not get angry, because it's only slightly radioactive and it's not fissile. To start up a thorium reactor, you need enough plutonium or uranium spitting out neutrons to convert plenty of thorium to U233, which is what
563.
by DennisP 2y ago
Didn't know about mirroring. I was stoked about the Vision Pro in the early days, until I found out it would only show one dinky MacOS window and the rest had to be special apps. If they're fixing that, it's starting to look
564.
by DennisP 2y ago
Yes of course, even if all her cancer cells have been destroyed, she could still get an entirely new cancer, just like anyone else. She hasn't attained some kind of immunity.
565.
by DennisP 2y ago
I know that's generally true, but apparently sometimes the odds of recurrence are so low they stop worrying about it. I have a relative who was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma a decade ago. She got three doses of immunotherapy and her
566.
by DennisP 2y ago
Why not both? It's not like those are the only two things in the world. Maybe they're both way more useful than a thousand other ways we spend our money.
567.
by DennisP 2y ago
So if you're a well-off retiree living on long-term investments and don't want your finances public, then, what, you have to donate extra money to the government? Because long-term gains are simply taxed at a lower rate. It's
568.
by DennisP 2y ago
Couple decades ago I split my femur in half. Docs put a metal rod down the middle and had the PTs getting me on my feet the next day. It was not pleasant. After a couple days they sent me to a rehab facility for a week, then home with a wal
569.
by DennisP 2y ago
Helion's promised dates were conditioned on funding, which they didn't actually get for several years. Adjusting for when they did get funding, they're pretty much on track.
570.
by DennisP 2y ago
No argument there, I just didn't spell it out since we were already throwing around specific levelized costs anyway.

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