It's even worse. In the future, if a state-of-the-art computer can simulate perhaps a city, then a teenagers cell phone could probably run a limited simulation on his cell phone. For example, you could limit interactions with others by choosing only scenarios where you typically don't engage with others much. Since there are lots of teens with cell phones and few supercomputers, you are more likely to live alone in a teens cell phone than in a full simulation.

Think about that the next time you go to the toilet. Your existence will end once you leave and jump to your next visit. Everything in between visits is just scripted store-bought memories. You only exist because teens find farts funny.

Yes, but look at it from the bright side. You could fix most problems with your car by just closing all the windows and restarting. Though, a BSOD on the highway would be literal...

No, any text editor that handles org-mode will do. Fortunately, all the good ones do ;-)

No, git is a great example of a blockchain application. It has all the good parts (a distributed cryptographically signed ledger) and none of the bad parts (Bitcoin mining, stupid decentralization with 50% attacks etc).

Many proposed uses for "blockchains" in logistics or finance are much closer to git than Bitcoin. A digital ledger can facilitate and secure transactions in many different areas but it doesn't need all the junk that Bitcoin brings. Many proposed systems for government backed digital currencies use partially decentralized ledgers sharing much more commonality with a git setup than Bitcoin. There is a central "truth" but trusted entities can modify it locally and later merge the changes. Some proposals are not even distributed (like registries for property ownership) but add a layer of security by linking transactions and supporting documents together.

Because discussing veganism is a distraction from the real issue.

In developed countries like the USA the greenhouse gas contribution from all agriculture is about about 11% (the EU is similar). Livestock is a significant part of that (I seem to remember a figure about half but can't find a reliable source right now). It is mostly because the developed world has much higher emissions in general so the contribution from agriculture is smaller but also because of more efficient meat production.

Discussing veganism at this stage is distracting from the real issue, the other 90-95% of emissions. If we don't fix that, it doesn't matter what we eat. If livestock some day accounts for 20-30% of our emissions, then we can discuss veganism but there is a chance that will never happen. Just like in all other sectors, there is ongoing discussion and research on how to limit the emission from meat production. It is too early to tell if veganism is the only answer, or if eating chicken is perfectly fine or if beef can be produced with limited emissions by using new breeds and feeds. But most importantly, it is not an urgent question and we have time to figure out an answer. It is the other 90-95% of emissions that we have to fix now.

By the way, TFA is misleading with the " 16.5% and 28% of all greenhouse gas pollution" claim. If you read the actual linked article, the 28% figure isn't found until chapter 3 and it is NOT an estimate of the current "greenhouse gas pollution". The figure is an estimate of how much a total switch to plant based foods could reduce the carbon budget IF the land used for meat production is NOT used for anything else. Quote:

"the land no longer required for food production could remove 8.1 billion metric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year over 100 years as natural vegetation re-establishes and soil carbon re-accumulates"

So, if you use the land for growing crops or building golf courses, the 28% figure does not apply

You make a good point but it also depends on how many people use/abuse the self-driving features. If most people do not use it because they don't trust it, the insurance premium will not be much higher since it is based on the collective.

It is also worth noting that Tesla has high premiums (after a quick googling https://insuraviz.com/vehicles...). It is comparable to Audi and BMW which are known for being used and driven by idiots. Regular brands like Ford, Toyota, Volvo have 20-30% lower premiums. Of course you can't really draw any conclusions since premiums reflect the time-average cost of repairs so a car that costs more to repair will have higher premiums given the same accident rate.

Disclaimer: I tried to find accident data supporting my claim that Audi and BMW drivers are idiots but I haven't found any unambiguously supporting that statement. It may not be a universal truth.

I would agree. I've studied math and worked as a programmer with mostly computational/numerical work. I think learning math from programming is like learning math from working in Excel. Yes, it is strictly speaking math but it is most often just a very large number of +-*/ operations (which are performed by the computer) so you don't really learn any actual math or transferable skills. Sure you could call it set theory with transformations or something but... no... just no...

Programming can be almost completely devoid of math. You mostly try to split a very large tasks into smaller units but the basic units are most often fundamentally simple, like "how do I convert this list of customers to pdf files with invoices". It is structuring and transformations of very large sets of fairly basic logic and simple data. Just like in Excel, you most often do not need any more math than +-*/ and perhaps some basic boolean logic. I don't think you will learn any math by doing web programming or adding a new double-jump feature to a game. Unless you solve math problems with programming you won't learn any math (but doing so is an effective and fun way of learning).

For me, mathematics is the opposite of programming. Maths is about trying to understand and use small sets of very complex rules and relationships. It is the opposite of the very large but simple sets and relationships of programming. Einsteins field equations take just a few characters to write down but understanding them takes years of study. Actually applying them for anything but the simplest and most idealized situations is too hard even for experts. They can't be broken down into simpler parts or abstracted away like programming problems can. You can "solve" them numerically using programming but that involves transforming them to a large set of smaller and simpler problems using approximations, linearizations, discretizations etc. But, you're not actually solving the original equations so it is strictly speaking a different problem.

