litchralee

@litchralee@sh.itjust.works

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a word for people who will mess something up and blame the victim for it?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t disagree. But seeing as OP specifically asked for a word, I’m inclined to offer the most specific, most descriptive word I can muster that is germane to what they’ve described.

  IMO, precision of language is paramount when it comes to addressing other people’s problematic behavior, because it closes the door on excuses like “it’s just a simple misunderstanding” or “that’s just their opinion”.

  The most poignant example I’ve heard of are from parents that make absolutely certain that their children learn the proper names for their body parts. As in, not “hoo-hah” or “privates” but the actual, unambiguous clinical names. This is a marked improvement than the TV trope of “where on the doll did the bad man touch you”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a word for people who will mess something up and blame the victim for it?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Deflection: dictionary.cambridge.org/us/…/deflection

  The act of attacking or blaming another person rather than accepting criticism or blame for your own actions: Deflection is a psychological defense mechanism.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨how much money is there in total?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  financial philosophy

  Surely this would just be economics, no? Especially as your question pertains to the money supply, which is squarely in the domain of macroeconomics.

  how much money is there in total, in the world?

  I can only summarize what my economics course at uni covered, but you’d have to start with defining what should be counted as money. Even if we looked at an isolated island nation, what is and isn’t money is not readily apparent. If I write out a check/cheque drawn against my bank account, is that money? Can my cheque be circulated as if it were currency? How about a banknote against the gold reserves of a national bank or treasury? What if that banknote isn’t directly redeemable for gold or anything, but is a floating currency? What if it’s neither redeemable nor is managed as if a currency, and yet it is readily accepted by Canadians and has actual buying power at a national retail chain.

  Then we get to second-order candidates that could be money (or not): goods and services, land and houses, ongoing businesses, these all have some value and are tradable. Are these money? Are they at least a store of value? If a company is incorporated and is imbued with some starting investment, and then grows that value through business operations, does that create money?

  To deal with this messy reality, economists have multiple definitions for money supply, found here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply. If two people use differing definitions, then of course they’ll conclude different values for the world’s total money supply.

  Then the bank owes $1.02B actually, while only having $1B on the account. So the total amount isn’t zero, it’s negative

  Not correct, because: 1) this fails to account for the interest the bank can generate through re-lending the money, and 2) interest is not a front loaded charge but is an expense over time.

  For #1, it would be some profligate mismanagement of money for a bank to just obtain a loan “for the lolz” and there would be some sort of plan to actually make it do work. In that sense, capital should be viewed as if it were a powderkeg: very capable if applied carefully, very dangerous if mishandled. As for whether or not a bank’s future revenue can be immediately reflected on their books – since the revenue is only theoretical yet the central bank loan is already a certainty – that’s a question for accountants.

  For #2, the mistake is that interest – although continually accruing, or by other terms – is somehow entirely due at the very beginning, which is not how most loans are structured. At any given point in time, yes, the bank could have negative net value, but they could also have positive net value, depending on their cash inflows. And even with negative cash flow, accounts receivable could still boost their net value because future value is still value.

  My recommendation would be to review some basics in economics or accountability, as these sorts of questions have been hashed out over the course of hundreds of years. And even when economic theories don’t exactly describe this reality, they are still useful as models, which is still more rigorous an approach than divination.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the deal with IPv6?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  In a nutshell: github.com/becarpenter/misc/blob/main/why6why.md

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do young people still say words like "taped"?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  An app…lique?

  Sewing jokes aside, this would be a nightmare, where something as basic as a bandage requires an app to unlock the dispenser. Dead phone? I guess only death awaits…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would snail/slug slime make a good "intimate" lube?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Following along, in the hopes a material scientist will give a detailed description of what makes a good lube for human activities.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why does it feel like most art museums are for adults and most science museums are for kids?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Some of the most impactful demonstrations of science are hands-on activities. After all, any sufficiently advanced science starts to look like magic, and a major objective of science museums is to disabuse people of that notion. That these demos seem to be child-oriented is simply a result of not assuming any background knowledge of the topic. But even adults might not know how a tumbler lock works, or that electricity follows all paths in inverse proportion to resistance. If something is rooted in natural phenomena, age is not a prerequisite to understanding.

