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I agree mostly, although as a counter-example, about a year ago Nutella released a new "extra cocoa" variant which was much tastier, and a bit less unhealthy (lower sugar content).

It was so good that I refuse to buy regular Nutella anymore, even though the "extra cocoa" edition seems to be no longer sold.


Lisp did this to me for every other programming language.


I'm mad that as an Italian (where Nutella was created) this is the first time I'm hearing about this +Cocoa version. Apparently it's not even marketed/sold in Italy at all! It's for the US market only.


It might differ between countries, but I've found that physics is one of the most valued degrees. It's a demonstration of problem-solving skills that are very desirable for a variety of jobs (e.g. software development).


I have a PhD in physics and work in industry for the last 25 years.

My PhD was sure a very nice to have, but never a life changer.

Would I do it again? Probably yes because of the tremendous joy research brought me (and free time for parties!).

Did I recommend it to my kids? No, they are better off with me specific studies.


One important caveat in the article:

> Update: It looks like Amazon is converting the uploaded EPUB to KF8 (AZW3). So, it looks like they might not support EPUB natively.


SpinLaunch's website claims: "To date, we’ve conducted tests over 6x the speed of sound."

However, that doesn't seem possible because the centrifuge is not in a decent vacuum (as Thunderf00t points out in his second video) due to the whooshing sound of the centrifuge 'blade', and the speed can be estimated as just less than the speed of sound. If they have the ability to do hypersonic tests already, why would they not show it in their promotional video?

The fact that they intentionally blurred the data on the screens during the demo is also odd.

---

Regarding your final point, it's much easier to pretend to be a genius than to actually be one; Elon Musk is a master at it. Additionally, debating skill is a very misleading measure of intelligence.


Sorry to put a dampener on things, but Thunderf00t has already done two debunking videos on SpinLaunch. He's rarely wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ziGI0i9VbE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibSJ_yy96iE


Scott Manley also put out a video on Spinlaunch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAczd3mt3X0

He...encourages caution. It's one thing to call a technology "debunked", another to say it's very difficult or that it has a low probability of success.


It's not impossible, but there's no reason to believe that the company is able to build it.

The founder has little demonstrable understanding of physics, and their demonstration video was misleading.

If SpinLaunch's idea was practical, it would've been in use for decades already. The company seems unaware of this... for now.

I look forward to watching SpinLaunch's progress.


> He's rarely wrong

About what? Most of his recent content is clickbait debunking videos about stupid ideas that no serious person has ever taken seriously.

"Solar Roadways Debunked" Yeah no fucking shit.


And the whole Elon stuff? Compared to that even solar roadways are more realistic.

And here we are talking about spinlaunch.....


That's true, but he has interesting insight into more seemingly realistic concepts like SpinLaunch.


Thunderf00t is not a credible source, even if he's right sometimes, it's in the "a broken clock is right twice a day" sense. So these aren't good videos.


He is a scientist with published papers, and he seems to have a decent understanding of physics.

Obviously scientists are not perfect, but you seem to imply that most of his videos are incorrect. I can't see any evidence to support that, but I'm happy to be contradicted.


> He is a scientist with published papers, and he seems to have a decent understanding of physics.

There are many mentally deranged people who have published papers and are "scientists".


> There are many mentally deranged people who have published papers and are "scientists".

That's true, but it could be interpreted as a distraction from the fact that you haven't provided any evidence to support your claim.

In my experience, few mentally deranged people have a good understanding of physics. Even fewer have published in 'Nature'.


Looks like one comfy armchair.


I do have a degree in physics, if that helps.


Comparing the deaths side by side misses an important aspect: most malaria deaths are children, whereas Covid mostly affects older age groups.


Because old people are worth less than children?


Yes but not in the way you're implying.

A child dying robs them and the world of 60+ years of human life. An 80 year old dying of COVID-19 was not going to live much longer anyway, so the loss is less severe. Old people have already had the opportunity to live a "full" life.

Imagine two societies – one where a disease kills 50% of < 10s every year, and another that kills 50% of > 70s every year. Which society would do better? Which society would you rather live in?


In the US, more people in the 55-74 age range have died than the 85+. Those are people who are taking care of grand children, or are still working. These are people that society has spent decades making fully functioning parts of society. A child has had none of that investment.

A society of just children wouldn't work, just as a society without wouldn't work.


Is your goal to just be as misleading as possible in this conversation?

Yes, of course more 55-74s have died – there are far, far more of them than there are >85s. Normalized, COVID is far more lethal (8x more lethal) for >85s than for your range. Here's the mortality rates:

55-74: 0.28%

85+: 2.5%

https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the...

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm


How in any way is that misleading?

The actual numbers are more representative than lethality percentages when we're talking about contribution to society.


What's more representative is "life years lost", and malaria wins there (we've lost many more years to it).


How do you calculate that in an area of the world with the highest rate of child mortality?


Same as in any other area, assume malaria isn't killing babies and do the math. Your question sounds rhetorical but is too simple to answer, so I'm confused.


My anecdotal observation is that is a position that a majority of old people themselves take, at least nominally.


Frankly, yes. It sounds cold hearted but many of the COVID deaths were people who were going to die in the next 24 months anyway.


> The average years of life lost per death is 16 years.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-83040-3

And, dismissing the death of someone by saying "they were going to die soon anyway, so what" is disgusting.


>And, dismissing the death of someone by saying "they were going to die soon anyway, so what" is disgusting.

It may be "disgusting" - but it's also statistics

It was sad when my grandfather died a couple years ago at 87 - but not exactly "unexpected"

Compare that to friends who lost their 18-year-old daughter before she graduated high school

Which one is shocking? Which one "hurts more"?

Deaths rates follow a bathtub curve - ultimately leading to a 100% mortality rate (ie, everyone dies eventually)

If you have to choose between saving a 5-year-old and an 85-year-old, the "smart money" says "save the kid"

If you don't have to choose, then by all means - save both

But that's not how economics works: choices must be made


In a QALY sense, yeah. The most valuable to society are the workforce but children are almost as valuable.

My parents are 60+ yr old surgeons. They work during the pandemic not because they have to. It's because you run the QALYs and the morality is clear. You participate or make way.


People aren't offended by the change; they're irritated.

I'm irritated because it was an unnecessary change based on unsound reasoning, made by people who claim to represent a minority while not belonging to the minority or understanding its members.

I'm irritated because I can't give instructions to junior developers as easily: no longer can I rely on all of my instructions working, and documentation now requires clarifications and caveats which used to be unnecessary.

I'm irritated because it appears that GitHub has made it intentionally difficult to change the main branch in the "new repository" page; while it shows an option to change the default branch name, this requires refreshing the page and losing the repository name and description which you've already written.


Kotlin doesn't just run on the JVM - it can compile to native binaries with Kotlin Native. It compiles to WASM and JS too.


At the time of Flutter development it couldn't do any of those things.


Thats a good point, I tend to forget how long Flutter has been around.


There's an official Vim plugin by Jetbrains for all Jetbrains IDEs (including Rider).

I find it a great way to combine the strengths of Vim with the strengths of a full IDE.


Here's another vouch for IdeaVIM. It's got 99% of the VIM that I use, and is actively developed.


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