charliea0

Seems like the key consideration is the mass of the bubbles. If they are light enough then this could be feasible.

The triviality argument seems to be an informal proof by contradiction.

   (1) Suppose there exists a program `conciousness.exe` whose computation is conscious. 

   (2) A block of iron is not conscious. 

   (3) There exists a (presumably time-dependent) function which maps the microscopic states of the block of iron to the states of the computation of `conciousness.exe.`

   (4) This mapping makes the block of iron is conscious.

   (5) Statement (4) is a contradiction with (1). Therefore there is no program whose computation is conscious.

I think the flaw is clearly in (4). The existence of a function decoding the state transitions of iron into `conciousness.exe` does not imply that the iron is conscious. No definition of what makes an object conscious was provided to justify such a claim.

I would say that a decoding function which maps states of the block of iron to states of `conciousness.exe` is conscious if executed (by Alice, by a computer, or in any other way). In the same way, a decoding function which mapped the states of the block of iron to states of a sieve of Eratosthenes is a prime number finder.

I'm absolutely certain that everyone else is a fool.

Honestly, just using existing corn less wastefully in the US might solve the problem.

I'm kinda skeptical of the severity of this issue. Apparently Ukraine was expected to export 33.8 million tonnes of corn this year. The USDA says that the US produced 13,691,561,000 bushels of corn in 2019. If I converted the units correctly, that is 383 million tons. Just a 10% increase in production in the US alone would replace Ukraine's harvest.

Now there certainly could be an issue of price and logistics costs in food insecure nations, but I'm not sure the answer is enabling Ukrainian production rather than producing more outside of Ukraine / ensuring countries don't cut off global trade in grains.

Figures from: https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/...

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/export-losses-gi....

This would have an interesting potential to cut down on password sharing for subscription services like Netflix, Amazon prime, etc.

I think it would be more annoying to call a friend to confirm an authentication on their phone than it is to write down a text password.

There appears to be satellite imagery of Russian columns passing through the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, which would support this thesis.

https://twitter.com/CSBiggers/status/1497000126719606790

The Russian forces seem to be trying to encircle or assault Kyiv.

I think they've taken the nuclear plant because it is a defensible point along their shortest line of advance. They wouldn't want to move past it without controlling the site.

A very interesting article as usual from this source. I particularly enjoyed learning of the marvelous social mechanisms which elevated Roman living standards without the technological advancement which created the modern world.

It is fascinating as well to compare to the fundamental problem of coordination and defections. The accumulated damage to Roman society by selfish actors eventually destroyed the institutions which produced such wealth.

The process of going from rocks to manufactured goods is fascinating, and probably part of the interest in Minecraft.

Obligatory link to a video showing the home refinement of iron metal from minerals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBBt7IhHOFQ

You can use the ore to produce potent sources for calibration and such. As it is though, this seems like an overreaction.

Radon detector / Alpha-beta radiation source. https://fusor.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=9166

This seems dumb exaggeration. I assume 'natural uranium' refers to ore which is not particularly radioactive nor dangerous.

It certainly isn't explosive, you can buy it on ebay.

So many times making names for a DND campaign, I have regretted that regular thesauruses don't show archaic synonyms.

This is perfect. I am totally going to use this.

Having taken Tedrake's underactuated robotics class which uses Drake's python bindings, it is an amazing collection of tools and examples of algorithms. Really great for learning.

I would say is very focused on research and quick prototyping, however.

MIT Driverless experimented with using Drake in 2018-19 race car, but we found that just implementing everything in eigen was more flexible, removed a dependency, and more transparent for tinkering.

Seems to still be down for me.

Does the developer edition XPS work? https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystem...

It is refreshing to read a headline about an antibody test that conveys useful information about specificity and sensitivity rates. This really helps to inform about how useful a test could be for serological surveys.

Well done Hacker News.