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Comment Re:Shine On, Football Brain (Score 0) 46

If shining 810nm light at someone's head a few times a week really does reduce the neurological consequences of repetitive impacts, that's potentially a pretty big deal.

How about avoiding those impacts in the first place? Or would that be un-American?

In other news, scientists are looking into geoengineering to cool our planet, so we can continue to drill-baby-drill until kingdom come.

Comment Backreaction conjecture (Score 1) 87

The directional explanation reminds me of the backreaction conjecture. The basic idea is due to the inhomogeneity of the real universe: as the gravity within each concentration of matter (such as a group of galaxies) pulls it into a tighter clump, the distance between such clumps appears to increase.

I've only come across this idea because of Syksy Räsänen, who is famous in Finland for his goth looks and pro-Palestine activities. So the theory doesn't seem to be widely known.

Comment Re:We have tried on thing so far (Score 1) 84

Global warming is going gangbusters, we want to reverse it. So far we are attempting one thing only to reverse it, and that is emissions reduction.

I haven't seen any serious attempts at reducing emissions, quite the contrary. Sure, renewable electricity generation is a growing industry, but it's only a small part of the total energy budget that's growing fast. With a nation whose official motto is "drill baby drill" and an AI slop industry powered by gas turbines, it's hard to believe the story of renewables saving the world.

Instead of asking how we can power our cars with more climate-friendly sources, we should be questioning the need to drive around so much at all. If it weren't for the petrol industry, we'd probably spend our time more creatively than sitting around in traffic jams. In the early days, the automobile was a more efficient alternative to horse power, but then we ran into Jevons paradox. We're now seeing the same paradox in action with AI data centers; the computers that were supposed to save time and energy are now wasting it.

Maybe, just maybe, it is time to do a second and maybe a third thing to cool the climate? Or at very least do some research into alternatives to reducing emissions.

I'm OK with some form of climate engineering to cool the planet, but only if we're also serious about reducing emissions. Climate engineering shouldn't be an excuse that lets us continue drilling and burning our planet into ashes.

Comment Re:Audacity 1.2.6 was the peak (Score 2) 31

I run Audacity 1.2.6, and refuse to use anything newer.

I find the realtime effects in Audacity 3 pretty handy, though they're a rather limited selection. For example, I use a separate Nyquist plugin for nicer compression, which means it's not realtime. I try not to rely too much on a single piece of software, as they seem to come and go, and maintaining old versions on up-to-date distributions is not fun.

Whatever idiots took over the project and built 2.0 should have stuck to their anime and left FOSS development to people who knew how to use a PC.

Real Men (TM) use Ecasound for multitrack processing on the command line, like I did back in the 00s.

Comment Tooth decay and heart problems (Score 1) 65

Inflammations in teeth and gums are a serious risk factor for heart issues, besides having other systemic ill effects on the body. People with tooth issues are usually ordered to get them fixed before heart surgeries or other major operations. And as we all know (at least here in Finland), xylitol is good for your teeth. So I'll take the study of this article with a pinch of pentane-1,2,3,4,5-pentol. https://thecomfortdentistry.co...

Comment Steering wheel menu (Score 1) 185

If touch screens are so great, automakers should ditch obsolete input devices such as steering wheels, pedals and gear sticks:

Main menu -> Steering -> Right turn

It's so much simpler and cheaper to make than those ancient steering wheels. There's also a small safety benefit, as the wheel won't push into your chest during a crash.

Comment Re:The cost on human minds is high (Score 1) 46

Nice post and an interesting comparison, but I think there's one big difference: live music remains hugely popular and a big business despite recording technology, but you don't see a lot of people showing off their arithmetic skills for profit. Today's mathematicians are more akin to composers.

There's also an interesting historical side to the analogy, as the separation between composers and performing musicians is relatively modern (and only really applies to classical art music genres anyway). And as you pointed out about Euler et al, modern math started out as a way to simplify practical calculations, such as the geometry of farming and city planning, or accounting. But this also shows a crucial difference: music has never been so much about practical utility as it's about esthetic or emotional experience. So while modern math has become a thing with its own sense of beauty, simply adding up numbers isn't very fun — though some might disagree.

Comment Re:What? (Score 1) 53

Download a Meta AI on my PC so it can do what?

Scheduling and file management — apparently, kids these days need a heavy AI box for basic computing tasks we've been doing for over half a century. I keep seeing quite a lot of "AI solutions" to other basic automation tasks, probably because the typical Windows/Mac user has no idea how to automate things beyond interactive clicking.

Comment Re:Netcraft Confirms (Score 1) 89

It took me under 3 minutes to get my Canon 702 working perfectly on Arch, while the wife's MacBook took 10x more and was a pain in the ass.

This is particularly noteworthy given that CUPS was developed by Apple. But it's still not surprising how a big company can screw things up compared to "hobby" projects.

Printing is a good example how Linux works well with standards. Traditionally, if the printer understood Postscript, you wouldn't need much of a printer driver. Meanwhile, Windows users were instructed to download a very specific driver for that printer model, even if it would just pass PS through.

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