ctdonath

37 ms·

331.
by ctdonath 6y ago
Note that Tesla Cybertruck is using battery pack as a structural element.
332.
by ctdonath 6y ago
1. Supply of Heavy launches seems a matter of little demand. There’s a big enough profit margin that seems little reason to get more greedy - they WANT increased demand. 2. Competition is the issue: can we mine & deliver metals from an
333.
by ctdonath 6y ago
8-| The singularity approaches.
334.
by ctdonath 6y ago
The sense of colonizing Mars is abundance of raw materials (a whole planet worth right there) and the convenience of gravity (put something down, it tends to stay there). Space has benefits, but is defined by being devoid of resources, and
335.
by ctdonath 6y ago
This. Moving stuff up and down the gravity well is expensive. Having an abundant supply of mundane metals already above that well would vastly improve launch costs, there being much less to launch. The trick is getting asteroid mining, tran
336.
by ctdonath 6y ago
Consumer Reports made these a major factor in rating driver-assist systems, undermining Tesla’s Autopilot rating because it doesn’t actively look at the driver.
337.
by ctdonath 6y ago
It’s the creator certifying that this file is the definitive copy, and having an instance of it to get paid for. In an age of trivial copying, editing, recompressing, and other alterations, “original” can get lost. This gives means to ide
338.
by ctdonath 6y ago
How much of that is attributable to increased/tightened zoning regulations? Cheap & reasonable options are simply illegal in many cases. How much of that is attributable to reaching/straining/exceeding regional carrying c
339.
by ctdonath 6y ago
In high school, I built a 1-bit sound board for the Sinclair ZX-80, programmed in machine code to play musically tuned delay loops for notes. This was inspired by noticing AM radio interference as sounds corresponding to program execution.
340.
by ctdonath 6y ago
For speculative fun, what’s the fastest rate such a design could operate at? Are optical equivalent circuits reasonably possible (or some such)?
341.
by ctdonath 6y ago
Who are you to decide and enforce that? You’re impeding progress on arbitrary grounds that it’s not progressing enough. I want to start a coffee roastery. Margins won’t be “livable” for a while, but do need added labor to start; you (a co
342.
by ctdonath 6y ago
It already is tied. Western capitalism recognizes that expanding customer base and increasing customer wealth is good for business (see Henry Ford’s aphorism about paying workers a wage suitable to buy his product). It is illegal to be poor
343.
by ctdonath 6y ago
You’re assuming a system which can easily & correctly identify “exempted” people, the police power of the state being benevolently withheld to allow paying some less. Hardly realistic. You’re assuming paying people to do nothing will re
344.
by ctdonath 6y ago
What of those unable to produce more than some value less than minimum wage? Not everyone is capable of $15/hr productivity, why would you deny them work? nobody is expecting them to achieve independence (say, bc Down’s Syndrome) but t
345.
by ctdonath 6y ago
pay people a living wage for their labor I truly don’t understand why so many think that someone doing less than what it takes to live (alone, independently) should be paid a living wage. Food, housing, energy, care, ... all take producti
346.
by ctdonath 6y ago
No responses here note the likely role of FSD actively avoiding pedestrians. If FSD can objectively & significantly decrease injuries, need for crumple zones is mitigated. “No impacts” is better than “softer impacts”.
347.
by ctdonath 6y ago
Indeed. I presented facts, he resorts to insults. Who's scientific?
348.
by ctdonath 6y ago
What's "smartass" about taking the time to acquire NOAA ice core data, graphing it, and presenting it? We're at a recurring peak, that's scientifically plain.
349.
by ctdonath 6y ago
Graph is from NOAA ice core data. What's false?
350.
by ctdonath 6y ago
We're at a periodic (125,000 year) temperature peak. Warming is surely a natural event. http://donath.org/Photos/TempChange.PNG
351.
by ctdonath 6y ago
IIRC, Apple basically made "retina displays" happen - when nobody else would make that expensive step - by telling a screen manufacturer "here is a very large check; build a factory to make these at commodity scale, within on
352.
by ctdonath 6y ago
It’s not “construed as me demanding you go outside the walled garden at all times”, it’s that you’re making demands on a private company thru the police power of the state, rather than just not buying the product - and that such demands hav
353.
by ctdonath 6y ago
I’m paying for a walled garden. I own the hardware, and with it bought software which I want to aggressively maintain it. If you don’t like the product, don’t buy it. Don’t compel them to satisfy your whim via police power of the state.
354.
by ctdonath 6y ago
Tesla Cybertruck may have an option for solar panels as a pickup bed cover, able to produce a few miles of range daily. Not much per dollar normally, but great that in a worst case scenario it can, given some time, harvest enough power to f
355.
by ctdonath 6y ago
As counter-argument, I reference the Voynich Manuscript: clearly a language is used to share thoughts, even though only the author (presumably) understood it. I come to this definition of "art" precisely because so much of what is
356.
by ctdonath 6y ago
Given there are many alternatives to Bitcoin, and considering how many juggernaut technologies I've seen vanish with hardly a trace, I'll stick with the position that Bitcoin isn't inherently & durably valuable precisely
357.
by ctdonath 6y ago
I want to be as anti-carbon-neutrality as possible until it's illegal for me to cause pollution in any way That's ... bizarre. Upshot is I'm doing way more to improve the environment than you are, because I'm an adult
358.
by ctdonath 6y ago
Will you personally be carbon/environmentally neutral next year?
359.
by ctdonath 6y ago
Stamp collecting used to be a big thing, with people willing to spend substantial sums for rare stamps. This value only existed insofar as people had an interest in owning a rare stamp; today, few indeed really see monetary value in a small
360.
by ctdonath 6y ago
While watching today’s launch, occurred to me the ratio of paying-client launches to Starlink launches is [whatever it is]. Profit margins on paid launches must be high, maybe amazing, to support so many Starlink launches.

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