sacred_numbers

Something can be remarkably simple and still a breakthrough at the same time. Handwashing, for example, is one of the greatest medical breakthroughs of all time despite its simplicity.

The article says that the Edu version has a capacity of 5kg which is an upgrade of 2kg. This would imply a load-carrying capacity of 3kg for the base model. Not a lot, but not totally insignificant.

I think that the lack of pollution taxes is the main subsidy, but it should not be brushed aside just because it is not a direct payment. Coal emissions (not just CO2) are really, really bad and kill many thousands of people every year. Imagine if the main source of organ transplants was kidnapping young people and stealing their organs. Now imagine that the government knew who was doing the kidnapping and just let them do it because it allowed for an abundant supply of cheap organ replacements. Not to mention, all of the kidnappers would be out of a job if the government cracked down.

Coal power was probably a net benefit in the beginning, but there are much better alternatives now.

The link below has more information about this project. Apparently they added a coating to help with water resistance and a stabilizing agent to help with strength.

https://www.theplan.it/eng/architecture/tecla

The problem is that Wall Street has access to, if not free, practically frictionless trading in comparison to retail investors. If you add more friction to retail investors but not Wall Street it just compounds the problem.

The negative effects of climate change are caused by the total level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, not the current rate of emissions. The world reduced the rate of emissions by 10% last year. That's better than nothing, but the overall level of greenhouse gases still rose by a lot last year, so it makes sense that ice would continue to melt faster. This trend will continue until we have net negative emissions, which is pretty much only possible if we first have close to zero emissions from power generation, transportation, and agriculture, as well as cash subsidies for carbon removal and sequestration.

The fix to climate change has never been reduced emissions, it has been negative emissions or zero emissions if you're willing to accept a slower, inferior solution. Reducing emissions just buys a little bit of time (but not much, based on what most of the world considers "reduced").

Do you have any numbers to back that up? A 747 burns 10-11 tons of fuel per hour and carries about 360 passengers. For a 12 hour flight, that is about 350kg of fuel per passenger. Starship's tanks hold approximately 250 tons of fuel and 950 tons of liquid oxygen. In order to match the per passenger fuel efficiency of a 747 they would need to carry about 700 passengers. Starship has about 20% more internal volume as a 747, so it seems likely that they would be able to fit at least the same number of passengers. That puts them at about 50% of the fuel efficiency of a 747.

In addition, methane combustion produces 2.75kg of CO2 per kg of fuel, while kerosene produces 3kg CO2 per kg of fuel. If they are able to fit 20% more passengers than a 747 due to the larger internal volume then they would be within about 66% efficiency on a CO2 emissions per passenger basis.

That's actually enough electricity to smelt about 40kg of aluminum.

Once we start building things in space (beyond assembling pre-built modules) it might be worthwhile, although even then it might not be worth it, since it would take a lot of fuel to move from orbit to orbit catching dead satellites. In orbit fuel is approximately just as precious as metal, so any satellite-catching drone would have to be extremely fuel efficient.

That's not what would happen, though. The police will use this tech on poor people who can't afford their own attorneys, and public defenders are too overworked, underpaid, and/or cynical to try to push back against the system. On the off chance that a rich person gets falsely arrested due to this tech the prosecution will probably immediately settle out of court to avoid scrutiny. This same scenario has played out over the last decade or so with the Stingray device[1] in particular and various forms of warrantless (or essentially warrantless) wiretapping in general. Even if facial recognition tech is officially banned or restricted, it will probably be used secretly and covered up using parallel construction[2].

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray_phone_tracker [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

That's kind of true, but also not quite true either. If you earn income from capital you are only taxed when you sell that capital. Theoretically this means that if you want to spend money on living expenses or luxuries you have to sell capital to fund your lifestyle. However the super rich can borrow money at extremely low rates with their assets as collateral, bypassing taxes and allowing their capital to keep earning for them. Also, capital gains are taxed, but at a much lower rate than ordinary income. Capital losses can also be used to offset gains, even carrying forward over many years. Imagine being able to be taxed on your average income over a period of years. I would have paid practically nothing for several years after college because I made practically nothing during college. There are all kinds of little advantages that accrue for capital but not for workers. I don't think this is necessarily bad, but it may be out of balance.

Honestly, my major problem with wealth inequality is not that rich people get to have money; it's that wealth concentration leads to power concentration. That's not healthy for democracy. This is probably extremely controversial, but I say go ahead and collect a wealth tax and then burn everything you collect. It's not about the budget, it's about limiting the power of billionaires and the corporations they control. There are probably better ways to accomplish that goal, but a wealth tax is at least a start in the right direction.

