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Value of the Long Tail
Jumpman50

https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/hazards-automation I haven't gone deep into these studies, but I am aware that there have been claims made that large percentage but incomplete automation can have negative consequences because the human operator does not get enough practice to really be effective during the times she needs to take over. Especially in rare high leverage situations.

Anecdotally, I work in software development for a company that has a lot of services. A service that is not 100% resilient to incomplete/missing data at sta... (read more)

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How does electricity work literally?
Answer by Jumpman30

The electrons in a current never move anything close to the speed of light (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drift_velocity). It is the propagation of the changes in the electric field caused by the electrons moving that moves at the speed of light. It is more like a tube full of marbles (a stretched analogy). If you push the marble on one end the marble at the other end moves almost instantly. The marble you pushed didn't move all that distance.

Yes, the heat in conductors is caused by the electrons kinetic energy. No, it doesn't really change the p... (read more)

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1Long try
The wiki Currents war article ends with a brief mention of HVDC. China utilizes it in 2019, and they certainly are not stupid, so... The HVDC article lists some pros & cons of it over AC. At a quick glance, there are more pros. And what of the biggest disadvantage? Converter stations cost. And what do they do? They convert that DC into AC, so it can be distributed into households and then switched back to DC inside the devices so they can use electricity! All of this clusterfuck nonsense can be avoided if they use all-out DC system in the 1st place! I guess using a war more than 120 years ago to justify current (pun intended) situation is not very good.