LarryMullins

10 ms·

61.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
Whether or not you want to apply the term "radioactive" to a black body emitter is completely beside the point, which is that EM radiation doesn't make things radioactive. Your objection is to the use of a word, not the phys
62.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
> Now for some reason we've decided we need to be paranoid about them. That last one getting noticed by the public probably had something to do with it.
63.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
Maybe it was a balloon but Kirby is being curmudgeonly and thinks it should be called an "Unmanned Buoyant Aircraft (UBA)" or something like that. These national security types love wordy terms and acronyms. Maybe he thinks cal
64.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
The Cold War wasn't uniform of course, there were periods of greatly increased tension and periods of relative relaxation (e.g. Détente .) What we have now is somewhere in the middle, I'd say on the peaceful/Détente side o
65.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
> provocation Quite possibly. Minor provocations that by themselves are too inconsequential to warrant a response, nothing to start a war over, but incrementally provokes the target into lashing out in some way that is advantageous fo
66.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
From what I understand, in the case of the radon-contaminated nuclear worker, what they actually detected were the "radon daughters", the decay products of radon. Radon itself doesn't stick around very long, but when it deca
67.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
All deaths are permanent. Count them up and the result is clear.
68.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
> "the Japanese government approved the dumping of radioactive water of this power plant into the Pacific Ocean over the course of 30 years." A minuscule amount of tritium, dumped into an ocean that has billions of tons of ur
69.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
Thermal radiation is in fact emitted from the nucleus of atoms; all matter emits black body radiation. The reason hot things generally aren't considered radioactive is because that would pull literally all matter into the discussio
70.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
"Temporary damage", really? The deaths of those downstream from a burst dam are no less permanent than the death of an irradiated Russian. And there are a lot more of the former than the latter.
71.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
Minuscule tritium emissions are detected around nuclear power plants all the time, far below the level at which anybody should be concerned. There was even a case where alarms were sounded when a power plant worker was found to be radioacti
72.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
If you want the cheapest power, then burn lots of coal and don't hold power plants accountable for their emissions. Do you really want the cheapest power?
73.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
Your hot spoon is in fact radioactive, emitting thermal radiation. Thermal radiation doesn't make things it hits radioactive. Neither does your microwave oven or even gamma radiation. Radioactivity can be induced in things by neut
74.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
There are a lot of geiger counters around operated by various organizations. Every time there is a radioactive leak just about anywhere in the world, it is promptly discovered even if that government wants to keep it a secret. In fact i
75.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
There are two main ways that something may become radioactive, being contaminated with little pieces of something radioactive (for instance nuclear fallout), or through neutron activation, in which neutron radiation creates radioactive isot
76.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
> The military has no problems detecting the chemicals that get leaked around bases Even they will be hard pressed to detect chemical polutants at the extremely low concentrations that radiation can be trivially detected. But also, they
77.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
> It happens with non-radioactive toxic waste too It tends to be a lot harder to detect too. With radioactive waste, we're fortunate to have very cheap and extremely sensitive instruments that can detect the tiniest leaks. Thi
78.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
To say that a man is a PR department is the most grave of insults.
79.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
When their employer's parking lot has charging spots, presumably yes? Charging during the day will only become more common as more people buy EVs and demand for more charging locations increases.
80.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
Heh, but what is Elon, if not a one-man PR department?
81.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
The part I don't quite get (except insofar as it's an understandable emotional reaction) is why people are mad at companies hiring more people than they should have and then eventually laying them off a few years later. Would it
82.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
Trusting an anonymous redditor because they have lots of "karma" is extremely foolish. For one, they probably got those internet points by reposting other people's cat pictures and now you're in a conversation with them
83.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
So basically "he lied to me, lying is a human behavior, so I trust him." Wew.
84.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
Never trust any company with a PR department at all, they're all opportunistic liars who's priority is limited damage to the company, not telling the truth. They only do the latter when they think it will have the effect of the f
85.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
Seems like that's a consequence of the philosophical semantics of the word "know", not really a statement about the demonstrable capabilities of the LLM. In other words, why does it matter?
86.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
Certainly. I was just confused why students would pay for class then refuse to attend. Striking grad students makes a lot more sense.
87.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
A grad student strike. They're striking as employees, not students.
88.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
> That doesn't make sense. Russia can use this as a propaganda tool without having to act on it. To acknowledge such an attack and not respond in kind would cause them to lose face, but responding in kind risks escalation. Ignor
89.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
Your Thai text generator example seems like a reformulation of the "Chinese Room" thought experiment, except you're running the system using a single human brain instead of many. I'm not sure that makes a difference.
90.
by LarryMullins 4y ago
The premise is bullshit, schools in America always give the kids lunch whether or not they have money that day. Kids who forget their money still get fed, the schools insist on it. Even if the kid pleads that he's just not hungry t

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