cynar

@cynar@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK weather: Amber extreme heat warning issued as 35C heatwave approaches⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve just been looking at a graph of historical peak summer temperatures. In the 70s the peak was 35.9°C, with a majority being below 30°C. Back then 30°C was extremely hot.

  A lot of homes were already standing back then, with most modern homes built on the same ethos.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK weather: Amber extreme heat warning issued as 35C heatwave approaches⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  For the UK anything over 30 is extreme heat.

  The fact we have been getting more and more of them is the reason it’s started to be seen as “normal”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK weather: Amber extreme heat warning issued as 35C heatwave approaches⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Good on both points.

  Installing on the outside is a complete pain in the arse however. The superfoil is reflective enough that the extra gain wasn’t worth the extra hassle. It also looks a lot better from the outside (if it matters to you what the neighbours think).

  As for the foil. It works, but is very hard to apply. Milar space blankets are a bit easier, but not much. That’s how I ended up with the super foil. It’s stiff enough to handle, but flexible enough to roll up for storage. A cardboard backing also makes sense, though it would have made storage harder for me.

  It’s also worth noting to not leave it up for too long. Cannabis growers use a similar method to try and hide drug labs. You might get a visit from the police (hopefully politely) if it’s up for too long.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK weather: Amber extreme heat warning issued as 35C heatwave approaches⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Some advice.

  Firstly, the night before, get as much of the heat out of your home as you can, for as long as you can. Bricks have a lot of thermal mass. They take a while to cool down, but also to heat back up. If you can, open an upper most window, and a lower window or door. It creates a chimney effect that pulls the hot air up and out.

  Once the temperature starts to rise, close up your home! You want to keep the hot air out, and the cool air in.

  I would also recommend getting some super foil insulation. It’s like a stiff, metallic bubble wrap. Put it in your sun facing windows and it will keep the heat out amazingly. I brought some suction cups with a wing nut on the other side. They make mounting and removing it a lot easier.

  Lastly, lower the humidity. The humidity turns warm into brain melting. It stops your sweat from being as effective. Don’t use an electric dehumidifier, since they put out heat. The single use ones are more effective. At least for a small room. The lower humidity will make it a lot more comfortable.

  For comparison, working in the middle east, I could keep working through a 45°C mid day. In the UK I start to have issues closer to 25°C. The main difference was humidity.

  These bits can also help make a portable Aircon unit a LOT more effective. During the 40°C+ heatwave the other year, I needed it for only 1 hour in the afternoon to keep the temperature comfortable for me and my dog.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the evolutionary advantage of very long hair on human heads?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  A built in sun hat.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fafo⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  No department, government or commercial likes giving up resources, once it has them. This can cause them to become quite inefficient.

  In commercial companies, this is corrected for by financial pressures (imperfectly). In government systems there is no obvious mechanism. Instead it’s a lot more ad-hoc. This allows for things like “starving the beast” to break government functions. Conversely it allows for a lot of public money being funneled into private hands.

  A better option is to have systems in place to control spending. Critically, those systems need to have people who understand what is being done. They simultaneously allow for reduction in spending when appropriate (or at least stop run away), but stop the chainsaw to the knees approach (e.g. DOGE under musk).

  A good example would be something like the UKs NHS NICE (National institute for Clinical Excellence). They keep drug prices under control in the NHS. They are powerful enough to give pause to the drugs companies, they stop the government from going “chainsaw massacre” directly and they keep the NHS efficient in their area. They are also small enough to not bloat themselves as easily.

  They act as a 2 way shield. They stop governments sticking their oar in too directly. They also keep the service efficient and updated.

  Basically we need localised intelligence to filter what rolls down from higher government, while keeping those below accountable.

  In this case, it seems like they over trimmed the science. Some stand down from full height is reasonable, but no mothballed facilities were kept to rapidly spool back up in an emergency.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Real Purpose of Wealth 💸⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d guess the flip over point is maybe a bit higher. I can see definite gains up to 500,000-1,000,000 a year.

  I suspect the cut off is around there however. Assuming the same base work level to get it.

  I could personally live VERY happily on 100k a year, but not afford EVERYTHING I could reasonably want.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fafo⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Any government run system needs something to trim the bloat down. Otherwise there is nothing to stop it becoming dangerous. Capitalism relies on profit motives to do this. It works, to an extent.

  The problem comes with how to trim. E.g. this programme. Once the barrier was established, it could be trimmed. The fact it worked for 25 years after is proof of this. This (in theory) would free up resources for more critical tasks. The catch is that it needed to hard protect the barrier itself. It also needed the capability to rapidly scale back up. It seems that that was trimmed too, leading to the current crisis.

