DawnPaladin's recent activity

  1. Comment on Resources for starting your own small website in ~tech

    DawnPaladin
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    "Own Your Web" is a newsletter oriented around setting up your personal website. Much of it is oriented at designers & developers, but this is a special issue for people without technical skills....

    "Own Your Web" is a newsletter oriented around setting up your personal website. Much of it is oriented at designers & developers, but this is a special issue for people without technical skills. Tildes loves the small web; perhaps this will help someone start their own small website.

    When someone wants to start their own website, I usually see them go to Wix or SquareSpace. Those do their job well enough, but at the cost of lock-in—if you outgrow those sites, there's no way to move your site elsewhere.

    This post offers lots of alternatives for novices wanting to make something cool. I was particularly impressed with Blot—I haven't tried it, but from their website it looks as simple as managing files in a folder. That's pretty cool.

    6 votes
  2. Comment on Air Canada successfully sued after its AI chatbot gave BC passenger incorrect information: airline claimed it wasn't liable for what its own AI told customers in ~tech

    DawnPaladin
    Link Parent
    I use Cursor, a fork of VSCode, with GPT-4 via an OpenAI API key, on a TypeScript project. LLMs have relatively short context windows, so Cursor provides lots of good tools for giving GPT-4 the...

    I use Cursor, a fork of VSCode, with GPT-4 via an OpenAI API key, on a TypeScript project.

    LLMs have relatively short context windows, so Cursor provides lots of good tools for giving GPT-4 the right context in which to do useful work:

    • Show the AI specific files from your codebase
    • Index your whole codebase and make an educated guess about what to show the AI
    • Have the AI read a documentation website
    • Have the AI search the Web

    I will say that while GPT-4 is low-to-medium-level competent at almost everything, it's not an expert at anything. If you've been focused on the same codebase for years, GPT may not have much to offer you. GPT is at its strongest when you're learning something new. In particular it's good at getting you past the stage where you don't know what questions to ask. When I was learning programming, I would frequently get stuck in situations where Google and StackOverflow were unhelpful, but a human tutor could recognize the problem and get me unstuck quickly; GPT-4 provides a tutor who's always instantly on call.

    If you've been wanting to pick up skills in a new language or library, I highly recommend downloading Cursor and using GPT-4 to help you learn. GPT-4 makes learning new things much easier; you might be able to start and finish a learning project much faster than you expect.

    2 votes
  3. Comment on Air Canada successfully sued after its AI chatbot gave BC passenger incorrect information: airline claimed it wasn't liable for what its own AI told customers in ~tech

    DawnPaladin
    Link Parent
    As someone who uses an LLM as a programming assistant daily, LLMs are more powerful than you're making them out to be. LLMs do not have sapience or personhood, but they are capable of independent...

    As someone who uses an LLM as a programming assistant daily, LLMs are more powerful than you're making them out to be.

    LLMs do not have sapience or personhood, but they are capable of independent reasoning. Every day I take original code I've written (which could not have been in its training dataset), pass it to my AI assistant, and ask it to fix an error I'm seeing. Very often it's able to identify the source of the error, explain what I'm doing wrong, and suggest a fix that's customized to my codebase and coding style. It can read the code of a library that was released after its knowledge cutoff, explain it, and suggest how to integrate it into my private codebase. I can ask it how to achieve a goal in my program, and it will come up with a plan for how to achieve that goal.

    If that's not understanding, if it's not reasoning, then it's close enough as makes no difference.

    11 votes
  4. Comment on Better Living Through Algorithms by Naomi Kritzer in ~books

    DawnPaladin
    Link
    I remember enjoying this author's short story "Cat Pictures Please". I didn't know she'd turned it into a novel! Putting "Catfishing on CatNet" on my to-read list at the library.

    I remember enjoying this author's short story "Cat Pictures Please". I didn't know she'd turned it into a novel! Putting "Catfishing on CatNet" on my to-read list at the library.

    1 vote
  5. Comment on Microsoft Teams is/was down. What's your fallback? in ~tech

    DawnPaladin
    Link
    Lobbying my boss to switch to Slack.

