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Decision Fatigue

Trying to keep up with the news this month is hard. Trying to derive patterns from the news in order to blog about them coherently? Even harder, leading to decision fatigue—but I'm going to have a stab at it ...

The big buried lede of the past decade is that authoritarian conservatives network internationally as pervasively as the soi-disant "international communism" they railed against from the 1920s through the 1960s. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine it's become glaringly clear that authoritarianism is the preferred governmental mode of petrochemical resource extraction economies (money attracts sociopaths, sociopaths like authoritarian leaders because they are convenient single points of failure for corruption-prevention systems, authoritarian leaders appeal to authoritarian followers).

This century the PREEs are all panicking. The price of new photovoltaic panels is dropping in line with Moore's Law and as a result it's now cheaper to install PV panels than to keep existing coal-fired power stations running: the result is a mad dash to pump all the oil and gas they can get out of the ground before all that new renewable infrastructure is coupled to new distribution and usage tech that will reduce the demand for constant base load. (Big Carbon must be absolutely terrified of better battery technologies—not necessarily lighter or higher capacity, but cheaper to manufacture, safer to deploy and recycle, and longer life—suitable for grid-scale load averaging or backup.)

In addition to pumping out CO2, they've been pumping out propaganda. Russia got into the game by boosting the factions in the west most tightly associated with climate change denialism (the hard right): the hard right also swung behind Putin's imperialist revanchism (look at how many US Republican leaders are pro-Russia all of a sudden).

It's looking since the US midterms like the new hotness in western hard right circles is going to be the war on youth. Young people (especially women and people of colour) overwhelmingly reject white male supremacism, for fairly obvious reasons: they're also more inclined to be worried about climate change. An immediate response by authoritarians is to push back against any resistance. In the USA, Republicans propose raising the voting age to 21 or even 28; in the UK, New voter ID laws discriminate against young people (old peoples' bus passes are acceptable at polling stations, but young persons' railcards are not), and in Iran we're seeing a striking display of inter-generational violence, as the ageing male authoritarian fundamentalists of the post-1979 revolution shoot young female demonstrators in the streets.

If anything, this should be heartening news: the kids are all right. They're marching for action on climate change, they're voting against fascism. Not universally, not all of them (some are going full Nazi, or becoming incels, or murderous mediaeval cosplayers like Da'esh)—but enough that the far right are clearly a generational problem.

Some years ago, when asked, SF author Bruce Sterling summed up the 21st century as "old people, living in cities, afraid of the sky". Well, Earth's human population is over 50% urban at this point, the sky is becoming bloody dangerous (climate!), and as for the old people ... the young are trying to adapt, the gerontocracy are pushing back, but eventually the current gerontocrats will die out.

The other striking news of the week is Elon Musk's epic flaming death spiral at the helm of Twitter. (Which currently eclipses the news that Mark Zuckerberg wasted $15Bn on a virtual reality system with, like, about 60 thousand users, and Facebook is going to undergo huge spending cuts over the next year by way of adjustment.)

Reader, I am not charmed by this. Musk's big mouth got him into an untenable position, and now he's thrashing around destructively. I'm not going to recap the arguments here, but I suspect twitter is likely to crash hard within the next few days to week or two (at most) and Musk has fired most of the people who can fix it and keep it running. He's also fired everybody involved in international regulatory compliance: he seems to think that the relatively libertarian and under-regulated political regime of California is universal. In reality, twitter is subject to GDPR, the General Data Protection Regulation thanks to it handling EU citizens' data.

GDPR, for Americans, essentially defines a constitutional-level right to online privacy throughout the EU and it is applicable to any corporation processing EU citizens' data: it was designed specifically to prevent the sort of abuses that took place in the Third Reich, when the Nazis ransacked existing punched card databases to identify Jews and other undesirables for arrest and murder. The fines are draconian (up to 4% of the corporation's annual global turnover) and can be levied separately by each nation's data privacy regulator. Hint: there are 27 of them, adding up to a potential liability of fines equal to 108% of annual turnover (if all the regulators were to hammer Twitter with the maximum level of fines simultaneously).

Musk's takeover has drawn a spotlight to the big social media platforms' collective failure to deal with false news, bullying, and extremist politics. While second tier platforms (think Mastodon) are nowhere near to providing a refuge yet, I expect any big social media that survive into 2024 will be facing vastly tighter governmental regulatory controls.

Final news: Cryptocurrencies seem to be collapsing left right and centre as the main exchanges go bust and are exposed as fronts for securities fraud. I could say "I hate to say I told you so" but I'd be lying. (And yes, I told you so right here on this blog, nine years ago.) Schadenfreude is wonderfully heart-warming in a time of otherwise terrible news!

1508 Comments

1:

Twitter is subject to GDPR, which is fun, but it is also subject to labor laws, which tend to be a little more pointed in Europe than the US. It's going to be interesting if the financial impacts on EM end up ruining Tesla and getting SpaceX nationalized somehow. It's beautiful though, another case of reality is unrealistic. OGH just couldn't have written that, even in Scalzi's KPS it would have sounded too unrealistic.

2:

We have energy storage technology capable of grid scale load averaging and backup - pumped hydropower. The UK uses it on a daily basis, but scaling up to a weekly basis would be the perfect complement to variable wind and solar as their capacity exceeds the fossil fuel supply. This may involve flooding some of Scotland but it would give a future Independent Scotland a huge energy arbitrage advantage. Meanwhile, China is building 270GW of pumped hydro storage over the next 3 years.

3:

One thing I don't quite understand about the GDPR is, how is it enforced if the corporation has no presence in the EU?

As for Twitter, I never understood the appeal. While I could see Facebook's appeal (could being the past tense), I could see the downsides even back in 2008 or 2007 whenever I first noticed it. But you can't have a conversation in 140 chars... Then you have people stringing long threads of tweets, which sort of defeats the purpose of short posts...

Also, re-reading my comments on bitcoin back in 2013, I was wrong. I wasn't wrong about the need to get rid of Paypal, Visa and Mastercard. But I was wrong that cryptocurrencies were the short-term solution (or any solution). I still see them as science fiction made reality, but unfortunately the side-effects far outweigh the negatives. (Still got some bitcoin somewhere though. It might still hit the moon! Then I'll sell them and buy my fancy car!)

4:

As far as I can tell Musk has used loans secured against his Tesla stock to fund the Twitter takeover. So his Tesla control is at stake. I have heard nothing to suggest SpaceX is at risk.

My take: Tesla shares are clearly in a bubble, and Musk knows it. He also knows the trad automakers are in the game now, so the Tesla bubble will burst, so he might as well use it as play money while he's got it.

SpaceX ... Musk is a grandson of the guy who founded Technocracy in Canada (then emigrated to South Africa). Musk is an out-of-the-closet Technocrat. Hint: Technocracy is a totalitarian political movement associated with a bunch of stuff including space colonization, libertarianism (and, probably via the SA connection, "scientific" racism) that advocates for a society organized and run along scientific lines by a self-selected elite.

Musk's Mars colonization shtick is a bid to establish a Technocratic nation-state on Mars, not simply about colonizing space. There is a political agenda and my conclusion is that he won't relinquish control over SpaceX even if you hold a gun to his head.

5:

context = USA

schadenfreude(v)

1: savoring someone else's misfortune

2: combo of two German words schaden (harm) and freude (joy)

3: "I feel such sweet schadenfreude knowing what awaits Trump and his cronies in jail"

4: (UPDATED) "watching the GQP's Red Wave turn into a anemic trickle was a week long schadenfreude festival; endless obvious snark the Red Wave being performative art pieces about the power of women and their menstrual cycle"

6:

Pumped hydro is almost impossible to build. You need an existing change in elevation with lakes on the high and low sides. To a first approximation, there are no usable sites. There are certainly not enough sites for it to be a significant means of storage at grid scales. (That there are examples doesn't change this, any more than the Icelandic reliance on geothermal is a general solution.)

It'll be very helpful should people realize that nigh-all of the infrastructure needs to be public to work.

7:

We need a word like schadenfreude which applies when we are ourselves the sufferers.

8:

Yup.

There is pumped storage hydro in the UK -- a couple of plants capable of independently energizing the national grid in the unlikely event that it ever needs a black start. They also do load balancing during demand surges (eg. commercial breaks during a major network TV event when everyone goes to boil their kettle simultaneously -- at least, that was a thing until cable TV came along in the late 90s).

The problem is, the UK lacks sufficiently precipitous mountain terrain to provide a big drop from high reservoirs to low reservoirs. Differences in elevation tend to be gentle. Sure we've got a lot of mountains but they're almost all under 1km, and to find a convenient valley significantly closer to sea level you have to travel many kilometres.

9:

@2: I've been to Scotland often enough to believe it's already fully saturated...

10:

Some energy geologists published a study recently about the number of sites potentially available for artificial reservoir pumped hydro - so places where you have two valleys with a significant height difference but no river feeding one or both. Andrew Ducker will have had it on his Interesting Links. From memory there we approximately 6,000 sites globally of a large size with about 40 or so in Scotland.

Which is probably plenty to be going on with for Scotland and the world.

11:

I think Coire Glas is the latest pumped hydro scheme in Scotland - up to 1.5GW
https://www.coireglas.com

12:

Sorry, that should be up to 30 GWh (duh).

13:

Considering the likely disposition of the sort of people who would seriously consider going into tax exile on Mars, it may well come to that. It probably won't be a literal gun, that kind of frightener would draw too much unwanted attention and he's almost certainly got his own armed minders, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's a conveniently-timed scandal that forces him to step down from a direct managerial role in favour of someone with the same agenda but more of a clue what the fuck they're doing.

14:

Paras 2 and 3 are one of the reasons I have long been in favour of the main effort in solar power research being directed not towards solar panels, but towards artificial photosynthesis of liquid hydrocarbons from atmospheric CO2. Get that going and all you have to do is unplug the oil wells from the input of present energy infrastructure and plug in the photosynthetic hydrocarbon generators in their place. OK it still wouldn't make Russia happy, but most of the other major producers have craploads of sunlight and so could basically carry on as they are.

Other advantages include: all the rest of the energy infrastructure can also carry on as it is; we don't get untold millions of items from strimmers to refineries and national distribution networks all suddenly becoming useless and needing electrical versions manufactured to replace them. This both saves a tremendous amount of hassle, and avoids giving manufacturing industry a massive making-electric-stuff boost right when what we really need to be doing is massively curbing its exuberance, insisting that manufactured products are both durable and repairable, and cutting down manufacturing to the levels required for occasional repair and still more occasional replacement of things that last an order of magnitude or two longer than they are currently made to.

And it gets rid of this whole horrible storage problem, because storing tanks of fuel is (a) what we do already, (b) a piece of piss, (c) the densest form of storage by a long way of anything we have the faintest idea of how to do, and (d) not far off 100% efficient - which if overall efficiency is still a major concern when the input is free, probably far outweighs the relative inefficiency of combustion engines compared to electric motors, since the great majority of energy usage is for producing heat to be used in something other than an engine.

It seems that every couple of months or so someone starts going on about the lab-scale artificial photosynthesis process they've demonstrated, and then you never hear any more about it. This has been happening for years and years, but no research effort ever goes into making any of these potential processes into something practically useful. I see no reason not to believe that if all the effort that has gone into solar electricity had gone into artificial photosynthesis instead we would not by now have seen it becoming comparably practical.

15:

One thing I don't quite understand about the GDPR is, how is it enforced if the corporation has no presence in the EU?

Does the corporation collect money in the EU to run ad campaigns or to provide shiny blue badges? That money will be seized.

Does the corporation have a data centre in the EU? If not, does the corporation's CDN have a data centre in the EU? Those servers will be seized.

If it doesn't collect money and it doesn't have physical computers, it can be blocked at the DNS level much like Pirate Bay

16:

Twitter has corporate offices and therefore presences in France, Germany, Ireland (this is its official european HQ), the Netherlands and Spain. They are quite reachable for european jurisdiction; the implied threat here is that either they get in line or say goodbye to doing business in the EU, which for an advertisement company is A Bad Move.

17:

The latest in the "Musk is a moron" saga, which I think wasn't brought up here yet, and is good for a laugh if nothing else (and is not off-topic I think):

  • Two days ago, Musk complains on Twitter that the app is slow because it "makes over 1000 RPC requests" per page load.
  • Employee tells him that's not how the app works (they use GraphQL, about 20 requests per page load), and any slowdown is because of bloated micro-services.
  • Musk fires the employee for talking back to him.
  • Musk presents his bold plan to eliminate bloated micro-services.
  • Users with two-factor authentication discover that they can't login anymore.

Afterwards Musk admitted (on Twitter) he doesn't know how to check requests. Another employee shows him (on Twitter) how to use the network inspection tools built into every browser.

18:

"One thing I don't quite understand about the GDPR is, how is it enforced if the corporation has no presence in the EU?"

Yeah, I don't get that either. Surely all anyone has to do is simply be in a different jurisdiction.

"As for Twitter, I never understood the appeal. While I could see Facebook's appeal (could being the past tense), I could see the downsides even back in 2008 or 2007 whenever I first noticed it. But you can't have a conversation in 140 chars... Then you have people stringing long threads of tweets, which sort of defeats the purpose of short posts..."

I never could see that there even was any purpose in short posts, apart from enabling people to do pointless crap like saying what they just had for dinner. Which they do, and append photos of their bloody dinner as well, as if anyone cares.

As I'm sure you know the 140 character limitation was supposed to be to allow it to work over SMS, but part of the metadata associated with each tweet is what client the poster made it from, and you just never saw anyone posting via SMS even when the thing had only recently got going. After several more years Twitter eventually got their heads round this point and increased the limit, to I think 320 characters last time I looked, which did at least allow you to say some things complex enough to be worth saying in a single tweet.

However, that was the sole and single alteration they ever made to it that was any kind of an improvement; with that unique exception, absolutely everything they ever changed on it had the effect of making it less useful and/or more of a pain in the arse. For a long time it was still possible to get a vaguely tolerable user interface off it by spoofing your user agent to that of a sufficiently primitive mobile phone, but they killed even that resort off a few years ago, and made it impossible to get anything at all beyond a content-free splash page without analysing far more megabytes of javascript than I could be bothered with to figure out what the handful of magic bytes to cough at the server were supposed to be. This pissed me off, severely, so I abandoned it entirely and would now find it hard to muster any response beyond "ha ha, fuck you" if Musk does get round to destroying it utterly.

19:

"Twitter has corporate offices and therefore presences in France, Germany, Ireland (this is its official european HQ), the Netherlands and Spain."

Yeah. What for? They're a computer company. They can be based anywhere they can plug into the internet and provide a worldwide service; that's kind of the whole point. And they can collect money from anywhere in the world that isn't blocked from making payments into the US banking system (as if). Seems to me that they only need one lot of offices in the US to be just as "local" to anywhere in the world that has wires to it as to any other place.

20:

California has its own version of GDPR, called CCPA. It’s not as powerful but still probably the most powerful US legislation of it’s type.

There isn’t a lot of evidence that fossil fuel extractors are trying to bing extract reserves and cash in before a crash. If they were, we’d be looking at lower gas prices at the pump

Musc has certainly been showing the world what “rich idiot” looks like. I do wonder if we might finally get a tech union out of this

21:

It's slow because it uses huge amounts of pointless javascript when it could function perfectly well without using any at all, and indeed did so function (if you knew how to make it do so) up until a couple of years ago when they killed the HTML-only version off.

22:

International law and tax regs generally don’t allow consumers to directly pay into a US account from overseas. Local governments generally want a chunk of that change. Some even require a certain percentage to remain overseas for reinvestment in the local economy.

