kunai

The 'state of the art' that SpaceX is pushing is nearly entirely a software thing aided by Falcon's unique engine arrangement. Hardware-wise Falcons are no more advanced than an SLS core stage, and are likely even ore technically primitive than most LVs. If SLS' mission criteria included an emphasis on reusability, NASA would have a fully reusable booster + core stage by now.

This decision was entirely due to doctrine. STS was designed as a mostly reusable product and failed costs-wise, so the government basically forced NASA to go with something expendable instead. It is genuinely impressive that SpaceX proved that reusable launch vehicles can be made cost-effective, but it's nowhere near the kind of massive quantum leap that SpaceX's legion of hardcore followers seems to be convinced it is. Everything on a Falcon or a Dragon is public domain 60s technology besides the code and guidance hardware (based on COTS components). The same is likely be true of Starship, which explains a lot of the significant teething issues it has suffered over the past several flight tests.

Is the polemical tone really necessary here? You can disagree with MMT without resorting to vitriol and accusations of the Times wanting an "equity agenda." Whatever that means.

High pressure sodium is very common and still available. Low pressure sodium is extinct. The last LPS lamp was made in 2018 I believe.

It's a shame, because LPS was the gold standard for astronomy as the hyperspecific emission spectrum made it extremely easy to filter out for astrophotographers and telescope users

yes, if you want to watch broadcast channels on a monitor you will need a tuner/amplifier converter box to do so

I've considered getting a monitor-style dumb display for my next TV, but the issue is that none of them have an inbuilt TV tuner. I get pretty fantastic reception at my current place in Queens and I'd hate to give up all my OTA channels and switch to something like Sling or YouTube TV, which again just brings back around all of the same pitfalls of a smart TV.

edit: just saw that the one you linked does have a tuner and remote! Brilliant! Might actually end up buying the 32 inch one, it's very reasonably priced.

For vehicles with an inbuilt cellular connection like OnStar or Starlink or any of the myriad of other systems like them, the vehicle will regularly phone home your GPS fix from time to time and there is no way to turn it off. I think this is what the author was trying to get at but phrased it poorly due to it being sort of a technicality.

That's quite interesting, as many of my friends in post-Soviet countries all rave about how you can run Ladas into the dirt and they'll keep running. Luck of the draw perhaps?

Honda has been moving in a similar direction as well it seems. Most of the Japanese marques besides Subaru have ditched all-touch layouts in favor of physical buttons due to poor focus group and customer response. The new Ford Maverick and Bronco also both come with extremely tactile interior layouts, which is a pleasant sight for touchscreen-sore eyes.

I really hope this is just another fad/trend in automotive design like 6-disc trunk CD changers or phosphor display gauges.

Yep, it worked when Tesla was a scrappy startup and had to cut corners when they could. They're an absolute behemoth of a company now, they should at the very least spend some time making an interior that's actually nice to spend time in.

The 2022 Honda Civic is a masterclass in how to do automotive design right. It's a throwback when it needs to be, forward-looking when it should. The interior is beautiful and I predict it will age much better than these all-screen layouts (which may end up going the way of the phosphor display gauges common on many American cars in the 80s)

I still remember the days when buttons actually were buttons.

The thing with fashion is you can go normcore if you want, the trends are limited to the extreme fringes of the market. Carhartt jackets, Timberland boots, and Levi's will always be available. Is the same true of UX? No, because a few players dominate the market and have the authority to bend all other players to their whim, even when it's not necessarily going to impact them if they retain a functional, usable, but "antique" looking UI/UX.

Perhaps the solution is to introduce tactility and permanent consistency into the system, by gasp using a button of some sort. Nah, that's too outdated and not futuristic enough!

The fact that they've proliferated so quickly without any regulatory intervention is insanity. I'm sure the Musk-loving techbros will disagree, since they only ever have to drive from gentrified bar in SF to gentrified dispensary in SJ, but for anyone who has worked a trade, had dirty hands at the end of the day, or lived in a less than ideal climate, the notion of all-touch controls for climate and other critical vehicle functions is irredeemable.

> The overall impression I get is that this particular author wants industrial policy, dammit, and he doesn't care if it's a Biden or a Trump who gives it to him -- or whether it's a "small government" Republican or a neoliberal Democrat who's getting in the way.

I thought much the same, and I lean further lefty than most on this forum. It was a great read.

There are a lot of publications I disagree with politically but still find value in them so long as they argue in good faith. Strong Towns and the work of Charles Marohn is one good example of this, he leans conservative but a lot of his work is apolitical and focused on city design and solving the housing crisis, which has value regardless of what affiliation you have.

This article is similar. Free trade is a good thing, but right now we're seeing an influx of foreign firms and capture of key industries and supply chain stops by foreign authorities. Rebuilding a strong American private and public sector and re-diversifying our economy by not having it based solely on the service part is a fairly noble goal, and I do agree with the author that OWS is a massive success story that offers some elucidating details that could help rebuild our infrastructure and lead to more effective public-private partnerships.

