To use the Sun, the focal point would have to be situated about 542 AUs. Certainly not impossible, and the resolution would be quite good, good enough to see surface details of an exoplanet.
And could you imagine the bokeh on a portrait?!
Readit Newsfortytwo79 commented on Rumors Circulating That James Webb Has Discovered Life on Another World futurism.com/the-byte/rum... · Posted by u/gmays
fortytwo79 commented on Defying the Supreme Court messaging-custom-newslett... · Posted by u/actfrench
> Will people have to be careful where they travel now?
It seems pretty clear to me that in your scenario Texas wouldn't have jurisdiction over anything that happens outside its border. I'm certainly not a lawyer though and would be interested to hear if there is any precedent that says otherwise.
Isn't this already the case with marijuana? Legal in one state, if you travel with it to another state, but make a stop in an illegal state, you can go to jail?
I don't know much about laws on that topic, but it seems to be a similar case to me.
Okay, now someone needs to do the same study with innocuous end game scenarios. (I know this study links to one other paper that makes this case, but I can't access it, and the abstract has a biased tone)
If you're going to explore worst-case, so you can think through preparedness, then you should also consider the trivial case to make sure we aren't over-responsive either.
fortytwo79 commented on · Posted by u/whitepaint
The article is discussing mass shootings, defined by the Gun Violence Archive, (whose data is posted in the article here[0],) as "an incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, excluding the shooter."
You seem to be implying some politically-motivated misrepresentation or classification of the data is occurring within the article, but the article only refers to the broad category of "mass shooting," which includes both terrorist events and criminal/gang shootings.
The article also states this:
"With just over 19 weeks into the year, this averages out to about 10 such attacks a week," when referring to the Buffalo shooting.
Saying "10 such attacks" implies the attacks are all similar in characteristics beyond just the number of people involved. The article talks about mental health, it talks about a pre-planned desire to kill. But it doesn't talk about gang violence. These are very different sources of intent. If you want to use the gun violence archive data to make a point, it should be about gun violence in totality - not cherry picking their numbers to make the case that the US is full of hate-filled crazies who are randomly shooting places up 10x per week.
fortytwo79 commented on Warren Buffett: Explanation for why he doesn’t believe in Bitcoin cnbc.com/2022/04/30/warre... · Posted by u/jensgk
> “Whether it goes up or down in the next year, or five or 10 years, I don’t know. But the one thing I’m pretty sure of is that it doesn’t produce anything,” Buffett said. “It’s got a magic to it and people have attached magics to lots of things.”
Bitcoin has a lot of baggage, from energy consumption to the toxic community. But if you look at it on the protocol level, it is incredibly valuable. You can transfer and verify ownership of a finite amount of some numbers. It's a technology. How much is double entry book keeping worth? Now you can say the technology is already out, so obviously no one would pay to "buy" double entry book keeping because anyone could continue using it for free.
Similarly the Bitcoin technology can be repurposed and used in other tokens, and it has. But Bitcoin is unique in that it came along with a unique set of circumstances. For one, its original proceeds are fairly distributed (no pre-mine). It also helps that the creator is still miraculously anonymous. Other shitcoins, even Ethereum has a relatively concentrated ownership and centralized control. Bitcoin is also more battle tested and has a history the suggests the community would be immune to arbitrary changes (e.g. increasing number of tokens). Another coin could come along with a benevolent dictator, not hoard tokens for personal gain, take all Bitcoin's greatest ideas and add to them, create a community and trust over a decade or so, and overtake bitcoin as a de-facto leader in digital cash, but that's becoming increasingly less likely every year.
But Buffett's point is that each unit of investment he pursues has the potential to produce incrementally more value. You're saying the aggregate technology underlying bitcoin has value - which it does. But you don't get twice the tech value by doubling your amount of coin owned. Conversely, if you double your farm holdings, you have double the ability to produce food.
Also, Buffett's quote here isn't some significantly new perspective. Hasn't this been the primary argument against bitcoin since the beginning?
> This kind of condescension towards religion is so close-minded, and it's incredibly tiring.
