2017 Thread

[Planetoid_75]

Hurricanes Harvey and Irma cause unimaginable destruction in the US. Harvey dumped over 30 inches of rain near Houston and Port Arthur, with some areas of Harris County getting over 50 inches of rain. That happened from August 27-September 4. Hurricane Irma battered the northern Leeward Islands as a 185-mph category 5 hurricane on September 5, then batters Puerto Rico with Tropical Storm Force Winds on September 6 as a 175-mph Category 5 hurricane, then batters Cuba as a Category 5 hurricane, the first time a Category 5 hurricane Struck Cuba since 1924 on September 8. The Florida Keys gets struck by Irma as a Category 4 hurricane on the morning of September 10, and causes winds and destruction across all of Florida. What was amazing was that the entire Peninsula of Florida was under a hurricane warning. Maria causes even more destruction on the Leeward Islands. Maria makes landfall in Puerto Rico as a Category 4 hurricane, the strongest and most intense hurricane since the 1928 San Felipe Hurricane to make landfall in the commonwealth. Maris'a US Impacts are known, since I can't predict this stuff days in advance. Also, Magnitude 7.1 Earthquake hits Mexico City.

[FiahOwl]

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[FiahOwl]

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[Naru523]

https://twitter.com/Arab_News/status/923213618195369985

[atomic7732]

https://grist.org/article/bitcoin-could-cost-us-our-clean-energy-future/

[Darvince]

what the fuck

now i'm imagining all power grids around the world constantly blacking out because of fucking bitcoin miners in like 2 years, yet no one is like "maybe this is a bad idea"

also there's cryptocurrencies that use vastly less energy per gigahash

[vh]

proof of stake cryptocurrencies don't require any of this brute force computation at all, nevermind less energy per gigahash.

but this is yet another example of how dangerous super ai will be and how bad humans are at seeing consequences

"so i've got this neat hash function which is preimage resistant"
"does it do anything bad? like kill babies?"
"what!? no. it's just math"
"oh ok so since math is harmless lets use it as a foundation for our new currency"
-- 20 years later --
"oh fuck global warming is killing us all, and it's all the fault of that cute little equation"

[Darvince]

classic

[Naru523]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/us/virginia-house-of-delegates-single-vote.html

The Democratic wave that rose on Election Day in Virginia last month delivered a final crash on the sand Tuesday when a Democratic challenger defeated a Republican incumbent by a single vote, leaving the Virginia House of Delegates evenly split between the two parties.

The victory by Shelly Simonds, a school board member in Newport News, was a civics lesson in every-vote-counts as she won 11,608 to 11,607 in a recount conducted by local election officials.

Ms. Simonds’s win means a 50-50 split in the State House, where Republicans had clung to a one-seat majority after losing 15 seats last month in a night of Democratic victories up and down the ballot, which were widely seen as a rebuke to President Trump. Republicans have controlled the House for 17 years.