u/FlatAssembler

Korištenje energije iz fosilnih goriva, kao što nas je zadnjih nekoliko godina naučilo, moguće je jedino ako je geopolitička situacija dovoljno stabilna, uz to što onečišćuje okoliš. A obnovljivi izvori energije, naravno, generiraju energiju nekontrolirano. Solarne panele generiraju mnogo energije kad je sunce visoko na nebu (primarno zato što onda daje i plavu svjetlost, a ne samo crvenu kao pri izlasku i zalasku sunca, pa fotoelektrični efekt bude snažniji zbog veće frekvencije), a nimalo energije noću, a i vjetroelektrane, naravno, mogu generirati energiju samo onda kada vjetar puše dovoljno jako da vrti krila vjetrenjača, ali ne toliko jako da bi ih oštetio ako ih ne zakočimo, a i uz to razlika u generiranoj energiji je osam puta po (nepredvidivom) dvostrukom ubrzanju vjetra. I, da bismo koristili obnovljive izvore energije, baš iz tog razloga, moramo nekako pohraniti taj višak energije. Za to se obično koriste litij-ionske baterije koje su, naravno, relativno štetne za okoliš.

Eh, sada, moje pitanje je: zašto koristiti litij-ionske baterije kad se na prvi pogled čini da tu energiju možeš pohraniti mehanički: tom energijom dopumpaj vodu na neko visoko mjesto, i onda, kad ti uistinu treba energija (hladne noći kad ne puše vjetar), tu vodu pusti na turbine da generira struju?

Nisam baš neki stručnjak za energetiku, inženjer sam računarstva, i iz Osnova elektrotehnike 1 imao sam trojku, iz Osnova elektrotehnike 2 četvorku, a iz Fizike trojku. Zato pitam.

Why don't you bite the bullet and perform a simple experiment: try to estimate the frequency of something we know for certain how often it happens using Gary-Kleck-like methods? Why don't you make a Gary-Kleck-like study trying to estimate how often people buy new cars? Because you know the results would be that telescoping increases the apparent frequency of those things in such studies massively, rather than just by around 17% (making events that occurred 14 months ago look like they occurred less than a year ago)?

>“Let anyone who believes that a high standard of living is the achievement of labor unions and government controls ask himself the following question: If one had a “time machine” and transported the united labor chieftains of America, plus three million government bureaucrats, back to the tenth century—would they be able to provide the medieval serf with electric light, refrigerators, automobiles, and television sets?”

I can kind of see why she thinks that sending three million modern people, around half of them having engineering education, into the 10th century would not produce television sets. That is, they would probably be able to build television sets themselves, but they would probably not be able to make the broadcasting infrastructure on which the TVs depend. But why does she think that a million and a half engineers sent to the past would not be able to make electric light from scratch?

Iskreno, mene je najviše iznenadilo to što AI relativno lako rješava algoritamske probleme, a veoma teško arhitekturalne. Kad sam 2020. godine imao kolegij Razvoj programske podrške po objektivno orijentiranim načelima, nisam previše pažnje obračao arhitekturalnim obrascima: obrascima stvaranja, strukture i ponašanja. Stekao sam dojam da te stvari i računalo može bez problema raditi tražeći ključne riječi, tipa da ako koristimo riječ "notification" vjerojatno trebamo koristiti Observer uzorak. A često sam sudjelovao, još od osnovne škole, na algoritamskim natjecanjima, i bio sam uvjeren kako za rješavanje algoritamskih problema gotovo uvijek treba neka vrsta kreativnosti. AI mi je rekao na baš pristojan način da sam posve u krivu: AI može rješavati zadatke s algoritamskih natjecanja otprilike jednako dobro kao i najbolji natjecatelji, ali je izuzetno loš u dizajniranju arhitekture programa. To me je najviše iznenadilo. I to dosta neugodno jer ni meni ne ide baš dizajniranje arhitekture programa.

Druga stvar koja me je iznenadila, iako nešto manje, to jest da su veoma brzo nakon LLM-ova koji pišu kôd razvijeni LLM-ovi koji crtaju slike. Čovjek bi očekivao da su oni udaljeni desetljećima, ali nisu, bili su odmah iza ugla. I zapravo je težak inženjerski problem učiniti da ti LLM-ovi, kad crtaju stripove, ne mijenjaju bez razloga detalje u pozadini.

I treće što me je iznenadilo je da je korištenje etimoloških rječnika za AI iz nekog razloga nemoguća misija. Baš sam prije nekoliko mjeseci pitao Poea je li vjerodostojna etimologija da je hrvatska riječ "sažetak" umanjenica od "saga" u značenju "priča". Očekivao sam da će AI trivijalno reći da nije, da "sažetak" dolazi od "sažeti", da je to slavenska riječ i da predatira dolazak germanske riječi "saga" u hrvatski jezik... ali Poe je tvrdio da je ta etimologija vjerodostojna.

