nmeagent

11 ms·

121.
by nmeagent 4y ago
Theoretically yes, but you would need a very large telescope to resolve individual organisms at the distance of one or more light years. The Rayleigh criterion gives us a minimum diameter of 1.22 * wavelength / angle, and the angle
122.
by nmeagent 4y ago
It's a logarithmic scale. The 0.73 value is not a linear scaling but a value given by Sagan's proposed interpolating/extrapolating function: K = (log10(P) - 6) / 10, where P is power in Watts. 20 TW = 2e13 W -> K = (
123.
by nmeagent 4y ago
~0.73 seems about right. 0.01 is about 1.26 MW. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale#:~:text=equiva...
124.
by nmeagent 4y ago
> you DO NOT need a speedometer or any dash display at all to safely pull a car to the side of the road and stop. You do if there isn't a good place to stop and you need (or would rather) keep driving for awhile first, say in the mi
125.
by nmeagent 4y ago
My perception is that Google search is getting markedly worse over time, and many other free search engines seem approximately as useless. I can imagine a time in the not-so-distant future (or now in some cases) when many users will wish t
126.
by nmeagent 4y ago
> Major streaming sites refuse to serve me content with resolution higher that 480p (I think?) because my computer obeys me and not them. This nonsense directly lead to my permanent cancellation of Amazon Prime. It's infuriating to
127.
by nmeagent 4y ago
I have a couple of these and they work well. Unfortunately it seems like most sites that I use (with a few notable exceptions) don't bother to support hardware tokens for 2FA, I suspect because of the ubiquity of phone-based methods.
128.
by nmeagent 4y ago
> With the latest version of Chrome, we're enabling passkeys on Windows 11, macOS, and Android. Notable absence of GNU/Linux. If I used chromium, I'd feel like even more of a second-class citizen.
129.
by nmeagent 4y ago
> The difference probably belies in the rigor of the program. This is anecdata of course, but my experience with a top-3 US undergrad aerospace engineering program in the late-90s, early 2000s was around 15-16 hours of class time per wee
130.
by nmeagent 4y ago
> Contrary to a lot of people I know, I think nuclear weapons are largely a good thing and the reason we‘ve had peace in Europe for 80 years. I think the verdict is still out on this. Should we destroy human civilization with nuclear we
131.
by nmeagent 4y ago
Right, too small by about three orders of magnitude.
132.
by nmeagent 4y ago
If I have one hope for the future, it's that 'accepting' click-through corporate EULAs containing unconscionable terms that few read will no longer be considered consent .
133.
by nmeagent 4y ago
Right. It would probably be more effective for getting someone to just stay home.
134.
by nmeagent 4y ago
"I know you'll probably vote for $foo. If I check after the election and find that you did|didn't vote, bad thing $bar might just happen to your friends and family." Edit: It's probably not a particularly good thre
135.
by nmeagent 4y ago
> But for companies to use this data gathered without people’s consent to target them with ads would a) invite a beatdown from government regulators that would make the Federal Trade Commission’s $5 billion fine of Facebook for privacy v
136.
by nmeagent 4y ago
We have to be mindful of order of operations here or we may narrow our available popcorn choices!
137.
by nmeagent 4y ago
> You are not better off in any meaningful way if you block a public vulnerability scanner but leave yourself wide open to everyone else. That is a value judgment better made by the server owner, don't you think? It is their privat
138.
by nmeagent 4y ago
Maybe we should boycott any advertisers on any surveillance capitalist platform. I'm only half kidding...I think. I do recall having a bit of fun when I used to have a Twitter account (maybe a year ago) by consistently clicking &#
139.
by nmeagent 4y ago
The if they don't have to was a rather important part of the statement you quoted. I'm saying if they can block the scanning packets and have some subjective reason to do so then this is fine, the value of the scanning as a ser
140.
by nmeagent 4y ago
Why not? Maybe they don't 100% trust their government for whatever reason. Why must they let their ports be subject to arbitrary inspection by an entity they don't trust if they don't have to? Hell, I'd block this por
141.
by nmeagent 4y ago
It's also annoying to have to bring a phone to a restaurant. Not everyone carries them everywhere. I resent having to have one with me to participate fully in modern society, always listening and collecting data for its corporate mas
142.
by nmeagent 4y ago
I honestly don't understand why it's unrealistic to require a DVD drive when one can often buy a USB unit for less than the price of a decent dinner.
143.
by nmeagent 4y ago
Also some restaurants have apparently started contracting out some of their 'normal' deliveries to these entities, so it can be difficult to avoid them entirely even if you're deliberately trying not to do business with them.
144.
by nmeagent 4y ago
That's the way it is just as long as we tolerate it, so don't .
145.
by nmeagent 4y ago
Everything has a cost, especially time. They may have agency to improve their situation, but the time scale to do so (due to lack of savings, location, or whatever) may be ridiculous. People also have incomplete information; they could bu
146.
by nmeagent 4y ago
> How do monetary donations translate into votes? For precisely the same reason that advertising works: people in general are susceptible to psychological manipulation, subtle or otherwise.
147.
by nmeagent 4y ago
How is this not a modern flavor of bait and switch?
148.
by nmeagent 4y ago
An invitation to try to refine your search query, while Google simultaneously does its best to ignore a significant fraction of the terms in your refined query because it thinks it knows better than you.
149.
by nmeagent 4y ago
Perhaps, but I believe you would trade excessive corruption for an absolute nightmare. There would be cat and mouse games, sure, but you and everybody you care about would be the mice. Your life would be subject to perpetual inspection.
150.
by nmeagent 4y ago
I don't want to live in your monstrous notion of a surveillance utopia.

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