Hacker News: swamp40

New comment by swamp40 in "The mystery of why left-handers are so much rarer (2016)"

swamp40 — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 23:27:02 +0000

No answer in the article. Oh well.

New comment by swamp40 in "Evidence of 'Negative Time' Found in Quantum Physics Experiment"

swamp40 — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 17:43:56 +0000

I sure hope they start rolling the recording devices well before any collisions at the particle accelerators - so they can catch any high energy particles zooming off before the collision.

New comment by swamp40 in "Show HN: Put this touch sensor on a robot and learn super precise tasks"

swamp40 — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 20:20:31 +0000

I'll bet you could open the grippers fully and recalibrate on power up.

New comment by swamp40 in "Terraforming Mars may be easier than scientists thought"

swamp40 — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 23:13:29 +0000

No mention of nuking the poles.

New comment by swamp40 in "Fiber optic drone control beats any RF jammer"

swamp40 — Mon, 05 Aug 2024 23:13:15 +0000

I don't see fly-by-fiber getting very popular. The only goal is anti-jamming. But if the drone was fully autonomous, there would be no signals to jam. And the fully autonomous drones are coming fast. Meta's SAM 2 can follow pretty much any object anywhere, and people are beginning to get it running on the NVIDIA Jetson Orin. That's 75% of the work. The other 25% is autopilot and a way to disable it if it flies back over friendly territory. 6 months I'd say, for amateurs starting now. I'm sure some companies already have prototypes working.

New comment by swamp40 in "Meta to pay Texas $1.4B for using facial recognition without users' permission"

swamp40 — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 18:46:46 +0000

Is this why Illinois made it illegal too? For a nice big payout?

New comment by swamp40 in "SAM 2: Segment Anything in Images and Videos"

swamp40 — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 16:51:44 +0000

What is the Illinois law?

Edit: Found lower in thread: biometric privacy laws

New comment by swamp40 in "Astronauts take shelter in Starliner, other spacecraft after satellite breakup"

swamp40 — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 19:33:23 +0000

A large disc of lead or steel. With thrusters to position properly. Or multiple discs that spread out like flower petals.

New comment by swamp40 in "A Revolution in Biology?"

swamp40 — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 16:51:01 +0000

He used human tracheal cells, not lung cells.

"Because they are one of the few tissues in the body that have motile cilia."[0]

So they can move around.

[0] https://twitter.com/drmichaellevin/status/173042805284737055...

New comment by swamp40 in "Mars rover mission will use pioneering nuclear power source"

swamp40 — Wed, 22 May 2024 19:57:27 +0000

ESA finally using nuclear power? Hallelujah. They actually learned from the mistake of Rosetta's Philae landing in the shade on Comet 67P, where its solar panels couldn't produce any power and it died humiliatingly.

Image shows atoms transforming into quantum waves

swamp40 — Fri, 03 May 2024 14:55:18 +0000

Article URL: https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/quantum-physics/stunning-image-shows-atoms-transforming-into-quantum-waves-just-as-schrodinger-predicted

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40248392

Points: 4

# Comments: 1

Loan Programs Office Can Support All Stages of Critical Minerals Supply Chain

swamp40 — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 18:38:21 +0000

Article URL: https://www.energy.gov/lpo/articles/how-lpo-can-support-all-stages-critical-minerals-supply-chain

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40214550

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by swamp40 in "Atomic nucleus excited with laser: A breakthrough after decades"

swamp40 — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 18:05:30 +0000

> thorium crystal clock

Take note, science fiction writers.

New comment by swamp40 in "Generative A.I. arrives in the gene editing world of CRISPR"

swamp40 — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 20:32:48 +0000

Not a big fan? It could be provably private. You could have a kit with a random username/password. It could be done. People just have a bad taste from 23andMe.

New comment by swamp40 in "Generative A.I. arrives in the gene editing world of CRISPR"

swamp40 — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 19:04:09 +0000

We are still early. Eventually you'll be able to change your race, gender, add reptile eyes, regrow limbs etc. Has to start somewhere. Need more data.

New comment by swamp40 in "Generative A.I. arrives in the gene editing world of CRISPR"

swamp40 — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 18:04:22 +0000

Imagine an AI learning from photos/videos of a person and their DNA sequence? And also a list of diseases, health records, etc. Then asking it for predictions while giving it feedback afterwards so it can tune itself.

You could even guarantee privacy. That would be some really useful data.

New comment by swamp40 in "Generative A.I. arrives in the gene editing world of CRISPR"

swamp40 — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 17:57:26 +0000

Well hopefully it's trained on genetic DNA sequences and not Reddit threads. If so, it should do pretty well predicting the next sequence given previous sequences. There are probably all sorts of undiscovered patterns.

New comment by swamp40 in "$10M in Gold Disguised as Machine Parts Seized from Cargo Plane"

swamp40 — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 14:38:20 +0000

Neither X-ray nor x-ray fluorescence (XRF) is going to be able to scan large objects properly for gold from a distance. XRF machines only show the surface or slightly below the surface. If you put gold inside a lead pipe - no chance.

If there was ever a method to reliably detect gold from a distance without costing millions of dollars, it would start a new gold rush.

So, this was either discovered by a very careful inspection or more likely a tip-off.

New comment by swamp40 in "Reverse engineering a car key fob signal"

swamp40 — Thu, 14 Mar 2024 21:11:54 +0000

He decoded everything, but he didn't actually open a car door. He still has to defeat the rolling code. It's not like you can add 1 to it and resend it. From the outside world, the next rolling code should appear random.

New comment by swamp40 in "Webb and Hubble confirm Universe's expansion rate"

swamp40 — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 16:13:05 +0000

I cannot for the life of me understand how you look at the cosmic background radiation - which appears equally in every direction you look, for as far away as you can see - and say this is evidence of a "big bang", originating from a single spot at a single point in time. And the universe just "expanded faster than light" to cover everywhere with the same consistent drab layer of cosmic background radiation.

It seems like a child's fairy tale to me.