It is my understanding that small nuclear batteries output very little energy, so little in fact that they are virtually useless for most applications where a classical battery would be used. The upside is that they can produce power for decades without ever ‘charging’ or in this case, replacing the isotopes. In other words, the use cases aren’t as exciting as one would expect.
They aren't a replacement for chemical batteries, more a complement. They're good for battery topping. Basically even when a device is completely off, its battery is still slowly losing power. This loss can be quite small, but if you leave a phone or something in a box for weeks, it'll be dead. This is not really an issue for consumer electronics, just charge it again. However there are applications where you want battery powered electronic devices that are ready to go when you need them and stored away from the electrical grid, like an emergency phone in a box on a remote hiking trail, or equipment in an emergency kit stored in a lifeboat, or a medical device in a first aid kit. By adding a nuclear battery, it can pump power in at roughly the same rate the battery would deplete itself when off, so even after years of sitting unused, your device still has a full battery the moment you turn it on.
Besides emergencies, there are also situations where the device has a low duty cycle, and thus its average power requirements are very low. For example a remote sensor that only activates for a few seconds per day may consume thousands of times more power for those few seconds than a nuclear battery could put out, but the rest of the time it could be recharging such that it has as much energy available the next time it turns on.
For most of the global, A solar cell can do the same thing. It's really only in the most northern and southern regions that a solar panel becomes ineffective.
Depends on how accessible the pipe is. Consider that such a sensor needs to report data. If it's isolated enough then you need to run a transmission line anyways just to get at that data.
If we are talking about a basement with pipes, then power isn't likely too far away.
I prefer changing the battery once every three years over having a radioactive emitter strapped to my wrist. There is a decent case for nuclear pacemakers since changing the battery of those requires surgery, and even there it didn't get traction. Watch batteries are quick to change, I don't see the risk/benefit tradeoff working.
And with smart watches we are back in "useless for most applications" territory.
Nah, too bulky and there are already better solutions. If you have just a classic watch, then a kinetic charging mechanism is something that's been around for ~100 years. Your watch auto-charges from simply wearing it and walking around.
But if you need more juice, then solar watches are also a thing that work pretty well.
For a smartwatch, these batteries won't produce enough power to keep them going. It's better to just slap a bigger battery into the watch rather than a nuclear battery + regular battery.
Watches tend to be exposed to light a fair bit, so putting a solar panel in the watchface easily outperforms a betavoltaic cell. This has been available for decades, and even some of the high-end Garmins have it.
12 step programs disagree, to grow a flower you water it and give it sunlight and good soil(the 12 steps version of this: reversing selfishness and getting out and helping others) but you don’t actually grow the plant, the DNA, photosynthesis, electromagnetism, soil chemistry…even quantum forces(AKA a power greater than yourself) are ultimately the core of what grows the plant. Therefor when one gets sober and becomes generally content and happy in life when previously they were suicidal, AA suggests that the core of the work was done by a higher power, even though the individual was indeed responsible for watering their flower.
It’s important to understand that all 12 step programs(all of which are based on AA) approach addiction as a spiritual disease, and the program offers a spiritual solution. 12 step programs also teach that addiction is a progressive disease, and there is no permanent ‘fix’, but rather a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of one’s spiritual condition. Here is a concise summarization of the 12 step design for living: ‘reverse selfishness, get out and help others’. According to 12 step programs, if you stop working the program, addiction will come back in full force.
Its also important to understand the most of the successes sang by 12 step evangalists are coming from the <5% it works on.
Im not against it but it simply is not the only cure for addiction. In fact its provenly a very bad program for the 95% that cant hang.
Much better CBT and medical interventions out there and millions of people are told every year to ignore them because of 12 step evangalist.
If the west had the answer to addiction in the form of 12 step, we probably wouldnt have the highest rates of addiction in the world and is probably a sign of societal trauma that no amount of meetings is going to help.
The only thing that worked for me is 'trying to do better than I did the previous day' with the understanding it's not a linear curve, but a spiky graph that trends upwards.
That's awesome, just please don't tell other people that its the only way. Which has been my experience with 12 step people.
Its the most unscientific method of treating addiction we have, one of the least effective, yet the government literally uses it as its ONLY tool (in a lot towns) to fight addiction in their communities, partly because propagandists of the 12 step methods have ingrained the idea that its the only thing that works into society (USA), when in fact, it is the opposite. My guess is, they like or don't care about recidivism also.
I think the decentralized community-based nature of 12 steps programs is cool though, and we do need more stuff like that.
AA specifically suggests to only come when all other measures have failed, and if you can do it without AA ‘our hats are off to you’ quote from their ‘big book’ which is their main piece of literature. I truly believe and have seen first hand hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on rehab and counseling and medications and therapy and only AA ever brought those individuals into true long term recovery. I don’t like the AA is forced by folks who haven’t already tried, or had the privilege to try ‘all other measures’.
Likely correlation and not causation, Gambling addiction is just like any other addiction, and no one has answered the question of ‘why’ one becomes an addict. Most likely the causation is more closely related to the upbringing of the child, and the genetics passed down from the parents.
Except you actually sometimes get money back from the slot machine, with gaming lootboxes/gacha/microtransactions you're just getting imaginary digital goods that will disappear as soon as the company shuts down the game's servers.
> How often have you witnessed an LLM reduce the complexity of a piece of code?
I would add that AI often makes far too clever code as well, and would defer to Kernighan's law: “Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.”
Often. It's often as simple as adding to the prompt to prefer to use standard libraries than recoding algorithms from scratch. Or do a second pass on something that you feel might be copy pasting ideas. And adding to the prompt doesn't mean always having to type it. I have a set of canned things that get added to every request which includes, coding standards and requests to use standard api. You often get what you ask for not what you want.
It's worse. If you weren't clever enough to write the code in the first place, and so you used an LLM to tell you what to do, you definitely aren't clever enough to debug it.
The LLM may or may not be clever enough, but you aren't clever enough to evaluate its debugging.
> She has not yet explained how Aurora is operating without a driver while still remaining in compliance with federal safety regulations.
Sounds like they require a vehicle to follow the trucks at this time, moreover, I can’t imagine that they can perform all maneuvers necessary for loading and unloading.
I do think all trucking should be automated eventually, truck driving really isn’t the best for mental health.
