Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

duskos.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 152 posts

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#141

Post by mikrotikker »

eternityforest wrote: post #126
jacquesm wrote: post #19

After civilizational collapse you won't need computers, you'll need bows, arrows and basic agricultural tools that don't require motors. Forget about electricity or anything requiring it, that will be the least of your problems. Assuming there is still sunlight enough to keep photosynthesis running. If not, you may want to find some place high. And if you are going to do something like this then you really should mak…

Are we currently doing all we can to prevent collapse? It seems like they vaguely try to stop pollution and WW3, but what about the Carrington event? And why does it seem like individuals are far more interesting in preparing for collapse than preventing it? It really feels like people would rather live in 1800 than continue with industrial society, even if the environmental toll and body count was far higher than wh…

You ever watch videos where something horrible is happening but all the people in the video who could do something are also recording with their phones?

I think there's a connection here.

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#142

Post by ethbr0 »

jacquesm wrote: post #139
ethbr0 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's getting into Illuminati territory. Thiel is rich and powerful, but he isn't that rich and powerful. There are more than enough counterbalancing forces. And it starts to be way too thought policy (for me) deciding "You can't be rich and worry about civilization collapsing."

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-val...

That used so many words to say "Thiel bought some land in New Zealand and thinks the current world is going to end."

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#143

Post by anigbrowl »

jacquesm wrote: post #119
anigbrowl wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the overlap between 'people in civilizational collapse zones without reliable internet access' and 'people with Forth and general computing skills sufficient to expertly operate random hardware' is very narrow indeed. It's a cool project, but the complexity of most hardware is such that solo reverse engineering it for practical purposes is likely a fictional scenario. The chances of an engineering community t…

> If you have technology skills and reasonably expect to experience some sort of apocalyptic scenario, ISTM you'd be better off with a solar charger, a few rugged smartphones, and several SD cards containing backups of Wikipedia and as much reference material as you can collect. That will buy you a decade. I'd go for a paper version of the stuff that you think is important enough to haul around in physical form for m…

Good points. I think it's been linked on HN before, but one of the most robust libraries in the world has its texts engraved on wooden blocks: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/737/

Deciding what to conserve and making it succinct enough to be manageable but detailed enough to useful actually seems like a great use case for AI. I'm a little more optimistic than you on the timeframe, as I have electronics that are decades old and work fine. Of course, if they suddenly stop it will be a source of disappointment rather than survival anxiety.

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#144

Post by inawarminister »

actionfromafar wrote: post #109
jacquesm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will last a few hundred cycles and then you're done. Anything that you rely on in a situation like that should be 100% maintenance free and should not rely on technology more complex than what you can make today in your garage with hand tools. Go over that level and it will just buy you a little bit of comfort but it won't last. Candles: yes. Solar panels+batteries+inverters: forget it. Even a basic charge contr…

Windmills with simple generators and no (or very simple) batteries could work. Some electricity some of the time is very useful compared to no electricity, ever.

Or waterwheels, which would work most of the time (unless there's drought) and historically the main non-animal powered motive force for most cultures pre-steam (alright, wind too in the form of windmills and sails, but water always flow in rivers...)

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#145

Post by eternityforest »

jacquesm wrote: post #135
eternityforest wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we currently doing all we can to prevent collapse? It seems like they vaguely try to stop pollution and WW3, but what about the Carrington event? And why does it seem like individuals are far more interesting in preparing for collapse than preventing it? It really feels like people would rather live in 1800 than continue with industrial society, even if the environmental toll and body count was far higher than wh…

> And why does it seem like individuals are far more interesting in preparing for collapse than preventing it? That is a great question for which I don't have an answer, but thank you for asking it, it is something to think about.

Based on how many people seem to have a bit of understanding for Kaczynski... I would guess that a lot of people kinda like the idea of collapse....

Or it just doesn't seem like there's much an individual can do.

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#146

Post by jacquesm »

anigbrowl wrote: post #143
jacquesm wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have technology skills and reasonably expect to experience some sort of apocalyptic scenario, ISTM you'd be better off with a solar charger, a few rugged smartphones, and several SD cards containing backups of Wikipedia and as much reference material as you can collect. That will buy you a decade. I'd go for a paper version of the stuff that you think is important enough to haul around in physical form for m…

Good points. I think it's been linked on HN before, but one of the most robust libraries in the world has its texts engraved on wooden blocks: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/737/ Deciding what to conserve and making it succinct enough to be manageable but detailed enough to useful actually seems like a great use case for AI. I'm a little more optimistic than you on the timeframe, as I have electronics that are decade…

Capacitors are the weak point, the electrolyte just goes after some time, faster if they are warm (for instance because they are in working gear). Besides that there is apparently actual wear at the sub-microscopic level from using electronics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration

This puts an upper life-span on VLSI chips and has practical effects on the fabrication processes and materials used. The higher the integration level, the smaller the feature size the more important this becomes.

So if you want something to last a really long time use the largest feature size chips that you can still make your designs with.

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#147

Post by pschuegr »

jacquesm wrote: post #135
eternityforest wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we currently doing all we can to prevent collapse? It seems like they vaguely try to stop pollution and WW3, but what about the Carrington event? And why does it seem like individuals are far more interesting in preparing for collapse than preventing it? It really feels like people would rather live in 1800 than continue with industrial society, even if the environmental toll and body count was far higher than wh…

> And why does it seem like individuals are far more interesting in preparing for collapse than preventing it? That is a great question for which I don't have an answer, but thank you for asking it, it is something to think about.

Prevention requires mass action, preparation can be done by the individual

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#148

Post by uoaei »

jacquesm wrote: post #92
uoaei wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely there wouldn't be as many services, but don't you think long-range transmission and a good set of scattered plants would provide at least some "modern" facilities within that time? I'm sure the ownership and management structures would look very different as well as usage patterns (probably many services would be centralized in communities).

Think about the infrastructure behind those plants required to keep them running. maybe you could keep a hydro plant running for a while, at least until the bearings fail. But anything relying on high tech, fossil fuels or nuclear would stop long before solar and wind power became unavailable.

Which is probably acceptable to a lot of people, who would have adapted to the new reality by then. Capacity would have to be rebuilt.

The grid is always changing in capacity and output. What makes the grid "the grid" is the ability to transmit power long-range based on demand. I'm saying that that kind of high-level coordination would be a pretty high priority for people in the face of apocalyptic disaster because people tend to be like that. Just trying to counter the cynical doom and gloom that nudges people toward hard-libertarian/ancap/mad-max mindsets.

Re: Dusk OS: 32-bit Forth OS. Useful during first stage of civilizational collapse

#150

Post by nullc »

jacquesm wrote: post #116
actionfromafar wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35046551 "easy to imagine - a large enough collapse that making new ones is very very hard, especially compared to scrounging and repurposing the huge amount of existing ones. Imagine a huge population decline, and search parties looking through the ruins for useful tech, like computers, decades later. Such a society could probably make new computers, but the cost of making new, m…

Yes, it would make for a nice movie. But real life isn't a movie and of course I'm fine with individuals making their own decisions I still think we should look at the general picture through the lens of finding out what the likelihood of certain scenarios is first. Prepping for an intermediate stage is ultimately not a very good disaster mitigation strategy, you plan for the worst and hope for the best. This interme…

I think some comments here have lost track of how absurdly labor saving simple PLC applications of computers are. There is a lot less farming duties to do when the computers manage irrigation and keep track of schedules.
Post reply on HN