I wasn't aware just how good the news is on the green energy front until reading this. We still have a tough road in the short/medium term, but we are more or less irreversibly headed in the right direction.
Grid scale storage has come a long way. There are saltwater batteries and flow batteries in use now, those technologies are here, they're just still being iterated on and improved. And as the renewables get increasingly affordable, the demand for storage will rise with it. Now we're still mostly deploying expensive lithium batteries, but as more of that gets installed, the demand for cheaper storage will skyrocket. And production generally follows demand.
Well if there's not enough sun, wind could be a better option. I don't know much about the climate in slovenia, so either could make more sense.
As for these new kinds of batteries, I don't have the hard numbers on hand, but I know the current installed capacity is really small. So as a product, they're still really new.
The Great Filter is the idea that, in the development of life from the earliest stages of abiogenesis to reaching the highest levels of development on the Kardashev scale, there is a barrier to development that makes detectable extraterrestrial life exceedingly rare. The Great Filter is one possible resolution of the Fermi...
I don't think there is a great filter. I think there's an easy solution to the fermi paradox that doesn't require great filters, we're just the first intelligence in this galaxy.
Here's my reasoning: intelligent species that manage to develop space travel probably do tend to expand out into their galaxy. When they achieve this level of technology they can settle most of all of their galaxy in a matter of 10,000 years or so. That time period is very brief on an evolutionary scale. It's estimated that life began on earth 3.7 billion years ago. That means it took about 3.7 billion years for earth to produce intelligent life, and then from that point it would take a mere 10,000 years to reach modern day, and 10,000 more years to settle the whole galaxy. That expansion happens so quickly compared to how long it took the planet to develop intelligent life, that the chance of two civilizations rising at the same time becomes very small.
It all boils down to this: there are no intelligent aliens out there in our galaxy, because we are the first intelligent species in our galaxy. We know we're the first because if we were second, then aliens would already have settled this star system.
Probably there are lots of alien civilizations out there in the universe, but they're in different galaxies.
Not really. Galaxies are pretty stable, stars orbit around the central black hole in the galaxy. You can absolutely travel between stars in the same galaxy, even if it takes a thousand years.
The whole ship either has to have enough energy to last potentially 100000 years.
Well, that depends on how far you're going. If you pick a nice close target, let's say 3 light years away, you can potentially get there pretty quickly. With fusion propulsion systems you could make the trip is something like 70 years, coasting most of the way. I'd need to check the math to get exact numbers, but I recall fusion allowing for pretty reasonable trip times.
But if you can survive for hundreds or thousands of years, then solar sails become an option. Then it becomes a materials science problem of how thin can you make a sail that will still hold together. The greater the sail to payload ratio, the faster you go.
That's definitely the right question! And honestly we don't know, but it's evident that we are first.
Given the age of the universe, statistically it should have already happened by now.
I'm not sure that's true... I'm pretty sure that our sun is old for a main sequence yellow star in our galaxy. When you compare how long it takes for a star to get to the point ours is now, compared to the age of our galaxy, I believe it suggests that sol is part of a first wave of stars of its type. So if life really requires a star like this one to start up, then intelligent life starting just now could be right on time.
Now why is our start perfect for life? Again, we don't know, but evidently it is. Sadly we only have this one data point, this is the only star where we know there's life. So assuming that something about our type of star is perfect is about as sensible as assuming that life could start around any star. Is it that other kinds of stars produce too much radiation in the Goldilocks zone? Or is it that other kinds of stars are too variable in the amount of heat they produce? Or that other kinds of stars don't tend to have rocky planets? We don't know, but something about main sequence yellow stars could be special, and we have one of the first of those stars in this galaxy.
So declaring "we're the first" requires some assumptions, but they aren't crazy assumptions, and a lack of evidence of other older civilizations makes those assumptions stronger.
And to your point, the universe is much older than this our star, so I suspect intelligent life has developed many times before us, at least in older galaxies. But sadly I don't expect us to ever meet life from another galaxy. While I think stars within a galaxy are close enough for travel between them, galaxies are very, very far apart. I don't think life has much chance of traveling to other galaxies, at least not without some method of ftl travel (which I am also not optimistic about).
That's true, it does assume interstellar travel is physically possible, but at this point there are forms of interstellar travel that we know are possible.
Solar sails for instance, we know those work, we've tried it. Now if you wanted to travel to another star system with a solar sail, it's just a matter of scaling that proven technology way up. We're not ready to do that today, and we won't be ready in the next 20 years, but to think that we wouldn't be ready in 500 years, I find that idea far fetched.
