ricecake

joined 1 year ago
[–] ricecake@beehaw.org 4 points 10 months ago

Changes the torque and the application of said torque for each bolt. As in "tool head has 5° of give until in place, then in ramps torque to 5nM over half a second, and holds for 1 second and then ramps to zero over .1 seconds", and then something different for the next bolt. Then it logs that it did this for each bolt.
The tool can also be used to measure and correct the bolts as part of an inspection phase, and log the results of that inspection.
Finally, it tracks usage of the tool and can log that it needs maintenance or isn't working correctly even if it's just a subtle failure.

[–] ricecake@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oh, it's definitely interesting.
I think people here just got rubbed the wrong way because these articles often make it seem like Roman concrete is better than ours, rather than "look what they accidentally did occasionally".

We can make self healing concrete today, we just usually opt not to, because the downsides or unpredictable nature makes it unsuitable for the significant cost increase.
The phrase "the bridge is infested with bacterial spore colonies" isn't one that makes engineers happy.

[–] ricecake@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

We mostly know how they made theirs, and could make our own version of it, but we optimize for different things.
The Romans optimized for "that's cement and it works well", because they didn't have anything close to the level of chemical understanding we do now.
We optimize for strength and predictability. Ours can hold a higher load and will likely need repairing about when we predict.

Roman concrete can sometimes, in certain circumstances and with variable effectiveness, repair certain types of damage by chemically interacting with the environment. So maybe it crumbles in a decade or maybe it lasts a millennium.

Article basically points at some researchers who are looking to see if they can bring that healing capability to modern concrete in a predictable and more versatile fashion.

[–] ricecake@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Hell, I'll take someone who wants to be a billionaire, as long as they do it without exploitation. It's just that that's nearly impossible to do, since very few people actually individually create a billion dollars worth of value.

[–] ricecake@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Look at their actions, not their words specifically.

It's a culture where being unkind is particularly unacceptable, not specifically where you're not allowed to be honest or forthright.

You're allowed to not like someone, but telling someone you dislike them is needlessly unkind, so you just politely decline to interact with them.
You'd "hate to intrude", or "be a bother". If it's pushed, you'll "consider it and let them know".

Negative things just have to be conveyed in the kindest way possible, not that they can't be conveyed.

[–] ricecake@beehaw.org 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Brian Acton is the only billionaire I can think of that hasn't been a net negative.

Co-founded WhatsApp, which became popular with few employees. Sold the service at a reasonable rate.
Sold the business for a stupid large sum of money, and generously compensated employees as part of the buyout.
Left the buying company, Facebook, rather than do actions he considered unethical, at great personal expense ($800M).

Proceeded to cofound signal, which is an open, and privacy focused messaging system which he has basically bankrolled while it finds financial stability.

He also has been steadily giving away most of his money to charitable causes.

Billionaires are bad because they get that way by exploiting some combination of workers, customers or society.
In the extremely unlikely circumstance where a handful of people make something fairly priced that nearly everybody wants, and then uses the wealth for good, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with being that person.
Selling messaging to a few billion people for $1 a lifetime is a way to do that.

[–] ricecake@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

I guess I don't see how a surgeon being unwilling to do maintenance on a non-FDA approved medical device is fucked up.
If it fails to meet the criteria for being safely used in a medical context, it's irresponsible to try to maintain it.

[–] ricecake@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Er, selinux was released nearly a decade before Windows 7, and was integrated into mainline just a few years later, even before vista added UAC.

Big difference between "not available" and "often not enabled".

[–] ricecake@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

FDA approval is contingent on so many factors that even if it was entirely open source, including all hardware design and the instructions for assembly, maintenance, and manufature it would be entirely plausible for it to lose approval if the company responsible for continued development went bankrupt.

Without approval, no reputable surgeon will do anything beyond remove it.

A device not having a clear and unambiguously documented path for addressing defects found in the future is more than sufficient reason to lose approval.

[–] ricecake@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That might just be a growing up near water thing. I think that on average, Canadians live closer to larger bodies of water than Americans do, since more than half are within day trip distance of the great lakes waterway, and then there's Halifax and Vancouver.

Growing up in a place with water, basically everyone I know also has at least a passing knowledge of recreational small watercraft.

[–] ricecake@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

Where I live basically every location is some combination of "French, native American, English, Scandinavian", "pronounced natively or not", and "spelled like it's pronounced or not".

The fun ones are the English pronunciation of the French transliteration of the native word.

[–] ricecake@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Yes, but that's the case regardless. My message going through has always depended on someone else's cell towers, all the random routers and switches in between, and the other person's device.
My server likely has worse uptime, and if I'm hosting from home it probably has more hops to transit through it.

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