jijijijij

Well, let that drop on your feet. Or have those fat rubber bands slap you in the face... The small pinch of powder in a cartridge got the same punch.

It's not a nuclear bomb obviously, but I feel you would be just as dismissive, anyway.

That's fine, if it doesn't mean throwing your money or taxes at them. Otherwise a democracy eroding social impact will become a self-fulfilling prophecy, regardless of tech viability. First and foremost, we should worry about the wealth centralization, resources and power we grant these companies and individuals independent of their product.

Just another scare to gain funding, "because of the implication", overstating their technological impact, conflating scifi with reality. Seems like they aim at overreacting governments, or libertarian plebs to hold the bags this time. C'mon guys, let's do the IPO with crypto, something something Wikileaks!

That device is so much more scary! Both really demonstrate the ridiculous amount of energy stored in a pinch of gun powder. And I presume gun powder is quite inefficient at driving the projectile, too.

I think the only real advantage of this, compared to gas driven projectiles, is the lack of need for gas sealing and explosion resistance of the projectile. The projectile is accelerated much more gently. You can launch combustible, rather fragile and irregularly shaped projectiles. That said, I don't think there is much need for supersonic exit velocities for most scenarios. Maybe you could use it for impact testing without introducing a gas blast or the need of a gas sealing delivery vehicle. But I don't think you would opt for a gravity powered, purely mechanical device then.

Don't know about the US, but isn't it "9to5" there too? Is there much "culture" before 9?

I can say in Germany "9to..." is also applying to cafes, supermarkets, ... pretty much nothing is open before 8 in the morning (with the exception of stuff in train stations), even some supermarkets only open at 9. So there certainly is no "culture" earlier than that. School often starts at 8, so parents frequently start the day at 6 or earlier. Same if you got an hour commuting time etc.. I don't know anybody who would wake up at 4 by choice, tho.

For me the difference is anaerobic vs aerobic exercise.

I can only go for a run first thing in the morning. Although, that's more about the empty stomach (and outdoor temperatures in summer). If I got sugar in my blood, food in my stomach, I kinda "crash" very soon and tend to get heart burn. The empty stomach also makes me feel lighter and the slight hunger feels in tune with the overall experience, if that makes sense. Running in the morning doesn't leave me tired, if I've reached the "maintenance level" (got no specific exercise goal, tho). Aerobic exercise has the benefit of giving me overall higher "energy" by making everything slightly less exhausting. And the peaceful calm of an early morning run in the green (city park) is a blissful, almost spiritual experience radiating into the day. That said, running in the evening can be fun, too, because I feel supernaturally fast. I do that too sometimes, if I feel very, very stressed/anxious and need an outlet.

On the other hand, doing strength training blood sugar is an asset, but pushing limits leaves me exhausted and tired no matter what. I presume, it's natural to feel tired, if the body has tissue damage to repair from exercise. The difference is, running can be done effectively (as far as health maintenance is concerned) without excessive tissue damage and inherently pushing limits as much.

Good luck getting those devs. Between the fallout of covid and AI in education, there is likely half an upcoming generation poorly educated and comparatively less qualified.

Right now the market favors employers, but I think when the sobriety sets in this will rapidly change. Senior devs are gonna get more expensive. Companies should massively invest in education programs.

Right, in winter there is less sun. However, there still is some sunlight and in winter you also still got wind energy. Maybe more wind, especially off-shore. Not to mention geothermal and water energy.

In any case, battery storage has been shown to be economically feasible already and are as of now operating at scale. And battery tech is only getting better. The worries about grid stability are therefore unwarranted. If you can manage the up and down of wind and solar, you don't need gas energy to stabilize the grid, you got better bad options and the seasonal variation becomes highly predictable. And of course you could e.g. reserve water potential energy generation for winter times.

And as I said, we also need to cut down our energy consumption. Building data centers to undress celebrities is not the direction of survival.

