rgmerk

6 ms·

31.
by rgmerk 3mo ago
Yes, there have been hot days across northern Europe before; however, the frequency of very hot weather has increased substantially. It may not have gotten the headlines of this year’s heatwave, but we were in Switzerland and Germany for a
32.
by rgmerk 3mo ago
> Many European countries have draconian laws about air conditioning that are killing people this summer Cite your sources. There are specific issues in specific places (eg heritage restrictions in Paris), a higher prevalence of shared i
33.
by rgmerk 4mo ago
That sounds like an absolute nightmare to get approvals for.
34.
by rgmerk 4mo ago
The evening peak is well on its way to being a solved problem in Australia. https://reneweconomy.com.au/big-batteries-took-a-bite-out-of... And average prices in the Australian national electricity market are going down as
35.
by rgmerk 4mo ago
If a mega volcano explodes and blocks the sun, lack of electricity will be the least of the world’s problems.
36.
by rgmerk 4mo ago
You pay for it. There is - arguably a case for nuclear power in cold miserable places like Canada or Northern Europe because solar - by far the cheapest form of renewable energy, and still with a substantial runway to get cheaper - produces
37.
by rgmerk 4mo ago
It put the chart title directly on top of Australia. Which just about sums up my experience with using LLMs to code, really (though not with these state-of-the-art models, admittedly) - it's amazing what they can do, but left to their
38.
by rgmerk 4mo ago
You could do this, but on all present evidence you won’t get anything that anyone would volunteer to watch.
39.
by rgmerk 5mo ago
Agreed. There was already too much human generated slop in academia. And I’m not talking about good faith research that didn’t pan out, I mean research that is completely useless for any other purpose other than convincing a casual observer
40.
by rgmerk 5mo ago
Good. If it’s not worth your time to check the output of your LLM carefully, it’s not worth my time to read it.
41.
by rgmerk 5mo ago
I can assure you having observed the process of clothes shopping for the women in my life, that as far as they are concerned, clothes do not just “fit them”.
42.
by rgmerk 5mo ago
Alcatraz or whale watching? Sure. But Pier 39? I’d rather poke my eyeballs out with a stick. I can eat shitty fast food at home, thanks.
43.
by rgmerk 6mo ago
Good luck, but there’s a reason why subsistence farmers move to city slums as soon as they can.
44.
by rgmerk 6mo ago
Maybe I’m missing something, but there’s also the idea that you don’t need to be perfectly secure, you just need to be secure enough that it’s not worth the effort to break in. In the case of crooks (rather than spooks) that often means you
45.
by rgmerk 6mo ago
Dart/Wong for America ‘28 - Give America Back Its Groove.
46.
by rgmerk 7mo ago
Can you link to it? I'm curious.
47.
by rgmerk 7mo ago
In theory, at least, they have finished their design, had it reviewed by the NRC, and had it approved, so there should be no significant design changes. But that also applies for the current generation of reactors and nobody can build them
48.
by rgmerk 7mo ago
I did have the same thought, had a quick look (I'm not a polymarket user) and couldn't find a market relating to this project. Put it this way, if it's in commercial operation by 2031 I'll eat my hat.
49.
by rgmerk 7mo ago
Their hoped-for completion date is "2031". Anyone want to hazard a guess about what their actual completion date for this plant will be?
50.
by rgmerk 8mo ago
Hmmm. If we do simple extrapolation based on a battery density improvement rate of 5% a year, it takes about 30 years to get there. So it's not as crazy as it sounds - and it's also worth noting that there are incremental improv
51.
by rgmerk 8mo ago
Home batteries are being installed at insane rates in Australia at the moment. Very few of them are Powerwalls because Tesla have priced themselves out of the market (and also Elon’s reputation is toast).
52.
by rgmerk 8mo ago
Pretty sure the answer is no, most of the time. As I understand it (and even if I’m broadly right I’m greatly simplifying) there’s an auction system and if demand is X kilowatts, they line up all the bids to supply in cost order and draw a
53.
by rgmerk 8mo ago
Worth keeping in mind that nobody freezes to death in FNQ if the power goes out.
54.
by rgmerk 8mo ago
Grow up in a place where roads have gravel on the shoulders and are made using coarse-chip seal and you’ll get them regularly.
55.
by rgmerk 8mo ago
Hmmm. If, rather than flying close to sea level, you flew at high altitude (above commercial airliners), and kept it relatively small, I suspect that you could do this and no one would notice unless you told them. Though at high altitudes
56.
by rgmerk 8mo ago
I would assume that these days you can simulate that increasingly accurately before you need a full-scale prototype. They could also use active noise cancellation, which is already used in some turboprops like the Q400.
57.
by rgmerk 9mo ago
Numerous critics pointed out that the only application where cryptocurrencies had any real advantages over conventional finance was crime. The critics were right, and the cryptocurrency ecosystem in which Silicon Valley was a not insubstant
58.
by rgmerk 9mo ago
As a rule of thumb, if you’re not a researcher in the area ignore any media reports of a study that include the words “in mice”. Also, there’s a tendency on HN for commenters (mostly software engineers) to think that they are smarter than
59.
by rgmerk 9mo ago
There are legitimate applications - fixing a tiny mistake in the dialogue in a movie in the edit suite, for instance. Do these legitimate applications justify making these tools available to every scammer, domestic abuser, child porn consum
60.
by rgmerk 9mo ago
My hypothesis: Generative AI is, in part, reaping the reaction that cryptocurrency sowed.

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