  As an adult, I personally enjoy science museums precisely because they’re the polar opposite of technical papers and textbooks: an accessible and chill mood to learn about stuff I’ve seen but never paid much attention to. I’m not so vain to think that I can’t learn something from a museum visit. In some sense, adults going to science museum is akin to edutainment, the genre on YouTube. Some might also call it “adult learning” or “continuing education”, but whatever it is, it’s enriching for individuals and families alike.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Which instance on Lemmy does not apply censorship?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There might exist one, but it probably doesn’t haven’t much volume or isn’t well federated because few other instance want to interact with spammy, problematic, high-complaint instances.

  What you’re describing might be a Level Three in the moderation speedrun: techdirt.com/…/hey-elon-let-me-help-you-speed-run…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m unreliably informed that the absolute minimum amount of liquid to drown a human is 1 liter. That might require a special head-shaped bucket, but it seems plausible.

  But out of curiosity, what sort of statistics are you seeing about UK people falling into canals? I know they have canals and people, but I thought the trope was shopping trolleys (USA: shopping carts) falling into canals. Is this a serious issue? Can we find comparable figures from the canal-strewn Netherlands for comparison?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the deal with AI datacenters using water for cooling?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you’re describing district heating, which works great in places that planned ahead and buried the necessary plumbing so that the waste heat from nearby industrial processes can be beneficially used to heat nearby homes and offices.

  The detail, however, is that those industrial processes are diverting the heat to the district plumbing, but if nobody needs heating (eg 40 C summer weather), then they will vent the heat using air cooling to the atmosphere. That is to say, the demand for heating will vary at times, and this is fine because the industrial process can just go back to dumping the heat into the air.

  This doesn’t work for AI data centers because the amount of “waste” heat (eg 100+ megawatts) is well in excess of any nearby demand for heating. To quantify demand, I looked to the district heating system of Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia, home to 1.67 million people, and the coldest capital city in the world by average annual temperature:

  the Ulaanbaatar District Heating Company, encompassing 13,500 buildings with a total connected capacity of 3924 MW

  The system serves 60% of the population, so about 1 million people. Where in the mostly-temperate USA could a 4 gigawatt AI data center be located so that it’s right next to 1 million people that need 24/7 heating as though they lived in Mongolia?

  Scaling down to a 100 megawatt data center, the demand would be for a population of 25,000 living in essentially arctic conditions. Such places already have district heating, such as in Alaska. So if a smaller AI data center shows up, it just means the existing non-AJ heat source would fall back to dumping heat into the air.

  In the end, there are very few places that need heating all year round, but AI datacenters would be producing heat all year round. Even if the heat were used for something outlandish, like heating every square meter of public roadway, that still might not be enough demand to quench these behemoth AI datacenters. And that’s before the cost of building out the district heating system.

  We should definitely build district heating systems where they make sense, but building them so AI data centers can exist would be doing the right thing for the most terrible of reasons

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the deal with AI datacenters using water for cooling?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  While not strictly biofouling, the marine environment can definitely be affected by introducing hotter water where it didn’t exist prior, in and around the outflow pipe. Seaside nuclear power stations that use seawater cooling need to be mindful to diffuse the heated water over a large area, to minimize the ecological impact. Citation: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/…/abstract

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the deal with AI datacenters using water for cooling?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Very similar problems arise with desalination plants, which I wrote about here: sh.itjust.works/comment/14613302

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the deal with AI datacenters using water for cooling?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There is almost certainly an impact somewhere, but I don’t have the data to know where it is. My conjecture is that a localized mass of steam would cause convection currents and drive microweather phenomena, especially downwind of such an air cooled facility. I’m not sure rain is necessarily the result, unless there’s a sizable mountain downwind, since although hot air will rise, it might run out of steam (pun intended) before cooling down enough to fully condense out. So it might just be adding a layer of humidity that floats a few hundred meters above the surface.

