Targeting Thursday, June 6 for Starship’s fourth flight test.

A 120-minute launch window opens at 7:00 a.m. CT → https://t.co/bJFjLCiTbK pic.twitter.com/jWdhCAyk8I

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 4, 2024

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-4

!spacechads

!ifrickinglovescience !mathematics !physics !chemistry !oolschayootershays !biology !engineering

There was loads of cool shit that spawned from the 2010's but as far as I can tell nothing interesting has come from the 2020's so far and we are already 4 years in.

Everything seems to be a newer iteration of old products but nothing new or life changing has appeared so far.

The big W I can see for the 2020's is the boom in the AI industry and the development of software such as ChatGPT.

The second big W I can see is the continued development of humanoid robots and general advancements in robotics.

Is there anything else in the 2020s that has come out to be in mass usage, a new trend, or transformative to the human experience?

!spacechads !ifrickinglovescience Launch is scheduled for 12:25 pm EDT

This is the third overall flight of the Boeing Starliner capsule and the first crewed flight. Success will ensure Starliner's certification for the Commercial Crew Program by which NASA pays for private company services to shuttle astronauts to the ISS.

Crew members are:

Commander Barry E. Wilmore

Pilot Sunita Williams

She does have a large chin

I'll stream the launch at Kino Session chat

I live under a training/exercise route and I was finally standing next to a window during a flyover; it was flying low enough for me to ID it (and see the sun reflecting off of the canopy).

So frickin loud it vibrated my whole building

https://old.reddit.com/r/climatechange/comments/1d1s7n6/how_long_until_the_us_climate_refugees_flood_to/

!ifrickinglovescience !physics !neolibs

Dramatard friends from Dixie and the Sunbelt when are you guys moving to Illinois and Minnesota?

I moved from TX to WI for this exact reason. And I'm not alone, as there was already a community of 'climate refugees' in the area, with realtors and other professionals knowing about this trend - which will only keep growing over time.

So Texans moving to Wisconsin are refugees? Lmao

Climate refugees have been in an exodus from Central America for a couple of decades. Katrina had tens of thousands of refugees leave NOLA nearly 20 years ago. People generally don't plan ahead or make active effort to change their status quo unless they are faced with difficult choices. As each disaster happens, there will be more "refugees."

!latinx

Why do you think we're receiving so many refugees from central america.America.

Just wait until the water crisis in Mexico City really bites!

Central Americans are moving to the US because of Climate Change, surely there are no other reasons . Funny they mention Mexico City when illegal migration from Mexicans is at all time low (most immigrants crossing the border are from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua).

My husband and I are looking for property in Michigan. The climate was definitely a factor in that decision. I think a migration is already happening and will be a strain on many northern cities. I'm just worried that after a few more years of warming, AMOC will collapse and cause massive cooling in a short time frame. Dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.

RIP yankees and leafs freezing after AMOC collapses.

And of course some Florida hate

Not sure what the future brings but I'm in south Florida. The west coast of Florida was absolutely pommelled by hurricanes a few years ago. You drive there now and there's more houses than there were before the storms. Miami is sinking and homes are flying off the market. The only climate migration happening here won't happen for a while. I'm waiting for my kids to finish school to see where they end up.

It is a good thing you didn't use the phrase "climate change" or I would have had to turn you in to the governor of your state. /s

I believe it's “freedom weather”.

So witty checkmate magachuds

Move sooner than later. I've debated leaving Ohio in the past but when the water wars begin this is prime real estate.

Lmao

As a Canadian I wonder this because we have lots of water, cooler climate and not many people (especially in the eastern part of the prairies). Assuming at some point things will get bad enough that Americans will be fleeing up here.