So it’s generally by the money strings that folks like google are kept in line with local privacy law

23:

FWIW, the US Department of Energy keeps a list of energy storage facilities worldwide:

https://sandia.gov/ess-ssl/gesdb/public/projects.html

It gives both the rated power output of the facilities and, sometimes, the maximum time they can provide that output. (I suggest downloading the table into a spreadsheet and playing with it.)

24:

Charlie
If anything, this should be heartening news: the kids are all right. They're marching for action on climate change, they're voting against fascism. And, as a 76-year old kid { A 75-year old looking in the mirror, wondering what the hell happened, yes? } I agree. The few I know are all right, too.

Energy - we are still going to need nuclear for 50-70 years, until there is enough battery storage for the awkward times, though. Oh & electricity is EXPENSIVE - something needs to be done about this.

25:

At a recent reading here in Edinburgh, Randall Munroe of XKCD remarked that the most optimistic outcome of Martian terraforming would still be worse than the most pessimistic forecast of climate change here on Earth. So perhaps we should let Musk be welcome to his life on Mars.

26:

6 "Pumped hydro is almost impossible to build." - Let's just analyse unused pump storage capacity in Scotland, on a first level basis.
1) Loch Sloy scheme: Upper reservoir is the eponymous Loch Sloy (56.270791, -4.775830) on the West side of Loch Lomond, and lower reservoir is Loch Lomond. Initial studies on this have been done, indicating a generating capacity of about 400MWh over several hours.
2) The similarly eponymous Cruachan scheme : Check link.
3) Another scheme was proposed on Loch Lomondside, using a corrie on Ben Lomond as the upper reservoir, and Loch Lomond as the lower.
4) A fourth scheme was proposed with the upper reservoir being in mountains on the SE side of Loch Ness.

11 - I wasn't aware of Coire Glas when I wrote my reply to (6), but that now makes 5 existing or studied PS schemes in Scotland.

27:

Re 14.

I think you have enough of a round trip efficiency issue with converting solar energy in to hydrocarbons and then converting those hydrocarbons in to either movement or electricity that solar PV and wind will retain significant cost advantage in most cases. That said there are a couple of firms who have think they have a good enough method for converting electricity to jet fuel that they've signed some options contracts with a USian airline.

I think most of the PREE's, along with a few major producers of other fossil fuels, like Australia, have pretty good access to solar PV resources and be well positioned to earn a living exporting that solar PV electricty but I think their problem is that they don't have a monopoly on cheap renewable electricity in the same way they have a monopoly on cheap oil and gas. So they are a price taker in a falling market rather that a price setter. And I think they know this and are behaving as if it were true.

28:

My take: Tesla shares are clearly in a bubble, and Musk knows it. He also knows the trad automakers are in the game now, so the Tesla bubble will burst, so he might as well use it as play money while he's got it.

Hello AOL buying Time Warner.

29:

I'm reminded why the UK talks about using Tidal power the Seven, France just went ahead and did it back in 1966, generating at peak 240 MW. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rance_Tidal_Power_Station

Here's hoping that the renewable transition happens at a much faster rate, although efficiency and insulation (for the UK at least) appears to be the biggest bang for the buck. In the US, since I've upgraded our systems and put a solar roof on the house (which wasn't cheap but I assumed would pay off over time) our bill is between $15 to $35 per month. And I could have made more if the Tesla salesperson had explained one line item on my contract in which I apparently gave Tessa rights to sell my carbon credits. That's worth $1200 per year to them (and to me if I could get the contract nulled). Trying to sort that out on the phone was uphill work (gave up for now).

30:

Given how well he's handling things at Twitter, I think Melon Husk is absolutely perfect to be in charge of migrating billionaires, kleptocrats, and their sycophants to Mars. I wouldn't wish it on anyone I liked, though.

In reality, of course, there's also the issue of how much damage he might contribute to this planet while trying to set up his little empire. Given the extremely low odds of humanity being able to survive independent of earth in the near future, I'd rather like the place to stay habitable. (Where "habitable" includes "not governed by fascists or horrendous monsters of any other kind".)

31:

I think you have enough of a round trip efficiency issue with converting solar energy in to hydrocarbons and then converting those hydrocarbons in to either movement or electricity that solar PV and wind will retain significant cost advantage in most cases.

I think you're probably correct but synthetic jet fuel has a huge advantage over battery storage for airliners insofar as (a) aircraft already run on the stuff so existing infrastructure can be used, (b) it has a very high energy density (higher than battery storage), (c) unlike batteries, spent fuel is discharged as exhaust gas rather than tagging along as ballast, and (d) while biofuels would be a viable alternative we're going to need the land biofuels would require for growing food. Whereas if we have enough PV capacity to provide power on overcast/low light days, we should have surplus power some of the time (in which case synfuel makes a useful stored energy reserve).

32:

Re 31.

And I think that is exactly the business model the company I'm thinking of appears to be following. They've got (so they say) some interesting nano-tubes for filtering feedstock out of dirty water and are electrolysing hydrocarbons out of that.

And it's some tech that would suit a place like Dubai which is trying to re-invent itself as a business, travel and tourism hub.

33:

International law and tax regs generally don’t allow consumers to directly pay into a US account from overseas.

What do you mean by that?

I just checked. I can pay money into any US account I want (a) by making a bank transfer from my own German account or (b) via Western Union (and probably all the other money transfer companies as well). The latter offer a choice between (i) paying out cash and (ii) paying into a bank account (for the US; there are more options available for other countries).

In both cases involving a US bank account the only two things I need (other than the recipient's name) are the account number and the bank's SWIFT code, and Bob's my (or their) uncle.

34:

I believe it was Thomas Piketty who pointed out that one effect of globalization has been to allow the transfer of capital (and propaganda supporting capital) to flow more easily across international borders, while the regulatory state (and democracy) is still managed at the level of the nation state. The result is that problems that require a high level of international cooperation, such as global warming, increasing levels of wealth disparity, and resisting populist demagogues, are handicapped, while the forces promoting these problems face few barriers to pooling their resources and supporting each other.

The solution has to be international in scale, or it won't work. While the mid-term election results in the US are heartening (Trump is now the gift that will keep on giving--to the Democrats), the lack of agreement at the COP 27 is disappointing. This isn't inevitable--it is now cheaper in many ways to solve the problem of sustainable energy than it will be to keep reinvesting in fossil fuels, and the developing nations could be paid out of that savings (one estimate I heard was a cool trillion $ a year), but that will have to wait for a future in which the political elite has caught up to public opinion.

Piketty himself recommended an international tax regime as the solution to rising economic inequality. The first step (the global minimum tax rate) has already been taken, but the hard step will be sharing tax data so that international capital flows can be tracked comprehensively and accurately. Then the next even harder step would be a global minimum spending agreement. This seems impossible to envision now, but Piketty pointed out how revolutionary the political reforms were just after WWII, so it could happen again, at least in response to a comparable international disaster.

A comparable international disaster is coming, it is inevitable now. Reforms will follow, though what form they will take remains to be seen.

As for fighting demagoguery, someone needs to make Musk an offer he can't refuse, and then use Twitter as a platform to apply AI to the task of flagging falacious argumentation. I suspect that 90% of the lies could be flagged on the basis of semantic structure alone (Alert: this post appears to commit the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. It's conclusions should be regarded with skepticism. Thank you--the management).

35:

The big missing chunk in this is that OIL POWERS WAR in the 20th Century style. This was pioneered IIRC by Churchill and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

The world's got a bunch of problems, one of them being climate change and another being the world's three big militaries: the US Navy, the US Army, and China's military (in order of size, IIRC). US might is largely powered by oil, and as it runs out, so does US hegemony. As an aside, this isn't US jingoism, it's just the size of the damned forces. Anyway, China has a petroleum-powered military too. So do Russia, EU, India, Ukraine, etc. So the end of petroleum probably means the end of imperial-scale militaries in the world, which means one hell of a shake-up in the global order. If numbers of people mean more than numbers of jets and missiles, India and China have more people than the EU and US, with Indonesia, Pakistan, Brazil, and Nigeria right behind. How will power be manifested, going forward?

I suspect the links between right wing authoritarians and militarists are fairly clear, at least at the moment?

The political problem in the US and UK is that the Boomers are dying, and the Xers are basically Boomer mini-mes politically, a small generation that simply doesn't have the voting numbers that the Boomers had. For any group whose core is Boomer activism, this is a problem, because they've either got to pivot to Millennials and Zoomers, or become irrelevant. The group I work with now is struggling with that, because its core is activist Boomers. We're now in a golden age of bequests, while struggling to keep core positions filled. I suspect the GOP and the Tories are struggling with the same problems (looking at the aging politicians running things?).

Anyway, their choices are to make new coalitions with younger political blocs, hold on to minority power, or become irrelevant. In the US, both the Dems and the GOP have been struggling with aging elites (Biden, Pelosi, McConnell, etc.), but the Democrats so far have done better at recruiting "the kids." We'll see how the various blocs pass their torches.

The thing I worry about with the Millennials and Zoomers, at least in the US, is that their default model for left-wing activism seems to be Occupy. Seriously, people who were active in Occupy are now Progressive politicians in office at various levels. While activism is good, Occupy didn't do a good job of making or reaching goals. Having that as the default organizing model for things like the Green New Deal hasn't gone all that well. I'm hoping all the strife with the GOP helps the current street activists become better at organizing to establish and reach goals. Gaia knows we need them to succeed.

36:

If you commit a GDPR offence and have any assets in the EU or moving through the EU, or want to trade in the EU or with any EU domiciled entity then the GDPR regulator in an EU state will be able to get to you in some way.

They can probably get to you if you are trading with anyone or in a jurisdiction which the EU can lean on.

That probably applies de jure to entities in the same group of companies and probably applies more strongly de facto.

So specifically in relation to Twitter they would have to cease all operations in the EU, probably up to and including not accepting advertising revenue from EU domiciled advertisers, USian group companies with EU trading arms or any USian company which also wished to trade in the EU. And this restriction might apply to Tesla depending on the structure of the ownership of Twitter.

Then you run in to the issues of warrants and covenants on the debt. As CEO of Twitter you are probably restricted in your ability to tank your EU businesses by deliberately or negligently breaking GDPR.

So fun times ahead there.

37:

Elon Musk makes me appreciate Steve Jobs more. Admittedly, Jobs was a horrible human being, but he was a much better tech visionary than Elon is. Admittedly, Jobs had his share of failures, the Lisa, the Newton, the NeXT cube, but the fact is that he brought all these ideas to success later on. The Lisa became the Macintosh, the NeXT cube's stuff was incorporated into the Mac line, and the iPhone proved that people want a personal digital assistant.

Elon thinks he's a visionary but he doesn't actually have the talent. He's had some successes so far, or more precisely no crushing disasters so far, and so he's convinced he's a genius. Jobs had failures in tech, but he seemed to have learned from them. I don't see Elon doing that.

38:

Danah Boyd's research has an interesting explanation for the pics of food and drink. She called it the "cupcake code" and described how young people use it to communicate with each other without their parents or teachers realising. It's simply a social media version of an old spook trick.

Example: pic of cup/dish/plate/whatever with a spoon. The food or drink signifies a place to meet and the position of the spoon is the time of day. The mapping between symbols and semantics is only known to two or more people.

Then adults began posting pics of food and drink. If this is news to you, maybe that says something about the success of the code. That's why I didn't know whether to celebrate or facepalm when Jeremy Corbyn tweeted a pic of a plate of food.

Like OGH, I'm more sympathetic to the young people using this kind of code. They may be the generation I've been waiting for since 1983. I expected my parents' generation to fail. I expected my own generation to fail. I wanted to be wrong, of course, but the last half decade has made me think that perhaps I got it right.

We really do seem to have a deathcult (or deathcults). I'm reminded of the line in Against a Dark Backgroud (Iain M Banks) about 12000 years of political history. Is it really that bad? If not, why do I keep finding people asking similar questions to mine? We might not all call it a deathcult, but that's it looked to me as a teenager, and it still does.

39:

Whoops, I misspelled danah boyd. The name should be all lowercase. Sorry.

40:
Hint: Technocracy is a totalitarian political movement associated with a bunch of stuff including space colonization, libertarianism (and, probably via the SA connection, "scientific" racism) that advocates for a society organized and run along scientific lines by a self-selected elite.

Charlie,

Not that I doubt you are using the word "technocracy" correctly, but I've often used the word to describe the way the EU actually works.

(I should say that when I was working, I spent rather a lot of time doing Big Science Politics in Brussels. And that Brexit is the reason I'm now unemployed.)

Too many of the decisions that needed to be made were beyond the competence of any elected politician, and this is why they were frequently made by the EU functionaries, with only a notional form of political oversight.

And, lest this all seem a bit Brexit-y, I cannot see any other way to run a modern state. We need technical experts to operate the technical bits of the state. The Conservative Party -- Truss/Kwatang in particular -- show what happens when amateurs actually get their hands on the levers of power. I believe we are currently each (every person ages 0-110 in the UK) £500 down as a result of their mini-budget that never happened. Where's the Taxpayers Alliance when this sort of waste occurs? Oh, that's right, they actually supported Truss' insanity.

41:

context = USA

never mind how many of you might loathe 'em for their flawed editing and overt left-leaning, there are days when reading The Guardian is a joy:

"...The Washington Post yesterday referred to what’s going on in the Grand Old Party as a “full scale brawl,” though I thought the brawl/frat party was 2017-2021, and this is the bickering and the hangover..."

if only they'd mentioned the multiple ambulances, arrests by uniformed police, threats of petty lawsuits, and puddles of bloody bits loped off, then yeah... that's GQP in 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/16/trump-presidential-bid-eternal-quest-attention

42:

NZ is looking into pumped hydro at Lake Onslow.

Given a near-perfect site (a large floodable basin & a lake, sited next to each other) it’s workable, but still expensive. May or may not get

43:

Yeah. What for? They're a computer company.

They're an advertising platform and want to sell ads. Hard without local offices.

44:

"In both cases involving a US bank account the only two things I need (other than the recipient's name) are the account number and the bank's SWIFT code."

Yes, we are USians who have lived in furrin places and have used such transfers going both into and out of the US with little fuss in the way you say. Sometimes a bit of bureaucracy when transferring from a country with a money-laundering reputation, but it got done without undue trauma.

45:

Admittedly, Jobs had his share of failures, the Lisa, the Newton, the NeXT cube

Ahem. Lisa was the product of a rival design team within Apple to Jobs' Macintosh group. (At the time, Jobs was not CEO.)

The Newton wasn't Jobs either; it was John Sculley's idea of a PDA, after a meeting circa 1989/90 in which he suddenly noticed half the execs were taking notes on Cambridge Z88s.

And the NeXT cube was a success! (Albeit a slow burn one.) It was a UNIX workstation aimed at the academic marketplace. If you look around today -- about 30 years later -- it's the only commodity UNIX workstation left standing, the rest having been driven into extinction by Linux running on commodity PCs. The Cube worked well enough to showcase NeXTStep the OS, which in turn worked well enough to grow NeXT into a corporation with a $200M valuation when Apple (teetering on the edge of bankruptcy) went shopping for a way out of the rat trap of Classic MacOS in 1996/7-ish. Jean-Louis Gasee's BeOS was the other candidate to NeXTStep; Gasee wanted cash, Jobs was willing to work for stock and the acting CEO post (which gave him the leverage to restructure Apple and go brass-knuckle negotiating with Bill Gates, which is what ultimately saved Apple).

And I am writing this comment today in a web browser on a descendant of the machine the world wide web was invented and first served from -- a NeXTStep workstation (NeXTStep today having evolved into macOS Ventura, and the Cube having spawned the iMac).

