Our whole current civilization could be construed as advanced alien tech servicing a humongous tribe of moronic apes. The fact that one fifth of the internet is dedicated to porn just speaks for itself. Just thinking about all the tech involved, from the capturing of footage using highly sophisticated camera, to the transmission over kilometers of fiber optics, to the stokage into redundant and consistent databases b…
There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape
341–350 of 673 posts
Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape
#342As a smoker who transitioned to vaping, I see immense health benefits. My home country (India), and others (Singapore, others?) have outright banned all electronic cigarettes which is a regulation I hate. I acknowledge that vapes reduce barriers to entry to kids. This is partly solvable in countries with strong governance. But disposables? Ban that shit
Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
By 2040 there will be a disposable LLM in there as good as today's claude.
By 2080, it will be fully sentient, and derive pleasure when you use it, and suffer loneliness if you don't, and do its best to convince you. Basically the weapons from "High on Life" or the butter robot from Rick and Morty, but as a vape.
Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape
#344"I Powered My House Using 500 Disposable vapes" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-wFixuRVU
Man. I don't actually know anyone who vapes. I see it in public sometimes and just assumed people refilled them - maybe they do. Seeing him hold some up, seeing all that plastic, metal, electronics, all that Work (Joules) expended, in something that you just dump after a day is nuts . I can't think of anything else like that. Maybe plastic water bottles but they don't have even half the materials or complexity? Maybe…
Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
What a world we live in; we have gotten to a point where computers are so small and cheap that they can literally be “disposable”. It’s beautiful, I love it.
It reminds me of how Sussman talked about someday we'd have computers so small and cheap that we'd mix dozens in our concrete and be put throughout our space.
Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is why when folks nowadays say "you cannot use XYZ for embedded", given what most embedded systems look like, and what many of us used to code on 8 and 16 bit home computers, I can only assert they have no idea how powerful modern embedded systems have become. Now that it is a pity that when people talk about saving the planet everyone keeps rushing to dispoable electronics, what serves me to go by bycicle to w…
> Which is why when folks nowadays say "you cannot use XYZ for embedded", given what most embedded systems look like, and what many of us used to code on 8 and 16 bit home computers, I can only assert they have no idea how powerful modern embedded systems have become. Yet, I still need to wait about 1 second (!) after each key press when buying a parking ticket and the machine wants me to enter my license plate numbe…
Besides the fact that scanning a barcode seems beyond much of the general population, they do it so sloooow.
Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
For my part, I hate anything explicitly labeled "disposable". As the author writes, you're supposed to recycle it, but how many people will do that if it has "disposable" written on it? Even worse, if it was truly disposable they could use a non-rechargeable battery, but because they have to keep up the pretense of it being reusable, they have to include a rechargeable battery with more dodgy chemistry that probably…
> As the author writes, you're supposed to recycle it, but how many people will do that if it has "disposable" written on it? You need to offer an incentive (ie: discount on new vape if you recycle) and then, from my experience, most people will recycle.
Here in NY as a cannabis user, one of the brands available that offers vapes (Fernway) offers a recycling program at dispensaries. I get 10% back off my next vape/cart if I return the old one to the recycling dropbox. My dispensary also keeps how many I've returned on file if I return extras, so I keep a 'balance' of disposables returned for the discounts.
Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape
#348Many countries have deposits for single use bottles/cans but an electronic device with a lipo battery is seen as perfectly fine to throw away. These things should have 100 times the deposit amount of a can of soda with mandatory requirements for retailers to take the 'empties' back.
Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Which is why when folks nowadays say "you cannot use XYZ for embedded", given what most embedded systems look like, and what many of us used to code on 8 and 16 bit home computers, I can only assert they have no idea how powerful modern embedded systems have become. Yet, I still need to wait about 1 second (!) after each key press when buying a parking ticket and the machine wants me to enter my license plate numbe…
That's programmer incompetence. Unfortunately pervasive, especially with devices like parking meters, EV chargers, and similar, where the feedback loop (angry customer) is long (angry customers resulting in revenue decrease) or non-existent.
Re: There's a ridiculous amount of tech in a disposable vape
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Why stop there" is often a reason why nothing gets done. Why do small if you can go big right away? Because going big right away is costly (in social cost, in convincing, in how much people need to change behavior, ...) and that prevents people from doing it in the first place because the threshold is high. Apathy is the result. Better to take a small step first, then get used to the measure / the cost, then have a…
> Everybody makes fun of paper straws. Yeah, because they suck . Uh, pun not intended. Paper straws get somewhat soggy and feel bad in your mouth. They are inferior to the plastic straws they purport to replace, so people resist them as much as they can. If you want to actually make a difference with an environmental effort, you need to make something superior . Nobody makes fun of LED light bulbs because (up front c…