I’m not a representative sample, but…

…my hobby is my job. I learnt to code and to build stuff as a hobby, and now it’s my job.

I don’t think I could exist without designing and building something interesting. Even if I know that someone out there does it better. Because I want to understand the process and be able to alter it. I’m OK with someone else doing something that I find boring. If the subject interests me, I want to do it myself.

As for the concept of being free, if someone said “you’re free now”, I would ask “in what sense - am I free to stop paying taxes and repaying debt? can I finally squat land, start a license free mobile phone network and start practising medicine, or free in some other sense?”. I would likely conclude that I’m not free yet, and mutual dependencies are in fact quite numerous.

About those solar heat collectors: I can confirm it works because I’ve built one. It’s not as efficient as collectors that use coolant and a compressor system, but it’s very reliable and cheap.

I will second the opinion about aluminum recycling. Making aluminum from alumina is very energy expensive. Melting down cans is efficient compared to that.

P.S.

Notes about cans: if one wishes to make a model engine (e.g. compressed air engine, Stirling engine, lightweight models that work but cannot produce practical amounts of energy), some soda cans fit inside each other with extremely tight clearances (on the order of micrometers) and there is no seal, they slide on a layer of air. Of course, they have to be cut (with scizzors) and have to be kept clean, and despite keeping clean, there is abrasion (they wear down).

It’s very hard to machine a part to those tolerances. If a piston-cylinder system does not have to withstand detonation (not an internal combustion engine) and doesn’t have to do heavy work or last long, cans are a neat way to quickly get matching pistons and cylinders for experimenting.

• example 1: piston 355 ml “Red Bull”, cylinder 330 ml generic can
• example 2: piston “Devil’s Bit” 500 ml, cylinder “Battery” 500 ml can

(examples cannot be relied on as manufacturers have different production lines and production batches)

Most likely, it could help slow the process (buy time for firefighters to arrive) in some percentage of cases where a cell’s surface has been mechanically punctured.

Provided large amounts of nitrogen and an already empty battery (devoid of chemical energy), in a small percentage of cases, it might prevent a fire.

However, having seen a lithium polymer cell heat up from mechanical damage (a drone crash), I can confidently tell that very high temperatures can be achieved without oxygen. They’ll just be even higher with it.

Out of curiosity I checked if their sources properly accounted for confounding variables (e.g. age, because the global population is aging). I didn’t check all, but all the sources that did I check accounted for age properly.

Then I scanned some more. To bring a medical viewpoint into the discussion, took a particularly close look at one of the referenced studies of 67 health risk factors, to determine if it’s stress, pollutants, communicable or environment-triggred disease that is harming people most.

The factors dishing out most harm seem to be diseases with a lifestyle / stress component (high blood pressure), behaviour patterns with a stress component (overconsumption of food and intoxicants, primarily alcocol and tobacco), and only after these comes home air pollution (cooking with open fire in developing countries). Outdoor air pollution (“ambient particulate matter pollution”) isn’t in the top 5, but one one diagram, it’s factor number six.

(Reservation of judgement: there’s not enough data yet about chemicals in the food chain. Pesticides and microplastics definitely need attention, there is absolutely no reason to expect no effect. The effect has to be measured and summarized.)

Quoting the relevant passage from “A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010”

Findings: In 2010, the three leading risk factors for global disease burden were high blood pressure (7·0% [95% uncertainty interval 6·2-7·7] of global DALYs), tobacco smoking including second-hand smoke (6·3% [5·5-7·0]), and alcohol use (5·5% [5·0-5·9]). In 1990, the leading risks were childhood underweight (7·9% [6·8-9·4]), household air pollution from solid fuels (HAP; 7·0% [5·6-8·3]), and tobacco smoking including second-hand smoke (6·1% [5·4-6·8]). Dietary risk factors and physical inactivity collectively accounted for 10·0% (95% UI 9·2-10·8) of global DALYs in 2010, with the most prominent dietary risks being diets low in fruits and those high in sodium. Several risks that primarily affect childhood communicable diseases, including unimproved water and sanitation and childhood micronutrient deficiencies, fell in rank between 1990 and 2010, with unimproved water and sanitation accounting for 0·9% (0·4-1·6) of global DALYs in 2010. However, in most of sub-Saharan Africa childhood underweight, HAP, and non-exclusive and discontinued breastfeeding were the leading risks in 2010, while HAP was the leading risk in south Asia. The leading risk factor in Eastern Europe, most of Latin America, and southern sub-Saharan Africa in 2010 was alcohol use; in most of Asia, North Africa and Middle East, and central Europe it was high blood pressure. Despite declines, tobacco smoking including second-hand smoke remained the leading risk in high-income north America and western Europe. High body-mass index has increased globally and it is the leading risk in Australasia and southern Latin America, and also ranks high in other high-income regions, North Africa and Middle East, and Oceania.

