It’s pretty ironic how companies will spend so much money on advertising to gain brand recognition, but then throw it away on a whim.

Good to see the FCC going after this kind of thing. Put them in jail even better.

I have my phone set up so the only numbers that chime the phone are those in my contact list. The abuse of voice and text on the cell network is rampant and it’s equivalent to trespassing.

I have on old car. I should replace it, but it doesn’t have a lot of mileage. I’m honestly dreading the purchase of new car because of this practice, not just the subscription features, but the control the maker has by being networked to it. I love my old dumb car.

I’ve been using LED bulbs for a good number of years, I’ve only had one or two die on me. The longevity alone makes them much better than incandescent, but then they use a tenth the power.

My favorite is the A15 Edison style. That’s the appliance size, smaller than the standard A19. The A15 fits in everything so I only need to stock one size.

I would say this is likely not a practical super conductor… But it may well be the first ever room temperature super conductor.

Yes of course it would be a big deal if they create one to begin with. However if it’s difficult and expensive to produce, that’s not much help. It has to be mass producible and inexpensive to have industrial significance. I mean we already have expensive solutions. Don’t need any more of those.

The first semi-conductors were not practical either, but we can all see where that led!

I don’t know that semiconductors are a good parallel. Growing the crystals dates back to the early 1900s and was never an expensive or technologically difficult process. Doping silicon to create devices like diodes and transistors was something new, but was not exceedingly expensive or a great technological challenge. The migration to chips which require lithographic doping was more of a challenge.

In any case semiconductor devices were practical shortly after development. One of the first consumer products that used them was the “transistor radio” which was inexpensive and came out shortly after invention of the technology.

A practical superconductor is a huge deal, it would drastically change the way we deal with electrical power distribution and electromechanical applications. So any development is going to be big news. Though we’re not talking about an actual working conductor, it’s just excitement over research advancement, yeah? I’ve seen this kind of “big news” before in other tech sectors and time often proves it unworthy. If it does present a big step toward a practical superconductor that’s great, but I wouldn’t count any eggs yet.

Microsoft’s name was basically equivalent to dogshit from the mid-90s until maybe the mid 2000s.

I’m old enough to remember well the Microsoft hate. It’s not so much they’ve changed their ways, but Google has now taken the trident and diverted attention away from them.

I’ve already seen many commercials using what is clearly AI generated art and voices

I’ve been noticing that as well, freaky.

Would this potential superconductor work in devices like phones and laptops? Would it lead to more efficient operation?

If inexpensive it could be used in power components for consumer electronics like phones and laptops, but wouldn’t make a huge difference since most of the power consumption occurs in chips and displays where superconductors wouldn’t apply. Though it could lead to some reduction in size and better efficiency. Battery operated devices are considered low power. High power applications are where superconductors offer the most benefit.

Yeah nobody is all bad, even Reddit.

That’s good they won’t be adopting WEI, but if my bank or some other critical site decides to enforce a desktop browser with it, I’m still in the same boat. I did think of a way to avoid a WEI browser on my desktop if it comes to that. I can probably substitute a phone app for any critical services, but that’s still a drag. I don’t like phone apps much, I use a desktop browser for everything.

I think Google’s destruction of the Internet is most simply a matter of influence. If Chrome didn’t have the huge market share they wouldn’t be able to pull off this kind of thing, open source or not. Unfortunately people have a herd mentality with everything on the internet so we allowed it to happen by doing what we always do.

A conductor with no resistance is a big deal for many electrical applications. Electrical resistance is often a big part of design. Removing that aspect changes things significantly. Electrical power losses and the size of conductors can be greatly reduced.

I’ve read lots of unsubstantiated claims about superconductors. A solution has to be producible in quantity at a reasonable cost. Otherwise it’s not going to be a breakthrough. I mean we currently have expensive and bulky superconductor solutions, but they’re limited to applications where it’s reasonable such as MRI machines and particle accelerators.

An inexpensive room temperature superconductor would make the most difference in tech sectors such as power transmission, electromechanical, and power electronics. These are areas where power loss due to circuit resistance is a big part of design. The impact would be minimal for computing and logic. There may be areas where power loss can be reduced, but logic relies on semi-conductors which must have resistance to function, it’s in the name. The term “semi” implies resistance.

Here’s something more interesting. A matter-antimatter reactor converts 100% of mass to energy so it’s a hundred times more efficient than fusion. In modern times antimatter has been produced at quantum levels in large accelerators such as the Hadrian collider. So it does in fact exist and can be produced.

