snek_case

I think it's hard to make the suits look sleek and cool if only because you need to fit many layers of insulation and rotator joints, tubing, etc. Makes it very difficult to have something tailored and fitted, which seems to be what SpaceX is trying to do. There could be a mobility advantage in having a suit that is closer to your body though, as in less risk of having your suit tangled or damaged by objects around you.

True. You would think it's maybe not that hard to find a real dataset to sort somewhere.

People are more sensitive to the pain of others when the victim is perceived as cute. See cute animals vs not so cute animals. We're instinctively wired to think that cute means innocent, helpless and deserving of help and protection. Obviously what is considered cute is subjective and culturally influenced to some extent.

Can you elaborate?

Look up signed distance fields. They are the most elegant CSG solution by far for procedural geometry. It's kind of like a functional way to describe and morph 3D shapes.

Highly recommend searching for Mercury Delight on YouTube for an idea of what people have done in the demoscene with it. Also lots of examples on shadertoy. It's amazing stuff.

The argument is more that encryption technologies can become outdated quickly. You also make it harder for small embedded devices to implement network connections if you mandate that all traffic must be encrypted.

A simple protocol is more likely to last.

Can't wait to be able to run this locally using electron.

It's kind of insane that the Amiga didn't do better, given it had much better graphics and sound than the PC at the time. It effectively had some simple accelerated 2D graphics. It feels like a wasted opportunity.

If we had EVs that charge 20 to 80% in less than 10 minutes, it could be a real game changer. No more range anxiety. You could use charging stations more like gas stations (when you need to). Might also make it so people don't feel like they need EVs with as much range.

JavaScript was originally developed in two weeks due to time constraints from Brendan Eich's employer. It would probably have just as many design mistakes if he had stuck with a scheme-like syntax instead. It's just hard to create a well-designed language in such a short amount of time.

> Committing to long-term, foundational research

Here I would respond that academics are prone to looking down on applied research, but it's also incredibly important. Think of new programming languages, new types of chips that will enable future computational workloads. New ways of using or optimizing existing technology... Or even empirical research to validate the effectiveness of current industrial practices (something people often don't do, or don't do rigorously enough).

Not all research needs to be "foundational". Not all applied research needs to happen in industry. Many academics would actually benefit from climbing down from their ivory tower more often.

As it is, a huge percentage of research happening in academic CS circles would probably call itself "foundational" but is actually very much divorced from reality and useless. Just people trying to increase their citation count with an incremental extension to some widely-accepted idea.

Reports from YouTubers who own the Cybertruck is that (at this stage) owning one makes you feel like a celebrity. People come to you constantly to take ask questions and take pictures with the CT. So, people seem to disagree with you.

If that's not enough, there's a long list of celebrities that now own cybertrucks, including Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Jay Z, Steve Aoki, Pharrell, and more. Might not fit your definition of "cool", but clearly, it does for a lot of people.

That tilting wheel robot is huge compared to a person, and it seems to me that the potential for it accidentally injuring a person while moving would be much greater than with a humanoid, if only because of its mass and its need to perform large, rapid motions to maintain its balance.

The ultimate goal is to produce general-purpose robots. If we want robots that can do everything a human can, then legs are definitely useful.

One simple example: getting in and out of a car. Another thing to consider is that a legged robot can tilt itself for balance while carrying heavy objects. To carry a similar weight with a wheeled robot you'll need a much wider wheel base.

And then of course, if you want to build robots that can be useful inside a house, then they need to be able to cope with stairs. There's also construction... At some point, you don't have elevators... Or just circulating between buildings out on the street where the pavement isn't great.

Does Matrox still make and sell GPUs? The website suggests they still make chips but from what I can see it looks like they're maybe focused on video ASICs? I would assume DSPs or something like that?

Ok but, could we not use green electricity to capture carbon out of the air and make plastic that way? Might be more expensive, sure, but seems possible?

We can also probably reduce our use of plastic in packaging by quite a bit. Drinks used to be packaged in glass bottles. We could go back to that.

This is why I said we can use electricity to produce ethanol or methanol.

> France, who would need to triple its production of electricity to replace its oil consumption from cars.

That seems very doubtful. Do some napkin math. A Tesla Model 3 long range has a ~75KWh battery pack. That gives it an EPA range of ~550KM. If you assume that the average person drives 1/3 of that every day (generous), there's no way that you need to triple electric production to cover that.

