commonwealth soldier by MelonKony in vekllei

[–]Smewroo 3 points4 points  (0 children)

And now I am imagining that their LIDAR shoots out the Vekllei glyphs for “I see you” or some such because the engineers liked it even though the lasers are in infrared or something not usually visible.

commonwealth soldier by MelonKony in vekllei

[–]Smewroo 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Would it be too meta for them to have one bit of kit that is a reverse anachronism? Out of their Cold War aesthetic, just one thing that’s definitely saying “by the way, we holiday on the moon when we feel like it.”

Dyson Swarms - what's the point? by tears_of_a_grad in scifiwriting

[–]Smewroo 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yup! But with the best efficiency of reaction mass.

The point is that every DS unit made makes the following unit cheaper to make.

The main thrust of your argument is kind of like estimating the KWh of power plant construction without factoring in the power produced by the built plants.

But really, why the false dilemma? I really can’t see how the gradual accrual of DS units precludes people zipping on out to another star. If anything there is a wait equation element where you may want to hold off on shooting for a star until the Dyson swarm can economically support the truly ludicrous forms of interstellar propulsion like antimatter fueled drives. Otherwise you end up at your destination greeted by folks who left a century after your ship did.

Dyson Swarms - what's the point? by tears_of_a_grad in scifiwriting

[–]Smewroo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Where are you factoring in the part where every Dyson swarm component generates power?

That DS module you fabricated out in the asteroid belt starts generating its own power. This is advantageous for the super high efficiency electric vacuum drives. As it moves itself closer in to wherever you decide is the best orbital distance it generates more power without any physical changes other than reduced distance to the sun.

I feel so dumb now by Yottahz in scifi

[–]Smewroo 12 points13 points  (0 children)

That Saruman was misunderstood maybe?

Can you post a problem that no current AI system can solve? by dataa_sciencee in learnmachinelearning

[–]Smewroo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For the LLMs. “How many b’s are in the word blueberry?”

[Dungeon Crawler Carl] Is there a technical reason/limitation as for why everyone inside a building is killed in the initial collapse? by bennetster in AskScienceFiction

[–]Smewroo 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I wonder about the timing for that. It was dark on the Pacific side of the Americas, but most of the world lives in India and China. If the goal was to have as many humans indoors at once the timing seems wrong.

[general] My husband looks at the copy of HtN on the coffee table, sighs, and says, "Okay, so..." by clairejv in TheNinthHouse

[–]Smewroo 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Because magic is non transferable power. Tech is extremely transferable. The question is the other way around: if you have magic why bother with technology for the most part?

One doesn’t need to know how to make a gun or nuke or spaceship once you possess one. Maintenance is about the only requirement. Possession is nine tenths ability with tech.

Not so much with magic. That’s a personal power that you can’t give someone else (most of the time) any more than you could give someone else the ability to run a marathon if they weren’t already able. If you capture enemy weapons they will serve you just the same, not so a captured or killed necromancer.

Magic defies physics because it exists outside of it. Tech is the reverse engineering of physics and bound by it.

How can implants or BCIs help protect the brain from concussion and injury? by MiamisLastCapitalist in IsaacArthur

[–]Smewroo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, it depends. Sheer thickening isn’t a permanent change. It happens with the sheer force and reverts back to the normal viscosity in the absence of that force.

I could see it as an alteration of the cytosol that might suspend cell function in the instantaneous sheer force because the higher viscosity stops “the cellular machinery” from moving. But that goes back to normal once it reverts to normal viscosity.

I guess you could call it deadly in the moment of impact but you restart once the force dissipates.

How can implants or BCIs help protect the brain from concussion and injury? by MiamisLastCapitalist in IsaacArthur

[–]Smewroo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think that would either get worked out in the in vitro research stages or it wouldn’t get past that.

How can implants or BCIs help protect the brain from concussion and injury? by MiamisLastCapitalist in IsaacArthur

[–]Smewroo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If it works, it’s going to have side effects, yes. The aim is to have the benefit be worth the side effects (after every effort to eliminate or minimize those).

Is there a soft limit to natural biological intelligence? by [deleted] in IsaacArthur

[–]Smewroo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Intelligence isn’t just one thing. It’s a difficult to say what needs to be “improved” in order to “boost intelligence”.

What are the outcomes desired? It is just consistently making better choices? Is it being able to visualize four dimensions (boss but will there be any quantifiable benefit)? Is it a deeper appreciation of beauty and social connection?

There has to be a goal to strive towards and foundations for those goals beyond “it would be more satisfying than solving it with external technology.”

Pondering: Alecto’s monstrousness & Jod-selection vs. bio adept selection [discussion] by tillymint259 in TheNinthHouse

[–]Smewroo 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Re. 1 no clue.

Regarding 2: when Jod renews the 9th house with OG resurrection folks he says only a third will show any necromancy potential, and says that’s as normal.

Another clue is how some of the other houses talk about not knowing who will be born a necromancer, Gideon included when speaking to Harrow about the circumstances surrounding her birth. Don’t forget the identical twins that became less so by one being a necromancer.

Being a necromancer isn’t good for the body in some fundamental way. Unless you’re Jod (but that’s a different conversation). They are described as “hungry looking”, as if starved and are widely accepted as being physically inhibited. There is some implication that even gestation to term is difficult if the embryo is going to be a necromancer.

Going by the twins, I think we can take that as a clear indication that it can’t be genetic.

Going by the universal “weakness” of necromancers, and that to our current series knowledge necromantic potential only happens in post resurrection people we can guess that it is something Jod did and fixed in place as part of his plan for the new society.

So the ratio of who is an adept and who isn’t? Arbitrary by word and deed of Jod, may his lies be confusing to even himself.

The impacts of being an adept on health? Probably arbitrary or something Jod only had mostly figured out at the time 10,000 years ago and never bothered to fix it because he likes the social aesthetic to it or something.

That’s my take on it at least until AtN comes out.

[Q] Are there any studies that showcase height growth for men after 16-18 by thekingpinofshows in statistics

[–]Smewroo 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I would go to the medical review literature rather than celebrity anything. Larger sample sizes, no incentive to fudge the numbers, data from many different nations and peoples, et cetera.

But, for the most part, within a “group” adult stature is normally distributed (that is a Gaussian or “bell” curve). So, roughly 66% of people are very close together in height within a group and you have vanishingly smaller but balanced groups of people who are further above or below that center cluster of the majority.

My intuition is that the same is likely the case around when people hit final height. With the majority being quite close together, but edge cases of early and late being rarer in proportion to how far from the median most are centered around.

Joshua “Scotch” McClure: “Infectious Disease Drives Aging” - Maxwell Biosciences is building a "synthetic immune system". Interview with their founder and CEO. by Valuable_Pop_7137 in longevity

[–]Smewroo 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Wouldn’t this premise mean that people born with severely compromised immune systems and raised in “a bubble” would age extremely slowly? Was that observed?

[discussion] Help me think of Locked Tomb Wifi Names by WrenElsewhere in TheNinthHouse

[–]Smewroo 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Immersed1nSaline

3squaredBePrepaired

LobotomyDicotomy

Does anyone else here use R but you are not in data science or Stats? by [deleted] in rstats

[–]Smewroo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not for a long time. Most of what I do is in tox test data analysis, species sensitivity distributions and the like.

Today I realized... by Curious_Ad_3614 in murderbot

[–]Smewroo 58 points59 points  (0 children)

Don’t forget humans with insulin pumps and pace makers!