  A dam is a good analogy. It takes a lot of resources to build one. But far less to run and maintain it. You also need the option for emergency maintenance, but that can be shared with other dams or construction projects, when not needed.

  The first trim got rid of the construction budget. DOGE got rid of the maintenance budget. Now the dam needs rebuilding, not just maintaining.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Real Purpose of Wealth 💸⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  A lot of people do exactly that.

  Money has a strong diminishing return to happiness. Once you have enough to do what you want, and keep up that lifestyle from investments, you’ve “won”.

  Most who goes past that point are self selected as problematic personalities. They’ve figured out that more money = more power = more happy. When they are not happy, they obviously need to work harder to get more money. This doesn’t make them happy and the feedback loop continues.

  I would actually be curious if the curve goes negative after a while. There’s a point where more money gets isolating. That is well past the point where the happiness gain becomes negligible too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨no chances for life around red dwarfs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Silicon’s conditions would make it difficult. It has far less inorganic precursor molecules to work from. It might work under cryogenic conditions, but that has a bunch of other problems.

  The titanium one is new to me, and potentially interesting. My concern would be an abiogenic pathway. It might be able to form interesting molecules for life, but if they don’t appear naturally, then getting life started gets massively more difficult.

  There’s also a hell of a lot of options with carbon based life. Earth life is VERY locked into a few variants with our base biochemistry. E.g. there’s no reason for particular RNA sequences to match particular Protein peptides. Yet it’s basically a universal thing. Even chirality is fixed, for no particular reason other than mixing causes issues.

  I could potentially see a dual based life system working, effectively a more advanced version of how some creatures use metals to make shells etc, or how horns and hair grow. It could also provide a viable (though extremely convoluted) bootstrap process for titanium life, or something more exotic. Forcing life to change its core functionality however is apparently quite difficult, since no life on earth seems to have done so and survived to be detected. Rocky, in Project Hail Mary, would fall into this group (a carbon life core basically piloting a stone and metal mech).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨no chances for life around red dwarfs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  What combinations are you thinking of?

  Life on earth is based around Carbon chains. Carbon’s 4 bonds allows for a low of complex structures that would be hard/impossible for less bonds.

  The only other viable option I know of is silicon. Unfortunately its chain equivalent has an extra reaction pathway with water. It would degrade rapidly if exposed to water, which is very common at the energies it would work at.

  I’d be curious to look up any other viable options.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Definition of Non-Judgemental⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The uncanny valley is FAR stronger with moving things Vs inanimate ones. It’s likely modified from a revulsion of dead things, but seems to be distinct now.

  Most diseases don’t show strongly enough to trigger it, most of the time. Historically, the exception has been leprosy. I’m honestly curious if it’s evolved to keep us clear of leppers specifically or not.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Definition of Non-Judgemental⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d also be fascinated if we figured out a way to do it

  I personally suspect it’s not common in the animal kingdom. It’s quite likely a defense against leprosy, a disease that is most dangerous in larger society type communities, without outside predators (to pick off the sick).

  That theory might be wrong however. Its distribution would tell us a lot about what it defends against.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK judge’s decision not to jail boys for rape like a ‘rock in my face’, says victim, 16⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  ADHD could have some bearing, if it was something quick and impulsive. Premeditation makes it even more damning however.

  Either way, it’s not an excuse, just a factor to account for in corpus mentis decisions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How come assassinations went away for the most part? Why send a bunch of god fearing young kids into a battle the upper class started or wanted when clipping one leader would stop it?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d argue they didn’t, they just changed.

  There are 2 groups worth noting. Government and private.

  Government assassination is still a thing. Israel has used it aggressively over the last few decades. There are also signs that china has too. That’s just off the top of my head. It’s also worth noting that drone strikes etc can fill the same roll as an assassin.

  Private has definitely changed. I suspect the high profile assassinations have stopped. Low level ones just had to get a lot better at not looking like assassinations. The ever classic boating accident being a good example.

  The change is mostly from improvements in policing. You can no longer just move to another city to escape the law.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An 82-year-old YouTuber grandma was raided by police and SWATs during her live stream last night where she plays Minecraft to raise money for her grandsons cancer. Authorities brought 20 police cars⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Agreed on that. Though in the scale of the UK there aren’t that many cases. The ones there are however, are (deliberately) high profile. It has a chilling effect on the population, without needing to use it much.

  They also hamstring the bobbies via the budget assignments. I know a lot of forces would love to get rid of some of the more overtly racist/sexist/other-ist officers. Their budget limits wages however, which limits the selection of replacements. They end up having to try and weed out the ringleaders (to fire or retire) and split the followers up.

