> Data centers in space only make sense if they are cost effective relative to normal data centers.
Author made a fatal mistake. By flying enough hardware in space, you can simply blot out the sun and steal their solar capacity. Drink their milkshake with a long straw!
Didn’t Elon say that orbital solar collection was a stupid idea due to energy loss in transmission? Using AI as an almost proof-of-work shows that it may potentially be more complex problem than previously thought. If we threw Bitcoin miners up to those satellites you could literally beam money down.
100%. Go on Facebook or Instagram today and you’re more likely to see viral videos than to see anything to do with your friends. It’s just a moth to flame.
I think I've seen all of his stealth camp episodes, and they've only been outside airports. (Once outdoors, once in a parking lot.)
I think a lot of the humor would be lost because he couldn't get his camp stove in to cook. Or maybe he could, but would risk arrest if caught with it...
I didn't think I'd see Steve mentioned on this site! The camp stove would probably be fine, but the fuel would be an issue. I wonder if axes are allowed in carry on?
It's as close to on-topic as most of the other comments.
"The internet isn't secure enough to trust for voting" could be generalized to
"The internet isn't secure enough to trust for _____" just a reasonably as it could be to
"______ isn't secure enough to trust for voting" as most of the other commenters have chosen to do.
The fact that one of the generalizations is more popular doesn't make the other wrong, and addressing both (as, say, the GP or people talking about internet banking do) adds both depth and breadth to the discussion.
> They have been pointing China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, a radio telescope referred to as FAST, at these targets since July, hoping to see the signals again.
This is how you get Trisolarians knocking on your door!
And that's why they won't find anything, IMHO. Anyone who spends five minutes thinking about the consequences of deliberately transmitting interstellar beacon signals will conclude that the only safe, sane thing to do is STFU.
At the same time, no advanced civilizations will be using coherent RF communications that stand out from the noise floor, because it makes little sense to keep doing that once your civilization understands information theory.
Still, SETI was an undeniably cool thing to try, and I'm glad they did. Lots of other cooperative-computing tasks grew out of the same idea as the article mentions.
Anyone who spends five minutes thinking about the consequences of deliberately leaving your house will conclude that the only safe, sane thing to do is stay the fuck inside.
Beyond ability to follow government direction, the amount of genuinely damaging social isolation experienced by many people during COVID indicates we shouldn't be doing it without good reason. People need people, in proximity, at length. We're a social species.
Having it safe to go outside is the very point of a society.
Outside of this safety Bubble there's a strong tendency for conflict and war. Only after two cruel world wars and a prolonged cold war, the western world got their shit together and decided 'enough of that'. And even that doesn't seem to hold much longer, so it seems we will only have managed to live peaceful among each other without an immediate conflict with somebody (cold war) for roughly 30 years.
If aliens are remotely like us, they shouldn't know about us.
But this is my point — it would take hundreds, or even thousands of years for aliens to get here. To do that they'd need some sort of abundant fuel source.
Let's say they have had thousands of years of Nuclear Fusion, for example, it wouldn't surprise me if they could produce any elements they need by fusing hydrogen.
But let's say they didn't, and they do in fact see Earth as a rare jewel full of precious materials... the logistics of taking our natural resources just seems like a joke. Surely the juice isn't worth the hundreds of years of planning and logistics squeeze.
I used to buy this dark forest idea, because it's scary and exciting, but I think the biggest mistake is projecting our behaviours onto extra-terrestrials.
If they wanted to destroy Earth they'd just slightly nudge a big asteroid in our direction and be done with it.
> Anyone who spends five minutes thinking about the consequences of deliberately transmitting interstellar beacon signals will conclude that the only safe, sane thing to do is STFU.
Even if we credit the idea that it's unsafe to transmit, there are reasons to do it anyway, e.g. you have a holy text and a mission to share it with the universe.
Even if we credit the idea that it's unsafe to transmit, there are reasons to do it anyway, e.g. you have a holy text and a mission to share it with the universe.
Sounds like a great sci-fi premise. "Hey, there aren't enough knock-down, drag-out religious wars on Earth. Let's start beef with the nuclear-armed, FTL-capable sky wizard cult on Epsilon Eridani 4."
Author made a fatal mistake. By flying enough hardware in space, you can simply blot out the sun and steal their solar capacity. Drink their milkshake with a long straw!