  But even that could be devastating, if said layer blocks natural convection currents over a downwind town or city. It could act as a thermal cap, making that town warmer at night, because heat rising from the city would meet that humid layer and get absorbed by the water. The thermal capacity of water comes into play again, but this time against the city.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the deal with AI datacenters using water for cooling?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Air cooling is feasible, as evidenced by existing power stations that use air cooling. A lot of newer nuclear generation use water cooling, being sited along the ocean and in the multi gigawatt range. But we can also find examples of inland power stations that have no water connection, and therefore need some massive cooling towers. Here is one in Germany that has a 2.2 GW rating and a 200 meter tall tower: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niederaussem_Power_Station

  This is, as you can imagine, rather expensive to build, but it’s doable. Cooling a coal fire is not substantially different than cooling compute loads in a data center, as it’s all just a matter of moving heat around. Will there be differences due to the base temperature of coal versus GPUs? Yes, since the ratio of input to ambient temperature matters. But on the flip side, this should make it easier to construct, as the plumbing for lower temperatures is simpler.

  Mechanical engineers can chime in on feasibility for AI data centers, but seeing as it hasn’t been done, its probably still cost related.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the deal with AI datacenters using water for cooling?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Darn, you’re right, the hours fell off in my dimensional analysis. Corrected, although 6.9 hours for a pool isn’t much time for swimming at all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the deal with AI datacenters using water for cooling?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Other commenters correctly describe the cost analysis for using evaporative cooling, but I’ll add one more reason why it’s the preferred method when water is available: evaporating water can dissipate truly outlandish amounts of heat with very few moving parts.

  Harkening back to high school physics class, water – like all other substances – has a certain thermal capacity, meaning the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 degree C. The specific thermal capacity of water is already quite high, at 4184 J/(kg*C), besting all the common metals and only losing to lithium, hydrogen, and ammonia. In nature, this means that large bodies of water are natural moderators of temperature, because water can absorb an entire day’s worth of sunlight energy but not substantially change the water temperature.

  But where water really trounces the competition is its “heat of vaporization”. This is the extra energy needed for liquid water to become vapor; simply bringing water to 100 C is not sufficient to make it airborne. Water has a value of 2146 kJ/kg. Simplifying to where 1 kg of water is 1 liter of water, we can convert this unit into something more familiar: 0.596 kWh/L.

  What these two physical properties of water tell us is that if our city water comes out of the pipe at 20 C, then to get it to 100 C to boil, we need the difference (80) times the thermal capacity (4184 J/kg*C), which is 334,720 J/kg . Using the same simplification from earlier, that comes out to be 0.093 kWh/L. And then to actual make the boiling liquid become a vapor (so that it’ll float away), we then need 0.596 kWh/L on top of that.

  Let that sink in for a moment: the energy to turn water into vapor (0.596 kWh/L) is six times higher than the energy (0.093 kWh/L) to raise liquid water from 20 C to 100 C. That’s truly incredible, for a non-toxic, life-compatible substance that we can (but should we?) safely dump into the environment. If you total the two values, one liter of water can dissipate 0.69 kWh of energy per liter. Nice!

  In the context of a 100 megawatt data center (which apparently is what the industry considers as the smallest “hyperscale data center”), if that facility used only evaporative cooling, the water requirement would be 144,927 L/hour. That is an Olympic-size swimming pool every 6.9 seconds. Not nice!

