WoodScientist
@WoodScientist@lemmy.world
- Comment on Do the ultra-rich consume popular media? 33 minutes ago:
Ah don’t be such a pessimist.
They’ve also seen the fires of Hell!
- Comment on Do the ultra-rich consume popular media? 35 minutes ago:
Well, it made sense that Reagan was elected in the 1980s. That was the age of the camcorder, the first portable personal miniature TV production studio. With anyone being able to be a TV studio, it was only natural that actors would become presidential candidates!
- Comment on Do the ultra-rich consume popular media? 39 minutes ago:
I would be content seeing him sent to one of RFK Jr’s wellness camps.
- Comment on Do the ultra-rich consume popular media? 40 minutes ago:
Except, like any religion, the rules were ultimately self-contradictory and open to any convenient interpretation.
- Comment on Do the ultra-rich consume popular media? 40 minutes ago:
I mean, plastic surgery is pretty advanced these days. The body mod scene can also get pretty extreme. Musk certainly has the resources for it. Fuck it. Let’s all just try to convince him to get himself surgically altered to have giant Ferengi forehead and ears.
- Comment on Anon questions our energy sector 1 day ago:
That’s for the nuclear industry to figure out. But the fact that companies from different companies originating in entirely different countries suggest that it’s a problem with the tech itself.
The hard truth many just don’t want to admit is that there are some technologies that simply aren’t practical, regardless of how objectively cool they might be. The truth is that the nuclear industry just has a very poor track record with being financially viable. It’s only ever really been scaled through massive state-run enterprises that can operate unprofitably. Before solar and wind really took off, the case could be made that we should switch to fission, even if it is more expensive, due to climate concerns. But now that solar + batteries are massively cheaper than nuclear? It’s ridiculous to spend state money building these giant white elephants when we could just slap up some more solar panels instead. We ain’t running out of space to put them any time soon.
- Comment on Anon questions our energy sector 1 day ago:
Also 10s of billions is still insignificant for any power, transport, or healthcare infrastructure in the scheme of things -
Bullshit. If you can get the same amount of reliable power by just slapping up some solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries, then obviously the cost is not insignificant.
That sentence shows that you really aren’t thinking about this as a practical means of power generation. I’ve found that most fission boosters don’t so much like actual nuclear power, but the idea of nuclear power. It appeals to a certain kind of nerd who admires it from a physics and engineering perspective. And while it is cool technically, this tends to blind people to the actual cold realities of fission power.
There’s also a lot of conspiratorial thinking among the pro-nuclear crowd. They’ll blame nuclear’s failures on the superstitious fear of the unwashed ignorant masses or the evil machinations of groups like Greenpeace. Then, at the same time, they’ll ignore the most bone-headedly obvious cause of nuclear’s failure: it’s just too fucking expensive.
- Comment on Anon questions our energy sector 1 day ago:
Who cares? We use economics to sort out the relative value of radically different power sources, not cherry-picked criteria. Fission boosters can say that nuclear has a small footprint. Solar boosters can say that solar has no moving parts and is thus more mechanically reliable. Fission boosters can say fission gets more power from the same mass. Solar boosters can point to the mass of the entire fission plant, including the giant concrete dome that needs to be strong enough to survive a jumbo jet flying into it.
In the end, none of this shit matters. We have a way of sorting out these complex multi-variable problems. Both fission and solar have their own relatives strengths and weaknesses that their proponents can cherry pick. But ultimately, all that matters in choosing what to deploy is cost.
And today, in the real world, in the year 2024, if you want to get low-carbon power on the grid, the most cost-effective way, by far, is solar. And you can add batteries as needed for intermittency, and you’re still way ahead of nuclear cost-wise. And as our use of solar continues to climb, we can deploy seasonal storage, which we have many, many options to deploy.
The ultimate problem fission has is that it just can’t survive in a capitalist economy. It can survive in planned economies like the Soviet Union or modern China, or it can run as a state-backed enterprise like modern Russia. But it simply isn’t cost effective enough for fission companies to be able to survive on their own in a capitalist economy.
And frankly, if we’re going to have the government subsidize things, I would much rather the money be spent on healthcare, housing, or education. A lot of fission boosters like fission simply because they think the tech is cool, not necessarily because it actually makes economic sense. I say that if fission boosters want to fund their hobby and subsidize fission plants, let them. But otherwise I am adamantly opposed to any form of subsidies for the fission industry.