    Lobbying my boss to switch to Slack.

    17 votes
  6. Comment on Book recommendation: Delta-V and Critical Mass in ~books

    DawnPaladin
    Link Parent
    Reserving those at my library. Thank you for the recommendation!

    Reserving those at my library. Thank you for the recommendation!

    1 vote
  7. Comment on Book recommendation: Delta-V and Critical Mass in ~books

    DawnPaladin
    Link Parent
    Those are some great links! Thank you!

    Those are some great links! Thank you!

  8. Book recommendation: Delta-V and Critical Mass

    It's hard to find hopeful sci-fi these days. The zeitgeist is that things are bad and they will keep getting worse. That's a problem, because before you can build a better future, you must first...

    It's hard to find hopeful sci-fi these days. The zeitgeist is that things are bad and they will keep getting worse. That's a problem, because before you can build a better future, you must first imagine one. This is the first book I've found in a long time that does a credible job of that.

    This post is about a pair of novels by Daniel Suarez. The first one is Delta-V, the physics term for a change in velocity; the second one is called Critical Mass. Together they're a heavily-researched look at asteroid mining, offworld economics, and space-based solar power.

    The series takes place in the mid 2030s. By this point, the symptoms of climate change are becoming serious, creating what people call "the Long Emergency": famines, storms, and waves of climate refugees. There is real concern that the global economy will collapse under the strain. To avert financial apocalypse, an expedition is launched to mine the asteroid Ryugu; the first book covers the miners' training, their long journey through space, and the hazards of mining an asteroid in deep space. In the second book, they use those mined materials to build a space station in lunar orbit, to set up a railgun for launching materials from the moon's surface into its orbit, and to begin building the first space-based solar power satellites.

    I was surprised to learn that space-based solar power is a real thing that the US, China, and several other countries and companies are actively pursuing. Basically, you have a bunch of solar panels in orbit, which beam power down to receiving antennas ("rectennas") on Earth. You lose a lot of efficiency converting the electricity to microwaves and back, but solar panels on orbit have access to ~7-10x more energy than those on the ground, since there's no atmosphere in the way and it's always solar noon. In exchange for a large initial investment, space-based solar power offers always-on, 100% renewable energy that can be switched from New York to California at a moment's notice.

    That initial investment is a doozy, though. SpaceX is working on lowering launch costs, but launching material from Earth's surface into orbit is going to be very expensive for a very long time. So these books look at what might be possible if we could avoid those costs. What if we could create mining and manufacturing operations in space? What if we could use those to generate clean power in heretofore undreamt-of amounts?

    I’m going to excerpt a conversation from the second book:

    [At dinner,] chemist Sofia Boutros described the unfolding water crisis in the Nile watershed back on Earth—and the resulting regional conflict. This elicited from around the table a litany of other climate-change-related calamities back home, from wildfires, to floods, to famines, to extinctions.

    The Russian observer, Colonel Voloshin, usually content to just listen, chimed in by saying, "Nations which have contributed least to carbon emissions suffering worst effects." He looked first to Lawler and then Colonel Fei. "Perhaps the biggest polluters should pay reparations."

    Dr. Ohana looked down the table toward him. "It's my understanding that Russia has actually benefitted from warmer climate."

    Yak replied instead. "Not overall. Soil in Siberia is poor. Wildfires and loss of permafrost also disruptive."

    Lawler added. "You guys sell plenty of fossil fuels, too, Colonel."

    The electrical engineer, Hoshiko Sato, said, "Complete decarbonization is the only way to solve climate change."

    Most of the group groaned in response.

    She looked around the table. "That might sound unrealistic, but there's no other choice if we want to save civilization."

    Chindarkar said, "We've been saying the same thing for fifty years, Hoshiko. It's barely moved the needle."

    "We’ve brought carbon emissions down considerably since 2020."

    Boutros said, "You mean we slowed their growth."

    Ohana said, "We should be planting more trees."