Hydrogen generation, storage, logistics and electricity conversion are all very lossy. Again battery/solar/wind tech is already there and is only getting better. We should absolutely not use hydrogen for anything, where direct electrification/battery storage is possible. We critically need it for things like steel production, but that's a special use case, where it should be made on-site. Let's be real, the only reason anyone in Germany is pushing for hydrogen is because the German "industry" historically sabotaged local solar and storage tech and now try to salvage their obsolete combustion tech. Hydrogen has a lobby, but no future. For similar reasons Russia and USA are putting propaganda efforts into climate denial: China owns battery and solar tech, China owns the energy future. It's sad, but true. There is no one to blame but those legacy economies being all inert, fat and complacent - they got a million chances to win this slow, slow race, which has been advertised a century ago.

Not to mention ammonia isn't the friendliest of chemicals and doesn't exactly beg for decentralized logistics.

I think, projects like these grew out of dunkelflaute moral panic regarding renewable energy. Meanwhile grid battery storage has becomes cheap enough to completely obliterate this concern.

And quite frankly, fertilizer needs in agriculture should be addressed by ecological means anyway. If we want to lower the impact of climate change, we need to get out of this "just throw more energy at it" technology mindset.

The whole article is trash.

Every sentence its own paragraph.

Every second word bold.

Who writes like that?

Is this some kind of stupid SEO/AI crawler optimization?

You are right, Blender doesn't just serve one industry.

I had the movie industry in mind, because it demands the largest set of Blender's features. I believe Maya still has/had the edge in animation and particle stuff. Though, AFAIK the main reason is integration and custom tooling built on it, which makes switching to Blender less tempting than sticking up with license fees... which are rather negligible compared to overall operating costs.

I believe, Blender is creeping in with smaller studios, especially anime/cartoon kinda stuff.

I think one of Blender's biggest assets is its wide creative tool set. There is even a useful video editor included. Honestly, it's not far off from being the swiss army knife of digital creative work, a creative operating system. Maybe we get a DAW too at some point :D Anyway, I think that's why Blender will dominate. Anyone starting out got everything they need for "free" (with a consistent UI you only have to learn once), but they still won't outgrow the software professionally either, now. That's totally unique.

Thanks for the Apple pay hint. That was just what I needed to get me over the mental threshold. It's been literally two clicks.

It's not just incredibly powerful software, it's also incredibly fun and intuitive to use (once the UI has clicked with you).

There are still some areas where commercial competitors got edge, but Blender covers a wider base, is the more complete/universal software already. Lot's of people prefer Blender's UI. It's also rapidly developing, the competition is not. I am pretty sure it will become industry standard at some point. Maybe not for the big studios, who invested millions into custom pipelines, but anything up and coming.

Role model FOSS project for sure.

I kinda can't get over the fact processed data can conversationally convince these LLMs to break security boundaries. Like, those malicious prompts are not illustrative analogies, but the actual attack strings. Absolutely crazy to me this tech is as widely used in automated interactions, but apparently can't be restricted on a logical, fundamental level. Is there really no functional understanding of the insides? No segmentation? Is it really just one fucking blob you have to convince to behave and pray someone else doesn't do a better job at it? Bonkers.

Plenty and mo. Who are we, if not Partanguagoos?

Yeah, I am rooting for Poland, but it's simply not a shining example of democratic integrity.

> Poland has the EU as democratic layer but US with Trump doesnt have it.

I mean, let's see. The US thought checks and balances would hold, but they didn't, and the EU didn't prevent Hungary and Poland to slip into authoritarian dynamics to begin with. It's not exactly the legal body drawing the latter two back to change, but economic benefits. And Germany also suffers the same untested myth of "checks and balances", which really assumes some political decency. And no legal construct considered bazillionaire tech bros playing god with our dopamine receptors.

We all shouldn't take democracy for granted. I hope we all start to see the real enemy of the people and find agreement on what's actually important right now. Luckily, causal relations are becoming evident for everyone to see in this critical time. Now people need to start seeing.

I really hope Europe's citizens find unity, a shared identity and a renewed lust for democracy. Quite frankly, here in this libertarian club the EU regulations are not particularly popular, but for me the EU laws are mostly positive and I am a huge fan of the whole thing.

Buddy, I am just on HN and FetLife. Maybe get rid of your own delusions before judging strangers on their imagined social media bias.

> Most AfD members share your sentiment. Maybe you should qquestion this feeling.

I heard they also drink water. Lot's to think about.

Merkel era was "incompetence"/inaction, Merz is pure malice. Remember when he did the McDonalds ad during his campaign and then the first thing after being elected was the gastronomy tax reduction which heavily favored, you guessed it, McDonalds? Sorry, wasn't actually the first thing. The first thing was breaking his campaign promise of honoring Schuldenbremse, after using the Schuldenbremse to explode the former government. He then took future Germany's money to pay his fastfood bros. If that's not malice, what is? Well, I would actually call it treason. And let's not start with Reiche and Spahn talking malice.

I would also reject the notion China "happened" to Germany, or energy costs were rising due to moral panics regarding nuclear power.

Germany once was leader in renewable energy tech, both solar and wind. Corruption and lobby driven politics intentionally abandoned that edge and caused an inefficient energy market, which is a main factor in energy costs. Of course our exceptionally productive and capable Mittelstand is not considered "German industry", only a few old-money corporations are. Your are saying the decline happened over 30 years, but the last nuclear power plat was only shut down 2023. And Germany's naive dependence on Russian gas was one of the main causal factors for the Ukraine war and all the expenses it caused. There absolutely was a cheaper, sustainable path intentionally not taken.

The same is true for our industry. It's corruption/lobbyism, arrogance and inaction, in face of slowly emerging Chinese "competition", which caused the downfall. It's not like politics/industry tried their best and failed. They tried nothing. On the contrary, they enforced the status quo over innovation and now when their power play failed they got nothing to offer. The reason BMW isn't the leader in electric cars is because at some point management decided to scrape the successful program, because "muh ICE so technology!". VW never even tried, but rather went all-in on lobbying to future-proof their business. Let's raise taxes for the bail-out.

And then of course the establishment owned media helped too, preventing necessary adaptations: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462962...

Corruption, arrogance and inaction caused the German downfall.

I think especially in the US it presents as fascism, and the AfD clearly models itself to their image, but fundamentally I think it's globally rather an anti-democratic, social-darwinistic oligarchy. Nothing in current German politics could be described as "ultra-nationalistic" or pushing a personality cult, but rather as semi-opaque sell-out of the country. I think it presents as fascism, but it's more opportunistic and not as ideologically driven as it's been in the past.

Look, Thiel is gay, Weidel is gay, Spahn is gay and they all push anti-LGBT policies globally. They are cynic, self-absorbed, "got mine" psychopaths. They don't feel better because they are white or German, but because they got power, influence and wealth. I almost wish they were nationalists or had an honest concern for any share of the general population. Their politics wouldn't be as destructive. Instead they are building bunkers.

Some make the argument, capitalism needed democracy facing the soviet authoritarian system enemy of the past, but now this freedom and participation has become a weakness in current corporate geopolitics. China has shown, you can have "the best" of both worlds. I personally think, it's just the logical consequence of wealth centralization and inequality we allowed to happen.

The question is ultimately, what kind of culture makes a people, really. Do they deeply identify as free citizens or serfs? For example, the Russians never had a bottom up revolution or systemic change, I don't expect them to rise up no matter the suck. The US is difficult to judge, because of the racial divide and red scare brainwashing era preventing post-war revolutionary tradition found across Europe. They are still very influenced by dogma and repressed emotions. Things are pretty bad and they haven't done shit, so I am afraid they will bow to the suck.

Here in Germany, I don't know. People, grew up learning there is a time for just violence. Looking at past gigantic anti-AfD demonstrations, I am hopeful, if it has to be done, it will get done. I hope there is a large enough share of the population which will make any fundamental power change unsustainable. Right now, people are in shock and still cling to their old realities, but something is brewing already. The generational injustice helps. Then again, large parts of the population are evidently fucking idiots and senile got-mines.

In context of the article, the economic performance is hardly relevant. The authoritarian forces are still strong in Poland, their institutional damage persistent.

As a German citizen let me tell you, the rate of decline this country is in is truly shocking. This is by far the worst government in my lifetime, and remarkably there is wide consensus about it across the population (above 85% dissatisfaction, if you think I am exaggerating here).

