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josephagoss

1,595 karma · joined February 29, 2012

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josephagoss··on Imminent merger of a supermassive black hole binary
I didn’t realise that, thanks for clarifying.

I wonder if this predicted supermassive black hole merger is rare for us - once in a lifetime, or we find out after LISA is operational that they happened frequently.

Am I right in thinking that the search area something like LISA and LIGO "see" is essentially the entire observable universe?

Could we could catch a merger from the first billion or so years of the universe?

josephagoss··on Imminent merger of a supermassive black hole binary
This is insane!

Between 100 days and 3 years we will record what will be the single largest energy release we have ever recorded.

To give an idea of our records so far: our detection of black hole mergers around the 100-150 solar masses scale are just behind a couple gamma ray bursts as the single largest energy release ever.

How big are the black hole mergers around 150 solar masses and the two largest gamma ray bursts?

The energy release converted the mass of between 1-6 solar masses into energy.

With black hole mergers this energy release/conversion is in the form of gravitational waves that we then detect!

So imagine the sun, times 6, every atom, converted into that energy. That’s what we have already recorded.

This predicted one is not even in the same ballpark. Those 1-6 sun matter into energy conversions are ants compared to what’s coming.

These supermassive black holes are thousands to tens of thousands of times the mass of our sun. (Not sure if the ones in this paper are in the billion solar masses class. Yes they do exist)

This event will convert the mass of perhaps a hundred or a thousand suns worth of matter into energy in an instant. (Not sure if the paper gives any accurate predictions I’m lazy!)

josephagoss··on Adobe tricks users into a 12 month contract
On the topic of Adobe and things to look out for:

I paid for the full subscription for years as I got a lot of use out of it for many projects.

What made me quit Adobe was their iPad Pro apps.

I found myself using the iPad Pro for visual art projects more often, and I eagerly awaited Adobes eventual iPad Pro offerings.

The only file storage option in the iPad versions of Photoshop and Illustrator is Adobe cloud online with offline cache allowed on a per file basis.

Every project has mandatory upload to Adobe cloud. No way to disable.

I am comfortable having client work stored on iCloud, and sometimes will use Dropbox, both have decent enough reputation for secure storage of IP.

But Adobe? I’m sorry but any company forcing professionals to store client IP on their cloud offering by definition cannot be considered secure, who knows what data mining they do if they are willing to pull stunts like this.

On principle I found alternative apps and ditched Adobe.

josephagoss··on Proof of stake is incapable of producing a consensus
Tezos is Proof of stake, decentralized and clearly has consensus, the three things the author argues cannot occur in a proof of stake system.

I did not find this post convincing especially as many proof of stake systems have been running consistently for years now and with significant transaction and economic volume.

As an example Tezos has decentralized apps such as liquidity pools, collateral based stablecoin systems, nft ecosystems, coin bridges to other networks such as Ethereum (two way) I use these smart contracts on a weekly basis and have done for a long time now.

Tezos manages several orders of magnitude more transaction throughput based on opcode count count vs Bitcoin, transactions, even complex ones cost pennies the network has not been attacked, is worth billions and Tezos energy usage is easily a million times less than Bitcoin.

josephagoss··on Australia to acquire nuclear submarine fleet (AUKUS)
The missiles are US but I was under the impression the warheads on UK tridents are UK built. No US warheads involved.
josephagoss··on How to circumvent Sci-Hub ISP block
This might be a good use case for Arweave.
josephagoss··on Facebook Indefinitely Suspends Trump
I think you and the op are in agreement...
josephagoss··on iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro
Unfortunately the iPhone 11 Pro has a softer screen, I had mine accumulating permanent scratches within just a few days which surprised me as every other phone I’ve owned had no issues without a screen protector.

So iPhone 11 Pro max become the first phone I had to buy a screen protector for, really disappointing in such an expensive phone.

josephagoss··on Would it be possible to detect an industrial civilization in geological record?
I think that’s just for lower orbits, I was under the impression our geosynchronous satellites will be up there for millions of years (unless future humanity cleans up the geosynchronous graveyard orbit)
josephagoss··on When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]
According to the tweet, if a $1.00 app is refunded the customer gets back $1.00 from the developer and Apple keeps $0.30.

So each refund costs the dev more than they took in for the sale whilst Apple always pockets the 30%.

How can a refund cost the dev $1.00 if they only took $0.70 for the sale?

josephagoss··on Elon: “Tesla stock is too high imo”
From memory SEC fined Musk and Tesla and Musk tried playing hardball with them and the SEC immediately doubled the fine. They were willing to start an escalation and Musk finally backed down.

Sounded to me like he was not in a strong position last time and another blatant violation is unlikely to be an easy walk in the park.

The share price has immediately moved, this is just reckless behaviour.

josephagoss··on Elon: “Tesla stock is too high imo”
If it turns out this tweet about Tesla share price is legitimately from Elon Musk, yikes the SEC will eat him up for sure.
josephagoss··on Elon: “Tesla stock is too high imo”
The last few tweets are nuts even for Elon Musk, I think it’s likely his account has been hacked.
josephagoss··on European parliament says it will not use facial recognition tech
Whereas Australia has blown right through the discussion and enabled facial recognition without public discourse.

I just found out a close suburb (East Perth) has 30-60 government run facial recognition cameras being installed with this being pushed this year to the entire Perth city area.

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-19/face-tracking-tech...

There is a reason Australia is the guinea pig of the western nations for erosion of rights and privacy tests to see how far we can be contained and pushed.

