eloff

39 ms·

451.
by eloff 4y ago
The ranking algorithm is not simply raw points.
452.
by eloff 4y ago
That's not what they're doing though. There literally going to drag a magnet across the sea floor and examine anything that sticks to it. Which will be largely iron, nickel, and cobalt. Were it to be alien tech, it probably won&#x
453.
by eloff 4y ago
Strength doesn't matter here as much as melting point. When they say tougher than Iron, I imagine they mean it ablated less in the atmosphere. I don't know what elements that might mean. Certainly not platinum group metals. Tungst
454.
by eloff 4y ago
This seems a reasonable question to me, not having read the article. IIRC from grade school days, only a few metallic elements are magnetic. Iron, nickel, cobalt, and some rare earth metals. That was a long time ago and doubtless oversimpli
455.
by eloff 4y ago
Renewables weren't an option in those days. They've only recently started to become viable, and are not really viable at scale until the energy storage solution can also be solved at a combined cost equivalent to coal or nuclear.
456.
by eloff 4y ago
I think future generations will look back and think we were morons for choosing coal over nuclear. The radiation from particulates released by burning coal actually kills more people each year than the radiation from nuclear accidents has e
457.
by eloff 4y ago
I agree, it's fine to point out holes in a theory without an alternative explanation. However, it does still leave the problem of how else do you explain all the dark matter observations. So one must be careful not to give to much weig
458.
by eloff 4y ago
They are advocating MOND by omission. If you say dark matter isn't there you now need a theory that can explain all the observations that do support dark matter. MOND seems to be the only semi reasonable alternative.
459.
by eloff 4y ago
Buried hydrocarbons are mostly not dead trees. It's usually from long buried microscopic sea life (plankton, algae). > Electricity is not an energy source, so you have to burn dead trees to get it. Or from nuclear, renewables, etc.
460.
by eloff 4y ago
With an inelastic good like oil, small changes in supply can cause big price swings. The reason is people don't curtail their use much as the price rises.
461.
by eloff 4y ago
That's affordable if they buy their own debt through "quantitative easing" - which means printing money - but then you're back to inflation getting worse.
462.
by eloff 4y ago
Technology startups are naturally kind of like this. They have limited downside and unlimited upside. However, in my life that limited downside has cost me a lot of money in opportunity costs over twenty years. I might be retired had I been
463.
by eloff 4y ago
Wait, that's an option in the probability space? Actually once I was lucky enough to join a company where the code was written well, had good test coverage, the team implemented good code reviews, required tests on bug fixes and featur
464.
by eloff 4y ago
You say that exaggerating, but I was recently in Caracas in, and there they really mean nothing. At night or when the traffic is light, cars slow down but continue straight through red lights and stop streets. It freaked me out at first, bu
465.
by eloff 4y ago
I don't get this on mobile, thanks for posting the screenshot.
466.
by eloff 4y ago
I think geothermal can be part of a solution, as can solar, and nuclear, and wind, etc. We need all hands on deck here. I think you're not wrong to worry about cooling the interior of the Earth too much, but that's a much slower p
467.
by eloff 4y ago
It all gets turned into heat anyway. Whether at the solar panel or in the electrical transmission process, inverters, or the actual devices being powered.
468.
by eloff 4y ago
To understand that, you really have to go beyond the analogy. I think trying to address differences in outcome by discrimination is morally dubious and potentially could backfire and make things worse.
469.
by eloff 4y ago
The problem with this argument is it assumes the differences are due to discrimination, but when we try to measure that we almost can't detect the effect of discrimination because it's so small. The differences are not skin deep l
470.
by eloff 4y ago
This is the danger of focusing on equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity. In my opinion, the former is not possible anyway, it's not a good goal. People are different and they're going to have different outcomes, e
471.
by eloff 4y ago
There's no chance of limiting warming to 2 degrees anymore. Not only are emissions still rising, but the rate of increase is also still accelerating. It's just not a realistic goal. https://www.theatlantic.com/scie
472.
by eloff 4y ago
It's not just a "set back", it's a fantasy. There's a hundred times too many people on this Earth to live like that. We've leveraged up our population using technology, and there's no way to unwind that wi
473.
by eloff 4y ago
Yeah, I don't like your odds here. Your politicians can barely agree on a budget these days. Constitutional amendments seem like a thing of the past now. But it's likely the only good solution here, and on other issues too, like a
474.
by eloff 4y ago
Yes.
475.
by eloff 4y ago
Wouldn't this be solved rather easily by prohibiting fund raising and using tax dollars to finance campaigns? Everyone gets the same budget? That means money has no sway over politicians and money can't influence the result unfair
476.
by eloff 4y ago
And subsidized or unsustainable usage like agriculture or lawns may cease to make sense and go away.
477.
by eloff 4y ago
And yet it works in Tokyo, a city of almost double the population?
478.
by eloff 4y ago
I just finished Planet B which I quite enjoyed and I think is very approachable for casual Sci Fi readers.
479.
by eloff 4y ago
He's been writing for about 12 years, and he crossed the million threshold at least two years ago - so about a decade. I'm not sure about the answer to the second question, I'll ask him over a beer next time we get together.
480.
by eloff 4y ago
My brother writes Sci Fi for a living. He's self taught and self published. He does well, he's sold over a million books. What many people don't know is he suffered from severe tendonitis that really narrowed his career optio

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