As I was writing this, the mid-June daytime temperature in Beijing reached 40°C, exceeding the average by nearly 10 degrees. In times like these, it is hard to imagine compromising one's bodily comfort by not turning on the air conditioning. We are convinced that our livelihoods depend on this “basic” comfort to stay cool; the air conditioner, one of the essential modern amenities, has discretely conditioned us to believe in its indispensable role. Yet we tend to ignore the cost of our comfort, particularly regarding carbon emissions. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in 2022, air conditioning was responsible for the equivalent of 1.95 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, or 3.94% of global greenhouse gas emissions.1

For most practicing architects, the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning) system is an essential component in any building project that aims to satisfy the comfort of its user. But comfort without HVAC has been evident in all parts of the world for centuries. HVAC systems were not popularized until the 1960s, and in China, they were not introduced until well into the economic reforms of the late 1980s. Buildings have been developed in relation to their climatic surroundings for centuries, but in relation to HVAC systems for only decades.2 There is much architects can learn today from earlier practices that did not contribute to global warming.

The Jinyun Quarries

We were commissioned to develop new programs for Jinyun Stone Quarries at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. There are more than 3,000 small, defunct quarries located in the northern part of Jinyun County, Lishui City, Zhejiang Province. One hundred twenty-five of them contain stone calligraphy, the oldest from the Tang dynasty (617–907 CE), which have been listed as national cultural heritage since 2001.

Unlike the chopped-up landscapes created by modern mechanical quarries, these smaller, more archaic quarries were created by family operations and often resemble miniature valleys. Although quarrying in Jinyun began more than a thousand years ago, most excavation operations took place only after the Economic Reforms and Opening Up policies in the early 1980s and early 1990s. Before that, however, villagers in the area had been earning their livelihoods by strip mining for generations. Such family-scale operations were possible due to the light stone quality of the volcanic tuff. With a rise in demand in the 1990s for brick construction, however, quarry mining halted.

To support the development of the region, our project for reinventing these stone quarries strives to improve ecological conditions while simultaneously creating social and cultural destinations for both the local population and visitors. The reutilized stone quarries are part of a wider public infrastructure that places historical artifacts from thousands of years ago in the context of cultural heritage.

With an initial selection of nine sites, our project was designed with minimal intervention, and intended to be a pilot for a wider revitalization scheme of the quarries in addition to ecological restoration in Jinyun. The nine sites embrace the multi-faceted histories of the area, such as quarrying, stone carving, local opera, and tea drinking. The sites chosen took the convenience of both residents and tourists into consideration, as well as their possibile impact on the local economy and contribution to cultural development

Rethinking Comfort in Public Life

Rethinking these relics of extraction began by learning about the local cultures, histories, and traditions of the area. Their sheer scale and monumentality make the quarries sites of awe, particularly given their stability after more than two decades of idleness. We wanted to turn this idle condition into one rich with possibility for discovering how humans can better co-exist with nature. One of the basic tenets of Chinese philosophy is to consider humans and nature as one. Our ancestors long ago recognized the importance of mutual respect between humans and the natural environment. Nature's provision for life on Earth should therefore be grounded in that mutual respect.

To accommodate public activities, such as a public library, opera performances, and viewings of the calligraphy steles, we sourced local materials, like steel strips for handrails and pressed bamboo for shelves and infill, which are more suitable for this climate than wood. Further bearing sustainability in mind, the details are the same at all the sites, and concrete is used only for necessary safety measures.

Many of the quarry sites are completely hollowed out. Their walls measure dozens of meters high at various slanted angles, which can shield visitors from blazing sun and light drizzle. These spatial conditions also create cool and airy micro-climates, which serve as an escape from the summer's stifling subtropical humidity. Taking advantage of these existing conditions keeps carbon emissions to a minimum. By reusing these quarry sites and showing the negative spaces of the mountains, visitors can become reacquainted and re-acclimatized to the natural environment, and re-adjust their sense of bodily comfort.