All of recorded human history is evidence that this is false. Consider the Holocaust, the Salem Witch Trials, Lysenkoism, The Great Leap Forward, Aztec human sacrifices, and so many others. Even if you just consider the relatively modern United States just look at Prohibition, the War on Drugs, Jim Crow Laws, and so many others.

I am against censorship, but not because I believe that bad ideas can't take hold and cause enormous damage. I just believe that the benefits of living in a society with free speech outweigh the costs.

Not while they are exactly three years old. There will be 52 weekends with a one year old, 52 weekends with a two year old, etc.

That's highly misleading. Overall cars kill way more people than murderers (at least double) in America. Baltimore just happens to be at the top of the list for murders per capita and apparently slightly below average for auto fatalities. For most cities there is a greater chance of dying from a car crash than from being murdered.

Before anyone takes this documentary seriously, please do some research. This[1] Wikipedia article is a good starting point, but there are a lot of sources showing how misleading and inaccurate this documentary is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_of_the_Humans#Factual_a...

Mars will certainly be challenging to colonize, but it has some major advantages that I believe outweigh the disadvantages.

First, water is pretty abundant almost everywhere on Mars.

Second, carbon is abundant and nitrogen is abundant enough to make food and plastic production viable.

Third, Mars has an atmosphere which is thick enough to provide some protection from radiation and meteorites but thin enough that conductive heat loss isn't too big of a concern. Also, aerobraking massively decreases the amount of fuel required to get to Mars.

Fourth, Mars probably has enough gravity to prevent most of the health risks associated with low gravity.

I don't think either Mars, the Moon, or asteroids are dead ends for colonization. In the long, long run I think more people will live in rotating habitats in cis lunar space than on Mars, and more people will live on Mars than the Moon, but I think there are enough resources for millions or perhaps billions of people to live on Mars.

According to this source[1] an endurance horse riding 100 miles per day requires 78,800 KCal of energy, which translates to about 329 MJ or 91 KWh of energy. That's equivalent to 2.55 gallons of gasoline, so about 39 mpg. The world record for Teslas using hypermiling techniques and a similar amount of energy is about 700 miles, so it's close to an order of magnitude better for electric cars. With multiple passengers in the car the energy efficiency per passenger increases. Trains are also quite efficient on a per passenger basis, with the ability to carry a passenger about 2000 miles for the same amount of energy as a horse traveling 100 miles. Aircraft can go about 80 mpg per passenger, so they are about 2x as efficient as a horse.

[1]:https://thehorse.com/16472/feeding-the-endurance-horse/

Learning from, teaching about, and documenting history is extremely important. The fact that you or I disagree with some historians about the proper balance between accuracy and relatability does not mean we should denigrate the study of history. I tend to agree with you that exposing more people to history is a higher priority than painstaking color accuracy, but I also believe that there is plenty of room for the kinds of historians that care more about accurate documentation than about public outreach.

That must be why India, with one of the lowest meat consumption rates in the world, tops the obesity charts.

Venus may not have a lot of hydrogen, but it does have some, especially in the form of water vapor. The amount of phosphine is also pretty tiny, about 20 parts per billion, compared to about 20 parts per million for water vapor.

I don't think wireless electric spacecraft are really viable for getting into Earth orbit, at least not in the foreseeable future. In order to escape Earth's gravity well, a spacecraft must be accelerating at more than 9.8 m/s (1 g), and realistically at double or triple that rate to minimize fuel consumption.

Imagine a spacecraft with a mass of 100 tons (including fuel and payload). Let's also assume a specific impulse of 2,956 (the highest thrust version of VASIMR according to this source: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php#...). If we require an acceleration of 2 g and assume that our engine is 100% efficient we would require about 28 GW of electricity. This is approximately equivalent to the average electricity consumption of California. I don't think it would be possible (with current or projected future technology) to build a receiver that could handle 28 GW of electricity and still stay under 100 tons. If we could build such a receiver I don't think it would be able to survive accelerating through Earth's atmosphere.

The silver lining, though, is that wireless power transfer is a very useful technology for use in space after getting to orbit. Lasers are probably a better technology than microwaves for transferring power over interplanetary distances, but the concept is the same. If we ever travel to another star there is a pretty good chance that the journey will be at least partially powered by an array of very large lasers.

It's extremely easy to beat the efficiency of photosynthesis since plants are so inefficient. The highest estimate I have seen for carbon sequestration by trees is 7 tons of CO2 per acre, which doesn't include losses from converting wood to biochar for long term carbon capture. Direct air capture of CO2 requires about 2000 KWh per ton of CO2. An acre of solar panels produces an average of 357000 KWh of electricity per year. That means that direct air capture is at least 25x more efficient at converting solar energy to captured CO2. That efficiency is important considering the scale at which we will need to sequester carbon in the next few decades. Cost efficiency is a different matter, but even then I believe direct air capture will beat biochar very soon if it hasn't already.

