Open to freelance/consulting work in bioinformatics. 8 years of experience in various areas of bioinformatics and computational biology, with particular expertise in the analysis of LC-MS proteomics and transcriptomics data. Well-versed in taking a problem in the language of biology and finding the appropriate computational solution.
Is this true? Flat rectangles pack more efficiently than tubes. With mattresses, afaik, the big difference was vacuum-packing reducing overall volume, not shape.
Seems true, because about 80% of the volume of a tv or monitor box is padding. Padding scales with surface area, not volume, so it could be reduced by a ton.
It’s definitely not too old for anything, if you want to do it. Source: I transferred from local college to better college at 20 myself.
There will be plenty of 20-year-olds where you transfer, and no one will care what year you technically are. Don’t worry about that. College is not like high school.
As other commenters have noted, the big question is whether you want to spend the extra time in school (and spend the extra money for the extra time - college debt is serious business!) But you know your own situation best, and an extra couple years of classes can be spent profitably if you’re thoughtful about how you use them.
But, here’s another possibility to consider- finish undergrad at your current place, and then go for a Master’s degree at the more prestigious school? It’s an extra two years in either case, and then you have a whole postgraduate degree as well.
I recommend Matt Levine’s blog Money Stuff [0] for analysis of just how bizarre Musk’s twitter saga is relative to usual day-to-day corporate acquisitions. I also recommend his twitter thread just now breaking down his reaction to today’s news [1]
Respectfully, the perfect is the enemy of the good, and it’s entirely reasonable to publish what you have now. If later you make further improvements, you can simply publish again.
You're completely correct, but I'm afraid this is more of a personal problem. I know I'll never be able to forgive myself if I figured out a solution to one of the more obvious problems with the model after I've already published it. I'd just be far more comfortable being happy with my own work before I release it to the wild. I know that this is selfish, and I apologize.
Energy consumption would be limited by supply and energy dissipation, and energy dissipation (roughly speaking) depends on surface area and thermal conductivity. So, yes, for all devices made with a given shape and given materials, there is such an equation.
In theory, I guess, there’s also such an equation for the “upper limit” of heat dissipation for size, for a computer using the optimal shape and optimal materials. But since that probably concerns several-atom-thick devices made of diamond or something, that’s probably not practically useful anytime soon. :)
Indeed, Dyson spheres would need to release some amount of waste heat, due to the laws of thermodynamics. If there were too many of them that heat would be visible (at least to infrared telescopes,) so we know that’s not the explanation for dark matter. Same with dust and other non-luminescent matter- it’s all way more visible than dark matter has to be, somehow.
Literally every last thing in the whole universe that can radiate heat is at least as warm as the cosmic background radiation. You cannot shed any heat at all unless you are warmer than the background radiation, because you would be absorbing as much heat from it as you radiate. If you were colder, you would necessarily be absorbing more.
It’s a nice idea; perhaps something along the lines of a mix between Kerbal Space Program, SimCity, and Satisfactory. There’s a big problem for making this a practical step towards Martian colony planning, though; making a simulation game accurately reflect the real world is hard! If you’ve played any of the three games I mentioned, and have even general knowledge of the fields they simulate (rocketry and space travel, civic engineering and economic management, and manufacturing, respectively) you’ll see immediately that they misrepresent reality to a huge degree, and that as a result good ideas in the game don’t at all translate to reality. (Arguably, KSP reflects its subject matter best, but it’s still limited enough that discussion of the game often involves talking about “very Kerbal” designs that would be outright absurd as real aerospace engineering.)
Even if you can map out the elements of a Martian colony’s technological, social and economic underpinnings, having a game reflect those elements realistically is likely to take a heavy toll on its quality as a good game- simply because the world is very complex. There’s only a limited amount of complexity even the nerdiest gamer wants to deal with. If you doubt me, try playing some of the older Paragon Studios games- and even then, e.g. Victoria 2 was a downright impressionistic take on 19th century geopolitics. An accurate rendition of a 21st Martian colony would be far worse. Your player base would be limited to extremely wonky enthusiasts, and those people are likely already writing papers on the subject regardless.
Regardless of all the above I like the idea and have thought song similar lines myself in the past. But I can see why it doesn’t stand out to Musk as an important use of his time. He seems to feel someone else will come along to solve the actual colonization problem, as long as he just provides the rockets.
Open to freelance/consulting work in bioinformatics. 8 years of experience in various areas of bioinformatics and computational biology, with particular expertise in the analysis of LC-MS proteomics and transcriptomics data. Well-versed in taking a problem in the language of biology and finding the appropriate computational solution.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/w-max-alexander/
Email: max@alexander.bio