Posts by Jellied Eel 8614 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Aug 2008
Would these work as an alternative to land-based turbines where the latter are rejected due to the visual impact / supporting infrastructure needed ?
Nope. I very much doubt they'd ever get regulatory approval or insurance to operate anywhere near a populated area. It's one of those crazy Green ideas that is pointless when there are far safer and cheaper alternatives.
In the "ground generation" and "rotary" concepts, the generators would be wincghear at the ground station, so there isn't any need for power transmission along the tether (except for control and monitoring etc.). For the airborne generation yes, you are right.
It's fine. First we re-invented windmills. Now they're reinventing barrage balloons. People shouldn't be so negative. These will greatly contribute to the reduction in carbon from air travel, because who in their right minds would fly anywhere near these things? But like barrage balloons, these would also contribute to UK air defence and preventing pesky Russians (or anyone) flying into our airspace. They may also provide free hedge and forest trimming when cables snap, and create jobs for roofers when the aircraft land.
I can't imagine insurers being very keen on this solution in a densely populated island like the UK.
(on the plus side.. Starship landed! Sort of.)
I used to draw energy throughout the day, with spikes when the kettle was on etc. In the last year just 1% of my energy usage has been at peak rate, and I really don't care when that peak is, assuming I get at least a few hours of off peak every 24 hours.
This is a good way to think about the problems of 'renewables'. You want a coffee and you want it now. You turn on the kettle and nothing happens. You figure you may as well grab a shower while you wait, but that's cold. You check your 'smart meter', and it shows a big D for Dunkelflaute. Calm and cloudy, so virtually no wind or solar. What is being generated is being used by priority customers like hospitals. Anything left over is being used by premium customers who pay a higher tariff.
The meter has a flashing button encouraging you to press it and buy 1kWh of surge electricity for only £5. Your meter shows that rate ticking upwards as other coffee drinkers press it.
Gridscale batteries won't really help because they can't provide grid-scale energy for more than a few minutes when a good'ol Dunkelflaute might last for days. It's the immutable law of supply and demand. If there's no supply due to the weather, demand goes unmet. Batteries don't generate electricity, they only store it and delay the inevitable.
...we've started on that journey, which is why we are more than a decade past our peak electricity usage
Except that's sadly not true. Politicians have slammed that into reverse. We reduced electricity usage by using gas for heating, or err.. gas and diesel for driving. Decarbonisation means converting all that energy use from gas to electricity, massively increasing peak demand. Then to add to the challenge, multi-MW datacentres with AIs generating pictures of cats. So in order to decarbonise, various estimates reckon we'll need around 3x more electricity than we generate now.
Mmmm, tasty tasty almonds.
Blame this chap-
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/things-i-won-t-work-azidoazide-azides-more-or-less
The most alarming of them has two carbons, fourteen nitrogens, and no hydrogens at all, a formula that even Klapötke himself, who clearly has refined sensibilities when it comes to hellishly unstable chemicals, calls "exciting". Trust me, you don't want to be around when someone who works with azidotetrazoles comes across something "exciting".
Someone once forwarded me his article on FOOF and his writing style got me diving down that rabbit hole. I which I found myself learning a bit more about chemistry, and being glad I decided not to pursue that field. Also watching other chemists and them stressing the importance of fume cupboards, I'm kind of suprised I survived O and A-level chemistry.. PPE wasn't really a thing in my school.
You arguably need the same security around these tiny reactors that you do around a full size reactor. They need the same consideration of terrorist attacks, so your iso container will need to be placed within a reinforced concrete bunker, with 24/7 security.
You make that sound like it's difficult. You don't need the same security because your security perimeter is a lot smaller. Slap ISO container into your bunker. Build a 'moat' around that bunker. Build a wall around the moat. Paint red lines around the above. Shoot anyone who crosses those red lines that doesn't have permission to be there. Or if you're feeling especially brave, ask Boston Dynamics or similar for a quote on some armed robodogs.
Oh, and go look up Gravel Gerties. This is a semi-SFW query, depending on who you work for and I take no responsibility if you end up on any watch lists. But the idea around SMRs is they're inherently fail-safe, easier to protect and defend and contain less radioactive material in the first place, should there be an unscheduled and unauthorised excursion.
... because they haven't actually considered all the possible failure modes of the reactor properly during the design phase....
Err.. right. Because nuclear engineering isn't at all extremely paranoid about safety. Then again, this is an area where with some care, costs could be reduced. Most of the risks were theoretical wrt things like exposure levels. But after a few decades of evidence where exposures have occurred, the actual risks haven't been as great as predicted.
- The end-of-life radioactive waste vs MW ratio is very likely to be far worse than large reactors because of the usual volumetric scaling effect.
Ooh.. foncy sounding words to fool the gullible. What exactly do you mean by 'volumetric scaling effect'? I assume you're not referring to an SMR being, well, small. So small that it can be left to cool down for a bit and then taken by barge or train for longer term storage or disposal. And I'm assuming you're the usual anonymong because as you did when you confused capacity and load factors, you seem to have your units mixed up.
Surely for end-of-life waste, you'd want to be looking at the lifetime MWh generated vs end-of-life waste? Plus you'd need to define and quantify what you think you mean by 'waste', high, low or intermediate. Then we could compare waste generated by an SMR vs say, a hospital radiotherapy department.
- A small nuclear installation has 100% of the siting and permitting costs and problems of a big reactor. i.e. the per MW costs are much higher. Lots of small industrial sites seem like a fantasy.
I think the fantasy is best left to you and the scumbags desperate to flog windmills. The key point of SMRs is to create type-approved reactors that can be churned out on a production line. Once that's done, then SMRs can be built and installed without going through all the expensive permitting and approvals costs that a FOAK full-scale NPP has to go through. Oh, and you again miss the point of the 'S' in SMRs.. Being, well, small, the siting costs are correspondingly lower because they don't take up anywhere near as much space or materials as a full-sized Nx1GW NPP..
For the most part wind and solar are economically feasible because governments are propping them up.
Sadly this is incorrect. Governments aren't propping them up, we are via the subsidies added to our energy bills. Or higher costs for practically everything given energy costs are input costs to all businesses except the subsidy farmers scum like the IEEA promote. I smelled a rat with this bit-
Meanwhile, all the time, energy, and money spent constructing SMRs is taking resources away from renewables that work, and would work now, the duo said.
"Developers bringing multibillion-dollar SMRs onto the electric grid would have every incentive to run them as much as possible," the report surmises. "The less they run, the more their per megawatt-hour costs rise and the harder it will be for them to compete in the market."
This, of course is what the 'renewables' lobby is terrified of. Renewables don't work, and certainly don't work 24x7x365. Nuclear just keeps going, regardless of the weather. Nuclear provides baseload capacity, wind, when the weather's just right. Nuclear can produce Nx 730MWh a month where N= the reactor's capacity. Wind usually only manages around 20% of it's nameplate or capacity factor. So a 1GW NPP will generate 730GWh, 1GW wind, only 146GWh. Because wind runs for less, the more their megawatt hour costs rise, hence the massive subsidies we're forced to pay to prop them up.