According to that link the medical cost of obesity is $147 billion. Healthcare spending in the US is around 3.3 trillion. Obesity is a problem, but it is not the main driver of medical costs. Also, we are already paying for the healthcare of obese people through insurance premiums and taxes. Proper socialized health care would incentivize and allow for more preventative treatment for obesity-related problems.

This is not artificial food any more than bread or cheese are artificial. Also, the scientists developing this technology are not advocating that people only eat Solein; in fact it seems like they're marketing it more as an extra ingredient that can be added to other foods that will increase the protein levels.

It also seems like you're confusing this company with companies like Soylent that are trying to create a nutritionally complete smoothie. You're correct that we probably don't understand nutrition well enough yet to make a single food that would lead to optimum nutrient levels, but in my opinion it doesn't really matter. Almost all humans are somewhat nutritionally deficient; eating a food designed to have optimum nutrient levels will probably make you less deficient than average and you can always supplement a Soylent diet with other foods.

The electricity in the process is primarily used to generate hydrogen, which is what actually feeds the yeast cells. Even a fairly small buffer tank would allow for continuous production with unreliable power. My guess is that food production can also be slowed down if hydrogen production slows down.

Storing hydrogen as food is fantastic, since food can be stored much less expensively than gaseous or liquid hydrogen and for much longer periods of time.

The data here may not be totally accurate, but the sentiment is right. For my local school it's showing the marginal cost of the first credit hour, but the average cost per credit hour is substantially lower once you get to the minimum number of credit hours to qualify for insurance. After correcting for that mistake it cut the monthly cost for tuition+insurance for my local school in half. In addition, some schools offer insurance for spouses and children as well, which usually drives the cost per person down even further. For our situation, the total cost of tuition (9 credit hours per semester) plus insurance (2 people) is about $870 per month. A comparable ACA-compliant insurance plan would be about $1,000 per month.

Even with a "gold level" insurance plan we ended up spending around $4,000 for an accident that occurred on campus that required an ambulance to the University hospital (1 mile away) and about 4 hours in the emergency room to get stitches and confirm that a head injury was not a concussion. It's hard to visualize how much money has been legally stolen from the American people over the last few decades due to the giant scam that is the health insurance industry. The combined salaries of every single doctor in America could be paid for with 8% of what we spend on healthcare every year. If you add in the salaries of nurses, pharmacists, drug researchers, etc. it's probably under 25% of what we pay. Unfortunately there are literally millions of middlemen and unnecessary administrators who soak up a very large percentage of healthcare spending without really doing anything.

Canada and Australia spend less than half as much per capita as we do on healthcare despite having similar levels of GDP per capita and better average life expectancies. If the US could save 50% on healthcare we could probably solve climate change single-handedly. This is not even an exaggeration, it's an illustration of just how much we spend on healthcare.

Not typically in money, but in gifts, lunches, and attention paid by young, attractive pharmaceutical sales people. For opioids, specifically, there is also the factor that doctors prescribing opioids will have higher customer satisfaction in the short term because opioids are better than almost anything for pain relief. Higher customer satisfaction (not necessarily the same as better patient outcomes) usually means more recommendations and more money. If some of your patients get addicted it just means they'll come in more frequently for more prescriptions. Plus, they can't actually be addicted, since your sales rep with a bachelor's in biology said that Oxycontin is not addictive.

This blog post is focused on the Raspberry Pi portion of the build, since it is the Raspberry Pi blog, but it links to the original creator's blog, which is more detailed and has several videos of the robot actually working. Here's a link to the original blog: https://raspibotics.wixsite.com/pibotics-blog/post/02-how-to...

The herd immunity threshold depends on behavior. It may be at 30% infected when the population is wearing masks and social distancing, but could be 70% if restrictions are removed. I agree that parts of New York City have probably reached herd immunity for current behavior patterns, so restrictions can probably be slightly relaxed, but 70% of the population is still vulnerable to infection, so you can't throw caution to the wind.

Transportation costs are really not that high. Let's say that the farm is 2000km away from the city. Average freight cost per ton-km via truck is about 12 cents, so an additional $240/ton. Via rail it's about 3 cents, so an additional $60 per ton. CO2 emissions follow a similar ratio, about 97 grams per ton-km for trucks and 22 grams for rail, so between 44 and 194 kg CO2 per ton.

Growing a metric ton of wheat with 100% supplemental light requires 150,000-400,000 kwh. That's $3,000 to $8,000 in electricity costs at 2 cents per kwh (very cheap) and would require electricity to generate about a gram of CO2 per kwh at the most to be better in terms of CO2 emissions.

If you have free, non-polluting electricity it would be better to use it to synthesize fuel for trucks to carry grain from the fields, or to capture CO2 from the air.