I purchased the Surface Laptop with the Snapdragon Elite and 64GB ram. The performance seems pretty decent, even while using Visual Studio on it and a few accompanying apps/tools. Battery lasts a decent amount, but nothing close to even 10 hours if you're doing work. There are surprisingly decent amount of apps that run on ARM now, and the x86 ones also run decently.
The biggest issue I've had is the sleep - it drains significantly more battery than an MBP, and after a while it seems to go into hibernate which takes a very long time to reboot back into windows (30s-60s+). It's just completely inefficient at handling sleep still.
The last issue is battery time when you are not doing lightweight browsing - the battery tends to go down a lot quicker.
Charging is pretty slow, wish it could be faster via USB-C, but that's a design issue, not necessarily related to snapdragon.
I really wanted to love it - but it's more of an expensive toy because of the battery/sleep. My MBP with the M2 Max still handles sleep infinitely better, and battery life is also significantly better when actually doing development on it. Im not a fan at all of MacOS, and I tend to RDP into my home machine most of the time, but even with that, I'd chose the MacBook for now over the ARM windows laptop.
In my experience, most people who work in tourist destinations can't afford to travel for vacation. Do you think the average Costarricense or Resident of Cancun is taking yearly trips abroad on a wage of under $5/hour?
lol that’s so random. Millions of people living in Rio de Janeiro can afford to travel around the country and internationally. Most of us will still prefer Rio, of course.
I don't quite understand the idea or fascination behind the Dyson spheres. Isn't it much more complex to acquire the materials, build, and maintain the structure than to simply build localized nuclear power generators where they need them? Surely it's a lot easier to capture more power of a controlled fusion reaction than build a huge megastructure in space where objects can collide at immense speeds and cause devastating damage.
Dyson spheres are a nice way to look at what humans are capable of in the future. That is why they probably capture the imagination.
I actually do not see them as much more than beefed up solar panels. 50 Years ago a solar panel was something that most people saw on a novelty pocket calculator. 30 years ago people started thinking about solar panels to actually power a house off-grid. 20 years ago people started things about solar farms that could give useful power to the grid. And now solar panels are ubiquitous and just about anyone can put them on a roof of a house and the world makes them in such large numbers that it is hard to imagine the number of panels made per second.
Maybe in 20 years time we will find out that a solar panel in space is much better because the sunlight does not have to travel through the atmosphere. So why not put large panels in space. Then in 40 years time we understand that we need to position them closely around the sun to get the maximum power output. Of-course the power cord is a bit long to earth so you then also put your factories on those panels. Which is no problem because launching large reusable rockets in space is a problem that is being solved right now. And breaking factories down in container sized chunks to transport them was already invented 60 years ago with containers and container ships.
> Maybe in 20 years time we will find out that a solar panel in space is much better because the sunlight does not have to travel through the atmosphere
It is basically guaranteed that microwave or laser beam from there is going to have a dual use purpose. As a source of energy and as a directed energy weapon. And it is a quite high chance that it will get banned by power which did not build it. Be it China, Russia, EU or USA.
You are correct, it is an absurd and nonsensical idea. Especially from the material perspective. People will tell you that you need only XY amount of weight, which is just few percent of all the mass in solar system... but last time I checked, we are not grabbing random soil from Earth and putting it into a form of a satellite like a sandcastle. We need very specific materials put together in very specific way, where some of them are in very short supply to be wasted on Dyson swarm.
Of course, somebody will chime in and tell that advanced civilization could transmute any matter into any other matter. But if that would be possible, then it is completely negating any motivation to build Dyson swarm at a first place, because you can just transmute your toxic waste from local your local dump into antimatter and you have virtually endless amount of energy at your disposal.
You are thinking about the wrong order of magnitude.
The sun emits ~3e26 J/s [1].
The internet claims hydrogen fusion generates between ~5-6.5e14 J/kg [2][3].
The internet claims there are ~5 trillion tons of known Hydrogen reserves [4] which is ~5e15 kg. So, if we perfectly fused all known Hydrogen reserves, that would be ~3e30 J, or ~1,000 seconds (~16 minutes) of total Sun output.
The internet claims the Earth is ~260 ppm (~1/4000) Hydrogen by mass [4]. The Earth is ~6e24 kg. So, that is ~1.5e21 kg. So, if we perfectly fused all Hydrogen inside of Earth, that would be ~1e36 J or ~3e9 seconds (~100 years) of total Sun output.
Portable fusion, if possible, would be great for localized power. But if a civilization wants long term power at total solar output scales, then only known source is total solar output. Nothing else known has enough fuel to support that level of usage, let alone the challenge of actually fusing that much material.
Neither sugar nor caffeine has the same effects as drugs like alcohol and marijuana. It's pretty asinine to classify them as even being in the same category.
Yeah, no. We're already in a drug crisis as it is. We need to teach people that doing drugs (of any kind) isn't the answer to problems. Soft times seems to have created this problem where people would rather escape their lives than live them out.
