science4sail

9 ms·

91.
by science4sail 2y ago
I think that historical cycles have been a popular topic ever since at least the days of Socrates and his philosophical peers. That said, have any of these predictions ever managed to stop the cycle? As far as I know, both Turchin and Ibn
92.
by science4sail 2y ago
There are only two ways for a city to relieve a housing shortage: either build more housing or make the city less desirable to live in. SF has decided that the first is impossible, so they're going with the second.
93.
by science4sail 2y ago
To be fair, the Mongol empire did end up disintegrating in a few generations. Kublai Khan was the de jure ruler of a united empire, but in practice the western periphery of the empire was drifting away. > If you want to keep the empire
94.
by science4sail 2y ago
That's the dismal tradeoff with such things. Anything that can be used to help dissidents can also be used to help organized crime. Cryptocurrency, end-to-end encryption, Tor all ended up with this fate. That's because from the pe
95.
by science4sail 2y ago
I think that grade inflation is a tough topic. On one hand, you could argue that grade inflation is actually a good thing: if pedagogical methods are getting better over time, then you should naturally expect grades to rise if standards s
96.
by science4sail 2y ago
So 2025 will be the year of GNU Hurd on desktop?
97.
by science4sail 2y ago
> The results suggest that the positive association between money and happiness continues far up the economic ladder, and that the magnitude of the differences can be substantial. Sometimes I wonder if the folk wisdom that "money do
98.
by science4sail 2y ago
I think that the original Jurassic Park book mentioned that the dinosaurs found a way to get around the lysine issue. After all, humans can't produce lysine either, and we propagate in the wild just fine!
99.
by science4sail 2y ago
From a pure economic incentives perspective, I don't think that wealthy countries will solve their birth rate issues until parents are financially on par with or even ahead of childfree people. It's hard to see how this could be d
100.
by science4sail 2y ago
Can you please provide evidence that this isn't a scam website? It's pretty common for scammers to prey on scam victims since they're often desperate and emotionally compromised.
101.
by science4sail 2y ago
What if he/she assassinates the impeachers as an "official act"? That might be an example of Gödel's Loophole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_Loophole
102.
Trump says foreigners who graduate from US colleges should get green cards(reuters.com)
5 points by science4sail 2y ago|2 comments
103.
by science4sail 2y ago
I think that USA culture at least has certainly gone too far in the direction of "college degree = white collar job = comfortable middle-class lifestyle". From what I understand, the PRC ironically also ended up in a similar situa
104.
by science4sail 2y ago
I recall reading a Jack Vance novel where cannibals used cryogenic sleepers as a convenient supply of preserved food.
105.
by science4sail 2y ago
That's probably a motivating factor for defrosting your first few hundred/thousand mummies, but would the "interest" factor still be there for the millionth mummy?
106.
by science4sail 2y ago
The CCP sees the Taiwanese as rebel separatists, so renaming "Republic of China" to "Republic of Taiwan" would increase, not decrease, the odds of invasion by confirming their propaganda. The CCP wants the island of Taiw
107.
by science4sail 2y ago
You can live in a car, but you can't drive a house :)
108.
by science4sail 2y ago
> they were willing to give a fighter to a random farm boy who happened to show up for a battle. My impression was that Luke's X-Wing was his reward for saving Leia - in the same scene we see Han leave the Rebels while carrying a si
109.
by science4sail 2y ago
I think that OP's post is likely to get flagged given the political content. That said: I was shocked to walk by an anti-NATO "hands off Ukraine" protest shortly after the 2022 invasion. I delved into it a bit and there seeme
110.
by science4sail 2y ago
> compute more than several galaxies full of classical humans Unfortunately the simulated classical humans in your Matrioshka Brain will want to mine Bitcoin, which means that our digital descendants will have to become a true interstell
111.
by science4sail 3y ago
> Tesla is working on a $25k auto right now that should be available in 2026. I thought that the Model 2 had been canceled? Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39944890
112.
by science4sail 3y ago
Did they run out of funding/money? The press release doesn't give a clear reason.
113.
by science4sail 3y ago
* That Wikipedia link gives an average global energy consumption of 4.8 10^12 watts (assuming 11.63 TWh per MToE). The solar insolation of Earth is about 2 10^17 watts The total power output of the Sun is about 4 10^26 watts. The tota
114.
by science4sail 3y ago
Isn't it a problem of incentives? No one gets penalized if a lifesaving drug gets delayed, but heads will roll if an experimental drug turns out to have horrible side effects and/or financial costs - especially if the test subject
115.
by science4sail 3y ago
Why not just move the Earth? You could do that over a few million years using a gravity tractor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_tractor
116.
by science4sail 3y ago
> The propellant mix that would produce the greatest specific impulse for a rocket motor is sometimes given as oxygen difluoride and pentaborane. Spicy! How does that compare to metallic hydrogen and metastable helium? https:/&#x2F
117.
by science4sail 3y ago
Most of the objections in the article (costs, environmental impact of tunneling, eminent domain) could be applied to any major infrastructure project. I'm particularly irked by the concerns about energy use - at 500 km/h, Linear
118.
"Volkswagen" detects when your tests are being run in a CI server(github.com)
269 points by science4sail 3y ago|25 comments
119.
by science4sail 3y ago
> Let's face it, everything has become more expensive. The Five Guys meal of a little cheeseburger, little fries, and regular drink which cost me $12 4 years ago in March, 2020 (I keep records), would cost me $17-18 today (I checked
120.
by science4sail 3y ago
I imagine that an interesting sociological topic could be fashion trends and mass hysteria among business elites.

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