Recent submissions

Comment · 2 years ago
Every time I head anti-electrification arguments around EVs, heat pumps, etc. it's usually a complaint about grid capacity. I always shake my head, because building more power lines is relatively easy on the scale of climate tech we need to kick all carbon emissions.

Let's brainstorm how to decarbonize fertilizer, or concrete.

That being said I am really glad to see more grid buildup! Especially as more renewables hit the grid. While locally intermittent, on the scale of the entire country they're fairly reliable and predictable.

Comment · 2 years ago
I find this passage quite amusing:

"Schöfbänker has also cross-haired with his equipment the "KH-11 Kennen" electro-optical satellites that were first introduced in 1976. "They are somewhat similar to the Hubble Space Telescope, but optimized to look down to Earth, instead of studying space," he said."

It's fairly well documented that the Hubble was effectively a US spy satellite pointing towards space, not the other way around. Or at least, it used all of the infrastructure in place to manufacture spy satellites.

Same maximum mirror size, same set of contractors/facilities, etc. It had a very different set of sensors, data systems, and focal range, but more or less demonstrated the US's spy satellite capabilities at the time.

Comment · 2 years ago
Pretty much every car with frameless windows works the same way. The window rolls down a little bit when you open the door to clear the trim.

Mini, Audi, Mercedes, Corvette, and so on. They all work the same.

Comment · 3 years ago
The craziest thing is that that single external display can be up to 6k/60hz! Surely for those 21.2 million pixels you could run 2 4k displays at 8.2 million pixels each.
Comment · 3 years ago
You get back ports, but those base model M3 MBPs only support a single external display. You get HDMI and 3 40gbps thunderbolt ports, but can only use one of them at a time for screens. You need to bump up to the M3 pro models to get multiple external display support.
Comment · 3 years ago
Agriculture is currently massively carbon intensive and is one of the hardest modern technologies to decarbonize. It relies on fertilizer production that is currently completely reliant on fossil fuels. If this can decarbonize agriculture, that's a massive win for our chances to reach net zero carbon emissions on time.
Comment · 3 years ago
If I recall correctly, the prius ICE and EV systems are totally isolated and only connected by the road in between the front and rear tires. The ICE runs the front tires and the EV system is hooked up to the rear tires. You mostly charge the battery up by slowing the car down with the rear tires, so you'd need to modify the car with some belts or linkage between the front and rear drives.
Comment · 3 years ago
A lot of those sensors average the reading over quite some time to avoid false positives. It's possible that the last few miles of road have just enough average slope or contain just enough curves that the sensor averages "low" right at that spot with the speed of traffic.
Comment · 3 years ago
Read up on the upcoming FAA Remote ID regulations. They were scheduled to go online last Saturday, but were postponed 6 months. They would effectively make it illegal to fly at any altitude without a transponder broadcasting the precise location of the aircraft.

The RC community has been pushing back on the regulations as it ads a lot of weight, expense, and complexity to drones and RC aircraft. There hasn't been any justification given by the FAA as to why these regulations are needed, adding to the confusion. Normally restrictions are put in place after an accident or some incident.

Comment · 3 years ago
Wing/plane drones are substantially quieter than quadcopter drones. I'm out flying RC with folks all the time and it's genuinely hard to hear an RC plane from more than 100 feet away, and these are handbuilt planes flying for fun.
Comment · 3 years ago
The bigger benefit of all of that bandwidth is going to be multiple users. If you work from home and have a big family, or just live with a few roommates you're going to be seeing huge quality of service improvements from one person not being able to tank the whole connection.
Comment · 3 years ago
Yeah, I think that consensus is part of the reason integrated cables took off in the USA. I think the biggest actual contributor was garage parking. Most drivers in the USA are parking somewhere secure where there's minimal risk of the cable being stolen. Whereas lots of EU drivers have uncovered parking or street parking where it's way easier to steal the cable.
Comment · 3 years ago
Even just having the gas car "city" and "highway" ranges would be a huge step up! Most EVs get much higher than their rated range in the city and lower on the highway, but most drivers are only concerned with highway range.
Comment · 3 years ago
Comment · 3 years ago
The mode they're asking Tesla to remove isn't included in production cars. It's a development flag found by an outside hacker. This is giving me bad flashbacks to the Grand Theft Auto Hot Coffee incident where Rockstar got their game rating changed and fines issued for something not accessible in the game

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