Because Australians are the most passive of all peoples across the world and are historically the easiest population to control.

But once the five eyes work out their tech and policy here they will push it out to the rest of the world.

We are the control group.

https://www.afr.com/technology/five-eyes-fears-rise-over-aus...

Australia’s population is so passive that we have passed extremely terrifying laws that now the five eyes use to bypass their own countries laws.

Australia today. UK and USA tomorrow.

josephagoss··on Paypal Withdraws from Facebook's Libra Cryptocurrency
Governments are as untrustworthy as Facebook but more scary as they have a monopoly on violence and can take away your life.

The best outcome here is that Libra doesn't launch at all in any capacity.

josephagoss··on Waymo’s Backseat Drivers: Confidential Data Reveals Self-Driving Taxi Hurdles
Disabled people need them, very old people need them. Drunk people need them.

Lots of people could do with a driverless car.

josephagoss··on A dream of an ultimate OS (1995)
Linux is extremely stable as a headless server. We have instances running for years with no issues.

That is where Linux's reputation for stability most likely comes from.

However as a desktop machine mainly used for media consumption I would take windows over linux any day. No doubt due to poor graphics and audio driver support.

josephagoss··on Camera vs. Lidar
A million people die per year due to road deaths, about 40,000 of those in the USA.

If what you say is true then a future where robot cars kill 500,000 per year and 20,000 in the USA would be considered acceptable.

Yet we know this is absolutely not the case, no society will ever stand for such a massive death toll due to robot usage. Are there any industries today where robots are allowed to kill so many?

We accept deaths because of human failing as there is no other way, the alternative is no cars.

So for us to hand over the reins to robots they need to be near perfect, think the accident rates of the airline industry as the only acceptable goal.

josephagoss··on Stun Belts in Court
I had no idea this was happening in todays world, it is utterly barbaric. To be electrocuting someone constantly throughout their trial, it is so saddening to see society get to this point.
josephagoss··on CERN migrates to open-source technologies
Does this mean that no scientist at CERN can use applications like Mathematica? Or is this just focusing on essential foundation software like operating systems (moving away from Windows)
josephagoss··on Chinese Media Warn WeChat Admins: "You Can Be Arrested for Group Chat"
If people in the chat want him suspended, I guess it is those people with the complaint making a recording/listing of the chats and then passing the evidence onto authorities.
josephagoss··on Proteins central to the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease act as prions – study
Yeah I agree, however I'd imagine if inflammation was the cause of issues (and I recall some studies showing brain inflammation to be linked to some brain disorders) then perhaps more research would go into what causes the inflammation.

Some evidence the inflammation might be diet related too. Although I can't recall the source at the moment.

josephagoss··on Proteins central to the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease act as prions – study
Does this mean that inflammation of the brain is to be ruled out as a cause?
josephagoss··on E*Trade Is Close to Launching Cryptocurrency Trading
Interesting that some companies are still interested in cryptocurrency even though it's still trending downwards. It's more likely that you'll lose money each year than make it, especially with emotion tied into the mix.

Some good technical concepts exist in this space but the financial element has made the entire space corrupt to its core.

As always. The human element left unchecked will turn anything toxic.

I used to lean towards more libertarian ideals but seeing what freedom has done to cryptocurrency has shown me some order and law is needed.

josephagoss··on More security holes are appearing in cryptocurrency and smart contract platforms
Anyone interested in a security first cryptocurrency you should check out Tezos.

Tezos uses proof of stake with a bond requirement that should solve the nothing at stake problem. The two big issues with proof of work is that it uses massive amounts of energy and unless you're the top coin or among the top 5 the chances someone will easily 51% attack your network is high.

Also Tezos uses a formal programming language for its smart contracts that should help reduce certain types of bugs.

It's an interesting project and as a disclaimer I own some.

The project had many growing pains but is on its feet now and I think that their first on chain governance vote went through recently, meaning the codebase can be updated in a decentralized manner.

josephagoss··on ABCD study enrollment done, announces opportunities for scientific engagement
Doesn't everything change the structure of a kids brain? What experiences would cause the brain not to change at all?
josephagoss··on The Game Engine Black Book: Doom
The payment processors I have looked into will handle adding on VAT, then you just mass import into an accounting package.
josephagoss··on The Game Engine Black Book: Doom
For the PDF version, the author is not shipping a physical product so stripe or paypal or even Bitcoin will suffice.

I feel too many independents have been tricked into thinking direct sales is too dangerous or too hard.

Honestly getting 10x the profit is worth some headache.

Good marketing on Amazon's part over the years though, scared many independents away with FUD regarding direct sales for digital downloads.

josephagoss··on When Sears Flourished, So Did Workers. At Amazon, It’s More Complicated
I've noticed that the NYT has it out for anything remotely related to capitalism. Didn't they put out a article a while back about how Jeff Bezos becoming so rich is terrible, and they purposely neglected to mention the millions of Americans that also gained in wealth due to Jeff's actions.

These days the NYT is doing some very biased reporting.

josephagoss··on Coinbase is launching support for the USDC stablecoin
> most of the goals of the original cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin

Satoshi's main reason for developing Bitcoin is the economic model, the other stuff just facilitates this model.

This is one of the reasons why Bitcoin has the value that it does, because the supply emission curve is known and cannot be altered.

Mistaking the things that you list as core to Bitcoin's purpose is missing the bigger picture about why Bitcoin exists.

The supply emission curve is key to understanding Bitcoin and the reason people hold it.

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