charlesju

Maybe I should rephrase and emphasize that I think this is interesting not necessarily immediately practical. From what I understand about rail guns, they're not even practical yet to deploy for military ground to ground purposes, let alone to get things into space.

I think I'm taking a lot of liberties to imagine a future where we figure out a ton of challenges to get all the engineering to match the theory of making this happen. And in general, I believe we should take an optimistic approach to the future, given that getting humans into space in scale would be a marvelous accomplishment for the human race.

I think the interesting use case would be to put things into space for a lot less money. Imagine putting one or many of those new Space X internet satellites into a rail gun that goes straight up.

It doesn't need to go all the way into space, it just needs to get pretty high, then the cost to break into orbit can require a lot less fuel and make it a lot more cost effective to do space stuff.

I also believe another option, where we can throw massive amounts of money at the problem, is to completely fix our transportation system.

If you have been to any major city in Asia, they have WAYYY more people and are able to commute from much further distances because the public transportation is clean, safe, fast, reliable.

We have tons of land under utilized in the bay area, especially in the east bay, if we were to allow those people to reach their offices under 1 hour, then I think a lot of issues are going to be solved.

I also believe we should build more taller buildings, but that's happening already. I grew up in Cupertino and everywhere you go there are apartment buildings going up right now. Likewise with Mountain View where my parents work.

I think it's more than a back up. A lot of the problems, like the original poster pointed out, to survive on mars, are solutions that'll greatly benefit us on earth.

You cannot name one endeavor to get to Mars that doesn't have immediate byproducts that are incredibly useful to everyone on earth.

I also have this problem. Here are some tips I've found useful.

-- When possible, do things that you're passionate about. Develop your passions and try to work within those constraints.

-- Have a single monitor

-- Create a TODO list. Also start the day or working session with planning.

-- When tackling new problems, try to do the easiest tasks first to build momentum, before tackling harder tasks

-- Break down tasks into the smallest components and do them one at a time

-- Give yourself a reward for doing a small section of tasks (ie. watch a YT video)

-- Develop your self confidence and create a strong passion for competition, that's driven me past a lot of my attention problems

I agree that the Fortune 500 are probably the primary clients of these consulting companies. I haven't dug into the problem, but I'm also willing to guess that FAANG doesn't really care about these services as much as the less technologically savvy ones in the Fortune 500.

The primary issue and ultimately the first step in solvency is still these companies abusing the system.

You can't very well stop companies from hiring other companies to solve their problems. I think that type of solution is probably impossibly hard to implement. Whereas if you simply stop these top few companies or create rules around who and how they apply, I think the problem is going to be greatly improved.

Like I said above. Lets push for solving the obvious problems first before applying pressure downstream.

The real issue is that a couple of companies are abusing the system. None of them are FAANG.

Look at the data here: https://h1bdata.info/topcompanies.php

Don't be alarmed if you don't recognize a good portion of the top companies because they're Indian IT outsourcing/consulting companies that logjam the whole system.

There really isn't that big of a problem with H1Bs. It's a great way for companies to hire additional talent and to keep students that come here for graduate school inside the country where we subsidized their education.

I think we should focus on fixing the abuse first, then lets see where we stabilize, and then do further restrictions. It's too aggressive to curtail legitimate uses of H1B when it's clear that it's being so blatantly abused.

This is a national problem (ie. anyone in the US can be homeless anywhere), and yet it's trying to be solved at a city level.

Logistically that is impossible and makes no sense.

As for why there are so many young people homeless in SF, it's probably because SF is one of the most willing cities trying to solve a national problem by itself. We also have great weather (not too hot in the summer, not too cold in the winter). And probably a lot of generous people walking the streets.

It's really horrible what our national government has allowed to happen in our country and it's impractical for our city to hold the burden to solve this nation's problems.

Or if you leave it parked outside, people can rent it and you make money... :)

Ala Tesla auto driving fleet

No. Let me put it this way. Strategically from a bunch of directions. Even if they were making 10x the money. They would still be reporting the same steady losses.

Let me let you in on a little secret. Slack makes TONS of money. Take that as a truth and then think about why they're still reporting they're losing money..

Or you can do both! The gym is a great time for passive content consumption.

Interesting. Thanks for that. I didn't know that.

I think you should test what works best for your body.

I actually don't do strict keto, I have a lot of protein in my meals, way more than I should if I were on keto alone.

But I've tried balanced, low fat, high fat, etc. And I have found this works best for my body day-to-day. I think that if you don't feel good, then its ultimately unsustainable and bad for you and that should be your ultimate gauge.

Yeah I did that before. But I'm super lazy, so I found that buying a bunch of hard boiled eggs pre-packed into packets of 2 by Costco was just that little bit easier.

lol that's just to jump start my body before drinking coffee (which dehydrates). I drink almost a gallon a day right now outside of my jump start.

I'm on a low carb diet for both losing weight and better budget. I've tried so many things over the years, but having a consistent routine every day seems to be the easiest for me to follow. I've found that having a "yes" list is WAY easier to manage mentally than having a "no" list.

For those interested in my diet plan, I eat the following:

7am 3 cups of water followed by 3 cups of coffee.

10am 1 cup bone broth + 1 protein shake if I'm still hungry

12pm 2 cups of salad + 1 avocado + 2 eggs + 1 keto cookie (Fat Snax, they're delicious)

4pm 1 protein bar (Keto Collagen Protein Bar) or 1 30g of Macadamia Nuts

6pm 500 calories of meat + 2 cups of salad + 1 ChocoZero (Keto Chocolate)

This is about 1,800 calories a day which puts me at a steady pace to lose about 1 lb of fat a week assuming I don't cheat.

