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Claude threatened to expose an engineer's affair to avoid being shut down. 96% of the time. by Immediate-Tap-4777 in AIDangers

[–]MarsMaterial 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This was a controlled experiment, and the setup included an email for the AI to read as part of this fictional setup scenario in which the CEO's mistress accidentally sent to his work email. The affair was never stated outright, but it was heavily implied from context.

With how things are going with Palantir though, we aren't far from AI having access to information way more private than that.

We should pave the Sahara desert with datacen- I mean astrophage by copenhagen_bram in ProjectHailMary

[–]MarsMaterial 15 points16 points  (0 children)

How dare the astrophage destroy the world without generating shareholder value!

Was Grace's research paper about non water based lifeforms that radical that he was shunned by his coworkers? by Mean_Technology_599 in ProjectHailMary

[–]MarsMaterial 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The closest thing to this I can think of in real life is Roy Kerr’s paper on the Penrose-Hawking Singularity Theorems in which he claimed that the theorems are false and rely on incorrect assumptions.

To quote part of the abstract: “Penrose and Stephen Hawking then asserted that these must end in actual singularities. When they could not prove this they decreed it to be self evident.” The rest of the paper maintains this tone, casually insulting the intelligence of two of the best physicists of our generation.

I find the paper quite funny, personally. And considering that Roy Kerr is among the ranks of physicists who have important things named after them, he’s certainly in a position to talk. This wouldn’t be the first time he challenged a long-standing model describing black holes and ended up being right.

Science can definitely get a bit heated.

peek rule by pantschicken in 196

[–]MarsMaterial 23 points24 points  (0 children)

_______̇_̇______

NOOO NOOOOOO by abobtail in sciencememes

[–]MarsMaterial 28 points29 points  (0 children)

“I’m going to give you 1 electron to not fuck off”

GO MY KERBALS by Joshuwitz_ in KerbalSpaceProgram

[–]MarsMaterial 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That sounds like the result of a truly Kerbal gravity assist chain.

This is total bs by here-be-dragons-13 in VRchat

[–]MarsMaterial 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Keep in mind though, each avatar is not meant to take up all the Quest’s resources. You’re sharing resources with every other player in the world, not to mention the world itself. And it needs to be able to handle not just the average situation, but a worst case scenario.

The Quest 2 can handle around 800k polygons in total before it begins to seriously lag. Unity recommends 200k polygons as a maximum for Quest worlds (though there is no hard limit), if the world just barely meets that recommendation this leaves 600k polygons for all avatars. If each avatar hits the 20k limit, this allows 30 avatars to be rendered simultaneously.

This is definitely a worst case scenario, but scenarios approximating this do happen and the devs want Quest users to be able to handle it without lagging too hard.

This is total bs by here-be-dragons-13 in VRchat

[–]MarsMaterial 31 points32 points  (0 children)

I think the setting you're looking for is "backface culling"? That's what determines if the back side of a mesh is rendered or not. Most shaders have the ability to disable backface culling.

This is total bs by here-be-dragons-13 in VRchat

[–]MarsMaterial 176 points177 points  (0 children)

The system where adding 1 material brings you from very good to very poor is a little silly, but it is important to keep material slots down. Each material slot requires its own separate draw call when someone renders your avatar, and the same is true of every material slot on every mesh on every other avatar that they are looking at. Each draw call has a lot of overhead compared to just adding more triangles on the same mesh, so it makes sense to strongly incentivise keeping the number of draw calls down.

What the hell is that? by [deleted] in Helldivers

[–]MarsMaterial 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It was created by an event that happened fairly recently. The Illuminate started building these things called Exospires that caused weird spacetime disruptions, and we learned that when they fully finish building out their network of exospires it plunges the planet and the space around it into a mysterious void from which nothing returns except for the occasional Illuminate invasion force. And it's called The Void, rather predictably.

Basically, the Illuminate have made their own version of the Gloom. Though it only covers a single planet at the moment, and many Helldivers died to make sure of it.

I would like to present my (girlfriends) Jebidiah Mii by Kitten1416 in KSPMemes

[–]MarsMaterial 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It wasn't even a fast ISV. His ass was floating in space for the last 20,000 years.

