kharak

I don't really understand SPACs. Is there a good article explaining what they do and why you take them instead of going public directly. And what happens to those SPAC shares now if you bought some?

I know someone who wants to rebuild his one level apartments into a four level apartment block. Good district in Hamburg. Exactly the kind of thing the city needs. More apartments, increased density, private investment.

He's trying to get the allowance to do so for up to two years by now. Every plan his architect makes gets denied for different, petty reasons. Once he manages to fulfill all requirements of the bureaucracy, the true battle will begin.

Residents in the area have already said they will do everything in their power to stop this rebuilding from happening. No matter the outcome of this legal battle, that'll add another couple of years until this apartment building becomes reality.

Germany has a problem. It's becoming impossible to execute in physical space.

I believe this is the major problem. During all times, humanity spends most of it resources to make more of the same. Does this world really need another social network? More movies? Games? Novels? Fashion? More e-commerce that is reselling existing products in new design?

All of this work doesn't change a single thing. It's more of the same. Tomorrow, it'll be replaced by more of the same. Maybe it'll not be replaced, just added to a growing pile of more of the same.

The space industry has a shot at changing humanities future. So does the aging industry, prosthetics, robotics, ai, fusion and others. It might not work out, but if it does, it'll change something.

Is it a strategy if it's inevitable?

I have almost no understanding of anything. Everyday I use technology that just works. What happens in the background, I'll never know. I interact with complex social systems without knowing what makes them work or how my interactions affect me and any of these systems.

All of this works, because I build simple heuristics on everything I interact with. Mostly, these heuristics are called expectations. I expect something to happen, because I don't know with certainty that it will.

"I know that I don't know".

The most significant gain for animal rights will be the day, when we can produce inexpensive lab-grown meat (including fish) that is indistinguishable from livestock based products.

We could also really use a framework for recognizing and categorizing consciousness in other lifeforms. And translate that into a law that automatically applies tiered protection to all other lifeforms. We probably need to figure out consciousness in ourselves first, though.

Thanks! That lead me down the rabbit hole.

Here is an interesting article with some pictures, demonstrating what Dutch high-tech farming looks like: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-...

> Basically once I moved my old profile toward doing cool things that I know interest women, my matches skyrocketed basically. It really made me understand why guys don't get swipes. It's literally a resume and you gotta make yourself the best candidate.

What are those things? From what I've heard, the best pics are somewhat bland. Are you good looking, good fitting clothes and have a great smile? Just have this as profile. Then something with friends having fun, one shirtless (if well muscle-toned) and one with a dog. Oh and one doing sports, if that isn't the shirtless pic.

Never heard, that the activity in the background really matters.

What is "Q"? You seem to refer to a model that I haven't heard about and I'm curious about it. (And not sure how to Google this one).

Enjoyed reading this. You need to have a specified character to take that level of career / financial risk. He seems to be curiousity driven above all else. Hope he's continuing to do cool stuff after his PhD. From how the field seems to develop, it might be quite likely.

> That is a necessary but not sufficient condition. You also have to (a) somehow stop the people who like discriminating based on race ("racists"), and (b) do something about the systems that were intentionally setup to discriminate based on race ("systematic racism").

Agreed. I don't believe you can achieve that continuing to use race as concept. The important divide is between socioeconomic classes. Identify people in need of support, help them. People in poor neighborhoods will receive the same help, no matter their skin color. With that, you'll have widespread support for the measures, at least as far as that is possible for such measure in the USA. Bring race into the mix and you introduce another point of division, as neighbors with the same socioeconomic class would be treated differently for racist reasons.

Abandon race as concept, identify people in need of help by socioeconomic metrics and provide support to them.

I've heard, that people from the USA understand the term 'race' differently than Germans. A direct translation into German would be 'Rasse', a term reserved for dog breeds and history lessons.

From how I see the word 'race' being used in the USA, I can't see the difference to the German word 'Rasse'. For me, the racism in the USA begins with the insistence of separating people according to their 'race' and this race based thinking has permeated their entire culture. Doesn't matter where you look, old school liberals vs woke, republicans or democrats, they all divide people according to their race. It's even on their ID card.

And yet some claim 'race' is a totally different concept compared to 'Rasse'. I don't buy it, not one bit. The USA will never overcome racism, until they stop thinking in races.

I personally rather like the idea of NFTs.

NFTs could become gamechangers, in the literal meaning of the word. The project Enjin for instances focuses on NFTs in the gaming world. One selling point is, that you might be able to collect items in one game and transfer it to another. Collect a rare trophy in Fortnite and show it off in your Steam VR Home, the trophies uniqueness and legitimacy verifiable by everyone. Of course, achieving this is easier said than done, but an appealing vision for the future of gaming.

Also, it has historically been difficult for digital artists to get paid well, considering that copying their work is easy. I'm all for changing that. Yes, the image can still be copied, but ownership is it's own thing and some people are willing to pay for it.

Almost glad I'm not the only one who feels like this.