    Monica Balter countered, "Trees require water and arable land. Climate change is causing deserts to spread, pitting food versus trees. Plus, whatever carbon a tree captures gets released when it dies—which could happen all at once in a wildfire."

    Chindarkar looked down the table at her. "Nathan Joyce claimed we could use solar satellites to power direct carbon capture. Could that really be done at the scale necessary to reduce global CO2 levels?"

    Colonel Voloshin let out a laugh. "That's not even in the realm of possibility. It wouldn't even make a dent."

    Monica Balter said, "I respectfully disagree, Colonel." She looked to Boutros. "And Sofia, I understand we must do everything possible down on Earth to reduce carbon emissions: solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal—all of it. But that won't remove what's already in the atmosphere."

    Voloshin shook his head. "We must adapt."

    Lawler couldn't resist. "Easy for Russia to say."

    Balter spoke to Voloshin. "Back in 1850, atmospheric carbon was at two hundred eighty parts per million. Now it's at four hundred fifty-seven parts per million. We put over a trillion tons of CO2 into Earth's atmosphere over that time. Humans caused the problem, and humans can solve it."

    The colonel was unfazed. "Yes. All of humanity worked hard to cause this, and it still required almost two centuries to accomplish. It is naïve to think a few machines will correct it."

    "Half of that excess carbon was emitted in the last forty years, and direct air carbon capture powered by solar satellites can actually work at a global scale. I can show you the numbers, if you like."

    He scoffed. "Even billionaire Jack Macy says that solar power satellites are idiotic—that very little energy beamed from space reaches the terrestrial power grid due to transmission and conversion losses."

    Balter nodded. "The number is 9 percent."

    The crew around the table murmured.

    He spread his hands. "I rest my case."

    "But 9 percent of what? Jack Macy neglects to mention that a solar panel up in orbit is seven times more productive than one on the Earth's surface. The fact that he runs a rooftop solar company might have something to do with that.

    Boutros asked, "A sevenfold difference just from being in space?"

    Balter turned to her. "The best you can hope for on the Earth's equator at high noon is 1,000 watts of energy per square meter—and that's without factoring in nighttime, cloudy days, seasons, latitude. But a power sat in geosynchronous orbit would almost always be in 1,368 watts of sunlight per square meter. So you get a whole lot more energy from a solar panel in space even after transmission inefficiencies are factored in. Plus, a power sat won't be affected by unfolding chaos planetside."

    Voloshin shrugged. "What if it is cloudy above your rectenna? You would not be able to beam down energy."

    "Not true. We use microwaves in the 2.45-gigahertz range. The atmosphere is largely invisible at that frequency. We can beam the energy down regardless of weather—and directly to where it's needed. No need for long distance power lines."

    "But to what purpose? It could not be done on a scale sufficient to impact Earth."

    "Again, I could show you the numbers."

    Chindarkar said, "I'd like to see them, Monica. Please."

    Balter put down her fork and after searching through virtual UIs for a moment, put up a shared augmented-reality screen that appeared to float over the end of the table on the station's common layer. It displayed an array of numbers and labels. "Sorry for the spreadsheet."

    Colonel Fei said, "We are quite interested in seeing it, Ms. Balter."

    She looked to the faces around the table. "There are four reasons I got involved in space-based solar power... " She pealed them off on her fingers. "...electrification, desalination, food generation, and decarbonization. First: electricity. We all know the environmental, economic, and political havoc back on Earth from climate change. Blackouts make that chaos worse, but a 2-gigawatt solar power satellite in geosynchronous orbit could instantly transmit large amounts of energy anywhere it's needed in the hemisphere below it. Even several locations at once. All that's needed is a rectenna on the ground, and those are cheap and easy to construct."

    Chindarkar nodded. "We saw one on Ascension Island."

    Jin added, "J.T. and I are building sections of the lunar rectenna. It is fairly simple."

