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Cake day: October 6th, 2023

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  • I don’t believe you can be compelled to provide a password. That does after all (at the very least) constitute speech. And freedom of speech is also freedom of non-speech, they can’t make you say something.

    They will however try to make you do that… In many situations authorities are allowed to lie to you. So that’s sucks. They can tell you that you’re required to unlock your phone, you just have to know that your not actually.

    Also they can’t make you say anything, but they can make you do things, like for instance “put your finger here” or “look into this camera”, which is why biometric unlock is unsafe around cops.



  • There’s actually a rational reason to not worry about LEO space mirrors becoming potential space junk. They just have an extremely high surface area to weight ratio, meaning they’re going to experience relatively high drag. If something like this is abandoned in low earth orbit, it would probably deorbit relatively quickly, like in a matter of months.

    I’m not suggesting that this mirror is a good idea, it’s unclear what the use case even is. But I am saying that it’s not any more dangerous than any of the dozens of smallsats launched by University robotics programs. People don’t tend to have any problem with that kind of satellite, though they’re probably more likely to be abandoned relatively quickly and they would stay in orbit longer than a satellite that has what is essentially an enormous sail.






  • That’s a legit complaint, this doesn’t help cyclists or pedestrians. Though selectively dimming lights is definitely cool as fuck and a good idea.

    I think with further development this could in fact be a good solution.

    Another strategy could be, rather than trying to identify various non-road objects, and avoid blinding those, to instead try to positively identify the road, and only illuminate that. If it’s actively trying to not shine on anything it isn’t certain is road, that could work. It’s at least an avenue worth exploring.

    Also, if you’re already putting lidar in vehicles for collision avoidance, the headlights are one more area where that capability could be utilized.