cassetti

Relevant XKCD comic immediately popped into my mind

For anyone curious, I asked ChatGPT What would be the implications if true, and here was it's reply:

As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, there had been no verified room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductors. However, if such a claim were to be validated and a room-temperature superconductor were indeed discovered, it would have profound implications across various fields:

1. Energy Efficiency: Room-temperature superconductors would revolutionize power generation, transmission, and storage. Power grids and electrical devices that utilize superconductors could operate without energy losses due to resistance, resulting in significantly improved energy efficiency.
2. Transportation: Room-temperature superconductors could be used in magnetic levitation (Maglev) trains, making them more practical and cost-effective to implement. Maglev trains already have lower friction and energy consumption than traditional trains, and with superconductors, their performance could be further enhanced.
3. Medical Applications: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines that use superconducting magnets would become more accessible and cheaper to operate. This could lead to increased availability of high-quality medical imaging and improved healthcare diagnostics.
4. Electronics: Room-temperature superconductors could enable the development of extremely fast and energy-efficient electronic devices, leading to advancements in computing and communication technologies.
5. Scientific Research: Superconductors are essential for high-energy physics research, so a room-temperature superconductor would potentially revolutionize particle accelerators, allowing for more accessible and cost-effective facilities for scientific exploration.
6. Renewable Energy: The efficiency of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power could be greatly improved by using superconductors in their power generation and storage systems.
7. Transportation Electrification: Electric vehicles (EVs) could benefit from room-temperature superconductors, allowing for faster charging and longer-range capabilities.
8. Industrial Applications: Superconductors could enhance the efficiency of motors, generators, and other industrial equipment, leading to reduced energy consumption and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
9. Aerospace: Aerospace technologies could benefit from lightweight, energy-efficient superconducting components, making space exploration and aviation more economical and sustainable.
10. Scientific Understanding: The discovery of room-temperature superconductors could potentially lead to new insights into the fundamental principles of condensed matter physics, offering a deeper understanding of quantum mechanics and material properties.

It's important to note that claims of room-temperature superconductors need to be carefully scrutinized and independently verified by the scientific community. If such a discovery were confirmed, it would be a groundbreaking achievement with far-reaching implications for various industries and scientific research.

I've been around long enough to have witnessed the internet go through many stages of development. From the early days of dialup internet (back then AOL Online was essentially a walled-off version of the internet - it was a big deal when the AOL software actually let people visit other websites). We had a different local dialup service so I had the full unadulterated internet.

Back in the mid 90's, nearly everything on the internet was paywalled - without a credit card there was very little you could do. Even Encyclopedia sites (like Microsoft's Encyclopedia Britanica) was behind a paywall. I don't miss the slow speeds of dialup and I don't miss the slow downloads (back in the day there was no way to pause and resume a download so if you lost connection, you had to restart!).

Of course real geeks know about newsgroups and how they fileshare so this was a moot point going back a very long time, but for the average internet user this wasn't a thing for quite a while.

I spent a lot of time on the IRC (internet relay chat) which I used to fileshare. It was where I learned to download calculator games for my Texas Instruments graphing calculator that ultimately introduced me into programming my own games which gave me a foundation that I've used ever since in various careers over the decades.

What I miss is the civility of the internet pre-2008. When it was harder to get on the internet. Not everyone had a PC or knew how to use it to get online. Now with iPhones any troll could get online. That's when I noticed a big shift in online communities.

Actually though it seems like a lot of companies have started moving away from China for a lot of reasons. Look at this new report showing that Mexico surpasses China as the largest trade partner with the USA now, and china is on the decline:

The article says china is sending gear to russia. It doesn't say what grade is the material.... I've seen a Ukrainian literally crush an orc's helmet with his bare hands - the gear China is sending is not high grade material.

They're sending them a bunch of low-grade parts/materials with the intention that the orcs will kill themselves in a frivolous war with Ukraine. When the time is right, they will move in and scoop up more land to call their own - and a weakened Russia will have no resources to defend against that attack.

They're playing the long-game, like they always do.

I mean even before the war, my business has intentionally started moving away from any manufactured parts or materials made from that part of the world for a variety of reasons (cost, quality control, and ongoing tensions).

I personally avoid any products made in that country as best as possible, and it feels good knowing that China is no longer the largest trade partner with America. I know it's impossible to entirely avoid Chinese made components currently, but I feel like things are moving in the right direction.

Desantis is vying for political points that he can use nationally. He and his campaign think it'll score them points that might help them prove to be more "Trumpy" than other candidates.

but I wish renewables were also a part of this plan (no mention of the sort in the article)

Well, I mean Latvia is ranked third among European countries already using the most renewable energy. Latvia came third with a 42 per cent share which mostly came from biomass and hydropower - they've been actively backing away from the Russian power grid for many years now.

Source: https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/01/20/which-european-countries-use-the-most-renewable-energy

Yeah, I hate to break this to ya, but if you've "seen" Biden's public speeches from twenty years ago, you'd see he still had a speech impediment - one he's had his entire life and spent a lot of work to control. As someone else who has trouble speaking in public, props to him for rising above it.

And the sad part? People are literally mocking his speech impediment to make it seem like he has dementia when they know the truth - that's like making fun of someone for being stuck in a wheelchair. But once again, it shows the class of the people we're dealing with.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/05/politics/joe-biden-stutter/index.html

But let me guess, mocking an orange clown for the makeup they choose to smear on daily would be considered "crossing the line" to you, right?

TOTALLY get it. I've gone as far as blocking ads at the router-level so I don't see ads browsing the internet or using apps on my phone inside my network. Plus I have ublock origin to help catch any extra ads that sneak through the router block.

To say I see no ads is an understatement. The only reason why I know about the "he gets us" ads is because I hear people complain about them. Not once have I seen one hahaha.

After fifteen years, I cancelled my Netflix last year. Don't miss it at all.

I think all these streaming platforms forget that not all of us need to watch their content 24/7. I spend less than an hour watching television a day while eating food and that's it.

Did you know that you can still enjoy Youtube ad-free (or the occasional 10-second skippable ad). How do you do it? By not watching youtube at all aside from the random how-to video. Since I watch less than an hour of youtube a month on average, I see essentially zero ads.

And the same thing is happening with AI. Friend of mine who is a programmer has a few side projects for customers. One of them got impatient trying to get him to fix a bug in their software. So instead they tried to use ChatGPT to fix the bug, and it went as well as can be expected.

Having worked with ChatGPT to program code, I've seen it literally invent fake modules, declare variables, call up this fake module and then never bother to declare the code for that special module (which supposedly does 99% of what you want it to do). And if you ask it to program the missing module, it simply declares that module and calls up a new magical module that still does 99% of the desired work. It's and endless loop that goes nowhere lol