- Comment on Anon questions our energy sector 1 day ago:
Who gives a fuck about energy density beyond some physics nerds? Unless you’re planning on building a flying nuclear-powered airplane, energy density is irrelevant. This is why solar is eating fission’s lunch.
- Comment on Anon questions our energy sector 1 day ago:
The coal mining industry employs about 38,000 people. Dunkin Donuts alone employs seven times as many people as the whole coal mining industry. There just aren’t that many coal miners anymore.
- Comment on Anon questions our energy sector 1 day ago:
It has that low death rate precisely because it is heavily regulated.
The typical nuclear booster argument works on the following circular logic:
“Nuclear is perfectly safe.”
“But that’s not the problem with nuclear. The problem with nuclear is its too expensive.”
“Nuclear is expensive because it’s overly regulated!”
“But nuclear is only safe because of those heavy regulations!”
“We would have everything powered by nuclear by now if it weren’t for Greenpeace.”
- Comment on Withdrawal is going to make people go mad 4 days ago:
Sorry, everyone who knows how to make khlav kalash has been deported.
- Comment on Withdrawal is going to make people go mad 4 days ago:
The leader has issues a new memorandum. You will only be allowed to drink flat, room-temperature, caffeine free Diet Mt. Dew.
- Comment on Withdrawal is going to make people go mad 4 days ago:
Because of your lack of patriotism for our national beverage, the leadership has decreed that you will now only be able to drink caffeine-free Diet Mt. Dew.
- Comment on Withdrawal is going to make people go mad 4 days ago:
In our techo utopian future, the only caffeinated beverage will be Diet Mt. Dew.
- Comment on If you need a stargate, there is one outside of Ashland, Ohio off of I-71. 1 week ago:
Spinning is better than not spinning.
- Comment on New mobile features are sh*t these days 2 weeks ago:
No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.
- Comment on LeVar Burton was awarded the National Humanities Medal for his impact as an actor and literacy advocate. 3 weeks ago:
Take a look! It’s in a book! It’s Readin Raaiiinboow!!
- Comment on When did we stop saying "things are fire" to "things are cold"? 3 weeks ago:
I too am disturbed by the noted decline in Austin Powers references among high school students.
- Comment on When did we stop saying "things are fire" to "things are cold"? 3 weeks ago:
- Comment on حبوب اجهاض الرياض الدمام 00966590976720 سايتوتك للبيع في السعودية 4 weeks ago:
ماذا قلت عني للتو أيها الحقير؟ أريدك أن تعلم أنني تخرجت في المرتبة الأولى في دفعتي في قوات النخبة البحرية، وشاركت في العديد من الغارات السرية على القاعدة، وقد قتلت أكثر من 300 شخص. لقد تدربت على حرب الغوريلا وأنا أفضل قناص في القوات المسلحة الأمريكية بأكملها. أنت لست شيئًا بالنسبة لي سوى هدف آخر. سأقضي عليك تمامًا بدقة لم يسبق لها مثيل على هذه الأرض، صدقني. هل تعتقد أنك تستطيع الإفلات من العقاب بقول هذا الهراء لي عبر الإنترنت؟ فكر مرة أخرى أيها الحقير. بينما نتحدث، أتواصل مع شبكتي السرية من الجواسيس في جميع أنحاء الولايات المتحدة ويتم تعقب عنوان IP الخاص بك الآن لذا من الأفضل أن تستعد للعاصفة أيها الحقير. العاصفة التي ستمحو الشيء الصغير البائس الذي تسميه حياتك. أنت ميت يا فتى. يمكنني أن أكون في أي مكان وفي أي وقت، ويمكنني قتلك بأكثر من سبعمائة طريقة، وهذا فقط بيدي العاريتين. لا أتمتع بتدريب مكثف على القتال غير المسلح فحسب، بل إنني أمتلك القدرة على الوصول إلى ترسانة كاملة من أسلحة مشاة البحرية الأمريكية، وسوف أستخدمها إلى أقصى حد لمحو مؤخرتك البائسة عن وجه القارة، أيها الحقير الصغير. لو كنت تعلم فقط ما هو العقاب غير المقدس الذي سيجلبه عليك تعليقك “الذكي” الصغير، ربما كنت لتلتزم الصمت. لكنك لم تستطع، ولم تفعل، والآن أنت تدفع الثمن، أيها الأحمق اللعين. سأصب عليك غضبي الشديد وستغرق فيه. أنت ميت يا صغيري.
