The protocol XMTP is built to last forever and will outlive us all, the name of the company is a reminder that if the company ever went away that the protocol must be able to live on. Requirement for decentralization.
Where can I go or what can I read written by credible people (not autodidacts and conspiracy theorists from the internet) that makes the case against anthro-caused climate change, and puts the arguments in context with the pro-ACCC people?
My denial is tactical in nature for the mere fact I don't think being eco-friendly or a climate-skeptic changes anything in the end when it comes to CO2 emission. Going the amish way certainly does, but 1°) nobody is advocating for this 2°) it wouldn't be feasible for whole societies, they would collapse. Additionally the proposed solution to the greenhouse gas problem, namely energetic transition, is compromised by the ongoing Peak Everything [1]. It's of course not an absolute wall and people working on obscure topics such as [2] are contributing a lot more than people arguing for or against the reality of anthropogenic climate change on a political level. These people should instead focus on other issues where activism would be a lot more useful, in particular the decline in insect populations (about 75% loss in 26 years for Germany, in absolute mass, not number of species) [3]. Advocacy to get rid of neonicotinoids would be a more efficient way to combat the impeding collapse of Nature.
Finally, I don't think it's a matter of political decision: we don't have the solution to the problem of greenhouse gas and the only outcome it can have is a form of self-punishment and eco-morale. I'd prefer to die of starvation in a desertic earth than suffer this kind of hypocritical tyranny that advocates both for reduction in natality and substitution immigration to offset it.
The only form of solution I could be satisfied with is some kind of AI-driven system to figure it out, not for its supposed super-cognitive abilities, but for the methods employed in ML. In this perspective, every new scientific paper, every ecological experimentation should be logged and ageggated automatically to update some global gradient, without having to face political mediatic inertia. This would allow us to deploy solutions such as Lorenzo Furlan agricultural insurance against pesticide [4]. Of course I had to use google translate for this link. This proves my point.
What was the purpose of using the rotary engine in the first place, for ICE cars? From the comments it seems it's maybe lighter for a given power output. Is that it, other than just the novelty of it?
It's about double the power output for a given size / displacement. It's very smooth and high-revving so that makes for a really fun driving experience in a light-weight sports car.
Lighter and mechanically simpler were the selling points. Poor fuel efficiency and trouble with the seals were the downsides.
My uncle had an RX-7 back in the 80s when I was a kid. I remember when it was idling I could see the exhaust puffing, in pulses. It only had a single combustion chamber after all.
I've had three RX-7s. A first generation and two second generations. I drove the first until the wheels literally fell off (I was a young, stupid kid that ignored the crunching sounds of the rear wheel bearings falling apart. The rear wheel(s) seized while I was driving down a bridge causing the axel to snap in half. That was an interesting "drive" down the rest of the bridge). The second was a base model second gen that I gave up when I suddenly had two cars because of getting married, then divorced. The third was my favorite. A late model second gen fully loaded. That one eventually caught on fire due to negligence at a tire place. I loved that car.
The third generation never got cheap enough for me to consider one, but oh, I wanted one badly. The RX-8 never really caught me. Plus they had some early issues. That Iconic concept definitely has my attention, though.
>It only had a single combustion chamber after all
Just to be clear: At had two combustion chambers. Both the 12A and 13B engines had two rotors (1.2 and 1.3L "displacement" respectively), each one has a combustion chamber. I had an '84 GSL-SE (13B), I don't remember it particularly "puffing", not saying it didn't just don't remember it.
The engine in this article they say is an "8C", which I assume means 0.8L displacement.
Power density is indeed the main advantage. It's also much easier to balance; hunks of metal changing direction many times per second (6000 RPM is 100Hz) is somewhat mechanically exciting.
I taught the course during the initial part of Covid, so the material ended up not being organized - split between different systems. But here are some of the books/papers that I sourced class readings from
* Brian Winston - Media technology and society a history: from the telegraph to the Internet, Routledge (1998)
* James Gleick - The Information A History, a Theory, a Flood (2011, Pantheo)
* Michael G. Raymer - The Silicon Web: Physics for the Internet Age, CRC Press (2009)
* Simon Singh - The Code Book: How to Make It, Break It, Hack It, Crack It (2003)
> Note the YDKJ books can come off as very ‘only my opinion is the right one’ kind of like JS the good parts
I got the same feeling and it's very off-putting. KS seems like a dick. It's ironic that so much of his dickishness seems to be reacting against what he takes as Doug Crockford's dickishness. Ah the irony.
He did a day workshop at my old company about 10 years ago. He did come off as a dick, and very opinionated, but I really liked his no-stone-unturned approach, and ended up buying a few of the books when they came out later, and I got so much good stuff from reading them. I personally disagree with many of his opinions and have no problem with this at all; he covers everything (including parts of the language he clearly hates) in such detail that I can form my own dissenting opinions whenever I want. If anything, it’s a good thing that he is so openly opinionated - it makes it easier for me to pay attention and prompts me to ‘argue back’ and form my own (better) opinions, compared to just reading dry material that always tries to remain neutral and void of feeling. The only problem with opinionated code writers is if they actually fail to cover the stuff they don’t like. KS covers it all, with relish, often bitterly. I love it. Same for Doug Crockford. Always found him hilariously opinionated, often to the point that he was clearly fighting against reality, and yet I learned a ton by reading the cantankerous old git.
I wonder sometimes at how much my whole line of reasoning should matter at all. In other words: if it as you describe (and I agree with your representation of the issue) then KS can be as dickish as he wants, he's providing awesome information that I can then use as I like. His actual personality should be irrelevant.
And yet, to me, it isn't. I suppose it's deep-seated social processing at work that's hard to override.
I know Kyle and he is very opinionated and adheres very tightly to his set of beliefs. I think this can rub some people the wrong way and maybe this leads to the belief that he is a dick.
From my personal experience I think he's actually a really nice guy. He's also been unemployed for quite a while now and seems to be struggling with something. Doesn't seem very kind to kick him while he's down even if it's a virtual kicking.
I'm all for not kicking people while they're down. But if you build your brand in part on throwing haymakers every which way, people are going to have bad feelings about you that will come out in passing discussion, as here.
Went to JSConf India, specially for Kyle Simpson talk. His whole talk was just how his company can be a game changer for web development. Just so disappointing
I understand your point, but my take is that when we talk about AI and its impact, we're talking about the entire system: the model, and what is buildable with the model. To me, the gains available from doing innovative stuff w/ what we're colloquially calling "UI" exceeds, by a bunch, what the next model will unlock. But perhaps the main issue is that whatever this amazing UI might provide, it's not protectable in the way the model is. So maybe that's the answer.
Is there something that approximates org-mode outlining? I don't need all the other stuff org-mode does, but just the simple outliner functionality combined with all the other Emacs stuff is my golden handcuffs.
Not that I'm aware of just yet, unfortunately, so might be a good reason to stick around. For me the switch coincided with jumping on the zettelkasten train and I haven't looked back since. I miss some org mode fratures but constantly `org-refile`-ing I can do without.
