> If you have a deviated septum, undergo septoplasty
Really? If you have a severely deviated septum you'll likely have a benefit. Talking as someone who has undergone a septoplasty, the ENT wanted to make me perfect and the surgery was horribly painful. What actually helped was treating my allergies.
This worked for me and a number of people I know, but that isn't to say that everyone needs to do this. The post is a reflection and not a call-to-action.
My surgery wasn't horrible. It was nothing at all because I was out. The first few days were really bad because I was unable to use my nose to breathe and my brain was glitching because of that. I still think it was worth it.
> Buterin comes from a long tradition of Silicon Valley special smart boys, who have had it hammered into them that domain expertise — i.e., actually knowing stuff — pales into insignificance compared to pulling ideas out of your backside by virtue of your superior intelligence and upbringing and social position.
I detest this worldview. New knowledge is formed through creative conjecture and criticism. The creation of new ideas being restricted to only experts, those who "actually know stuff" shrinks the pool of creators of new knowledge. What we should strive for is better explanations of reality, not a restriction on who can make those explanations.
Except the point being made is that only the rich and affluent get to make creative decisions. Though the experts who get any traction also belong to this group in my experience. A CMU Professor just draws more eyes than one from The University of Minnesota.
The "boy genius" cliche in Silicon Valley journalism is flawed and sometimes unhelpful, but it's not because it's strictly limited to "the rich and affluent"? Not sure where you're (or the author) is getting that.
Vitalik wasn't some rich kid who went to Harvard and was groomed by VCs. He was gambled on because he had some interesting ideas.
The fact the media loves Mozart types also doesn't mean that their cliches are true or representative of the culture either. It just shows what the readers of Wired and pop-science want to hear.
Gerard used the subtle term “social position”. People might take that to be “affluence” but it isnt necessary so. For example, a technically promising white child from any californian public school would be in a vastly better social position (from SV media’s POV) than a rank and file googler.
It seems like lots of funders are looking for creative ideas to fund? Y Combinator is an obvious example but there are many others.
But it's true that it's competitive and you need a certain amount of education to even know you can apply and come up with a decent proposal. (And if you already have money, you don't need to look for more.)
> The creation of new ideas being restricted to only experts, those who "actually know stuff" shrinks the pool of creators of new knowledge.
Abstractly, I agree with what you've said here, but I don't think the part of Gerard's post that you quoted is making the point that you're countering.
Broadly speaking, a lot of discovery work comes from domain experts precisely because of the work it takes to become such an expert. My read on the phrase "actually knowing stuff" is that it refers not just to a solid understanding of the nuts-and-bolts of your field, but also a more general grasp of the field's history. This kind of contextual knowledge is extremely helpful when attempting new or experimental research because it gives you an idea of which areas of knowledge might contain some novel insight while also cluing you in to which approaches might help you arrive at that insight. I interpreted Gerard's critique of Buterin here not as one of insufficient academic clout, but of arrogance, a reification of great man theory [1] through a techno-libertarian lens that positions himself among a host of other so-called "great men" and frames every societal problem as solvable through whatever lens the Great Man might think is particularly interesting.
Gerard's critique of Buterin's approach to sharding (which goes into further detail here [2]) seems to back this interpretation up:
> Buterin blogs extensive essays full of great thoughts on how to reorganise the world, and how Ethereum will be the basis for this once they add amazing new functionalities that will only require solving P=NP.
> Remember that Buterin spent years working on a sharding plan for Ethereum that, had he done Intro to Theory of Computation, he might have realised was probably impossible.
Seems less like "Buterin is a fool for not Being An Academic" and more like "Buterin is arrogant enough to assume he can solve a really difficult problem without understanding why nobody's solved it yet."
> Seems less like "Buterin is a fool for not Being An Academic" and more like "Buterin is arrogant enough to assume he can solve a really difficult problem without understanding why nobody's solved it yet."
Whether or not Buterin knew that the problem was unsolved shouldn't influence his decision to attempt to solve it within the constraints of his research area. Vitalik is very smart and works for a research foundation who spends time on complex things that might pan out if they work on them.
Very smart people usually take the time to understand the historical context behind the problems they're attempting to solve, IMO. (Especially if solving that problem requires proof that P=NP.) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
alt title: "How to rapidly expand your carbon footprint before you die"
"Research shows that cruising emits up to four times more CO2 per passenger than flying. While air travel costs between 0,11 and 0,16 kg per passenger per kilometer – a significant amount -, taking a cruise ship adds up to a staggering 0,40 kilograms per kilometer."[1]
I wish we lived in an alternate universe where paranoia about nuclear reactors wasn’t so much of a thing, and that we could have nuclear powered cruise ships just like the Navy has nuclear aircraft carriers and subs.
Because I _love_ cruising, and the climate impact is among the major reasons I don’t go as often as I’d like. (Yeah yeah, people who go on cruises get a lot of ridicule, but I don’t care. Something about a cruise just fits me lot more than “real” vacations. I don’t want to be challenged, or go to a place where I don’t speak the language, etc. I just want to be utterly hedonistic for a week or so and then get back to my real life. Insult away.)