Industry and trade associations aren't happy either, which raises the question who asks for this? Life is getting forcefully precarious for a lot of people: Reduction of labor rights; stigmatization of unemployment, down to calls for forced labor; inflation; heavy increase in taxes; unaffordable housing... Mind you, none of that is economically necessary (e.g. we could prosecute tax evasion and tax the rich to begin with). All while transparency and democratic institutions are needlessly eroded.

And then there is the real threat of a next AfD (fascists oligarchy party) government looming above all. It's like CDU/SPD are preparing for a authoritarian take-over. Incidentally, there are documented connections between CDU leaders and foreign think tanks like The Heritage Foundation. Not to mention the constant endorsement and promotion of the AfD by Musk and Vance.

It's fucking wild and scary. I honestly fear, Germany is past the point of no return. I think we got moderately lucky Trump decided to outdo himself with Iran, and then the recent record heat wave, which felt downright apocalyptic. The theoretical negative consequences of some policies became immediately very tangible and undeniable. But I am not sure that's enough to shake up people. The opposition is somewhat complicit by not stepping up and presenting a vision towards democracy, equality and reason.

I live in a big city. There are a few record stores, but if we're being honest, let's also not exaggerate by calling them my local store. And if I would opt for the journey, it's not like I would find this cool group of music nerds sharing secret gems. Vinyl is an expensive hobby and everything else is digital now. It's not like every niche artist got the means to press vinyl and the presumed cozy record store will hardly point you to bandcamp. Bit silly to pretend it's anything like it used to be in "your local record store".

At least in Germany, book shops and (small) cinemas are artificially kept alive through regulations (e.g. Buchpreisbindung) and public funding. Theaters got that too, techno clubs not so much. Lucky are the ones who still got a nice deal on rent, because without a solid revenue, your new whatever local scene experiment won't be in the city. Then recently, conservative politicians also decided to attach ideological strings to the funding. What's a good book shop and what's a bad book shop gets intransparently decided by the domestic intelligence service now. The stories our times need will get you demonetized. As we speak, lobbyists are relentlessly trying to push the compliance machinery onto our devices, so we're not tempted by anything outside of commercial supervision either.

It's all converging towards the brave new mainstream. Pretending like all these trends are just fads is wilful ignorance. Media attention may come and go, but the insects remain dead, temperatures unprecedented and art compliant.

We are hardly in need of cyberpunk fiction anymore, tho.

Yes, and it's always been hot in summer!

> go to your local record store, look at their wall of employee recs, or gasp talk to them and ask them.

What local record store?

What local cinema?

What local bookshop?

Congrats, if you're resistant to addictive algorithms and same-day delivery convenience, but it's ignorant to deny the new baseline.

> To state that it is not acceptable kinda evokes the image of some higher force that intervenes and changes the situation

Yes, this higher force is morality and conscience. Going back to the original argument, Saxony isn't sponsoring these developments all by itself. It's a larger collective's effort. As a tax paying citizen, I am entitled to judge the situation and at the very least demand conditions for success, or ask for reallocation of resources to more fertile grounds.

As can be seen in this thread, the people living in these regions feel zero accountability or problem awareness. Unsurprisingly you even see the common "How dare you call us Nazis, we're just against multiculturalism and anything woke", ironically proving the point: Foreign engineers are not welcome. The foreign workers are not all going to be drawn from white Norway and Poland (what an idiotic assumption), but India and Asia etc.. They will make the landscape "multicultural". Not too mention the higher percentage of queer and other "woke" minorities in the tech sector, which are also "just" not welcome. After all, being not accepted at home may be another reason to seek shelter elsewhere.

Saxony is not full of Nazis, just people who kinda prefer the authoritarian ethnostate. Wessis need to be more accepting of the fact Pride parades are cancelled. And did you know, statistically you are far more likely to die by other means, than a hate crime in Saxony!