Visitors to these sites primarily consist of local community members and visitors from the surrounding metropolitan areas. The former have lived in the area for generations, and it's likely that they themselves, or at least one of their family members, once labored in the quarries. Although quarrying comes with alarming levels of noise, arduous labor, and extended hours, there is a strong sense of community among former quarry workers. This now-defunct industry is sentimentally tied to a local sense of identity. Transforming the quarries into sites that can be visited therefore encourages a sense of belonging, physically and emotionally. Furthermore, transforming the quarries into cultural sites can bring new perspectives to village communities in the region.

The quarries' openness to nature is also more inviting and relatable than many other forms of cultural institutions, such as art museums. The sites allow people to (re)visit local culture, learn about the history of quarrying, and sentimentally reconnect with nature. Moreover, their free entry and openness to the natural environment encourages human interaction and exchange, fulfilling the basic human need to communicate and socialize, particularly after the isolation of the pandemic.

Architects should focus on rediscovering ways to protect and learn from nature. Architecture can help humans adapt to the consequences of climate change, as well as participate in minimizing the impact of human civilization on Earth. As a field, architecture must respond to the global ecological problems caused by mass construction. Our intention in Jinyun was to help re-calibrate the relationships between people and the natural environment. This project offers a new vision for public life that redefines notions of comfort from a physical feeling to a cultural one. Architecture is not an end or a final product, but rather the means to transform and instigate change.

Notes

1

“Scientists Show Large Impact of Controlling Humidity on Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” National Renewable Energy Laboratory (blog), March 14, 2022. See ➝.

2

Daniel A. Barber, “After Comfort,” Log 47, 49.

!spacechads this is what they denied us with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

Some footage of the testing done in the late 50s. To this date Nuclear Pulse Propulsion is the only form of interstellar travel in a human lifetime that could be achieved using current technology, more feasible to do on a probe though and use the crewed version for fast interplanetary flight.

!ifrickinglovescience !physics

p neat

orange sight: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40439515

!lgbt

cool discussion about social cognition and game theory and shit

!physics !mathematics

First is the pic of the Jebel Irhoud fossil reconstruction. It's the earliest fossil of a Homo Sapiens found so far dating from 300 thousand years ago.

https://www.meer.com/en/27773-the-oldest-homo-sapiens-discovered-in-morocco

These are Homo Erectus

Smithsonian Magazine made a lof od reconstructions going back to Australopithecus.

!ifrickinglovescience !biology

Also, the redditors seem to be nooticing something about abos

https://old.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/16d6ayv/modern_reconstruction_of_worlds_first_modern/

!spacechads Polaris Dawn is just a few months away and the spacesuits for the EVA are ready

!ifrickinglovescience

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris_Dawn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspiration4

I confess I'm skeptical if this Saudi white elephant project will ever be finished. But reddit has such a stupid borderline irrational hate boner for anything being build by the Gulf Monarchies, they always REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE with every post about Dubai, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, le slave pajheet wokers amerite?

Subs like /r/architecture and urbanplanning are particularly narrow minded and predictable. They like trains, cycle ways and no cars, they also hate skyscrapers(THE HUBRIS THE VANITY THE GREED ) and like 5-story commie blocks and straggy Sweden or Dutch style buildings and is SO DARN BORING. To heck with that, I want cool 1km tall skyscrapers, NYC is one of the few American metropolises adding a bunch of them to their skyline.

What an enormous waste of resources and ecological destruction.

'Ecological destruction', I mean the vast majority of Saudi is arid desert totally unable to support any form of life

Deserts aren't “unable to support life”. Theres a rich ecosystem there just like everywhere else.

NOOO STOP DESTROYING THE DESERTS

"Archeologists are unable to determine why such an obviously dumb city was constructed in the early 21st century. Theories point to some kind of religious meaning or possibly a case of mass insanity."

“The latter hypothesis is supported by fragments of the only surviving written record of its existence: ‘Neom is a parody' by Adam of Something. More specifically it is quoted at length in a much larger work from the beginning of the second dark age titled ‘A Compilation of Notable YouTube Orations' by the internet antiquarian Wriz426769. This larger work has come down to us in only a single manuscript copied from the original.”

