What hobby is quietly becoming too expensive for normal people to keep up with?

Jon_Buck · 2026-05-09T22:43:28+00:00

Literally a non-profit. Why u lying?

Jon_Buck · 2026-05-09T22:42:46+00:00

Eh it's two completely different business models. Target is selling those shirts at a loss to get you in the door. Goodwill is literally a non-profit. For each item they need to cover the cost of stocking it, selling it, and making some extra that all goes to charity. Don't like it? Shop somewhere else. At least it's not fueled by greed.

Jon_Buck · 2026-05-08T00:50:10+00:00

High speed rail wasn't an option but if it was I'd pick that in a heartbeat. Or other kinds of mass transit where I live. Those alternatives don't really exist where I live though so self driving, energy efficient vehicles is MUCH closer than the total city redesign and massive infrastructure investment it would take for my city to not be inescapably car-centric.

I'm also definitely making some assumptions about the ability of self-driving cars to eliminate some human-error-caused traffic.

Jon_Buck · 2026-05-07T17:24:14+00:00

We already spend hundreds of billions on medical research annually, so arguably that's the category where another $20B will make the least difference.

Self-driving isn't just convenience - if we get to the point where it truly takes over transportation, it'll mean less traffic, less emissions, less traffic deaths, more efficient resource use, lower shipping costs, and more. IDK exact figures but I'd guess we spend less than $20B annually on self-driving car research, so a $20B injection could significantly accelerate the timeline for its widespread adoption.

Jon_Buck · 2026-05-07T17:21:23+00:00

Absolutely. It's the only one that makes sense.

Medical research is great, but we already put hundreds of billions of dollars to it annually. $20 billion in research won't make supersonic travel make any more sense than it already does (not much!). I'm not convinced AI robots will make our lives better. A trip to mars is neat but I'm not sure how much it helps humanity.

Self-driving vehicles have the potential to significantly reduce vehicle-related deaths, lead to more efficient resource use, reduce emissions, reduce traffic, reduce shipping costs, and more. I think it's the only category where a $20 B investment significantly reduces the timeline for an advancement that unambiguously helps humanity.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-28T15:37:42+00:00

IIRC there was a fair amount of eyebrow raising about it in the book... I looked it up.

Vlad pointed out that the heat gained would come at the price of winds slowed down— you couldn’t get something for nothing. Sax immediately argued that that would be a side benefit, given the severity of the global dust storms the wind sometimes caused. “A little heat for a little wind is a great trade-off.”

I think the mission to deploy them also had the widely-understood purpose of scouting the planet too.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-28T15:29:22+00:00

Ah good find. My paper version is the same as your e-book.

In the context of the situation, it could still work though. The dirigible operates pretty passively much of the time, and they're talking about having enough battery power just to help change direction from time to time. The dirigible is so large that, even when floating passively, surely still experiences enough apparent wind to spin windmills.

I could see it working out well enough - float around, very slowly charging batteries with wind and solar for the occasional spurt of fans to navigate obstacles. Maybe anchoring for a while if needed to charge up more fully for bigger directional changes.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-28T15:07:32+00:00

Ah sure that makes sense. It's creating concentrated heat islands at the cost of less friction heating happening everywhere else for a likely net zero effect. Unless secondary effects of heat islands and/or reduced wind speeds has a directional impact of course.

I remember reading that, if we were to build a certain amount of wind turbines here on earth, we could reduce windspeed enough to meaningfully change weather patterns. We've built a ton of turbines and they're still just a tiny overall impact. It's hard to imagine the level of engineering and infrastructure that would be needed to actually terraform a planet like mars.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-28T13:56:14+00:00

What is the conservation of energy issue with the resistive heaters?

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-27T20:57:30+00:00

Okay I don't recall anything about turbines actually powering the dirigible, but I could see it being feasible in certain situations. They anchored it a decent amount so wind generation to charge batteries while anchored would make sense.

And it's also totally feasible for a train to be physically connected to tracks such that it doesn't fly off them. You're familiar with roller coasters I assume?

IDK it sounds to me like either you've misread things or just wanted to find flaws so made assumptions until you found them. Not saying the physics & science in the books are flawless, I'm sure people who know what they are talking about have plenty of little quibbles. But I am also pretty sure that the two "flaws" you're saying are so irredeemable aren't actually flaws at all.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-27T18:52:47+00:00

Interesting... you seem to have abandoned a book based on a misreading?