I make no claims for Steve Jobs' infallibility. A lot of his corporate history reads like that of Elon Musk. I'm pretty sure he was just as much of an asshole in person. But I note that unlike Musk, Jobs grew up middle class at best.

46:

I'm talking about Technocracy, Inc, who are worth being aware of, not the generic "technocrat" as applied to any sufficiently wonkish and insider-baseball bureaucracy today. They map onto one another as Nazism onto small-c conservatives.

47:

California's CCPA was augmented by CPRA in 2020, and is now not meaningfully weaker than GDPR (not to mention that actual GDPR enforcement is a farce, as it is devolved to the regulated company's EU/EEA HQ's host country's DPA. Most American Internet multinationals are headquartered in Ireland, whose IDPA has been criticized for lax enforcement and foot-dragging, and even a criminal complaint from NOYB for collusion with Facebook. In contrast, the California AG seems to be serious about enforcing CPRA.

Here's an excellent comparison of the two:

https://tomkemp.blog/2020/05/30/comparing-consumer-rights-gdpr-vs-ccpa-vs-cpra/

Regarding the affinity of resource extraction industries with authoritarian, it's any resource extraction (arguably including personal information extraction), not just petroleum. Those provide a government with an alternative source of revenue to taxation, and reduces the need to get buy-in.

48:

David Roberts had a podcast on an interesting confluence of geothermal and pumped hydro the other day. Usually for geothermal you need a heat source close to the surface and a reservoir of water that is being heated. Researchers have started using techniques from fracking to create that reservoir (shatter rock, pump in water), increasing the number of possible geothermal sites. So far, so good--a nice base load generator. The surprise was that someone figured out that when the power isn't needed, you can use the existing pump infrastructure to pump in more water and heat, and store energy for ~100 hours. A battery to go along with your base load.

Still early days, of course, so who knows if it pans out at scale, but looks like a promising approach.

49:

Companies in the EU:

Ireland has ridiculously low taxes, that lured the tech companies into putting headquarters or parts of their companies there. Then they could shift the revenues to Ireland, and the losses to countries with higher taxation. A very lucrative game that turns out to be bait for data protection ...imperialism?

=======

Vertical distance for hydro power storage:

Germany has looked at closed mines, e.g. in the Ruhr area. Very high vertical distance in the shafts, huge caverns below. No idea what became of the idea -- some technical problems (destabilization of rock formations?) or not (yet?) financially viable?

=======

For the general education about the functioning of the EU, I recommend the wonderful satire series Parlament.

Compared to Yes, [Prime ]Minister, it is less caustic but has more comedy and sweet romance. The Rube Goldberg machine that runs while a voice-over explains how the president finally gets elected is absolutely genius. Extremely delightful! Sorry, Charlie, if traffic here drops for a while. :-)

https://wikiless.org/wiki/Parlement_(TV_series)?lang=en https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9812666/

German readers: https://www.ardmediathek.de/sendung/parlament/staffel-1/Y3JpZDovL3dkci5kZS9vbmUvcGFybGFtZW50bmV1/1

50:
many of you might loathe 'em for their flawed editing and overt left-leaning, [but] there are days when reading The Guardian is a joy

The centre-leftism is fine, it's the transphobia that brings the loathing.

51:

I also note that The Guardian is a very unreliable narrator on Scottish politics.

They generally take a political line that is favourable to New Labour, specifically the Blairite/Starmerite wing of the party (they mostly hate on Corbynites and the left as much as the Tories).

Basically they're okay as a news source if you understand their prejudices and blind spots which, like those of the BBC, have been getting bigger and more obvious over the past two decades and are now alarmingly large.

Not as bad as the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail which have gone Full Fascist, but in a healthy media environment none of these rags would be respectable.

52:

Pumped hydro isn't dead in the water but build rates are pretty flat - it's too expensive and hard to build unless you have an excellent site that hasn't already been developed AND you have a very specific need.

The UK had a small number of good sites and a specific need - slow-to-respond generation (nukes & coal) plus some suitable lakes in Wales & Scotland for evening loads. Hence pumped hydro in the UK can deliver a few hours of power.

NZ has 55% hydro generation meaning hydro can cover short-term peaks. However, a dry winter means trouble - not enough hydro generation for months. Hence the huge Lake Onslow scheme. That's ~6 TWh. Yes, terawatt-hours. Enough electricity for NZ for a month.

The specific need that's growing in every nation is more variable renewable - solar & wind.

For the UK the options to cover this variability are larger & longer-lasting pumped hydro, HVDC links to Europe & North Africa & Asia, batteries, and new storage technologies. More UK pumped hydro is very limited by lack of suitable land and massive domestic political resistance to building anything anywhere. You might build another couple of hours of storage but no more. Intercontinental links are really being challenged by international politics (thanks, Putin you dick). Batteries are expensive & supply constrained for the next decade.

So the UK needs new storage technologies. Which ones will work? Chemical storage is a terrible idea - liquid hydrocarbons are too expensive coz poor round-trip efficiency but might work for higher-value uses like aviation, hydrogen is too low efficiency, ammonia hell no. Geothermal pumped hydro has all the high costs of geothermal but might work in a few areas with perfect geology. Thermal storage is a great idea - cheap, scalable, and efficient enough - and that's where my money is.

More NZ pumped hydro is possible but slow to build (5 years to consent, five to build, two to fill the lake) and very expensive (NZ$42 billion according to a BCG report yesterday, 10x higher than govt cost predictions). NZ can over-build solar & wind as those are only weakly correlated with dry winter risk. By the time Onslow is operating, solar and wind will have another decade of price drop, meaning over-building will, I think, be Aotearoa's cheapest option. The electricity industry here seems to have realised that and is just starting to lobby against the Lake Onslow scheme. Hence yesterday's report.

53:

This "Technocracy, Inc" stuff is fascinating, i'd had an idea for a story set in an awful intentional community 'practice arcology' in a desert meant to test out off-world colony designs (like Bruce Sterling's Taklamakan but less extreme). This group seem perfect for the obscure Management.

54:

But at least the entirely-foreseeable crypto disaster has one bright side, on top of the schadenfreude.

Satellite sensing has show just how much methane is leaking from old wells. Many of these are claimed to be far from electricity grids, so there's a few start-ups planning to capture the gas, burn it to make electricity, use that electricity at the well to mine crypto, then export that wirelessly. No grid connection needed and it should pay for itself. Unfortunately...

Given the extreme volatility of crypto, that business model has just died.

And the solution to the leaking wells is to stop them from leaking. Who bears the cost of that is a regulatory problem, not a technical one.

55:

29 - Not a lawyer. I suspect that if the line allocating your carbon credits to Tesla was not properly explained, you could have it annulled though the court system.

33 - I'd have said you need the IBAN code, but yes in principle to direct international transfer between personal (or business) bank accounts.

51 - The Grauniad (like all the other Ingurlundshire based newspapers) is a distinctly unreliable narrator on not just Scottish but also Northern Irish and Welsh news (not just politics).

56:

Thanks for the clarification.

57:

Yes, we are USians who have lived in furrin places and have used such transfers going both into and out of the US with little fuss in the way you say.

Was planning a trip to Germany a few years back to visit family. Someone at a client heard and asked if we knew enough German to figure out what seemed to be a bill from their request for a birth certificate. (Army brat born near Stuttgart.) My fairly fluent daughter couldn't make sense of it so we took it with us. My wife's cousin looked at it and said something like "Oh, they just need to enter their banking payment id" or something to that effect. When told we didn't do things that way in the US she looked very puzzled. The total was €30. I asked if she could pay it. Sure. So I handed her €30 cash and she emailed a receipt to us later.

At times it is not obvious how to get the banking system of two countries to talk unless you're used to doing such things.

58:

sigh I've yet to read anything in the Guardian that's anti-trans, or anti-Scottish independence. But then, I go through headlines, world, and then US. I'm not the only one over here that, as someone just put it, best US news there is.

59:

Beg pardon, but there is a difference between opposing opponents' speech, and being against hate speech.

For example, I would find "new US civil war... let it roll" under the latter. Or fascist propaganda.

60:

there is no such thing as neutral sourcing for news feed... best you can do is skip around... ask those whose knowledge base exceeds yours for links... and try to seek out enough instances of overlapping stories to arrive at some version of "the situation" based mostly on facts

such as you non-English-UK being dissatisfied with The Guardian's coverage of your nations...

for me... New York Times & Wall Street Journal & Washington Post & The Economist & Newsweek should in theory provide enough hard facts and rational op-ed to satisfy my interests...

problem? nay, problems, plural

starting with NYT going weak kneed; WSJ went from methodical deep digs to ever shallower; WP has tried to be not-too-far of centrist but failing; whereas The Economist is just priced out of reach and without access to paper in an in person library I've limited in what I can read of it

there's been entire months where I've ignored the headlines and lived somewhat happy in being oblivious but that's no long an opinion... #CCSS

61:

there is no such thing as neutral sourcing for news feed

Totally

62:

"such as you non-English-UK being dissatisfied with The Guardian's coverage of your nations"
To which I say (Aberdeen) Press and Journal, (Glasgow) Herald, The National, The Scotsman. That's 4 quality Scotland centric (ok with regional biases) the the Grauniad needs to compete with for a Scottish, Cumbrian and Northumbrian redership.

63:

Commenter you are replying to is now banned and their comment unpublished.

Reading it I checked their history. Random non-emailable email address, history of right-wing positions, and finally a position on "free speech" that mimics neo-nazi rhetoric I've seen elsewhere. That's enough for a ban in my opinion.

64:

I did not know about the Lisa being a rival team, and forgot about the Newton being during his time of exile. As for the NeXT, he was lucky Apple was shopping around at the time for a new OS, otherwise it might have suffered BeOS's fate.

That said, he did do well with the Macintosh, the iPod and the iPhone, and his products generally had a reputation for being solid and fairly polished. The Tesla does not have a reputation for either.

As much as Elon may envision himself as an Ayn Rand protagonist, a bold visionary, he's going to learn the hard way how detached Rand was from how the world actually works.

65:

I've yet to read anything in the Guardian that's anti-trans

ROFL. Two thirds of their leader writers are violent transphobes, and their coverage of any trans-related news story is vitriolic in the extreme.

66:

“While second tier platforms (think Mastodon) are nowhere near to providing a refuge yet …”

Out of curiosity I took a look at the Mastodon site and noticed that Neil Gaiman and Robert Reich (former US Secretary of Labor) have recently joined Mastodon.

Robert Reich posted this on Twitter:

‘The future of Twitter is…well…uncertain. I’ve opened a Mastodon account in case things continue to go South here: masthead.social/web/@rbreich

None of us should have to be subject to the whims of the world’s richest man.’

67:

You also missed Jobs' other "hobby" company, Pixar. He didn't found Pixar, but he bought a majority shareholding in it for $10M when Lucasfilm sold it in 1986 ... when Disney bought it 20 years later, Jobs took more than $6Bn.

68:

Mastodon logins rose by 1000% over the first two weeks after Musk's twitter takeover.

You can find me on Mastodon, too: I'm primarily @cstross@wandering.shop.

69:

Cool, I think I'll join Mastodon. I don't have any social media apps on my phone and never joined Twitter. I do have a Facebook account, but only check-in on a web browser every other week or so these days.

70:

Charlie
"Anti-Trans" - As far as I can see - this is all ONE WAY: Trans-to-male from female is ignored {mostly} but Trans-to-female from male accrues vast amount of - um - dislike.
Which sounds familiar.
Am I correct?

71:

Transmen aren't completely ignored, but yes, you're broadly right: 90% of it is hating on transwomen.

72:

"My take: Tesla shares are clearly in a bubble, and Musk knows it."

I think you under-estimate his ego.

Musk used his Tesla shares as collateral for loans for the Twitter deal. If the value of the Tesla shares drop significantly, the bank will make a margin call and he'll be required to provide other cash to cover the difference.

So if Tesla's share price crashes bigtime, Musk will need to come up with cash. Which either means very quickly selling out of something like Space-X (not easy, may not be possible), or selling Tesla shares. And Musk responding to a Tesla price crash by selling Tesla shares would turn it into a rout.

He'd survive it financially. But it could cost him a lot.

My take: Musk is a huge risk-taker with a truly enormous ego who always rates himself. Tesla nearly went bankrupt several times, and Space-X likewise. That really high risk approach panned out for him, because it was the right approach for that time and place: very low interest rates, lots of investors with cash on their hands, in a world-wide stock-market boom, in fast-growing industries, and with a flair for raising money: so a bubbley approach of "just borrow more and go bigger when it all goes wrong" paid off.

But Musk is always a huge risk-taker no matter the market conditions, no matter the industry he's investing in. And now he's surrounded by sycophants and yes-men, and has a famous temper and tendency to fire people who tell him he's wrong.

73:

okay... just so to confirm I'm not going around the bend into full on paranoia... has there been any good news in the prior 72 hours?

74:

I've found Mastodon to be a good platform, though I haven't used Twitter since 2014, so I can't comment on how it feels to current Twitter users. It's worth repeating that Mastodon and Twitter have fundamentally different designs. I've been watching people join Mastodon who thought they were going to build up huge virally-driven audiences, only to learn that Mastodon has no algorithm to amplify virality. In fact, Mastodon's design appears to dampen virality.

I'll add that I'm skeptical when Twitter super-users say they're going on Mastodon in case Twitter falls apart. I watched one person who had something like 100K followers on Twitter abandon Mastodon after two days -- Mastodon just didn't do what they wanted it to do. The decentralized, non-viral structure of Mastodon is proving to be disappointing to many in the Twitter exodus.

75:

That said, he did do well with the Macintosh, the iPod and the iPhone, and his products generally had a reputation for being solid and fairly polished. The Tesla does not have a reputation for either.

As a Mac user since 1986, Jobs did some great things with computing and personal devices. But he also had his share of highly touted turds. Some nearly killed off the Mac.

77:

The missile that crashed into Poland was not fired by the Russians. So NATO remains at the same commitment level in UA.

(I felt sick with worry when I first heard that story & thought that RU had gone completely bonkers).

78:

If Apple hadn’t bought Next, I think the odds are pretty good that it would have been Apple, not Next, that suffered Be's fate.

79:

(That there are examples doesn't change this, any more than the Icelandic reliance on geothermal is a general solution.)

Yes, highly situational. I am fortunate to live in a place (US Western Interconnect, Colorado, a small power authority) where pumped hydro is readily available if desired. Excellent wind resources, passable solar, modest conventional hydro. The power authority has an RFP out for battery-based storage; they will see how that comes in versus a particular easy-to-implement pumped hydro project that has been proposed.

80:

The Guardan staff are split in their attitudes to transgender people, one or two of them are good, a few are OK, but significant number are truly awful. They're the best of the London heavies in general, but you should always know the biases of any news source you use, and if you have the time you should read several with different biasses. Does make it all hard work.

There's been some interesting work around extending geothermal beyond the obvious sites, relatively shallow bores in combination with heat pumps, don't know if it will play out, but it would make it more widely useful for storage as well as quicker to build if it does.

81:

but you should always know the biases of any news source you use, and if you have the time you should read several with different biasses. Does make it all hard work.

Totally.

Just because you like what someone says doesn't mean it's true/accurate/valid/whatever adjective you want to use.

82:

Well, the Senate Launch System successfully got off the ground, which is something.

83:

I mentioned the launch in the previous post. But I was wrong about money to date. Instead of $10bil so far it has cost $40bil. So I'm revising my estimated of how much I have invested. I'm guessing about $400-$500.

84:

There are certainly not enough sites for it to be a significant means of storage at grid scales.

It's really important that you specify the location when making statements like that. I could reply by saying that the UK is already dependent on pumped hydro as a significant means of electricity storage for their grid (Dinorwig is notorious)... we can both be right.