  And AI datacenters are only getting larger, with some reaching into the low single-digits of gigawatts. But what is the alternative to cooling the more-modest data center from earlier? The reality is that the universe only provides for three forms of heat transfer: conduction, convection, and radiation. The heat from data centers cannot be concentrated into a laser and radiated into space, and we don’t have some sort of underground granite mountain that the data centers can conduct their heat into. Convection is precisely the idea of storing the heat into a substance (eg water, air) and then jettisoning the substance.

  So if we don’t want to use water, then we have to use air. But for the two qualities of water that make it an excellent substance for evaporative cooling, air doesn’t come close – 1003 J/(kg*C) and no heat of vaporization, because air is already gaseous. That means we need to move ungodly amounts of air to dissipate 100 megawatts. But humanity has already invented the means to do this, by a clever structure that naturally encourages air to flow through it.

  The only caveat is that the clever structure is a cooling tower, and is characteristic of nuclear power stations. It’s also used for non-nuclear power station cooling, but it’s most famous in the nuclear context, where generators are well into the gigawatt range. Should AI datacenters use nuclear-sized air cooling towers instead of water evaporation? It would work, but even as someone that’s not anti-nuclear, the optics of raising a cooling tower in rural America just to cool a datacenter would be untenable.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  License is the legal instrument which makes open source software/hardware/silicon possible, describing precisely what rights are granted or retained. The term “open source” usually means the definition propounded by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) but sometimes not in certain contexts. At the very minimum, an OSI-compliant open source license will allow any distribution of the software without having to seek additional permission from the author, must be accompanied with access to the source code, and the software does not come with provisos outright prohibiting its use for certain endeavors.

  That last point is about the “use” of the software, and is a crucial distinction between “open source” and “source available”. To have source available means the source code can be examined, but usually cannot be compiled. An open source license explicitly allows all uses, but possibly with additional obligations. For example, the AGPL license allows software to be used to run a server, but creates an obligation to provide the server source code to all users that connect. Whereas something like the MIT 0-clause license has zero additional obligations, while allowing the broadest use.

  The exact verbiage of a license are the domain of lawyers, being a legal document. But the choice of license is down to the software author or corporate owner, and is a multifaceted consideration, including marketability, compatibility with other software, and whether it’s more important that the code gets used or that it forever remains available.

  The latter is the major battleground for advocates of permissive versus copyleft licenses. Some software (eg reference cryptographic algorithms) have the priority that the absolute most number of people should use them, so a permissive license makes sense. While other software (eg desktop 3D rendering suite Blender) have a priority that nobody can ever take it private by adding proprietary-only features.

  Choosing open source is easy, but choosing a license to effect that choice can get tricky. For authors publishing their software, the choice may very well change the course of history (ie Linux GPL-2). For consumers or businesses using software, the license dictates how changes can be distributed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What if programmers rewrote the English language?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The Oxford comma would be mandatory.

• How prevalent are cash transactions in the USA?
  Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩ | ⁨27⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What’s the difference between communism and socialism?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes: en.wikipedia.org/…/Mandatory_referendums_in_Switz…

  Switzerland is also a rarity where there isn’t quite a separate head of state (eg UK Monarch, German President) but also the head of government role is done by a council of seven, where the majority decision is what happens. So the legislative body writes the law and the council of seven is tasked with executive power to carry out the law.

  The modern Swiss constitution (1848) took inspiration from the American constitution (1789), but rather than a consolidate head of state/government like the American President, they wanted to hew even closer to the long-standing ideals of democracy amongst the Cantons. Even though the Swiss Federal Council rotates the title of president every year in turn, it confers zero extra powers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What’s the difference between communism and socialism?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Like with all things, it’s a matter of degree. Democracy and socialism are not inherently incompatible, but can be mixed together at different ratios. For example, a democratic socialist society could follow in the Swiss model of direct democracy, meaning everyone has a say in the policy decisions. Such policy decisions include the law but also how to utilize the means of production, which the state owns entirely.

  Whereas another democratic socialist society could realize their democracy through a representative model, where citizens elect a local representative that goes to the capital and votes in a state committee on how to amend the law or utilize the means of production, which the state owns entirely.