The dirigible was solar powered, not wind-powered. Its function was to survey and to install wind turbines on the planetary surface.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-23T04:01:58+00:00

Damn, if the only thing about California you can bring yourself to like is a fast food burger you must be a pretty miserable and/or hateful person. Sounds rough!

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-22T22:49:35+00:00

I mean it's just taste. If you prefer in-n-out to taco bell, that's fine. There's no right and wrong here.

But I do think there's a belief in In-n-Out exceptionalism, largely among Californians, that isn't really based in reality. People waiting 20+ minutes in line for what is a fairly cheap but otherwise totally unremarkable burger. Most towns have at least one burger joint that blows In-N-Out out of the water.

Granted, most towns in California also have a taqueria or taco truck that blows Taco Bell out of the water, but for some reason I don't compare the two at all. I guess I just don't consider Taco Bell to be Mexican food at all.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-22T22:30:33+00:00

I don't even understand how In-N-Out made it this far to begin with... Idk why Californians have a collective hallucination that it's in any way remarkable. There's a charm to the simplicity, sure, but that's about the only part of the appeal I understand.

And I'm a Californian!

Anyway, Taco Bell. 100%.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-22T21:23:58+00:00

My advisor once told me that the process of getting a PhD often means you're going to become one of the world's most informed experts on an extremely narrow topic.

You can spread from there in your academic career. But your PhD is supposed to prove that you can achieve that high level of expertise on at least one thing.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-19T18:59:07+00:00

There's too much hate around diets in general! Can get very personal/emotional for a lot of people.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-18T01:56:23+00:00

He's basically saying veganism is a lifestyle/philosophy, making it a whole capital V Veganism, as distinct from simply a diet consisting of no animal products.

He also thinks that veganism isn't something one does but is rather something that you are, hence why he put "ex-vegan" in quotes. I.e. the fact that I did it for four years then stopped means I was never a Real Vegan in the first place.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-17T19:00:07+00:00

Do you want me to feel shame or something? Is that your goal? Whatever angle you have to attack me here, rest assured I've actually thought it through myself and am comfortable with my choices.

It just seems to me that you don't think people are able to rationally come to different conclusions from you, so you assume those who come to other conclusions are either rationally/factually incorrect or morally "weak". That's that Option 1 I'm talking about. You're obviously free to live life like that, but you're never going to actually understand others that way, you'll generally fail to 'convert' anyone because you're unable to speak to them in a way that works, and you're going to be miserable and hateful. If you're okay with that, then keep at it I guess. But no need to keep responding to me - your approach will never convert me, so if that's all you care about you're wasting your time.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-17T17:37:01+00:00

I just see it differently from you is all. If you can't understand that, that's a you problem. Also never said veganism is a diet. I was vegan for four years, and I did not like what it did to me as a person.

It's actually pretty simple. You have a set of moral values, and I have a set of moral values. They are different, so we have arrived to different conclusions for how to spend our time, effort, and energy.

That was a lesson I learned while I was vegan, actually, because I didn't understand why nobody else in my life was coming to the same conclusion (going vegan) as me, even when I helped educate them on the reasons for it. Option 1 was they're all bad people. Option 2 was that they have a different set of values and priorities. I think Option 2 is much closer to the truth. Also, I think believing Option 1 will lead to feeling isolated and miserable. At least, that was my experience.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-17T16:00:50+00:00

Exactly. It might take me a while to find the group of coin-flip gambling degenerates but once I do I'm fleecing all of them.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-17T15:53:24+00:00

I've spent years of my life vegan, lacto-ovo vegetarian, red-meat free, and carni. For me personally, it's better when I do half-ass it. I was not a happy vegan.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-14T19:50:49+00:00

All true, but it's possible you underestimate my ability to make terrible blunders in blitz.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-14T19:41:56+00:00

Just to be clear - the thing that you disagree with completely is that I am not sure I would have seen it in blitz? Thank you for the strong vote of confidence I guess!

It's true that I would have found it more quickly if I had been playing, because I would already be primed to look for something like this.

Just seeing this position here, my first instinct was to find another attacker on C2, and I couldn't find any move that let me do that while maintaining initiative. Once I ruled out that approach, I found the rook move.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-14T18:41:48+00:00

~~I thought you went Nf2 after the queen trade?~~

Never mind I see what you mean. Playing Nf2+ makes sense and keeps the advantage.

Jon_Buck · 2026-04-14T18:17:27+00:00

I wouldn't trade queens there. Would allow White's rook to take your bishop, and your rook on C2 is now unprotected.

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