The Nature article is okay, although the title could be better. The Slashdot summary is crap. The Nature subtitle is "When hunter-gatherers began living close to animals, the pathogens that cause the plague and leprosy got closer too."

Zoonotic infection didn't start with animal herding. Herpes simplex type 2 likely jumped to our ancestors from chimps more than a million years ago. Zoonotic infection became much more common, i.e. "the pathogens got closer" with herding.

Plague might or might not be due to herding. It could be: humans tend to put their food scraps in dumps away from their living space but throw things like chicken or horse feed on the ground where mice can get it. Agriculture in general also lets us live in higher concentrations, which makes successful crossover, i.e. it infects enough people to notice, more likely.

Indeed and I just found one: IQ is not measured in percent and cannot be measured in percent. It makes no sense to do so.

Cheating in multiplayer destroys the game. Has happened time and again. The cheaters are not smart enough and usually complain about others then, though.

Yep, most criminals (caught or uncaught) like to think they did nothing wrong.

Actually, no. Not everybody is scum. A lot of people are though.

Spoken like somebody that does not understand either. Here is news for you: That behavior is entirely rational if you want society to do well. And in most cases that gets you more and better benefits than if you (and many others) just take what you can. It does take a mind that can see larger connections though, and I gather you are very much not in possession of one of those.

Or, you know, commercial: https://www.intelsat.com/newsr...

Satellites have been autonomously serviced before. Doing it in geosynchronous orbit is exactly the same thing, just with a bigger booster to get you up there.

Worked out for the cotton gin and the steam engine.

Certain stock prices sometimes really are "barriers" because human pyschology causes people to pile up orders at that price. Market cap is not though.

There is lubrication that does dry out, and belts that deteriorate, but the main thing is that they were just cheap crap to begin with. The same is true of the audio tape mechs, they are rubbish and it's worth repairing the older ones.

My understanding is that they are using new-old-stock (NOS) mechanisms. It's the same with audio tape mechanisms. There was one company making them, which built up stock, and that's it.

Cotton will isn't ideal either. The fibres can detach. I have found the best thing is actually paper. A bit of isopropyl alcohol on it, and gently rub it over the heads. The slight texture helps lift dirt away, but it's also soft. The IPA is both a solvent and helps prevent the paper releasing dust.

VHS archival is kinda complicated and not widely understood.

First you need hardware, which isn't made anymore. It's all old and in need of maintenance. The tape contacts several parts of the machine, and it has motors and other moving bits, so they all wear out. The heads need cleaning too, and those crappy cleaning tapes don't do a very good job.

The tapes also degrade. They can get mould in them, which you really need to spot before putting it in the machine. They can be cleaned, but it's a bit of a process. Professional VCRs give the best video quality, but are rare and expensive now. Even PC capture hardware varies immensely in its quality and capabilities.

Even just running the tapes through a machine and hitting record on a computer is actually a quite involved process, it turns out. Whoever does it will need training in how to examine and clean tapes, and how to maintain the VCR. The video will need to be checked before the tape is destroyed.

The best option quality wise is to capture the raw RF signal off the VCR's heads, using hardware like a Domesday Duplicator or one of the newer dual channel devices designed specifically for VHS. You can then decode the signal in software for quality far exceeding what any VCR can do. It is slower than real time even on a very fast CPU though, and needs some experimentation to get the best results.

I don't see what size has to do with it. Different geography and climate, not directly comparable. What matters is how much each individual living there is contributing to climate change, and how much potential they have to improve.

Keep in mind that the whole "LLM" thing is a giant marketing and propaganda campaign built mostly on lies. This article here fits nicely in that, playing on FOMO and the illusion that things will get very useful.

It does. Another thing that will never make it onto my systems.