But a much better technology would be fusion propulsion. With fusion drives you could get your cruising speed up to a meaningful fraction of the speed of light (perhaps 5-10%). At that rate you can make it to the closest stars in less than 100 years. And that technology is not at all far fetched. We truly are approaching working fusion power plants, it's extremely likely that we can eventually develop fusion propulsion, or at the very least, fusion powered electrical propulsion (ion drive).
As for if it will ever be economically possible, I'm not at all worried about that. The fact is, there are a lot of resources and opportunities right here in our solar system, just waiting for people to utilize them. So people definitely will start mining and manufacturing in space eventually. And as we start to operate more in space, we will naturally continue to iterate and improve our methods of getting around. In short, over time it's going to get cheaper and cheaper to make space ships and we're going to get better and better at doing it. The economic factors are likely to fall into place eventually.
And finally, will interstellar travel ever be possible socially? Hey, your guess is as good as mine. I don't think we have any way to answer that...
I totally agree. I know a teacher who who likes to say:
"I believe there really is no such thing as a dumb question. As long as it's an honest question (not rhetorical or sarcastic), then it's a genuine request for more information. So even if it's coming from a place of extreme ignorance, asking a question is an attempt to learn something, and the effort should be applauded."
I finished the last dungeon, collected all the extra stuff and every side quest I could find. I literally got right up to the lead up to the final Gannon fight... Then I was like "meh, I'm done".
Oh, you can finish it up pretty quickly when you decide to. Just make a b-line for where all the big dungeons obviously are. You don't need much for gear.
You know, I've heard this gospel before, I might still have the pamphlet...
Honestly, I haven't really looked into jellyfin yet. I hear it's superior in some way... But I already have Plex all set up and I have 4 friends with servers and we all share content. So it would take a lot for me to switch.
As a species, we aren't going to spread out there.
Well not with that attitude!
Yeah, space is hard and yeah mistakes have been made along the way. But things are definitely changing. Reusable rockets are nearly here... Between spaceX, rocket lab and stoke aerospace, there is real potential for these rockets to work. Hell, SpaceX has already conducted a successful orbital test flight.
With reusable rockets we'll start to see a drastic reduction in the cost to get to orbit, probably by two orders of magnitude, but possibly even more. With the cost down people will reassess the value of space and the resources available there. In other words, people will start doing more in space, and getting more from space. Resource collection, refining and specialized manufacturing are three most likely industries to start expanding into space. Once there is work to be done there it will begin to make sense for people to live there.
As a species, we aren't going to spread out there.
Not today, no. But within my lifetime, I expect we will. Remember, change is usually slow and this would constitute the most profound change in human history.
I don't think we ruin everything... We're also the best around at improving things, certainly improving our environments.
I know it's easy to be pessimistic about these things, but humans are evolutionary badasses. We're capable of amazing things. I wouldn't count us out just yet.
Besides we haven't really ruined anything. We haven't done any damage to the earth that won't heal eventually. The earth has seen many heating and cooling cycles and plenty of mass extinctions before and it will again (with or without humans).
Yeah, I think that really it wouldn't be the "global community" that ends up saving the world in an asteroid impact scenario.
It would likely be an organization that could operate on its own without endless committees. Say, the Chinese space agency, or SpaceX, or the Indian space agency. Someone would decide to just do it, without getting the whole world's approval for the mission. Then the whole world would complain that the effort was made without any international cooperation or oversight. And the organization that literally saved the world would get chewed out by everyone because inevitably the plan will not have worked perfectly.
But I'm not worried, because even billionaires don't want to die. Someone would do something.
We aren't even capable of caring for one another, let alone the EASIEST to maintain, most naturally human friendly habitat we would ever encounter in the cosmos as we evolved to fit it.
I would argue that having 8 billion people in the same place makes earth the hardest place to live in some ways.
One of the options that space habitats would allow for is smaller communities. What if you lived in a space station with roughly the population of a city? Your community wouldn't necessarily need to be affiliated with other communities to make up a "country", but it could be. Your community would have that option. And if the community is not geographically connected to the other members of its nation, there's no reason they couldn't change their mind, join a different country if you're views seem better aligned. For the first time humans would have opt-in governance.
Would opt-in governance lead to a more stable society? Would not being stuck geographically near communities with opposing views lead to less violent aggression? I don't know, but I hope so.
I'd trust them to try to intercept an asteroid... It'll be harmless when they miss and achieve nothing, but in the off chance that they pull it off, yeah sure Boeing, go for it.
