2+ hour, 5+ min ago  (472+ words) Wavelength-selective agrivoltaics are here: solar panels that are transparent in the wavelengths chlorophyll can use, while generating electricity from other wavelengths. Meanwhile, the harvesting of water from even air people consider dry is an area of intensive development. Active systems…...

6+ day, 19+ hour ago  (28+ words) Cars and trucks are getting bigger, and I had a vague sense that fuel economy regulations were partly to blame. Looking into it, it's hard to say how...

1+ week, 1+ day ago  (23+ words) Abstract Several major technology companies have announced plans to operate AI data centers in orbit. Elon Musk recently claimed: "the lowest-cost pl...

1+ mon, 18+ hour ago  (601+ words) I'm on a plane heading back to San Francisco. I've lived in the Bay Area for most of the years since 2009, and a large fraction of that time the place has felt near the brink of self-driving cars. (Well, everywhere…...

1+ mon, 1+ week ago  (208+ words) There was a recent Hacker News conversation I was part of, that I think is relevant to us here, as a present danger from current-generation LLMs: Just so long as we don't get something that is to LLMs as car-centric…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago  (420+ words) So here is a visualization of AGI forecasts. Criteria for inclusion were: the person has made at least 2 forecasts, they gave specific dates, they gave a sense of confidence interval/uncertainty, and their definitions of AGI are similar. Some major…...

1+ mon, 3+ week ago  (1038+ words) Today, Elon Musk announced his new project for making chips and launching datacenters in orbit. This may have implications for timelines and takeoff forecasting. To encourage further discussion, I am posting the transcript of the event below. [0: 00] In order to…...

2+ mon, 5+ day ago  (241+ words) I generally use point estimates in my EV calculations. In some contexts the natural way to estimate EV is to first estimate a distribution, but in my work it usually makes sense to estimate EV directly. And using point estimates…...

2+ mon, 1+ week ago  (65+ words) Below is an interactive expected-value calculator of signing up for cryonics with Monte Carlo simulation. The model assumes you sign up now. See also: You Only Live Twice, Cryonics Signup Guide, Cryonics Calculator. If you're in London and want to…...

4+ mon, 2+ week ago  (528+ words) Our family has half a Honda Fit, and it's great! Reliable, pretty good mileage, holds our family of five plus a vacation's worth of luggage, seats fold flat for when I'm bringing sound equipment to dances. It would be nice,…...