We've already got super trees (genetically improved). These are selectively bred trees, not GMOs; stuff that gets super site-specific, like 'north side of a hill within 100ft of a stream'. IIRC Weyerhauser pioneered the work in this area...I want to say back in the 60s. They've reduced the time from planting to harvest substantially, something like ~80 years to ~30, and the new stuff is just growing faster.
The main problem is that the growth rings get huge, the lumber is technically stronger, but it's much denser and not well suited for all applications. If you look at old growth, you see sub-mm growth rings in Doug fir, and it's very light. Super trees can be quite substantial, like 1/8 to 1/4 inch. I've heard they burn hotter and more readily too. In my personal experience, old growth will burn all night in your stove but the younger stuff won't last half as long.
Been a while since I've poked my nose into forestry, I've probably got some of the details wrong but that's the gist of it anyway.
it's absolutely the other way. the dense rot resistant wood from older forests was basically mined away by companies, like wyerehauser and others, over the previous 3 centuries.
My 100-year-old house in British Columbia was built entirely of Douglas Fir. At this point, you can barely pound a nail into the studs and joists. The density is incredible. New lumber feels insubstantial in comparison.
It looks like they discussed it on the mailing-list years ago when it was being selected, but nothing since. Maybe they forgot about it? This is strange.
> We may need to wait a generation until people who have grown up in this world and can filter feed on the information can create/disseminate narrative adapted to the new rate of information flow and yet somehow true to reality.
I'm not so optimistic. Remember when when people thought gen z and gen alpha would be "digital natives?" They were supposed to be tech savvy but a good chunk of them can't use a search engine, or a word processor. A teacher I know says that each year the kids just get stupider and stupider, they sit around all day on social media and their brains haven't developed or something.
Did the Fnord-inventor believe this, or did he have a rational basis? If its an axiom, its analogous to a belief in as much as it's a given. If its a sound bite, he's handwaving.
Disagree. The appendix is (supposedly) useless, but faith does bring some utility, just in an oblique way. Faith drives common belief systems, which drive social cohesion.
From the perspective of somebody that believes in (literal) books full of things that are--in whole or in part--fabrications, of course realism looks naïve.
This flamewar is ancient and tired, like your dwindling religion of doomsday cultists and scientist killers.
I have no interest in flamewars. A reasonable discussion with other rational persons is something I appreciate, thankfully that can happen on HN; I find I equally enjoy that whether I’m simply reading such an exchange or engaging in it.
Your previous reply-comments (to me) convey unprovoked hostility. Why?
Explain to me how a reasonable discussion could possibly proceed after throwing out a link to "Naive Realism".
I won't defend my own comments. They're basically snark, boiling down to "religion bad reason good" (which I stand by). But don't try to take the high road now after you yourself replied to me with nothing but a Wikipedia fig leaf over "no you're just biased".
Along these lines...I'm surprised the HN crowd isn't into blogging in markdown, published in a git repo. About as simple as it gets and you don't get tied to a single platform. You could key sign it to ensure authenticity for when somebody rehosts it or whatever.
I happen to know someone in the music industry. Not huge, but you might have seen them on MTV and you've probably heard their hits.
They say modern songs get written by a huge group of songwriters in hotels. Individual words and phrases will earn credits. They go through the list of everything floating in the songwriters' heads and whittle it down on a huge whiteboard and anything put up there and put into the song gets credited. I think the phrase they used to describe it was "Shit Smoothie Song Writing."
The person I know hates this and doesn't work with these people but they know the industry, etc.
It’s called a writers room. Get a few songwriters you like in a room and jam together for a few hours. Typically everyone in the room splits the credit even if you were just breathing the air and lending a vibe.
Writers rooms and all the writers credits don’t begin to scratch the surface of ghostwriting, though.
Many popular songs are picked up from ghostwriters who are paid a flat fee and don’t even get a songwriter credit. Many songs
This seems to be a corporate version of what I’ve witnessed: large groups of people getting together in vacation rentals or studios at writing camps and breaking off into small groups, each writing around a theme and passing ideas around fairly democratically, in a messy, creative, communal way. Then sharing and layering later. That leads to lots of contributors to one work of art, as they all reach for the best way to tell a story and fit it to a musical vibe that enhances it (or the other direction, it takes all kinds of approaches).