You just reflexively replied with what you have been programmed to believe about mind-altering substances (aside from those exempted by the authorities). The use of "drug crisis" in reply to the substances mentioned is a clear indication of your prejudice and ignorance, given that MDMA has already been given breakthrough status by the FDA as a treatment for PTSD, psilocybin for major depression, and being studied for it's powerful anti-addictive effects, same as LSD (which had great results with curing alcoholism *in one session* when it was initially being studied in the 50s and 60s).
This entire thread is full of people who seemingly feel compelled to comment on things they are completely ignorant about, which one would hope to see less of on HN.
I don't think people do psilocybin and LSD to escape from reality. I'm not even sure how that would work, given how I understand tolerance works for those drugs?
I completely agree. People in the US need to learn that happiness cannot come from a purchase, whether it's chemicals to ingest or whatever else is being marketed to them. It's amazing what americans will do to their bodies and minds except get exercise and eat fresh healthy foods.
Hard to judge the DEAs effectiveness off something like this. You have very little insight on their actual effectiveness and workings on everything, yet your comment seems to summarize the entire organization off a completely biased political comment.
Affordable healthcare being chief among these. If people could go to the doctor without fear of bankruptcy, they might stop trying to self medicate with potentially addictive substances.
I was listening to a podcast the other day and one of the hosts had lost his job. He was thrilled to "only" have to pay $1000/mo for insurance on the Marketplace for his family of 6. And he confirmed it wasn't even a "Cadillac" plan!
If my back hurts, I'm probably going to reach for weed over a visit to the doctor because $10/day is a potentially more affordable than needing to shell out $8k for back surgery or physical therapy treatments for years. Maybe I get lucky and the pain goes away, or I can focus on finding a new job with better health benefits and still come out ahead financially.
Humans have been using drugs as long as we've been human. From caffeine to advanced hallucinogens.
I agree with the sentiment but it seems far more reasonable to stop criminalizing something so human as a step towards the goal, rather than put the goal before the metaphorical horse.
actually, psychedelics help people get in touch with their core issues like childhood traumas which cause people to turn to drugs, games, overeating, etc, and help alleviate PTSD, OCD, etc. psychedelics are anti-addiction.
The issue is the prolonged constant daily use of it. Unlike alcohol, it's much easier to get by in the day with weed, and a lot of people do use it as that. It offers them an escape from reality without the full social repercussion of something like alcohol.
That’s a good point. I’ve known people who smoke a joint every couple of hours and outwardly seem more functional than someone who has had three or four drinks.
Honestly, we should look to fix the issues that lead to people depending on weed, alcohol, and other drugs instead.
These drugs are escapes for people - and a lot of them, especially younger kids get completely hooked on the escaped from reality from these drugs (including alcohol).
We should instead be limit the use of these drugs and have teams dedicated to studying why people are turning to these instead. It's OK to have them on the weekends, but most people I know who smoke weed are on it the majority of the time. Alcohol isn't much better - most do limit it to after hours / weekends, but there are a few who tend to overdo it.
From a biased point of view, I've had a few young family members and friends who turned to weed as their go-to for their daily lives, and it has changed their lifestyle, made them far less willing to live out their life and pursue actual goals. They definitely had both the potential and backing of their families (mid to high class) to do great, but chose to instead live a life of 'rotting away' in their words. Out of them only one has turned their life around (still smoking on weekends) citing that it made them not want to do absolutely anything in their day to day life.
It could just be as simple as it’s a lot of fun. I smoked pot for a lot of years, not because I had a hole in me or anything, it was just a very fun way to go about the day. I haven’t smoked in a decade because long term usage led to mild agoraphobia for me but went away a couple of months after I stopped.
Yeah. I mean, it's a great accompaniment to some fresh fruit and cheese on a sunny day, a good album, maybe the company of a loved one. It never made me feel like a different person or like I was on a vacation from reality like alcohol could. I've known lots of people who smoke a little, or used to smoke a little and then stopped (I haven't for a long time), and also people who smoke a lot and seem to be doing fine, and also people who clearly smoke in excess, to their detriment. But I have to say that the worst potheads I've ever met seemed happy, healthy, and well-adjusted compared to the alcoholics.
I think the long term effect depends on how your life is going.
Just like with alcohol, if your life is trash: bad job, no friends, no relationship, then turning to weed or alcohol can be seen as an escape from your life and eventually it will take over.
But if you are in a good headspace, then what is the problem really? I can meet some friends and get plastered with them for a weekend and not touch booze for a month after that because I have work/family commitments that would make getting drunk impractical,
I am fairly certain that weed can be used exactly the same way.
Having a few drinks with friends or alone after a a hard day's work is fun. Smoking a joint with friends while sunbathing on the beach is fun. Getting high every day and drunk everyday is a problem but it doesn't have to be that way.
I know/knew a lot of people who smoke daily. It's honestly close to 50/50 where daily smokers excel and experience more than they would have without, and daily smokers who stagnate.
A lot of them naturally moved away from smoking when its purpose was served too.
>Honestly, we should look to fix the issues that lead to people depending on weed, alcohol, and other drugs instead.
It doesn't have to be exclusive or. People are looking to fix these issues. In the mean time, we don't have to ruin people's lives by convicting them as felons.
