DuskStar

59 ms·

811.
by DuskStar 7y ago
And puts some hard, theoretical limits on using black holes as total conversion reactors. Reducing the power output to a terawatt requires 2x10^10kg... Probably not practical. (It would also have a radius of 0.03 femtometers . A proton?
812.
by DuskStar 7y ago
Even better way to think of it - the energy release will total that of the mass of a WWII destroyer over the course of three minutes :) Since 50,000 megatons/sec is the starting value, and it'll get bigger as those three minutes
813.
by DuskStar 7y ago
And unlike your standard light bulb, there's no need to worry about it getting dimmer with time - this one'll keep getting brighter until it disappears entirely!
814.
by DuskStar 7y ago
Which means it'll be at 1/4G after you travel a further half light year. That's a hell of a lot of energy. (If I'm doing the math right, the potential energy difference is on the order of ~20% of the rest mass at the eve
815.
by DuskStar 7y ago
Hawking Radiation is only a significant factor at far lower masses than the Earth. There's a nice calculator here [0], with an example 10^12 kg black hole producing ~350 megawatts. Working backwards, 1 megaton per second (4x10^9 megawa
816.
by DuskStar 7y ago
Are you sure it has perfect micro? Can you even execute perfect micro on 30 actions per 5 seconds?
817.
by DuskStar 7y ago
For more than 50% of the population to oppose secession, you'd need a voting turnout of ~90%, and for all the people who had not previously voted before to vote against secession. (50% turnout with 90% for secession -> 45% of voting
818.
by DuskStar 7y ago
For more than 50% of the population to oppose secession, you'd need a voting turnout of ~90%, and for all the people who had not previously voted before to vote against secession. (50% turnout with 90% for secession -> 45% of voti
819.
by DuskStar 7y ago
The majority of the British Empire would not have supported the right of the American colonies to secede. Does that mean it was wrong of them to do so? Should the Americans have instead pursued their cause in Parliament, where they were unr
820.
by DuskStar 7y ago
A 20mph vertical impact into someone's roof really isn't the worst of outcomes.
821.
by DuskStar 7y ago
Curiosity used aerobraking, parachutes AND a skycrane to land. There's a great video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki_Af_o9Q9s Previous solutions weren't used because they were less crazy, but because they
822.
by DuskStar 7y ago
And if you are willing to throw out the fissiles, why not a Nuclear Salt Water Rocket? [0] (warning: engineering realities may make this impossible) (one of a very short list of possibilities for a buildable-within-a-century torchship) Ot
823.
by DuskStar 7y ago
That's Project Vesta: https://projectvesta.org/ Basically, artificial green-sand beaches which absorb CO2 as they weather.
824.
by DuskStar 7y ago
The problem is, I can look at the risks of something like this, or olivine beaches with Project Vesta [0], or sulfur dioxide in the upper atmosphere - and the worst cases there are still incomparable to the expected case for climate cha
825.
by DuskStar 7y ago
Comments like this sound like "global warming isn't really a serious problem yet, so the only acceptable way to deal with it is to agree to my demands unconditionally - those alternatives are just too risky" to me.
826.
by DuskStar 7y ago
I think the proper way to read the GP's comment is "take every action we can".
827.
by DuskStar 7y ago
"every time the NSA's compiler binary builds my code I get the same output" isn't really all that comforting. If you can't build the compiler (and/or build tool) how can you be sure that there isn't anythi
828.
by DuskStar 7y ago
Some number of deaths will always occur due to the tradeoffs we make in transportation. We can minimize this number, but even "no cars, no bikes, no trains, no planes, no going outside" would cause deaths due to the lack of thin
829.
by DuskStar 7y ago
Well you kind of have to allow targeting based on location/home location.
830.
by DuskStar 7y ago
There's a difference between "yes, Cambridge Analytica used our platform to do bad things and we facilitated that" and "our platform is fundamentally bad for you", though.
831.
by DuskStar 7y ago
> The right answer to this question is to accept that the company is extracting / harming people. And admit that they didn't stop to think about that when they were building it. That's understandable - they had no idea the
832.
by DuskStar 7y ago
I guess my view is that it's easier (and has fewer negative side effects) to get people to care about others by expanding their ingroup than by making them care about their outgroup.
833.
by DuskStar 7y ago
> high-trust society in which everyone strives to be self-sufficient but gets supported in case of failure by others. But that IS how the world works! Or at least how parts of it have worked and still work. Puritan settlements in the Ame
834.
by DuskStar 7y ago
> IMO, the optimal attitude for society would be if everyone was "left-wing" (generous, forgiving,...) toward others/out-groups and "right-wing" (demanding, requesting responsibility,...) toward yourself/in-
835.
by DuskStar 7y ago
> Also GE tried to sell gas turbines for ship propulsion. Pretty common for warships though, or at least that's my understanding. The Arleigh Burke class [0] is powered by GE gas turbines, for instance. Though the requirements list
836.
by DuskStar 7y ago
You asked "Why does it make sense to have independent grids?" and I provided a reason. "But that'll never happen to us!" feels rather naive, personally - I think massive, deliberate power outages have a decent chanc
837.
by DuskStar 7y ago
Yep, and this is why electrical grid issues never take down entire regions of the US! Like the 2003 Northeast blackout, for instance. [0] Things like that, where an error in one part of the grid cascades into massive issues elsewhere - thos
838.
by DuskStar 7y ago
What tangible reasons are those? As for why I think that the 2nd Amendment was intended to cover weapons of war - all the weapons of war - it was written following a successful revolution against an oppressive government, made possible by
839.
by DuskStar 7y ago
I think most Chinese - even apolitical Chinese - will think it's a government-inserted purity test, and immediately leave. If it becomes successful, then China will make that fear real, and start running the same thing themselves.
840.
by DuskStar 7y ago
> although there will be the Craic at some point in the next couple of years The CR929? That thing? [0] I think that if people are still complaining about Boeing's safety record and obfuscation when that goes into service, the'

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