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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • Changes the torque and the application of said torque for each bolt. As in “tool head has 5° of give until in place, then in ramps torque to 5nM over half a second, and holds for 1 second and then ramps to zero over .1 seconds”, and then something different for the next bolt. Then it logs that it did this for each bolt.
    The tool can also be used to measure and correct the bolts as part of an inspection phase, and log the results of that inspection.
    Finally, it tracks usage of the tool and can log that it needs maintenance or isn’t working correctly even if it’s just a subtle failure.


  • Oh, it’s definitely interesting.
    I think people here just got rubbed the wrong way because these articles often make it seem like Roman concrete is better than ours, rather than “look what they accidentally did occasionally”.

    We can make self healing concrete today, we just usually opt not to, because the downsides or unpredictable nature makes it unsuitable for the significant cost increase.
    The phrase “the bridge is infested with bacterial spore colonies” isn’t one that makes engineers happy.


  • We mostly know how they made theirs, and could make our own version of it, but we optimize for different things.
    The Romans optimized for “that’s cement and it works well”, because they didn’t have anything close to the level of chemical understanding we do now.
    We optimize for strength and predictability. Ours can hold a higher load and will likely need repairing about when we predict.

    Roman concrete can sometimes, in certain circumstances and with variable effectiveness, repair certain types of damage by chemically interacting with the environment. So maybe it crumbles in a decade or maybe it lasts a millennium.

    Article basically points at some researchers who are looking to see if they can bring that healing capability to modern concrete in a predictable and more versatile fashion.




  • FDA approval is contingent on so many factors that even if it was entirely open source, including all hardware design and the instructions for assembly, maintenance, and manufature it would be entirely plausible for it to lose approval if the company responsible for continued development went bankrupt.

    Without approval, no reputable surgeon will do anything beyond remove it.

    A device not having a clear and unambiguously documented path for addressing defects found in the future is more than sufficient reason to lose approval.


  • I believe their point was that even encrypted messages convey data. So if you have a record of all the encrypted messages, you can still tell who was talking, when they were talking, and approximately how much they said, even if you can’t read the messages.

    If you wait until someone is gone and then loudly raid their house, you don’t need to read their messages to guess the content of what they send to people as soon as they find out. Now you know who else you want to target, despite not being able to read a single message.

    This type of metadata analysis is able to reveal a lot about what’s being communicated. It’s why private communication should be ephemeral, so that only what’s directly intercepted can be scrutinized.



  • If you have an unutilized asset, there’s pressure to get rid of it for the cost savings.
    If you sell your asset at a loss, it looks bad for you and the company. Same for paying cancelation fees.

    If you legitimately think that you’re going to need that space in the future, for example because you think that we’ll find an equilibrium between “everyone work from office” and where we are now, and that we’re trending towards an organic level of office need/desire higher than we’re at now, you might see selling now as the first step to needing to buy again later, likely for higher than you sold for. So you try to “mandate” the equilibrium that you expect so you’re not in a position to have to explain why you’re holding onto a dead and losing value property.

    Executives spend a lot of time talking to people and having meetings. The job selects for people who thrive on and value face to face communication. Naturally, they overestimate how much that social aspect of the job is true for everyone else, so they estimate that the equilibrium will have a lot more office time than other people would.
    To make it worse, the more power you have to influence that decision, the more likely you are to have a similar bias.

    This isn’t an excuse of course, since you can overcome that bias simply by telling teams to discuss what their ideal working arrangement would be, and then running a survey. Now you have data, and you can use it to try to scale offices to what you actually want.




  • Statistically you’re unlikely to have lasting issues as a result of getting them removed. It’s a very common outpatient procedure.

    When you go in, they’ll likely give you nitrous oxide, which will make you relax a little, and they’ll let you sit and breathe it for a few minutes. I’d recommend bringing headphones since some nice music will help.
    Then they’ll give you an IV that will make you not worry and likely barely remember what comes next. Basically a big dose of super valium.
    Then they’ll give you some pain killers and local anesthetic and remove the teeth.

    Your memory and orientation will start to come back in about an hour, by which time hopefully the person who transported you has gotten you home. You will not be able to care for yourself during the intervening time. You will be uncoordinated and of poor judgement.

    When you get home it’s best to try to sleep until the meds that the dentist gave you wear off, or just watch TV. Take ibuprofen or Tylenol mostly, but an occasional opioid will help since there is some pain that the antiinflammatories don’t help with as much, although they take care of most of it.
    Soft foods for a few days, and no straws.

    All in all, you should be back to normal within two weeks, and you’ll get to feel nice and excited to eat something crunchy or chewy.

    If you’ve had pain associated with your wisdom teeth, I’d recommend going forward as scheduled. The pain may have gone away temporarily, but it’ll come back.
    I let mine go too long, and one of the wisdom teeth cracked open because of pressure on it from another tooth, which also damaged that tooth which was fortunately able to be repaired.
    The pain from waiting for outstripped the discomfort of the procedure.


  • To me it’s important to ask “what problem is it solving”, and “how did we solve that problem in the past”, and “what does it cost”.
    Crypto currency solves the problem of spending being tracked by a third party. We used to handle this by giving each other paper. The new way involves more time, and a stupendous amount of wasted electricity.
    Nfts solve the problem of owning a digital asset. We used to solve this by writing down who owned it. The cost is a longer time investment, and a stupendous amount of wasted electricity.
    Generative AI is solving the problem of creative content being hard to produce, and expensive. We used to solve this problem by paying people to make things for us, and not making things if you don’t have money. The cost is pissing off creatives.

    The first two feel like cases where the previous solution wasn’t really bad, and so the cost isn’t worth it.

    The generative AI case feels mixed, because pissing off creatives to make more profit feels shitty, but lowering barriers to entry to creativity doesn’t.



  • We should also ban long hair.

    I’m sure plenty of women only prefer to have long hair because they think they would be shunned or stan out if they cut it short.

    I’m all for people getting to wear their hair like they want, but I’m confident that many women would actually prefer to wear their hair short, and so can’t be trusted to make that choice for themselves or express an honest opinion about it.

    The first step in women’s liberation is making it clear that they lack agency and that other people know what’s best for them.






  • Where do you see it telling you you need precise location to see emergency alerts?

    Your phone has two sets of things that could be called “emergency alerts”. One is the emergency alert system that’s controlled by the government and managed by your phone company. That one doesn’t require precise location.
    The other is “crisis alerts” which is Google basically running a search for crisis near you and then telling you. This one may require more precise location.

    It’s entirely possible for your phone to just not get the cell network based alert. You can be connected to a tower outside of the alert area while someone right next to you is connected to one inside. Or you can just not get it because cell communications are imperfect. The issuer will typically resend several times to try to ensure it gets through to people, but it’s not perfect.