Most of us aren’t used to “terrawatts” though. Is that like one Earth worth of watts? One watt as measured on Earth? The definition of watt culturally accepted by Earthlings?
You wouldn’t find a terawatt in everyday usage, but a terawatt-hour is pretty commonplace when talking about the energy usage of entire populations.
This Reuters article states US power demand will climb to “4,027 billion kWh in 2022.” Yeah, just say 4 PWh. Or even 4,027 TWh. It’s a little more easily digested.
It’s already an incomprehensably high number. No matter which way you state it is going to fly over peoples heads.
And the entire electricity consumption of the planet is something like 25.5 petawatt-houts.
It’s a rope junction, with the different holes for different knots and rope bundles, with the spokes serving as rope bend/end points. Presumably it would get weeded out as the places where it was employed either stopped making use of them, like perhaps the weather fabric roof shielding of the coliseum, or ended up using more specialized means, like for sailing.
I was going to say, this looks very similar to knitting circles that are available today (I use them all the time). Those knobs and holes make me immediately think that this is used for fibre or knot work of some kind. Rope seems understandable, but I can’t tell from the picture if that is made from metal or clay. No issues if it was metal, but I would figure that clay wouldn’t hold up to the rope pulling and pressing against it in any intensive application.
I am curious as to why OP decided this is unlikely to be used for “knitting gloves”. The Romans may not have practiced knitting as we understand it now since that came about in the middle ages, but knitting isn’t the only form of knotwork that can produce cloth.
These things are generally found with coins. They would have been shockingly expensive to use as a rope junction when there are other, cheaper ways to do that. They would have been difficult to produce, especially in any great quantity, hell it would be hard today. There’s also at least one icosahedron floating around somewhere that’s very similar but with fewer openings
It would make sense that if there were better alternatives that the other, cheaper ways to do that would win out. It’s metal working, you are talking as if the gladius wasn’t common in ancient Rome.
It’s just intuitive for working with rope, given the shape of the spokes and the holes, in a way where it would be treated as a junction. The ones that do have the holes have different sizes, giving a glimpse of additional features being incorporated into the tool and hinting at what it might have been used for.
It’s called a Roman dodecahedron, except not so much for the version of it that has no holes.
What I’m beginning to think is that it was designed to spin (hence the circular groves on the sides) and join smaller ropes into those of bigger sizes, with different holes adapted to different templates of sizes. The version with no holes was designed to work with less ropes and didn’t need it or just simply didn’t incorporate it yet. Still placing my bets on a rope rigging junction.
That it was found in places with lots of coin makes sense, places like the Roman coliseum used a shitload of rope, from the rope that would be used to hold its canopy to those that would handle the weights, counterweights, and mechanisms of its lower levels, and those places would move a lot of money. But maybe it has the more utilitarian purpose being able to create rope bundles of different sizes on demand.
Darned if I know, I’m not an antropologist, just saying what I would assume intuitively, lol
This feels like “I’m 14 and this is deep” content.
It’s obvious that all Hollywood, social media and advertising models are not the average person. Are there really people that think men would be exempt from this? I doubt many.
When I was working security for a hospital they wanted to send imagery from an MRI (or maybe CAT, I forget) upstairs to be interpreted without allowing any network traffic to be able to reach the host machine because it was running XP. I asked why, and they told me that in order to replace it the vendor was requiring a $7 million replacement of the whole MRI.
Same shit is starting to happen with cars. No way to get the new headunits without replacing the whole car. I know Porsche offers electronic upgrade kits, but I can’t think of any others that do.
I think a lot of it has to do with age. I’m probably younger than the average Lemmy user, and for me Windows 10 is the sweet spot. The older versions just feel outdated. I think it depends on the first version we seriously used and learned on.
Also, I said this before as a parent and I will say it again- please do not have children unless you really want children. No child deserves to go through their childhood neglected and unloved. Which is going to be a major result of the end of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. and why abortion rights are vital.