    "Right. For example, space-based energy could be beamed to coastal desalination plants in regions suffering long-term drought-providing fresh water. It can also be used to remove CO2 directly from seawater, through what's known as single step carbon sequestration and storage, converting the CO2 into solid limestone and magnesite—essentially seashells. This would enable the oceans themselves to absorb more atmospheric CO2. Or we could power direct air capture plants that pull CO2 straight out of the atmosphere."

    Voloshin interjected. "Again, a few satellites will not impact Earth's atmospheric concentrations, and where would you sequester all this CO2?"

    "Just a few satellites wouldn't impact climate, no—but there's definitely a use for the CO2—in creating food. Droughts in equatorial zones are causing famine, but hydrogenotrophic bacteria can be used to make protein from electricity, hydrogen, and CO2. The hydrogen can be electrolyzed from seawater and CO2 from the air. All that's needed is clean energy." She glanced to Chindarkar. "NASA first experimented with this in the 1960s as a means for making food here in deep space."

    "Really? Even back then."

    "The bioreactor for it is like a small-batch brewery. You feed in what natural plants get from soil: phosphorus, sulfur, calcium, iron, potassium—all of which, incidentally, can be extracted from lunar regolith. But I digress..."

    Colonel Fei's eyebrows raised. "That is indeed interesting."

    "The bioreactor runs for a while, then the liquid is drained and the solids dried to a powder that contains 65 percent protein, 20 to 25 percent carbohydrates, and 5 percent fatty acids. This can be made into a natural food similar to soy or algae. So with energy, CO2, and seawater, we could provide life-saving nutrition just about anywhere on the planet via solar power satellites."

    Voloshin was unimpressed. "Yet it would still not resolve climate change."

    "At scale it could. Do the math ... " Balter brought up her spreadsheet. "We're emitting 40 billion tons of CO2 per year, 9 billion tons of which can't be sequestered by the natural carbon cycle and which results in an annual increase of roughly two parts per million atmospheric CO2—even after decades of conservation efforts."

    She tapped a few screens and a virtual image of an industrial structure covered in fan housings appeared. "A direct air capture facility like this one could pull a million tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere each year at a cost of one hundred dollars a ton. All of the components are off-the-shelf and have existed for decades. Nothing fancy. But it needs 1.5 megawatts of constant clean energy to power it—and that's where solar power satellites come in."

    Voloshin said, "But who would pay? Governments? Do not count on this."

    Chindarkar asked, "Monica, seriously: How many carbon capture plants would it take to make a difference in the atmosphere of the entire Earth?"

    Jin added, "And how many solar power satellites to power them?"

    Balter brought her spreadsheet back up. "Merely to cancel out Earth's excess annual emissions—9 billion tons of CO2—we'd need nine thousand 1-megaton DAC plants worldwide, each requiring 150 to 300 acres."

    The group groaned.

    Tighe said, "That's a lot of hardware and a lot of real estate, Monica."

    "It doesn't have to be on land. Just 2.7 million acres total—smaller than Connecticut. And that would be spread across the entire globe. More importantly, doing that stops the advance of climate change. If we reduce emissions, then it would actually help reverse climate change."

    Chindarkar studied the numbers. "Powered by how many solar satellites?"

    Balter highlighted the number. "It would take 1.6 terawatts of electricity—or 818 2-gigawatt SPS-Alphas. Each about 7,400 tons. But again: that halts the advance of climate change."

    The group groaned again.

    "Eight hundred eighteen satellites?" Jin shook his head. "That would take decades to build."

    "Not with automation and sufficient materials here on orbit. You've seen the SPS-Alpha I'm building—it's made of simple, modular components."

    "Yours is one-fortieth the size of these 7,400-ton monsters."

    "But it's the same design. We just need the resources up here in space, and we could scale it rapidly with automation."

    Voloshin picked up his fork. "As I said: it is a technological fantasy."

    Chindarkar ignored him. "Monica, what would it require to not just halt climate change—but reverse it?"

    Balter clicked through to another screen. "To return Earth to a safe level—say, three hundred fifty parts per million CO2-you'd need to pull three-quarters of a trillion tons out of the atmosphere." She made a few changes to her model. "So with forty thousand DAC plants, powered by thirty-six hundred 2-gigawatt satellites in geosynchronous orbit, you could accomplish that in eighteen years."

