bsmitty5000

I started watching the video linked at the top and the first anecdote is about Elon Musk using first principles to determine he could be rockets cheaper than current companies. He compared $130m to the price of raw materials of a rocket at $2m. But isn’t that comparing apples to oranges? And the exact thing that would get you in trouble when doing back-of-the-napkin estimates. That is, $130m is how much rocket companies at the time were _charging_ NASA for rockets, not how much it actual cost those companies to build.

Yes this was my thought when he implied not knowing the proxy settings, or even that you must connect to a proxy, to get internet was a sign that someone “doesn’t know computers”.

It’s like a mechanic making a blog post complaining that people don’t know how cars work because they can’t change their oil or brake pads and somehow that’s a bad thing.

I just started swimming with a local Masters group a few months ago and can definitely notice a difference in my mood if I miss a couple practices. I thought it was just my imagination but didn’t even think about the breath aspect of it.

My first job out of school was final test for a semiconductor in Phoenix that had a small fab in Gilbert. I remember we took a rabbit suited tour there as part of the new hire orientation, it was pretty neat. The one thing though that stuck with me is how much water a fab needs on a daily basis. I can’t remember the exact number, I just remember thinking how stupid it was to build fabs in Phoenix.

But then again, the amount of lawns and greenways in Phoenix compared to a place like Tucson, it’s pretty clear most folks in Phoenix don’t much care about water conservation.

Do you have any sources to recommend if I wanted to learn more about this thought?

> “Something we may learn from this research is: although our loved ones have their eyes closed and are ready to leave us to rest, their brains may be replaying some of the nicest moments they experienced in their lives.”

Note to self: die in a way that keeps my brain intact for a few seconds after death.

I'm not trying to justify not acting on climate change. That original comment is really just a snippet of some internal thought trains I've had with myself after we decided to grow some of our own food- where the price of deciding to be a meat-eater is not hidden behind some shrink wrapped plastic. Specifically the argument that eating meat is natural- well where do you draw the line between rationalizing our behaviors as being natural for some actions and trying to elevate ourselves above our primitive selves for others.

I'm not a philosopher or anything. of course slavery is bad- if slavery is natural and I'm against slavery, does that eventually lead to me having to be vegan in order to be internally consistent? Maybe, but I'm still not ready to give up meat.

I'm raising pigs for the first time at home and I'm having a similar dilemma with the slaughter date just a few days away. They're like 300lbs dogs- playing with each other, running to me when I come out (although this might be just because I feed them most times I go out there), friendly with the kids.

I think it comes from a viewpoint that all death is bad and all life is good. something I think is probably pretty culturally specific and kinda ingrained in me since childhood. I was raised Catholic with everyone around me believing that after you die you go to Heaven, but still family members dying was a tragedy, instead of say, it being a celebration since didn't they just get into eternal paradise?

But death isn't bad. It's actually necessary for life to continue. The circle of life, carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, all that stuff. From that point of view, eating other animals is nothing. It's an efficient, and delicious, way of surviving and passing on genes. We're not above nature. We're in a closed system here that we can't ever rise above. Although with that point of view stuff like climate change takes on a different meaning. If we can't rise above nature then climate change is a natural phenomena even though it's accelerated by humans. Just like the Great Oxidation Event.

This is an off-the-cuff response so maybe I'm completely wrong, but I recently started baking sourdough at home with my own starter.

The starter is simply flour and water, but after a while of refreshing with new flour and water eventually the ever-present wild yeast and (good) bacteria start to grow really quickly.

I usually wrap with saran wrap and when the starter is really active the saran wrap expands a bunch. From what I understand this is the gas from the bacteria eating their way through the flour.

Could excess gas in humans be a similar situation? ie lots of gas means our microbiome is busy eating and farting a bunch. Which to me sounds like a good thing. Maybe not so good for those around you.

> 5) Reusable launch technology. The world still doesn’t grok this. They will. It (long term) enables access to orbit comparable to really long distance airfare or air freight.

I worked at ULA for a year about five years ago. At that time they were arguing that it wasn't going to be cost effective. Back then though there may have been one or two SpaceX landings.

since I left I haven't kept up with this debate at all. Do you know if ULA changed their stance after all the successful launches?

Wow this is the first time I've ever seen a contrarian opinion on this book. I've never read Why We Sleep but I see it pop up in threads really often.