No one should have to be a parent unless they absolutely want to be a parent.
In an abortion, the unborn child. In a partial birth abortion in an unbelievably brutal way, involving a drill to the base of the skull as the baby is writhing in pain. But even with earlier methods, it’s still murder. I know, you’ll say you’re fine with it, like to call it something else, pretend since it hasn’t breathed on its own it’s not a child. Deep down though, you know.
Do I know deep down? Or do I not give a shit whether or not it’s considered murder by you because no one should be forced to give up their bodily autonomy for someone else and if you consider it murder, then it is a person using someone else’s body for their own personal gain against that person’s will. Which is slavery. And you’re fine for that.
Either it is not a person, so it isn’t murder, or if it is a person, a slaver killing the person enslaving them is also not murder. Not in my world.
That anger comes from knowing deep down you’re on the wrong side of this, it’s the inner conflict. I’m very sorry you’re too entrenched politically to listen to your conscience. I’ll leave you alone with your enemy, yourself.
Considering the discussion here around tech literacy, I’d like to share this insight: technology access is not technology literacy.
Many, many years ago, we could conflate the two and did so freely. Say, back before 2010 or so. Nowadays, everyone has a very powerful computing device in their pocket, but not everyone fully comprehends how it works. And unfortunately, concepts like digital securtiy, digital rights management, digital privacy, and so on, are still squarely in the literacy camp.
I can’t say for sure what proportion of the population is in the full comprehension group, but I suspect it’s still in the minority.
Automobiles are a great analogue of this: we’re 100 years in and everyone is (still) not a mechanic, nor do they make decisions like one.
Even with access to the entire internet, search engines, discussion forums, etc. it’s still tough to move the needle on politically charged IT issues. Education and awareness are key to solving all this. Generational differences and exposure to technology at different points in its evolution are not, and never will be, enough.
No, Richard, it’s ‘Linux’, not ‘GNU/Linux’. The most important contributions that the FSF made to Linux were the creation of the GPL and the GCC compiler. Those are fine and inspired products. GCC is a monumental achievement and has earned you, RMS, and the Free Software Foundation countless kudos and much appreciation.
Following are some reasons for you to mull over, including some already answered in your FAQ.
One guy, Linus Torvalds, used GCC to make his operating system (yes, Linux is an OS – more on this later). He named it ‘Linux’ with a little help from his friends. Why doesn’t he call it GNU/Linux? Because he wrote it, with more help from his friends, not you. You named your stuff, I named my stuff – including the software I wrote using GCC – and Linus named his stuff. The proper name is Linux because Linus Torvalds says so. Linus has spoken. Accept his authority. To do otherwise is to become a nag. You don’t want to be known as a nag, do you?
(An operating system) != (a distribution). Linux is an operating system. By my definition, an operating system is that software which provides and limits access to hardware resources on a computer. That definition applies whereever you see Linux in use. However, Linux is usually distributed with a collection of utilities and applications to make it easily configurable as a desktop system, a server, a development box, or a graphics workstation, or whatever the user needs. In such a configuration, we have a Linux (based) distribution. Therein lies your strongest argument for the unwieldy title ‘GNU/Linux’ (when said bundled software is largely from the FSF). Go bug the distribution makers on that one. Take your beef to Red Hat, Mandrake, and Slackware. At least there you have an argument. Linux alone is an operating system that can be used in various applications without any GNU software whatsoever. Embedded applications come to mind as an obvious example.
Next, even if we limit the GNU/Linux title to the GNU-based Linux distributions, we run into another obvious problem. XFree86 may well be more important to a particular Linux installation than the sum of all the GNU contributions. More properly, shouldn’t the distribution be called XFree86/Linux? Or, at a minimum, XFree86/GNU/Linux? Of course, it would be rather arbitrary to draw the line there when many other fine contributions go unlisted. Yes, I know you’ve heard this one before. Get used to it. You’ll keep hearing it until you can cleanly counter it.
