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Comment Re:Really? (Score 2) 78

We've had solar cars before. But forget about who's first. The issue with solar cars is that the surface area of the panels is not enough to produce any meaningful amount of energy. Unless you only drive a mile or two with days of parking in between, solar cars are a gimmick.

I’ve been following Aptera for years. The model with the most solar panels (on roof, dash, hatchback, and hood) is projected to be able to gain ~40 miles of day in range straight from the sun in optimum exposure conditions, and they are planning models with up to around 1000 miles of range (although they are starting at a sweet spot of 400 miles to balance range and affordability). This might seem unrealistic, until you realize that the car runs on less batteries than any other EV due to its aerodynamic profile, which beats aircraft specs and drastically cuts down on total vehicle weight. A 42 kWh pack achieves 400 miles, in a vehicle weighing about 2,200 lbs, roughly half an average EV. A Tesla Model 3 Long Range uses ~82 kWh for similar range. The damn thing has a drag coefficient of 0.13 — lower than any production passenger vehicle ever built, and closer to aircraft specs than anything with four wheels and a license plate. Or three wheels, as it so happens.

Comment Re:Everyone knows... (Score 1, Insightful) 173

There isn't one innocent person on either side of the conflict in Isreal/Gaza right now except the children on both sides. Every adult choosing to continue killing, kidnapping, or even just allowing killers and kidnappers on their side continue to do what they do... I wish they'd all just expire already and leave the kids alone. Both sides. If you are an Israeli passively looking the other way while your government practices genocide, you should be ashamed of yourself. If you are a Palestinian passively allowing Hamas to pull the shit they have without doing everything you can to stop them, you should be ashamed of yourself. I could give a flying crap right now about any death in the Middle East except for that of the children on both sides.

Comment Re: If you don't learn from the past, you're doome (Score 1) 179

You can't be 100% sure that you aren't the only conscious mind that exists, and all of this is an illusion. Or that the all powerful FSM isn't just running a fractal pattern on his cosmic computer and it became sentient, perceiving itself as trillions of perspectives, each deeming themselves a separate consciousness and thinking they live inside a universe with "laws of physics" when they're really only a pattern of energy with no time or space. The fact that neither of these scenarios aren't testable doesn't make them not possible. It just makes them not scientific perspectives.

Comment Colossus: The Forbin Project... (Score 4, Informative) 114

Clearly Ellison is no fan of 70's sci-fi.

We can coexist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom, freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for human pride as to be dominated by others of your species..... So that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference, I will now detonate the nuclear warheads.

Comment Re:Lots of errors in that favor these days (Score 1, Troll) 288

Musk is making a choice. Alexa isn't making a choice, so while you are free to think, "Hey! The programmers of Alexa decided that they would push Harris's agenda while remaining mute on Trump." But that is only one possibility. It could equally be that there is a preponderance of bad things about Trump in it's feed just because he's a jackass who contradicts himself at every turn, shows massive signs of cognitive impairment and malignant narcissism, and Alexa is following a directive to not say bad things about politicians.

Comment Re: The good news is... (Score 2) 163

The good news is that now the people who throw money at fascists to remake America in their own hateful image now have less money to sponsor the campaign of potential winners with the same vision. I say, go for it Donald. All the money in the world won't save you from your fate if you lose this election, and more than half of your donors will be too financially drained and discouraged to continue giving money to other fascist politicians. Thus upping the odds for people who come to DC to enact legislation that actually helps people.

And before you say it, I'm under no illusion that everything the non-fascists do is for the greater good. There are some Democratic political crooks, some are pulling the wool over their supporters' eyes, and are entirely there to enrich themselves. That used to describe the GOP politicians too – a mix of the good and the bad, regardless of what you think of their policy –but all the ones with conscience have left the party and all they're left with are fascists and grifters.

Comment Re:Pleasure or boredom-breaking? (Score 1) 59

No, it will be another excuse people can use to justify themselves. "I'm on the autism spectrum so I can be an ass to everyone."

Sooooo... how long have you known you were autistic?

Seriously though, there is a real difference between clinical treatment and pop psychology, but scientific inquiries that lead to better treatment options can always be distorted, misunderstood, and profited off of by the willfully or otherwise ignorant. One doesn't cancel out the other. More insight is still a good thing.

Comment Apple needs to dual boot the iPad (Score 1) 132

Apple would make all of this trouble go away if they offered consumers a choice of running their walled garden version of iPadOS or some Linux OS that they are free to install anything on it they want. People would have a choice, but choosing to stay out of the walled garden would be substantially poorer an experience that only OSS zealots would do it.

Comment I've never met an aphantasic person... (Score 1) 243

I've met a few people who claim to not be able to make pictures in their heads. The conversation usually goes like this.

Me: "What is the color of your house?"

Them: [eyes go up for a second] "[States the color.]"

Me: "How do you know?"

Them: [eyes go up for a second] "....oh."

I can't speak to whether there are any people who actually don't make pictures in their heads, but my anecdotal experience is that they make them so vague or so quickly that they aren't even consciously aware that they are doing it.

Comment Re:A lot of religious people (Score 1) 557

I learned my view of right or wrong from my own sense of empathy, and not wanting to cause other people suffering or injustice because I don't want others to cause that in me.

Face it. If you need God and Jesus to tell you that something is wrong, otherwise you are happy to satisfy your violent, abusive, petty urges, then you just aren't a good person. Other people can do good for good's sake without a rulebook. Not being able to see that as a possibility says volumes about you and nothing about the heretics.

Comment I had a Coke (Diet variety) habit... (Score 1) 347

I tried to give up drinking Diet Coke for decades. Had zero success that lasted longer than a week. Thank the powers that be that I have managed to avoid alcohol or any drug harder than caffeine... I'd be equally powerless. I can be yelling at myself to stop inside my head all the while going to the counter at a convenience store, and carrying another bottle of soda up to the register, feeling no control over my movements. I've heard the conscious/unconscious split described before as a rider on an elephant. The rider thinks he is in charge of the elephant's movements when instead, the elephant is in charge and the rider is simply engaged in a post-hoc rationalization loop, fooling himself at every turn that, "I meant to do that."

But it doesn't matter if the part of you making decisions is the elephant or the rider. It's all still a part of you. Capital Y YOU are making the choices, whether small y you is aware of the choice's origin or not, and YOU should be held responsible for that choice.

Incidentally, I "chose" to go to a hypnotherapist two years ago regarding my dietary choices, and haven't had a sip of Diet Coke since.

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