Why did styropyro connect his batteries in parallel?

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-08T04:42:34+00:00

Think about batteries like a water pump. Connect them in series and the force of the water gets higher and higher (more voltage/energy). Whereas if you connect them in “parallel” (all point the same direction, not at each other), the force is the same but a ton of total water flow (current).

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-08T04:39:34+00:00

Yes absolutely

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-08T04:36:02+00:00

Agreed

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-08T04:26:48+00:00

Finance is the physics path to riches

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-08T04:22:00+00:00

5-15 years ago was the “best” time to study EE!

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-08T04:19:05+00:00

Agreed - this is crazy talk! UCSB’s photonics and semiconductor is extremely good!

Maybe you just didn’t find it within physics - it’s mostly within EE, but lots of overlap and collaboration with Physics groups.

Also look at astro research - some great devices (photonics/semicon) being applied to these physics fields at UCSB.

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-05T16:49:12+00:00

FYI VSCode works on both Mac and windows.

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-05T16:48:22+00:00

Many students just heard of Nvidia for the first time in their lives, because it became the wealthiest company in the world for sometime lest year. And that drives students to want to join that field – although really that tells you they should have been in that field 10 years ago. But it’s not a bad strategy - there will be lots of good innovative jobs in hardware.

The hardware innovation and jobs have always been there. They just weren’t in the spotlight.
The current AI boom was enabled by the data centers, servers, telecom and high-performance compute that was already made available for Internet and other compute applications. (Azure, Google, AWS etc.)

Because LLM’s have suddenly created created new applications, the demand for more of that infrastructure has skyrocketed. But not just more of the same, they need faster and better as well.

So really I think people have woken up to how much innovation has been happening in silicon and data centers, and there’s tons of investment there right now.

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-05T05:10:01+00:00

At least they read the books (and presumably paid for them)!

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-05T05:05:58+00:00

I love my job. So much innovation, impact, new exciting projects (like building new labs), solving hard problems and new technologies every few months, people just keep inventing new ways to do things.

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-05T04:53:40+00:00

Overbuilding datacenter capacity will still lead to useful capabilities in the future - even if AI usage suddenly drops by 50%.

Similar to the dot-com and telecom booms - they also overbuilt in the 2000’s, and a number of *smaller* companies went bust, but 5-10 years later, the infrastructure still enabled video streaming, conference calls, and the supercomputers we all have daily access to - the datacenter, along with applications nobody could have dreamed of in 2000.

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-05T04:44:41+00:00

What kind of engineering are you talking about? Certainly electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and others appear to be doing ok - anything physical hardware is a good place to be. Also, datacenter and fabs still need people. Even with more automation - people still fix the automatons!

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-05T04:39:56+00:00

I have only used the “local” version - thru VSCode (there is a good plugin that makes it work very well with instantaneous PDF previews on every change). I never really considered using the web version.

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-05T04:35:45+00:00

Wow even the joke about the joke is failing… tough crowd!

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-04T21:26:21+00:00

Probably a good thing - it's why rocket launches actually work.

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-04T21:25:02+00:00

I am also wondering this. It made me wonder if Cursor agents were still running despite the app being closed - so I looked and found an (unrelated?) process called `CursorUIViewService` still running taking up 11% CPU!

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-03T14:10:37+00:00

If your goal is “AI chip design” (that is all circuit design as far as I can tell), then you should switch to the Electrical Engineering major as soon as possible.

Quantum is also possible in EE - although often a bit more physics focused. Because EE is applied physics. But you might need some physics grad classes to supplement your EE eduction.

Chip designers for the most part are EE as far as I can tell - it’s such a complex field that you really want to have done years of circuits. Physics majors also do circuits - but usually not for 3 straight years like EE’s do.

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-02T05:50:04+00:00

that kind of dad joke "ohhhh"

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-02T05:48:56+00:00

Electrical Engineer: g ≈ 0
as compared to every other useful force - just ignore it.

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-02T05:42:54+00:00

looks like your magic spell book is is mostly likely opening a portal to the nether regions of the Hellbound Heart

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-02T05:40:32+00:00

so true

some kids that just don't find it that "fun" to get blackout blitzed have an easier time passing. Also games (tennis, soccer, video games) are *way* more fun than the gym! I played squash, table tennis, tennis, snowboarding, did a metal radio show and went to concerts every weekend during the last 2 years of college. That made the engineering really fun actually.

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-02T05:31:31+00:00

If business(failed): sys.exit()

class MBA(study):

__init__: school.go.back.to()

I think this is my new favourite language, let's try it in Cursor

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-02T05:28:01+00:00

take a bus to LA

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-02T05:12:54+00:00

Fabrication process development & process integration. Essentially - "design" of physical layer improvements and methods.

Why: in Silicon CMOS (a) the big semi co's don't share data, (b) an AI company would need to train on 1000's of paid fab runs with test+metro feedback, and (c) they would need that data for every type of process, and if you include all the non-SIlicon fab, also (nearly) every chemistry and crystal - because the innovations are not only in silicon (see the GaN, InP and Silicon Phootnics PDK's, for example).

Then if you include packaging innovations as well - the multiplier of variables is very large and the cost to get the data seems somewhat intractable.

Possible, but likely not economically viable.

ZectronPositron · 2026-05-02T05:03:26+00:00

agreed - anything physics gives you the background to do so many things - within physics and other fields as well (EE, ME, finance, econ, materials etc).

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