I always wonder how and why people feel differently. It is obvious, that a good chunk of programmers have no problem being passionate about completely abstract problems. I've also seen some of those programmers talk about having a mental map of the program, which they can manipulate inside their mind. Is that the difference? I don't have this mental map for code, therefore I crave a 3D representation through other means?

Let's call it the ability to physicalize mental models inside your head. I've also heard mathematicians talking about this ability. And personally, I'm way better at math that can be visualized (geometry, trigonometry, calculus and so on). Respectively, I only start to get math that can be visualized and it's my preferred way of thinking about math, not the manipulation of symbols.

Well, I'm rambling. Good luck finding a more hands on software job!

I realized at some point, that I would actually love coding, if it could be physicalized. Like the games Factorio or Satisfactorio. Give me VR/AR and a 3D programming language and I'd get willfully lost for days.

But sitting or standing for hours and hours in front of a screen, I'm starting to resent it. This goes so far that I started thinking about building a backpack with an extendable arm to hold my laptop in front of me. Still 2D and physically moving doesn't add to the programming task, but at least I could move while working.

You've already got a bunch of replies, still like to add something. I'm in the "I never felt anything towards coding" category. Tried to grow passion for it, just doesn't work. But I'd still be thrilled (and possibly intimidated) to see a passionate developer showing up for an interview. That these interviewers didn't get that you have passion for the work itself and not its outcome, not a great sign.

Hope you found something more fitting for your personality.

I personally feel that this embodies the hacker spirit perfectly. Has this service been intended to allow the donor access to his sequencing data? No. Can someone use the systems in place to get this info anyway? Yes, as it shows.

The other comments mind the burden to the charities. I personally cannot agree here. After all, this is the donors data. One might even think, that proactively sharing data could increase the number of donors.

Same here. I believe watching that video (with follow up discussion about what happened) should be mandatory for getting your driving license.

Just a minor addition respectively counter data point for you: I've tried to force myself to invest more time in my tech job and relevant side projects. I didn't care about any of it and couldn't do it. Burned out quickly. Only way I can stay in tech is to have enough recharge time. (Which are oftentimes activities that can look like work to others, as long as I have intrinsic motivation doing these things it'll increase my energy level).

Some people can work at peak performance no matter what. These people have, in my experience, a hard time understanding those who cannot. They are also rare and tend to clime the career ladder quickly. You might be one of them.

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If my life would be at stake, things would look differently. But I've seen people who work in survival mode for years and years. They pay a heavy toll. Nothing I'd recommend (or could fake myself into believing, either your survival depends on something or not. My tech job doesn't need me going all out ).

This is a bit off topic, but I like to add an observation. You assume in your post that someone could go all out on something the person doesn't care about. For me, that is not possible. Most likely also not for OP. But the possibility seems self evident, giving your post. I assume you are a person high in consciousness IRL? In any case, people are truly different from time to time.

Doesn't relate with me. While not 20 anymore, I live in a solo apartment and Covid has killed all my social life. Still never want to work in an office ever again. And I'm not going to. Despite the commute, everything about offices feels and is restricting. At home, I can work however I want. Way more productive. Way more hours of the day to myself. Never understood people who have their social life at work. You work there all day, interactions are limited, polite, professionell, uninteresting. The fun starts afterwards with people of your choice.

Is there a good podcast or Youtube video for starters? Highly sceptic of the idea and therefore intrigued.

I personally absolutely need that piece of information. I have a simple assumption about the material universe. All interactions rely on touch. Atoms or their sub-particles don't magically interact with each other over a distance.

That's why I still don't understand gravitation, at all. I don't care that we can calculate something. That doesn't tell me what is actually happening.

Thank you. Feels like a new phone. Disabled all animations.

Concentration seems to be unavoidable. A direct consequence of the power law respectively Matthew principle. I haven't researched the alternative PoS (prof of stake) concept too deeply, but I'd wager it'll end the same way.

This isn't a technological problem, but a fundamental principle of our reality. Still, the ability to fork and just restart the chain from a previous point, with new miners, gives the collective some choice on a fundamental level, should the concentration ever become a problem.

Thank you for the explanation. That was highly interesting. Does anyone else know if the human eye does perceive color directly? Is this at all technically possible? And if yes, why aren't we doing it with cameras?

If the bank issues credit to customers with that cash, you're right. If it buys stock, it's the same thing.

Actually, they do seem to be at their limit. There have been articles about this (which I merely glanced over). Scaling up manufacturing for vaccines, especially new RNA based ones, isn't something that scales infinitely with money. Not in the short or medium term, at least. In some cases, scaling up required downscaling of current production.

Searched for the well written article I've seen, to link it here, but I'm only getting SEO bullshit.

Isn't the vaccination distribution a zero sum game between nation states? Supply is limited. Some countries will get it sooner than others. Europe lost the bit against several other powers. Not to my surprise, I must say.

Your "they care but don't care enough to change habits" take is highly entlightening. This is going to help my perspective on a range of issues where binary thinking invites itselve. Thanks!

Zurich here. I noticed something is off after waking up. The light seemed.. Dirty? Went online to check what was happening. Strongly dislike this weather phenomenon.