Razumijem da AI nekad halucinira. Nedavno sam pitao Claudea nešto o praslavenskoj sintaksi, i on mi je napisao dugačak odgovor prepun besmislica o tome kako je praindoeuropski imao akuzativ s infinitivom i nominativ s infinitivom (a, naravno, praindoeuropski rekonstruira se bez infinitiva). Ali očekivao bih da halucinira samo takve stvari, a ne lako provjerljive etimologije.

So, today, there was a railway accident here in Croatia, presumably caused by a cyberattack (the traffic light allegedly showed green when it should not have). Now, many people in Croatia are complaining that the state company Croatian Railways is investing too much into train safety and too little into making trains faster. Those people, I assume, have libertarian tendencies. But let's imagine that Croatian Railways got privatized and that it indeed invested into making trains faster. Right now, nobody died, there were just dozens injured, primarily because the train was driving just 120 kilometers per hour. But if that was a high-speed railway, wouldn't we expect dozens dead and hundreds injured? Do you think the economic gains would somehow be worth it?

My mother, when I told her I am watching YouTube videos about superbacteria, told me to stop watch them because they create "irrational" fears in me. For context, we both suffer from schizophrenia. And I told her that those are not irrational fears because nearly all scientists agree superbacteria are coming and are a serious problem, at least as serious as global warming. And she told me:

1. "Pandemics of superbacteria are impossible because bacteria don't transmit from person to person, only viruses do.". Allegedly she read somewhere that if you have a bacterial throat inflammation, it cannot spread to somebody else, whereas a viral throat inflammation can. Why she thinks that's a law of nature rather than something that just so happens to be mostly true today is beyond me.

2. "I think that superbacteria is nothing new, that plenty of diseases are caused by bacteria we have not yet discovered and that they are resistant to antibiotics. Cancer is probably caused by some bacteria we have not yet discovered." I understand that sometimes science was mistaken about what causes some disease. They thought it was impossible for a bacteria to cause gastritis because of the acidic conditions in the stomach being unfavorable to bacteria, then later it turned out that some cases of gastritis (but not nearly most of them) are caused by some bacteria. But to say that about many diseases which affect humanity today is just silly, isn't it?

3. "I know where the eggs in the supermarket come from, and people having those chickens are not feeding their chickens with antibiotics." She thinks that the statistics showing that 45% of all antibiotics today are ionophores (antibiotics effective in birds but toxic to mammals) are somehow wildly wrong, but she has no sane explanation as to how they could be.

So, how do you deal with such people without flipping out?

I understand how can somebody think that being afraid of global warming or nuclear war is an irrational fear. Indeed, most scientists think that catastrophies caused by global warming are unlikely, and it's not at all obvious what I or even the government can do about global warming. And every government on Earth is trying to move the world away from the nuclear holocaust, and there is not much I personally can to increase my chances of surviving a nuclear war (nuclear winter). But I don't understand how somebody can think the fear of superbacteria is irrational. Is not it obvious that what the government should do about it is to regulate the use of antibiotics in the egg industry and that what I personally should do about it is to stop eating eggs?

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What about all of those who did what they were told?

When will you admit those are lies that you sold?

You poke fun at humanities,

who tried to into careers turn their hobbies,

you say that's why they are working for Starbucks,

and that's why they aren't making bucks.

But what about all of those who did what they were told?

What about all who gave in to study engineering,

ended up in psychiatric ward for they were bleeding,

please tell me where is their success,

in this world that's such a mess.

You poke fun at trades,

the societies survival ways,

you say with brain one makes money, not with hands,

go ask Hans Moravec how well this statement stands.

You said in school we should ace,

That we should have straight As,

But where is the straight-As student success,

in this world that's such a mess?

You told us learn how to drive,

Now there are robotaxies,

without drivers they thrive.

You told us learn to code,

Now all computers have natural language mode.

When will you admit you sold us lies?

I gave all of my youth for the grades,

But now the value of my diploma fades.

How much could I have had fun,

During my youth that's wasted on the young?

Now I am taking psychiatric medication,

and alcohol and drugs would only give me bad sensation.

What about all of those who did what they were told?

When will you admit those are lies that you sold?

You poke fun at humanities,

who tried to into careers turn their hobbies,

you say that's why they are working for Starbucks,

and that's why they aren't making bucks.

But what about all of those who did what they were told?

What about all who gave in to study engineering,

ended up in psychiatric ward for they were bleeding,

please tell me where is their success,

in this world that's such a mess.

You poke fun at trades,

the societies survival ways,

you say with brain one makes money, not with hands,

go ask Hans Moravec how well this statement stands.

You said in school we should ace,

That we should have straight As,

But where is the straight-As student success,

in this world that's such a mess?

You told us learn how to drive,

Now there are robotaxies,

without drivers they thrive.