Andrew Blakers in Australasia is one academic working very hard on the problem, and he's not stuck at the "but where could we possibly build it" stage, that's long solved in both countries. The question is where to build it, and how much more.

But it's important to be aware that no one technology can solve all possible problems all the time. Pumped hydro is just one part of the mix - we still need portable batteries for electric vehicles for example. It's just that we've moved past the "which generating technology" stage. We know the answer is (mostly) wind and PV now. Which is terribly sad for the "wind and PV cannot work" crowd. Give it time, if you live long enough you'll be wrong about storing electricity too.

The good news with PV being so cheap is that it starts to be worth considering how to turn electricity into things like flying people about. Burning stuff is inefficient, but with PV being so cheap it might be worth (to some people) turning electricity into psuedo-fossil fuels and burning them to move aeroplanes. Expensive, ethically problematic while there's still a shortage of electricity, but we can all see that neither of those things will stop people doing it.

85:

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/11/10/on-what-terms-could-the-war-in-ukraine-stop (probably paywalled)

"In private, Western and Ukrainian officials are starting to ponder what a stable outcome might look like ... A much-discussed template is Israel, a country under constant threat that has been able to defend itself without formal alliances but with extensive military help from America."

Is the suggestion that Ukraine accept the role of Palestine in this discussion? A people without a country, under constant attack and military occupation by a much stronger and better supported country?

I can't see that working any more than I can see Ukraine occupying Russia and eventually letting the Russians have limited self-government and some of their country back if they are sufficiently subservient.

86:

Sorry for being slow.

What's "CCSS"? The term has cropped up a few times here recently and it doesn't mai to any concepts in my head.

Cheers

87:

As if firing half the workforce wasn't enough, Elon Musk just gave the remaining employees until the end of the day (Thursday) to decide whether they want to continue working for Twitter (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/16/technology/elon-musk-twitter-employee-deadline.html). “In an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hard core,”...“This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.” I can't see how that statement is going to motivate anyone to want to stay there. It's almost as if he wants Twitter to fail.

88:

News consumption has to be a selective process that starts with the assumption that the information you are receiving is incomplete and inaccurate at best, false and deceptive at worst.

"To traverse the world men must have maps of the world. Their persistent difficulty is to secure maps on which their own need, or someone else’s need, has not sketched in the coast of Bohemia." Walter Lippmann 'Public Opinion'.

The world is unbelievably complex. Everything I know about Russia I have learned by reading or watching something. Ditto the UK and most of the rest of the world. As for the few parts of the world I have direct knowledge, I barely know anything. Places I've lived in for decades still harbor many mysteries.

Yet I still imagine that I have some understanding of the world. Hopefully my critical thinking skills have taught me to identify the most egregious offenders - after completing grad school (where I studied political opinion formation through media) I had to stop watching television news altogether.

89:
What's "CCSS"?

Looking at the prev thread, my guess would be "Climate Change Shitstorm"?

90:

80 - OK, how do you get the "Manchster Guardian" to be a "London heavy"?

84 - I didn't mention Dinorwig because it's in Wales and I was explicitly case studying actual and studied PS schemes that I knew of in Scotland. Incidentally, I've just remembered the last (ever, not just series cliff-hanger) episode of 1970s BBC series "Survivors" showing them using the Cruachan site to black-start the UK National Grid.

91:

Greg, would you please use the accepted terminology for trans people, i.e. "trans male" and "trans female" or better, trans men, trans women, and non-binary people. Your coinage emphasises the assigned-at-birth gender rather than the actual gender, which is derogatory at best and I personally find it extremely uncomfortable.

93:

Charlie @ 71
Thank you, that is, in a way a relief. But, I am also unsurprised at the virulent trans-to-female hate spewing out.
ISTM that this is "simply" another way of shitting on women - am I correct?

Elaine
I'm finding it difficult too, you know!
I THINK I've got the naming convention fixed - or I hope so. BUT - it is NOT intended to be derogatory in any way - you are reading something into my statements that isn't there ...
{ "Non-binary" is NOT a problem, b.t.w. }

Both Charlie & Elaine ... w.t.f. is happening in Scotland? There seems to be an awful fuss going on over this subject at the moment, with a lot of foaming & shouting, but very little information ....

Twitter:
"Sumfink as gorn 'orribly worng" at Twatter.
On the Beeb this morning - an amateur astronomer has been banned for pornographic content - a photo of the Perseid meteor shower - AND - an amateur/professional ornithologist ditto, for posting about Pink-Footed Geese (!).
NO appeal possible, nor able to communicate with "T"
W.T.F?

Which leads to ...Resident_Alien
It's quite simple: Elon M is completely off his rocker - He is a total workaholic & he expects the rest of the planet to be exactly the same.
That will certainly crash-&-burn.
Wasn't one of the Nobel winners in early electronics like that - which made everyone leave & start up new companies? { Shockley? }

94:

"ISTM that this is "simply" another way of shitting on women - am I correct?"

I don't think so; it's about refusing to accept that trans women are women. For instance you get this utterly ludicrous shite about "they're all just men dressing as women so they can rape women in public toilets", which makes no sense on any level, and is basically no different from the old "all gays are paedos" shite.

I also second Elaine's point (I said much the same myself in the previous thread); I realise you're not intending to be disrespectful, but the wording inevitably makes it look that way regardless of intent.

95:

Super example of nominative determinism in that article...

"...Sam Bankman-Fried (who just reportedly changed his own net worth from $10bn to $0 while also losing many billions of other people's money in investments he managed)."

96: CCSS = Twitter-tagged slang & shorthand for "Climate Change ShitStorm"

there are so many nervous aunts pearl-clutching about naughty words, plus trolls a-lurking eager to pounce upon any who dare type "Climate Change"... so... shorthand of #CCSS

when expanded it is semi-alliterative and utterly accurate

=====

frankly there is only three very bad motivations for why Darth Musk(tm) is behaving so strangely: (a) has gone off his med's and destabilizing as it metabolizes (b) has terminal cancer and decided to burn down his wealth as an ultimate memorial (c) decided his intellect is all-knowing all-seeing all-perfect... based upon really odd moments, it seems to be a mix of all three...

=====

being Jewish, it is a relief that some other group is being scapegoated for all the world's failings... but as to why there has to be anyone scapegoated, the brutal truth being someone in power FUBAR'd and rather than admitting it now seeks to blame others for his/her/their brain farts... UKPM Truss was noteworthy for having not tried to lynch Jews-trans-blacks-women-gays (in some combination) prior to resigning... usually as in Egypt or Iran or Russia there'd be gallows fruit rotting for a couple years before an utter incompetent is forced out...

=====

97:

Musk has often used threats to motivate his workforce. At Tesla for years it was a repeat of things like “We face bankruptcy if we fail on this one, we need 60 hour weeks from everyone…”

(and not him saying “I’ve taken a huge punt and borrowed lots of cash this time so I need 60 hour weeks from everyone to dig us out of the mess I created”)

With Space-X or Tesla it worked. Your guess as to why is as good as mine, but I’d guess because his workers believed they were creating the future and that they needed to be part of it. (And also going to Rocket Lab or etc, or a different EV company, likely was a really big deal involving moving city, state or Country - they’re not common jobs).

At Twitter I can’t see it working. A programmer there could walk out of Twitter and into IT jobs anywhere, and Musk is not exactly encouraging loyalty.

As I noted above, Musk does not seem to change his behaviour to match circumstance all that much. He just repeats the same startup playbook: take in lots of debt, demand insane hours from the engineers, over-promise on deadlines, take huge risks with the product.

98:

Elon Musk just gave the remaining employees until the end of the day (Thursday) to decide whether they want to continue working for Twitter

It gets better: he gave them until the end of the day on the US east coast. This ultimatum won't work for Twitter employees working out of offices on the other side of the international date line, who won't even get the memo until after the deadline. It won't work for folks in countries where it's illegal for employees to get company email outside office hours (eg. France). And it won't work, full stop, in countries where that sort of ultimatum is illegal (again: a whole bunch of places have much stronger employment protection laws than California).

Upshot: Musk is going to lose both a bunch of employees he probably can't run twitter without, and a bunch of wrongful dismissal lawsuits. All from the same email, unless he already walked it back.

99:

Pigeon / Elaine / Charlie
Will try, though, even so< I'm going to have to remind myself that the determiner in "Trans" is the "Destination" not the "Starting point" - correct?
Oh yes, a belated honorable mention to L M Bujold on this subject ... one of the Vorkosigan novels had (complete) sex-change as a subsidiary plot point, played for laughs & confusion on the Barrayar side, compared to enlightened Beta, IIRC.

100:

Greg, yes, that's right. The thing to do is accept the person as they present themself to you and not worry about their history unless it's actually germane, which in most cases it isn't. A trans woman is a woman, a trans man is a man, a non-binary person is a person.

101:

in the UK, New voter ID laws discriminate against young people (old peoples' bus passes are acceptable at polling stations, but young persons' railcards are not)

To be fair, bus passes are photo-ids issued by government, rail-passes are non-photo issued by non-government.

102:

Will try, though, even so< I'm going to have to remind myself that the determiner in "Trans" is the "Destination" not the "Starting point" - correct?

That is correct.

Another way to think about it (not say or write it), is, in "trans-to-gender", the "-to-" is SILENT. It may be useful to remember the "-to-" to keep it straight in your head, but you'll look like a prat if it comes out your mouth, keyboard, or pen.

And, quite honestly, in most interactions, you can drop the "trans" and treat people as how they present themselves, which I assume you do in real life.

The situation I struggle with is a few people I interact with who are nonbinary and who don't strongly code their appearance to comply with a particular gender. What I want to be doing when I work with them (their preferred genders), is to use their names. But I struggle remembering names. Everyone has things to work on.

103:

As I noted above, Musk does not seem to change his behaviour to match circumstance all that much. He just repeats the same startup playbook: take in lots of debt, demand insane hours from the engineers, over-promise on deadlines, take huge risks with the product.

Semi-serious question. I was thinking much the same thing. Has this basic strategy ever failed Musk?

If he's never really failed in a business venture, then he ,au have the celebrity chef problem (as the late Anthony Bourdain chronicled in Kitchen Confidential, right down to the drug use). He's succeeded the first four or five times, thinks he can do anything, then proceeds to do a spectacular, Dunning-Kruger impelled failure, probably to be followed by the collapse of his entire business empire if he was too cocky. I think the word for it is hubris?

But I could easily be wrong. If he's failed bigly before (adjective used intentionally here), then malice may be part of what he's doing now.

104:

Bus passes are issued by local councils with photo id you provide.
Railcards are issued by National Rail with photo id you provide.

105:

"As I noted above, Musk does not seem to change his behaviour to match circumstance all that much. He just repeats the same startup playbook: take in lots of debt, demand insane hours from the engineers, over-promise on deadlines, take huge risks with the product."

"Semi-serious question. I was thinking much the same thing. Has this basic strategy ever failed Musk?"

could be argued The Boring Company failed. And his solar power thing.

106:

Bus passes are issued by local councils with photo id you provide, and additional proof of Id and primary address.
Railcards are issued by National Rail with photo id you provide on payment of a fee and without an Id check other than proof of age.

107:

Bus passes are issued by local councils with photo id you provide. Railcards are issued by National Rail with photo id you provide.

My bus pass has a photo taken at a government office by an employee with her camera

My rail pass has no photo

108:

My bus pass doesn't - I simply sent them one.

A young person's railcard DOES have a photograph. And old person's railcard doesn't.

109:

If I start the application for a 16-25 physical railcard it tells me I will need an existing form of id to show that I qualify, examples are driving licence, passport.
Where can you get a rail pass (for someone eligible to vote in the UK) ?

110:

that mention of oblivious to time zones reminded me of way too many SNAFUs triggered by idiots not realizing co-workers have lives outside of work and are in places other than 'here'

my favorite was a knucklehead who scheduled data migration of a massive app utilized by hundreds of high ranking bank employees for 'local 17:01' (London) and sent out notifications which (of course) got lost amongst e-mails about HR forms, stapler safety training audits (no really), complaints about unwanted kitten photos jamming up limited inbox quotas, new policies of interest to less than 2% of staff, et al

when he got no pushback he pulled the trigger that night and wrecked the workday of anyone in New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Washington DC, etc... very high ranking folk who requested he be skinned alive and dropped into a brine bathtub... serious request that was given insistence upon five cameras recording it for new employee orientations "this could be you next"

111:

could be argued The Boring Company failed. And his solar power thing.

Both were relatively small side ventures, and they did not fail completely. To the extent they did fail, they did not actually hurt Musk. If anything, these failures are more akin to early SpaceX rockets blowing up -- "we learned what not to do". Note that Boring Company still exists, as does Tesla's solar power side business.

Musk never had a company fail totally and irrecoverably. So yes, I think hubris is the right word here.

112:

Musk
Looks to be heading into a particularly US-form of Hubris-&-crash.
He's supposedly running an INTERNATIONAL business { plural thereof, too } & assumes that all law conforms to US, which it does not.
The classic was many years ago, now, when the second or third generation of "x86" chips came out, with a horrible fault in them, when some fairly simple arithmetic was done using them. { Can someone else remember which version & what the fault was? } This was fairly forcefully pointed out to the manufacturers, who went "pooh" - they were told, again, that this was "Goods & services Not of Merchantable Quality" & still ignored it.
They had to be told that every single Trading Standards office in the UK could institute a prosecution, for every single machine over the whole of GB & that the total fines would be, um "significant" - apart from the crap publicity, which they were already getting.
It was fixed, eventually ....
Oh yes, as Nick K has pointed out, "Boring" has splattered.

113:

Electricity storage en masse is pointless as long as half of the world's electricity generation is fossil-fuel powered, AND WILL BE FOR THE NEXT TWENTY OR THIRTY YEARS AT LEAST. Why bother burning gas and coal and storing that energy when you can simply burn it when it is needed and avoid the cost of building out expensive storage and the efficiency losses of converting electricity to stored energy to electricity again?

The Unicorns Shitting Rainbows Gang has this idee fixe that fossil fuels are going to go away next week, end of the month at the latest, and they aren't. There are now eight billion people in the world, according to the UN and about half of them live in energy poverty and the only way out for them is fossil fuel, not fairytales of wind turbines and solar panels which are going to be cheaper than dirt next year and abundantly available (it isn't, sorry).

The recent COP27 jamboree was discommoded when India, a nation which is getting excoriated for burning coal to provide at least some of their population with electricity said "well, you know burning gas isn't any better for CO2, looking at you, Western countries". Lots of gazes averted and shuffling of feet eventuated.

114:

UKPM Truss was noteworthy for having not tried to lynch Jews-trans-blacks-women-gays (in some combination) prior to resigning...

She didn't have time -- she was in and out in 55 days, most of them crisis management (dealing with the death of the head of state then a disastrous mini-budget and scandals of her own making that brought her down).

Truss is a known transphobe and apparently a homophobe too, with antipathy to the concept of equal protection before the law (and she was leader of a strikingly xenophobic and racist party -- room at the top for very wealthy people of colour, but generally racist AF to anyone without money).

115:

With a bit of empathetic thought it really isn't difficult to accomodate trans persons. They are who they say they are. What gender they were born with or what the current status of their genitalia is really, really nobody's business but their own.

My workplace has a number of trans people, including a large proportion of upper management (and my direct supervisor). Once you know someone's name it is easy. Third person use they, or their preferred pronoun. Common usage at work is for all people to be 'they' in third person.

This is not difficult, nor is it particularly complex. We all have all sorts of descriptors which are nobody's business but our own.