I live in the US, God Bless America, where religion is shoved in your face over and over again from childhood to adulthood (it’s incredibly tiring).
I’m intimately aware of the philosophies and mental capabilities of “the faithful”. Religion has earned every ounce of condescension that it receives.
> The lazy, unintellectual thing to do is to base all your understanding of reality only on what science can describe, and to never explore beyond what can be proven as a "fact."
Science is exploration. Religion is not.
And yet, you shut down the possibility of religion without any degree of exploration.
I don't need you to be religious. I understand annoyance with the fact that the culture you're in is pushing something you don't agree with (I experience that as well on other topics). What I take issue with is the attitude that religion deserves condescension and vitriol, simply because you don't subscribe to it, or because you find it annoying. I see no recognition that faith and logic aren't mutually exclusive.
Don't have religion - that's fine. But don't pretend to understand (and then trivialize) any religious tenet, if you're unwilling to fairly explore it.
> Science is exploration. Religion is not.
You're conflating religiousness with dogma. Dogma, by definition, is belief without exploration. Religion, however, invites endless exploration.
The whole point / explaining away the facts / gaslighting / trolling.
I guess we’ll just never know the motivation of the storytellers.
This kind of condescension towards religion is so close-minded, and it's incredibly tiring. I think you'd be surprised just how much the faithful appreciate and embrace science, and how much philosophical thinking about reality and existence we actually do. Adult religiousness is not the same as the cartoon version that children are introduced to, that so many atheists use to attack. The lazy, unintellectual thing to do is to base all your understanding of reality only on what science can describe, and to never explore beyond what can be proven as a "fact." Your statement about explaining away facts paints the faithful as simple-minded rubes, which is a cheap shot and is absent any understanding of how the religious actually view the world.
Thanks, at first I thought it was spam, but a nice find.
A quirkily cut together show reel of a voice over artist.
I appreciated the "retro encabulator"-esque reference in the industrial sample.
fortytwo79 commented on Ask HN: I realise data science is not for me and feel depressed · Posted by u/boa00
Firstly, finish your degree.
For most employers, just checking off the degree is more important than exactly what it is. This is especially true for software engineering. You will have many, many coworkers who have degrees in physics or bioinformatics or mathematics and work as SWEs. Most of their stories will be exactly the same as yours, although "...but there weren't any good paying jobs so..." will be in the running.
Agreed. Speaking as someone who has hired hundreds of software engineers, I can tell you that having a degree at all tells me a lot about your work ethic. Sure, I'd prefer a comp sci background, but your degree is nearly as good. It's an indicator of how you think.
You know what other degree I see a LOT of in SWE? Music. I've hired countless music majors.
Debunking doesn't seem to work with anti vaxxers or racists. No matter how many facts are placed in front of them, they don't care, don't trust the sources and never absorb anything new unless it fits whatever conspiracy they believe in.
This is what makes Rogan so dangerous. He seems reasonable, unlike Alex Jones, but Jones started his slide by flirting with growing his audience through nutters and Rogan will end up the same if he continues.
People have always been that way. Before Rogan showed up, before the internet was even invented, there were "nutters" that had deeply misinformed perspectives which they followed, sometimes, to death. I'm sure someone will argue scale is the differentiator, but I'd argue that the proportions of people who ignore facts vs consider facts, is probably unchanged. (Although admittedly, I have no statistics)
Also I think a big part of the problem is the aggressive labeling of content as "misinformation" or "fake news." To me, misinformation implies propaganda issued and promoted by an enemy entity. But today, it is a term that is used to mean anything that has a fact (whether verifiably correct or incorrect) that implies a conclusion that is generally unacceptable.
For example, if the generally acceptable premise is: "everyone who is able should get a vaccination," then publicly talking to someone harmed by a vaccination (even if it's true) would be considered misinformation, because it potentially concludes something opposing the acceptable premise.
If we can't openly share ideas, good, bad, informed, misinformed, then the 99% (fake number) of us who aren't "nutters" that follow bad advice to extreme conclusions, will be denied the volume of data, perspectives, and opinions we need to make a truly informed decision.