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The good things in the current age in tech

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Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#61

Post by npteljes »

alexashka wrote: post #41
bpodgursky wrote: post #18

My take: fusion will change everything. I don't think people understand that controlled fusion is actually on the horizon finally, and it is going to change absolutely everything.

- You know, a brilliant scientist who beats his wife, will continue beating his wife, right? - Yes, but if he invents X, that'll change everything! - ... Weren't we supposed to be working 1-2 hours/week by now, thanks to techno-utopia? :) Technology at this point is like children running around with scissors. What's needed is some adult supervision, not new toys.

Well, OP didn't say "for the better".

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#62

Post by jiggunjer »

secondaryacct wrote: post #45
ryukafalz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The prospect of cities with much less air pollution is wonderful. For cities with a dense urban core (of which mine, Philly, certainly is) I'm really hoping we lean in on bikes (electric or not) moreso than electric cars. Even less carbon-intensive to produce, and in a city with this level of density it's shocking how quickly you can get around by bike. I would go so far as to say it's often faster than driving if…

In Hong Kong, a bit denser than Philly (I googled for giggles: HK is 6300 p/km2, Philly is 4500 p/km, still surprisingly high), we have, I think, reached your no-car target simply because it's unthinkable people get cars when space is so rare and expensive (people here do mortgages to buy 200k USD parkings as retirement investment when they cant buy a home). Bicycle is non existent though, what is really different fr…

I think bike use would pick up if they had dedicated infrastructure in the city. They seem more popular in the suburbs (NT) where there are some dedicated lanes.

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#63

Post by varjag »

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #57
kaycebasques wrote: post #13

My unfiltered additions: * SpaceX. I have lots of reservations about the company but the fact that they are consistently doing things previously thought impossible is very important for humanity in general. * The new Dune movie was downright amazing. The CGI was believable and an important part of the story. * AI-generated art. Fascinating. * Wikipedia. Wow. * I can invest in lots of different assets relatively easil…

SpaceX still pales nothing to what NASA did in the height of the Cold War. Well, it's better than zero space exploration, but it's also pretty disappointing compared to what people have already achieved half a decade ago.

I don't know where are you from, but over here landing an orbital rocket booster on its ass is pretty impressive. Something NASA didn't even bother enough to try to achieve.

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#64

Post by rhizome31 »

tapan_jk wrote: post #50
kaycebasques wrote: post #13

My unfiltered additions: * SpaceX. I have lots of reservations about the company but the fact that they are consistently doing things previously thought impossible is very important for humanity in general. * The new Dune movie was downright amazing. The CGI was believable and an important part of the story. * AI-generated art. Fascinating. * Wikipedia. Wow. * I can invest in lots of different assets relatively easil…

> Our civilization will make the transition. It will be messy and could have been much less painful but we will do it. I wish to see this kind of positivity around me more often. I have worked with a colleague or two in the past who viewed problems as something that needed to be solved, and were a step or two ahead of the rest of us in terms of finding solutions. Lately, I see that the default reaction to problems is…

I don't understand how it is possible to still have this view of the problem. All the resources I am aware of that seem backed by facts and science are currently forecasting an utter disaster. I think I'm someone with a rather positive attitude in life and as you said I always try to look at solutions rather than just complain. In fact I'm doing rather well at the personal level. But in the case of the environmental crisis (which isn't limited to a climate crisis), I honestly can't see how it's going to work. In the optimistic camp all I see so far is wishful thinking.

> Our civilization will make the transition. It will be messy and could have been much less painful but we will do it.

It's all about what this mess and pain is going to be about. If that means 99% of the world population dying in horrendous circumstances, that doesn't qualify as a success to me. The fact that a handful of privileged people will manage to get through and still have cars and smartphones isn't really a relief.

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#65

Post by sokoloff »

autoexec wrote: post #38
linguae wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bring up a great point: how do we deliver high-quality software to the general public that is stable, easy-to-use, and secure, yet respects user privacy? Ad-tech and other forms of surveillance technologies have become quite prevalent in consumer technology in recent years, such as the proliferation of smart TVs with ads. I find free, open source software to respect my privacy and generally be stable and secure,…

> how do we deliver high-quality software to the general public that is stable, easy-to-use, and secure, yet respects user privacy? I don't think volatilizing users' privacy for money helps to make a product more stable, secure, or easy to use. It's just something companies do because they are allowed to and it makes them more money. > I find free, open source software to respect my privacy and generally be stable an…

The monetary reward for users using your app (say, in an ad-supported case) provides the clear linkage of “well, if I want the money, I have to show the ads; if I want to show the ads, I need a user using it; if I want a user to use it, I better make it easy to use…”

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#66

Post by mihaic »

varjag wrote: post #63
cyber_kinetist wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX still pales nothing to what NASA did in the height of the Cold War. Well, it's better than zero space exploration, but it's also pretty disappointing compared to what people have already achieved half a decade ago.