- Comment on Ok boomer 5 weeks ago:
It’s a balance in many ways. There’s some aspect of refusing to do things due to not wanting to learn things. But sometimes people don’t want to adopt technologies simply because they’re unwilling to accept some very glaring downsides. For example, if you demand 2FA, you are demanding that your customers essentially consent to have an ankle monitor and remote audio monitor on their person at all times. Smart phones track your location 24/7, and they seem to track what is spoken around them as well. They are absolutely a huge invasion of privacy, and it’s remarkable we ever let them become as indispensable as we have. They’re basically just ankle monitors we all voluntarily put on each morning. I can absolutely see people just refusing to have a smartphone for the privacy implications alone.
I also have some red lines on technology. I refuse to use tiktok because of its privacy and psychological manipulation issues. And I’ve moved away from most social media, even if that cuts me off from some very useful communications and conversations in my family and community. I also refuse to buy any appliance with a wifi connection. I try to avoid any device that requires an app to use. If your widget requires an app but your competitor’s doesn’t, I’m buying from your competitor. If your widget requires an app and your widget is just something that would be nice to have, but not life-changing, I’m not going to buy your widget at all.
It’s a very dangerous thing to simply decry anyone who rejects a technology as ignorant or not tech-savvy. Often people reject particular technologies for damn good reasons. If we just accept the newest thing with zero thought simply for the fact that it is new, we are actually the ignorant ones. Something being newer does not automatically make it better. And often newer things are inferior to old things, like the case of a lot of privacy-violating appliances and companies filling everything with DRM and trying to turn it into a subscription. I don’t want basic household items to require an app to use, as it is guaranteed that the security on that system will be crap, and that the product will stop working after a few years after the company stops supporting the app.
If I’m buying a physical thing, I want it to be completely stand-alone and require zero continued feedback from its manufacturer in order to continue to function. You can tell me til you’re blue in the face about how spying on me helps improve the customer experience, but I’m still going to tell you to take your privacy-violating, app-dependent widget and shove it up your app-loving ass.
- Comment on Ok boomer 5 weeks ago:
Also, let’s not forget that you are doing someone’s job simply for using a shopping cart at all. Traditional grocers didn’t have anything like the aisles we wander through now. Rather, there would basically be a warehouse with a counter at the front. You walked up with your list of items, gave it to the grocer, and they would grab the items for you. Customers gathering goods themselves didn’t come about until the age of the supermarket starting in the mid 20th century.
This is also why I have zero sympathy for stores that complain about theft and shrinkage. They’re the ones choosing to operate in a business model that makes theft easier. Traditional grocers didn’t have to worry about shoplifting, as everything was kept behind the counter. Sure, armed robbery was a concern then as it is now, but shoplifting wasn’t a concern.
When the grocery stores abandoned the traditional model, they realized the money they saved on labor would more than make up for the increased losses due to shoplifting. And that was simply a choice they made. And it’s the same with self-checkout. They made a business decision that would inevitably result in increased theft, and they have no one to blame for it but themselves. If they don’t like the increased theft, they can go back to cashiers. Or hell, there’s nothing stopping Walmart from going all the way back to the traditional dry goods store model even. That would work really well with online orders as well. You don’t even let customers wander through most of the store. You just have a very long counter at the front of the store that customers walk up and tell the workers what they want. And the workers gather the order. You either wait for them to gather it, or you place the order in advance and have it ready when you pick it up. If Walmart did this, shoplifting would become virtually impossible. Their labor costs would skyrocket, but Walmart has it in its power to completely eliminate shoplifting if they really want to.
- Comment on 10 years 1 month ago:
All real men spring forth, fully formed, from Zeus’s brow.
- Comment on beams 2 months ago:
I mean, I am literally working on a PhD in wood science.
- Comment on beams 2 months ago:
- Comment on beams 2 months ago:
Little known fact; heavy timber buildings will often perform better in fire than steel buildings like this.
- Comment on beams 2 months ago:
You can see them on the upper levels. On the bottom level, you can see the shear tabs, mounted on the girders that additional beams will frame into.
- Comment on beams 2 months ago:
Specifically a girder is a beam that other beams frame into. Gravity load typically goes slab->beam->girder->columns->foundation. At least that’s what I teach in my steel design classes.
- Comment on beams 2 months ago:
Partially correct. Those are beams, girders, and columns.