  Yet another democratic socialist society could be much softer on the state ownership of all the means of production. The state might own the utilities, roads, schools, and all land, but may permit certain collectives to privately own businesses that generate value and to distribute those earnings equally amongst themselves. This could be considered a transitional step, since it allows for a controlled amount of capitalist-style development to occur, while avoiding huge concentrations of private capital. But it could also be a step backwards if the state already fully-owned the means of production but then voted to release some of it to small co-ops.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Even if we found a feasible way through physics to travel through time, wouldn't it still be impossible due to the evolution of bacteria and our immune systems?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We are all currently traveling through time, though at a forward rate of 1 second per second (within your stationary frame of reference, since time dilation is a thing). But I take that you mean “time travel” as in advancing into the future at a faster rate, or going into the past.

  In both cases, we do currently have the means of hermetically-sealed transportation. This is how, I believe, moon samples were collected in the mid 20th Century, since there was a possibility that alien life would be contagious to humans or that humans would destroy any samples of alien life. I think Tom Scott or someone did a video on the topic.

  So while the biological risk would complicate time travel and visiting other humans, that alone doesn’t make time travel “impossible” because we could just have the travelers stay in their TARDIS or whatever. Like how people signed wills in 2020 atop automobile hoods.

  There are plenty of other reasons why time travel is impossible though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are there seach engines that dont depend Google and Bing, if not what are the barriers to entry of new search engines?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve not used it, but have heard decent things about Kagi, a paid search engine. Supposedly, it finds things like how old Yahoo or old Google worked, without AI (but is optionally available?), and no ads.

  I would think the major barrier to entry is the business model: ad revenue goes to those that can deliver results. Google AdSense has dominated that realm for years, so it would take a major upfront investment to challenge them on that. No much different than how it’s hard to compete with established airlines to a particular airport that they already serve. Economies of scale tend towards consolidation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Whats a good etiquette to show you are doing a U turn in a left turn, so the cars behind you know?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  In California, a U turn is considered a left turn that keeps going. As a result, a U turn is legal anywhere that a left turn is legal, except when signs are posted otherwise. So in a left-turn pocket/lane, it is both reasonable and expected that people will make left turns, some of which will continue into a full 180 degree turn. People who do U turns are doing what is allowed, and they have every right to do so. If this seems like a problem, then talk to your transportation department to restrict U turns.

  I’m not aware of any aspect of a U turn procedure that would be any different than than a standard 90 degree turn: use turn signals, look for oncoming traffic, look for pedestrians, turn slowly as required by the radius, roll out of the turn with careful acceleration.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are they asking about the serial number?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  American English speaker here. While I would understand what “to auction away” means, I’m not aware of anyone here in California that would say it like that. Usually, I would say “to auction off”, which follows in a long series of other “X off” verbs, like “to bake off” or “to shake off”, all of which usually involve some sort of adversary or competition.

  Note that we do use the verb “to give away” but that would mean a gift without compensation, which is definitely not an auction.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do airports place a cap on 10,000 USD for undeclared cash?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Civil forfeiture and DEA is a separate problem unto itself, and you’ve always hit on the key points: DEA operates within the country, whereas customs is at port of entries. DEA’s corruption and geographic reach mean they have caused far more problems than any customs agent, in pursuit of a 1990s zeal that “drugs are bad” and expanding that into a parallel law enforcement system, despite already having a federal law enforcement department: the FBI. Civil forfeiture should be abolished as unconstitutional, violating due process, equal protection, and property law.

  So yes, once you’re in the country, there is a risk to carry around large sums of cash. But that’s hardly connected to the customs declaration requirement, and certainly cannot be connected to the declaration requirement on the way out.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do airports place a cap on 10,000 USD for undeclared cash?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  When entering or exiting the USA, the rule is that cash or financial instruments need to be declared above $10,000, but you can bring as much as you want. So bringing a literal suit case of Swiss francs worth $5 million USD is perfectly fine, provided you tell the customs agent.

