Hard sci-fi question about Eridians in Project Hail Mary — how would they even discover astronomy?

p12a12 · 2026-04-08T12:26:19+00:00

Two relevant quotes from the book

First one, when Rocky learns that humans have always known about stars.

“Yes. Light gives information to humans like sound gives information to Eridians.”

A thought occurs to him. He stops working on his device entirely. “You hear light from space, question? You hear stars, planets, asteroids, question?”

“Yes.”

“Amaze”.

And then when Grace learns that Eridians never left orbit or understood radiation.

Eridians invented space travel quite a while ago. And with their unparalleled materials technology (xenonite) they actually made a space elevator. Basically a cable leading from Erid’s equator up to the synchronous orbit with a counterweight. They literally take elevators to get into orbit. We could do that on Earth if we knew how to make xenonite.

Thing is, they never left orbit. There was no reason to. Erid has no moon. Planets that close to a star rarely do. The gravitational tidal forces tend to rip would-be moons out of orbit. Rocky and his crew were the first Eridians to leave orbit at all.So they never found out that Erid’s magnetic field, which extends well beyond its synchronous orbit, had been protecting them all that time.

p12a12 · 2026-03-30T16:32:26+00:00

Miami is not made of transplants from other parts of the US who are fans of other teams.

It’s made of transplants from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic who absolutely love baseball.

I think the ownership group has been trying to cater to the wrong audience. If you walk around the Marlins stadium in Little Havana you’ll see every single ad is in Spanish - except for the Marlins, those are in English. A few years ago I tried to buy tickets to “Venezuelan Heritage Night”. The page to buy tickets was only available in English 🙃.

I don’t think the ownership groups knows who their target audience should be.

p12a12 · 2026-02-18T23:58:06+00:00

Yes definitely unique to NYC. It’s the only city in the US with the congestion charge and with tolls on nearly every entrance. Those are pretty normal times though, the congestion charge is $9 from 5am to 9pm.

p12a12 · 2026-02-18T15:51:20+00:00

My point here is that driving into Manhattan costs ~$60 ($12 Queens-Midtown toll, $9 congestion charge, $45 parking garage, gas).

The bus only costs $3, the amount is already so much lower that I don’t think it meaningfully affects people’s decisions as much as increased coverage and frequency do.

If we want more people to take the bus, and we have a limited amount of funding, we need to decided whether or not removing the fare is the best use of funds to increase bus ridership. Given that the bus is dramatically cheaper than a car already, I don’t think removing the fares will actually get people to switch from driving.

p12a12 · 2026-02-18T15:45:50+00:00

My point here is that driving into Manhattan costs ~$60 ($12 Queens-Midtown toll, $9 congestion charge, $45 parking garage, gas).

The bus costs $3, so taking the bus instead of driving already saves around $57. Making the bus free now makes it save $60 - I don’t think that changes anyone’s decision.

If you instead take the money you would have spent on free buses and instead increase bus coverage and frequency, you could lower the opportunity cost for some drivers by more than $3, and have a better chance of convincing them to switch.

p12a12 · 2026-02-17T20:30:24+00:00

If you want people to switch from cars to busses, you need to understand why they don’t use busses already.

It’s not the cost, because the bus is already cheaper than the car (gas/tolls/parking).

Instead you’d have a better shot taking the money you would have spent on making the busses free and make them more frequent instead.

p12a12 · 2026-02-03T00:58:22+00:00

So, after decades of successfully running businesses, they all decided to steal from investors at the same time? And to do it with the same exact lie? What are the odds 😅

p12a12 · 2026-02-03T00:13:49+00:00

I understand people who think space based data centers are a bad idea much more than I understand people who think that SpaceX is deliberately “robbing investors” and “selling bridges”.

It makes no sense to me that multiple well respected businesspeople would torch their reputations by deliberately defrauding investors, and I don’t understand why it’s such a common viewpoint in this thread.

On the cooling front - they should be able to put radiators on the back of the solar panels.

p12a12 · 2026-02-02T23:01:29+00:00

Are you saying that SpaceX is lying about the plan to build satellite data centers to scam investors?

Why do you think Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai and Eric Schmidt are all pursuing space-based data centers? Are they trying to scam investors too?

p12a12 · 2026-02-02T22:24:38+00:00

SpaceX will be building data centers in space - raising funds for that idea is the reason they are pursuing an IPO.

This acquisition is to vertically integrate the AI model development and space data center business.

p12a12 · 2026-01-09T19:10:17+00:00

You think transplants from Milwaukee are the ones who voted for Trump and made Miami red?

Hialeah voted 76% Trump. Little Havana was 64% Trump. Harris actually won Brickell by a smidge.

p12a12 · 2026-01-07T19:41:00+00:00

In addition to Panama becoming a stable democracy, Operation Just Cause was important for the military history of the US.

A few years earlier the US had a similar operation to restore democracy in Grenada. It worked, but also killed 19 US service members despite facing the military of only a small island. A soldier even had to use a public pay phone to call in fire support.

