> I recognize this is a hard concept to understand for folks on this site, but the average joe signing up for a VPN doesn't even remotely understand what they are doing and why.
So what? This article isn’t for them and this isn’t a major news site for the general public, it’s a site for people who want or need to know how things work.
These experiments afaik don't require particle accelerators and are a different field of science, one of the largest of these detectors is the LIGO observatory overseen by Caltech
I know. That is why I think the money that would be spent on a new particle accelerator should be spent on new more sensitive gravitational wave detectors.
As someone who works with THz I can assure you that nobody has thought of environmental factors as these technologies are far from being implemented in any consumer or industrial device - as stated in the article, this is fundamental science. If you go to the THz conference or PW all you will get is academic papers. The applications are certainly very interesting given the nearly unlimited bandwidth available in the THz regime and the fact that it's unlicensed, but we are far away from any kind of real implementation despite decades of articles like these.
Actual applications at the moment are mostly imaging, the 'nudie scanners' at airports and THz imaging at various frequencies is in use for food inspection as it can easily show blemishes/defects in produce that would otherwise be invisible. I read a paper once on detecting counterfeit money. Analysis of airborne contaminants / weather prediction are other possible applications. For telecom it has been considered (at very early stages) for 6G due to the huge bandwidth available. Really there are a lot of 'possible' applications but implementing them has proven difficult either because it requires advancements in materials or other risky aspects or because it's beaten by existing technologies at the moment.
Can I speak with you? I’m managing a startup that is working on a manufacturing process that might let us make THz sensors. I’m hoping to get to know the product space better. My email is in my profile.
Ooooh yeah! They’d have to work right at the antenna, but maybe some kind of metamaterial process could make more efficient solar panels that way? Hard
To imaging that they would be cheap
Though.
> ChatGPT Atlas, the browser with ChatGPT built it.
I know HN's rules disallow nitpicking, but I find this kind of error, right at the top of a product launch of a gigantic software automation company, a delicious slice of irony.
No idea. Despite no confirmations yet on whether space debris was involved, it felt relevant to share because of the overlapping nature and time frames.
This perspective reminds me that when people ask, oh you grow your own food and have food animals, it's like living off grid? their perspective is that farms get their input from the ground and sky, but this hasn't been true in centuries. there are many high-tech inputs for all types of modern farming, such as chemicals (even if they are organic chemicals), fuel, machinery, seeds, infrastructure, knowledge, financial instruments, and a market. in order to live off-grid, first you must invent the universe...
> in order to live off-grid, first you must invent the universe...
Nobody is reinventing the universe, they just want a buffer.
A buffer is a well made item that you can repair yourself, so you're not forced to purchase a replacement.
A buffer is a shoebox with a lifetime supply of your favorite shaving razor.
A buffer is a garden, a pantry of canned goods, a few hens to lay eggs for you.
Each of these buffers insulates the bearer from the effects of supply chain disruption or even unemployment. Walmart could be out of eggs and razors -- but you'll be fine for quite some time, even if you didn't incubate your own chicks or make the razors by hand.
> farms get their input from the ground and sky, but this hasn't been true in centuries
Yes, industrial scales require industrial inputs, but a few hens will happily yield you a few eggs a day while living off your garden scraps and the insects they scratch up. And their waste returns nutrients to the soil -- a boone for a garden.
So transactions are difficult because they are illegal, and blockchain helps to facilitate crime?
Are there other uses? Surely a large and legitimate operation like Stripe and the companies they mention in the blog post would have found additional use cases?
The sentences that follow “found utility” say what that utility is:
> For example, Bridge (a stablecoin orchestration platform that Stripe acquired) is used by SpaceX for managing money in long-tail markets. Another big customer, DolarApp, is providing banking services to customers in Latin America.
> So transactions are difficult because they are illegal, and blockchain helps to facilitate crime?
Let's say I make drinking water illegal, would you still do it? Sure you would, you need it to live, laws be damned.
In Argentina it was a similar situation, financially speaking, but with USD, as Argentina had like 1000% accumulated inflation since 2019, so basically the ARS melted in your hands, and the USD/Euros/crypto where your only safe havens.
So yes, the government made the transactions illegal, but the alternative was becoming poor (we ended up the previous government with around 55% poverty).
I'm certainly not going to moralize against breaking the law, just curious why an American company would (apparently) build a business off of facilitating it.
American companies of all sizes do that a lot; its profitable, and even if it is eventually punished, the punishment is almost never sufficient to deter pursuing the profits.
So what? This article isn’t for them and this isn’t a major news site for the general public, it’s a site for people who want or need to know how things work.
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