> I wish we lived in an alternate universe where paranoia about nuclear reactors wasn’t so much of a thing, and that we could have nuclear powered cruise ships just like the Navy has nuclear aircraft carriers and subs.
I think we can all agree that anyone who judges Royal Caribbean or Carnival Cruise Line to not be as competent and responsible in nuclear engineering matters as the US Navy is quite obviously paranoid.
Probably would be completely worthwhile to convert a cruise ship too, if it only cost the $270 million (inflation adjusted, was only 28M) it cost in 1959 to do this. It would pay for itself in fuel charges on a big ship in less than a year. Assuming it could provide sufficient power vs the $2 million/day in fuel costs of the big ships.
Yeah, but I love boats too. Like, really love boats. Even though it’s so huge you can barely tell you’re on one, I like going out on the deck of my room and just staring at the vast ocean. Or laying out by the pool on deck and seeing the ocean around and knowing “hey, I’m on a huge boat! This is great!”… for some reason it hasn’t gotten old and I’ve cruised a bunch.
I know it’s not super rational, and it’s not for everyone, but I always massively enjoy my time on cruise ships. Best vacations I’ve ever had.
Uranium is a finite resource, and nuclear energy does leave a very long term waste problem. Using that for leisure cruises seems very wasteful and a bad idea.
Sails, solar, and renewable hydrogen is much more appetizing.
I hate this argument so much. These ships spend $2 million a day on burning dinosaur juice and pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. Nuclear is better than that, full stop. It's this perfect-being-the-enemy-of-better nonsense that keeps oil a trillion dollar industry decade after decade.
No amount of sails and solar panels is going to move a fucking cruise ship. We need to make incremental progress or there will be no progress at all.
I agree with the sarcastic sentiment from another poster on this.
These companies don't take care of their employees, constantly dump trash and waste in international waters, inundate their ports of call with pollution and hordes of unruly tourists, and we're supposed to believe that they could somehow handle the security and disposal of extremely dangerous materials? They can barely handle keeping their guests from catching dysentery.
Sails worked great to move ships for a long time. If you can't make sustainable cruise ships then you shouldn't make them at all. This idea that we need to keep every single excess we're used to is ridiculous, if you're gonna use nuclear power you can use it to make something useful like energy for steel or aluminum production instead of driving lazy tourists between ports that doesn't want them.
Energy abundance was a luxury we had for a few decades, it's time to wean us off it and start conserving energy and resources, not find new ways of living above our means for a couple of generations before the next bill needs to be payed.
Ah so it isn't as much "there are better ways to complete this objective," it's "this objective is stupid and I don't like the people that like it." That makes more sense given your general attitude in this thread.
True uranium is finite in the environment, but its hardly the only fuel source, combined with breeders/etc the fuel supplies are effectively infinite (aka we have thousands of years with just the current known reserves).
Similarly most of the "waste" isn't really waste if we choose to burn it. We have a couple centuries of fuel for our grand children sitting in "waste" caskets at the existing plants. Similarly to how we basically burned the "waste" from the soviet nuke programs in our reactors for 20 years.
So, sail might be cool, but its not going to happen for these huge mega cruise ships. There is a reason the navy uses nukes on their larger ships.
And the alternative renewables are pretty bad when considered in practical terms.
Solar which doesn't work half the time, produces an oversupply during summer and doesn't work during winter, requiring extensive and expensive storage setups while providing a laughable output.
Wind turbines which only work in specific places with stable wind speeds, with blades that last 20 years and can't be cost effectively recycled and produce a larger waste storage issue than nuclear. Not to mention the constant loud whine sound that drives people living close to them absolutely nuts.
Geothermal which works only in places with magma near the surface, otherwise you need to drill down so deep that you destabilize the ground and cause towns to start collapsing into themselves.
Hydrogen storage may be practical in some cases, but with 30% round trip efficiency it's probably not worth it when pumped hydro can do up to 85% and you also get what's basically a huge bomb waiting to level the city block.
Sails, or their more efficient version, Flettner rotors, are a good starting point for significant cargo ship fuel reductions but you aren't gonna be powering them by wind alone.
I think what Rolls Royce is doing right now with SMRs is probably the best way forward, depending on how small they can really make them.
Where are the breeder reactors in current use? This has been "just around the corner" for decades now, and if it finally materializes I would hope they would be put to better use than power floating resorts.
Nobody needs huge mega cruise ships. Rather than continue to burn fossil fuel or wasting the resources and trust on them by making them nuclear, there's a simpler solution: ban them. You want a ship holiday, there's plenty of sail ships available. You want to lie in the sun, go to movie theaters, pools, restaurants? Go to a hotel. None of these huge companies are paying the external cost of their wastefulness, and it needs to stop, not be enabled by tech pipe dreams.
I'm not sure I really understand your point. Breeders were victims of the fact that light water reactors were considered dirt cheap to build/fuel/operate (and were until greenpeace/etc got involved) and countries like the USA have very large supplies of uranium (in fact there tours you can take in NM where you wander around in the desert with a geiger counter and pick up hot rocks).
