chriswaco

chriswaco t1_j84f87q wrote

Other than gaming and maybe 3D or video editing, there's little reason to upgrade. PCs plateaued - most people upgrade when something breaks or they have so much crud on the old one they want to replace it. Apple's switch to the M1 was a big step in both speed and battery life, but it isn't worth upgrading to an M2 from an M1, plus their prices for RAM and SSD upgrades are crazy.

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chriswaco t1_j84epr7 wrote

Other than gaming, there's little reason to upgrade. PCs plateaued - most people upgrade when something breaks or they have so much crud on the old one they want to replace it. Apple's switch to the M1 was a big step in both speed and battery life, but it isn't worth upgrading to an M2 from an M1, plus their prices for RAM and SSD upgrades are crazy.

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chriswaco t1_j84eli7 wrote

Other than gaming, there's little reason to upgrade. PCs plateaued - most people upgrade when something breaks or they have so much crud on the old one they want to replace it. Apple's switch to the M1 was a big step in both speed and battery life, but it isn't worth upgrading to an M2 from an M1, plus their prices for RAM and SSD upgrades are crazy.

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chriswaco t1_j84ehc0 wrote

Other than gaming, there's little reason to upgrade. PCs plateaued - most people upgrade when something breaks or they have so much crud on the old one they want to replace it. Apple's switch to the M1 was a big step in both speed and battery life, but it isn't worth upgrading to an M2 from an M1, plus the prices for RAM and SSD upgrades are crazy.

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chriswaco t1_j6k7lyq wrote

Yeah, it's always a contest to stay ahead. Armor led to anti-tank weapons which led to ablative armor which led to molten warheads which lead to reactive armor, etc, etc. I remember when I first heard about reactive armor and couldn't decide if it was brilliant or idiotic.

You can block GPS easily enough, although motion sensors can help guide a drone too. You can have IR cameras but your targets can shoot IR light into the sky to mislead the drones. I'm not sure if you can send enough raw EM radiation into the sky to disable cheap drones - wouldn't surprise me.

It might work once, like the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, but never again.

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chriswaco t1_j6jg2uj wrote

You can buy a Raspberry Pi for $4 that has more than enough processing power. An IR camera adds another few dollars. The servos and grid fins would probably be the most expensive part. Apparently dumb grenades cost only $50-100, though.

I see a future where one party launches 10,000 kamikaze drones (whether anti-personnel, high explosive, or incendiary) to start or end a war.

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chriswaco t1_j6e1ljh wrote

If you haven't seen it, I suggest Life of Brian. It's still wacky, but more meaningful and better packaged than their tv show or other movies.

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chriswaco t1_iyukvan wrote

When I had my first kidney stone they gave me Demerol. I went from wanting to die from pain to flirting with the nurse in about three minutes. Wonderful stuff. The second time they gave me morphine, which was also good but constipating, and then Dilaudid, which almost stopped my breathing by the time it became effective.

In all cases they tried Toradol first, which was worthless.

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chriswaco t1_iv5zqfq wrote

Reply to comment by Analyst7 in China Is Now a Major Space Power by goki7

The same reason our rockets used German designs. It’s the fastest way to get started. If not for the private company SpaceX, the US would be way behind Russia and China in launch capacity right now.

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chriswaco t1_iv1puyv wrote

It’s not pride. It’s reality. My US-based engineering school is now 25% Chinese. The first generation of US-trained engineers has returned home and China is now training more engineers than we are.

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