Spyke

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science

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Google’s DeepMind finds 2.2M crystal structures in materials science win

Headline should read, DeepMind calculated 2.2 million hypothetically stable crystal structures with the possibility to advance everything from materials science to biology (emphasis mine)

There's a large difference between a hypothetical crystal structure and being able to produce that crystal structure in the real world. And an even larger difference between the hypothetical and the ability to produce the crystal structure in an efficient and cost-effective enough manner to be usable. There are already multiple materials that are known that would make better batteries than lithium-ion batteries, but either the manufacturing method is too hard or expensive, or the materials are extremely rare. So it's nice DeepMind was able to do this, but it's years from being usable still.

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As X bleeds cash, Musk threatens Anti-Defamation League with defamation lawsuit — Musk claimed that ADL could be “on the hook” for $22B in X losses

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ADL would almost certainly file an anti-SLAPP claim and probably win. California’s anti-SLAPP law even says that it’s contents should be broadly considered as a bulwark against assholes using the courts to prevent public participation. If ADL does win an anti-SLAPP motion, Musk would end up paying their lawyers fees down to the cent.

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When you think about it, was Palpatine's plan kind of dumb?

Honestly, that comes down to philosophy. The Sith are about domination. You gain power through fear and anger. They don't understand anything else. So they rule based on their philosophy. Also, in Lucas' vision, creating the Empire was to spread fear through the populace. That fear would reinforce the Dark Side and make the Sith stronger. Every time you have some person get angry and kill another person, or a family scared for their lives, it adds to the Dark Side's power. It's a metaphysical reinforcement of Sith ideas that make it impossible for Luke to really stand up to Palpatine. But the Jedi way is not to fight using power, but to embrace others as they are. When Luke accepts his father and himself as they are, he becomes a full Jedi and his father sees what he thought was impossible: that getting angry and accessing the Dark Side is NOT a permanent pathway to doom. You can CHANGE YOUR PATH and try to atone for your sins. Being a Jedi is about the idea that NOTHING is absolute. This is why Obi-wan and Yoda fail and Luke succeeds, he is the only person to try to change and improve and not see the Dark Side as a permanent hell but something to be overcome. (This also makes the Luke we see in TLJ nearly impossible to support, he's undone learning that cost him nearly everything to earn in such a silly way, it's practically unbelievable.)

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Wagner Group commander Dmitry Utkin was on plane that crashed north of Moscow, Russian civil aviation authority says

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Poland would make quick work of Wagner. They have not fucked around in making their army one of the best in Europe in combined arms warfare. They’ve also updated their most of their materiel to Western gear (or are producing their own that is equal to Western gear) that we now know is dramatically superior to the old Soviet//Russian gear. They’ve been in on practically every peacekeeping mission across the world for the last 25 years, seasoning their officers with combat experience. They are far more competent than Wagner, to put it briefly.

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Difficulty bugged or am I bad?

You aren’t crazy. There are some fairly normal enemies and then there are definite bullet sponges. If they have a red bar under the white bar, they’re going to have ‘segments’ of health. You shoot one white bar off and you lose one segment of red bar. Most I’ve experienced so far have three segments to their red bar. And bullets definitely do less to those enemies too.

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You know what moment has always bugged me in Star Trek Enterprise?

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At least the the ships being warships carrying civilians things has a real life analog. Many (but not all) colony ships sailing Earth oceans were usually heavily armed. This was to deter pirates or privateers from raiding the ships the day after they left port and taking all the supplies they’d need for their colony. And the ships were full of women and children. And more than a few got into battles somewhere along their voyage. Then when the colonists got where they were going, in some instances they’d just pull the guns off the ship and set them up to defend the colony.