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Voyager 1 loses contact with NASA, turns on retro transmitter not used since 1981
  • I'm picturing the Voyager 1 terminal is an ancient computer from the 1970s hooked up to a large parabolic antenna, and everyone is afraid to upgrade it because they might mess something up. I'm sure that's not the case, but its what lives in my mind.

    Since I was thinking about it I looked up some stuff: "So Voyager-1 does not “really” have a computer, in the sense that it does not have an operating system or RAM or a microprocessor. It was built in the 60s before any of this was invented and used CMOS-based microcontroller chips from Texas Instruments. Overall, it has a 16-bit processor and a MASSIVE memory of 70 KILOBYTES. That is smaller memory than a thumbnail of a phone image today, but it was enough to send images through which we discovered Jupiter has rings and much more."

    From: https://medium.com/towards-generative-ai/voyager-1-what-computer-system-it-has-that-is-still-running-strong-a269aaea316b

  • Linus Torvalds reckons AI is ‘90% marketing and 10% reality’
  • I recently saw a video of AI designing an engine, and then simulating all the toolpaths to be able to export the G code for a CNC machine. I don't know how much of what I saw is smoke and mirrors, but even if that is a stretch goal it is quite significant.

  • Riverside County: Cop Illegally Enters Mother's Home
  • Agreed. If I were the person getting arrested at the end, my final instructions to my kids as I'm getting arrested would have been to close and lock the door behind me. I suspect the one kid pushed the videographer back because he was worried the cop would try to destroy the evidence. Set that video to upload somewhere and hide the cellphone.

    At a certain point if someone in the house put a gun to that cops head and told him to get out, they would have been in the right.

  • Elon Musk delusionally believes Trump support is not affecting Tesla, claims sales are at 'all-time highs'
  • I don't think Elon is wrong. I went back stateside this summer after being away since 2020, and there were Tesla cars everywhere. My daughter and I made a joke about seeing a cyber truck in the wild thinking it wouldn't happen, and we ended up seeing 3 of them.

    I think most people don't care about politics, and just want a decent EV. There is an old Mark Twain quote about someone who doesn't read the news being uninformed, while the person reading the news is misinformed. I think in todays day and age, ignorance is bliss and uninformed may be the smarter option for your long term health.

  • What's something you did once but won't do again?
  • I broke into a base once. My buddy and I climbed two barbed wire fences to get back onto base after going out drinking. I was unscathed but my buddy tore his shorts up pretty bad. It turned out we were on the golf course. It was 7am in the summer and the sun was coming up and we were getting hot, plus the booze was starting to wear off.

    We ended up stealing a golf cart from the corral, driving it to the local base McDonalds and going through the drive thru with it. Once we got our McMuffins we ditched the golf cart in the parking lot and went to go crash in our barracks rooms. Thank god security was busy that morning. I totally would have gotten a DUI for that golf cart.

  • 'Very sinister': Trump stuns Republicans and Dems with on-air 'bad genes' rant
  • he’s the symptom incurred by a mental disease that so many people seem to have.

    It's basically a new religion, right? If this what fills the vacuum when we let go of the old religions... Is it an improvement? It certainly makes me want to be less critical of your average Christian/Jew/Muslim/Flying Spaghetti Monster worshipper.

  • How medical insurance works
  • I feel like we're getting to the point that this needs to be an election deciding issue. It won't be this upcoming election, but probably the one after where the presidency isn't on the line. We need to ignore republican/democrat talking points and elect based on a will to completely revamp the system. Obama tried but it didn't go far enough. Once its bad enough that people are willing to cross party lines to fix it, then you'll see change, and I (probably too optimistically) think we're almost there.

  • How medical insurance works
  • The episode of South park where they walk into this 22nd century insurance building and ask to make a claim. They get sent to the "claims office" and it's like they went back in time to the 1980s with dot matrix printers, rotary dial phones, and fax machines.

    Here is the link if anyone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAfy26xs6e0

  • What's your personal little conspiracy theory?
  • Anti-perspirant causes breast cancer. You look at data for Japan back in the 90's-2000s and breast cancer was like 80 times less prevalent in Japan vs the US. Now Japanese are starting to use it more and breast cancer instances are raising to be more on-par with the US. The NIH did a study that was inconclusive so everyone assumes its not true. However, if you read the study you realize exactly how inconclusive it is, and that the answer was truly more along the lines of: "We don't know".

  • Falling Down (10/10) Movie CLIP - Fore! (1993) HD
  • That movies was so good. I was a teenager with testosterone levels pushing towards psychopathy. I thought he was the hero of the story even after it was over. My mom (I guess correctly) thought he was the bad guy.

    My cousins and I still quote that movie a lot, though its even less PC now than it was back then. "Now THESE are Vietnam Jungle Boots! They're great for..." Back in the day we would scream that shit at each other, now I'd cringe so hard I'd probably pull a stomach muscle.

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