Never a whiteboard, so if that’s literally true I guess that environment would make me sad and disillusioned too, and I’m sorry your friend was dealing with it. But it’s certainly not the only model!
That's not fair. Those AIs are stealing the credit by stealing TikTok posts and ancestry.com listings of the real nephews of record company executives. Those nephews deserve recognition for their IP and ID.
nepobaby dynamics notwithstanding, yes I think you can simulate them for that particular role. Even if they’re given another position, because now the system has been improved / more optimized. You can never be rid of the nephew, but that was never really the goal to begin with. The goal isn’t to get rid of the nephew per se, but to replace human labor with something more efficient and effective so that we can … have leisure time?” Whether that role was previously occupied by the nephew or someone unknown. The incentives of capitalism drive optimization (at some level, not globally necessarily).
I mean, I just threw "write me a song that britney spears would sing." into chatGPT and the result could have fooled me. I won't bore you with the result. Even included some rhymes without prompting that.
I kinda thought those environments would be less dependent on emergency cash, because they'll have a week's worth of food, backup energy/power sources (BBQs, propane tanks, jerry cans of gas, woodstoves, etc.).
It's people in the cities that get boned when the grid crashes.
I suspect most people with food allergies actually just have an eating disorder, or anxiety/hypochondria issues. I wouldn't rule out sociogenic "food allergies" either. Look at the gluten-free fad that took off for a while.
I meant the type of allergy that often results in anaphylaxis. We can be sure that if someone's throat is swelling shut it isn't simply a case of hypochondriasis or someone following the latest food fads. Anxiety can cause shortness of breath or palpitations, but they're going to present very differently in the ER compared to someone experiencing a severe allergic reaction.
Even if someone managed to have a somatic illness that actually did cause their throat to swell and close up when exposed to certain allergens (the mind is a powerful thing after all) I don't think it'd make any meaningful difference in the event that it occurred. It would still be a life threatening medical emergency. It might however mean that with help it could be possible for them to stop having the reaction, but I'm not even sure they'd work if their immune system genuinely saw the food as a threat and learned to treat it as such.
This is an absolutely ridiculous claim, it's very clear that you have never met anyone with an allergy (or cared to ask someone about their experience if you have)
Actually I have them in my family (epi pen and all), but I've met many more people with false allergies that use them to justify disordered eating habits or something else (hilariously, I've seen someone use their allergies to try and micromanage what everyone else around them can eat, down to how their spouse's coffee is brewed).
There was a security researcher in NYC that wrote about recovering his stolen scooter with an Airtag that discussed part of this question. At least some of the shops know they've got stolen merch and actively look for Airtags or other trackers.
I have an airtag on mine but I’m not super convinced it will make a difference:
- whenever I pick up the bike to ride it after a long period of not using it (say overnight or after a day of work), the airtag starts ringing. I don’t know why it does that but it would for sure tip the thief off
- don’t iPhones and maybe androids now show some kind of notification and offer to disable the tag if a tag you don’t own starts following you? That would also prevent me from finding the bike
- AirTags don’t report their altitude, only their location. Good luck figuring out in which apartment and on which floor it’s kept. Police would most likely decline to help as they can’t search every apartment
I've always figured that if I buy a bike from Craigslist, I should check the serial number and look it up on bikeindex.org. If I ran a used bike shop, that would definitely be part of my procedure.
The main problem is that the growth rings get huge, the lumber is technically stronger, but it's much denser and not well suited for all applications. If you look at old growth, you see sub-mm growth rings in Doug fir, and it's very light. Super trees can be quite substantial, like 1/8 to 1/4 inch. I've heard they burn hotter and more readily too. In my personal experience, old growth will burn all night in your stove but the younger stuff won't last half as long.
Been a while since I've poked my nose into forestry, I've probably got some of the details wrong but that's the gist of it anyway.