Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re: Media (Score 1) 71

If that's the game you want to play, OK.

Bacteria outnumber all other living things. Statistically, there's only one gender and all else is an abberation. This is confirmed, as the Y chromosome is simply an X chromosome that is badly degraded.

Humans are tetrapods, and therefore fish. Land-living fish are an abberation and can be ignored.

You see? That's a really, really stupid game to play, because it is trivial to show that it leads to nonsense.

Abberation is the entire basis on which all science is built.

Comment For anyone who cares about how it actually works.. (Score 3, Informative) 56

... as opposed to just random ignorant press fluff, here you go.

TL/DR: it's a gun that shoots fission plasma like little nuclear bombs. A 2,2kg projectile containing low-enriched uranium (LEU) and a moderator is fired (once per second) by a coilgun through a a flared 522kg 33cm-long LEU barrel (with the barrel flaring out in a HEU section at the base) at 1600 m/s (requiring 5MW of power), where it hits criticality. By a third of the way through the barrel its interior is already 1eV / 11605K, then is boosted to 500 eV by the HEU section as it leaves the barrel into a parabolic magnetic nozzle to direct the plasma. The fact that the projectiles move through in pulses makes it easier to cool the barrel, given that the thermal power present in the first third of the barrel is 5,4TW, and in the latter section, a peak of 46TW; obviously you're not going to withstand that continuously! 1% of the power from the explosion is recovered via coils, returning 29MW to the system, to power the gun and any other spacecraft needs. The result - 100kN of thrust at 5000 sec Isp, would be enough to lift 10 tonnes of mass from the surface of the Earth (not that you'd use it on the surface), and has a propellant efficiency 14x that of Starship's Raptor engines.

Obviously, this rocket is dirty, but almost everything from the explosion will have a velocity higher than the escape velocity of the solar system, so so long as you're not pointing it directly at Earth, it doesn't matter. Not that one engine firing in the direction of Earth would matter all that much anyway, but...

Comment Re:Neuralink's failures (Score 4, Informative) 71

You do realize that these tests are literally mandated by the FDA, right?

You do realize that the USDA, after investigating Neuralink, found no animal welfare breaches except for one 2019 incident, which was the result of the use of an FDA-approved surgical adhesive (bioglue) in a non-approved manner. Right?

You do realize that the FDA reviewed the results of the studies that they themselves mandated, and were satisfied with the results? Do you have any clue how long and difficult it is to get approval for new invasive treatments from the FDA? Medical startups live and die based on whether they can manage to convince the FDA to give them the go-ahead. A typical medical startup's stock shoots through the roof when the FDA grants approval, because it's such a difficult and uncertain process to convince them.

What do you actually know about primate research? Do you understand what a terminal procedure is? Do you understand the nature of how primates are shared between research labs, and they don't just miraculously become cured of whatever experiments were done on them last? Do you understand the fact that macaques in captivity frequently will attack and injure each other, and that these injuries don't just go away? Do you know what sort of histopathology is normal? Do you know literally anything about the topic at hand? Because I guarantee you, the USDA and FDA do.

Comment Re:Badge swipes, VPN usage such a bad idea (Score 2) 102

The last thing you want is for non-security personnel to enforce no tailgating, especially with people they don't recognize. It's a huge liability hazard, either from "over zealous" enforcement or a determined tailgater. Even worse if there is an actual penalty for allowing tailgating.

If that's a security problem, hiring security is a much better bet.

Comment Re: Media (Score 1, Insightful) 71

That was a lovely game of "change the topic" you have there.

So to be clear, you're perfectly fine with people being being censored, for talking about issues related to their very existence, so long as, say, nazis can spout nazi crap without punishment.

Musk has banned his critics left and right, but you're fine with that so longer as you can make mean-spirited racist, sexist, and homophobic jokes and make as toxic of an environment as possible.

People get harassed left and right and Twitter does othing, but when it comes to Elon, suddenly it's a ban version of 10 Degrees of Kevin Bacon. For example, first ElonJet was banned. Then journalists who mentioned ElonJet getting banned were themselves banned. Then journalists who asked about the situation were banned. Then a journalist who didn't write anything on X but just reported on the ban in the news had his account on Twitter banned. Does this standard apply to literally anyone but Elon? Of course not.

Want to protest anything about Twitter or promote alternative platforms? Well, let's look at history. The leaders of the BlockTheBlue campaign, encouraging people to block blue checks to protest the new subscription policy, were suspended for "platform manipulation". Twitter has variously blocked or likewise reduced visibility of posts linking to competitors such as Substack, Mastodon, and Bluesky.

When Dorsey posted a defense of himself re: the Twitter files on Revue? Musk shut Revue down.

Musk complied with censorship requests from India and Turkey with zero pushback. Got the requests, immediately complied. The old Twitter - while not always succeeding - repeatedly pushed back against such requests. Pushback only ever happens when he feels it's the *right* being censored. In his first six months, Musk complied with 83% of requests from authoritarian regimes.

Musk is the king of censorship - unless he particularly likes what you have to say. He's also an egotistical manchild who boosted the visibility of his own posts in the algorithm and then at first tried to pretend he wasn't doing it.

Submission + - Neuralink brain implant starting to fall off (theguardian.com)

jd writes: Neuralink’s first attempt at implanting its chip in a human being’s skull hit an unexpected setback after the device began to detach from the patient’s brain, the company revealed on Wednesday.

The patient, Noland Arbaugh, underwent surgery in February to attach a Neuralink chip to his brain, but the device’s functionality began to decrease within the month after his implant. Some of the device’s threads, which connect the miniature computer to the brain, had begun to retract. Neuralink did not disclose why the device partly retracted from Arbaugh’s brain, but stated in a blogpost that its engineers had refined the implant and restored functionality.

The decreased capabilities did not appear to endanger Arbaugh, and he could still use the implant to play a game of chess on a computer using his thoughts, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first broke the news of the issue with the chip. The possibility of removing the implant was considered after the detachment came to light, the Journal reported.

Slashdot Top Deals

Always look over your shoulder because everyone is watching and plotting against you.

Working...