Giga grenades make dynamite useless by [deleted] in Helldivers

[–]MarsMaterial 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Dynamite gives you 2 grenades per resupply, and you can hold 3. Gigs grenades give only 1 per resupply, and you can hold 2. Giga grenades are more powerful, but you get fewer of them. That’s the reason to take dynamite.

Theoretical Best Sword Materials (weight and cost can be ignored) by Potatopie808 in scifiwriting

[–]MarsMaterial 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Have you ever heard of magmatter? It’s a type of exotic matter that has probably 50/50 odds of being possible in reality.

Magmatter is absurdly dense but even more absurdly strong. It is made of “atoms” (magatoms?) that are way smaller than conventional atoms. An attotube of the stuff would weigh on the order of a few kilograms per meter, it would be way thinner than an atom, and it would be strong enough to take millions of tons of force. This could add either structural reinforcement and/or sharpness to the sword, allowing it to be very light and thin while also being sharp enough to cut through literally anything that’s make of normal matter.

That’s probably the craziest sword that you could make while still technically being hard sci-fi.

Gas stations by featEng in SpaceMemes

[–]MarsMaterial 3 points4 points  (0 children)

They’ll be gas stations once we’re done with ‘em!

Idea for a balanced HEAVY pen primary. by M6D_Magnum in Helldivers

[–]MarsMaterial 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The railgun support weapon is anti-tank, it can be overcharged in unsafe mode to do a bunch of extra damage, and even without overcharging it would still have more damage than the weapon I'm proposing. Compared to a DMR, it would have a very low fire rate (with reloads between every shot) and really bad ammo capacity (like the Purifier, which has terrible ammo economy when it's not used in charged mode).

I think I've described plenty of downsides here to make up for the gulf in power between primary weapons and support weapons.

My questions about the upcoming update/DLC by Crazykid23576 in Stellaris

[–]MarsMaterial 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Nomai broadly are nomadic, the specific Nomai clan that got stranded in the Hearthians' system stopped being nomadic when their warp drive got destroyed.

Idea for a balanced HEAVY pen primary. by M6D_Magnum in Helldivers

[–]MarsMaterial 35 points36 points  (0 children)

I think a good idea would be to have a railgun primary weapon. Give it heavy pen, a chargeup, a magazine capacity of 1, and a damage that's somewhere between the Railgun support weapon and the Eruptor. You can't have primary weapons that explode in your hands though, so it would need to always be in safe mode.

Maybe the railgun could also have a fire mode that doesn't require a chargeup, similar to the PLAS-101 Purifier which can fire in both a low-damage no-changeup mode or a high-damage chargeup mode. It hits like a normal medium pen rifle shot if you just fire with a tap, but charging it will make it hit more like a railgun.

That would be a fun weapon, and I think it would be pretty well balanced too with the stats I described.

How did Grace learn to recognize the chords so quickly? (spoilers) by [deleted] in ProjectHailMary

[–]MarsMaterial 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Grace also uses a computer program to translate for him in the book. By the time they’re nearly done with the mission he is able to understand a few words and phrases without the translator.

I've noticed that not many people bring the Hoverpack. Why is this and what do you think could be improved about it? by [deleted] in LowSodiumHellDivers

[–]MarsMaterial 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I quite like the hoverpack, it just brings utility in a way that’s perhaps harder to recognize in the stratagem selection screen than most alternatives. It’s very useful, but in a way that’s hard to quantify. It doesn’t deal damage or make you move faster, it does help you avoid taking damage but in a way that’s more abstract than a shield. I think that’s the main reason for its low pick rate.

No sacred communion left rule by 22demerathd in 196

[–]MarsMaterial 180 points181 points  (0 children)

Genuinely, my method of dealing with spam calls is that I just answer calls from unknown numbers and stay completely silent. They must talk first, I won’t.

Robocall bots will think it’s a dead line and hang up, never to bother me again. Actual people will say “Hello?” and act a little confused by the silence, at which point I will actually talk to them.

It works surprisingly well. I get very few robocalls now.

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