How many predators can take down prey 50 times their size? How many species can thrive in tundra, jungles, plains, forests, mountains and deserts? How many species can be found on every continent? How many species figured out how to fly despite never developing wings? How many species developed hundreds of distinct methods of communication? How many species have been to the moon?
Um, I think you're mistaking species with kingdom.
"Birds" are not a species, "mammals" are not a species. I don't think viruses are even described in terms of species because they don't reproduce sexually. I think you'll find that when you actually consider species, most of my points hold.
Various species have methods of communicating, from bees dancing to each other to whales having distinct regional dialects. Yes, humans have added some complexity to it by introducing technology, but that's realy what it comes down to. Technology.
Yes, many species have some rudimentary way of communicating some kinds of information. But obviously bee dances don't compare to any human language, of which there are literally hundreds. A bee for instance has no way to express appreciation or derision for the English language. My whole point here was that humans, on hundreds of distinct occasions, developed languages capable of conveying complex ideas. No other species has developed a language half as capable as any of ours.
Rather than picking the rest of that post apart, I'm just going to stop here. It's pretty self evident that humans are impressive as hell. Denying that is... pretty dumb, and purely rhetorical.
As a side note, don't get too excited about fusion, it's largely a dead end. I expect it will only be really useful in niche applications (like spacecraft). It will be far more expensive than nuclear fision and not really offer any benefits besides abundance of fuel. There's still a huge radioactive waste problem. On the other hand, the sun provides all the energy we'll ever need, and we're getting better at collecting it. I'm really not concerned about increasing energy demands.
It's hard to feel disappointed about something you don't really care about. That is to say, the reason I feel disappointed is because I like this community and I want it to be a place for civil discourse. Conversely, I've given up on Reddit, so nothing that happens there can really disappoint me any more, I no longer care about it.
I'm not going to make a fuss about something that doesn't impact me, but I will make a fuss about something I believe in, like Lemmy.
Does he really have hyperloops to dream up and Mars colonies to plan, or is that just marketing drivel to appeal to certain types?
Well Mars is for sure the plan. He absolutely wants to build a city on Mars, and he absolutely has made strides in that direction with the starship. I'm not sure I'd want to live in muskberg though...
Also to his credit, the world has electric cars now. It was Tesla that made that happen, it was not inevitable. The traditional auto makers were resisting electric vehicles really hard, they did not want to build them... They only started building them to not be left behind.
I agree that he seems to have turned into a white hot ball of crazy. But his companies have had a pretty big and quite positive impact. I mean, compare Tesla and Coca-Cola, which is really doing more for the world? Compare SpaceX and Raytheon, both of those companies make rockets, but Raytheon makes them exclusively with warheads... I just look at what musk has built and I don't see the problem that everyone else here seems to.
Mars colonies are a stupid fucking idea that scientifically literate people who understand basic facts about Mars know wont ever happen.
Well the person who knows the most about this topic is probably Robert Zubrin. Maybe you should read one of his books.
Is Mars habitation a possible goal? Yes, it's definitely possible. There are certainly more worthy goals in space exploration, but there's nothing about living on Mars that can't be done.
Btw, your attitude is even more obnoxious than your post is valueless.
I completely stopped caring about 2 years ago, I realized I was never going to do anything with my good look and that I will never get into a relationship in my life, so I just figured out "what's the point then, I'm already invisible to women?" And I don't care about my health tbh......
Elon Musk's quest to wirelessly connect human brains with machines has run into a seemingly impossible obstacle, experts say. The company is now asking the public for help finding a solution....
Take video for example. Using different algorithms you can get a video down half the file size of the original. But with another algorithm you can get it down to 1/4 another can get it down to 1/10. If appropriate quality settings are used, the highly compressed video can look just as good as the original. The algorithm isn't getting rid of noise, it's finding better ways to express the data. Generally the fancier the algorithm, the more tricks it's using, the smaller you can get the data, but it's also usually harder to unpack.
Isn't this all already possible in Germany? I'm pretty sure I remember a story about valve losing a lawsuit some years back so in Germany people are allowed to transfer their games.
This is exactly it. I owned an S3 and used it for many years, it was reliable. Assuming it would be of similar quality, I eventually upgraded to an (at that point) already outdated S5. It did not last as long. I've been using a Google pixel ever since.
Yeah, that's a fair complaint for sure. I'm using a pixel 4a with a headphone jack and I can't imagine living without one. I guess I'm not sure what phone I'll get next.
Yeah, the headphone jack thing has been a major sticking point for me. But it seems like it's becoming increasingly unrealistic to hold that line. Just sucking it up and getting a dongle might be the logical way to go...
