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155999641
comment
byHuguesT
2021 @07:08AM
(#62025245)
Attached to: Crypto Miners in Kazakhstan Face Bitter Winter of Power Cuts
Let's move to proof-of-stake rather than proof-of-work, shall we ?
118963476
comment
byHuguesT
3, 2019 @07:05PM
(#59411836)
Attached to: Apple Unveils New 16-inch MacBook Pro With Improved Keyboard, Starting at $2,400
yeah but no GPU passthrough in WSL, so no CUDA, so serious Deep Learning work possible.
117354040
comment
byHuguesT
2019 @05:25PM
(#59311782)
Attached to: NASA Engineer's 'Helical Engine' May Violate Laws of Physics
Right. Conservation of momentum has been holding up for over three centuries now. Do not hold your breath.
117353904
comment
byHuguesT
2019 @05:22PM
(#59311774)
Attached to: NASA Engineer's 'Helical Engine' May Violate Laws of Physics
"The other guys are not doing science" is simply not true,
here is a skeptical physicist who redid the work and changed his mind.
117352636
comment
byHuguesT
2019 @05:00PM
(#59311694)
Attached to: NASA Engineer's 'Helical Engine' May Violate Laws of Physics
This is the most cruel of all of the XKCDs, I think.
117162336
comment
byHuguesT
019 @08:36AM
(#59302646)
Attached to: US Navy Files Patent For Compact Fusion Reactor
It is incredibly easy to produce gravity waves, just so you know. Just waving your arm about generates gravity waves. Very weak ones, to be sure.
Inertial mass reduction is also very easy: just reduce total mass. This is the only method compatible with known physics. GRT asserts equivalence of inertial mass and gravitational mass, and so far GRT has passed every test thrown at it.
So this is not looking too good for this "Compact Fusion Reactor", IMHO.
117078706
comment
byHuguesT
2019 @05:47AM
(#59299080)
Attached to: US Navy Files Patent For Compact Fusion Reactor
UFO =/= Aliens
116305018
comment
byHuguesT
2019 @06:54PM
(#59251072)
Attached to: Elon Musk Is Webcasting a Live Update About 'Starship'
The Shuttle was doing that, but not economically.
SpaceX designs are similar to the N1 Russian rocket (that never flew): many small, simple, identical engines. The Falcon 9 has nine engines from the Falcon 1. The Falcon heavy is basically 3 falcon 9s.
116300742
comment
byHuguesT
2019 @05:27PM
(#59250898)
Attached to: Elon Musk Is Webcasting a Live Update About 'Starship'
Read the article carefully, the cost went up in the 1970s because NASA was saddled with the impossible task of designing a safe Shuttle. Cost per kg to LEO went down only a factor of 2 between the Saturn V and Falcon 9. That is not bad, by any stretch but not that revolutionary. The Saturn V was not designed for commercial use. The article associates this progress with simple, effective design, no subcontracting and commercial culture, not much to tech improvement.
With commercial culture comes also wild estimates, like the cost plummeting a couple of orders of magnitude within 5 years or so. I find this unlikely since there is a minimum amount of energy that one must expend to accelerate a kg to LEO at orbital speed,
and that is currently pretty high.
SpaceX could use solar energy to extract H2 and O2 from water, and use that, with significant engineering redesign.
116299398
comment
byHuguesT
2019 @05:03PM
(#59250846)
Attached to: Elon Musk Is Webcasting a Live Update About 'Starship'
We've had self-driving cars since at least the late 1980s, but they are not at level 5 or even 4, more like a level 3: they can stay in their lane on the highway, slow down and accelerate as a response to traffic. They can't get in or out of the highway by themselves, and they can't deal with too much traffic. The driver must keep their hands on the wheel. This is more or less the level Tesla and others are now, despite some demo videos on youtube.
The most useful safety-related auto-drive that could actually save lives is a car that detects that the driver has fallen asleep, takes over and stops the car in the safety lane.
115899310
comment
byHuguesT
2019 @07:07PM
(#59225086)
Attached to: GNU's Former Kernel Maintainer Shares 'A Reflection on the Departure of Richard Stallman'
Bill Gates is not very socially adept either. He got married, though, and his wife Melinda did a lot for him. Their joint foundation changed Gates' image immensely for the better. The perception is that he uses his wealth for good (the jury is still out for the real effect).
Now Microsoft is no longer the 800 pounds gorilla of the software world. Everyone uses Windows on their desktop, but Linux (Android) or BSD (iOS) on their telephone.
Everyone's hero was Zuckerberg for a while, but this is no longer the case due to his abuse of privacy. Then it was maybe Musk, but this is doubtful. I'm not sure there are heroes anymore. Billionaires are so passé.
115899268
comment
byHuguesT
2019 @07:01PM
(#59225076)
Attached to: GNU's Former Kernel Maintainer Shares 'A Reflection on the Departure of Richard Stallman'
GCC has many qualities, but it is a fallacy to think that had not RMS written GCC in the first place, no free compiler would have ever been produced.
Many free C compilers have been produced over the years. C is a relatively easy language to write a compiler for. Several direct colleagues of mine have done so for their own amusement in their own free time. GCC happened to be in the right place at the right time, and got a lot of support. I'm pretty sure that the contribution of RMS to modern GCC is minimal.
The FSF vision is a different thing, much more important, but even then, without that, we would still have at least BSD, which developed independently and along totally different principles and philosophy. The world would be different, for sure, but I think the end result of the availability of a free, commodity, professional quality O/S is inevitable.
This being said, I respect RMS's contributions immensely, and I use them daily.
115843982
comment
byHuguesT
2019 @04:07PM
(#59217952)
Attached to: Silicon Valley Is Terrified of California's Privacy Law
I hope they are.
115843860
comment
byHuguesT
2019 @03:57PM
(#59217926)
Attached to: Why Prescription Drugs Cost So Much More in America
These numbers fluctuate wildly from state to state. For maternal mortality, California is better than Sweden. Georgia is 10 times worse (!), which is on par with Palestine (not Israel !).
115843714
comment
byHuguesT
2019 @03:45PM
(#59217882)
Attached to: Why Prescription Drugs Cost So Much More in America
1- Pfizer, USA
2- Novartis, Switzerland
3- Hoffman La Roche, Switzerland
4- Merk, USA
5- GSK, UK
6- Johnson and Johnson, USA
7- Sanofi, France
You'd think the poor Swiss would pay drugs to the nose too. Answer: they do, but not nearly to the same amount.
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