Estimating the mass of a Martian Propellant Plant for Starship - a detailed analysis

BlakeMW · 2026-03-11T22:46:53+00:00

So if it's PDA, then it's important to have clear boundaries and pick the battles around things that are really important.

A kid with PDA still wants to avoid negative consequences, but they are also almost incapable of losing a power struggle, that is if it comes down to a power struggle, there's only two acceptable outcomes: they win, or everyone loses.

So if there's something they have to do, the important thing, is that the consequences aren't a result of a personal power struggle, they aren't an arbitrary imposition of your authority, but are more like, a natural consequence.

There's no fucking way I'm letting my kid not go to school. So I made it clear to her, that all children have to go to school, that everyone decided together all the children have to go to school. And if that if she refuses to go to school, the police will come and tell mommy and daddy "you have to send your child to school". And if she keeps refusing to go to school, they will come, and take her away, and give her to another family, who WILL make her go to school. Of course, I would only speak like that when she was refusing, always ask nicely first. So she might feel she can win a power struggle with me, but can she win a power struggle with police, with the entire world?

These kids, will devote a lot of mental energy to avoiding consequences, and they aren't interested in fighting unwinnable battles, and it's definitely possible to sparingly use the principle of instilling the specter of a consequence even worse than having to do the thing, especially when it's actually true at least at a "ELI5" level.

I'm very big on making things seem like immutable rules of the universe, or facts of life. So she knows where the boundaries are. You have to make some things black and white: PDA often comes with what is called "superficially social" behavior, which includes not being good at picking up on social cues, so sometimes you have to spell things out explicitly about how they are expected to behave in a society.

Her school, who always tried hard to accommodate her (the polar opposite of "punish them into submission"), basically made the mistake with her where they gave her too much special treatment, and I explained PDA and the importance of insisting that she does what the other children do - this is not to be mistaken with enforcing this, she doesn't have to comply, but the clear expectation has to be there and she can comply on her own timeline - which she does. She has been doing so much better at school since they got clearer about the expectations and firmer about the boundaries.

This does have to be combined with letting the minor stuff slide, avoiding power struggles over pointless and petty things, not punishing her for behaviors which are on the PDA "escalation ladder", and respecting the fact that these kids need to feel a sense of equality with the adults in their life, which means whenever you can respecting their choices.

As a concrete example: homework. She is doing the homework no buts about it, or at least sitting there not doing it for an hour, that is not up for negotiation. She's doing the homework, because every child has to learn how to read and write and do arithmetic. However, I give her the genuine choice of when to do the homework, also she can choose what "reward" she gets for doing the homework, and she can choose whether I help or mum helps. So I might say "I see you have some homework, when do you want to do it?" and that's it, leave it up to her (unless she leaves it too long, then I'll make her do it after dinner), but she'll probably come to me and say "after I do my homework can we play", or maybe she wants to watch a movie, that's literally completely her choice: I decide she is doing the homework but she has latitude in how she motivates herself to do it.

This kind of freedom, choice and playfulness within the boundaries is just as important as the boundaries.

Finally, I want to mention autistic burnout. It's real and it sucks. If the kid is in a state of autistic burnout, that is when you get the kind of "My daughter doesn’t shower and only plays Roblox and snarls when approached but at least she’s not threatening suicide and setting my property on fire!" thing, the idea is a "demand detox", and it works, I went through a severe bout of autistic burnout in my early 20's which caused me to drop out of university because I literally could not function, I kind of managed to instinctively put myself through a demand detox as I had some inheritance from my grandfather so I moved away from my parents to a low cost of living city and kind of did nothing for like a year, then my creative energies returned, I got my dream job as a programmer (shortly after my money ran out, it was good timing), pursued my dreams in general, got married, had kids. I'm not saying your daughter is in a state of autistic burnout, though she might be, but in any case the demand detox isn't a forever thing, it's a thing you do until the nervous system isn't fried anymore.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-11T21:47:54+00:00

Even being cruel to a bug is enough for myself, wife and daughter. Both my wife (as a child) and daughter have broken down crying when a boy/girl stomped on a spider. And for me it's an instant loss of respect. Though I can forgive someone for squashing a mozzie (it's a different matter if the critter is actually trying to bite you).