    Fei asked, "At what cost?"

    "Roughly seventy-two trillion dollars."

    Again groans and an impressed whistle.

    Voloshin shook his head. "I told you."

    Balter added, "That's four trillion a year, over eighteen years. Spread across the entire population of Earth."

    This was met with a different reaction.

    Jin said, "That is actually less than I thought."

    "And bear in mind the fossil fuel industry has been supported by half a trillion dollars in direct government subsidies worldwide every year for ages. Whereas this four trillion is for just a limited time and would permanently solve climate change, and we'd see significant climate benefits within a decade as CO2 levels came down. And once it was accomplished, all that clean energy could be put toward other productive uses, either on Earth or in space."

    She studied the faces around her. "But to accomplish it, we'd need tens of millions of tons of mass in orbit. Launching all that mass up from Earth would never work because all those rockets would damage the atmosphere, too. However, with your lunar mass-driver—and the ones that follow it—we could make this work. This is why I'm here."

    Those around the table pondered this. For the moment, even Voloshin was silent.

    Boutros asked, "Is it not risky to tinker with the Earth's atmosphere?"

    "That's what we're doing now, Sofia. This would just reverse what we've done and return Earth to the conditions we evolved in."

    Chindarkar pointed to the virtual spreadsheet. "Does that seventy-two trillion dollars include the cost of the solar power satellites?"

    "Yes. And doing nothing will cost us far more. Best estimates are that by the year 2100, continued climate change will reduce global GDP by 20 percent—which is about two thousand trillion dollars. Not to mention the cost of possibly losing civilization.

    "But if, as your CEO Mr. Rochat says, we intend to prove the SPS concept at scale here in lunar orbit, well... then you will make this commercially feasible. In other words, you can make this future happen. Everyone else has talked it to death. The bean counters and decision makers back on Earth clearly won't do it, no matter how critical it is. And this needs to be started as soon as possible—before the situation on Earth gets truly untenable."

    This book is not afraid to think big. That's what sci-fi is for, right? And it's extensively researched; there's a bibliography at the end of each book that I've used to start my own research journeys.

    I like these books because they're ambitious. They never downplay the scale of the problems we face, but they maintain that these problems are solvable, and they expose me to new ideas I'd never heard of. I found them in my local library. Thanks for reading this wall of text!

    29 votes
  9. Comment on Fighting climate change via personal banking in ~finance

    DawnPaladin
    Link
    The name of the study is "Saving (For) The Planet: The Climate Power of Personal Banking." I debated whether to use that headline or come up with my own. I prefer desensationalized titles; do...

    The name of the study is "Saving (For) The Planet: The Climate Power of Personal Banking." I debated whether to use that headline or come up with my own. I prefer desensationalized titles; do others agree/disagree?

    6 votes
  10. Comment on Fighting climate change via personal banking in ~finance

    DawnPaladin
    Link
    Found this via this Ars Technica repost of a Wired article summarizing this Project Drawdown study. The Ars Technica comment section was highly skeptical that this was worth anything, but...

    Found this via this Ars Technica repost of a Wired article summarizing this Project Drawdown study. The Ars Technica comment section was highly skeptical that this was worth anything, but commenters there almost always tend toward cynicism, so I thought I'd see what Tildes thinks.

    The main thrust of the study is that consumers' deposits serve as a basis for bank loans, that these loans go disproportionately toward fossil fuels companies instead of green energy, and that the climate impact of where you keep your savings account is surprisingly strong. They claim that the climate impact of moving $8,000 from a climate-intensive to a climate-responsible bank is twice that of adopting a vegetarian diet.