If wind and solar truly were cheaper, subsidies could be removed. Funnily enough, they really don't want that to happen and are currently demanding we give them even more money.
Pumped mercury storage sounds interesting. Would it be possible amalgamate several installations?
Just don't fulminate on the problem for too long. Personally I'm in favour of combining two problems into one solution. Both carbon and nitrogen are now considered dangerous pollutants. So I have a modest proposal that builds on the successes of Carbon Capture and Storage. So I propose the energy experts at the 'IEEFA' put their heads together and develop C-N Capture and Storage.
But being me, I decided to have a look at who this lot were, and might have guessed-
https://ieefa.org/
The Institute’s mission is to accelerate the transition to a diverse, sustainable and profitable energy economy.
So the usual greenwashing outift. No wonder they don't like nuclear. I'm especially wary of this kind of stink-tank that provides no financial information and seems to be based out of a small, shared office space in a 3 story building above a wine bar in Lakewood, Ohio. I rather suspect if I did around a bit more, I'll find funding comes from the usual astroturfers.
Doesn't anyone do their due diligence any more? Is this a 'reliable source'?
The stabbing was covered. The report of his death very much less so.
Maybe it's just the way we consume the news. I remember the reports of the stabbings in Mannheim. That was Friday, this-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4nn8nl8gv3o
Despite undergoing emergency surgery, he succumbed to his wounds on Sunday afternoon.
Was reported Sunday, with an 'alleged' Afghan attacker later becoming a confirmed Afghan attacker. And now there's been another kinfe attack on an AfD candidate-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c877vynl2zgo
The local AfD association said its candidate had chased after a man tearing down election posters, who then cut him with a knife.
I generally cycle through news sites and might skip over articles if they don't catch my eye. The German attacks are unfortunate both for the loss of life and injuries, but also because Germany's holding European elections on Sunday. I've been more interested in finding out more about the attempted assassination of Fico so probably skipped over updates on Mannheim.
So why was the law suit actually dropped ?
Sounds like it's not dead, just resting-
"Today I have decided to consolidate action concerning my Class 1 removal notice to X Corp," wrote commissioner Julie Inman Grant, on grounds that doing so is "likely to achieve the most positive outcome for the online safety of all Australians, especially children."
So whether Australia will come back to this with additonal examples and additional charges against X. It's not like there's a shortage of extremely violent footage on the Internet and it's been like this since the days of rotten.com
"Our sole goal and focus in issuing our removal notice was to prevent this extremely violent footage from going viral, potentially inciting further violence and inflicting more harm on the Australian community,"
I think that genie's well and truly left the bottle. When this story broke, it was reported that the attack was livestreamed. So that would probably prompt some people to go search for it. If the video is taken down, someone, somewhere would probably just re-upload it. X could probably fingerprint it to block it from their service, but other services might not bother.
Personally, I think rather than playing whack-a-mole, some of these videos should be used for public safety and education. There are a few examples I can think of. So in the US, a kid decided to pack several pounds of tannerite into a lawnmower and shoot it. The shrapnel from the lawnmower promptly took the kid's leg off. The ATF tried to take down the video, but it, and many other examples still exist. Rather than a take-down, I think the ATF should have used this to (try and) educate people as to why packing tannerite inside containers like lawnmowers, fridges, microwaves etc is a really bad idea. Then get YT to make that video the top search any time someone looks for tannerite, exploding targets etc.
I think the same could be done for stabbings and shootings. People complain about Hollywood showing too much violence, but personally I think it's often not violent enough and doesn't show the real consequences of violence. Hero gets stabbed of shot, they shrug it off and get the girl/boy/gender of choice. Reality isn't like that, and there are plenty of examples of what really happens. One I remember was an argument I think in a Brazilian mall that rapidly escalted from shouty to shovey to stabby in a few seconds. One person was stabbed in the neck, quickly collapsed with a severed artery and bled out.with the whole thing probably fitting in a YT short. No idea what the argument was about, but probably something trivial, but left one person dead and the other in jail, but that's the kind of thing that can happen when people carry knives. I've seen some great anti-gang videos from the US where they interview gang members who've been shot, often with life changing injuries. and I think there needs to be more of these kinds of videos.
In what universe? Most recent data puts Hinkley outturn at current prices at £46bn, for 3.2 GW. So north of £14bn per GW.
Hmm.. I got those numbers from a quick search for any papers on Hinkley's costs published in the last year. Can't find it again but it was interesting in that it broke down most of it's costs into a per-kWh number. Which seemed an odd way of doing it. From another quick search, the answer seems to depend on how costs are calculated, ie construction costs vs construction + operating costs over the estimated lifespan, the latter obviously giving a much higher figure. But I found EDF's £46bn figure, and hopefully the NAO is crawling all over those numbers given they're far, far higher than Olkiluoto or Taishan for the same reactor design. So I'm curious if we're bailing out EDF (again), or they're just that incompetent.
But all part of the fun trying to make sense of this stuff and 'levelised costs' that are supposed to give a like-for-like comparison, but don't.
Also it doesn't really change the idea of user pays, and securitising that so that DC operators are made to invest in new capacity rather than having it subsidised by other energy users.
Then there's the awkward question asked by the Reg hack about GPU financing and all of this being a potentially catastrophic bubble ...I can imagine this guy selling railway bonds ...
I think there are regulatory solutions. One sorta happened with Amazon and a DC PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) with Talen Energy in PA. Downside, that was a PPA for existing generating capacity. I think what should happen is whenever a new, power hungry DC is proposed, permits/consent should include a requirement to provide new generating capacity to cover the load. So a bit like housing development in the UK. Want to build 20 flats? X% are supposed to be affordable. Which is a nice idea, but doesn't really work because developers can buy out that requirement.
But it's something that could probably be securitised and turned into DC or AI bonds, with the bonds covering the generation costs. Those could be pooled, but would obviously impact the investment case in building a new DC if the PPAs were brought forward. So using Hinkley as an example, that's around £7bn per GW. The big DC builders/operators could in theory pool and invest in that kind of bond.. But probably won't want to given the highly speculative nature of AI. But it's also kind of normal for DC projects, ie they may have to pay for other infrastructure improvements, so why not also make power capacity part of the same planning consent. If you don't provide enough new generating capacity to cover the load, you don't get consent.
This would be a fairer solution given the way electricity generation is subsidised. The public are expected to take the risk of building new capacity, but don't really get any of the benefits if DC loads are soaking up the power and inflating bills. As investors, bond holders also stand to benefit given any surplus power generated under DC bonds would be sold on the open market.
You have to ignore history to believe that the Nazis were socialists.
