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Comment Something to consider (Score 1) 127

The only way you can lose heat in space is through radiation. But radiation carries momentum. Not much per photon, but it was enough to cause the Pioneer probes to move in unexpected ways. This means you have to emit equal amounts of heat towards Earth and towards space. If your resultant is zero, then you're fine. You can even direct some of the heat backwards. It won't do a huge amount, but every bit of atmospheric drag you overcome, the less fuel you need to use to stay in orbit.

So you basically need absolutely gigantic radiators behind the space-based data centre, located inside a parabolic dish that will generate drag of its own (not to mention a potential difference betwen the lower and upper sections).

This is an insane level of complexity. You're better off parking it in a stable orbit between the Earth and the moon, so it's absolutely clear of atmospheric effects. You're still going to need radiators, but it's marginally better as you don't have to do quite so much directing of it. The latency would be horrible, maintenance would be next to impossible, and there's all kinds of other issues to consider.

No, I don't think you can make this workable.

However, space might be useful. This very same issue of heat only being radiated means that you can make wafers with much more even loss of temperature, no dust, bacteria, or dirt, and much lower gravity. If you were to make extremely high quality wafers (silicon or gallium arsonide) in space, then you should be able to make WSI processors, which should in turn reduce the demands that datacentres make.

The time it would take to set all this up would be about the same time as it took for IBM to perfect its stacked transistor topology. Intel was talking 90 cores per wafer-scale CPU a few years back - the shrinkage in transistors since then plus the x10 density IBM proposes might push you to 1800 cores per wafer, provided you can get the quality high enough. Which, in space, is quite possible.

You wouldn't need your datacentres in space. Your wafer-scale CPU plus packaging would be about the same size as a CD drive. You could pretty much dispense with datacentres at that point. A typical tower will have two spare bays. "Cartridge datacentres" could simply be plugged in as needed. A regular CPU-based cartridge for heavy general-purpose computing, a GPU-based cartridge for LLMs. Yes, home users would have power usage through the roof, but then it's no longer your problem.

Comment Re:Silver linings (Score 4, Insightful) 78

Additionally, diesel generators need regular diesel transport, while a solar+battery installation, once in place, does not require outside resources. You could even transport solar panels and batteries with a motorcycle along a foot path, which is much more complicated with a diesel generator. And a solar+battery installation is easily scalable, while a diesel generator is not.

Comment Re:Easiest Solution (Score 1) 29

The system now being trialed in the EU is promising. You don't have to present ID every time you visit an adult site, you do it once and receive a token that's stored on your device. That token is used to prove your age to a website. That means:
- No 3rd parties get a scan of your ID, only the government age verification service does (and only once for every device)
- Websites don't get your identity or even an identifier, they get Kid / Adult, and nothing else.
- The government (nor anyone else) does not get to see which websites you visit.

Comment Re:US senators ae shiteaters who swallow (Score 1) 120

My grandmother lived near an airbase, and every day, there were at least two supersonic aircraft in the skies. When they were flying above us, you could not understand the other guy talking. And we have to consider the distance in the line of sight. A starting aircraft on an airbase on the other side of the valley might be 10 miles away from you. A starting airplane right above you is quite different.

Comment Re:US senators ae shiteaters who swallow (Score 5, Informative) 120

I wonder why most other nations also had a ban of non-military supersonic flight in place, nations with supersonic passenger jets, a.k.a. France and the United Kingdom, and those without, like Brasil or Germany.

Supersonic flight is incredibly noisy, and you don't want it above you.

Comment Re:Suuuure (Score 3, Interesting) 45

The summary explicitly mentions "a shortlist of candidates most likely to succeed in experiments"- so they are very aware that these systems may be wrong. If there's a legitimate criticism here, it is that it isn't obvious that these aren't short lists very similar to if not identical to the lists an expert would come up with. But that's a different claim.

Comment Foccused ultrasound but yes. (Score 1) 37

microwave labotomy ... We just put the machine against your head here for a bit and those bad urges go away, all better.

Another poster mentioned that it's actually focussed ultrasound.

Still sounds like breaking a piece of a system by stirring the brain with a knife (lobotomy) or burning it out with heat (cauterization), electricity (electroshock) or mechanical shock (blow to the head) - just carefully focused without (substantial) damage to other parts of the brain or its casing.

Ultrasonic destruction of a piece of the brain's reward/punishment/desire/avoidance mechanism rather than persistent unwanted fat.

Comment Re:The US needs to get on board too (Score 2) 84

Middle-range strike drones are much cheaper than JDAMs (smaller payload, but you don't care about that against trucks), longer range, and let you operate in fully contested airspace or even when the enemy has air superiority.

Aerial bombs are for entirely different purposes; they're for destroying fortified positions. Whether the aircraft should be manned or not is an entirely separate question, but one thing is unambiguous, it needs to be big enough to carry said bomb (aerial bombs are very heavy).

But again, complete overkill for a transport vehicle.

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