FoxQuirk 🦊 @quirk@computerfairi.es

concluding this thread with LaserDisc Turtle. his name is Flippy. everybody make more art of Flippy now

concept: a fedi bot you can summon into a conversation whenever someone suggests peltier / thermoelectric cooling as a solution to basically any engineering problem

@whitequark Alright, I've been thinking about it (never a good idea), and here's an attempt at that argument. Note that I'm not an expert on industrial revolution history or any of the technologies I'm about to discuss, so… y'know.

Of all the inventions of the industrial era, the vapor-cycle heat pump was the closest to optimal at its inception and has remained essentially unchanged to the present day, *and* is a completely essential technology to modern life. It's probably not the most *foundational* invention (the steam engine probably takes that crown), but I assert that it is the *greatest*.

For example, the steam engine is a dead technology today.

Or for another example, consider the piston-driven internal combustion engine. Foundational, yes, and ubiquitous in the modern day; but thermodynamically, it's just fundamentally inefficient. We've milked damn near every possible joule of heat recovery out of it, but the only thing it's really good at is low-power efficiency; for essentially every other purpose, the gas turbine is superior. In contrast, *nothing* is superior to the vapor-cycle heat pump at pumping heat.

(The gas turbine, an incredibly simple and effective technology which in its most basic form has *one moving part*, is another contender for greatest invention, but… the externalities of combustion are inescapable.)

So yeah. The refrigerator emerged in the mid-1800s and is essentially unchanged since. Advances in chemistry have greatly improved refrigerants, but the basic structure is still a compressor, condenser, and evaporator all in a loop. It's effective, efficient, free of inherent externalities (the nastiness of fluorocarbons aside, in correct operation they're not *supposed* to leak refrigerant, and simple propane actually works perfectly fine), and *massively* impactful to modern life. (Just think how much of our food is utterly reliant on refrigeration, and we don't even think about it.)

Seen on #Bluesky :

> Feels like the intersection between “every intermediary eventually is incentivized to become a narc” and “every silicon valley company aims to be an intermediary” is a bad one

(source article is geofenced and tells me to go fuck myself, so fuck Chicago Tribune)

I feel like the technology industry's lack of diversity led to it becoming a monoculture where solidarity between workers was replaced by solidarity with the company itself.

A lot of the things that modern workers take for granted are the result of the labour rights movement, where people gave their lives to fight for breaks, lunches, sick days, and humanity.

Without that, we'd all still be serfs. Now, modern capitalism is pulling us back in time, and...

1/9

OK, help me settle a debate.

Is ASN.1 Turing complete?

(Accidentally Turing Complete counts. Proofs of concept are welcome.)

this is count binface's moment. actually unreal scenes in UK politics right now.

for those not in the know:

- fascist party leader Nigel Farage of the fascist party Reform is currently undergoing investigations for receiving large large money gifts and not declaring it (this is yet another scandal on top of an already huge mountain of scandals coming from the tosser)

- to distract from the investigations and potentially avoid them, Farage resigned. when you resign as an MP (member of parliament), it triggers a by-election. Farage is standing in the by-election(!). So did he really resign? Well, this practice is sometimes used to re-affirm support after scandals. But in this case, Farage already knows he had good support there, and we all know that, and also.... the investigations haven't concluded yet!! so this is a way of escaping + avoiding + hiding + distracting from them

continued...

Allow yourself a moment of peace.

Don't worry about the world for two minutes. Just take this opportunity to pause, relax, and think about how loved you are.

Be chill, like a capybara with a little friend, and remember you're doing so much better than you fear you are.

I'm so proud of you.

Do your best to have a great day, okay? I'm cheering for you!!

🩵🩵🩵

Y'all I'm so proud of my wife's pottery. Take a look at some of her recent work.

Julian: Don’t worry. I’ve still got a few forks up my sleeve
Kira: You mean cards?
Julian: I do not

🚗 TIL: Before GPS was fully operational, Honda built a car navigation system that used zero satellites.

In 1981, the Honda Electro Gyrocator debuted as a dealer option on the Accord. You placed a transparent plastic map over a small CRT screen and marked your starting point.

As you drove, a helium gas-rate gyroscope detected turns: helium flow shifted between two heated wires, creating a temperature difference the computer read as direction. A transmission sensor tracked distance. A 16-bit computer combined both to move a dot across the map showing your position.

Not perfect. Wheel spin and drift compounded, so you could pull over and manually realign. The IEEE designated it a Milestone in 2017 as the world's first map-based car navigation system, 14 years before GPS.

The catch: it cost about $2,746 (nearly a quarter of the car's price). It only lasted one year.

Read more:
https://spectrum.ieee.org/first-mapbased-car-navigation-system-debuted-14-years-before-gps
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro_Gyrocator
https://global.honda/en/heritage/episodes/1981navigationsystem.html

#TIL #Honda #engineering #history

How to know an anime stars a trans woman, in their creator's synopsis:

ministry of silly walks sleeps