To use an example, I know there is a fair amount of neurodiversity on this site. I'm also quite certain that most of us would not like that to be the prefix to every mention of our individual existences. E.g. 'Mildly autistic rocketpjs' would not be a welcome or accurate descriptor, nor would expecting me to explain why it is incorrect.

116:

Sorry for the rabbit hole on railcards. On the original subject of voter ID for young people, there is a "proof of age" ID card for £15, but my duaghter tells me those who can afford the extra £19 have gone for a provisional driving licence instead - in either case its more about the licensing laws than voting...

117:

The reason groups like "Occupy" became the default is due to a long history of any given movement's leaders being arrested. So being, (and publicizing) that you are an autonomous collective becomes massively advantageous in dealing with cops (or three letter agencies) who see large protests as criminal and act accordingly.

You're quite right, however, that an Occupy-type movement has weaknesses - they are, unfortunately, the weaknesses of it's strengths.

118:

He's supposedly running an INTERNATIONAL business { plural thereof, too } & assumes that all law conforms to US, which it does not.

If twitter has any employees in France, he's made a mistake. Any employee can work long hours if they so choose and many do. But if the management requests extra long hours then they have to pay overtime (25% after 35h + 25% after 8pm + 50% on Sundays and holydays).

Employment isn't "at will" like in the US, you can't fire people by email, you must send a registered letter, wait 48h, have a physical appointment with the employee including counsel of his choice (union rep or lawyer or anybody or nobody).At this meeting, you may discuss terms and if you can't reach an agreement then it's the employment court (prudhommes) that will decide whether the firing meets legal norms and how much money is to be given to the employee

I've managed an IT business in the past and the best way to fire a French employee is to write him/her a cheque and have him/her quit.

119:

It is unclear that Sunak is any better - look who he appointed as Minister for Women and Equalities. Sikhs and Muslims are justifiably afraid, given the UK's and his record.

120:

I must not be reading what you were reading. I explicitly looked at an article in world in the South/Central Asia section on a film depicting a man and trans-woman not being banned after all, and no apparent bias.

121:

It did, and we stayed up to watch. Whatever... tears came to my eyes as I waited till solid-fuel booster separation, and got to say "finally, we're going back".

122:

Let me expand, based on what a co-worker at my last job told me, who is Palestinian: you missed the Israeli military everywhere between cities, and you need papers to go from one to the other, and get through their checkpoints.

123:

"ISTM that this is "simply" another way of shitting on women - am I correct?"

Start with the ideal of male supremacy, that is, "You are inferior because you have a vagina." Essentially, this is a matter of disliking someone due to the existence of their genitals.

In response, if a Feminist was making a very polite reply, she would say, "Please don't judge me by what is - or isn't - between between my legs. Instead, please judge me by what's between my ears." The emphasis here is on "what's between my ears."

But that very useful, moral, and interesting idea goes straight out the window where trans-women are concerned. For a Trans-Excluding Radical Feminist what's between the legs is the only salient fact. So it's a bit of very hateful hypocrisy.

124:

Twitter's not the only one. I'm currently in FB jail, for no explained reason, and when I try to do the "tell us why you dispute this"... it won't let me do it. They fucked the code so that there's no protest when you're in FB jail.

125:

US Western Interconnect, Colorado, a small power authority) where pumped hydro is readily available if desired

The idea of pumped hydro storage in Colorado runs hard into the problem of having the water. Building new reservoirs has been a decades-long project that's going nowhere, and anything running downhill is already spoken for by any number of rights holders. Keeping significant reservoir capacity from reaching downstream users is going to get some major opposition.

126:

Or Musk could be snorting something.

127:

Insane hours? Don't even begin to think that's just Musk - that's all through the US. Telcos are especially noted for that, and I can verify that. If anyone ever tells me "whatever it takes", and it's not literal life-or-death, I'm going to beat the crap out of them.

Says the guy who got "good catch" from his manager around 20:00 on Sunday after Thanksgiving (US), 1996.

128:

stirner
Applies in Britain, too { Or does at the moment } You simply cannot just fire someone "at will", certainly not if you have been in the job for longer than (?)Six months18:08 17/11/2022(?). Similarly across most of the EU.
Elon is going to be having "fun" with emplyment tribunals, isn't he?

EC
Kemi Badenoch actually appears to be female ? - the wiki article indicates that the utterly discredited & now dead fake "philosopher" R Scrotum, oops, Scruton as an influence ... he was a christianity-promoter, as she also appears to be.

129:

Hmmm... reminds me of when the arsehole director of our Center at the NIH decided to migrate everyone's email out of local to let M$ run it. They were supposed to move about 80 people on a Monday night, then make sure it was all good before they did the rest.

Instead, they migrated EVERYONE, well over 800 people, and for the next week denied anyone was having a problem....

130:

That would be the Pentium I - not sure if it was the Celery, er, Celeron version, but a lot of us referred to it ever after as the RePentium chip. Screwed up floating point calculations.

131:

Was it the Pentium II bug?

132:

Oh, and as other folks say and agree with - the Guardian is the best US paper....

133:

Which is really, really sad.

134:
The classic was many years ago, now, when the second or third generation of "x86" chips came out, with a horrible fault in them, when some fairly simple arithmetic was done using them. { Can someone else remember which version & what the fault was? }

The issue was with the hardware division algorithm. This is most often implemented by Newton-Rapheson iteration. And the number of iterations depends on how good an approximation to the answer you start with.

The chip implemented one too few iterations for the given start value -- for a very few argument values.

135:

I think Musk's behavior can be attributed to sleep deprivation. He's been burning the candle at both ends all his adult life. I hear he gets by on 4 hours sleep at night, and you can get away with this when you are as young and brilliant as he was. But he's middle-aged now, and it's catching up with him.

His behavioral symptoms are consistent with this: irritability (firing someone at twitter who corrected him), impulsivity and poor judgement.

136:

FDIV: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_FDIV_bug or F00F: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_F00F_bug affected pentiums so nominally 5th generation x86

Intel to their credit leaned from the resulting fall-out and apparently improved communication of errors (as well as internal verification).

137:

There are other potential energy electrical storage systems if water for pumped storage is in short supply. The Swiss Energy Vault system uses concrete blocks stacked in a tower around a central crane. The tower is built using of peak or cheap power and electricity is generated when the blocks are lowered. Its efficiency is about the same as a lithium battery storage system. And perhaps worked out open cast mines could be the lower reservoir for a pumped storage system with the soil and rock removed partially used to build a circular dam as the upper reservoir.

138:

The reason groups like "Occupy" became the default is due to a long history of any given movement's leaders being arrested. So being, (and publicizing) that you are an autonomous collective becomes massively advantageous in dealing with cops (or three letter agencies) who see large protests as criminal and act accordingly. You're quite right, however, that an Occupy-type movement has weaknesses - they are, unfortunately, the weaknesses of it's strengths

I think we agree, but I did want to clarify what my problem with the Occupy model is. It's not the organization per se, because as you point out, autonomous collectives are a good response to persecution.

Instead, it's that the focused on their process of decision making, then tried to achieve all the goals everyone dreamed up. In doing so, they failed to attain almost all of them.

Using a similar process on something like the Green New Deal was an abject failure, because it silenced the more expert people who were trying to achieve reachable goals, and buried them midst of storm of everyone's dreams for a utopian future. This happened without even giving the experts a chance to make their case that the goals they were hoping to achieve were the foundations for everyone else's dreams. Assuming everyone is absolutely equal and that everyone needs policed, equal airtime (ideally 30 seconds or less per person) does this.

This, incidentally, is the Otpor! critique of Occupy, and I'll admit I'm not an expert. But I have experienced the meeting model of utter equality and trying to evolve common goals out of scattered dreams, and it really failed in my experience.

Hopefully I don't have to explain why a group that espouses this process and all emergent goals is not a good way to oppose a charismatic authoritarian?

139:

Greg @ 93;
"Twitter: "Sumfink as gorn 'orribly worng" at Twatter. On the Beeb this morning - an amateur astronomer has been banned for pornographic content - a photo of the Perseid meteor shower - AND - an amateur/professional ornithologist ditto, for posting about Pink-Footed Geese (!). NO appeal possible, nor able to communicate with "T" W.T.F?"

It doesn't only happen on Twitter, I got myself banned from a photo sharing site for posting a photo of Portland Bill Lighthouse. It got tagged as 'Pornographic Image'. Attempts to contact the site to clarify the situation met with zero response.

140:

The thing to do is accept the person as they present themself

Think of it like names. Greg, you can accept "Pigeon" as a label, yes? You don't feel forced to write "the human being claiming to be Pigeon" or "born person now Pigeon"? You don't write "the Jew Charles Stross" (or at least not where I've seen you)...

There's also a lot of problems when it comes to people who pass in various ways. What happens when you've known someone for a few years and find out they're trans, follow a weird religion, are "black" according to some race rules, and so on?

IME it's more common to have someone say "I'm aboriginal" after they know you and feel safe, when something comes up that makes it topical. "Would you like to come to our Sorry Day bbq" ... turns out someone is tan but also Black (and in Australia that still matters, especially on the 26th Jan 😥)

141:

Greg, the thing in Scotland is that the Scottish Government is pushing through a bill to allow trans people to self-certify their identities in the Gender Recognition Certificate scheme. Currently the system is that you are judged by a panel on whether or not you are genuinely the person you say you are, or are performing gender "right" in some way or whatever. This change, which makes life easier for trans people and removes expensive and stressful barriers to their living their lives, has been met with howls of outrage by people who claim it will be abused by rapists to get into women's toilets, as if a man with assault on his mind has ever been stopped by a sign on a door or gone through a lengthy certification process to allow him into a women's toilet.

This was a point of the Bute House agreement between the SNP and the Scottish Greens, which I suspect is one of the reasons that last session's SNP members' spoiler tactics have not been permitted this time around. Also I suspect that many of the most socially conservative SNP members from last session hung their hats on the Alba party and didn't get re-elected, neatly getting rid of them from Scottish Government.

There is also a prominent Scottish anti-trans spokesperson who I'll not name on OGH's site, who has many supporters in the chattering class and the platform to get people hounded off social media for suggesting that trans people get consulted on their affairs.

142:

it's that the focused on their process of decision making, then tried to achieve all the goals everyone dreamed up. In doing so, they failed to attain almost all of them.

One possible interpretation is that they had a lot of people very obviously having meetings and making Very Important Decisions. Keeping those people present and engaged was important.

Meanwhile semi-autonomous subgroups did things. Whether that was starting a petition or setting fire to Police cars... there was still the large mass of Occupy VIM going on in the background, importantly including a mass of people available to negotiate with Police, sign petition, appear on TV as background to the presentation of the latest collective statement etc.

I'm proud to be a member of the Unwashed Masses. Even though I'm not really arrestable any more, and NSW has made everything short of just being a member of the public a criminal offense subject to penalties up to 10 years jail and a $250,000 fine per offense (assuming you don't fall into the 'anti-terrorism offenses' black hole by, say, interfering with critical infrastructure like roads).

143:

One amusing thing some people in Anglonesia do is change their legal name first, because that's easy. So you get a driving permit and passport etc saying "Samantha Megan Fox blah blah (M) blah blah born 20 June 1993" and it's very easy for people who are supposed to notice these things not to realise that the M means technically the bearer is male.

I've also worked with someone who I am fairly sure was trans but mostly stood out for having really annoying tattoos... the ones where you can see half a picture but the rest is somewhere that you can't really ask to see in the workplace. It's just not FAIR!!

OTOH we seem to have missed 90% of the trans panic stuff down here. The Christofascists had a go but got caught up in the same-sex marriage plebeshite (honest government) where they got spanked, then they lost the election and never mind I'm sure they tried their best. The gender policing is more about making the Prime Minister put some damn clothes on.

144:

I was around one Occupy meeting once, and it was amazingly familiar: consensus. The problem with consensus, if there's no controls (like time, or Robert's Rules), is that it winds up as them as talks the most wins, because everyone else is too tired to argue anymore.

145:

if there's no controls (like time, or Robert's Rules), is that it winds up as them as talks the most wins, because everyone else is too tired to argue anymore.

I have a relation a few steps removed via marriage. Very successful lawyer. Worth a lot of money. One feature I discovered about him if he decided to engage in a conversation that had a conflict he was ALWAYS determined to have the last word. ALWAYS. I never saw him not be the last one to speak.

146:

I tend to say very loudly "I am going to go and do X, anyone interested should follow me".

Which sometimes annoys meeting people because it's not unusual to have 90% of the meeting follow the guy who is actually doing something. In Australia it's generally the socialists (one of the many, many socialist sub-sub-sub-factions) who want to have three hours of speeches through a shitty PA followed by a march to somewhere that is the no9minal point of the protest.

My stuff is more five minutes of intros, a quick "why we're here" speech, then off we go. In circular fashion, Critical Mass works this way (literally circular in Sydney, people who don't like speeches start riding round the fountain ringing their bells...)

147:

Consensus decision making is a great thing, with very particular failure modes. When it works it's excellent. Consensus, and everyone getting to speak as much as necessary until we are done, are modes of decision making that I am told are common with indigenous peoples here in Canada, and a part of the challenge is coming to final agreements or common ground in negotiation with the colonizers (i.e. us). We see this currently in political issues where a large majority of the indigenous community favour something but a few oppose (pipelines and logging). I have no opinion on whether it is a good thing or bad in those contexts.

Consensus failure modes can be catastrophic. The protesters that were in Tiananmen Square in 1989 had adopted a consensus model of decision making. As the tensions were rising they had actually succeeded in getting most of their core demands accepted by the government. Unfortunately, they had not won everything they wanted, and there was a hard core of protesters who wanted everything. Requiring consensus made it impossible to declare victory and go home. The end result was known to us all (and most of the dying happened elsewhere, off camera).

148:

Last Critical Mass ride I went to I received cheers and some hostility by shouting 'LESS RANTING MORE RIDING' after about the 3rd microphone addict starting droning on about something or other.

149:

Graydon @ 6:

Pumped hydro is almost impossible to build. You need an existing change in elevation with lakes on the high and low sides. To a first approximation, there are no usable sites. There are certainly not enough sites for it to be a significant means of storage at grid scales. (That there are examples doesn't change this, any more than the Icelandic reliance on geothermal is a general solution.)

It'll be very helpful should people realize that nigh-all of the infrastructure needs to be public to work.

Pumped hydro isn't really that difficult to build. They're civil engineering projects no more impossible than building a hydro-electric dam or a fossil fuel power plant ... or wind turbine farms or photovoltaic arrays or "harvesting" wave energy.

Some people just need to realize pumped storage is NOT the UNIVERSAL panacea solution they think it is. "Panacea solutions" rarely ARE panaceas.

150:

You can add Glenmuckloch in Dumfries & Galloway to that list.

151:

Howard NYC @ 41:

context = USA

[...]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/16/trump-presidential-bid-eternal-quest-attention

The most favorable outcome this might lead to is he doesn't get the party's nomination and splits off into a third-party run of his own leading to the failure of BOTH.

152:

Charlie Stross @ 65:

I've yet to read anything in the Guardian that's anti-trans

ROFL. Two thirds of their leader writers are violent transphobes, and their coverage of any trans-related news story is vitriolic in the extreme.

How do you rate their coverage of the EU & the Russian invasion of Ukraine? That's pretty much all I read in the Guardian other than a few stories about the U.S. where I've found them "reasonably" reliable.

153:

JReynolds @ 77:

The missile that crashed into Poland was not fired by the Russians. So NATO remains at the same commitment level in UA.

(I felt sick with worry when I first heard that story & thought that RU had gone completely bonkers).