Plus ca change. You have to do the same to believe the Democrats are socialists, despite the way the emulate the fascist tendencies of their role models. Don't forget the US was rather late to WW2, and FDR's 'New Deal' has been criticised for it's interventionist nature and fascist tendencies. At least the Democrats of today have had more success in controlling both Party and Executive, along with the judicial system.. But like the 'New Deal', Bidenomics hasn't exactly been great for dealing with the recession. Other than attempting to redefine a recession of course.
No doubt the PPE graduates in parliament are arguably perfectly aware of what is wrong with their arguments. But their interest is in power, acquisition of. And wealth, ditto.
Therein lies the real problem. Philosophy also includes ethics, but that can conveniently overlooked in the pursuit of power and wealth. Rather than politics being a noble career and public service, it can become a self-serving enterprise that allows PPE grads to become very wealthy. This is probably where real reforms are needed, ie cracking down on conflicts of interest and lobbying. It's also where being wealthy should counter this. So take Sunak as an example. Smart guy, PPE grad with a first, Fulbright Scholar for his MBA, successful career in finance. Oh, and also married very well. So in theory, competent and less likely to be corruptable.
Then take, say, Ed Milliband. Another PPE, although dropped that and graduated with an upper 2nd, then MSc in Economics, and then straight into politics. Then ended up lumbering the UK with the most expensive and disastrous bits of legislation in our history, the Climate Change Act. Mostly written for him by Bryony Worthington, a Friends of the Earth campaigner. But then given a gong and elevated to the House of Lords, and promptly created her own lobbying company to promote carbon credits. Not bad for an Eng.Lit grad.
At least the UK has had some reforms, ie the House of Lords switched from life peers to working peers, who in theory should know what they're talking about and could add wisdom to reviewing legislation from that 'other place'. But of course it was promptly stacked with lobbyists like Baroness Worthless.
Are you a parody account, or really such an angry and bitter little man?
Partly. I do parody the loony left because it's easy. It's also amusing and entertaining for me, even though the left's response tends to be very predictable. Like your ad homs. I guess you missed all the anger and bitterness directed at Trump, or Musk when he took over your echo chamber. And I'm 13.0634 linguine.
It's funny how "righties" got fed up of truth social because there weren't any "lefties" for them to troll
Hmm.. Righties. I kind of like that. Being on the right side of truth, as opposed to those sinister lefties. Plus as those great Australian philosophers one sang, if G-d's on the left, then I'm sticking to the right. But you make one of the classic mistakes politicians make. Assuming 'social media' has any influence on me, or millions of other voters. They may spend millions on FacePalm or Twitter/X campaigning, but it has zero influence on me because I don't use those services. The only time I take an interest is when there's news about how those campaigns backfire, like the good'ol Hamilton 68 dashboard. Or even this article. A few Republican women ended up having more 'influence' than expensive campaigns.
You guys are the biggest whiny little crybaby snowflakes that exist. Have you stopped crying yet because Trump got found guilty for crimes he was guilty of?
Projecting again. November's not far off and there's the potential for more reaction and livestream reactions like there were in 2016 when Trump won last time. So much salt! So much whining and gnashing of team. Of course then came a few billion in property damage as those crybaby snowflakes took to the streets, attempted to burn down federal buildings, assaulted police officers. Hopefully this time around, they'll just accept the results and deal with it.
As for Trump being found guilty, the good thing about the justice system is the accused has a right to appeal. So a Democrat donating judge may have declared Trump guilty for now, but the appeal may find him not guilty. After all, there were no charges for the alleged felonies committed, no misuse of campaign funds (not that that was charged) and any misdemeanors for false accounting had passed the statute of limitations, and shouldn't have been charged in the first place.
What will you do if, or when Trump is found not guilty? Meanwhile, the investigation into Biden's mishandling of classified information continues. The investigator declared that Biden wasn't competant to stand trial. Written testimony declared during the interview, Biden was rambling and forgetful. Not exactly news to anyone who's seen his public appearences. But the investigation is calling for the tapes of that interview, which the Democrats are resisting for some reason. Can't think why. I can't think why Biden wasn't charged anyway given he had no legal right to those documents, and possession of classified information without authority is usually a strict liability offence. But then Clinton wasn't charged either. Trump.. well, he's different, so there's another big show trial ongoing.
When the old bastards tried to corner the market on Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice in "Trading Places" by getting access to the crop reports before anybody else, while funny, illustrates the sort of position politicians are in. They see that information, they might pass laws restricting water so groves of trees have to be left for dead. A word to a spouse or their investment manager .....
Both the Pelosis and the Clintons made their money by being highly sophisticated and canny investors. Nothing to see there, moving swiftly on.. Same with the Bidens. Art sales, book deals, nothing to see there either, and certainly no 10% for the Big Guy. They're not at all motivated by money. Not even when Joe 'Whatever it takes!" Biden snubs Zelensky's pity party in Switzerland to go attend a fund raiser with a bunch of Hollywood celebs. Money comes first.
(At some point, the media might dig into Zelensky's rather large property portfolio. Which apparently added a £20m mansion in London recently. Not too shabby for a low paid 'Servant of the People'.)
I have asked the question before but never got an answer as to just why there is so much visceral hatred for the guy. It is not normal to have people falling to there knees and screaming into the sky in such a way.
Something the Dems copied from Goebbels is how to use propaganda and psyops to work a crowd. Throw in a bit of Pavlov, and constant repetition and the response becomes ingrained. It's just a combination of learned behaviour and learned helplessness. If you don't stop Trump now, Democratcy gets it. Trump and 'extreme MAGA Republicans' are the greatest threat America has ever faced. Then add in the education system churning out smooth brained, infantilised youth and keep indoctrinating them.
It's created an environment that's been great for Sky News Australia's "Lefties losing it" segment, but less great for America. It's also been great for police videos showing traffic stops of the entitled generation who claim 'You can't do this!' and "I know my rights!", when clearly they do not, which is again the fault of the education system. And having watched a few of those, I feel sorry for the officers that have to deal with those people. I also feel sorry for the people of Boston-
http://files.suffolkdistrictattorney.com/The-Rachael-Rollins-Policy-Memo.pdf
with their mayor proposing to decriminalise shoplifting, larceny, disorderly conduct, receiving stolen property, driving with a suspended license, breaking and entering with property damage, wanton and malicious destruction of property, threats, minor in possession of alcohol, marijuana possession, possession with intent to distribute, non-marijuana drug possession. None of those are victimless crimes, but then Democrats rarely care about those unless they're the victims. I guess when Wu's house becomes a crack den and fencing centre, she'll probably change her mind.
Heck they admitted it in the Time article after 2020 saying that there were groups ready to start direct action if Trump had won.
One of the most bizarre events was the pair of lawyers who made a bunch of petrol bombs, tried to find suckers to throw them and eventually used them themselves to torch a police car. Luckily nobody was in it. I guess their legal training skipped that manufacture and possession of petrol bombs is considered a destructive device by the ATF.
