hutzlibu

Posssible, but unlikely. It is rather likely, that AI will become a increasing useful tool for human engineering. But replacing would require something fundamentally better.

It did rust. But apparently it was preserved under good conditions (without much oxygen) so it is still in quite good condition.

You can also completely override the browser style sheet. That is the idea of CSS ..

"Per unit energy D-T fusion, the fusion reaction most likely to be viable near term"

Ok well, I see the use of tritium only as a step towards normal hydrogen as fuel in fusion reactors. Tritium as fuel is just the "easy" target and yes, it is in limited supply and causes problems. But "in theory" we could have higher temperatures and not be dependant on tritium.

"But from that very starting point, it's clear that there will always be better ways to generate electricity than fusion: solar and wind combined with batteries."

I am 100% for renewable energies and would not wait for fusion - but I am very hesistant to use the word always here. If there is a breakthrough in handling the plasma - and recent developements indicate that this might be possible - it could make fusion very cheap. So when you have a cheap, compact and reliable energy source - most people would favor it over something unstable that takes a lot of space.

Oh the technology per se is definitely something amazing, that warrants more research. I was just referring to this question of the thread, of can this be a useful energy source for the earth in the near future? And I think no. Rather fusion, even though that will likely take some more decades at least. But a breakthrough with fusion seems possible, but I cannot think of a breakthrough with space beams, that can ignore the atmosphere, or gravity (the main constraints).

"solar roads for sci fi fans"

Solar roads are expensive and worked out economocially nowhere, where they were build. Unless you mean roads that have roofs of solar panels - that is a sound concept, because you can have standard cheap panels and replace them at will, but is not what is generally understood with solar roads.

Also about fusion:

"when it has all the radioactivity problems of fission"

Not at all the same. What exactly are you referring to? Fission with heavy isotopes has radioactivity by design - but Fusion not really. There is some radiation with some designs, but the basic idea of fusing hydrogen into helium works without radioactivity.

"massive scale challenges"

And where exactly are they? Once a small reactor runs, what is the problem to build a big one?

"and no reason to think that it will ever be anything except massive construction project"

Because fusion bombs work since 70 years. And fusion in labs are not hard either. We can do fusion - we just cannot do it in a controlled way yet. But recent records with controlling hot plasma indicate that there is real progress. So (allmost) no one is currently betting that we will soon have fusion power, but at some point we will, if we keep on working.

"Also considering that there has been a lot of investment in space launch vehicles of late the cost to lift things into orbit are lowering."

Yes, but the cost of installing solar panels on the ground are astronomically cheaper than anything you can do in space and I do not see the gap closing in the near future, even with breakthroughs. Rather the contrary, we still have lots of cheap unused land (deserts). And solar panels are getting cheaper every day. Having a space based laser/power beam sounds cool - but complicated and expensive.

"It only takes a simple back of the envelope calculation to show that space based power makes no sense even in theory."

That would be my gut feeling, but what simple calculation would you use to disproof it?

Fusion is currently not working at all - but we can transmit power (with big losses over that distance) via laser etc. But since space is expensive, I just see no way to make this work economically.

All your points would imply that the original art was degraded somehow. How?

"Venice never developed a professional spy force, like the professional cryptologers. Instead it relied mostly on amateurs, criminals and other people paid for with sometimes huge, sometimes only meagre amounts of money, and sometimes with favors, especially the release or un-banishment of criminals."

So they used a lot of spying and as a merchant empire, did traded and guarded a lot of information about everything, but they did not really had a secret service - they had professional cryptologers which was usually a family buisness:

"Venice’s cryptology department was usually centered upon a foremost cryptologer, who was also responsible for educating new recruits. He got special affordances, like being allowed to choose new recruits himself. This contributed to the department of cryptology being a nepotic affair. Younger family members were often selected and preferred. "

"I have read numerous posts on HN where Miele appliance owners swear by their reliability and repairability."

Used to be. We had the same Miele devices for years, but I think their modern versions got downhill as well.

If a car makes a misstake - that is a 2 ton fast projectile. If a cyclist does, it is a 150 kg and way slower one - that's the difference and the post I replied to did not say anyone was breaking any rules. Just that there were so many of them. But if they all would be driving cars instead - it would just mean traffic jam.

So maybe be thankful for those people choosing to not contribute to more traffic jam. And noise. And pollution.