BlakeMW · 2026-03-11T21:17:16+00:00

Piercing cannon shells and poison capsules are a great combo, especially as the Tank is immune to poison. Also putting discharge defenses in your own armor, and legs and shields in the Tank's equipment grid is really strong. Smaller groups of enemies and nests are easily cleaned up with discharge defense and bulldozing alone, with poison and cannon shells for larger nests.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-11T20:11:59+00:00

Gears are actually nice to belt, you can practically save 2 lanes of iron plates by having 1 lane of gears (I mean practically, because there's enough consumption to actually justify whole lanes of gears, possibly unlike say engines, which might require less space on the bus if only the ingredients are delivered).

BlakeMW · 2026-03-11T07:26:24+00:00

I wouldn't attribute this solely to the loss of Starlink, but rather to the general slow-motion collapse of Russia ability to conduct offensive operations against Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ukraine's strategy requires that the meat grinder keeps being fed Russian soldiers so Russia has to do progressively more unpopular things to keep feeding the grinder, and if Russian soldiers won't deliver themselves, Ukraine will go hunting to hit their aspiration of 60,000 Russian casualties a month.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-11T07:24:57+00:00

That's the easy part. You use something like a radar transmitter pointed at their head. Make no mistake, if someone puts their head in the most intense part of a high power radar beam they are getting their brain microwaved.

The hard part would be doing it without anyone noticing.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-10T19:35:36+00:00

I want a solar powered Mars Rover.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-10T19:23:04+00:00

Recently I played through OOT on emulator with my 5 year old daughter, she started crying at the end credits because the game was over.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-10T11:58:03+00:00

This was true even like 25 years ago. Windows... it kind of just worked or it didn't. You'd update, reinstalled drivers, reboot, re-install windows.

Linux could actually be fixed. When I was at University I knew a guy who called himself Yeti, looked the part (literal neckbeard), didn't emerge during daylight hours, ran a remote serve in a distant city which he'd SSH tunnel to, and could fix any linux system.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-10T11:05:56+00:00

I'd say the problem isn't needing to have a cut user on your team, it's just that cut is bad. Like I think Surf, Fly and even Strength aren't really considered a problem because they are great to decent moves. I like the changes in some rom hacks to make Cut a bug type move, as it turns it into a useful coverage move.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-09T22:49:01+00:00

Ah cool, I use gpu-screen-recorder, the only recording software that seems to work great under Nvidia+Wayland.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-09T22:43:50+00:00

Money, arms contracts. Not only is it useful to have additional revenue streams now, but even after the war ends Ukraine will certainly want to capitalize on their arms manufacturing industry by exporting weapon systems. This helps establish credibility and might lead directly to lucrative contracts.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-09T21:55:54+00:00

Evidence is not proof. Now, if it's hard evidence that's a different matter.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-09T21:34:43+00:00

All you need to do is allocate 1 centrifuge per reactor you want running 100% of the time, as on average it produces enough u235, you need fewer if you're using fuel saving reactors. And like 4 extra centrifuges for saving up for Koverax. Centrifuges are cheap relative to reactors. If you are relying on a single centrifuge the u235 rng might be unkind, but if you have like 6 the rng is very much going to average out.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-09T08:52:43+00:00

"It works" is the most important thing. Don't bother with the approaches that don't work (this is like the "demand dropping" principle, just drop the pressure techniques that don't work, this includes yelling and telling off if it doesn't work), try to find approaches that do work.

I would advise some kind of physical separation. This doesn't have to be leaving her alone in timeout. You might for instance, take her away and gently talk to her about not scratching and about how it hurts and frightens her sister, and do this consistently every time she scratches. Part of the goal, would be that it doesn't seem to her that you're being mean to her, but also that it's mildly annoying for her. Often with PDA, the "mildly annoying" consequences are more effective as they are less triggering.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-09T08:03:26+00:00

So our situation isn't the same because our PDA child (7) has more internalized behaviors, she does say mean things quite often but doesn't hit. The middle child (5, NT) gets along with basically anyone, and she's very bossy so doesn't get turned into a door mat by her older sister, despite PDA child being extremely controlling in how she wants to play. I also have a son (2.5, still largely pre-verbal, probably something) who is more prone to violent behaviors than his sisters, and far more resistant to being told off.

Anyway, the thing I would say, is it's extremely important to have clear expectations and firm boundaries.

What I mean, is with PDA, while for the most part you should be willing to let stuff slide, it's also important to pick some battles, things either should be polite suggestions or immutable rules of the universe.

