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bad_alloc

1,447 karma · joined December 28, 2009

Programmer and roboticist at university.
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bad_alloc··on Newly discovered comet Nishimura could be visible to naked eye this weekend
There is a long list of potential civilization killers. Many are anthropogenic, some are natural. They all have varying probabilities of killing us. Probably the highest now are climate change, nuclear war and a worse pandemic.
bad_alloc··on Tesla, Rivian Put on Fake Show of Support for ‘Right to Repair’
Well, most EVs have weak 12V batteries to power computers, lights etc. They are not designed to output the amps needed to turn an engine. That makes sense for the EV since it saves a lot of weight. And the main batteries are usually 400V to 800V, which you can't use to jump another car (or you can use it once, at most).
bad_alloc··on So what if Google sends me targeted ads?
Privacy at its core is a preventative measure against being controlled. The state, a corporation or other individuals have an easier time exerting influence over you if they know more about you. Obtaining information is a largely automated task today.

And sure, your country might be fine now, but over the course of history a lot of people suddenly woke up to their government turning totalitarian. Same goes for your insurance, your school, your workplace: All can suddenly work against you and it is preferable to avoid giving them too much information to use against you.

bad_alloc··on The end of cool small cars
This still leaved the gap for small cars you can cram 4 people inside + some luggage unfilled. Also, are manufacturers taking L7e vehicles seriously, or are they styling them like toys still? Early EVs suffered form car companies deliberately making them look non-serious.
bad_alloc··on E-bike industry blames consumers for fires to undermine right to repair laws
1) Good design can - to a certain degree - allow most people to replace parts. E.g. headlight bulbs or modules, which are held in place by 0-3 screws and a simple electrical connection. Similar things with door seals or floor mats. Many parts can be made repairable by low-skill users if they are just accessible and not glued in. Unfortunately many designs work against that, perhaps on purpose. This is also a massive accessibility issue for disabled and elderly people. Think lower grip strength.

2) Anti-repair design stops people from developing skills in the first place, similar to how kids who grow up on fixed-software devices often cannot hack the devices to develop technical understanding.

bad_alloc··on Climate change: Thousands of penguins die in Antarctic ice breakup
I want to do that too, my background so far is CS, robotics and traching programming. What avenues exist?
bad_alloc··on Add dir=“auto” to your inputs and textareas
To the people wondering why this is still an issue: Most tech is very US- or west-centered. My name contains an Umlaut (ü), which causes me trouble much more often than should be the case. A colleague of mine even changed their name by substituting ä foe ae, to avoid this issue. We still have the benefit of mostly ASCII names mind you. It can get a lot worse.
bad_alloc··on Switching from Chrome to Firefox
A major issue I have with firefox is that it loses my pinnend tabs if i close browser windows in the wrong oder. Is there a way to keep them always?
bad_alloc··on Earth’s hottest month: these charts show what happened in July; what comes next
Technically when the Earth still had a molten crust it was the hottest. Does that matter right now? No, this is about our climate changing radically and us needing to do something before we make our planet less habitable. Nitpicking at phrasing will not help with this.
bad_alloc··on Earth’s hottest month: these charts show what happened in July; what comes next
> Am I interpreting that right?

Yes.

> How is that possible, and what am I failing to take into account?

There are factors like that most of the landmass is in the northern hemisphere, we are in a strong El Nino, ships have to burn fuel with less sulphur and so on. Right now the factors involved are unclear but there is an unsettling possibility: The Earths climate might drastically and quickly change at so called tipping points, after which a new balance becomes the norm. This new balance may or may not be hospitable or even habitable for us.

> Does it have something to do with the elliptical orbit of the earth, and possibly that our closest yearly approach to the sun just happens to align with summer months in the northern hemisphere?

Nope, our orbit is very round and if this was a major factor we'd see it in historic data.

bad_alloc··on It’s time for Americans to embrace small cars
A Hilux is 5.3m x 1.9m... how is that a small car?
bad_alloc··on Germany unveils bill to legalize cannabis
Question: Where do educated people frequently move to?

> The West seems to be dying by a thousand cuts. This is yet another cut.

