NaibofTabr

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NaibofTabr ,

Counterpoint: you can have high-quality human contact with people you choose to be around, not so much with people you're paid to be around.

NaibofTabr ,

Even if I did choose the company I applied to for work, I didn't choose my coworkers, nor did I get to meet them until after I was hired. And, I certainly don't get to choose the customers I have to interact with during my work.

be4foss , to KDE
@be4foss@floss.social avatar

Opt out? Opt in? Opt Green!

50% of consumers buy new devices due to unsupported software, while the "tsunami of " continues to rise.

can keep those devices in use and out of the landfill. Today!

Say hello to the new project ": For Sustainable Hardware".

https://eco.kde.org/blog/2024-05-29_introducing-ns4nh/

You don't need new hardware for a secure, up-to-date device; you just need the right software!

@kde

NaibofTabr ,

Fairphone is offering a solution to this by designing devices that are repairable and have guaranteed software updates, though it requires some compromises.

  • because the phone is not sealed, its waterproof/dustproof rating is lower
  • the specs are lower than other phones in the same price range - this is probably due to the modular design and the need to assure the supply of replacement parts
  • the phone is only designed for the EU - it may not support the network bands used in other parts of the world
NaibofTabr ,

Yeah, it's a good concept and I'd like to see more options like it on the market, but it kind of runs against the current consumer electronics profit model and the way the electronics supply chain is structured.

It does seem like consumer awareness is changing, and there's more and more demand for sustainable and long-life products. Hopefully that continues. I think "vote with your wallet" applies to this sort of thing.

NaibofTabr , (edited )

The brighter spots are the nuclei of the Pr, Sc, and O atoms, which are reflecting the electrons of the scanning beams (because they're comparatively much heavier).

The space in between the nuclei is where the electrons from all of the atoms are. Because the atoms are bound as PrScO3, the electrons are shared and not really part of any one particular atom or other.

Technically all of it is "the atoms" because the electrons are part of the structure as much as the protons and neutrons.

This diagram in the article is helpful:

https://www.science.org/cms/10.1126/science.abg2533/asset/4560a9b6-6f2c-40ed-865f-96891ef20c0e/assets/graphic/372_826_f1.jpeg

The drawing in the lower right shows how the atoms are arranged. The double spots are the nuclei of two Pr atoms very close together. The slightly fainter, elongated spots are actually ScO2 that is arranged as O-Sc-O. The fainter single spots are the other O nuclei that fill out the PrScO3 structure.

NaibofTabr , (edited )

So, this image was made with a scanning electron microscope - actually several arranged in a grid somewhat similar to a digital camera sensor. Basically the way this works is that a beam of electrons (kind of like a laser, but electrons instead of photons) is fired at the material being scanned. The electrons bounce off of anything heavier than they are, such as the protons and neutrons in the nucleus (electrons are about 1/2000 of the mass of a proton). Some of the electrons bounce back into the detection grid of the microscope.

So the bright spots are where the electrons bounced off of the nuclei back into the detection grid. You can't really get an image of an electron cloud with an electron microscope because electrons are all the same mass, so if you hit one with another one they both move away in random directions (hitting one billiard ball with another). Comparatively hitting a proton with an electron isn't strong enough to move the proton very much (hitting a house with a billiard ball).

I should also say that this is a simplification because protons, neutrons and electrons don't really exist as physical ball-shaped particles, but as probability waves. Arvin Ash gives the best explanation of this that I've seen.

The upshot of all that is that the bright spots in the image show where the protons and neutrons of the atoms were most likely to be during the scanning (it's really difficult to talk about anything absolute at this scale, everything is probabilistic).

Also yes, this image is a very tiny area, literally a few atoms across. It's very impressive, and it basically amounts to visual proof that what we believe to be true about molecular bonding is true because the picture actually shows what the theory predicts.

NaibofTabr ,

Nah, I just read a lot of quantum mechanics stuff because the world we live in is complex and sort of illusory from this point of view and I think it's fascinating. I do recommend the Wikipedia article on the standard model of particle physics and this video by AlphaPhoenix about using a scanning transmission electron microscope.

NaibofTabr ,

This assumes that:

  1. The people who want to work somewhere else actually have other jobs opportunities that they’re qualified for which offer similar pay - which may not be all that likely in Kansas.
  2. The companies won’t all change their break policies at the same time - which is unlikely in this corporate race to the bottom.
  3. The companies will care about losing employees - most of them don’t.
NaibofTabr ,

Kahn’s group was exiled pre-Federation, so they’re probably outside the scope of OP’s question.

NaibofTabr ,

Not really true.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/2022_US_Federal_Budget_Infographic.png

In 2022 the US spent an equivalent amount on Medicare as it did on defense ($747 billion vs $751 billion), and another $592 billion on Medicaid. US defense spending represents only 3% of GDP, and about 14% of the total federal budget.

The largest budget item is Social Security at $1.2 trillion.

Social program spending in the US massively outstrips military spending.

NaibofTabr ,

[citation needed]

NaibofTabr ,

If the drive you want to put the platter in has a faster RPM… would it even work?

No, and also if the drive has a different control board it probably won’t work. Some drives are shingled. Even the same drive make and model from a different generation might structure the data on the actual disk differently due to changes in the control board hardware or firmware.

Also… the read/write heads are, and must be, only nanometers above the disk surfaces… if you didn’t get the separation distance exactly right, I doubt it would work because the magnetic field at the tip of the head is tiny, and you’d run the risk of the drive heads crashing into the disk surface… the disks also would have to be perfectly level when you remount them… and also most dust particles are bigger than the distance between the read/write head and the disk surface, so if you don’t do this in a clean room you’ll probably get random errors if you actually get the thing reassembled…

This is a ridiculous long shot that only makes sense to try to rescue some data from a dead drive, which would have to be super valuable to be worth bothering, and it could only maybe work if you had an exact same year/make/model drive to use as a donor.

NaibofTabr ,

No no, see once the most super-rich person collects all the money they win the game, and then we all get to quit.

NaibofTabr ,

New Game+ ?

What if the quantum uncertainty suddenly became significantly larger on macroscopic scales?

Let’s say the quantum uncertainty which is currently quite small and doesn’t affect our life on macroscopic scale suddenly increased. Magically we are still living in this weird rule of physics. How would we see daily stuff? like how would I see a ball rolling in my sight?

NaibofTabr ,

With even a small increase in uncertainty in electron position, electricity would start to behave differently. Everything electronic, which depends on electron flow through very tiny conductors, would become unreliable as the electron flow would be unpredictable. Even basic light bulbs probably wouldn’t work.

Chemistry is the exchange of electrons between atoms. All molecular bonds happen through the exchange of electrons from one atom to another… so an increase in uncertainty would result in the bonds breaking down. Molecules would break apart, every material you think of as solid would disintegrate into its base atoms.

So, your rolling ball would cease to be a cohesive ball, and the surface it is rolling on would also cease to be.

NaibofTabr ,

Complete with child labor.

Amid a nationwide surge in child labor violations, Republican lawmakers in states such as Arkansas and Iowa passed legislation earlier this year to scale back child labor laws, expanding the scope of work and hours of work 14- and 15-year-olds can perform.

Republicans have jumped off the deep end of comically evil.

NaibofTabr ,

Many parts of the system were designed to disenfranchise various groups. One of the most effective of those parts is the message that your vote doesn’t matter.

Refuse to be disenfranchised. GO VOTE.

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