God bless Lina Khan.

Of course alcohol is a powerful solvent at any concentration, but there are definitely studies[1] that demonstrate 70% being a bit more effective at disinfecting.

[1]: https://www.webmd.com/first-aid/ss/rubbing-alcohol-uses

If you're using alcohol for cleaning 70% concentrations are better as they actually kill and lyse pathogens at that concentration, while 99% will just desiccate them, allowing for reactivation when in a moist environment.

Densification doesn't require skyscrapers. Istanbul and Paris are denser than any American city and they're mostly filled with midrises packed closely together with few vacant lots in between. Dubai should not be our model for a sustainable city.

> Why waste time with Jazz and jeans? Much more efficient to be reading didactics or working in a factory.

Considering the level of social infrastructure in the former DDR exceeded that in the BRD at the time of reunification, they might have had a point there. More public hospitals, more research facilities, better public transportation, more affordable housing. Sure, none of it had the flashy elements of Western capitalism, but it mostly worked.

Note that I'm not endorsing the Stasi or the many other things the DDR did to keep its population oppressed. But real life is full of grey areas.

Call me crazy but you may be onto something. I don't think it's necessarily foreign actors that would take advantage of it though, moreso multinational corporations who need a sated and pliable workforce who don't think too much about their poor living conditions, lack of societal progress, lack of upward mobility, etc.

I do find it interesting that as cigarettes have waned in popularity and weed has gotten more popular, we're finding that people are less creative and innovative than ever before and there seems to be a persistent monoculture throughout the West that's extraordinarily drab. Might it have something to do with nicotine's cognitive-enhancing ability versus cannabis diminishing cognitive function? Probably not, and there's likely no way to do a cohort study on this subject, but it's an interesting question to pose regardless.

Cannabis absolutely affects brain development if you use it consistently throughout adolescence. Don't get me wrong, I still favor legalization and decriminalization, but the number of people who like to pretend like it's some super happy wonder drug with no downsides whatsoever bother me. Like any drug, there are side effects, and this is one of them.

Not even alcohol (one of the "dirtiest" drugs as far as physiological effects go) kills brain cells. I wish this myth would die. The issue is in the way they affect your dopaminic and serotonergic regulation and how this can fuck up your brain chemistry, not that they're literally killing off your brain cells.

> My concern with modern (incredibly strong) Cannabis/THC is that some regular users seem to struggle with withdrawal if they don't smoke their bowls regularly, run short on weed etc.

That said, this is a very legitimate concern I have as well. It doesn't help that a lot of stoners seem like they're in denial over the fact that they gasp have a dependence on this substance like an alcoholic or smoker does.

Nicotine and caffeine are both mild stimulants and have nootropic effects. Weed hasn't done anything for me besides give me bad panic attacks and making me feel like I'm detached from reality. It does not have the same kind of nootropic and cognitive-enhancing effects of caffeine, not at all.

Like David Lynch, I'll stick to the coffee and cigarettes (even if the latter will probably kill me eventually, at least I can think straight)

They do smoke like chimneys though, which makes for some pretty surprising stats vis-a-vis lung cancer (lower rates than the US) and life expectancy (significantly higher).

It always amuses me to see futurists with no experience in biology or life sciences and a master's in CS try to extrapolate the future of humanity and society. Some of the worst trends in modernity are based around unqualified individuals with platforms trying to impose their will of the future on the masses (think Elon and his ridiculous tunnels, billionaires building "smart cities" in the desert, etc)

Using flash on color negative film is a very different experience from digital. Xenon flashes do really well with film, and don't blow out highlights like digital, giving a smooth rolloff that's very pleasing to the eye.

> modern smartphones are great in low light.

This is only true if you only view images on a smartphone. Blow them up on a 23 inch or larger monitor and you'll notice tons of digital NR, artifacting, and other fuckery where the image processing algorithms have tried to recover detail and not really done so all that well.

You're correct in that the demosaicing algorithms have a huge impact on image quality as well, I'm just comparing the finished result of whatever Lightroom spits out at me. It's entirely possible the camera profiles are affecting image quality but if you assume everything else is the same then I've generally found better highlight recovery on CCDs than CMOS sensors. Totally anecdotal, I know, but there's a decent bit of agreement on photography forums as well (I know how superstitious and subjective photographers tend to be, so take this all with a grain of salt.)

Polaroid has always been worse than Fuji from a technical aspect, but that's always been part of the draw, I feel. It's why Instagram got popular in the first place as the filters mimicked the colors of a washed-out Polaroid still from various decades.

There's definitely a difference in the way CMOS and CCD sensors render colors. CMOS does not do well with highlights. C-41 process negative film is still the gold standard as far as dynamic range goes, but CCDs and non-Bayer CMOS sensors like the Foveon come far closer than modern Bayer CMOS sensors. They also tend to look warmer than modern CMOS images, especially older Sony sensors from the late 2000s. Comparing the RAW output from one of my older Sony Alpha DSLRs vs a Canon 6D from a few years ago it's definitely noticeable.