[–] 2 points 1 day ago*

No I mean if you create a material with such a tensile strength, the amount of energy would be well into black hole territory. Like just the energy contained within the material itself, not the energy added to it.

And please note these are just examples, there are so many ways how this cannot possibly work. You would do well to get a foundation in physics first, before trying to tackle these kinds of things. Or just go into writing fantasy books instead, that way it doesn't matter if it's possible or not.

My personal preference for fantasy is that the writer does create a rigid framework for rules that work in the imaginary universe and keeps to it as much as possible. That way it prevents major plot holes and inconsistencies within the universe.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

    This won't work for many many reasons. But if we'll allow a bit of fantasy, it still won't work.

    Gravity dominates at smaller scales. If the expansion of the universe were to work like you describe, we wouldn't exist and there wouldn't be very many interesting things in the universe. The expansion is a very very small factor, almost non-existent. This means at smaller scales, like say the size of a galaxy, gravity dominates. Meaning the movement and relative position is determined by the gravity of those objects and expansion plays no part. It's only on very large scales the expansion becomes a thing.

    You can think about the expansion as more space being created within the existing space. But when you're in a gravity dominated area, the gravity pulls the matter together, so the extra space has no impact at all. But when looking at galaxies very far away, there isn't any gravity keeping them in relation to us. So when looking over vast distances (and vast amounts of time), we can see the red-shift because they are moving away from us. But those galaxies are still perfectly intact, it's not like all that time ripped them apart, just the distance in between us and them.

    There is this idea about a big rip. In this scenario the mechanism creating more space gets more pronounced in the future. This means after a very long time, it might start to dominate over gravity. At first on large scales, later even on smaller scales, up to the point everything is ripped apart and only the smallest of things can exist. That would mean no more galaxies, no more solar systems and maybe not even molecules or atoms. But there isn't a whole lot of indication this would actually happen and the time scales involved are huge.

    Also important, like theneverfox said, the universe has ways of closing off these kinds of loop holes. Imagine creating a whip from this material you describe. When you would make that whip long enough (and compared to the scale you describe it can be tiny), you'd easily be able to get the end beyond the speed of light when whipping it. Obviously this can't work, so we know this material simply cannot exist. Nothing with a tensile strength like you describe can exist, not even in theory and applying some fantasy magic. It would break the laws of physics. (And not even getting into the amount of energy per volume such a material would have is beyond black hole levels, so that's a whole thing)

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  • [–] 12 points 1 day ago

    We used to have many many books! I had three bookcases full of books. Some dealing more with concepts and principles. Some just straight up maths in all sorts and forms. Some were reference books, just listing everything there is to know about a language or a piece of hardware for example. Grouped logically and with an index to look up stuff quickly. With the most used ones having post it notes with annotation and as crude bookmarks to look up stuff that was critical and easy to forget, but needed often.

    These books were often handed down, generation to generation. A lot of my maths books were from my grandfather, with almost every page having tons of annotations and expansions on the subject. He liked to write his knowledge and thoughts in the books with a pencil. A lot of my shelves also had notebooks full of my own writings about different subjects. Designs, compilations, quick references, etc.

    We also had something akin to the internet actually, but it was referred to as the sneakernet. Meaning to transfer information you'd have to walk from one place to another with physical media (floppy disks or even data cassettes or reels if you are real old). It wasn't fast, but there was a lot of excellent content shared around. I remember for example Ralph Brown's interrupt list. Everyone I knew that did software for DOS had a version of that list hanging around. And getting a new version from a friend of a friend was a real treat. There were also libraries and demo programs that were shared around a lot. For Pascal for example there was this SWAG (SourceWare Archive Group) collection that was shared a lot.

    When BBS became more popular, people found stuff on that. But it was never a primary source for me, it was always a copy of a disk from a friend of a friend who got it off some mythical BBS somewhere. Books and magazines also often had floppies with them and later CD-ROMs. In the early days not many people had CD drives and CDs were seen as a luxury thing. So books and magazines didn't include the CD, but had a way you could order it for a few bucks and usually it was worth it. Magazines were also much more plentiful at the time with most catering to very niche subjects. I had a magazine back then that released every few months and was nothing but source code listings, deep dives and maths. It wasn't entertainment like magazines became later, it was a way of keeping informed and doing research. Back then we didn't always have hard drives and when we did they weren't as big and very expensive. So having a large library of not just book and magazines, but also floppies and CDs was essential and a mark of a good software developer.

    It was a better time I feel like looking back. Everything was much slower. These days we get bombarded with information non stop. Software development has tight deadlines, with new releases days or weeks apart. Back then I would easily spend a week submerged in books and such to fully absorb the information, so I could develop some piece of hardware or software, or both. It would be normal to work on something for months before sharing it with others. And they would take weeks to read all about it before they felt like they could discuss it. It was still hard work, both in effort and complexity, but the brain was allowed to work at its own pace. These days we're just running all the time, because number must go up and will nobody think of the shareholders?

    I feel like I'm just an old fart who is becoming a luddite after loving tech my whole life. Not everything was better in the past, but I really don't like the direction tech has taken over the past decade or so.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 days ago* (3 children)

    Can someone explain the whole Tesla stock to me besides meme stock and all of the fraud?

    Like the sales pitch for the last 5 years or so hasn't been about cars (as they never lived up to the hype in that department and are rapidly being overtaken by Chinese companies, plus whatever the fuck the Cybertruck was). So they said with the self driving they developed an AI based system that can take sensory input, translate it to a world model and then act upon that model. And because magic is real, this system meant for self driving (which fails at self driving) will somehow translate to robots being real. They kinda skip over the part where they think if they can make shitty cars, they can also make shitty robots, which isn't even in the same area code of abilities but fine. So investors bought Elons ketamine based ramblings and the stock went up.

    But then Musk folded Twitter into SpaceX, along with XAi and applied some more bribes and fraud to get rid of a lot of debt built up in these companies. Mostly private investors, aka idiots bought the stock, which has since dropped 50% from the high point leaving them holding the bag. But why didn't the Tesla stock plummet at the moment the IPO for SpaceX was announced? Like is the focus for AI now SpaceX? Is XAi a direct competitor to the Tesla AI business? XAi is shouting they need huge datacenters to run their AI. But Tesla said they can run all the AI needed locally, which is required for low latency tasks such as driving or being a robot. How can both be true?

    Or should I just accept the world has gone absolutely crazy and everyone is just shoveling money into the big fire pit? As soon as they admit they have been shoveling money into the fire pit, the whole world crashes. So perhaps it's better to keep on shoveling?

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