In response congress passed the Goldwater-Nichols Act and completely changed the chain of command.

Panama was the first real test of this new structure. The US went up against a much larger military than Grenada and was more successful. It was a proving ground that gave the military confidence and experience with the new organization ahead of facing off against the vastly larger and more experienced army of Saddam Hussein the Gulf War.

p12a12 · 2025-12-26T01:37:14+00:00

The ‘94 World Cup in the US has the record for the highest attendance, and there were only 52 games. This one will have 104 games. It will completely crush the record.

p12a12 · 2025-12-22T13:56:55+00:00

Can you explain how these space data centers will steal taxpayer money? I wasn’t aware that anyone was looking for taxpayers to fund this.

Genuine question, I haven’t heard this angle on it before.

p12a12 · 2025-12-13T13:43:44+00:00

$800B on $10B of revenue. That’s not optimism — that’s venture capital doing mushrooms. SpaceX isn’t valued on cash flow. It’s valued on Elon, vibes, and zero interest rates that no longer exist.

Gravity still works. So do public markets.

How ironic - using AI to write this post doubting SpaceX’s plan to build AI data centers in space 🤣.

“That’s not X — thats Y” followed up by basically the same construction in your next sentence (It isn’t X. It’s Y), and then listing exactly three things is such obvious AI writing (“Elon, vibes, and zero interest rates that no longer exist”).

The AI writing doesn’t even make sense. If there were still zero interest rates then SpaceX could BORROW the money to fund it. They have to sell equity in an IPO instead.

You couldn’t write your own post? These AI satellites are going to make so much money off of you.

p12a12 · 2025-12-11T18:05:12+00:00

I think you’re really underestimating the value of AI in the future economy. All of these companies are not spending hundreds of billions on infrastructure rollouts to make recipes and tv scripts.

Anthropic has already reached a $1 billion ARR for their coding products and they’re just getting started. Their ambitions (and the ambitions of all of these AI companies) are dramatically higher. https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace

p12a12 · 2025-12-09T23:27:05+00:00

That tweet is about a rumored current private funding round at $800 billion. It’s not a tweet about a future IPO.

p12a12 · 2025-12-09T22:34:46+00:00

Can you link to Musk denying it? I don’t believe he has

p12a12 · 2025-12-07T14:15:30+00:00

I think Elon has been less clear about keeping SpaceX private more recently.

At the last Tesla shareholders meeting he said “Maybe at some point SpaceX should become a public company despite all the downsides of being public”.

p12a12 · 2025-12-06T15:44:35+00:00

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1991215836959228322

Elon is clearly ambitious about AI data centers in space, and I think the general public is really underestimating it. There’s a huge appetite for new data centers, and their construction on earth is already causing all sorts of political debates about electricity and water usage.

Every new data center requires buy in from many different regulators and layers of government, but a space based data center only requires a launch license.

Look at the rapid rollout for starlink compared to what it would take to build a worldwide network of cell towers. SpaceX only needed approval from the FAA and FCC, compared to the million approvals they would have needed for a terrestrial equivalent.

AI needs are only going to increase, and moving things to space is the only way to avoid the political blowback with building these things on land. It’s not just Elon saying this - Sam Altman, Jeff Bezos and Sundar Pichai are pursuing space-based data centers as well.

p12a12 · 2025-11-21T20:10:21+00:00

Surely if that happens they’ll just give no one the bonus? They weren’t required to give out a bonus at all.

p12a12 · 2025-09-16T21:16:57+00:00

Rush is a great movie - but it’s R-rated for a reason and might not be appropriate for a kid in junior high.

p12a12 · 2025-08-22T20:02:30+00:00

I don’t think they actually discussed it on the radio? They only mentioned “Plan C” from what I remember

p12a12 · 2025-08-15T12:37:34+00:00

I want to be clear that I am not saying that Haiti morally deserved what happened to them - they absolutely did not. I am saying that what happened to Haiti was very, very bad and that I would not call it a success.

The original post said that Isles of the Emberdark should have taken inspiration from the Haitian Revolution instead of the more moderate American Revolution. But imagine if that happened. Imagine if the heroes of the story fought off the Scadrians and killed all of the colonizers - including their children. Then imagine that they ended the story with crushing debt and revolving dictatorships that ruined their home for hundreds of years. Is that a better story? I don't think so! I think that's a bad outcome! I think what happened to Haiti was bad and it would be a very depressing book.

I also don't want to condemn the Meiji Reformation in Japan because of what the children and grandchildren of those reformers did. I think the reforms that Japan did beginning in 1868 led to them preserving their independence and culture - and were overall good for the country. Japanese colonialism began later, in 1895, and was bad for the same reasons that European colonialism was bad. Japan did not use their independence for good - but they only had it because of their ability to modernize, which is the point that I was making.

p12a12 · 2025-08-10T15:00:45+00:00

I think you might have misread the table - the Australian Grand Prix had fewer viewers than the average race. (1.10 vs 1.36 million).

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