We should work to convert every process that uses energy to green energy. Then the issue becomes moot. Make everything electric, make all electricity production renewable (or nuclear). For things that can't easily run off of batteries like intercontinental flights, use electricity to produce methane or ethanol, and accept that this is a lossy process, price it accordingly.

AFAIK, one of the things that produces the most CO2, and that we're not doing very much about (or even discussing) just yet, is the production of concrete.

The Cray 1 was way ahead of its time. It implemented SIMD vector instructions to speed up numerical computation, was liquid cooled, and ran at 80 MHz (in 1976). The chief architect, Seymour Cray, was kind of a genius, and is responsible for designing many other pioneering machines.

Also, fun fact, it didn't have a CPU. It used all discrete logic chips, and was wired by hand, with lots and lots of wire. IIRC Seymour Cray liked to hire women to do the wiring job, because they had an easier time fitting inside the computer core to wire it, and doing detailed work because they had smaller hands.

The benefit is that you can speed up any single-threaded code without any changes, and not all code is easily parallelizable.

Seems to me that trigger events for wars are often about finding a justification for a war that people in power were already wanting to start. America doesn't want to go to war with Russia because we know it could be incredibly destructive, given that they have nukes. So, it would probably take a lot to start a war between the US and Russia. They would have to attack or be clearly planning to attack a NATO ally.

It's possible that even if Russia intentionally downed a US jet, it would not immediately trigger a war. The US would likely add more sanctions, but they would probably show incredible restraint as well.

Is it possible that there's something about the nature of computation that makes it so that P = NP / P != NP is simply unprovable/unknowable?

There's an extra trick with the semi where one of the axles can disconnect from the motor once it's up to highway speeds.

AFAIK the Tesla Semi isn't being sold to general customers. Pepsi is participating in the testing program, but they knew full well that they were early adopters, and they're doing it in part for the positive PR. It's sort of like a closed beta.

I still don't understand what exactly is being proposed. Can you summarize?

> It's an admission that they're not the big dog in streaming any more.

Might have something to do with their quirky UI and terrible search function.

The problem is, if you implement price controls, you're likely to end up with supply shortages. Canada grows food, but can it supply all the food needs of its entire population?

If not, then you have a situation like, suppose I'm a Mexican farmer and I can sell bananas to the US for $1.99 a pound, or to Canada for $1.25 a pound because there are price controls in Canada and they're not allowed to pay more than that. Why would I bother selling bananas to Canadians?

It's hard to control the economy like that because markets are self-regulating systems. Even if Canada controlled its entire supply of food, there are things Canada can't control, such as the price of fertilizer and farm equipment. If you put price controls on food and it's no longer economical to buy farming equipment and supplies anymore, you also end up with food shortages.

In addition to this... Sure, evolution modifies existing structures, but if you compare a cat's heart and stomach to a pig heart and stomach, the difference is not that big, even though the nearest evolutionary ancestor was tens (hundreds?) of millions of years ago. Once a structure is in place and works well, you can certainly tweak it, but it's easier to mostly just keep it.

Humans have a neocortex, but if you play with a cat or dog, you can recognize and understand the emotions they are feeling. Fear, anger, joy, anxiety, relaxation, etc. That suggests the structures responsible for those things in us are probably not that different from them.

Seems like we could head towards a world where people go to school from home, learn from AI, work remotely, get food delivered, find entertainment in VR. Apartments get smaller and smaller, until most people are essentially just renting a room in a large dorm, which they almost never leave.

That's true. I agree that taking big financial risks, especially later in life, is not necessarily the best advice. Risk is relative though. Plenty of people in this thread talking about programming projects they've been working on for years and have rewritten multiple times, never releasing anything. What would have been the risk in releasing something earlier?

I have a friend who is a musician. He obsessed over individual songs that he produces for months, and doesn't release very much. I think he has this idea that he's going to be hugely successful someday, but I keep telling him, I think you would build more of a following if you released more of your work. The worst that could happen is that people don't like it that much, but there's something about getting used to putting yourself out.

There are also people who dream of a better work environment and never apply for other jobs. It can be risky to just quit your job when you have a family to care for, but it's often possible to interview in other places without leaving your current job.