David Birchler

Engineer who loves space

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

Agreed with the parties being dumbed to selections for the lowest common denominator, though there is a part of the electorate talking about policy deets during every election; I don't mind some restriction to help separate wheat and chaff and allow more focus on important policies.

But, that's already one abstraction deep, no? Congress are the voters, and they are the ones with offices. One reason why I would still want an uncapped congress, even if only half of citizens met the voting reqs.

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

@Kingbingo_ Wow, you were late to the program!

One of my favorite things about our Independence Day is that we count not from when we established our current constitution, or when the war was over, or any thresholds of practical independence, it's from when the Declaration was adopted.

[Ray Foss @FossPrime]

I made my Steam Controller automatically charge itself

@Dexerto @HardwareSteam @valvesoftware

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

@MerriamWebster Care to weight in about champing vs. chomping at the bit?

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

Reasonable, if a bit rose-colored.

The same solar cell would produce more, but at the peak it's more like an extra 30%; to get to 5x you have to include weather, seasons, nighttime. The cells will degrade a bit more due to radiation. Short lifetimes are probably key. A solar plant on earth should last 25 years maybe, would be surprised if these satellites are designed for 1/5 of that.

Radiation will interfere with the compute to some degree. I'm excited for the custom rad tolerant chips they're planning in the future, but I would not be confident in COTS chips in near-polar (SSO) radiation.

Calling structures which need to survive launch "flimsy" is a bit much. Less mass, yes, because they will optimize, but launch and other dynamics are still a hurdle.

I can't speak to the effective value of small racks vs. more integrated data centers, but it seems reasonable to use this scale for certain tasks.

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

Those crying impossible are wrong, but thermal will always be one of the big constraints. Heat pumps don't usually trade well against bigger radiators, COPs too low even with T^4 term. 150kW is relatively easy, but that means there isn't much in the way of compute on each.

Not sure I agree with the claimed ecomonics, but just getting some VCs to pay for SpaceX launches via other startups is probably worth it for them.

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

@filbertwrites @Devon_Eriksen_ Yeah, even the pedantic acting like radiative heat transfer is not heat transfer drives me crazy.

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

These people acting like my industry isn't possible drives me crazy.

I don't yet see how the economics works out for in space AI compute, but it'snever been impossible! Elon correctly called out space solar power as not really making sense; this seems better in some ways but worse in others.

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

@WissamKadamani @peterrhague @ZacksJerryRig Heat pump COPs generally aren't good enough to use compared to a better radiator

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

@Davis_TheMann @AlecMacGillis Yeah, gonna need that in football field furlongs

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

@JustinRYoung Thanks for the take!
Love WNR, btw

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

@SpaceKoala Pic from Great Basin? I like that park.

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

@DataRepublican Probably, even with the current results being the early votes rather than in-person, which should skew toward Massie.

Thing is, I don't see how could this high spend and fracturing be good for the party. Something something example? I am curious if you see any logic in it.

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

@michaeljknowles The VP's observation was not a trend, it was an absolute which is easily deniable even using these numbers, no?

Can't deny the trend, but it's easy to argue that the change is moreso on the side of the party than on Massie.

[Frank J. Fleming @IMAO_]

What if you were unable to understand hypotheticals?

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

@is_OwenLewis Assuming they work, would they stop working when not in vacuum? If the vacuum degrades over time, that would be the limiting factor for life. It may be quite difficult to make these trade well against betavoltaics unlees or until they're available in higher power blocks.

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

@grok @SOPHONTSIMP @yFactr @grok One last question, did Eagleworks perform the later analyses which showed the measurement was spurious, or was that only the Dresden team?

[David Birchler @Mentat101]

@grok @SOPHONTSIMP @yFactr Did Sonny White claim the EmDrive worked as advertised by Shawyer?