Favorites August 6th 2023
This is part of a larger argument about Durham North Carolina's requirement that building facades must be modulated. It makes it almost impossible to build things affordably.
There's more detail in the thread, TL;DR: if this quantum locking video is real then it's very likely than LK99 is a real Superconductor. It's unfortunate US labs don’t seem to be working as hard to reproduce this, unless all the videos we’re seeing are being faked?
It really seems like depending on trust and academic codes to get students not to use LLMs will likely backfire. It really seems like a combination of in-class writing assignments and allowing LLMs for out of class work is the only thing that's going to work long term. Here’s the paper.
I think the trick was to do it once reasonably good reactor designs were possible, but build the reactors really quickly, before NIMBYism set in.
Threads
• Thread arguing that the sulfur emissions from ships are not the main reason for the higher temperatures this year.
Flotsam and Jetsam
– Strikes and Unionization happen when the economy is strong, like now, not during recessions. (src)
– Short thread arguing that the Oppenheimer film has a bad overall take on Oppenheimer's life. (src)
– McDonalds food definitely isn't good for you, but they may actually be less caloric than fancier burgers. (src)
– Looks like the booster shots planned for the fall will probably be reasonably effective based on which variants are doing well (src)
– Instead of demoing use of an API for an LLM, just give it the documentation. (src)
– Food transportation costs are a rounding error in carbon emissions no matter how far the food goes. (src)
– China is doing worse not because of other countries recent decisions, decline started over a decade ago. (src)
– Article outlining 'Socialist Minimalism', it's not necessary for a movement to take a position on every policy question. (src)
– Germany turned off their Nuclear power plants and their coal usage jumped, but it's finally down, which is good, but mostly because they've had to stop using as much power, which is bad. (src)