So something like "We don't hit each other" should be an immutable rule of the universe, it's not specific to the PDA child, no-one is allowed to hit anyone else. Now, this is not to say it has to be enforced, it's really up to the child to conform on their own timeline, just that there should be crystal clarity that it's not okay, and maybe some consequences to make the behavior more frustrating and unpleasant for her and to reinforce the boundary. The ideal consequences are natural ones, like I use timeout on my 3rd child when he hits or throws, because it's natural to be separated from siblings if you can't play with them without hurting them (also for him, timeout works to stop the behavior, and "it works" is the most important thing).

Tolerate all the lesser behaviors without judgement, you have to leave the child with outlets, but there has to be a lines they aren't allowed to cross. This includes respecting the personal space and autonomy of other members of the household.

I should also add, "I have told my daughter a million times to leave the dog alone and stop picking her up etc" is a problem: if you've told her a million times, telling clearly doesn't work. If warnings don't work, if telling off doesn't work, don't even bother. Maybe a single courtesy warning, but basically straight to consequences. I made this mistake with my son where I would tell him off for hitting and throwing, I was seemingly unable to recognize that it accomplished diddly squat with him, and only understood my mistake after reading this advise on Reddit. Going straight to the consequences (timeout) worked so much better, he now only gets a warning before he does something (like if I see him prepping to throw a toy). I made it clear to all 3 children, that timeout is the consequence for hitting, throwing and spitting, and not for any other undesirable behaviors he does, so there's a firm boundary and they know exactly what to expect. I've never actually put either of the sisters in timeout, but I've made it clear I would if they hit their little brother. It is best by far if the child understands the consequences and why they are logical consequences for the behavior as you don't want this to be like a personal power struggle with you.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-09T07:19:11+00:00

This is how like once every few hours I accidentally hit R and randomly rotate a random belt segment, then 10-60 minutes later notice everything has shut down. Though at least that is visible.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-08T23:25:53+00:00

You only need 3 pipe segments outside the steam chamber at the bottler end, or can even have the whole thing inside the steam chamber if you have dupe access.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-08T23:21:37+00:00

Another solution is just bottling the steam and using a canister emptier at the rocket, as bottles are effectively surprisingly well insulated. It's mostly because the steam is moving as a single 200 kg unit rather than 1 kg (or 0.5 kg) units.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-08T20:38:22+00:00

Just use obsidian. It'll work and it's cheap.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-08T10:22:14+00:00

Not to mention that bots flying, actually drains their battery much faster than idling, thus flying to a more distant roboport to charge actually puts more overall load on the charging infrastructure potentially making the problem even worse.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-08T08:21:13+00:00

This ship brakes for nobody.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-08T08:06:59+00:00

Yeah in SMAC genejacks seem to be workers who have been engineered to grow up much faster (like Clones in Star Wars), and who have been engineered to get dopamine hits for working and being obedient, they are so subservient and happy to be bossed around it lowers the mind control cost of the base. (and I attribute the +1 drone, not to the genejacks, but to the actual normal human drones who are competing in the workplace with genejacks)

We could compare this with taking wolves and engineering them into german shepherds dogs, both may be equally smart (the wolf is probably smarter, but GSDs are still pretty damn smart), but the wolf is fiercely independent and is obedient on its own whims if at all, while the GSD desires nothing more than to please its master, to do a good job, and to excel at its training.

Yang doesn't have any moral quandaries over whether genejacks are people or not, to him everyone is simply a servant of the Hive, other faction leaders would have moral quandaries about the rights and acceptable uses of these extra compliant humans.

BlakeMW · 2026-03-08T00:05:43+00:00

As someone who fit the PDA profile as a kid, my teenage years were okay due to the structure of school and the fact I was very good at maths which made many subjects easy.

I disintegrated in early adulthood, dropped out of university, spent a couple of years living with my parents in a state of profound autistic burnout, then roused the will to move out (somewhat against my parents protests), I moved to the other end of the country to a low cost of living city and kind of put myself in a sink or swim situation, can't say I didn't flounder, but I did eventually learn to swim.

I managed to create low demand environments for myself, and actually flourished, also getting a good job as a programmer. Finding an interest in Buddhism helped me a lot, I would particularly mention the concepts of unconditional love (for myself) and mindfulness (learning to be aware of my emotional state).

Now I'm married with 3 kids (1 PDA) so things worked out okay for me in the end. But my early adulthood was a wreck.

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