Prime video should also have to sink or swim on its own.

A smart tv without an internet connection is usually close enough to a dumb TV. It’s not like your TV needs regular security updates so leaving it off your home network is fine.

There is also the issue that if building nuclear plants takes too long and is too expensive to be the solution, then such a project would also be too late to matter. Also transmission losses likely mean this is a solution for much less of the world population than you think. If we had a truly global lossless grid, then we would need much less energy storage to begin with.

Impracticalities aside, absurd geoengineering what-ifs are entertaining. Thanks for sharing.

Pumped hydro is both very geologically limited and environmentally detrimental. That technology alone will not substantially reduce the need for other power storage technologies/ peaker plants.

Relevant Tom Scott video

RealPage can afford to send justices on very nice vacations as a gratuity.

No, the company is publically listed with around 1 Bil market cap.

My wife worked for a company that was heavily reliant on generating leads from ads. They had lots of real time monitoring of conversion rates to make sure they were actually making more money than they were spending on the ads. They would have to turn ad channels off all the time because the return on ad spend went negative.

So my conclusion is that ads can be somewhat effective for companies, but if they don’t actively monitor and control the performance of their ads, they’re probably just burning money. A lot of companies seem to advertise because they think that’s the only way to grow.

Sssshh don’t go telling Nicholas Cage where our national treasures are kept.

That’s only true for areas of land that aren’t visibly occupied. Entering any building without permission is considered first degree trespassing in my state, and I don’t think that’s a unique definition. Traversing the land near a dwelling is considered second degree trespass.

Yahoo is still around in some form or another.

Alphabet has enough money to persist well after they lose relevance.

Is GN going to put Google on a Performance Improvement Plan like they did with Asus?

Since they’re following a specific cohort, I wonder if that isn’t just the baseline percentage of recently homeless people who can secure housing on their own in 6 months. It would help if they had a control group.

Edit:

https://denverite.com/2024/03/26/denver-commits-2m-to-the-basic-income-project/

It looks like the $50/month group is considered the control group. If you ignore the income from the program entirely, it doesn’t seem unexpected that 20% of people could secure housing over a 6 month period. So it’s not that $50/month tripled the housing rate, it’s that 6 months is enough time for 20% of people to increase their income enough to lease an apartment.

If you consider the inverse of that. Even after 6 months, 70% of participants that did not receive substantial assistance were unable to get their own housing. Does that result still surprise you when framed that way?

With an ad blocking dns.

https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html

Go down to the configure manually option and follow the instructions for iPhone.

I think next guard is also supposed to be decent, but they won’t let you use it without an account.

The nice thing about the dns approach is it works for more than just your web browser. There’s a bunch of Android games that are essentially unplayable without an adblocking dns.

As a disclaimer, a bunch of sites are ramping up requiring enabling ads or they won’t let you load the content. I’m ok with just hitting back and not viewing those sites, but my MIL just asked for help removing the ad guard dns because her news sites wouldn’t let her in.

Did you miss the Sci fi shows that taught us that we have to let the tech tycoons enjoy new technology exclusively for a good decade or so before it can be sold to the masses? So your smart contacts are probably in Tim Cook or Satya Nadella’s secret lab in a mountain valley.

I thought I had gotten rid of cheques, but I had to get a book specifically to get my passport.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/degraw2/

Medical devices is an obvious potential application for beta decay power. In the past, nuclear power sources were at a major size disadvantage and chemically powered cells can also provide very long service life at such small power draw.

So this definitely isn’t nearly as much of a new concept as the media is suggesting. The question is whether they have achieved a compact enough design to be preferential over competing chemically powered cells.

Another application would be cmos batteries for holding memory states. Using ssds in external enclosures is compelling to reduce the amount of time it takes to actually read and write a full drive. But ssds need to be powered every once in a while. If their internal power storage depletes they lose data. Backup ssd drives with an indefinite power source would definitely be a compelling option. I do however doubt if this technology could ever be cheap enough for such an application. The materials used seem rather expensive.

Yeah reality and satire are getting close enough that I almost wonder if I should add a disclaimer that’s more obvious than the video link.

One of my friends thought I was quoting an interview with Susan Collins.

https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM

Interviewer: This airplane that was involved in the incident off Western Oregon this week…

Senator Collins: The one the door plug fell off?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Senator Collins: Yeah, that’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point.

Interviewer: Well, how was it un-typical?

Senator Collins: Well there are a lot of these airplanes going around the world all the time, and very seldom does anything like this happen. I just don’t want people thinking that 737 max 9’s aren’t safe.

…

Senator Collins: Well, some of them are built so that the door plug doesn’t fall off at all.

Interviewer: Wasn’t this built so that the door plug wouldn’t fall off?

Senator Collins: Well, obviously not.

Interviewer: How do you know?

Senator Collins: Well, because the door plug fell off at 20,000 feet and all the air spilled out. It’s a bit of a giveaway. I’d just like to make the point that that is not normal.

Interviewer: Well what sort of engineering standards are these 737 MAX 9’s built to?

Senator Collins: Oh, very rigorous aerospace engineering standards.

Interviewer: What sort of thing?

Senator Collins: Well, the door plug’s not supposed to fall off for a start.

…

Interviewer: So the allegations that they’re just designed to carry as many passengers as possible no matter the consequences, I mean that’s ludicrous isn’t it?

Senator Collins: Absolutely ludicrous, these are very very strong vessels.

Interviewer: So what happened in this case?

Senator Collins: Well, the door fell off in this case by all means, but it’s very unusual.

Interviewer: But Senator Collins, why did the door plug fall off?

Senator Collins: Well air hit it.

Interviewer: Air hit it?

Senator Collins: Air hit the plane.

Interviewer: Is that unusual?

Senator Collins: Oh yeah. At altitude? Chance in a million!

Isn’t rebco tape already a decent candidate for that, and much further along in development pipelines?