In the 1930s, gangs of German right-wing supporters went round smashing windows, waking the occupants, daubing graffiti et al. I expect you're about to claim that Nazis were socialists now, or perhaps you have't studied enough history to have heard of Kristallnacht?
Err, well.. The Nazis were erm.. National Socialist German Workers' Party. But like in many things, those that ignore history are condemned to repeat it. Despite thinking themselves as 'anti-fascist'.
What if it isn't derangement at all, but simply that Trump's behaviour mirror things many voters share? Fat, boorish, angry, shouty, sub-average intellect, misogyny, disagreeable, opinionated, abusive, immune to logic, incapable of polite disagreement. You can find plenty of people with a fair sprinkling of those attributes in any down market bar, anywhere in the world. What the Orange buffoon offers US redneck voters for near enough the first time, is a president that matches their behaviours.
Yep, that sums you and other TDS sufferers perfectly. Except I'd add microcephalic and microphallic to your list of attributes as well. But yes, you and other TDS sufferers are so full of hatred. Remember that summer of love after Trump got elected? Remember CNN and the "fiery, but mostly peaceful' protests? Remember the armed insurrection in Seattle where TDS sufferers did a Crimea and declared independence from the USA? Remember them marching on the Whitehouse, shouting that Trump must go because Hillary told them he stole the election?
Pepperidge Farrm remembers.
But the absolute best thing TDS sufferers did is carry on attacking Trump. His name became a dog whistle to those "Fat, boorish, angry, shouty, sub-average intellect, misogyny(sic), disagreeable, opinionated, abusive, immune to logic, incapable of polite disagreement" so every time his name is mentioned, one or more of those attributes shines through. Every time a new Trumped up charge was laid, he rose in the opinion polls. TDS sufferers have generated publicity worth billions.
If only the TDS sufferers had just ignored him..
Overly simplistic view of my point, of course but I believe that about sums it up. IIRC, one of ol' Elon's stated goals for purchasing Twitter was that its Democrat-oriented userbase was running amok with wild claims. Whether that's true, I have no idea. I wasn't there
This is a good insight into what was going on, and the way people were creating the 'Russiagate' hoax, namely the infamous Hamilton 68 dashboard-
https://www.racket.news/p/cti-files-4-the-hamilton-68-connection
THE BULLSHIT IT IS” The #TwitterFiles uncovered that Hamilton 68 was a fraud as well, as according to internal Twitter correspondence, Morgan’s “dashboard” was not “tracking Russian propaganda” and “Russian disinformation,” but a group of 600-odd accounts overwhelmingly composed of ordinary people in places like the U.S., Canada, and Britain. “I think we need to just call this out on the bullshit it is,” said Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth.
A misinformation campaign so bad that even Twitter staff detected it. But the MSM, especially the NYT did not, and ran with it, amplifying the effects of the misinformation campaign. Eventually the Mueller report investigated and found that actual Russian 'bot' or misinformation had far less impact than gargbage like Hamilton 68. But astroturfing and political campaigning has always used tricks like this, and one downside to Hamilton 68 is it showed political operators how effective this kind of misinformation campaigning can be.
Or not, because obviously if you don't use Twitter/X or Facebook, you're largely immune to it.. Unless a gullible news org picks it up and runs with it.
Since Democrats won the 2020 election it appears to make little sense to point out what unsavory shenanigans Republicans were up to back then unless that's not its point at all. Perhaps it's a "preemptive foreshadowing", as in "Hey, look what these clowns got up to last time. Need to keep a close eye on them here pretty soon."
I think this explains everything-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtcrime
In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, thoughtcrime is the offense of thinking in ways not approved by the ruling Ingsoc party. In the official language of Newspeak, the word crimethink describes the intellectual actions of a person who entertains and holds politically unacceptable thoughts; thus the government of The Party controls the speech, the actions, and the thoughts of the citizens of Oceania
With politicians of pretty much all parties trying to take on the role of Ingsoc by countering 'misinformation' and thus preventing thoughtcrimes. Of course 1984 was supposed to be a warning, not a playbook for the politicians currently passing legislation and turning the EU (and UK) into Oceania. It's quite scarey how prophetic Orwell was-
Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by the telescreen; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork.
Hey, Siri, are you listening? If not, the mic in your monitor, phone etc might be. Plus everything we do online is being tracked and monitored, sold to analytics companies and data aggregators who build profiles on every citizen of Oceania. Plus it's a huge business opportunity with a lot of companies going after the money being dangled to detect, counter or elimate 'misinformation' and wrongthink.
What's the point of this?
What is the point of.. you?
JE is a troll, a massive one.
Says the person who's just posted 20 one-line posts in an hour.. I'm not a troll, although I do confess I enjoy challenging leftie's version of reality. It is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel (with an RPG) though.
We did, tentatively, teach critical thinking in the UK in the 80s. But it was firmly trampled on by "back-to-basics" campaigns. So, for example, secondary school History did a lot of work on evaluating historical evidence. But the pressure to move back to teaching dates and battles got it killed off.
I think I was fortunate to miss most of those reforms. Plus my father was a historian and teacher who took early retirement when those happened. I think the push to rote learning was a huge mistake, and it's reflected in society now. It might suit certain sections of society (marketing, politicians, scammers) to have a population conditioned to blindly accept 'facts', but it's also very damaging to have a generation that hasn't really been taught to think for themselves.
Personally, I think philosophy should be a mandatory subject, after all as wiki puts it-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy
Major branches of philosophy are epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epistemology studies what knowledge is and how to acquire it. Ethics investigates moral principles and what constitutes right conduct. Logic is the study of correct reasoning and explores how good arguments can be distinguished from bad ones. Metaphysics examines the most general features of reality, existence, objects, and properties.
Which could include why wiki isn't always a reliable source. But politicians keep harping on about 'misinformation', how it's the greatest threat to democracy, and the public should be innoculated against it. Philosophy pretty much has all the answers. If people were taught to think for themselves and think critically, they'd be more capable of spotting misinformation, whether that's official or not.
Way to prove you didn't read the articles.
I think questioning the article and citing from it would be one way to prove I did..
So claims are being reviewed. The police have not said WHOSE marketing material is under investigation, but there is word there is one taking place. Robert Largan says he has not been contacted about it. That's it.
Says who? The article focuses on Largan's material, but also says the police have not confirmed Largan is the subject of any complaint or review. The clear inference is that Largan is the subject, but the article presents no evidence, or evidence that there's any review at all. Maybe some Labour supporter made a complaint, got a crime number and pushed the story to the Bbc. Police may not have told the complainant that there's NFA because as the article and you point out, it's clear it's Conservative marketing.
And then it goes on to explore various concerns in a selection of the countries within the EU. Come on, now.