My personal conclusion: it’s not pollutants harming us yet. Pollutant densities may well increase (but many are decreasing, e.g. people are cooking less with gas and solid fuel) but our social conditions are stressful as shit, and that encourages certain behaviours which have an evolutionary factor.

E.g. people are prone to over-eat when they have plentiful food, even if the food is junk and there’s no need to eat more. A sedentary lifestyle and driving instead of walking then doubles down on that. People are prone to relieve stress by consuming tobacco and alcohol, despite it harming them. Our ancestors didn’t have an unlimited access to food, booze and stuff to smoke for a passtime, and didn’t evolve defense mechanisms against such behaviour patterns.

But as usual, culture getst to be the first responder. Genes will take millenia to get anything done, but culture can get things done in decades. Awareness of how people harm their health, and awareness of how society may be encouraging self-harm, needs to spread.

May have been a good post, but in the wrong thread. :D

deleted by creator

I would likely try the methods of car headlight repair:

• fine sandpaper (e.g. 600)
• followed by ultra fine sandpaper (e.g. 1000)
• followed by polishing sandpaper (e.g. 2000 or even more)
• followed by polishing paste (e.g. cerium oxide) on a felt pad

However, since I see that the sink has a glossy surface… I would be deterred by that. The method I mention may reach a layer which isn’t burnt, but will wear off glossy finish and there’s no certainty of it returning in the same tone after polishing is done.

What paint to use - sorry, no idea.

In case humanity forgets about how to make CPUs, some folks would still remember how to make stateful relays, magnetic core memory, punch cards and pneumatic logic valves.

It would take a bit of time from there back to a CPU.

I cut aluminum with mine (and professional aluminum sellers cut theirs with their saw, but it likely costs thousands), but I will second the “be careful” part.

Aluminum can snag your saw blade (especially if you use a blade meant for wood, which I don’t recommend because it also produces messy output). Snagging can have dangerous results (saw jumping upward and losing teeth or more in the process).

Ensure the work piece is clamped down very well. Ensure that the saw is either on a large level surface or better yet - bolted or clamped down. Ensure that the saw jumping cannot hurt you in any way.

When cutting aluminum, push very gently. And when the raw material gets too small, don’t try cutting the last little piece. Small working material will increase the chance of accidents. I set my limit around 20 cm.

The concerns are legit. :(

Then again, empires and wars make for great story material. Persistent peace… not so much. So I believe science fiction has a bias towards epic messes.

As for when this was written - wow, 1978. Probably before Iain M. Banks brought a typewriter home and started typing his first Culture novel…

…but as a result of his typing, even libertarian / socialist viewpoints of science fiction contain empires (often defeated) and wars (sometimes resolved without mass casualties, but not always). The damnable reality of literature tends to be: if there’s no gun on the wall in chapter 1 and someone isn’t shot by chapter 3, you have to figure out what sells the story. :(

It was meant to be humorous framing, given the impossibility of making humans from magma or the iron core. :)

Which ethnicity’s population are we going to reduce?

I honestly believe that “we” aren’t going to do jack s**t. It’s a process which is nearly unsteerable. People are going to live longer and longer, and use resources that would otherwise be used by children they might have had. Society is going to be burdened by caring for the old, and this is going to reduce chances of caring for the young.

In nearly every developed country, population growth is slowing or population has already started decreasing. Only in the least developed regions (some areas of Africa) does the opposite still apply, but UN predictions (made by competent people) suggest the process just reaches there later.

So, every ethnicity’s population is going to be reduced. Every ethnicity can also consider if their numbers are adequate, too high or too low. If a nation feels threatened by disappearing from the maps, they can try to reorganize their society. Random ideas: a few laws that give parents various health and social security guarantees regardless of their employment status, especially in case they’re single parents, then maybe create a few dating sites that actually try to help their users find people they like, etc…

There is plenty of resources to support humanity.

I cannot say I agree, and I think I recall that some indicators currently suggest we’d need about 3 planets to keep going at the same pace.

I think we shouldn’t use up every atom on Earth to churn out more humans. Our species has experienced a massive population explosion and is at peak numbers.

Usually this kind of events are followed by a hurtful population crash. It seems considerably better if growth ends due to a (subconscious?) decision to stop expanding, rather than a war for remaining resources.

The founder of the Antinatalism International, Anugraha Kumar Sharma, argues that “there is absolutely no hope whatsoever in this world.”

Well, that’s hard to argue against. I might disagree, but I cannot artificially give him any hope, even if he wants some.

For some, the progressive embrace of antinatalism might just be a reaction to the pronatalism espoused by the Right. Because Vice President J. D. Vance wants you to have more children, the only natural reply is that we ought to have none.