Quite frankly, you can't get to them (reactionary idiots) through rational discussion. It's been tried over and over again. We don't know how to do it, but talking to them isn't it. Meeting them with brainrot TikTok, seems to be somewhat effective (see Linke campaign), but in the end the simplistic answers win social media and the right got a natural edge there. They are living in informational bubbles and, in the East, due to liberal people leaving/fleeing (no judgement), these bubbles become lived realities. Worth noting: The high AfD turnouts are likely due to demographics, population density is really, really low across the east. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course there is historic baggage, too, but it's not just the old fucks, so at last let's start putting accountability where it belongs. The people there need to change, if they want the economic prosperity they feel entitled to. Rainald Grebe's "Brandenburg" is 20 years old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uellmynA34U

And yes, some of this entitlement and mental retardation is also rapidly growing in the West. All of Germany is very sick, geriatric, mismanaged and racing towards precarious inequality. Whatever the East is cooking is not the solution, so let's not call it a virtue.

Yeah, this is all about sentiment, not facts, huh?

> the point is whether it is actually dangerous for the everyday people.

Again, that's not just whataboutism, but irrelevant. "Everyday people" in Saxony are not affected by xenophobia and racially motivated violence, so your thinking is just really, really insufficient. The death stats include dying of old age. Mind boggling, you think of that as relevant and even keep insisting it is. Not a good look really.

If you can't understand this reasoning you should not be using statistics to make a point. It's not for you. Your goal isn't truth finding, but venting some hurt caused by self-ascribed entitlement, so I am out. Good luck with that. I am getting popcorn watching Saxony fuck up this undeserved opportunity.

You are right about the pH implications, but respiratory acidosis leads to hyperventilation, not hypoventilation. CO2 will kill you regardless of oxygen supply.

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

I am frequently in Leipzig, it's indeed a very nice city. But it's also immediately obvious people with a (visible) migration background are a smaller minority than elsewhere (which is backed by stats). So for a lived experience, I would strongly suggest talking to those minorities. The reports I heard speak of a lot of casual racism.

While you don't have to travel by carriage, you may even use the airport, avoiding the Umland is still an alienating and saddening state of affairs you can hardly call acceptable. For example, Saxony has absolutely beautiful nature along the Elbsandsteingebirge/Sächsische Schweiz, but those areas are also notoriously hot spots of the violent far right (e.g. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinheads_S%C3%A4chsische_Schw...). For me it felt moderately dangerous, as a white person. As an Indian, are you gonna join your colleagues on "workation" there, are you gonna bring up your worries? It's all fine, bro, racism in Saxony is all Wessi propaganda, bro. Just avoid leaving the safe zones.

Wrong comment? I wasn't talking to you and you didn't address any argument made, just reiterating the ever same Ossi vs. Wessi blabla.

> I have grown up in one of those apparently 'nazi-infested' areas, my entire family lives there and I visit every couple of weeks.

And are you even targeted by racism to make yours a relevant experience? Do you even try to understand the problem?

Man, and you even got some refugees! Saxony has one of the lowest shares of migrants and people with a migration background in all of Germany. Even Leipzig and in particular Dresden show up at the bottom compared with other German cities. That's facts.

* https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrationshintergrund * https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bevoel...

In contrast, as shown above, Saxony has one of the highest rates of violent crimes motivated by right wing extremism (going on for decades). Tendenz steigend. All together, this makes Saxony factually one of the most dangerous and unwelcoming places to be for anyone targeted by racists. And dude, this is violent crimes, it doesn't even consider the daily verbal hostilities etc..

Maybe, just maybe, if people there would care as much about this very real problem as they care about its perception, things would change for the better. Making yourself the victim is what's disgusting.

My man, I didn't even bring up the AfD. So think about that for a moment and do some introspection. You are projecting a lot.

And downplaying those numbers with all cause mortality... Maybe think about that too, hm?!

And your source states Bavaria had 144 violent right wing crimes, which is the number to match. Don't even sweat, for other reasons I would call it a shit hole too. But please, redo the math and be sure to not contrast the total population but the relevant potential victim populations. You know, since xenophobic violence isn't threatening everyone the same...

I live in east Germany and speak from experience. So maybe you are the arrogant one trying to ostplain the world to those seeing just fine.