Why would the Bbc be concerned, if the 'national mood' in various countries is drifting away from far-left parties to the right? That's just democracy in action. That the Bbc can't read the 'national mood' is pretty obvious in some of it's content. I mentioned Dr Who because that's just an example of this. It's new series has unleashed RTD's creative freedoms to take one of the Bbc's best loved brands and re-imagine it, with some help from Disney. He's taken it in a direction that goes against the 'national mood'. In interviews, he's said that for any viewer that rejects his vision, 5 more would watch. How's that working out in the ratings? Lowest ever according to some reports. But that's true across a lot of media.
Warner Bros spaffed $300m+ on Furiosa: A Mad Max tale that doesn't include Mad Max. It's turning into another flopbuster because audiences are bored with girlboss movies. And it's much the same with Disney and the way it's destroying it's Star Wars franchise. Rather than making bank pushing content to the franchise's traditional audience, media companies are fixated on messaging and diversity, and making content that only really appeals to a small minority. For the Bbc, they may not care about ratings and poor performance because thanks to their funding, performance doesn't matter. For Warner and Disney, missing the 'national mood' clearly has direct financial consequences.
Since Trump's support is far more male than female, and men tend to be more "hotheaded" when it comes to political stuff - and the people who showed up to riot on Jan. 6 were overwhelmingly male.
Not sure it's that strange. Women tend to be more social and have a wider circle of friends or acquaintences than men. One thing to be certain though is some political animal somewhere is feeding the tweets into an AI in an attempt to replicate their successes. It's the kind of game astroturfers have been playing for years.
And there we have it ladies and gentlemen:
Yep. You're demonstrating you're also a loser. And a sore one at that.
- She lost the vote because meaning the conspiracy theories are not conspiracy theories but they're really true.
Your words, not mine. I said she lost the election, not the vote. Many years later, despite evidence that her Russiagate hoaxes were actual conspiracies and not conspiracy theories, you still seem to believe in those.
What's the point of this?
Simple really. It helps me demonstrate to anyone that might actually be interested just how deluded and obnoxious extreme TDS sufferers can be slinging strawmen and ad homs everywhere. And of course you're still a coward who's too afraid to put a name, any name to the words you spew...
I suppose you're going to say that was fake news too.
Nope, she's still a loser. Convince the US to change their entire election system and she'd still be a loser.
So, those lies and 'conspiracy theories'. Any luck? Also your insult. Not everyone is fortunate to be as well endowed, but you can always ask your partner for a magnifier and tweezers. It's a bit like when the Biden campaign advertised for a meme manager recently, thus further demonstrating the left can't meme. Many on the Internet submitted portfolio entries though.
Have you two actually got anything of worth to say or are you just going to carry on spouting conspiracy theories and outright lies onto the Internet hoping to reel in more gullible to the cause, claiming that those who aren't so weak of mind as to believe this nonsensical bullshit are dividing the country, and sucking your own dicks?
Once more, an anonymous and very much coward leaps in feet first to add nothing to the conversation except insults.
So what did I say that was either a consipiracy theory, or an outright lie? If you believe in stuff like the 2016 'Russian disinformation', then Mueller's investigation found that pretty much all of that came from the Democrats. Mostly one person who couldn't handle the fact that she lost the election and keeps looking for someone else to blame. But if you're suitably weak minded, you can be a mug and buy a mug from her stating she was 'right about everything'. Except of course why she lost.
The red flag here is talking about "mainstream media". Because - what other kind is there, exactly?
Here's a red flag, semi-literally, from a member of the MSM that also happens to be a state broadcaster, and is bound by it's Charter to be neutral. And it's a bit of an odd story-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1eewd5xgjgo
Election fraud claims being reviewed by police
Police are reviewing claims of election fraud they have received relating to "concerns around marketing material".
... The BBC understands Robert Largan has not been contacted by Derbyshire Police, which has not confirmed if his advertisement is the subject of the review.
Err.. wut? If the police haven't confirmed, how can they be sure the 'marketing material' is being reviewed? There could be other marketing material but the Bbc only seems to talk about the advertisements. But that's the strange position the Bbc finds itself in. See also-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0wwepv5l6xo
When Europeans vote in elections for the European Parliament this coming week, their choices will reflect the national mood in 27 different countries.
Right and far-right parties are set to make gains, but the picture is widely different across the continent. Here is a snapshot of what to expect from BBC correspondents ahead of the vote.
Count how many times the Bbc mentions 'far-right'. Which is the polar opposite of the typical Bbc viewpoint, but if it truly is the 'national mood', it'll be an example of democracy, and a rejection of the 'far left' viewpoints that the Bbc tends to represent. Which could be awkward if the UK's national broadcaster isn't representative of the national mood. But this is a problem for other members of the MSM. CNN's ratings have fallen faster than even Dr Who.
You won't be popular with that post, a lot of people around here no longer seem to want to hear any truth that doesn't agree with their ideologies..
I'm used to it. The angry thumbs tend to come out in force when I try and get people to question their belief system.
I also believe that we are at a junction in time where the fantasy crowd are going to soon become complete societal pariahs, they will no longer be accepted due to their arrogance and utter lack of common sense.
I don't think it will go that far, but we live in interesting times. Like I said, governments are increasingly using propaganda, misinformation and censorship to shut down any dissenting opinions and stifle debate. This is dangerous, and part of the good'ol sleepwalking into fascism. Or a toxic combination of 1984 combined with 'They Live'. But it's also fairly basic psychology and crowd behaviour. People tend to be trusting, and trust their peers, or what they think is news. Then as in cult deprogramming, people can find it very hard to accept that they've been mislead. Plus the education system doesn't seem very keen on teaching critical thinking any more. There already seems to be some pushback against ESG, but hopefully it won't go as far as making people pariahs. They'll just find themselves unemployable if they can't think for themselves. AI will soon be able to do the drones jobs after all.
Trump's great power is that he literally does not care whether what he says has any basis in reality whatsoever. Or even if it's consistent with what he said 30 seconds earlier.
TDS has entered the chat. So Biden's uncle was shot down and eaten by cannibals. Easy enough to 'fact check', he wasn't, his plane ran out of fuel and he drowned. Or other brothers enlisted after Pearl Harbour. They didn't, service records showed they enlisted before. And that list goes on.
Some of those are easy enough to 'fact check', others get harder. So there was Blinken's work to get 51 intelligence officials to sign a letter saying Hunter Biden's laptop was 'Russian misinformation'. It wasn't, it was authentic but that took time to confirm. And people still seem to believe the misinformation meme. Much the same is true of the 'Steele Dossier' and other misinformation claims spread during the 2016 US election. Those were 'superspreader' events because they were part of election campaigns, and dutifully amplified by a gullible MSM.
And then there's this lot-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_for_Securing_Democracy
Of 'Hamilton 68' fame. Or infamy. But one of the many 'fake news' and 'misinformation' outfits that sprang up to make money and spread misinformation. Or counter it, depending on who you believe. Which is the problem. How do we know who or what to believe? In an election, the biggest spreaders of misinformation will be the political parties. It's obviously in their interests to spin their version of the truth in the best possible light. Then campaigns will use astroturfers and sockpuppets to amplify their messaging. In an ideal world, the MSM could catch some of the most egregious misinformation, but sadly, they seem to have become part of the problem.