Not for me. They can want all they want, but to consider children, I imagine I would need to find a society relatively free of strife, a society with lower risk. I would need to feel somewhat secure in my own future, because you have to raise children for a hefty amount of time. Most importanly, I’d have to find someone who’d like to do this together.

Some creatures respond to environmental stress by breeding earlier and faster, and trying to do that more desperately. I cannot find such a response in my own “code”. I respond to environmental stress by saving resources to overcome hardship, and focusing effort to defeat the source of hardship. If that means a decline in population by 1.7 people, so be it.

I think that in the modern times, more people have started thinking this way. Having children is expensive and can effectively put you below the poverty line, and stop you from pursuing goals, whatever they are.

I’m not even anti-natalist. I’m just not interested in reproduction - precisely because I still have a future that I might influence for the better - but not if I waste my resources on reproduction.

Also, I think a scarcity of humans might actually cause society to value humans more. In the Middle Ages, when the plague reduced populations, serfs were able to obtain better conditions and break the pattern of slavery in many lands. Feudal lords struggled because their vast empty lands could not be managed by their dwindling crew - someone could till a field or hunt game without paying taxes or asking for permission out there. Of course, this pattern might not apply in modern times, however.

the global democratic left has been incapable of developing an economic agenda that looks beyond the next election cycle.

Not sure if I can agree. Over here, the agenda looks pretty clear. Achieve progressive taxation. Achieve higher taxation of capital than labour. Achieve lower taxation of worker-owned companies. Achieve universal health insurance. Beyond the economic, achieve a governing system not disproportionately influenced by the wealthy. Preferably, achieve all this without violence.

(and reaching those goals is prevented by the disproportionate propaganda capability of the economic right, mostly financed by the wealthy)

Regarding AI, some simple examples of likely computing expense:

• performing 1 + 1 in assembly language: 1 CPU cycle
• performing 1 + 1 in a high level interpreted language: maybe 10 CPU cycles
• performing 1 + 1 using an LLM: millions of CPU cycles
• asking “why was the rabbit an animal after 1 + 1”: probably priceless, maybe a billion cycles

Некоторые мысли:

• скорее всего, по-русски здесь говорят немногие (но, конечно, есть автоматический перевод). Я говорю, но это не мой родной язык. Чтобы побудить людей к дискуссии, я бы порекомендовал английский.

• создание бренда, который передает какую-то информацию о продуктах (напр. “произведенный компанией, которая следует этическим и экологическим нормам”), на мой взгляд, решение проблемы не с того конца - бренды так не появляются

• типичный бренд (например, Raspberry Pi) начинается с одного продукта (часто экспериментального) и расширяется. Добавляют новые продукты. Если они лучше, бренд получает репутацию.

• в ходе жизни типичной компании в какой-то момент возникает соблазн обменять репутацию (форму социального капитала) на деньги, сделав что-то дешево и не выполнив обещаний

• однако, иногда существующие компании создают регуляторные альянсы, чтобы донести до потребителей мысль: “мы не те ребята, мы сохранили некоторые этические принципы”

Но, повторюсь, мне это кажется очень абстрактным и “высоко в облаках”.

— translation —

Some thoughts:

• most likely, few people can speak Russian here (but of course, automatic translation exists). I can, but it’s not my native language. To get people to discuss, I would recommend English.

• creating a brand that conveys useful information about products (e.g. “made by a company that follows ethical and ecological guidelines”) is, in my opinion, solving the problem from the wrong end… brands don’t appear like this

• a typical brand (e.g. “Raspberry Pi”) starts from a single product (often experimental) and expands. New products are added. If they are better, the brand gets a reputation

• a classic problem awaits then: in the course of a typical company’s life, at some point, there comes a temptation to exchange a good reputation (a form of social capital) into money, by doing something cheaply and not fulfilling promises

• sometimes, however, existing companies do establish regulatory alliances to communicate to consumers “we are not those guys, we have retained some ethics”

But I repeat, this seems very abstract and “high in the clouds” to me.

Reuters (the second link) reports the news as “rogue communication devices”, but also mentions battery packs with “undocumented cellular radios”.

Are we talking offline devices that were stealthily loaded with a 5G simcard or a Lora device waiting for a bricking code?

To my understanding, they found undeclared communication interfaces. Something that shouldn’t have been there according to specs, but was.

Investigating how those could be used to brick a device would take a bit longer.

I guess that security researchers will be taking apart a lot of inverters in the near future.

Then we’ll know.

Considering previous incidents, e.g. the cyber-sabotage performed in Poland by a train repair company Newag to prevent third party repairs, this kind of matters should be taken seriously. Back doors and logic bombs have been done before, and will be regularly re-visited as soon as people forget about their risk.

Sounds like a nice material. :)