No, there was an auction. The FCC asked companies to bid on providing internet to rural areas given certain requirements (speed, etc). Areas were split into blocks and the lowest bid won. (At least, I think so from some quick digging).
https://www.fcc.gov/auction/90...

Starlink and LTD Broadband won several of the bids (the appendix A and B above) but the FCC believe they can not fulfill the requirements of the auction. Therefore their winning bids are withdrawn and I assume the next bidder wins those blocks. Lowering the requirements now, after the auction, would be unfair to everyone else. Both those who didn't bid in the auction because they couldn't meet the requirements and those who could have bid even lower if the requirements were lower. This is just a case of Starlink overpromising and being called out for it.

Remote areas can still get as much Starlink service as they want, it just won't be sponsored by the FCC through this particular auction.

Jonathan Haidt has in interviews and talks mentioned correlations between self harm, loneliness etc among adolescents and social media use (but not other forms of screen time like computer games). I don't see a category for those effects in this summary (but haven't read it all).

Another thing to notice is that this is seems to be a comprehensive summary of anything related and not just social media use. Some studies in the no-results for anger and affective polarization focused on general "internet use" and not social media. Jonathan has noted in interviews that social media seems to be different from other forms of screen time so possible negative effects might be hidden in those studies. I guess I have to wait until some expert actually reads, summarizes and categorizes the studies based on type of usage, age groups, gender etc before drawing conclusions. I really love that they are doing this though. It is really needed.

Also, 5% of people living in echo chambers isn't "a few". That's 1 in 20 or 15 million people just in the US. That is a huge problem. Nutjobs are usually louder so they can create a lot of stink pretty much everywhere giving the impression they are a larger group than they really are. This gives them more media attention, creating even more wackos etc and makes me worry about the state of humanity which increases my desire for an isolated bunker somewhere far away... In short, 5% is way too many.

Throwing in the word "woke" here and there is a dead giveaway. If Disney wasn't "woke" the handouts would continue.

The interesting thing is the implicit admission that copyright is broken and that it was all just a handout to Disney. Usually, they at least try to pretend it is about protecting artists rights or some other crap.

... and financial risk. Counterparty risk is very real and you should always check what happens if your bank/exchange/intermediary goes bust (think Lehman). It's also one of the reasons you should never short crypto via a crypto dependent issuer (like an exchange). If there is a crash, the issuer might go bust and you won't get any money anyway.

There are at least two problems. First, the search ranking is too high according to TFS. Ideally, a search should return reliable sources first, especially in a library. I don't mind if you can still find these items at the very bottom of the list, but they shouldn't be near the top.
Second, with publishing costs being zero for e-books, motivated groups can try to poison the public information pool by just publishing a lot of crap (intentional lies, misleading exaggerations etc) giving false authority to their claims by being in a trusted institution like a library. Being a published author sounds better than being an internet troll. The curating function of libraries and librarians thus becomes much more important. I.e. sorting crap from quality. The lack of curation is why internet and social media fails so spectacularly when it comes to spreading accurate and reliable info vs conspiracies and propaganda.

From what I know of European money laundering regulations they are based on trusted entities and separating clean money from dirty. Basically, every bank should know their own customers and detect possibly criminal money transfers. The bank is responsible for determining if the money is clean or not and must reject the transfer if it cannot confirm or explain the origin. Once a trusted bank says the money is clean, it can be freely used or transfered to other trusted entities without further checks or controls (which is good for privacy). Pseudo-anonymous crypto currencies like Bitcoin completely break that chain of trust since the payer/sender may be untrusted. A lot of extra checks would have to be introduced to be compliant. For example, showing a valid receipt from a trusted entity for every transaction. You could also mark every coin as either clean or dirty depending on the transaction history, only allowing trades with coins that have a totally clean history (only transactions between known and legal clients) but there would be no coins left then...

This is no different from how cash is already treated. You can't deposit a large amount of cash into your bank account without a valid receipt and a reasonable explanation for how you got the money. This has on occasion been an issue for orgs collecting cash donations for good causes.

Using a blockchain adds nothing and it is once again a solution looking for anything it can call a problem (and it is getting desperate).

This is supposedly "censorship resistant so officials can't move the goalpost" but... wtf... Anyone is free to calculate and publish their own inflation estimates (except in china and russia perhaps) so there's no censorship issue to solve (and it doesn't solve nation state level censorship anyway).

There's several different measures of inflation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation#Measures) and they all have their pros and cons and they may be more or less relevant to you depending on your particular economic situation. This is supposedly an alternative to CPI but there's no reason why it would be "better" than the official CPI. The fact that they get 13% truflation vs 8% CPI in March just shows that their basket of goods is different from the CPI basket, it is not "better" or more "tru" in any way. They insinuate that the govt would be actively manipulating the CPI but that is actually easy to check since the reference basket is well defined (and both banks and academics do check since they use the inflation numbers for actual pricing of real financial products and they would risk losing money if the numbers were intentionally fudged).

I really don't get what blockchain and "web 3" has to do with it or what supposed problems they solve. Putting the final number on a blockchain doesn't make the calculation any more reliable or resistant to manipulation and there's no censorship problem to solve.

Or a euro denominated bank account at a bank with EU headquarters... That would have been much better and safer.

It seems like the crypto bros are just trying to get attention again.