And it's getting worse, so goverments announcing crackdowns and new legislation to 'prevent misinformation', which could actually mean only allowing official misinformation, and limiting people's ability to counter this.. Which is getting worse by the day. Ursula von der Liar wants to 'shield' the EU if she's elected again-
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/05/14/von-der-leyen-pitches-plan-to-shield-eu-from-foreign-interference-if-re-elected
The Shield would be tasked with detecting and removing online disinformation - building on the work of the EU's digital rulebook, the Digital Services Act (DSA) - and "inoculating" the bloc against malign influence by enabling Europeans to recognise threats.
An N95 mask for Europe! But innoculation is something misinformation peddlers have been promoting. We'll be 'innoculated' with fragments of lies and then somehow be able to be immunised against the big lies. This is presumably already being trialled with misinformation, like Ursula being under investigation for her vaccine deals, election spending etc.
"Likewise, a glue is a bonding agent." Not all bonding agents are glue, not all bonds require a bonding agent and is the cheese even bonded to the pie on a pizza. Bonded or not glue is not a pizza ingredient.
AIs are dumb. No glue would be needed. All one has to do is polish both cheese and pizza so they're perfectly smooth and flat, and they'll bond naturally.
Maybe you missed the news but he's been convicted of 34 counts of felony, not misdemeanour.
Nope. But this is where the case is strange. The DA (should he change his name to Liberty?) elevated the charges to felonies by claiming they concealed some underlying crime. Various lawyers and legal experts have questioned if he can actually do this without charging the concealed crime. So in this case, alluding to the crime being 'election interference', but not attempting to prosecute that offence. It's also a bit odd that apparently 1 payment of hush money lead to 34 counts in the first place.
Is that the likely sentence? What I've read suggests not. One of the options seemed interesting - supervised release.
I guess that's where it gets political. Absent concealing an underlying crime, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor and the statute of limitations expired anyway. Elevating the charges to make them felonies means there could be a custodial sentence, but the underlying crime wasn't charged. But we'll have to wait for July 11th to find out, and if that hearing is dragged out so Trump misses the Republican convention.
But I kind of suspect the Democrats won't go that far. They have their result, ie Trump guilty and probably expect to lose on appeal. But the appeal is going to take time, and so for now, he is guilty regardless of how much the case stinks of political theatre and lawfare. I think that could get worse, if the judge decides to impose another massive fine. The last one bore no relation to the harm done, but served the purpose of forcing Trump to raise the money to appeal it. If they try the same stunt again, it could just amplify the Streisand Effect.
Also a bit curious why Trump hasn't tried to have these SLAPP'd down. You can't get much more limiting public participation than trying to prevent an ex-President from running for re-election. Maybe team Trump decided it was better to answer the allegations and get them out of the way than leaving the doubt hanging over him.
The FBI did investigate Hillary and DID find evidence that personal devices and personal email addresses had been used for governmental business but decided it was not serious enough to go further. Hillary came oh so close to falling foul of the espionage act.
This one is also in the news (if you can find it) on this side of the pond where the NYT is suing to see what Ursula von der Liar said to the CEO of Pfizer while she was personally negotiating one of the EU's biggest ever deals-
https://www.politico.eu/article/5-things-to-know-about-ursula-von-der-leyens-pfizergate-court-cases/
But proportionality might be trickier: Does that then mean the public should be allowed to access all of a politician’s private communications?
Judges are likely to adopt a more nuanced approach than a simple yes-or-no answer. “Perhaps the court will grant access to the texts, but only if it can be shown that the SMSes had an impact on the final decision,” said Couronne.
Which gets interesting because texts between her and Pfizer's CEO arguably weren't private, if they mentioned the deal at all. But this is much the same argument Clinton used to avoid releasing the contents of her email server. Don't mix business and pleasure, if you don't want the emails or texts turning up in court.
Ah, so you think Trump should be tried based on false claims of election fraud while he was still in office "in the executive branch" and even claiming he would refuse to leave office despite the election results? Good to know.
Nope. This is what you think, and what happens when you turn into a strawman as a result of TDS infection. The Bbc sort of explains-
Prosecutors successfully laid out a case Mr Trump was afraid Ms Daniels would fatally harm his 2016 presidential campaign by going public with an alleged sexual encounter, prompting him to pay her - then illegally hide the transaction.
34 counts of falsifying business records. No charges of election interference. In other news the SEC and GAAP announce that henceforth, all legal expenses must be itemised
I wonder if this years campaign trail will result in Dem rallies chanting "Lock Him Up!" and how the Reps will respond? The Rep chants of "Lock Her Up" were based on untested accusations, whereas this time around....
Well, there was Whitewater, or possible improper use of funds supposed to go towards the Clinton Library, or mishandling classified information and wiping servers with a cloth. Or there's the prospect of charging Biden with unlawful possession and storage of classified material. Or financial transactions between the Bidens. Or other stuff from the Biden laptop, that was previously officially denied. Hunter's prosecution is ongoing, but nobody has really started on the Big Guy. Who came out with another classic gaffe yesterday saying 'nobody is above the law'. Unless you're a party member in good standing.
So the circus will carry on. Given all the attempts to charge Trump with.. something, it's pretty certain there will be reciprocity, and the Democrats will learn about the Streisand Effect.
The majority of the world want you to go to jail.
The majority of the world doesn't care, or is looking at the state of US politics and either laughing, or wondering what'll come next. Some of the most interesting interviews have been from migrants, who thought they were coming to the land of the free and fair. Not the kind of politics they left their home countries to escape. There are also events like S.Africa going to the ICC and charging Israel with war crimes. Or the ICJ ordering Israel to cease it's ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Those probably wouldn't have got this far with a strong US. But how is the US responding? Threats of sanctions and retaliation against the ICC and ICJ.
A fine display of what 'international rules based order' means.
He's now a convicted criminal: GUILTY.
Yes GUILTY! Let's move swiftly on to burning the witch. Nice caps. Nice demonstration of TDS..
So, appeals. Isn't Trump entitled to those? And if successful, guilty could become NOT GUILTY.
The New York case is very odd on the face of it, but well crafted and well prosecuted: he used campaign funds for personal interest. US campagin finance rules are ridiculously lax, but they are very clear on that.
Uhuh. But that isn't what he was convicted for. He was charged with falsifying business records, misdemeanor. The DA tried to elevate those charges to felonies by saying this was in order to conceal a crime, yet he hasn't been charged or convicted of that underlying crime. A point the defence tried to make by calling a witness to explain that use of campaign funds in that way was not illegal at that time. The judge of course disallowed that witness.. Which is probably one of the grounds for appeal.
