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spartanatreyu

@ spartanatreyu @programming.dev

Posts
1
Comments
105
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Removed Locked

    Ukraine Live: Putin in Shocks as Ukraine shot down three more Russian warplanes – Officials

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  • For anyone downvoting this who didn't understand the reference:

    Russia is saying that they're the ones shooting down their own planes, because they don't want to admit that Ukraine has the capability to shoot down their planes.

  • What are the craziest misconceptions you’ve heard about programming from people not familiar with it?

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  • I like to say:

    We have a half finished skyscraper, and you're asking me to Just add a new basement between the second and third floor. Do you see how that might be difficult? If we want to do it, we have to tear down the entire building floor by floor, then build up again from the second floor. Are you prepared to spend the money and push back the release date for that new feature?

  • Removed

    Giant successor to Hadron Collider could uncover secrets of 95% of the universe

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  • Your question:

    what things did the LHC discover that have real practical applications right now other than validating some hypothesis

    Is really multiple questions:

    1. Is doing fundamental research with no application in mind useful?
    2. Has the LHC led to practical applications usable today

    The answer to question 1 is yes.

    There's different types of research programs made to target different goals. Some aim for short or medium term applications, and others are just pure fundamental research.

    Just because pure research doesn't have an application in mind, doesn't mean it's not useful. The application isn't the goal, the expansion of our knowledge base is. Everyone who ever thought up of an application for something did so based on their own knowledge base. If the knowledge base never expands, then we run out of applications to think up. This is why pure research is useful.

    And all of history supports this:

    • The discovers of rays shooting off cathode-ray-tubes in the 1800s were just doing pure research and had no idea it would lead to TVs
    • particle accelerator research lead to invention of cat scans
    • chemists trying to research heavier elements leading to the discovery of nuclear fission, leading to nuclear power
    • electrolysis research lead to the invention of lead (and rechargeable) batteries
    • etc...

    The answer to question 2 is also yes:

    The obvious ones are:

    • improved manufacturing processes
    • improved supercooled superconductors
    • improved large scale vacuum chambers
    • Improved data processing
    • Trained a new cohort of experienced scientists/engineers/workers/etc (who can now work on new projects outside of the LHC)

  • What's a scam that's so normalized that we don't even realize it's a scam anymore?

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  • Also, you can buy Tic Tacs from any newsagent or gas station.