Readit News logoReadit News
ctdonath commented on Apple asks suppliers to shift AirPods, Beats production to India   asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight... · Posted by u/mfiguiere
kaushikc · 3 years ago
Every large corporation is technically a form of central planning.
ctdonath · 3 years ago
Employees can quit.

Customers can buy elsewhere.

Corporation isn't going to shoot them for doing so.

ctdonath commented on “Beowulf”: A Horror Show   publicbooks.org/maria-dah... · Posted by u/Caiero
wrp · 3 years ago
Completely disagree with her thesis. I've studied Beowulf quite a bit, and I've never thought of it as a horror story. Beowulf just doesn't fit the horror genre.

> ...horror leaves readers or viewers with...a sense that, even though the story is over, we still have something to be afraid of.

Unlike in the horror genre, Beowulf depicts danger coming from a well defined source, and conclusively eliminated by the hero's actions.

ctdonath · 3 years ago
Likewise. Have read it several times, clearly heroic action (albeit perhaps gruesome), never seemed "horror". Never occurred to me there was "something to be afraid of" after the overwrought funeral, at least nothing more than the usual risks of existence in the age.

Horror evokes existential dread, a [quasi-]supernatural threat against an unwilling [relatively] impotent protagonist, often with an ambiguous ending. The monsters may be terrifying to the Danes in general, but they are not the protagonists.

Action evokes willing combat, antagonist(s) viewed as challenger or threat to vanquish by a duty/honor-bound protagonist. Beowulf travels far to engage the heard-of horror, as challenge for pride and later protecting his people.

Beowulf sees the first monster as a voluntary challenge, the second an obligatory follow-up, and the third a duty. Any subsequent vague threats are just the way of humanity; this is not "and they lived happily ever after."

ctdonath commented on Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network   twitter.com/SpaceX/status... · Posted by u/_Microft
cududa · 3 years ago
You know both Russia and China are perfectly capable of targeting and destroying satellites, yes?
ctdonath · 3 years ago
A few, yes.

Not by the thousands, short of taking ALL satellites out.

ctdonath commented on Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network   twitter.com/SpaceX/status... · Posted by u/_Microft
dantondwa · 3 years ago
I don't like Starlink. It increases light pollution, even in places without much human activity, which is a disaster for astronomers.

Moreover, sending satellites to space is really inefficient. It wastes a lot of energy and pollutes a lot. To increase coverage, the amount of satellite they'll need will be more and more. And the skies will become more and more full of space junk (each satellite lives for 7 years).

I think there are other solutions. But of course, other solutions do not favour Elon Musk as much.

ctdonath · 3 years ago
SX is actively solving the light pollution problem.

A few satellites orbiting use far fewer materials to provide coverage of the entire planet than doing so terrestrially would.

As Starlink satellites age out they de-orbit. No space junk.

You’re welcome to propose & implement better solutions. Until then, this is the very best humans can do to lift all of humanity with minimal environmental impact.

ctdonath commented on Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network   twitter.com/SpaceX/status... · Posted by u/_Microft
Bubble_Pop_22 · 3 years ago
The world's poor are ahead of us in this realm. Lagos will clock 100M people by the end of the century.

Megalopolis are only getting bigger. Like luxury EVs , starlink is aimed at the particular preferences of the RV crowd and the yacht crowd.

Improving the quality of life of the avg. consumer is never the goal. The goal is to have rich people get excited about some luxury product so that they immediately log on their Fidelity account and buy the stock of the company which puts itself out there as the so called leader in that luxury product niche.

It turns out that too much optimism about the future can damage an economy just as much as not enough faith in the future. This is exactly what has happened with the "everything bubble".

ctdonath · 3 years ago
Tell that to the Hoh tribe, and many similar, who had zero data connectivity until Starlink connected the tribe to the world for just $150/mo.
ctdonath commented on Starlink is now on all seven continents, enabled by its space laser network   twitter.com/SpaceX/status... · Posted by u/_Microft
CSMastermind · 3 years ago
> Also everything that goes to the station stays there

What's the reasoning behind that? Presumably people bring back clothes and other personal affects right?

ctdonath · 3 years ago
Most things are probably cheaper to replace than to bring back from the most remote area on Earth, and far cheaper to leave for someone else to use than make them bring their own. If unwanted, it’s trash - too expensive to move when there’s presumably an acceptable landfill right there (may sound environmentally unfriendly, but hauling trash back is likely worse).
ctdonath commented on Try Stable Diffusion's Img2Img Mode   huggingface.co/spaces/hug... · Posted by u/fragmede
ctdonath · 3 years ago
I keep providing drawings, and it mostly just produces other drawings. Thought it was to fill in content accordingly. What am I missing?
ctdonath commented on Smart thermostats inadvertently strain electric power grids   news.cornell.edu/stories/... · Posted by u/PaulHoule
SketchySeaBeast · 3 years ago
I don't know how the smart thermostat is supposed to know your behaviour unless you tell it, which means taking it off the default. I had to tell my thermostat explicitly when I wake up.
ctdonath · 3 years ago
With room occupancy detection, it should start modeling likely HVAC needs - able to predict accordingly, and adjust power use & timing jitter accordingly.
ctdonath commented on Show HN: I built a tiny platform where you can say anything you want   boomers.dog... · Posted by u/amin
ctdonath · 3 years ago
Seems a rather demeaning choice of name, given the content currently dominating the site.
ctdonath commented on 8-Part Film Adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina Is Free Online   openculture.com/2022/07/w... · Posted by u/georgecmu
tombert · 3 years ago
Honest question; how do you force yourself to get through a book like Anna Karenina? I have sincerely tried multiple times to get into it, and haven't been able to make it more than 30 or so pages.

I'm generally a fairly well-read guy, so I would like to knock this classic out, but I am not sure how.

ctdonath · 3 years ago
Massive tomes work well as audiobooks: expert reader paces the content well, forcing you to carry through the bogged-down parts.

Anecdote: War And Peace was so massive it broke my audiobook reader app. 400 pages in it just quit progressing.

u/ctdonath

KarmaCake day11320September 28, 2010View Original