"... if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."
It looks like they don't claim to break the second law of thermodynamics, but the press article is so bad that any interpretation is possible. IIUC in the research article they just got "quantum efficiency" of 130% i.e. 1.3 electrons per 1 photon. This may improve the energetic efficiency, but I can't be sure from the details. It loos like a weird setup disolved in a liquid, so I guess it's still less efficient than a usual photovoltaic cell.
This is what I wrote while I was thinking about the same topic before I can across your excellent comment; as if it’s a summary of what you just said:
Consciousness is nothing but the ability to have internal and external senses, being able to enumerate them, recursively sense them, and remember the previous steps. If any of those ingredients are missing, you cannot create or maintain consciousness.
Mere speculations: they might have been contemplating the integration of their Orbit add-on into the browser. For that, they might need some extra legal fluffs.
This article could not have come at a better time. I was getting ready to learn about the art of bread making with total confusion and disappointments from my past attempts. I hope the resources discussed in the article would help me out with making bread the way it is meant to be made.
Authors with the most problematic papers, i.e. with fabricated date, p hacked, etc., will be the least likely to cooperate (‘Oh! Can’t share the data for legal reasons. Sorry!’). ERROR would end up looking into the least likely places for any infraction. I hope they have thought of that already. But, that was not the sense I got from reading the article.
Loved the last paragraph of the long, justified rant. Hilarious:
“All in all, I believe this proves that software developers as a whole
and as a culture produce worse results than drug addicted butt fucked
monkeys randomly hacking on typewriters while inhaling the fumes of a
radioactive dumpster fire fueled by chinese platsic toys for children
and Elton John/Justin Bieber crossover CDs for all eternity.”
I actually thought that last paragraph really undermined his case, because rather than substantiating like he did before, here he goes all out and just insults whoever he can think of; people who take it in the ass, greybeards, the Chinese, listeners of bland music...
I get him though. It's one of those writings from a foul mood. There was probably more going on in his life than some trouble dealing with locales.
To be fair, he has other issues than dealing with C locales. The author of that commit used to be the main developer behind mpv, until he decided to delete all support for GNOME in a single commit.
> ...here he goes all out and just insults whoever he can think of...
No, he observes that software devs as a group, and as a culture tend to produce worse results than incredibly-distracted and certainly-fatally-intoxicated simians banging on typewriters.
It's a bit of hyperbole, but the overall state of software is absolutely dire.
> ...the Chinese, listeners of bland music...
In some-to-much of the world, it's pretty well-known that a lot of cheap crap (much of which has historically been made in China) is very shoddily made and fairly quickly finds its way to the landfill. One shouldn't confuse criticism of shoddily-made products for criticism of the citizens of the country of origin of said products.
I'd also expect the referenced (certainly entirely-hypothetical) CD to be something that ends up getting thrown into the dumpster in huge numbers because store inventory managers expect it to be WAY more popular than it actually ends up being. Also, see above about not getting confused about what the target of the insult is. ;)
> There was probably more going on in his life than some trouble dealing with locales.
shrug Not everyone chooses to write in sterile $DAYJOB-approved language when explaining in detail the root of their frustration with the absolutely bullshit garbage pile they have to build upon for their non-corporate side project.
> Nobody looks at an iPhone and says "ugh, Chinese crap".
Well, the really important parts are Taiwanese crap. ;)
But (more seriously), the thing to remember is that the "Chinese crap" stereotype dates back to the days when China didn't have a notable electronics assembly industry... so nearly all the crap hitting US shores was cheap crap. Japan was the big Asian tech producer back then, and we still did a substantial bit of consumer (and industrial) electronics production in-country.
> No, he observes that software devs as a group, and as a culture tend to produce worse results than (...)
Yeah, to that I say "meh". Maybe. In my view, on a different day he would have hacked in a workaround, explained quickly that it is because of the illogical locale system, cited a few sources and moved on with his life. Sure, man-made stuff is a mess. Nothing's ever perfect. But stuff's particularly not perfect when you're in an absolutely foul mood.
It's unconstructive to entertain the thought that software in general is awful. A waste of energy. Reading his rant, I just think "improve it and move on"!
> One shouldn't confuse criticism of shoddily-made products for criticism of the citizens of the country of origin of said products.
Yeah, fair enough. There's different ways to interpret it. Maybe a proud modern Chinese person would be mildly offended by it. No biggie, the point was: in the last paragraph, he's firing a machine gun. A full release of rage.
> Not everyone chooses to write in sterile $DAYJOB-approved language
Of course. It feels great to talk bad when you're in a shit mood. I don't know about you though, but the next day I usually wish I'd just kept my cool. :-)
> In my view, on a different day he would have hacked in a workaround, explained quickly that it is because of the illogical locale system, cited a few sources and moved on with his life.
If you were this guy, sure. I advise you to carefully re-read the ~2,200 word essay contained in that commit message bearing foremost in mind that there exist people who intentionally write messages that make their frustration plain and obvious.
> No biggie, the point was: in the last paragraph, he's firing a machine gun.
No, that's a wrap-up, and it fits the tone of the rest of the essay.
> It feels great to talk bad when you're in a shit mood. I don't know about you though, but the next day I usually wish I'd just kept my cool.
1) I doubt that you're the sort of person to write an angry, in-depth ~2,200 word essay and then regret it the next day. To be clear, I expect that you would not put that much effort into writing something that clearly and frankly expresses your frustration.
2) Did you forget about this statement in the opening paragraph of the essay?
> To justify this emotional outbreak potentially insulting to unknown persons, I will write a lot of text. Those not comfortable with toxic language should pretend this is a religious text.
The tone is deliberate and intentional. Please adjust your worldview to include the existence of people who get angry about stupid bullshit and then write and publish in-depth, angry essays about exactly how stupid that bullshit is.
The internal hard drive uses SCSI with an unusual connector. Adapting it didn't seem straightforward, and we weren't confident the old file system (HFS) would be easy to read from a modern system.
Sir Arthur Eddington
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