From the very first news stories it appeared to be AT WORST an accident. I was reasurred when I read that Poland had requested "consultation" under Article 4 rather than "defense" under Article 5.

Showed me that even Poland didn't think it was a deliberate attack.

But, yeah, that was good news.

154:

This, incidentally, is the Otpor! critique of Occupy

What is "Otpor!"?

As it happens, "otpor" is a Russian word which means "backlash" or "counterattack" -- generally, violent response to something.

155:

whitroth
YES! That was it - see also Troutwaxer, I think it was the PentiumII ...

Elaine
Thanks ...
So it's in the same camp as some, um, err, "Ultra-feminists" {My label} who claim that "All men are rapists" even when it's clearly obvious that they are not, then?
{ I ran into that one at a long-ago Worldcon - one of the Brightons ... }

156:

JohnS said: Some people just need to realize pumped storage is NOT the UNIVERSAL panacea solution they think it is. "Panacea solutions" rarely ARE panaceas.

In my experience the conversation generally goes something like, "we need a program of support for rooftop solar, a system where people wanting to build grid scale solar are connected to to the grid under the same rules as the previous generation of coal plants (ie, paid by the government), significant overbuild with some system to pay investors for putting in generating assets that might be curtailed much of the time, or government investment. Variations in seasonal demand need to be dealt with via heat storage and more efficient heating, such as heat pumps, and improvements in residential stock, beginning with higher standards for new build and support for insulation upgrades on existing stock, That needs to be combined with demand side management that includes extended and enhanced demand switching and real time price feedback and signaling plus long distance efficient transmission (UHVDC) to smooth out geographical variations and storage in the form of batteries for millisecond to minutes and pumped hydro for minutes to hours to provide resilience"

And the reply is "you're an idiot, pumped hydro is not the UNIVERSAL panacea you think it is"

Or substitute any one of the points, eg "you're an idiot, heat pumps are not the UNIVERSAL panacea you think it is" etc.

157:

@ 90

I say "London" heavy because the Guardian hasn't been known as the "Manchester Guardian" since 1959, they started printing in London in 1961, and moved the editorial staff there in 1964. Although the Guardian still has an office in Manchester it hasn't been the Manchester Guardian for well over sixty years.

I remember that episode of the Survivors! All of the little teams making sure the linkages were correct, as well the one guy trying to sabotage it all and ending up in the rushing water.

158:

Greg @155

I'd argue they aren't even feminists, they happily work with the most odious of America's christian right wing who in all other respects are about as anti-feminist as you can get. Personally I like the description Feminism Approriating Radical Transphobes. Farts over Terfs.

gasdive @156

You do also get the "Nuclear (or whatever) is THE answer" types, but I do recognise that argument.

159:

Haydon Berrow @ 101:

in the UK, New voter ID laws discriminate against young people (old peoples' bus passes are acceptable at polling stations, but young persons' railcards are not)

To be fair, bus passes are photo-ids issued by government, rail-passes are non-photo issued by non-government.

And in the U.S. changing the voting AGE is going to be a real problem for the fascists, because age 18 is LOCKED IN by the XXVI Amendment.

Interesting factoid about amendments - the XXVII Amendment was proposed in 1789. It was the original SECOND amendment of the proposed "Bill of Rights". It was finally ratified in 1992.

160:

Relevant to the discussion: in the last Australian federal election, the Coalition government (read: an unholy alliance of free-market Liberals and protectionist, socially-conservative Nationals) attempted to stoke the flames of the culture wars by running an anti-trans candidate. It didn't work out.

[Former prime minister Scott Morrison's] choice of Katherine Deves as a “captain’s pick” Liberal candidate was the strangest. It was no accident that the candidate for the Sydney northern beaches seat of Warringah was an activist against the transgender community. The Morrison brains trust thought it was a masterstroke. . .

So how was it supposed to be a masterstroke? A member of the then-prime minister’s inner circle explains the choice of Deves: “She was a lawyer, attractive, and a lightning rod who could rally the base. Katherine in her writing and beliefs is actually quite complex. She’s a TERF – a trans-exclusionary radical feminist.

“On paper it worked but there was a lack of due diligence and it quickly became apparent that it wouldn’t work. Where she went with her comments was absolutely out of line.”

Of course, TERFs aren't really that complex. They were the double-losers of second wave feminism. They lost the porn debate (as mainstream feminism went sex positive and, to a lesser extent, became supportive of sex worker rights and autonomy) and they lost lesbians to the LGBTQ alliance (in part because, in the fallout of the Stonewall Riots and AIDS pandemic, politically-active lesbians become more focused on their common interests with gay men than radical feminists, in part because the radfems insisted that it was a conscious choice to be lesbian rather than an innate sexual orientation). So the TERFs are what's left when the feminist movement has moved on and you're just stuck with whatever ossified theory remains. For a handy example, have a look at this prominent TERFs Wikipedia page and at just how reactionary her entire platform is.

But I digress. The whole article is worth a read because it really gets into how Australian conservatives are trying to import the US-UK culture wars and failing to have any traction (or, in this case, resulting in a costly blowback).

I'm hopeful it'll remain that way, that this particular dog won't hunt on our shores, but they're not going to give up any time soon. "Marriage Alliance" rebranded itself as "Binary", an anti-trans activist group, when it lost the same-sex marriage debate a few years ago. And The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age, who supplied us with the excellent breakdown of Deves, have increasingly been participating in the "both sides" narrative on trans rights. As the biggest competition to the Murdoch rags, it's not a good sign.

161:

What is "Otpor!"? As it happens, "otpor" is a Russian word which means "backlash" or "counterattack" -- generally, violent response to something.

Otpor is the movement that took down Milosevic in Serbia in a completely nonviolent fashion, then installed a more democratic government with the explicit proviso that if they didn't govern democratically, they'd get taken down too, even if they were former Otpor members.

One of their leaders wrote Blueprint for Revolution, which is probably the most fun book on nonviolent activism I've ever read, and which I highly recommend. It's where I got the critique of Occupy, incidentally. His critiques of what went wrong in Egypt and Syria are also worth reading, especially since Otpor veterans helped train activists in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere.

162:

One possible interpretation is that they had a lot of people very obviously having meetings and making Very Important Decisions. Keeping those people present and engaged was important. Meanwhile semi-autonomous subgroups did things.

As we've both noted, their decision-making process is vulnerable to charismatic/authoritarian leaders taking over by simply going off and doing things.

Or, in the case of the GND workshop I was at, most of the more experienced hands (including me) left the meeting, especially when the "experienced moderator" got into an argument over terminology with someone near him and failed to notice that all the tables in the back were emptying out. They declared the meeting a great success and the whole thing died away.

Again, I'm not against the goals of a Green New Deal, even the original as written. It's the process of getting from here to there which currently seems dysfunctional.

163:

For the UK at least, more pumped storage or even battery storage is not needed, at least at grid scale. We simply don't generate "excess" electricity from intermittent sources, renewable or otherwise so there's no unused energy to store. It's different for I've Got Mine Fuck You off-grid types with twenty thousand quid to drop on rooftop solar and a couple of Powerwalls but they're a drop in the bucket in national terms (and the IGMFYs still want to have their grid connection for the times when the sun don't shine enough).

Maybe if we build out ten times as much wind and solar as we've got right now then grid-scale storage would be worth building as a buffer for the dark cold windless days of winter but there's no sign of that happening -- the last mention of future plans for wind I saw mentioned we were aiming for maybe another 50% or so total by 2030, up to about 45GW dataplate. That is about 15GW of actual generating capacity averaged annually (on bad days that could be less than a gigawatt, on a good stormy day maybe 25GW of output). The real source of readily-available electricity in the UK will continue to be cheap gas with a small base of nuclear and green-bullshit wood pellets to make up the numbers.

164:

Going off-topic on the issue of decision fatigue, I recently learned how fungi run mazes, and I'm jealous.

Yes, fungi, not slime molds. Running mazes. Turns out plants run mazes too.

Anyway, when a fungus grows a hypha into an appropriately small, hyphal-sized maze, they do something kind of interesting. Every time they reach an intersection where they can grow two or more ways, they fork their hypha and grow all ways simultaneously. Then when one hypha reaches the exit, they withdraw resources from all the dead end hyphae, leaving them to die, so that the fungus can keep growing past the maze exit into whatever is next.

There are days when I wish I could make decisions that way. Oh well.

Now we wait for the onset of quantum biocomputing, in appropriately shaped mycomazes...

165:

in the U.S. changing the voting AGE is going to be a real problem for the fascists, because age 18 is LOCKED IN by the XXVI Amendment

Bah! Words on paper!

(Yes, sarcasm, fascists not being noted for their adherence to laws they didn't enact themselves.)

166:

"Yes, fungi, not slime molds. Running mazes. Turns out plants run mazes too."

May I point out that fungi are not, in fact, plants?

I can't? All right, but it's still true.

JHomes

167:

Human groups do much the same thing :)

168:

"This century the PREEs are all panicking."

See "Trump, Putin and the Pipelines to Nowhere"

https://thenearlynow.com/trump-putin-and-the-pipelines-to-nowhere-742d745ce8fd

Again, the American media has failed to convey the magnitude of the costs of unchecked global warming. Those costs are profound already, today, as the Arctic heatwave, Syrian civil war, bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef, worsening storms, droughts, wildfires and freak weather events all show. Those costs will only grow, and they will grow more dire, more quickly as the planet heats.

At the same time, the innovations we need to create zero-carbon prosperity are already here. From plummeting costs for solar, wind, electric vehicles and green buildings to better approaches to urban planning, agriculture and forestry, we already have the tools we need to start building a much more prosperous world, producing hosts of new companies and millions of jobs. Indeed, a giant building boom is what successful climate action looks like.

Because we have no real choice but to act — and, in fact, climate action will make most people not only safer, but better off — big changes are coming, far sooner than most Americans understand.

But some people totally understand: the ones who stand to lose money from these changes.

The need to keep within our global carbon budget means we must leave most of the coal, oil and gas on the planet unburnt.

If we can’t burn oil, it’s not worth very much. If we can’t defend coastal real estate from rising seas (or even insure it, for that matter), it’s not worth very much. If the industrial process a company owns exposes them to future climate litigation, it’s not worth very much. The value of those assets is going to plummet, inevitably… and likely, soon.

169:

Interesting. I read it as slime molds, fungi and plants. My brain imagined root systems that I already know work that way (as does any gardener who has had a plant escape out the bottom of a pot).

Then after your comment I reread it and you're right. Fungi and plants were being conflated.

170:

So what word should we use to describe people who eat plants and fungi but not meat? They're clearly not vegetarians in the pedantic sense, so pedants need a new word...

We have lacto-ovo-vegetarians, pescitarians (who almost all eat things other than fish despite the damn label) and so on... vegofungotarians?

171:

I would not feel the slightest surprise if you turned out to be correct.

172:

Florafungian? Fungiflorian?

173:

Um, I'm a botanist who worked with plants and fungi, so that is very definitely not what I meant or wrote.

Plants run mazes.

Fungi run mazes too.

Plants run mazes differently than do fungi, slime molds, mice, or wall-following algorithms.

Also, fungi run mazes differently than do plants, slime molds, mice, or wall-following algorithms.

None of this is meant to be woo, simply to note that different systems can take substantially different approaches to solving the same problem.

The fun with all this starts when a human wonders if all types of maze running require thought. And then they ask themselves what constitutes thought, or more likely, they start looking for brains and/or souls that probably aren't there...

174:
"could be argued The Boring Company failed. And his solar power thing."

Considering what was promised compared to what was delivered, yes the Boring Company failed.

His solar power project didn't fail because it never started. It was vaporware.

Then there's Hyperloop. Musk himself has admitted it was a scam to stop California from building high-speed rail. Why this is isn't talked about more escapes me.

Let's not forget the ventilators he failed to deliver during the pandemic.

Didn't Elizabeth Holmes (of Theranos fame) go to prison for this kind of things?

175:

OK - Musk is clearly mad.
Certainly in Britain & I would think right across the EU, his actions mean that EVERY SINGL EMPLOYEE has grounds for legal action against "Musk" - changing Terms & Conditions of employment & threats of immediate job termination mean that the lawyers will rack up some impressive fees.
Unless, of course that Crash-&-burning Twatter was the original object of the exercise????
So that he can then build a "New Twitter" in the mould of the glorious Leader, or should I say "Guide"? ??

hippoptolemy
TERFs aren't really that complex. They were the double-losers of second wave feminism. - sorry, but NO.
It's more complex than that & I haven't a clue what's going on. It's one of the reasons I've been tiptoeing round this subject.
I know one such, who has, in my presence, been very sympathetic to someone who was in the middle of a Transition & has expressed {at least some} understanding of the, um "problems & difficulties" Trans people face.
BUT - mention Trans women in female toilets & she flips completely & starts ranting - at which point I walk away, because it's better than being screamed at.

Heteromeles
Um. Fungi ARE NOT PLANTS - a separate Kingdom, entirely.
- err - JHomes ... Fungi ARE plants? surely not - wiki seems to think they are separate, still.

176:

"Anyway, when a fungus grows a hypha into an appropriately small, hyphal-sized maze, they do something kind of interesting. Every time they reach an intersection where they can grow two or more ways, they fork their hypha and grow all ways simultaneously. Then when one hypha reaches the exit, they withdraw resources from all the dead end hyphae, leaving them to die, so that the fungus can keep growing past the maze exit into whatever is next.

There are days when I wish I could make decisions that way. Oh well. "

Not sure whether speculatively trying all possible options at the same time is "good enough", as it may be: a) not being terribly efficient b) affecting/changing the true optimal solution c) be fought claw and tooth by those profiting from the non-final solutions (at least the "leaving them to die" part)

also, as chess demonstrates even in a rather confined set of rules "all possibilities" add up quickly to make the approach unfeasible as general problem solution strategy.

If however we are only talking about traversing mazes that might be different kettle of fish.

177:

"The fun with all this starts when a human wonders if all types of maze running require thought. And then they ask themselves what constitutes thought, or more likely, they start looking for brains and/or souls that probably aren't there..."

If I understand your description of what fungi do correctly, you could get water to do it. If you have something like a dead level and uniform flat surface, draw a maze on it in grease, and very slowly and steadily feed water onto the entry point, you'll get fat tendrils of water bulging inside their surface tension spreading through the maze and branching at each fork to follow both paths with equal interest, until one of them finds the exit point and starts to run over the edge. When that happens all the other ones will drain back out into the path that's been established, and you'll be left with a main flow running from entry to exit plus a lot of inactive drained remnants.

Must be the naiads.

178:

Pretty well. As you imply, it is exactly how watercourses (underground and surface) evolve. That's been known for ages.

The algorithm described is very simple and well-known, as are its failure modes, and obviously doesn't require thought. The only tricky aspect of maze running is when the runner is very limited compared to the maze (typically limited to a single front), and the maze is complex enough that the stateless algorithms (e.g. always take the left choice) don't work. But even those are soluble if time is unlimited by taking random choices. No thought needed.

179:

Fungi are closer to animals than plants. It's confused, but that is now generally agreed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eukaryote#Classification

180:

You can tiptoe as much as you like but all it boils down to is that TERFs advocate for the erosion of trans rights, invoking a theoretical framework that hasn't been cutting edge in more than fifty years, which is completely unconscionable.

181:

The trouble about this area is that almost everyone who makes a noise about it does so from one of the extreme positions - and, worse, accuses everyone who disagrees of being an extremist at the other end. It's not a simple issue, doesn't have a simple solution, and being prevented from discussing the problems rationally doesn't help.

182:

Greg: mention Trans women in female toilets

You're citing anecdata, and you know it.