But as usual, for many the fix is in. Here's a quote from the good'ol Bbc, still desperate for US views and ad revenue-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-69069142
Trump falsely repeated claims his prosecution was politically orchestrated and that his trial was "rigged"
So Trump announced his intention to appeal. This isn't mentioned in the Bbc's 'summary'. That appeal may find procedural errors and problems with the trial, and his conviction may be overturned. If that shows the prosecution was 'rigged', what does that do for what little is left of the Bbc's credibility?
His out of court actions show no respect for US democracy, for the justice system, for the officials who make government work.
So do the actions of the prosecutors and judge. But they have made government work, and damn the Hatch Act-
The Hatch Act of 1939, An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, is a United States federal law. Its main provision prohibits civil-service employees in the executive branch of the federal government, except the president and vice president, from engaging in some forms of political activity.
But that only covers the exec branch, not NY, but could get interesting when Trump appeals, and after November. But thus far, US Democratcy has got the result it was after, however briefly. Trump is now a convicted felon. The MSM is dutifully running that news front and centre. Next up, his sentence will be handed down on July 11th and the Democrats could potentially let Trump campaign from jail. Trump can of course appeal, probably on multiple grounds, but when those appeals will be heard remains to be seen. Other court cases are ongoing keeping Trump off the campaign trail, so scheduling might be a challenge.
But the Democrats have managed to achieve something unique in US history, emulating a tin-pot dictatorship that locks up political opponents. It has demonstrated to the whole world how 'international rules based order' really works.
I can remember when the USA was internationally respected, had competent, safe leaders, supported by competent advisors. Now the country is a world laughing stock, as it prepares to elect one of two confused old men neither of whom display any credibility or competence.
One is certainly confused and incompetent, but the Democrats have determined to run him again. The other, the Democrats seem determined to prevent running by abusing democracy and the justice system to put him in jail. Biden had classified documents he wasn't entitled to retain, but was declared incompetent to stand trial. All hail the once and future chief.
But this is where the blowback can only get worse. Plenty of lawyers have raised eyebrows over how this case was handled. The 'star witnesses' were Cohen, a convicted felon, perjurer and fraudster. Then Daniels, who was represented by Michael Avenatti when Daniels was shopping around her story. I'm suprised he wasn't called by the prosecution in this case given he had knowledge of the 'hush money' payments. He's easy enough to find being in jail, on multiple counts of fraud, theft and embezzlement.
But the theatre of the absurd has completed it's first act. Trump guilty! Next act might be winning the appeal, and showing how the justice system was abused for political gain. Then possibly the third act, which will be charging, prosecuting and jailing the people that abused the justice system. Plenty of popcorn still to come.
And then the election debate is dominated by howling morons who have no grasp of reality, logic, fairness, democracy or due process.
Yes, well, TDS affects people that way. Trump is the greatest threat to Democratcy since those good'ol Southern Democrats started the Civil War. Plenty of US voters think this, and other cases agains Trump stink, but whether that will be enough for Trump to win in November remains to be seen. Then again, Biden may be down 17 electoral college votes from Ohio on account of not looking at the calendar. Ohio's laws state nominees need to be designated ahead of the elections, the Democrats missed the deadline. Oops..
J.B. Straubel is no more a founder than Elon. At the most, Ian Wright might be able to make a claim, but Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard are on the official documents from 2003 that formed the Tesla Motor Company.
Careful. Didn't Elon go to court to get a declaration that he founded Tesla? Just ignore any filings to the contrary..
The biggest damning of Elon's bonus package was insufficient information being given to shareholders and to a lesser extent, the BoD not negotiating Elon's demands in any meaningful way. The board is tied too closely to Elon for it to even be seen as being able to act on behalf of the other shareholders.
I think the most damning thing is it's $45bn. Well, +/- however the share price moves. But agree on there being no effective oversight on the board. It's where non-execs usually sit on renumeration committees, are supposed to be independent and protect the company and shareholder's interests. Which I'm not sure this award does because presumably it'll dilute existing shareholders, if the award is new stock.
I also get the feeling there's a bit of a legal ponzi scheme going on. Musk has many ventures, but his worth is mostly his Tesla holdings, and he borrows heavily against that. SpacX just did another $500m debt round, and apparently that's a regular event to buy back stock so staff can exercise stock options. I hate to think how much debt the Musk empire has, and how big the margin call will be if/when Tesla's stock goes down. And there's a certain inevitability to that given the increased competition Tesla faces.
The move from Delaware to Texas is a temper tantrum move by Elon to get his way since he probably believes that with so much economic activity by Tesla in the state, the courts would give more leeway or be pressured to look the other way as cases against Tesla and Elon are brought before them.
I think it's more to avoid California's regulatory environment, and possibly Texas offering more incentives. AFAIK one of the attractions with California was they offered very generous EV credits, but those have now ended.
In 2029 they will be just around 45 year old with most likely many more years to operate.
Maybe, but seems like a risk. Talen also has coal power stations in PA, but there's stuff like this-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Generating_Station
The power plant will close by or before December 31, 2028, as a result of a new wastewater rule that prohibits coal power plants from dumping mercury, arsenic, and selenium into streams and rivers, along with the Conemaugh Generating Station and at least 24 other power plants in 14 states
1.7GW coal plant built in 1968, and modified a few times to clean it up. That one's owned by a consortium that includes Talen. It's interesting that some of the financial sites I follow are saying that the next big thing for tech investing isn't AI or datacentres, it's energy because of their dependency and insatiable demand. So how the US will deal with this, given it has much the same problems as the UK with conflicting policy.
UK introduced it's 'Climate Change Act' which gave a 'legally binding' committment to reduce carbon emissions by 30%. We had this power station-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsnorth_power_station
Which was 2GW, but forced to close under the EU's LCPD (Large Combustion Plant Directive). The owners tried getting permission to replace it with a modern supercritical coal plant that would have reduced carbon emissions by 20-30%, even without CCS, but environmental campaigners forced it to be abandoned. Current policies seem to be very anti-baseload capacity, but there are some possible 'green shoots of recovery' with the UK signing up to a new nuclear committment. Similar noises have been heard from the US. But we need more affordable, reliable power and not just to feed datacentres.
There's also been some interesting news on the nuclear front-
https://www.power-technology.com/news/russia-uzbekistan-first-nuclear-plant/
The Kremlin released documents stating that Russian state nuclear company Rosatom will construct six reactors in Uzbekistan, each with 55MW, providing 330MW of capacity in total.
...President Putin announced a Russian investment of $400m into a joint fund with Uzbekistan. The fund totals $500m and will finance projects within the country.
Not clear if that's exclusively for building the six reactors, or covers other projects as well. But that sounds like an SMR project, possibly based on this design-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RITM-200
So it'll be interesting to see how that project goes, but potentially demonstrates the advantages of SMRs and collocated large energy consumers like datacentres. So interesting times, and there's a risk the West falls behind in providing useful 'clean energy'. But there are a bunch of interesting designs nearing rediness, eg-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Multiplier_Module
Which can recycle old nuclear waste, and potentially produce heat for district heating, 'green' H2 and more. Plus it's from one of my favorite named companies. Who do you work for? General Atomics..