  While I can’t really advise going to the USA right now, it’s not like they will confiscate cash above $10,000. The particular phrase used in most places is “freedom of capital”, meaning that money can flow into or out of the country without significant impediment. The entire USA financial sector relies upon freedom of capital.

  Declaring cash helps prevent money laundering, since people intending to secretly move money would not want to declare to customs. The threshold is intentionally set so that normal people going on holiday with cash or travelers checks (yes, I’m aware it’s 2026) won’t be burdened by the rule.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Obligatory XKCD: xkcd.com/3138/

  Please let such a thing never exist!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are prop, non functioning guns way more expensive than airsoft guns?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the market for each is quite a bit different. Prop guns, whether functioning or not, are often regulated in law as “replica firearms” because while they may (or not) be functional, the issue is that they are intentionally similar to the real thing. Hence, some jurisdictions have limits on who can sell replica firearms and who can buy them.

  One rank below firearms and replica firearms, air/pellet guns and BB guns propel small balls or shuttlecocks (?) made of metal using compressed air or spring power. These could still be harmful to people, but aren’t usually fatal, which makes them effective for pest control or target practice, in lieu of live firearms. Accordingly, these are often regulated like how knives are: don’t just hand a pellet gun to a child without supervision, and don’t assault people. Otherwise, do as thou whilst.

  Meanwhile, airsoft guns propels small plastic balls using springs, compressed air, or electro-pneumatic pressure. By sheer virtue of having less density, a plastic airsoft projectile carries less energy than a BB pellet, and certainly a lot less than a live-fire bullet. Also, whereas firearms can attain supersonic velocities, the speed of sound puts a firm cap on what a plastic, ball-shaped projectile can achieve, when not using chemical-based propulsion (ie gunpowder).

  Only 8 US States regulate airsoft guns, and even those that do are not restricting them as heavily as firearms (except New Jersey?). That means a majority of Americans are potential customers for airsoft, and that means an environment will form that host matches, competitions, and so on.

  Whereas, what’s the market for replica firearms? Hollywood? Gun enthusiasts?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do I almost never see people flying drones?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Even when something is fairly inexpensive and readily available, the nature of the thing may preclude it from being well-noticed in public, even if it’s not being intentionally obscured at all. Things that move are an especially good example, because most people don’t really pay significant attention to passing traffic or stuff moving approximately 3-5x faster than their own walking pace, with the exceptions of when they themselves are in motion too (eg seeing another train while riding a train), or if the object is coming straight at them.

  An example suited for fellow Americans: seeing the same color and model of your car, parked in public, is very easy to spot, because that’s how you’re accustomed to seeing your own car: stationary. Whereas seeing your own car in motion (while you’re stationary) is slightly harder because: 1) it’s whizzing by for only a few seconds, and 2) you’re not used to seeing your own car drive away from you. Confirmation bias then means that you rarely see that same model of car in motion.

  Drones have the same perceptional bias, but compounded by the fact that humans aren’t in the habit of scanning the skies overhead for drones. And even if they do, identifying a hovering drone means to spot a small dot that’s hanging dozens of meters in the air, or being within earshot (inverse-square law limits this distance). And if the drone is moving, then spotting it is even more difficult, although it does have a moving audible footprint now.

  Finally, there’s the operator, which in almost all circumstances is stationary. Yet, for similar reasons, why should anyone notice if someone is standing in a forest, looking at a screen with a set of controls? If nobody is around, is a drone operator even there? As a fairly solitary activity, it’s no surprise that few have ever seen a drone actually being operated, much the same that loads of people know of Pokemon cards and yet few have actually seen the TCG played out on a tabletop (this fediverse audience excepted).

  TL;DR: the general public only perceives things that are easily perceivable