In my experience most racists can be friendly towards individual members of groups they despise collectively if they know them personally for some reason -- co-workers, married a family member, went to school together, play on the same sports team. Doesn't mean they're not racists, although with a bit of work (if anyone wants to do it) it's sometimes possible to get them to re-examine their prejudice in light of personal experience.

183:

149, 150 - My object was to demonstrate that PS hydro is not "impossible to build". You might also note the qualifier "that I know of". 'Ramsay in hope' has expanded my knowledge rather than even suggesting my statement to be wrong rather than admittedly incomplete.

163 last line - Can we please use "greenwash" for statements like that in future?

184:

saw the crater- realised it wasnt a cruise missile- so rhetoric saying it was is Dangerous. crater too shallow for the sort of things the Russians are sending. it being lined up with powerlines, I thought, can't be an accident. SO im thinking that the SAM10 was fired at a target running close to the powerline, with its proximity fuse off. reasons I can come up with for that: powerlines might provide some clutter that the SAM site has trouble dealing with. theres a clear cut treeless area to each side of the line.- no unexpected tree-felling incidents there will be no tall buildings along that line - no blowing peoples highrise homes up and that line leads to the powerstation transformers - the actual target Vlad's happy gang are after

the poor sods who got blown up by the SAM were just really unlucky- I doubt Ukraine would deliberately target the innocent unlike Vlads lot

185:

CONTEXT = USA & PLANET-WIDE

UNVERIFIED SOURCING

https://twitter.com/anothercohen/status/1593404311832338442

full text: "I was laid off from Twitter this afternoon. I was in charge of managing badge access to Twitter offices. Elon just called me and asked if I could come back to help them regain access to HQ as they shut off all badges and accidentally locked themselves out."

so...?

A) fake... and so very plausible... moderately funny snark

B) real... and oh-so-very funny

186:

That's a parody account.

ALWAYS check the user profile of unfamiliar twitter accounts before retweeting possibly-inflammatory content.

Thanks!

187:

my apologies... delete my post...

...still gonna ROFL given plausibility

188:

saw the crater- realised it wasnt a cruise missile- so rhetoric saying it was is Dangerous. crater too shallow for the sort of things the Russians are sending. it being lined up with powerlines

Do you have a link to this? No photo I had seen shows any power lines.

189:

The whole hydrostorage thing really feels like it's confusing 'impossible' with 'not economical under current conditions'

190:

Pumped hydro is not impossible, there are many implementations of such schemes around the world. Most of them are not economical to operate on a dollars and cents basis but they are comforting backstops to Black Swan events and unfortunate coincidences when the regular generators trip out or go down for maintenance for some reason.

There are downsides to pumped storage -- the environmental impact of flooding otherwise pristine areas of wilderness to make the storage ponds and the tunneling, construction etc. have to be taken into account. They also waste electricity with a round-trip efficiency of about 75% -- a gigawatt-hour of cheap electricity bought in will return about 750MWh when the price is right and it is sold back into the grid. This loss of 25% of the stored energy means the difference between the buy-in price and the sale price needs to pay for the construction loans, operating costs, maintenance etc. and any profits expected by the owners and shareholders plus covering that 25% energy loss.

If the electricity is effectively free since the grid-connected renewable generators are producing more energy than current (no pun intended) consumption then expanding pumped-storage makes a lot of sense, as do battery storage systems (which are about 90-95% efficient round-trip). Sadly there are few national grids anywhere in the world that have too much renewable electricity even occasionally, never mind regularly. This may change but I can't see the UK, for example, getting into that situation any time in the next fifty years or so.

191:

The whole hydrostorage thing really feels like it's confusing 'impossible' with 'not economical under current conditions'

I can see three problems with it.

  • General shortage of suitable sites. This is actually a problem with hydropower itself. Amazon and Congo Rivers aside (and IMHO, they should be set aside), there's not many untapped rivers left for simple hydropower. For pumped hydro, you need sites for two reservoirs at different elevations close enough to make it worth pumping the water, at different enough elevations that you can get a decent amount of power when the water flows downhill, and big enough to act as a battery. That's a bit of a tall order.

  • Climate change-induced water weirdness. If you're pumping hydro, you've also got to contend with droughts and floods. It's not a stable system.

  • Increasing shortages of sand for concrete. It's getting more expensive to get the sand to build the structures.

  • Personally, I'd be happier if they used something other than water for the working weight. Funiculars carrying waste uranium from nuclear reactors, perhaps? Those would be heavy, at least... (/sarcasm)

    192:

    Charlie ....
    I repeat: & I haven't a clue what's going on - when someone I know well & is strongly feminist { Without any political or other social activity in that direction } suddenly flips, as described ... I''m going "w.t.f?" Yes, in a sense you are correct, it's ONE case & is therefore is anecdata - but how come this normally well-informed person can go like that - you tell me, ok?
    I'm not buying your explanation that she is anti-trans {All trans, that is} - given her attitude to same-sex parings or to trans females .. I mean "w.t.f" again ....
    -addendum - see EC's comment @ 181, also. ....
    hippoptolemy
    STOP trying to blame me, OK?
    - See what EC says in the very next post - I don't think I have "a position" at all, other than sympathy for people forced into making decisions, because their neurological / physical / social (etc) signals are mixed & confusing { This explanation is grossly simplified of course }

    NOTE: As previously, this is getting close to shouting at each other.
    IF we are going to continue, can we please do so without name-calling or accusations of some extreme position or other, which we are not -as far as I can see actually doing. Or do we let it rest for a week or so & then have another go, when we've all calmed down?????

    193:

    Didn't Elizabeth Holmes (of Theranos fame) go to prison for this kind of things?

    Not quite yet. Her sentencing hearing is today. I suspect she's out on bail just now or in a local jail.

    194:

    Fungi are closer to animals than plants. It's confused, but that is now generally agreed.

    It's been "generally agreed" for over 20 years.

    The problem with fungi is that the anglophone world tends to be rabidly mycophobic, so any advances in knowledge get rapidly buried by silly business of the sort on display here.

    If you want other examples, check out something like this article and start counting the mistakes: https://www.asianage.com/opinion/oped/311019/fungus-net-a-giant-underground-brain-with-unimagined-potential.html, or google "Fungi as an internet for plants," (the signal, in this case radioactive carbon fed into the system, travels at a few centimeters per hour...).

    195:

    Musk offering a choice between 3 months severance right before all the major holidays or signing his stupid loyalty oath and working crunch time game dev hours for no extra money. Seems a bit foolish.

    196:

    Me, I think water is the only sane choice for the working weight. Everything else has the problem that it isn't liquid. With water, all you have to do is shove it up and down the hill, and leave it to sort out parking itself at either end and making optimal use of the available storage volume all of its own accord.

    That crane and concrete blocks idea that keeps getting mentioned seems to me to be most useful as a demonstration that gravitational potential energy, at least on this planet, is really a pretty rotten method of storage. It's all very well hoisting a concrete block... actually, no, it isn't; it'd be much more sensible to hoist a block of rock, plain and simple, without bothering to crush it into powder and then stick it back together again by means of heating the whole lot red hot and cooking vast volumes of CO2 out of it in the process. OK. It's all very well hoisting a block of rock up to the top of a crane, but then what do you do with it? You can't just leave it hovering up there like Wile E Coyote before he realises he's run off the edge of the cliff, and you can't just dump it somewhere because then it gets in the way of the next one you hoist up.

    A funicular is a much better idea because at least it comes up on wheels and is readily shovable in the horizontal plane, but you still need a massive great railway yard at the upper level to keep them in. Finding a dammable valley high up a mountain is one thing, but finding a few square kilometres of ground level enough to build a huge fan of sidings high up a mountain is pretty much the opposite of what mountains are all about.

    Quick and dirty calculations say that to build a rock version of Dinorwig (chosen because it's famous and easy to look up, but still not really all that big) would mean you'd need about three and a half million metre-cube rocks to haul up and down a 500m altitude difference, and very roughly somewhere between 1000 and 2000 km of sidings up the top of the mountain to stash the wagons in. You could probably cut that down quite a lot by using specially designed wagons instead of the boggo freight wagons I estimated it from, but it'd still be pretty awful.

    With water you need about two and a half times as much raw volume, but the great thing is that all you do need is raw volume, and it packs it with 100% efficiency all on its own. Using solids instead just shows you how much easier a liquid is.

    As for making the dam, I don't rate concrete as a particularly suitable material for that either. The structural advantage of concrete is you can embed steel rods in it and give it the ability to withstand tensile stresses, so you can make beams and things with it. A dam is a purely compressive structure, so you don't need any of that. You can just make it out of lumps of raw rock cut square, and not bother with concrete or concrete-like materials except for filling the cracks.

    I reckon we're already far too fond of using concrete as it is, and a great many things we use it for would be better made partly or wholly out of masonry instead. Even if you do have to redesign them a bit to be purely compressive. Indeed, I find it a bit odd to see shortage of sand cited as a more important disadvantage of concrete than the amount of CO2 produced in making the stuff; I tend rather to think that running out of sand is a jolly good thing since not much else is likely to stop us doing it.

    197:

    Musk has already accepted "total turnover of personnel, infrastructure, and source code" as the price of his Twitter 2.0.

    That die was cast when that email went out (what was that, Tuesday morning?) He figures he can hire a few hundred devs off the street and build a new system from scratch and call it Twitter. Anybody who stays around from the old company is gravy.

    I don't think this was his original plan, but he could only take two weeks of people saying "no" to him before he snapped. ("No, you can't do that. No, that will drive away all our advertisers. No, that will wreck the database. No, that will bring the FTC and the EU down on our ass...") Once the idea of just sweeping it all away and starting over occurred to him, he committed.

    (You may wonder why I am making confident assertions about Musk's state of mind. Easy! I just remember what it was like to be a 25-year-old ambitious nerd who thought all problems were trivial (and also rockets are awesome and we should get rid of fossil fuels). And then I erase the other 25 years of my life experience. You know, when I found out that life was actually complicated and hard and there's reasons things are as screwed up as they are.)

    198:

    I think water is the only sane choice for the working weight. Everything else has the problem that it isn't liquid. With water, all you have to do is shove it up and down the hill, and leave it to sort out parking itself at either end and making optimal use of the available storage volume all of its own accord.

    I watched a TV news segment on the extremely low levels of the Mississippi River last night. Most "hard" goods shipping has ceased. Too hard to unload and reload barges as the water levels and channel depths keep changing. Down 80% to 90%.

    Liquid goods are down about 50%. Mainly because it is so much easier to transfer them on and off the barges to achieve a usable draft depth.

    Of course the lack of hard goods transport is a severe impact on US grain shipments. Both for internal use and overseas shipping. Basically it makes the Ukrainian grain situation worse.

    199:

    You know, when I found out that life was actually complicated and hard and there's reasons things are as screwed up as they are.

    Based on Musk like people I have worked for and are somewhat related to, they tend to feel almost any problem can be solved if you just try a little bit harder. And if needed toss some extra money at it.

    200:

    Well, you can always mount a funicular in an open pit mine, if the terrain on top is flat enough. And you don't have to worry about pumping it dry regularly. And other things. Maybe the mining waste is heavy enough that it can be used too...

    I agree that we use way too much cement and concrete too, and about the CO2 emissions thereof. The issue with sand is a) we've got to rebuild a bunch of cities and other infrastructure we foolishly designed around petroleum, b) we've already got a global sand crunch, c) we've got billionaires building extravagant things like Neom, and so d) large concrete dams are going to be expensive at best.

    Of course, if everyone in sunnier climes goes on solar and local batteries, expect endless squabbles about who's casting shade on whom.

    201:

    they tend to feel almost any problem can be solved if you just try a little bit harder

    I note the pronouns. If you work harder, their company will make them rich.

    Kinda like the cancelled WWII propaganda posters stating "your resolution will bring us victory", which were seen as the upper classes asking the lower classes to sacrifice for their (upper classes') benefit.

    202:

    context = France (or should this be Lego France?)

    and now for something both delightfully nerdish if slightly over-the-top... The Eiffel Tower Lego set for $629.99. With 10,001 pieces it might well be the most cost effective means of acquiring a bucketful of bricks (16 legos per buck)...

    anyone know where I could buy lego in bulk (3000+ pieces) cheaper? I've already tried e-mailing lego HQ but nobody ever responded

    https://lite.cnn.com/en/article/h_14901c86ee6fa242cca3365471b16656

    203:

    "someone I know well & is strongly feminist { Without any political or other social activity in that direction } suddenly flips, as described ... I'm going "w.t.f?""

    Greg, I think it's the same psychology as any person who views Fox News (or similar rightwing, Murdoch-ish media.) None of the countervailing opinions are included in the presentation, the fear-factor in the presentation is kept as high as possible, and the viewer has a zero-sum idea of human rights; that is, that they cannot keep their rights if someone with a different race/religion/gender is being given rights.

    204:

    How about simply building a smaller dam in the canyon below a larger dam, then building a solar-power farm nearby. The solar power farm runs pumps during daylight hours and sends water back to the upper dam. The smaller dam would need to be big-enough for a week or two of water buildup, just enough to accommodate a reasonable number of rainy days, and if it overflows you don't worry about it.

    The issue here is not "pumped hydro" but making sure your upper reservoir is always full - in short, it's not a full-on pumped hydro solution, but an anti-drought measure, because you don't need pumped hydro if your upper reservoir is full.

    205:

    It clearly is an annecdote, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. A lot of people seem to have really strong and peculiar feelings about toilets. I've often wondered why there are so many graffiti in restrooms...and such a specific class of graffiti.

    So it's quite possible that the specified group of people have some real hang-up about the lavatory. (It's not proof, but it's certainly a plausible conjecture.)

    206:

    At least in the UK, many people (not all women) have had extreme hang-ups about unisex toilets (and using 'wrong sex' ones, even in emergency) as far back as I can remember, long predating any widespread acceptance of the idea of transsexuality.

    207:

    Pigeon & others
    The "concrete blocks" idea is very old - it was used, to great effect throughout the C19th & on until about 1960.
    It was used to supply power to fixed & semi-fixed outlets, often in docks & similar installations & was called the Hydraulic Accumulator - there was a whole network of high-pressure "HYA" pipes under The City, f'rinstance, supplied by "The London Hydraulic Power Company" - look them up?

    208:

    There are three semi-conflicting facts going around: 1. $13B of the purchase price was done via loans taken out by twitter itself (indirectly; this was a leveraged buy-out). The interest alone on that currently works out to about a gigabuck per year. 2. A significant amount of the purchase price was raised by taking loans against his Tesla stock. (He did sell about $4B worth of $TSLA shortly after the acquisition completed.) 3. Saudi Arabia put in $2B, but I don't see how this was done; other people have stated it may have been by increasing their share in $TSLA.

    The $13B is gone -- the company will file for bankruptcy, and it doesn't have anywhere near that amount in assets, once most or all of the employees are gone. Twitter has some patents, it has some property, and it owns a bunch of servers. It's advertising revenue has dropped by at least 25% (nobody purchased the annual package, basically); he sent a few hundred thousand from SpaceX to Twitter for advertising, which incidentally might get him in some trouble as well.

    209:

    EC
    Spot on. The lady I'm referring to has exactly that problem & the "Trans issue" is - to her - more of the same, or so ISTM.

    210:

    The idea of a man being a jerk to women in a unisex bathroom is so very easily imaginable it's almost unworthy of comment.

    211:

    »Twitter has[…]«

    You forgot their two-factor authentication database.

    212:

    At least in the UK, many people (not all women) have had extreme hang-ups about unisex toilets (and using 'wrong sex' ones, even in emergency)

    At my last job, the main office had two staff toilets, for men and women. Each had a toilet and a sink, behind a locking door, so no logical reason for them to be anything but unisex — but they weren't. The women in the office felt it was quite all right for them to use the men's toilet if the women's was occupied, but got angry if a guy did the reverse.