    Some of the criticisms I saw at Ars Technica:

    • Moving your money to a climate-responsible bank won't really make it harder for fossil fuels to get loans; they'll just get the money somewhere else. I think this is part of a mindset that wants One Big Solution to climate change; I think many small solutions working together is more likely to achieve results.
    • Making it more difficult for fossil fuel companies to get loans will push them into the arms of private equity firms; it's better for transparency and accountability for fossil fuel companies to remain public.
    • Debates over whether the study's methodology makes sense. I'm hoping some of you can comment on this.
    3 votes
  11. Comment on Colorado Supreme Court, in landmark ruling, bans Donald Trump from state’s ballot under insurrection clause in ~news

    DawnPaladin
    Link Parent
    The bar for amending the constitution is very high. You need a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress, and then the amendment has to be ratified by three-quarters of the state legislatures....

    The bar for amending the constitution is very high. You need a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress, and then the amendment has to be ratified by three-quarters of the state legislatures. And I believe a new amendment is the only way to alter a previous amendment; that's how it was done for Prohibition (the 18th Amendment was repealed by the 21st).

    8 votes
  12. Comment on man on soapbox comes off as preachy in ~creative

    DawnPaladin
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    I have no idea what this is about. Can you provide some context?

    I have no idea what this is about. Can you provide some context?

    16 votes
  13. Comment on Marketing company claims that it actually is listening to your phone and smart speakers to target ads in ~tech

    DawnPaladin
    Link Parent
    Last year my in-laws tried to give me an Alexa for Christmas. I looked at the specifications for it, thinking maybe I could reformat it and turn it into a home server. The specs on it were...

    Last year my in-laws tried to give me an Alexa for Christmas. I looked at the specifications for it, thinking maybe I could reformat it and turn it into a home server. The specs on it were completely pathetic; there's no way these things do speech-to-text locally. Alexa is better thought of as a microphone plugged into Amazon's data centers than as a computer in its own right.

    4 votes
  14. Comment on Advent of Code starts tonight! in ~comp

  15. Comment on Swathes of Siberia freeze in temperatures below -58 degrees Celsius in ~enviro

    DawnPaladin
    Link
    Hey, I lived there when I was little. Fun to see it in the news, doing what it does best. Fun fact: For the central months of Siberian winter, it gets too cold to snow. Instead, all the moisture...

    Hey, I lived there when I was little. Fun to see it in the news, doing what it does best.

    Fun fact: For the central months of Siberian winter, it gets too cold to snow. Instead, all the moisture crystallizes on every exposed surface. It's called hoarfrost; on trees it can be quite beautiful.

    5 votes
  16. Comment on Self-proclaimed 'gay furry hackers' breach nuclear lab; demands research into IRL catgirls in ~tech

    DawnPaladin
    Link
    This timeline gets weirder every year.

    This timeline gets weirder every year.

    16 votes
  17. Comment on Steam Autumn Sale 2023 is up! (November 21st to November 28th) in ~games

    DawnPaladin
    Link
    Oh God, Starfield is on sale already. I wanted to finish Baldur's Gate 3 before I started that and I'm still in Act 1. Where does the time go? And Jedi Survivor is 40% off. I enjoyed the original...

    Oh God, Starfield is on sale already. I wanted to finish Baldur's Gate 3 before I started that and I'm still in Act 1. Where does the time go?

    And Jedi Survivor is 40% off. I enjoyed the original and wanted to play this eventually, but it got criticized on launch for being a shoddy port with bad performance. Anyone know how they're doing now?

    4 votes
  18. Comment on The next power plant is on the roof and in the basement in ~enviro

    DawnPaladin
    Link Parent
    When I lived in Texas, we had a system like that, except in the opposite direction: the power company gave us a credit on our bill if we used more than a certain amount of electricity. (Texas is...

    When I lived in Texas, we had a system like that, except in the opposite direction: the power company gave us a credit on our bill if we used more than a certain amount of electricity. (Texas is kind of bonkers.) So yes, the machinery for something like that is in place, at least in some areas.

    Making energy cheaper does encourage people to use it more, but I think there's basically no limit on how much energy can be usefully generated. If we can make power cheap and abundant enough, maybe capturing carbon out of the air will start to make economic sense. In the long term, that's the only way we're going to reverse (not just halt) climate change.

    3 votes