You told us learn to code,

Now all computers have natural language mode.

When will you admit you sold us lies?

I gave all of my youth for the grades,

But now the value of my diploma fades.

How much could I have had fun,

During my youth that's wasted on the young?

Now I am taking psychiatric medication,

and alcohol and drugs would only give me bad sensation.

You know, here in the European Union (at least here in Croatia), quite a few people are under the impression that the prices and the amounts of eggs on the market are not determined by the law of supply and demand, but are influenced to a large degree by the government subsidies. And a situation I have found myself in three times by now is that I got the person I am debating with to agree that eggs are probably the main cause of superbacteria by a large margin (by explaining to them that 45% of all antibiotics used today are the bird-only antibiotics called ionophores, and that any bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics is dangerous even if it does not attack humans because the antibiotic resistance genes are usually stored on the plasmids rather than the genophore and so they freely circulate between distantly related bacteria via conjugation), but then they dispute that it's their responsibility to stop eating eggs because supposedly their amount on the market is determined by subsidies.

My first instinct in such a debating situation is to try to explain to them what the Labour Theory of Value is and why it's wrong. You can perhaps shoehorn the government subsidies working into the Adam Smith's economic theory or the Karl Marx'es economic theory, but, ever since the Austrian school of economics, the Labour Theory of Value is rejected. However, in my experience, they will respond by saying that I am not an economist but a computer engineer, and therefore should not be trusted on economic matters.

I have also tried to make them doubt that government subsidies have some huge effects on prices by pointing out to historical anecdotes such as the fact that when Franklin Delano Roosewelt introduced subsidies, the prices of bread actually increased, rather than decreasing... But that also does not convince them.

I have also tried to point them to this one study that actually tried to find a correlation between government subsidies and prices of food and found they have at best very little effect, but they will tell me I am taking my information from a libertarian think-tank rather than from real economists.

Any idea on how to convince them to stop eating eggs?

Romanus vir revertitur domum suo uxori. Media nox est. Uxor irritata dicit ei:

- Dixi tibi te debere esse reversurum ante septimam.

- Et ita egi. Reversus sum ante septimam.

- Quomodo potes dicere id? Nunc est media nox. Duodecima est hora. Ea hora est per quinque horas serior quam septima hora.

- Ah, debebam reversurus esse ante septimam horam? Ego putabam te dixisse voluisse mihi me debere reversurum ante septimam... quomodo ea appellatur... cervisiam.

- Cur tibi talem rem dixissem?

- Censebam te eam rem dixisse mihi ne venturus sim nimis ebrius, ut postea possimus agere quod uxor et maritus in cubiculo agunt simul.

Već skoro sat vremena u Donjem Miholjcu nema TV signala. Zna li netko o čemu se radi?

Naravno, ne impliciram da medicinske sestre i medicinski tehničari nisu važni ljudi: naravno da su važni. Ali samo zato što su važni ne znači da će zarađivati mnogo novaca, ako ponuda bude znatno veća od potražnje. I inženjeri su važni, pa u današnje doba ne zarađuju nešto previše. I zato se sve više smatra da je pogrešno nekome tko nije jako talentiran za inženjerstvo preporučiti da, recimo, ide na FER ili FERIT ili FSB. Ali zar nije predvidljivo da će sestrinstvo uskoro postati ono što je danas inženjerstvo?

Znam da je danas nekako uzus držati takve ankete na Google Formsu, ali kad već imam pretplatu na Azure, zašto da je ne iskoristim i za ovo?

Na Quori se donedavno često pojavljivao meme u kojem John Davis (jedan od poznatijih ravnozemljaša) kaže: "Ja sam inženjer računarstva, i ja kažem da je Zemlja ravna ploča.", a netko mu odgovori: "Ja sam geolog, i ja kažem da računala funkcioniraju tako što u njima postoje mali ljudi.". Zanima me, zar neki ljudi u to uistinu vjeruju?

Znam da to mnogi, uključujući i programere, koriste kao metaforu. Recimo, na kolegiju Razvoj programske podrške po objektivno orijentiranim načelima učili smo kako su neki programi napuhani, i onda oni smrde, i onda ih treba dezodorirati, a komentari su dezodoransi u negativnom smislu te riječi jer samo zamaskiraju neugodne mirise, a ne uklanjaju ih, a najgori neugodan miris u programima je operacija sačmaricom.

I believe I have figured out a perfect response to shut those people up: "So, explain to me, why do naked mole rats have no functioning nociceptors?". The science explains naked mole rats having evolved out of having functioning nociceptors by the fact that naked mole rats in their natural habitat usually have high carbon dioxide levels in their blood, so their nociceptors would, if they were functioning, fire almost constantly and be worse than useless. If carbon dioxide poisoning is not very painful, we need to figure out a new way of explaining why naked mole rats cannot feel pain. And I seriously doubt they are able to.