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tomatotomato37

3,338 karma · joined May 11, 2018

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tomatotomato37··on UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
I'm curious what the thermal management system on this looks like. On one hand, vacuum being in essence a perfect insulator works in favor of keeping the silicon hot for the very long time it takes to pull a boule while requiring very little energy. On the other hand, you have to make sure the control electronics don't also heat up to 1000C. I'm also curious how you keep the molten silion separate from the crystal without gravity keeping it in the crucible. I bet a lot of interesting engineering going on here.
tomatotomato37··on White House gives Maduro ultimatum as U.S. moves toward land operations
Those upsides could have also been accomplished by pointing the CIA at Venezuela to do the same thing they've been doing across South America for the past fifty years.
tomatotomato37··on Datacenters in space aren't going to work
The only vaguely valid dual use technology I can see coming out of this is improving space-rated processing enough that deep space probes sent out to Uranus or whatever can run with more processing power than a Ti-82 and thus can actually do some data processing rather than clogging up the deep space network for three weeks on an uplink with less power than a lightbulb
tomatotomato37··on Datacenters in space aren't going to work
Nah, they are pretty similar in difficulty for interception - the first US ASAT program used essentially the same Nike Zeus missiles used for ABM duty during the late 50s
tomatotomato37··on Microsoft only lets you opt out of AI photo scanning 3x a year
Worst part about it was all the people fretting on about ridiculous threats like the chatbot turning into skynet sucked the oxygen out of the room for the more realistic corporate threats
tomatotomato37··on China bans one-pedal driving in default modes by 2027
Most ICE vehicles with automatic transmissions (aka 90% of them) either explicitly open the clutch or do torque converter things when off throttle, the result being that the vehicle starts freewheeling. Air resistance and friction and what not means the vehicle will eventually stop, but in a modern car at highway speeds that stopping distance can still be multiple miles; and that's before you bring hills into the equation.

My point being for most people expected behavior is for a car to only slow down during active braking and maintain momentum otherwise, and trying to change that otherwise would bring more danger than it's worth.

tomatotomato37··on Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door
I find it hard to believe continuous consumption of potable municipal water is cheaper than running chillers or exchangers cooled by a river/ocean, especially considering powerplants and the like have been doing the latter for decades
tomatotomato37··on Israel launches strikes against Iran, Defense Minister says
Arguably if India had the intel and military means/technology to quash Pakistan's nuclear program without a full-on invasion at the time they would have. I'm sure several other countries would have too, but the ability just wasn't there during the 70s
tomatotomato37··on BYD's Five-Minute Charging Puts China in the Lead for EVs
5 minutes breaks the point from where charging time is something that has to be planned around to an inconvenience equivalent to hitting a red light after leaving a traditional gas station
tomatotomato37··on I'm Wirecutter's water-quality expert. I don't filter my water
I use "Third Wave Water" but there are other brands out there
tomatotomato37··on I'm Wirecutter's water-quality expert. I don't filter my water
Yes, water quality matters a lot in coffee enthusiast land. They actually make little mineral packets that you add to a gallon of distilled water to get a "perfect" brewing water - I know since I actually use them for my espresso machine to fight scale buildup from my +10 grain tap water.

Note this excessiveness is really needed for espresso though; a regular Brita jug handles more tolerant methods of brewing perfectly well (and to be honest most people murder coffee enough that the water is the least of their concerns)

tomatotomato37··on Doctors Were Preparing to Remove Their Organs. Then They Woke Up.
I've heard in some lighter procedures (think bone setting or dental work) just an amnesic drug is given as apparently not biologically encoding/remembering a traumatic event seems to produce just as good an outlook as blocking the tramua through unconsciousness/painkillers
tomatotomato37··on Dystopian tales of that time when I sold out to Google
I always assumed "bring your whole self to work" was just a nice way to lead into "you don't need work/life balance because your work is your life"
tomatotomato37··on “There are people who can see and others who cannot even look”
.