OTOH, if your going to spend 10's of billions building a reactor one might as well go full bore (particularly with modern computer control systems) and just build something that burns the entire fuel load. Breeder's problems are political same as conventional light water.
And the "waste" we have is 95% or so unburned uranium that could be reprocessed and by itself last the US nearly a century. Oh, and all this waste? By mass, its somewhere in the ballpark of a single rail car for carrying coal (course then it would fission and release energy) so its kept spaced apart in small quantities.
The more one learns about nukes the more the current energy environment becomes unbelievable. I mean the US and Russia dumped more radioactive material into the atmosphere, and created huge downwind radioactive plumes that make the civilian accidents a joke in comparison. Chernobyl was nothing compared to some of these tests, and we are still talking about it 3 decades later despite the fact no one has built a commercial reactor like that in 50+ years.
To many people conflated weapons programs with the safest, most abundant and reliable energy source we have humans have ever discovered.
Comparing passenger jet emissions to cruise emissions is missing the point. The point of a jet is to get from point A to point B ASAP. The point of a cruise ship is to have a nice time, and maybe get from point A to point B. AFAIK many (most?) cruise routes even go back to the port that they depart from!
On a nice hotel, because most cruises are nice hotels that sail. The amenities you can have in a cruise are far, far beyond what you would get on a first-class international flight.
Every single day, cruise ships worldwide emit the same particular matter as a million cars. A single large cruise ship will emit over five tonnes of NOX emissions, and 450kg of ultrafine particles a day. To give you an idea, it emits about the same amount of sulfur dioxide as 3,6 MILLION cars.
If anybody thinks we're going to "solve" climate change by a couple oldsters staying off cruise ships (or honestly through any reasonable means), then I think they're deluded. The solution is going to come in the form of a world and way of life that's essentially unimaginable today.
For those of us alive right now, may as well do whatever we want at this point.
The point is to engage in a public display of virtue by lecturing others on their shortcomings. This gives one the smug (and illusory) satisfaction of being a Good Person without requiring any actual personal sacrifice.
You're right. These particular retirees aren't even a rounding error of a rounding error of a rounding error. However, they are Climate Sinners, and must therefore be denounced.
This stuff matters, it matters today and it matters incrementally. A 10% decrease in carbon emissions today means millions of acres less wildfire destruction in this decade. It means preventing billions of dollars in destruction from severe hurricanes. It means hundreds of thousands of lives saved from becoming famine refugees from drought-stricken areas.
Pretending that it's an all-or-nothing, we need magical technological revolution is just enabling people to continue to cause harm more rapidly and severely. But the difference between 2.0 and 2.1 degrees of warming is huge, the difference of giving humanity another decade to replace fossil fuels for grid power is huge.
No one change, no one technology, no one law or policy is going to solve climate change. That doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue any given improvement, quite the opposite, it means we should be pursuing them all.
I live in small dense urban housing, I have never driven a car, I never fly in planes, I don't eat meat, and I will never have kids. That's what I'm doing and it doesn't matter at all.
Very few people are willing to make microscopic changes in their lifestyle. How do I know? Just look around.
It's clear to me societal change won't come when we're staring down the barrel of the gun. It's going to happen when we have a gaping exit wound in the back of our heads.
Fortunately I'll be dead well before the shot rings out.
Maybe, but there clearly will be less. People are lazy, and aren’t going to go through this much work.
See incandescent light bulbs. Most people bought over LED before the ban. You can buy them from China still, but most people don’t. So in the end it wins without doing some kind of crazy enforcement,
Incandescents are engineered to have a short life. Abandoning them is a no brainier. Gas power equipment still has endurance and power that eclipses electric alternatives.
Sure, but this seems way more space-friendly. I don't know about the available space in Japan, but I'd have nowhere to fit a boat that only holds ten people, and I live so close to the water I can see it from my window.
Edit: I've also seen five drunk people capsize a dingy boat just trying to board it. So I'd hate to take my chances with anything that could capsize in a tsunami, where fast moving debris could crush or trap you the second you hit the water.
My cofounder and I have been working on this problem for the past few years after being frustrated by the software solutions. You need your entire phone out of sight, new studies show even the presence of your phone can be a distraction[1] We are super-excited to be launching on Indiegogo in the next few weeks. Check it out at https://pausbox.com
Whenever I have more than that I can never get anything off the ground.
I've been working pretty hard on this hardware/software project with my co-founder for the past year. The biggest takeaway is that marketing a product can often be harder than building it. You need to push hard to improve your messaging and hit product market fit, I don't know how I could do that with multiple products at once.
Yes this. Once you've got the product done with some sort of traction next comes the growth. I wouldn't say it's defintely harder but it's defintely no easier. It's like you have to get a series of incredibly difficult stuff done before you see the money roll in
Really? If you have a severely deviated septum you'll likely have a benefit. Talking as someone who has undergone a septoplasty, the ENT wanted to make me perfect and the surgery was horribly painful. What actually helped was treating my allergies.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6616214/