Recent submissions

Comment · 1 year ago
Comment · 4 years ago
people in the center, cargo in the peripherals
Comment · 4 years ago
From Luke Smith's post on GDP: https://lukesmith.xyz/articles/why-its-bad-to-have-high-gdp/

"GDP is only a measurement of how reliant a place or country is on the global economy. Self-sufficiency has a GDP of 0. Wasteful consooomerism has an extremely large GDP."

Comment · 4 years ago
I have a feeling that in hindsight, 30-40 years from now, this will seem like no brainer and that the period prior was heavily anti-meritocratic and counterproductive.
Comment · 4 years ago
Comment · 4 years ago
Comment · 4 years ago
oops thought it was July...
Comment · 4 years ago
Comment · 4 years ago
Act of war by USA? (equivalent if done through ally)
Comment · 4 years ago
Better metrics -- $/operation which includes the capital and operating cost and expected lifetime of the chip OR $/transistor or something like this.
Comment · 4 years ago
In some respects, vulnerability to attack is a feature, not a flaw for promoting peace and collaboration instead of violence. A country with nuclear reactors is less likely to piss neighbors off enough to lead to an invasion. If invasion occurs, everyone will be extra careful. A country with nuclear reactors is less likely to be bombed to shit by other countries due to the reactor's radioactivity inventory potentially containing other countries as well as the country in question - ie. don't spoil the prize.
Comment · 4 years ago
Meltdown accident: basically, reactor is turned off, however heat continues to be generated because of a thing called decay heat which is when isotopes generated by the fission reactions decay to more stable isotopes and release energy. It's about 7% of a fission reactor's power and continues for a few hours until it's negligible. 7% of a gigawatt reactor is like having a couple of jet engines going full blast inside the core. This heat has to be removed, and meltdowns happen when people fail to do so - basically pumps break, coolant leaks, or coolant is blocked from cooling down the core. Recent micro reactors get around this because they don't need active coolant or people to cool down the reactor - they just cool off by conduction or simple heat rejection systems. I read recently that fusion reactor will also generate decay heat from all the activated components and this is comparable to a fission reactor. The difference is there's a lot less radioactive crap in a fusion reactor - but the fusion reactor will still meltdown and they are expensive...

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton