wolfram74 (u/wolfram74)

wolfram74 commented on The AI boom is causing shortages everywhere else washingtonpost.com/techno... · Posted by u/1vuio0pswjnm7

unsupp0rted · a month ago

What $700 billion can't do is cure cancers, Parkinsons, etc. We know because we've tried and that's barely a sliver of what it's cost so far, for middling results.

Whereas $700 billion in AI might actually do that.

wolfram74 · a month ago

Your name is well earned! "can't cure cancers" is impressively counterfactual [0] as 5 year survival of cancer diagnosis is up over almost all categories. Despite every cancer being a unique species trying to kill you, we're getting better and better at dealing with them.

[0]https://www.cancer.org/research/acs-research-news/people-are...

wolfram74 commented on EV-1 for Lease (1996) loe.org/shows/shows.html?... · Posted by u/1970-01-01

lesuorac · a month ago

I mean 3-5 years doesn't sound that great to me since I've kept every car longer then that.

However, it's not like the lead went anywhere so recycling your batteries for new ones every 5 years could be very practical.

wolfram74 · a month ago

Also, not like it just keels over and dies, that's just the 80% performance criteria. Most people wouldn't need to replace the batteries at that point.

wolfram74 commented on EV-1 for Lease (1996) loe.org/shows/shows.html?... · Posted by u/1970-01-01

necovek · a month ago

With so many discharge/recharge cycles common for a 105-mile range vehicle, how long would that NiMH battery last?

wolfram74 · a month ago

this[0] page makes it seem 500~1000 cycles till 80% starting performance is common. So if you were charging it every other day from a 40~50 mile round trip commute, after 3~5 years you'd go to charging it every day.

[0]https://www.batterystuff.com/kb/articles/battery-articles/pr...

wolfram74 commented on Nvidia Stock Crash Prediction entropicthoughts.com/nvid... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

MrDarcy · 2 months ago

Google, Amazon, and Microsoft aren’t profitable?

wolfram74 · 2 months ago

Do you think it's odd you only listed companies with already existing revenue streams and not companies that started with and only have generative algos as their product?

wolfram74 commented on Ford Has Steered Its Former EV Truck and Plant Plans in to a Ditch 512pixels.net/2025/12/for... · Posted by u/zdw

SeanAnderson · 3 months ago

Your perspective is kind of confusing to me.

I'm 35, don't own a vehicle, and have never owned a vehicle. I live in SF. I think I'm finally getting to the point in my life where, maybe, I want a vehicle. I'd use it to take myself to camping music festivals and Burning Man. That's about it. Oh, I'm sure I'd find other uses for it, helping friends haul stuff, etc... but, practically speaking, most of my needs are consistently addressed by public transit and/or Waymo.

I guess what I'm trying to say is - literally the only time I feel like I'm missing out on a vehicle is when I have a need to transport a large amount of stuff a large amount of miles into desolate environments.

Does that mean my desire for a truck is imaginary/aspirational because, if I were to own it, 99% of the time I'd be content with a low range battery? I can see why people would think that, but, to me, it seems more like the 1% is the rationale for owning the vehicle.

wolfram74 · 3 months ago

/Owning/ the truck would be imaginary/aspirational as you imagine yourself using it often enough to justify the expenditure. If it's for trips that are 3~4 times a year it probably makes more sense to rent.

wolfram74 commented on Solar energy is now the cheapest source of power, study surrey.ac.uk/news/solar-e... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico

legitster · 5 months ago

> These hybrid setups, which combine solar panels with batteries, are now standard in many regions and allow solar energy to be stored and released when needed, turning it into a more reliable, dispatchable source of power that helps balance grid demand.

On one hand, I think people underestimate how much energy our grids demand in a 24 hour cycle. The amount of lithium it would take to handle an unusually cloudy week would be astronomical.

On the other hand, one of the ironies of electric cars is that they are one of the least effective uses of battery capacity. A Tesla with a 60kwh battery is probably touching less than 20kwh of capacity every day.

So theoretically if you use the batteries for grid storage and actually cycle them regularly from 80% down to 20%, the battery capacity would be well over 2x - 4x more effective at offsetting carbon sources. (Even more so if you are offsetting worse sources like coal).

wolfram74 · 5 months ago

Fortunately other chemistries are making their way down the learning curve lithium's been on, and after a few moment reflection it would be astounding if the same types of storage that are optimal for mobile consumers also happen to be optimal for grid balancing, as daily grid balancing can be done pretty reasonably with a c rating[0] of about .2 or even .1, and as long they aren't so heavy they need to be placed on massive foundation piles, weight is not really a factor. Just need to make it as cheap as possible.

[0] battery c rating is what fraction of the battery can discharge in 1 hour https://wikibattery.org/en/wiki-us/battery/charging-rate-cha...

wolfram74 commented on Anti-aging breakthrough: Stem cells reverse signs of aging in monkeys nad.com/news/anti-aging-b... · Posted by u/bilsbie

AmbroseBierce · 5 months ago

What will that achieve? Next generation with no doubt will have their own POSs, their offspring think pretty much like them already, there is no way out of this vicious cycle.

I don't really blame humans in particular, a bear can eat it's prey alive and feel nothing at all about it, and many other similar examples of cruelty exist in nature, many even eat their own species in special circumstances, despite that I don't consider any of them evil.

Nothing short of a highly contagious virus that affects the brain and makes us more emphatic (with no other side effect) would break the cycle, but that's just sci-fi talk.

wolfram74 · 5 months ago

What, did you read Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time recently?

wolfram74 commented on Vertical Solar Panels Are Out Standing hackaday.com/2025/09/25/v... · Posted by u/lxm

hunterpayne · 5 months ago

This setup almost certainly took more carbon to make than it will ever replace. This is usually true anywhere it snows regularly. There are a couple of exceptions, but unless you are above 7000ft of elevation you are just making the problem worse. This guy should donate this setup to someone in Mexico where it would make sense.

wolfram74 · 5 months ago

I'm juggling a baby approaching lunch time at the moment, so I can't go into too much depth on this paper[0] I found 40 seconds ago, but the conclusion seems to think that solar panel EROIE in siwtzerland is somewhere between 7 and 10, which as a proxy for carbon intensity, /probably/ means it will actually result in net carbon reduction.

[0]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151...

wolfram74 commented on New bacteria, and two potential antibiotics, discovered in soil rockefeller.edu/news/3823... · Posted by u/PaulHoule

m101 · 6 months ago

Is there any reason to believe that antibiotic resistance is a problem given the potential for new ones and the rotation of existing ones?

wolfram74 · 6 months ago

It has some elements of standard tragedy of the commons, suppose nearly everybody is following the same rotation scheme, and holding some antibiotics out of rotation entirely as emergency last resort type of deal. Anybody who isn't playing along can be quite confident they're the only person using the emergency drugs and that they'll work quite well.

wolfram74 commented on The Bluesky Dictionary avibagla.com/blueskydicti... · Posted by u/gaws

SomewhatLikely · 7 months ago

It's likely that the commenter has read less than 5 million posts worth of text though. So perhaps this still points to a lack of diversity in content.

wolfram74 · 7 months ago

You got me wondering. Supposing the average post is 10 words, and a typical page of text is 250 words, that would only be ~50 pages of text a day over the last 10 years. Which I don't think I manage, but over 20 years I am probably in that window.