ADAM SOMETHING REFERENCE

That cute twink is the representative of the collective mind of reddit's “architects” and “urbanists” btw.

Why is like 100% everyone against it? Genuinely curious. Usually when shit like this pop up you see atleast a couple of devil's advocates but it's just straight up opposition here, and that too, very strong. I'm not an architect or engineer myself but I do realize that the project looks really stupid, just from common sense, and I do realize some of you are actually professionals but I'm sure the people working on it aren't r-slurs either, and while this may definitely be a failed stunt for the rich oil people I don't really get the pessimism and hate for it. Wouldn't actually be the first time humans did something that the world would've considered impossible and a fool's errand.

Edit: I'm not advocating for this lol, I've known people who have spent time in Saudi, and I realize it's a shithole built on the sweat and blood or slave labours from other Asian countries, I get that this project is most definitely doing the same and I get that it's morally wrong, but why do you oppose this as an architectural project?

Someone decided to question the circlejerk

This Video perfectly sums up what it's like Working With a Crazy autocrat and why so many stupid projects pop up in Saudi Arabia/ UAE.

WATCH THE ADAM SOMETHING VIDEO

Racism, literally it. This is said about literally every project made in the Arab nations specially the GCC.

And it's hilarious how the ppl in here say with such confidence “it's not gonna be built” as if the dozens and possibly thousands of experts involved in this project know less than these random redditors or some youtubers, many structures in human history were thought to be impossible to make yet they were made

Piss off with the racism. It's an architectural abomination and benefits no one but a select few.

!engineering !neolibs

Bonus

https://old.reddit.com/r/UrbanHell/comments/150s506/meanwhile_egypt_is_building_a_new_administrative/

Urbanhell discusses @Aevann new capital

Adam Something did a great video on this already.

lmao

Pearl clutching straggots

Short answer: no

Long answer: noooooooooo

Detailed explanation: No, because definitely not.

If they think it's unfeasible (we don't have the tech currently to do it on a large scale) they should at least explain their reasons

No. It's mostly smoke and mirrors. Why are fossil fuel companies so interested in this technology? They use the captured CO2 to extract additional oil from wells. It's just another distraction to avoid the elephant in the room and continue business as usual.

The answer is No

This user is surely negative

https://old.reddit.com/user/greenman5252/

>comments in /r/adulting, collapse, WDP,

I'm a chemist working on the (electro)conversion of CO2 into economically valuable products. In my opinion, making this process profitable would be the only way to convince big companies to significantly invest in the process. I can tell you that we are far from making the process economically viable

Edit: to clarify, I'm not defending that we should prioritize the economy. I'm saying that that's what policy makers/ big companies prioritize, so it won't happen until the process is profitable, which is far from now. We thus rely on different approaches to mitigate climate change

A sensible comment

Bonus on doomering about millions dying in India during heat waves just a few years from now

https://old.reddit.com/r/climatechange/comments/1ct9dhj/fatal_heat_waves_are_testing_indias_ability_to/

We are going to have a heat wave combined with power failure that kills millions by the end of the decade.

You get a wet bulb temp weather system that settles over a city for a couple days, and the power system goes down.

The opening chapter of the novel "The Ministry for the Future" is a description of just this scenario, and it is hands down one of the most horrifying things I have ever read.

Yup that chapter was sickeningly realistic

The heat wave deaths are then followed by a massive pandemic as millions of corpses liquefy in the heat. The whole city would be a biohazard for a long time

I just started this book yesterday and this post made me do a double take. I had a moment of like, “wait…that's too real”

!bookworms JUST LIKE KSR THE MINISTRY FOR THE FUTURE!

Rip @Sasanka_of_Gauda @ABC and other sexy Indian dudes

!engineering !ifrickinglovescience

the germline and its consequences have been a disaster for the bilaterian race.