  The long and the short, most of the police are working class and do the job to try and make our country better. Some are even trying to counter the bullshit rolling down from on high.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why does it feel like most art museums are for adults and most science museums are for kids?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  So are a lot of scientists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An 82-year-old YouTuber grandma was raided by police and SWATs during her live stream last night where she plays Minecraft to raise money for her grandsons cancer. Authorities brought 20 police cars⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The UK force has its problems, but it functions fairly well. It also has a lot of people in it who honestly want to do a good job.

  The problem is the rules and mandates coming down from the government. (And the political upper management level of the police)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An 82-year-old YouTuber grandma was raided by police and SWATs during her live stream last night where she plays Minecraft to raise money for her grandsons cancer. Authorities brought 20 police cars⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  America has “police by intimidation” as its default response. Most of Europe seems to have “police by consent” as the default.

  It leads to a different mentality. They might still roll out the whole cavalry, but it will more likely be led by a polite knock at the door, and an initial attempt to de-escalate.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Majority of Britons would back a smoking ban in pub gardens⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The problem is a race to the bottom happens. Smokers tend to drink more and are quite… militant in their opinions on where to go. Basically non smoking pubs would suffer, and so likely allow smoking, ruining it for everyone else.

  It doesn’t help that those left smoking cigarettes, in the UK, tend to be the rudest, most inconsiderate of the original group. The average heroin addict is considerably more polite than the average cigarette smoker now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Aaaaaaaaaa⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It can be formed, just not in the vast quantities it was back then. It requires unusual conditions to stop fungi making a meal out of it, before it gets buried deep enough.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Double Plug Experiment⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The ring around it makes that less likely, though still plausible. It would also have to leach through the paint.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Double Plug Experiment⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Most likely.

  The box tends to sit slightly proud of the wall. When they plaster it in (particularly retroactively) they need to build up the plaster around the socket.

  Thicker plaster means more insulation, and less condensation. Less condensation, less mold.

  The ring around the socket also supports this. The edge where the new plaster gives way to the old. That point tends to be rougher, and so more prone to capturing mold.

  It could also be thicker paint causing the same effect. Most people do the wall with rollers, but sockets with a brush, leading to a thicker coat.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Real⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Abnormalities from “normal” were a critical self defence feature, for our ancestors. E.g. a lack, or change, of bird song might indicate a predator in ambush. Unusual lighting might indicate a storm coming in.

  Our brains are wired to learn normal patterns. When those patterns change completely, we are fine with it. When they change subtly we don’t like it.

  The threshold for this is different for different people. Personally, I’m fine with completely different maps, but off put by modified real maps. I also cannot watch soap operas, they are too close to “real” and trip alarms at their mismatches. Conversely, sci-fi and fantasy are fine, they are different enough to not set off my alarms. I know others who are set off by sci-fi, but soaps are within their norms.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DOES ANYONE⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s on steam. The challenge levels are great for learning about weird moves and tactics.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DOES ANYONE⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Bishops are terrifying in that game. I’ve lost more than a few to a retrograde checkmate.

  For those confused, bishops step through 2 dimensions at a time. In a normal chess game, that is X&Y, making them move diagonally. In 5D chess it can be X &T, letting it check a king in the past. Since a king in the past can’t move, it’s a checkmate.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨send thoughts and peer review⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s some evidence that mammals never lost the ability. Unfortunately, our scarring response is massively faster and locks wounds down.

  A few years back, they engineered mice to lack a gene, to find out what it did. Initially, someone got in trouble for not properly marking the modified mice (via holes in their ears). They later discovered the holes healed completely, including regenerating fur etc.

  Unfortunately, it also makes recovery from larger wounds difficult, since without a scarring response they don’t close quickly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nuclear energy enjoyers vindicated again after the rise in oil and gas prices.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Combustion engines will likely have a place for a long time. Large equipment just doesn’t do well on battery power. They can’t get the required runtime. Also, in places where they are used, electrical power is often limited.

  Hydrocarbons are an excellent way of storing energy. We will also need to overproduce renewables, to keep grids stable. Synthetic hydrocarbons could be a good solution to both issues. Currently, they are nowhere close to competing with fossil fuels, but that will change in time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Call off King's US state visit over Iran war, urge Lib Dems⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Likely true.

  I can still hope that there are some people with a bit of integrity, willing to rattle the cages, when they can.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Call off King's US state visit over Iran war, urge Lib Dems⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s easy to prove he shared the files. It’s harder to prove (legal proof) that he raped children. It’s akin to Al Capone being convicted of tax fraud.

  I’m personally hoping it’s a “shake the tree” charge. By going after a royal, they will hopefully unnerve others with similar material in the files. They can then potentially use plea deals on those to go after the bigger fish.