So this got me curious. I can see the attraction for Talen getting a lump of cash for the datacentre it built, plus a PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) for up to half it's nuclear plants existing output. So I bimbled over to Wiki-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susquehanna_Steam_Electric_Station
Unit 1: June 8, 1983
Unit 2: February 12, 1985
In November 2009, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) extended the operation licenses of the reactors for an additional 20 years.
So the existing BWRs are kinda getting on a bit, and the licenses expire in 2029. I'm sure Amazon has a 5yr plan for what happens then. The article mentions Talen had a plan to build a new NPP nearby, but withdrew the application. So kind of assuming that will get resubmitted or Amazon's ILO datacentres will be lights out because they're out of power. But given the timescales to build a new NPP, that would seem to need to start now.
But also curious about the social cost of deals like this. So this effectively takes up to half of the NPP's output out of the market at a time when policies are increasing demand for electricity. So good'ol decarbonisation and electrification of transport, heating etc. Then again, this could be a good thing for Talen because any energy it produces outside the PPA committment with Amazon could be sold at a higher price given the higher demands.
Great ideas..... Mao Zedong tried some of them out in China.
It's one of those 'spot the Marxist' things. Or a Marxist who hasn't read history-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_farming
In 1932–1933, an estimated 11 million people, 3–7 million in Ukraine alone, died from famine after Stalin forced the peasants into collectives (see: Holodomor). It was not until 1940 that agricultural production finally surpassed its pre-collectivization levels
Although that was also partly a result of 'climate change', and bad weather reducing crop yields. Plus a climate of fear with local and regional apparatchiks being terrified of giving Stalin (a Georgian) bad news and faking data. Stalin later executed a couple of senior members of the Ukrainian SSR for lying about Ukraine's production and seed levels. But then in shades of climate 'science', along came a chap by the name of Lysenko, who..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism#Context
Some Marxists, however, perceived the mechanism of individual random mutations bequeathed to subsequent generations as contravening the Marxist framework of "immutable laws of history" and the spirit of collectivism, and considered it a liberal doctrine
Climate history is similarly immutable, although neo-Lysenkoists haven't gone quite as far as Lysenko did and had 'deniers' executed or sent to concentration camps. Some climate 'scientists' have suggested this however. But Lysenko's.. novel ideas wrt genetics and agriculture ended up crippling Soviet agriculture.
And much the same is still happening. The EU had a few attempts at biofuels, until it realised growing crops to burn instead of eat was probably a bad idea. But farmers are still dealing with stuff like this-
https://www.energylivenews.com/2024/05/29/uk-government-urged-to-halt-solar-farm-expansion/
Minette Batters highlighted that solar farms are being built as dairy and arable farming face an uncertain future.
Ms Batters pointed out that wealthy investors, including overseas financiers, are buying large areas of the countryside, often displacing tenant farmers in the process.
Grow solar, not food. Ironic when we're being told to reduce food miles and buy local. Or we're all supposed to go vegetarian, which means more land would be needed to grow crops. But it's sometimes worth following the money, especially when it comes to 'renewables' and subsidy farming. See, for example-
https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/companies/article/offshore-wind-needs-bigger-subsidies-warns-government-adviser-p3d823xjv
State subsidies for new offshore wind projects may not be generous enough to drive the projects needed to achieve targets for boosting clean energy, a leading climate adviser to the government has warned.
Baroness Brown of Cambridge, chairwoman of the adaptation sub-committee of the Climate Change Committee, the independent non-departmental public body, said Britain had been “slow” and “not very clever” in its handling of offshore wind auctions.
How can this be? The 'renewables' industry has been telling us costs have been falling, and now 'renewables' need more subsidies? How can this be? Well, here's one possible answer-
https://orsted.com/en/who-we-are/our-organisation/management/board-of-directors
Oh look. Baroness Brown is also on the board of one of the world's biggest subsidy farmers.. Funny how that works.
Perhaps there is someone reading from Delhi who can open the window and confirm if it's propaganda or not?
Looks like it's been partly propagandised-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c166xxd4y36o
The IMD described the recording as an "outlier compared to other stations", which had recorded temperatures ranging from 45.2C to 49.1C in different parts of Delhi.
Scientists have said global warming has made extreme heatwaves in India much more likely.
In Delhi, construction, traffic and a lack of green spaces have added to the problem.
I think the 'scientist have said globaly warming' is automatically inserted into all Bbc articles on pain of pain and termination. But then they point to what's probably the real problem, population density and pollution and Delhi is a massive urban heat island. This is still an anthropogenic issue, but 'global warming' also just happened to coincide with the UK and other western countries introducing Clean Air Acts. Smog cleared, Londoner's could stop coughing and see clear blue skies again. This hasn't always worked, eg LA people still live in a soup bowl, but it will be contributing to Delhi's problem. And the solution is hard given the amount of air pollution produced.
It's like the "smart homes" with so many automated gadgets that the build cost is astronomical and the companies that built the gadgets don't often stay in business or continue to support the products long enough to make them worthwhile.
Yep, this is part of the challenge. Or FUN! The design I want is to keep things as simple as possible, with as few moving parts and gadgets as possible for that reason. It'll be in Alaska, which has it's own set of challenges and advantages. Like having a walk-in freezer just by building an old-skool ice house in the permafrost. Then kitchen freezer won't need to be as large and won't need as much energy. There'll be propane for feeding the Sterling engine if needed, and cooking, assuming gas stoves are still available. Which being Alaska, the probably will be. But also fending off people trying to flog me heat pumps because I'm not sure I'll need one. There's plenty of wood on the land for fuel, plus there'll be plenty of offcuts and sawdust from my attempts to make furniture.
But I've always been a fan of heat stores, which was another advatange of older homes with hot water tanks. Use those as airing cupboards or for raising bread, fermenting booze etc. Heat is not wasted if we find a use for it. I've never owned a clothes drier for pretty much that reason. Why would I want space or waste energy doing something that can be done naturally, or as a byproduct? But that's also current challeng. Ventilation. There's been news articles in the UK about people having problems with black mould after insulating their homes. Which means those homes aren't being adequately ventilated if condensation is building up. Not sure how much of that is user error, ie not ventilating or opening a window when cooking. Idea for that is to have fresh air intakes going via the heat store so I can use heat exchangers to warm it. Which has also been FUN!, like being sold on fancy heat exchangers, and asking why I couldn't just use truck radiators instead.
Its amazing how they can dig into 30 year old data sets and turn up something completely new.
Yep. Science is cool like that. Plus the compute power we have now is far greater than we had 30yrs ago, so..
..about 1,200 gigabits of data
Becomes more manageable, and probably a lot cheaper. So I wonder how much of this was a combination of funding + tech, ie ingesting and analysing data would have been a lot more expensive in the past.
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