Which system in your opinion is superior and will replace it?

bad_alloc··on There is no hard takeoff
And it fundamentally ignores that the market is likely totally incomputable in both the short and long term.
bad_alloc··on Ask HN: Do you have a digital end of life plan?
An old-school sealed envelope in my house. Could maybe upgrade that to a bank strongbox or leaving it with a notary.
bad_alloc··on We just lost 3TB of data on a SanDisk Extreme SSD
Uh... is one broken drive such a big issue? Hardware will fail, usually when it is very new or very old (Bathtub curve). Or are there more such events the article didn't mention?
bad_alloc··on Splitting the Web
This post expresses something I have been feeling fro a while. We need some catchy names for these parts of the web. I'd propose "Corponet" for the big sites (borrowed from Cyberpunk). How to call the other side though? "Fediverse" is its own thing, is there any other term that encompasses the fediverse, random personal sites and so on?
bad_alloc··on Crucial system of ocean currents is collapsing; ‘affects everyone on the planet’
> Why does everything has to be put into the political view?

BECAUSE THE FUTURE VIABILITY OF THE PLANET DEPENDS ON POLITICAL DECISIONS!

bad_alloc··on RNA editing is common in behaviorally sophisticated coleoid cephalopods (2017)
> Suckers.

Yes, they have those.

bad_alloc··on The Fall of Stack Overflow
Conspiracy theory: Bad initial search results forces people to search more often, hence allowing google to show more ads. Since few people switch away as a result, they continue doing this.
bad_alloc··on Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’
In all this nonsense with the so called Metaverse, the reddit shitshow and now with twitter, keep in mind: Brands are made up and even if a few platform commit suicide, the internet will continue. New things will fill the gaps left. Humans want to communicate and will find ways to do so. The fediverse is already one potential way out and more will surely pop up.
bad_alloc··on Hops for beer flourish under solar panels
Hops already need tall poles with ropes in between to grow, so they use existing infrastructure in this case. Plus the machines are already built for it :)

https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/ernten-des-hopfens-mit-einem...

bad_alloc··on There’s a heatwave in the sea and scientists are worried
This pseudo-intellectual doubt in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus is pathetic and part of the problem. What is the goal? Laying breadcumbs for climate-change deniers to follow to some trap for the gullible?
bad_alloc··on Solar energy solves global warming
> What's the waste?

Any conversion from electrical to chemical energy is inherently lossy, and Methane would need to be burned later to release the energy. In general the less conversions needed, the better.

> More available than the air?

The air is 0.04% CO2, which in turn is mostly oxygen by weight. The biosphere is a much larger source and is self-recycling.

> WHY of this seems pretty clear to me.

I also got quite jaded and often see this at some attempt to save fossil-burning infrastructure, instead of truly adapting out energy use. For example maximizing use during the day and relying on a much smaller store in batteries, hydropower or heated salts at night. The premise of "energy anytime" might hurt us a lot.

bad_alloc··on Solar energy solves global warming
This article assumed carbon capture from the air to form methane will risk depleting CO2 from the atmosphere. This methane is supposed to be used as an energy storage medium.

...wat? The proposed process is extremely wasteful and almost any other carbon source is much more available, nevermind other forms of energy storage. This might be reasonable on Mars, but why would we ever want to convert solar power to Methane on a scale that changes the atmosphere? Am I missing something?

bad_alloc··on Carmakers don’t need ‘EV divisions,’ the whole company should go electric now
EVs use energy much more effectively and can be charged from local renewables. The import of petrol and its distribution is also a massive headache in many places. What is likely needed though is a way to charge EVs ar just a couple of hundred watts, to not overload anything.
bad_alloc··on Ariane 5 User’s Manual (2011) [pdf]
Probably something that works for them now and a change might degrade reliability.
bad_alloc··on Autonomous robot to stave off spotted lanternflies
Fast movement = higher energy collisions. Robot arms can move very fast, but usually you only optimize for that in production. At that point the system should be collision-free.
bad_alloc··on Site claims to sell upvotes on Hacker News
The big centralized aggregators seem to be getting eaten by their own success. The way forward is likely the fediverse. Lemmy has gained a lot of traction since the reddit blackout and seems like a good alternative. Could we get enough people to move from HN?
bad_alloc··on The quest for a simple smartwatch
How privacy-friendly is that watch? It looks great on paper.
bad_alloc··on [dead]
Those might be blown up bridges.
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