condensedcrab (u/condensedcrab)

condensedcrab commented on Impacts of adding PV solar system to internal combustion engine vehicles jstor.org/stable/26169128... · Posted by u/red369

condensedcrab · 2 months ago

Even the Aptera, which is designed to be super lightweight, can only regen about 10% of the battery (40 mi vs. 400 mi total capacity) with rooftop solar (https://aptera.us/)

Good reminder with respect to the CAFE standards (rip) that sometimes engineering doesn't trend towards what is "good" with respect to SWaP-C but rather what games the current regulatory environment best.

condensedcrab commented on U.S. will review social media for foreign student visa applications npr.org/2025/06/19/g-s1-7... · Posted by u/BeetleB

condensedcrab · 2 months ago

The US is squandering its huge advantage in higher ed - every country has its top schools, but the US academic scene has so many top-tier schools/universities for research. Visa issues for international students have always been a pain - great talent for graduate schools, but with so many added shenanigans that were annoying at best and a major hurdle to next steps (postdoc, jobs, etc.) at worst.

Seems like instead of making it easier for smart and talented people to come to US, we are making it harder... cause terrorism?

condensedcrab commented on Bear-Sized Giant Beavers Once Roamed North America smithsonianmag.com/smart-... · Posted by u/noleary

flerchin · 2 months ago

I wonder if they were tasty. You never hear of people eating beaver.

condensedcrab · 2 months ago

Not beaver, but muskrat was historically was a Catholic loophole to get around abstinence from meat (and more likely due to food availability).

https://www.detroitcatholic.com/news/the-history-of-detroit-...

condensedcrab commented on Helmdar: 3D Scanning Brooklyn on Rollerblades owentrueblood.com/blog/20... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

condensedcrab · 4 months ago

Very impressive! LiDAR and point clouds seem very promising, but the challenge of denoising point clouds and artifacts keep the skill bar very high/time intensive.

condensedcrab commented on Learn electricity and electronics fundamentals without taking a formal course simonmonk.org/tyee7... · Posted by u/teleforce

neuroelectron · 5 months ago

Will I finally understand transistors?

condensedcrab · 5 months ago

Depends if you want the engineer’s perspective or the device physics perspective.

I think the MOSFET circuit diagram has always made more sense to me because you can see intuitively see the “plunger” as the control input.

condensedcrab commented on Increasing Timber Production, an Emergency Situation on National Forest Lands [pdf] usda.gov/sites/default/fi... · Posted by u/gnabgib

toomuchtodo · 5 months ago

> It’s the lack of clear vision and support that makes the electorate so desperate for it to happen. If we were to actually reinvest in our citizenry (meaning the wealthy in this country would need to pay a little more in taxes) and have proper support for people in the meantime the public would be supportive and it would be better for the country as a whole.

What does this look like? Progressive taxes go up, better safety nets, those are straightforward. What does a solid middle class look like when all the cheap labor manufacturing comes back to automation (~8% of US jobs are manufacturing).

The US service sector is almost 80% of the economy. We are walking into perpetual labor shortages due to structural demographics. So perhaps we don’t need “good, union jobs” and instead need to make sure people are paid enough to live comfortable lives, regardless of job (services, manufacturing, whatever). Some combination of universal healthcare (squeeze out the profit potential, cram down non care costs), public housing (see how Austria does it) to prevent investor capture, increasing the minimum wage further faster, etc.

condensedcrab · 5 months ago

One can argue that the high level of unionization in the 1950s at around a third of the workforce help set an expectation for job compensation. Kind of a “herd-immunity” against low pay.

Maybe it’s not union jobs as you point out, but I agree that there’s a real cost of living crisis where minimum wage jobs are simply too far from a reasonable (not even comfortable) existence.

condensedcrab commented on The blissful Zen of a good side project joshcollinsworth.com/blog... · Posted by u/ingve

sadcodemonkey · 5 months ago

I love this.

My most satisfying side projects are often not necessarily my "best" work, in terms of code cleanliness, best practices, efficiency, etc. They're ones where I had a particular creative itch I wanted to scratch. Is this kind of solution possible? What would a certain unusual approach to a problem look like? How can I use this algorithm or library in this situation where it doesn't quite fit, as an experiment?

Projects with extremely loose parameters and no particular "skill acquisition" goals are great ways to grow in ways you didn't anticipate. Which is one way to think about artistic creation, I think: non-goal oriented growth.

condensedcrab · 5 months ago

I agree with that last bit - sometimes you gotta drop the time associated with polish of a finished product and play around.

Always stuck with me that pretty much every famous piece of art has a long backlog of practice to get to that point.

condensedcrab commented on Marine Le Pen banned from running in 2027 and given four-year sentence theguardian.com/world/liv... · Posted by u/tlogan

profstasiak · 5 months ago

how is sentencing for corruption connected to defensive democracy?

condensedcrab · 5 months ago

The headline really should be Le Pen guilty of embezzlement, ineligible to run for public office for X years.

Seems like a reasonable policy we should adopt in the US…