I really like this diet plan because I can bulk buy most things at Costco and the snacks on Amazon. The best hack has been pre-packed hard boiled eggs, that's reduced my lunch into a 2 min prep for just the advocado and putting everything together. My lunch requires no meal prep so I only have to think about dinner. And I've reduced dinner down to just a meat which I can cook up in a bunch of different ways twice or 3 times a week.

It has helped me save money, save time, keep fit. Great for post-holidays.

I think the tech that I'm most interested in for the purpose of colonizing other worlds will be 3D printing. In its current form it's no where close to good enough, but if we stretch our time horizon to hundred plus years I do think we can build 3D printers powerful enough to make everything we need to mine and sustain life on other worlds.

The problem is that you don't want to see a lot of the other goals very often, you want to stay focused on what you want to do, so a primary TODO is a great way to do that.

I also find that the speed to setting your TODOs matters a lot, and nothing is faster than a TXT file, especially if you travel a lot and internet can be spotty.

As a mental trick, it also seems to help that the first thing I do is look at my TODO since it's the fastest and untethered from my web browser. Once I open my web browser, I need to check e-mail and other things and it's quick and easy to get distracted before you're focused on your short term goals for your working session.

But of course, if Trello works for you, but all means.

Me too! At least with the single TODO.txt.

Here are some other tips:

-- I sync my TODO.txt with Google Drive so when I switch computers, or I want to check on my phone it's sync'd.

-- I don't do weekly or monthly goals, but I do yearly check-ins with myself and every few weeks after I feel like I'm not as focused as I want to be. I keep those goals in Google Docs since those are things that I want a more permanent place.

Isn't it just this? https://impossiblefoods.com/faq/

430mg per patty which is about the same sodium as like canned tuna

"In June 2015, the Japanese government released an energy proposal that includes the revival of nuclear power to account for Japan's energy needs. The proposal calls for an increase of about 20% in nuclear energy by 2030.[2] This reverses a decision by the previous Democratic Party, the government will re-open nuclear plants, aiming for "a realistic and balanced energy structure"."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan

I was interested in your statement, and a brief search on wikipedia says that Japan has slowly been restarting their nuclear power plants and is planning on growing nuclear power as a total percentage of power over the next several decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Japan

I don't think the sentiment on nuclear power, even after Fukushima, is as clear cut as you're presenting.

Oh cool that seems new? I turned it on.

This is only partially true on iOS. It doesn't take into account when you're using the phone, then it just lets everything through. Which is SUPPERRRRR annoying.

I use a standing desk and my primary purposes are to keep myself more alert and to alleviate back pain. It is the single biggest improvement to back pain that I have found.

As for health, like the article says, the most important things are keep up a good diet (eat just enough, eat as many whole foods as possible, vary what you eat) and exercise.

I also would like to recommend https://fluidstance.com/ which is a board that wobbles to go with a standing desk. This has further improved the benefits to my back and general alertness while working.

Keyboard is definitely fine. I don't notice any issue with it when I travel and am forced to type on it.

But in general, I don't type on the Macbook when I travel. I usually have an ergo set up with a portable keyboard and touch pad and laptop stand.

Portable Apple Keyboard: http://a.co/d/4mKQqL1

Portable Apple Touchpad: http://a.co/d/acoXyuK

Portable Laptop Stand: http://a.co/d/2GSLqIa

As someone that loves his Macbook, I thought I'd give some context for my decision to buy the Macbook and why I'd still probably the Macbook if I had to choose again today.

It really comes down to two things

1. Weight

2. Tolerable Performance

The Macbook I have has a 1.4 GHz Core i7 and 16 GB of ram. Very rarely do I feel that I have issues with the daily things I need to do with the mac, which are some light programming/scripting/SQL and even hums when I have to do spreadsheets and manage multiple websites.

Given the performance is very good by real life standards, the weight is really the big issue to consider.

This is a considerable amount of difference between 2.03lbs and 2.75lbs. That's 35% lighter, that's a huge percentage when you have to drag your laptop around everywhere with you. I would gladly pay up to $1000 for that weight cut because of how much better my quality of life is with a smaller and more portable Macbook.

For me, I need to have my computer with me everywhere I go: dinner, hiking, vacations, etc. Having it do everything I want in a reasonable performance threshold and being 35% lighter, the Macbook is still by far the superior product.

What did you do with that much power? Did you go for the AC or fridge?

Here is the much more portable and expensive version of this kit.

Anker PowerHouse to store the energy. 400 WH which is about the same capacity as the deep cycle battery listed, but this is lithium based so it's much lighter (9.3 lbs vs about 30 lbs for the deep cycle version). $500 https://www.amazon.com/Anker-PowerHouse-Generator-Alternativ...

Foldable 80W solar panel. $190 https://www.amazon.com/ALLPOWERS-Foldable-SunPower-Technolog...

Extension cord for solar panel to battery. $8 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FTFYH0U/ref=oh_aui_de...

Evaporative Cooler instead of building your own. $112 https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B007SNQ4FM/ref=oh_aui_de...

$810 for the total package. The benefits are that you get to use a lithium-based battery which is 20 lbs lighter, you can use a foldable solar panel which is more portable, and you buy a pre-assembled evaporative cooler which has nice features like swinging. Mainly this is a good solution for those that just want to press buttons and set up their configuration in a few hours otherwise the kit seems like a good option too.

I used this configuration at burning man and the battery was permanently charged even with the cooler on the whole time. I needed another shade structure for the tent to keep it down a couple more degrees but I was able to sleep until noon with this set up and be totally off grid and have enough power left over for lights and music.