However a matter-antimatter reactor has some serious technical problems. For one it’s currently impossible to create antimatter in any practical quantity. Second if antimatter comes in contact with matter, instant boom. Like a sugar cube size of the stuff could level a large city. So containment would be an insurmountable problem.

The interesting part is when you see an antimatter reactor in shows like Star Trek, it’s based on real science. Interestingly in 1968 when they wrote the original Star Trek, nobody knew antimatter was a physically real thing. That’s a case of sci-fi predicting science.

Fusion and fission are quite different. A practical fusion reactor does not exist. It’s outside our technological capability right now. Current fusion reactors are only experimental and can not maintain a reaction more than a small fraction of a second. The problem is plasma containment. If that can be solved, it would be possible to build a practical fusion reactor.

The fuel for a working fusion reactor would likely be deuterium/tritium which is in effect unlimited since it can be extracted from seawater. Also the amount of fuel required is small because of the enormous amounts of energy produced in converting mass to energy. Fusion converts about 1% of mass to energy. Output would be that converted mass times the speed of light squared which is a very, very large number, in the neighborhood of consumed fuel mass times 10¹⁵.

Fusion is far less toxic to to the environment. With deuterium/tritium fusion the waste product is helium. All of the particle radiation comes from neutrons which only require shielding. Once the kinetic energy of the particles is absorbed, it’s gone. There’s no fissile waste that lingers for some half life.

It’s like when USA police agencies only bought Harley Davidson motorcycles because it was politically correct to source equipment from domestic sources. Once they realized what over-priced and poor performing machines they are, they gave up on the idea and went to foreign sources.

Personally I think the taxes we pay to support government organizations should go toward domestically sourced equipment. They should be supporting the local economy, but it’s so one sided now they don’t really have a choice. However with some industries it can be a slippery slope. There was a recent USA ban on telecom equipment from Huawei related to this.

I got a laugh out of that even though I think you’re being serious, maybe just because it’s so true. With the software and network integration of cars it’s like they’re becoming a platform to squeeze as much money as possible out of you. And like commercial software you can buy a car, but you sure as hell don’t own it. The automaker is in control.

So yeah, fuck cars. And Tesla is spearheading that approach to automobile ownership so fuck Tesla too. If someone makes a car free of that evil network to maker shit, it’s a buy for me.

Found a good video article on Na-Ion battery technology; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQE56ksVBB4

So according to that article Na-Ion energy density is comparable to the LFP type of Li-Ion battery. That’s about 20% lower than the more common types you see in consumer products and EVs. LFP has much longer cycle life and lower fire hazard so it’s used where weight and space are less of a concern. However it still has the same cost and materials issues.

Na-Ion is well poised to replace LFP. The advantage is lower cost and more environmentally friendly materials. Unfortunately Na-Ion is not inline to replace the higher energy density types. As it becomes more widely adopted it may improve to the point where it can so there’s hope for it.

You can buy Sodium Ion batteries already,

You see a lot of stories about the next great battery tech. I’ve been seeing them for years, but still Li-Ion is the ubiquitous tech.

Even if energy density is only comparable, a battery with lower fire hazard and increased longevity is sorely needed. Li-Ion batteries simply wear out too fast. Considering the replacement cost (especially for EV applications), its a huge advantage for consumers. Then there’s a bonus of it being cheaper and more environmentally neutral which is also a big deal.

Of all the proclamations of a better battery, Na-Ion sounds like it might actually be a reality. That would make me happy to be rid of Li-Ion batteries once and for all. The only advantage they have is high energy density, they’re a fail on every other front.

Funny, when I was a little kid my grandmother had a Zenith TV with that exact remote. I still remember the long throw and clank of those buttons. TV remotes were uncommon then so I thought it was the coolest thing ever. Yeah dating myself here.

I had flip phones before smartphones became default, I loved the intuitiveness of answering, locking, etc, and I love the idea of a foldable smartphone because of the size of the screen that you can get into a pocket

Same here, was on flip phones for the longest time. I loved the compactness. They became scarce some years ago so I started buying smart phones, currently a Samsung. That thing is huge and unwieldy. It does not fit well in a pocket so I don’t carry it around. I always have to find someplace to stow it, often in the center console of my car.

A folding smart phone could be a solution, but they’re all really expensive. I don’t spend a lot on phones and never will. Right now I’m looking to replace my under $300 Samsung with an under $300 Motorola. Functionally my Samsung works well, but I hate all the Samsung bloatware on it. I know Motorola uses a fairly stock Android image and hopefully it will be a bit more compact.