Recent submissions

Comment · 2 years ago
I read an article sometime on 'the limits of Computation' or some such which stated even at moores law we would have substrate density of something approaching a singularity in something like 800 years. Does anyone remember this? Perhaps Imagine every post ai hard take off civilisation popping a new universe off in some other Brane or whatever but with their own slant on initial boundary conditions. Do you go with the flow in the main evolutionary branch or try for a fat tail with some revolutionary new thing (physics if you're really radical or just life chemistry if mearly genius). Or maybe you just want to stay home in computronium reality. Which is why the moon fits the sun..
Comment · 4 years ago
therefore of course he will buy it
Comment · 4 years ago
He has made billions using twitter spamming Tesla and doge. It’s a playground for for the guy. And therefore cheap at almost any price. But of course why pay more than needed. On a more semi serious note: it must seem ludicrously easy for the guy. He has laid it all out: Mars needs: VTOL rockets since no infrastructure Methane due to atmospheric constraints Tunnels for transport see also infrastructure Starlink see also infrastructure Direct democracy via twitter ( imperator status exempt )

Have as many kids as possible since it’s obvious he will own the solar system. He ain’t gonna be that democratic therefore. Just another dynasty but maybe the last

Comment · 4 years ago
If we assume single celled life is common, and exists in either all star systems, or in all systems without a hot Jupiter close to the star; then given the length of time involved here before eukaryotes, can we estimate how many planets in the galaxy have eukaryotes? Or how long it will be before some do? Presumably increasing the length of time increases the probability of occurrence as would increasing the number of stars involved. Though how can we know if the event was statistically likely after that amount of time or whether we are deviations from the centre of the distribution (other than observing the quiet galaxy). Surely we can have a rough idea now of where we stand
Comment · 4 years ago
It is hard to take something like this seriously when the opening paragraph relates why the probe will try and communicate with Brownian motion or the random perturbation in a cloud; a similar reworked sentiment of the oft quoted intelligent desire to contact automobiles of earth; an absurd concept
Comment · 4 years ago
Comment · 4 years ago
There is a company called woolcool in the uk that produces wool sheets to replace styrofoam. The sheets are encased in thin perforated plastic. As as insulator it’s great, but it does get wet and it’s expensive. There are companies using it to deliver temp sensitive goods but if you do you have to get your customers to send it back to you to mitigate cost. No one talks about this and finding out the % of packaging returns is information no one volunteers. So you have to get them to return a box full and they also have to hang it over a chair or something to dry it out.

Strip it out of the plastic and a dog or cat will go nuts rolling in it!

WRT house insulation What happens if it gets wet. Moisture is mentioned in the article briefly but not really addressed properly.

The mushroom product doesn’t have any info on thermal insulation properties. Which is the key market. As someone else mentioned, it’s vague

Comment · 4 years ago
There are trillions of dollars worth of manganese nodules from golf ball to basketball size just sat on ocean floors, many not far off from coast lines, many far deeper. Pumping them up has been an unsolved problem but Perhaps autonomous drone hoovers or shovelers could work. A usecase like this would spark enough interest / money spent on the problem to solve it. A ship that had a fleet of drones unloading to it 24/7 could pick up a lot of it. There is not just manganese in the nodules either.. I seem to remember most nations strategically banning collecting them a few hundred miles of their coasts should there be any.
Comment · 4 years ago
What about if cells are shock triggered by g forces to emit certain proteins / chemicals initiating the wave of memory excitation. This could be tested
Comment · 4 years ago
I went onto study physics, I used to think about it every now and then. It’s not easy to characterise / quantify an answer but there was no experience of time, I was not aware enough of externalities to know what slow motion would be as that implies a connection to outer time. I don’t remember a cradle to present run through of memories but I certainly saw / experienced a slideshow and then ‘real time’ moments of positive interactions with people, which then moved on. Was that seconds or moments or just memory clusters firing I don’t know. Enough to re live the experience with a different perspective. of course early memories are not (for me)as complex or emotionally involving or nuanced with language so the bulk of memories were from later life. I have no recollection of the composition of ‘the slideshow’ but do remember for eg love for my mother in certain ‘scene(s)’ and that was more of a ‘real-time’ segment. A precession of memories certainly indicates time flow. I was dimly aware of the ground at the last moment as it came towards me and thinking back on it the scenes faded and real time came back along with my sense of the outside world aka the ground.
Comment · 4 years ago
Thank you! I am walking the dogs in the park and laughed out loud when I read that. It was unintentional to be clear. The experience was real, I wish I had the foresight to notice the pun
Comment · 4 years ago
This happened to me as an 11 or 12 yr old. I was hit by a car that crossed a red light. The moment I was hit I saw my life and memories from it, certain pauses on interactions with key people and there were very overwhelming positive and calm emotions, but I saw everything and indeed strangely carousel style. When I hit the tarmac I was slammed back in real time and was scrabbling to hang on the front of the car as it didn’t stop for 50 yards and was dragging me under.

It had a profound impact on me. It makes sense it’s a human experience that’s ‘an unknown known’. I don’t buy the ‘survival mechanism’ theory, the nature of the experience was not one of search. It was over 30 years ago, but remains something I know to be ‘real’ as a phenomenon

Comment · 5 years ago
The 'dark forest model' is predicated on game theory. This same model controls nuclear conflict doctrine on earth and is responsible for megatons pointed at you right now. An old 50's methodology, absorb the Russians since we cant beat icbm's and dont trust they would disarm under a treaty. In a multiploar world arms races continue (this then is a mini analogue for grabby aliens but based on nation states). Worryingly usa now seeks asymetric dominance in this area increasing the likelyhood of conflict (or is it worrying?). I would say at this point that perhaps advanced intelligences, or even aumented humans of 50 years hence! Or decentralised direct democracies of 5 - 10 years from now! Or me! May consider 'game theory' and its paranoid centralised power adherants as psychotic and a smaller filter in of itself ( to our kind of socially structured lifeform). The dark forest has as its conlusion relativistic first strike weapons ( the same as the missile 'shield' )

I would think grabby aliens + uplift and absorption would answer the question of how they deal with new life. Dark forest is a fad imho, and if im wrong, well i dont think we'll be like that, and we will still succeed if we get out of this period

Comment · 6 years ago
Some of you may be interested in the book 'path notes of an american ninja master' by Glenn morris. It describes his path to enlightenment in a what you could describe as a modern and colourful way (and has a great bibliography). If you or dont believe in it as a physical process its still an entertaining read

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