I don't know where are you from, but over here landing an orbital rocket booster on its ass is pretty impressive. Something NASA didn't even bother enough to try to achieve.

I think the previous commenter was refering to the NASA of the 1960s, which returned a human from the surface of the moon before Elon Musk was born. SpaceX has more than a few kilobytes of RAM and can't really be compared to the immense achievement of the cold-war space programs.

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#67

Post by mellavora »

DethNinja wrote: post #42

I don’t want to dox myself but I’m currently solo developing an application that would’ve took a company of minimum 100 to build just 15 years ago. People are amazed when they see the stuff I solo built and imagine there is a huge company behind it. It is all because of advances in DevOps, cheap server infrastructure, and good quality open source libraries. It is actually scary to see this first hand because human pr…

Yes, likewise. I've built an app which is in clinical use at multiple institutions. Solo. In my spare time.

Sure, I'm a good developer. But as DethNinja points out, the real enabler of this are the advances in cheap server infra + libraries.

It's the tooling as much as the tool-user.

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#68

Post by auggierose »

cyber_kinetist wrote: post #57
kaycebasques wrote: post #13

My unfiltered additions: * SpaceX. I have lots of reservations about the company but the fact that they are consistently doing things previously thought impossible is very important for humanity in general. * The new Dune movie was downright amazing. The CGI was believable and an important part of the story. * AI-generated art. Fascinating. * Wikipedia. Wow. * I can invest in lots of different assets relatively easil…

SpaceX still pales nothing to what NASA did in the height of the Cold War. Well, it's better than zero space exploration, but it's also pretty disappointing compared to what people have already achieved half a decade ago.

Half a decade? Or half a century?

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#69

Post by varjag »

mihaic wrote: post #66
varjag wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where are you from, but over here landing an orbital rocket booster on its ass is pretty impressive. Something NASA didn't even bother enough to try to achieve.

I think the previous commenter was refering to the NASA of the 1960s, which returned a human from the surface of the moon before Elon Musk was born. SpaceX has more than a few kilobytes of RAM and can't really be compared to the immense achievement of the cold-war space programs.

NASA of the 1960s was consuming 10% of America's GDP. You can do a lot with that kind of money. SpaceX does its part on a Snapchat budget.

Re: The good things in the current age in tech

#70

Post by GDC7 »

WalterBright wrote: post #46
kaycebasques wrote: post #13

My unfiltered additions: * SpaceX. I have lots of reservations about the company but the fact that they are consistently doing things previously thought impossible is very important for humanity in general. * The new Dune movie was downright amazing. The CGI was believable and an important part of the story. * AI-generated art. Fascinating. * Wikipedia. Wow. * I can invest in lots of different assets relatively easil…

I have no reservations about SpaceX. SpaceX is doing what every entrepreneur wished they were doing. I want to buy stock in SpaceX. I don't even care if the stock tanks, I just want a piece of the dream.

> I just want a piece of the dream

As I said many times, space has become a religion for people who identify themselves as atheists. And Musk is the techno-utopian Pope, with stock ownership in one of his scam companies becoming a form of techno-utopian indulgence

Many of you are unfortunately too smart to keep believing in absence of evidence, unlike religious individuals who can hold a belief for their whole life.

When you'll realize that there is nothing for us up there, then disillusion and disappointment will be a tough pill to swallow.

Every human activity in space has not only failed to break even but proved to be a financial disaster of epic proportions. The sheer amount of mass that we need to bring up there in order to live and thrive as a specie is so enormous that no rocket, no matter how big or reusable will get us there.

You need a sci-fi type discovery such as the anti-gravity equation that Cooper finds inside the Black hole Gargantua and sends back to Murph.

As an aside, yes, Interstellar is my favorite movie, but I am a practical person and also capable of separating science from sci-fi.

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