As already leaked, the game is a 6v6 third-person hero-based shooter. Heroes include magicians, robots, creatures, humans, and more. There are currently 19 different heroes, each with different abilities and playstyles that you’d come to expect from a MOBA including ranged, healers, tanks, assassins, etc....
Ah, I see now that you said "as a non moba player". I missed that. I thought you meant that for someone who likes MOBAs, it was disappointing, so I was curious as to why.
But yeah, I don't like them either, so it's disappointing to me too. Too many heroes for me, give me a multiplayer game with character customization or 5 classes, but not 100 heroes, that drives me nuts.
That said, this choice wasn't actually a problem right?
I mean this game doesn't use voice actors normally. If they used ai voice actors for this update only to represent the ai characters... isn't that just appropriate?
Previously all characters in this game were represented only by text, so literally nobody is being replaced here.
Another way to think about it would be via representation. We get worked up when an ethnic character on screen is played by a different ethnicity, an actor in blackface for example. And in that vein using ai for organic characters could be seen as offensive, but using ai for ai characters would not. In contrast could we see using human voices for ai characters to be insensitive? That may sound far fetched, but this is sci-fi, the ai characters in the game are fully sentient and in their fictional universe would have rights, the whole point is to make the player think about what that means.
Well I guess I have my takeaway, I may consider boycotting any game that uses human actors for ai characters. Just get an ai actor... seriously.
Q: “Are we doomed?” A: “We would be, if not for the amazing developments in renewable energy.” ( powering-the-planet.ghost.io )
I wasn't aware just how good the news is on the green energy front until reading this. We still have a tough road in the short/medium term, but we are more or less irreversibly headed in the right direction.
CATL battery successfully powers electric plane with 1,800-mile civil aircraft expected ( electrek.co )
What do you think the Great Filter is?
The Great Filter is the idea that, in the development of life from the earliest stages of abiogenesis to reaching the highest levels of development on the Kardashev scale, there is a barrier to development that makes detectable extraterrestrial life exceedingly rare. The Great Filter is one possible resolution of the Fermi...
What good things are going on with your weekend?
Why we don't have 128-bit CPUs ( www.xda-developers.com )
What games did you have a good time with that you just never finished?
Five Men Convicted of Operating Massive, Illegal Streaming Service That Allegedly Had More Content Than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Prime Video Combined ( variety.com )
NASA finds humanity would totally fumble asteroid defense ( www.theregister.com )
Elon Musk Begs Advertisers to Return as Twitter's Revenue Plunges ( futurism.com )
How Elon Musk Went from Innovative Car Maker to Racist Demagogue Just Like Henry Ford ( medium.com )
When you stopped caring about staying in good shape?
I completely stopped caring about 2 years ago, I realized I was never going to do anything with my good look and that I will never get into a relationship in my life, so I just figured out "what's the point then, I'm already invisible to women?" And I don't care about my health tbh......
Neuralink looks to the public to solve a seemingly impossible problem ( www.cbc.ca )
Elon Musk's quest to wirelessly connect human brains with machines has run into a seemingly impossible obstacle, experts say. The company is now asking the public for help finding a solution....
Neverminding the evidence to the contrary. ( lemmy.world )
Valve confirms your Steam account cannot be transferred to anyone after you die | Your Steam games will go to the grave with you ( www.techspot.com )
iFixit is breaking up with Samsung. ‘Samsung’s approach to repairability does not align with our mission,’ says iFixit’s CEO. ( www.theverge.com )
iFixit and Samsung are ending their partnership on a direct-to-consumer phone repair program....
What are you currently excited for?
The birth (or death) of a relative, the release of a new program, game, series, movie, the date you were dreaming about, could be anything
Tiny plastic shards found in human testicles, study says ( www.cnn.com )
New Details on Valve's New Game 'Deadlock' - Insider Gaming ( insider-gaming.com )
As already leaked, the game is a 6v6 third-person hero-based shooter. Heroes include magicians, robots, creatures, humans, and more. There are currently 19 different heroes, each with different abilities and playstyles that you’d come to expect from a MOBA including ranged, healers, tanks, assassins, etc....
Stellaris gets a DLC about AI that features AI-created voices, director insists it's 'ethical' and 'we're pretty good at exploring dystopian sci-fi and don't want to end up there ourselves' ( www.pcgamer.com )
‘My whole library is wiped out’: what it means to own movies and TV in the age of streaming services ( www.theguardian.com )
Do you dream? How often?
I saw another thread talking about dreams, I've had less than a handful of dreams throughout my life....