  "[Photography] is a marvelous discovery, a science that has attracted the greatest intellects, an art that excites the most astute minds -- and one that can be practiced by any imbecile."
I like this quote.
tomatotomato37··on What Is HDR, Anyway?
If anyone was hoping for a more technical explanation, I find these pages do a good job explaining the inner workings behind the format

https://docs.krita.org/en/general_concepts/colors/bit_depth....

https://docs.krita.org/en/general_concepts/colors/color_spac...

https://docs.krita.org/en/general_concepts/colors/scene_line...

tomatotomato37··on Spain is about to face the challenge of a "black start"
Unfortunately that pretty much just leaves solar panels, as wind/hydro/concentrated solar/geothermal all rely on a spinning mass moving at a mostly consistent speed, though at least hydro can black start itself relatively easily
tomatotomato37··on Europe's Nuclear Trilemma:Difficult and Dangerous Options for Post-US Deterrence
That only works if you have US/Russia level nuclear infrastructure. Second-tier nuclear states are still vulnerable to the two superpowers just by sheer number advantage, be it warheads, delivery systems, or just the land area to hide things like VLF arrays
tomatotomato37··on Frank Lloyd Wright's mile high skyscraper proposal (2021)
Wow, some of the complexes in those pictures look a lot like the cities I create when I'm playing Workers & Resources; if I didn't know any better I would have thought they were taken in the former Soviet bloc. I wonder how they managed to make it work where the West didn't.
tomatotomato37··on Why is Git Autocorrect too fast for Formula One drivers?
I also want to add in the context of human sprinters & F1 drivers, their reaction time is measured via leg actuation, which for a creature evolved to be an object-throwing endurance hunter is going to have worse neural & muscular latency than, say, your forearm. That is why using your finger to trigger a response in a conventional computer time tester can get such high speeds, cause we're essentially evolved for it.
tomatotomato37··on Casual Viewing – Why Netflix looks like that
...actually wait, you unintentionally brought up an interesting point, how exactly did Netflix get data on how people are consuming their media in the privacy of their own home. That's not something you'd get good data off a simple survey
tomatotomato37··on Journal that published faulty black plastic study removed from science index
Considering how much more aggressive you can get with stainless steel during cooking and cleaning versus plastic/nonstick I'd say you still did good
tomatotomato37··on AI 'Street Photography' Isn't Photography: What We Lose by Simulating Experience
That's as much as a photograph as someone manually creating a scene in blender and running it through the Pixar Render farm or whatever to get an ultra realistic scene - as the sibling comment stated what you have is a render

Similarly the camera in MGS would be a screenshot, as in a shot of the screen

tomatotomato37··on Crystal Ball Trading Game
WSJ is left-wing in the sense a bunch of corporate types looked at the Occupy Wall Street movement and thought "Huh, it seems certain aspects of their ideology hinder their ability to organize labor effectively... I wonder what would happen if we amplify those aspects above all else."
tomatotomato37··on YouTube quietly made some of its web embeds worse, including ours
That sounds similar to issues I've been having recently with my Firefox uMatrix setup, which only seems to resolve when I blanket-allow everything (which kinda defeats the whole point of having it)
tomatotomato37··on The Porsche Macan EV is being recalled because its headlights are too bright
Porsche is also based in the EU so starting with a design that meets EU specs and then adjusting export models as needed is probably their procedure anyway
tomatotomato37··on Tip pressure might work in the moment, but customers are less likely to return
I've always wanted to ask for those who worked as a cashier or waiter in those restaurants with the ipad style payment platforms if they actually receive the tips on those things. It always seemed like such a generic default option that was always left on in those apps that I wondered if the business even acknowledged them
tomatotomato37··on The withering dream of a cheap American electric car
My guess would be the difference in perception comes from the fact sport cars tend to be smaller and sit lower, which makes pedestrians and motorist feel safer and less intimidated around them. In addition their general rarity means most people still view them as novelties rather than something to actually take a side on. That being said though it is 100% true performance engines are the absolute worst in terms of economy/emissions/noise; most truck engines are really just oversized economy engines and have the efficiency to match.
tomatotomato37··on Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia with Long-Range U.S. Missiles
Given the state of post-collapse Soviet bookkeeping I also wouldn't be surprised if Ukraine actually does still have some warheads kept in secret. The problem though is those may not be enough against a country which spent the last half-century preparing for a war involving thousands of warheads.
tomatotomato37··on USPS' long-awaited new mail truck makes its debut to rave reviews from carriers
Really the only flaw is trying to mirror a conventional car headlight design; if they went with something a bit quirky like an LED grid covering the entire front or something it would become something totally unique.
tomatotomato37··on The Hindenburg’s Interior
Germany's war preparations starting to divert resources away from civilian enterprises during the time probably didn't help either. Those zeppelins were massive investments in terms of material and industry after all
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