Now imagine all those cyclists and pedestrians would also drive a car, would also be on the road at the same time. You think driving would be less stressfull then?

I have understood, that this is the current most plausible theory, but not much is actually "understood" about that time and cultures. In most cases, we don't even know the name of the culture and they are named by the places where the first stuff has been found.

Ah, but this time it is for real ..

I think (hope) it was sarcasm, but one sign of this time and age is, that it is increasingly hard to tell. Often people themself don't know anymore ..

So anyway, in this case I think the bitterness is real and the awareness, that it might be "just subjective" and not objective but that doesn't change the bitterness and misery of watching all those idiots out there ..

"He deal with security threats at the source, by tracking down the hacker and kicking them in the head."

Not just any kicks, but roundhouse kicks of course.

"but I doubt that people paying top dollar for these appliances are the type to keep an eye on such things."

Some people do - to brag in their circles (and to their own consciousness) how green they are. So then you can go flying around the world for fun with a clear consciousness ...

"Even easier if it's in XML or JSON rather than a CSV."

Yes indeed, but compression algorithms are not that new.

"But on the other, most people haven't read the books."

People still enjoyed it, though.

I read the books after the movie and yes, there is so much more to the whole world, but apperently other people enjoyed it without further context and are eager for part 2 so apparently the movie worked for them as well.

"if Gow really thinks his porn appearances don't impair him in his job as university Chancellor in small Wisconsin city, he's probably also too social judgement impaired for the job anyway."

He clearly stated, he was aware of it:

"We think our sex is beautiful and have no qualms at all about other people watching us make love,” they wrote. “But our establishment colleagues likely would be shocked … and we’re fairly certain we’d be shunned in our community. Our careers likely would be ruined.”"

He simply thinks it should be allright and accepted behavior even for a university chancellor and I agree with that.

Same reason they did not block us yet - better to have some users that block ads, than have those users on other plattforms. Now too many people used ad blockers - so step by step they want to "encourage" people to look at ads again or pay for premium. But too strictly enforcing it from day one - would probably mean too many people going away. But giving more time and nagging, more might enlist for premium.

(I won't, I seldom use youtube)

Same for me, but it might also be youtube, that is giving us more time.

Sometimes a not so perfect option is better than no other option.

"Words are meant to communicate things through shared meaning and this is what seniority means to ~everybody else except you"

Apparently you need one more counterexample? I certainly do not think one can be considered senior after 3-4 years as well.

But I would also be curious, how you would then call someone with 15 years, or oh my, 25 years of experience?

The world is a bit more complicated I think.

The US is the leading power (west) - but I don't think you can call Iran and NK russian satellites. They do their own thing and they don't really like each other - they are just united against the US. And China is in the same boat.

And south america is a big factor on its own as well, etc. etc.

And learning chinese is likely not a bad investition, but no one knows how the future will unfold. (just read some old predictions and see how they all turned wrong)

"How much more hilarious would Fallout be with the option to just say anything to anyone instead of picking one of four lame options."

Only if those dialogues lead to something real. Just doing small talk with NPCs is easy to accomplish, but integrating it into the world, where depending on the dialoge you get new quest relevant information - or have to fight the NPC if you insult them too much or say the wrong thing - is way harder.

"I'm sure my perceptions were colored by being at a Gymnasium, but I did also interact with kids from other schools."

I was at a gymnasium as well ... and we were drinking with the teachers on occasions.

"However the data I've found says alcoholism is about twice as prevelant in the USA as in Germany. Healthiness of drinking behavior isn't all all or nothing thing but a spectrum."

It is of course possible, that you have it even worse. But my point was that I cannot confirm, that we have a healthy drinking culture in germany. We do have a drinking culture and some of it may prevent some escapades, but all in all I do not think it is healthy as indeeds promotes regular drinking as something normal.

"It's also possible (indeed likely) that many of the Germans kids I knew started drinking before 16 and that accounts for some of the differences I observed."

Very likely. We started with beer with 12 ... and the first time totally drunk was with 14.

"tendency to celebrate and brag about losing control, especially among the young for whom it is more novel"

And this was (and still is) totally a thing as well.

Cultural war it seems.

"VLKK Chairperson Violeta Meiliūnaitė claims that legalising such a spelling would “violate the Lithuanian name system and have a negative impact on the country’s linguistic and cultural identity and distinctiveness”."

https://media.efhr.eu/2023/09/27/vlkk-legalisation-of-female...