You seem to like the lines-of-code metric. There are many lines of GNU code in a typical Linux distribution. You seem to suggest that (more LOC) == (more important). However, I submit to you that raw LOC numbers do not directly correlate with importance. I would suggest that clock cycles spent on code is a better metric. For example, if my system spends 90% of its time executing XFree86 code, XFree86 is probably the single most important collection of code on my system. Even if I loaded ten times as many lines of useless bloatware on my system and I never excuted that bloatware, it certainly isn’t more important code than XFree86. Obviously, this metric isn’t perfect either, but LOC really, really sucks. Please refrain from using it ever again in supporting any argument.
Last, I’d like to point out that we Linux and GNU users shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves over naming other people’s software. But what the heck, I’m in a bad mood now. I think I’m feeling sufficiently obnoxious to make the point that GCC is so very famous and, yes, so very useful only because Linux was developed. In a show of proper respect and gratitude, shouldn’t you and everyone refer to GCC as ‘the Linux compiler’? Or at least, ‘Linux GCC’? Seriously, where would your masterpiece be without Linux? Languishing with the HURD?
If there is a moral buried in this rant, maybe it is this:
Be grateful for your abilities and your incredible success and your considerable fame. Continue to use that success and fame for good, not evil. Also, be especially grateful for Linux’ huge contribution to that success. You, RMS, the Free Software Foundation, and GNU software have reached their current high profiles largely on the back of Linux. You have changed the world. Now, go forth and don’t be a nag.
I had a “wait a moment” when I saw this picture. Your comment cleared it up. Also found it funny how Linux is hinted at as being part of the GNU project.
I use to live next to a dead volcano (it’s not as cool as it sounds) which had trails leading up from the base to the top. Anyway, I was really into running back then and I decided one day that I would wake up before the sun rose. I wanted to climb to the top to greet the sunrise. I wake up at like 4am and head out. It’s freezing, I’m in shorts and thermals. All I have is a flashlight but otherwise it’s pitch black as I’m sprinting through bush, over creeks, and around blind turns. My fear response had never been stronger in my life. I finally get to the hill that leads up to the top of the volcano and hit the side at full speed. Not wanting to check for animals or look into any of the numerous caves around me. The trail follows the edge of the volcano all the way up. One side was bush and darkness, the other open space and nothingness. As I’m coming around the top my heart is trying to excape my chest, my hands are frozen into fists and my legs are made of lead. Finally, I get to the rocky top where other people have left offerings and the like. Then I look out east to the mountains in the far distance. The sun just barely peaks over and light shoots out in every direction. In that moment I knew my ancestors. I knew the earth. I saw the SUN and it was GOD… Spent the rest of the morning on on my back enjoying the open sky
Running does things like that to the mind. The first time I ran 10 miles, I started hallucinating around mile 8. I was running through the forest and the wind was gently swaying the trees back and forth. I understood for the first time that trees are the lungs of the earth, steadily breathing in the cO2 and breathing out oxygen for the rest of life on earth.
I was just talking to my wife today about how trees lived long before the bacteria that could decompose wood, how generations of trees lived and died and just stayed there. That the reason we have coal is because of all of these trees that died ages ago and couldn’t decompose. Not only are trees the lungs of the earth, but the only reason we ever got an atmosphere that we could exist in is because of the innumerable trees that captured carbon from the air and contributed oxygen back to it. Trees are fucking amazing and we owe them everything.
20% of oxygen is from bacteria and around 50% comes from plankton, the last 30% is mostly trees.
The oceans are the lungs of the Earth and climate change threatens to cause plankton to decrease in numbers or switch from carbon absorbers to carbon emitters.
having been through this exact situation, I get the point of the meme, and realize their intent was that “doctor” should be read as “healthcare industry”. Just poor word choice. Other side of the story, the healthcare professionals that cared for him where wonderful and did everything they could for him and I am totally OK with them getting paid for their efforts.
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