    213:

    That is exactly the argument the TERFs use, and there is a distinct lack of evidence either that it is a problem or that single-sex ones stop it.

    Furthermore, I said extreme hang-ups. It applied (and applies) as much to single toilets as to multi-cubicle ones, and the excuses used to justify that they should be segregated were and are often sexist and extremely offensive.

    214:

    »anyone know where I could buy lego in bulk (3000+ pieces) cheaper?«

    They used to have a "backdoor" for bona-fide artists, provided they approved of the artistic goals. I have no idea where that door might be located. It may have been welded shut, because their modern highly automated production makes it unreasonably expensive and difficult for them to fulfill such orders.

    My best suggestion would be to try to interest their press/news people in your project.

    215:

    What I would say is that the possibility of a man being a jerk to a woman in a unisex toilet is not sufficient reason for passing a law against trans-folk. But you can't address a concern without understanding it.

    The right way to address the issue is probably to remind a woman that a trans-woman identifies as a woman and can be expected to understand female concerns about appropriate bathroom behavior. I think the transphobic women don't understand that a trans-woman has changed sides.

    216:

    I'm not sure that's monetizable at all, however, given GPDR. I mean, they also have tons of data on the users, and that is going to be more valuable, but again, it's limited in monetization since so much of it is about EU citizens and residents.

    217:

    196 - Agreed. Using Cruachan as my "system" again, I get 200 cu M per sec * 3600 sec per hour * 22 hours = 15_840_000 cu M in the top reservoir, where the water is "stacked" 20m high.

    198 - Er grain is at least a bit like a liquid; ok you need augers to help raise it, but it does flow a bit.

    204 - Apart from the solar power bit, I do believe you have just reinvented most of the Tummel Scheme (NofSHEB, 1950s and 60s). They have a cascade of hydro dams down the Tummel valley, and use the same water to generate electricity as many as 10 times along the course of the river.

    218:

    I think the transphobic women don't understand that a trans-woman has changed sides.

    There's also the issue of some trans-women not being terribly balanced people, which gets a disproportionate amount of play in the right-wing media.

    Two cases in Canada (that I won't link to but you can google) spring to mind. In one a trans activist weaponized human rights laws to persecute non-white beauticians (driving several out of business before the human rights commission ruled against her). Also tried to organize sleep-over sessions with 14-year-old girls with parents forbidden from attending. In the other a trans teacher decided she had to wear prosthetics the size of basketballs in shop class. (Female students were really upset, according to a colleague who teaches at the school. Not at the transition — that's not a big deal with many young people — but at the objectification of female bodies.)

    Now, two disturbed people out of 100k (according to the 2021 census) is vanishingly small — but when that's all someone sees in the news it will skew their perceptions. Even if they don't have the whole MAGA-wing school litterbox craziness in their information stream.

    On a more cheerful note, if you can access CBC you might like Sort Of, a rather fun series starring Bilal Baig. You can stream it in CBC Gem. If not in Canada you might need a VPN or a subscription account.

    https://gem.cbc.ca/media/sort-of/s02

    The show centres around Sabi, a gender-fluid millennial who works as a nanny for a downtown hipster family and a bartender at an LGBTQ bookstore/bar, all while negotiating their relationship with their Pakistani family. The role is being celebrated as the first non-binary lead character on Canadian television, while Baig is billed as the first queer South Asian Muslim actor to anchor a Canadian primetime TV series. And that’s not all. Sort Of also sets an example of a truly diverse group of talent both in front of and behind the camera, giving space for all creatives on the show to express themselves.

    “He said this gorgeous thing about what if we looked at every central character in our story like they’re navigating some sort of transition – that the word ‘transition’ is going to apply to every single human being on our show,” Baig says.

    https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/article-trans-actor-bilal-baig-breaks-boundaries-in-cbc-series-sort-of/

    219:

    Troutwaxer @ 204:

    How about simply building a smaller dam in the canyon below a larger dam, then building a solar-power farm nearby. The solar power farm runs pumps during daylight hours and sends water back to the upper dam. The smaller dam would need to be big-enough for a week or two of water buildup, just enough to accommodate a reasonable number of rainy days, and if it overflows you don't worry about it.

    The issue here is not "pumped hydro" but making sure your upper reservoir is always full - in short, it's not a full-on pumped hydro solution, but an anti-drought measure, because you don't need pumped hydro if your upper reservoir is full.

    The one I actually "know anything about" (which ain't much) has the smaller reservoir above the much larger one ... which was built to create a coolant reservoir for a nuclear power plant.

    The way it's operated is the nuclear plant is run at a steady rate all of the time, as close to full output as the utility can manage. When demand is less than the nuclear plant's output, the excess power is used to fill the upper reservoir (over night?). Then when the (morning?) demand exceeds the nuclear plant's output, water is released from the upper reservoir back into the big lake generating additional power (the pumps & motors that fill the upper reservoir become turbines & generators when the water is drained back out).

    The power company compares it to charging a battery to store excess power so the nuclear plant can run more efficiently.

    220:

    You could try the Lego store (it looks like NYC has at least a couple) and see if they could get you a deal. They already get the bricks in bulk.

    221:

    Troutwaxer @ 215:

    What I would say is that the possibility of a man being a jerk to a woman in a unisex toilet is not sufficient reason for passing a law against trans-folk. But you can't address a concern without understanding it.

    The right way to address the issue is probably to remind a woman that a trans-woman identifies as a woman and can be expected to understand female concerns about appropriate bathroom behavior. I think the transphobic women don't understand that a trans-woman has changed sides.

    I think you're missing that the people stoking trans-phobic fears DON'T CARE. It's not about women's safety, women's rights or gender identity ... it's all about the power to oppress people who are "different". It's about oppressing ALL women.

    That's why they never talk about actual trans people, only about "men dressing up as women so they can get into the women's bathroom to prey upon women".

    222:

    anyone know where I could buy lego in bulk (3000+ pieces) cheaper?

    Go to ebay and put "lego bulk lot" into search bar. They sell Legos by the pound.

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/175225187963?hash=item28cc3c2e7b

    223:

    Yes, I know about those, but they aren't really the same thing. They're closer in function to the reservoir capacitors in a power supply, or great big flywheels on stationary steam engines; short-term storage of comparatively small amounts of energy to even out rapid fluctuations, and/or provide immediate response to changes in load to allow the engine governor time to respond. Or for applications like Tower Bridge, so you can run a small engine continuously in its maximum efficiency range instead of having to have a big powerful one that occasionally runs at full whack for a minute or two but spends most of its time idling and wasting energy. They work very well for what they do, but their capacity is very limited and they become rapidly less practical as you try to scale them up to meet a different kind of purpose.

    224:

    context = USA comma rivers comma BOHICA

    if you folks debating hydro-storage would like some visuals about the availability of your 'working fluid' take a look at

    https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/20/world/rivers-lakes-drying-up-drought-climate-cmd-intl/index.html

    given the energy density -- "potential energy" of mass descending in a gravity field -- is directly proportional to the height of the drop multiplied by the tonnage (albeit notated in grams) of mass stored in the upper reservoir... you gotta make certain you are going to have a plentiful supply of 'working fluid'...

    whatever technology you want to rely upon, please consider there will always be aristocracy with the power to seize your property

    in midst of a severe drought it will be tempting to politicians to seize control of a giga-liter of water just sitting there doing nothing to appease ranchers with dying cattle OR golfers at country clubs OR farmers with dried out crops with temporary relief...

    so be certain your technical fix of society's ailments will not be battered into uselessness by the same foolish men (and women) who have ignored these large issues for sake of short term gains

    225:

    That one was around before electricity! There were waterwheel-powered mechanical installations with a steam engine added on to pump the used water back up to the top again. Not quite as nuts as it sounds, because like the hydraulic accumulator systems it allowed the engine to run in its most efficient regime regardless of short-term variations in demand.

    227:

    where I could buy lego in bulk (3000+ pieces) cheaper

    Do you just want 3000 pieces and not care which ones you get? Or do you want specific parts?

    The Lego website has pick a brick options in their shop, limited part selection and terrible search but sometimes that's the cheapest possible price. bricklink is the alternative, a lot of people split sets to get parts then sell them (new parts), as well as scrounging up used Lego and ditto (used parts). Often those people buy in bulk from Lego then resell, because the official site is so terrible.

    Ebay, gumtree, craigslist etc are clogged with collectors and traders these days, but you do find bulk bargains occasionally. Those will be random parts, often with some instructions but no guarantee that all the parts are there (and it would be very unwise to assume any of the instructions correspond to the pieces you get)

    228:

    (also, more or less Lego compatible parts are readily available from AliExpress,Banggood,ebay etc. Many are not labelled as clones, they're just surprisingly cheap new Lego. Can be a good source of cheap parts but the quality varies, and just buying the same thing from the same seller a second time does not mean you're getting more like the last lot. Colour variation is common (even worse than with real Lego). You really do have to be willing to get the order and send it straight to an ABS recycler if it's not up to your standards. But the flip side is that some people are very happy with what they get, and for stuff like bulk yellow 2x4 bricks it can be worth trying)

    229:

    I think water is the only sane choice for the working weight.

    We've discussed this here before, repeatedly. The obvious choices for liquids are gallium because you don't really need a dam, just a fridge; and mercury, because while you do need a dam it stays liquid and is thus usable even on cold days. The trouble with gallium is that it starts a slippery slope {boom tish} and eventually you're wondering just how hard it would really be to use liquid tungsten.

    The shortage of sites for pumped hydro is very much like the shortage of uranium for nuclear reactors and the shortage of land for solar PV. Viz, entirely situational and generally very local. Sure, New York doesn't have much in the way of spare land for PV or accessible uranium deposits... which means it can't possibly use nuclear or solar power, right?

    Meanwhile even the UK has some suitable sites, and I've heard occasional rumors that the USA has both rocks and mountains... in the same place!

    The big questions are political. Does the UK have the ability to run an extension cord to Norway in order to import electricity? That's a 100% political question. They have the money, the equipment can be purchased, but can the UK government assemble the necessary ... who fucken knows, guv.

    230:

    Have read only the first 100 posts, so apologies if the below have already been discussed and shelved.

    Space-X -

    If EM gets into deeper financial straits (chain reaction starting with Twitter, Tesla), I'm guessing that the US Gov't (NASA) will have to bail him out maybe by lending him some money and assigning a fiscal watchdog to oversee every financial decision. Why NASA? - They just launched Artemis: they're going back to the Moon. Plus, they still need SpaceX to help move supplies to and from the ISS. And, there are thousands of communications satellites launched over the past few years - not sure who's monitoring these, their lifespans, legal liabilities if they fall and destroy property/accidentally kill someone, etc.

    International banking -

    No idea what all the possible particular laws and regs across various countries are but figure there must be some sort of international cooperation (validation) between major countries otherwise how could various NATO countries impose 'financial sanctions' against Putin and friends.

    Not a fan of crypto but was wondering whether any gov't (i.e., China, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland) financial authorities were looking at it (mostly as a medium vs. paper) as a better way of 'printing' and tracking money in order to collect taxes.

    UK Budget & Oversight -

    Finally found something that describes how the UK budget oversight process is supposed to work. It's a 25-page speech/lecture by Robert Chote, Chairman, Office for Budget Responsibility. I'm only part way through it and he's already referenced similar bodies with similar responsibilities in other countries. I'm assuming that there are intro classes re: 'This is how your gov't operates' for newly elected UK Pols so Truss's budget was in some respects 'illegal' - not properly reviewed as per legislated rules and procedures mentioned in this lecture. Anyways - here it is. Enjoy! (Clearly the man had a sense of humor per lecture title. :))

    'Britain’s fiscal watchdog: a view from the kennel'

    https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/Lecture_May-2013.pdf

    231:

    Meanwhile even the UK has some suitable sites, and I've heard occasional rumors that the USA has both rocks and mountains... in the same place!

    Problem is, all the good dam sites, and a lot of bad ones, were built in the US by the 1970s. There are a few on the books, but the rocks underlying the sites tend to be radically suboptimal and/or fault riddled.

    Indeed, we've taken to dismantling dams when the harm they do outwieghs the benefits of an undammed river.

    Meanwhile, we do have hydropower facilities like, oh, Lake Mead. If you click on the link, it tells you the current elevation of the surface of that reservoir. For reference, the hydroelectric intake stops at 950', so Hoover Dam can no longer generate power at that level. Dead pool, when water can't leave the lake via pipe, is at 895'. It's currently at 1046.28', down ca. 20' from last year at this time.

    That's where my water and power come from, not that it matters, and it's things like this that make Howard NYC post as he does. I agree with him. Mountains and rocks for dams is very 100 years ago, unfortunately. If only rocks and mountains mattered, sending Elon to build dams on Mars would make a great deal of sense.

    Actually, there is one untapped spot for pumped hydropower: Antarctica. Lots of free water, lots of unspoiled mountains. Bit tricky on moving any electricity generated, but mere details. What could possibly go wrong?

    232:

    Sending Elon to make dams on Mars is a great idea... if he gets a one-way ticket!

    233:

    What Moz said...

    Plus I'd add re the objection that you don't have enough water, and related, someone might steal it, seawater. Obviously seawater brings its own issues, but there's lots of it, and if you arrange things right, you only need one reservoir not two (well strictly, the lower one is already laid on).

    Is also like to point out that Australia is the flattest continent, and the driest inhabited continent and it has a few pumped hydro, one is 350 GWh which by itself (if the turbines were large enough) would cover the evening load for about 50 million people. As it's being constructed it can only provide 2 GW, so it could run for 175 hours, but obviously you could have more turbines and pumps if you wanted.

    Also there are non concrete dams. If I remember my school excursion correctly at least some of the dams are rock wall, clay cored gravity dams. (though some concrete is used in things that aren't the actual wall, like raceways and such.

    234:

    Remember that pumped hydro, like trucked rocks, doesn't require a river and rivers might be undesirable if there are flooding or water war issues. With water losses under 1%/year (in Australia, anyway) getting new water isn't really an issue for most sites. It's more about finding two places you can build reservoirs, and that's much easier than finding good spots for hydro or irrigation dams.

    It's very easy to think "this is how dams work now, pumped hydro is the same thing but with two dams"... and you could do it that way, but it's not common. The Snowy Scheme in Australia is based at an existing hydro plant because they have everything right there. But the Onslow Scheme in Aotearoa is at the (near) bottom of a dammed river and is based on a new pump/ generator on the existing river, with the big tank above it.

    My point about racks was that if you're going to lift solids Pigeon is right, use rocks. Rocks and an existing mountain. Ideally with an existing system for moving rocks up and down, but that's easy enough to build. Although a parking garage for a million tonnes of rocks might require removing the top of the mountain to making parking lot (Joni Mitchell would be proud)

    235:

    Heteromeles said: Problem is, all the good dam sites, and a lot of bad ones, were built in the US by the 1970s

    Good sites for pumped hydro and good sites for hydro don't have a great deal of overlap. The requirements are very different. Sometimes you can convert a hydro site into a pumped hydro site (Snowy 2.0 for example) but that's not often the best way from any point of view other than political.

    236:

    RE: Twitter Badge Access

    Charlie Stross @ 186:

    That's a parody account.

    ALWAYS check the user profile of unfamiliar twitter accounts before retweeting possibly-inflammatory content.

    Thanks!

    Wondering about THIS story?

    Company Temporarily Shuts Down Employee Access To Facilities

    I don't have a twitter account, so you guys are the only source I have whether this is legit or not?

    237:

    Elizabeth Holmes has 11 years to serve. No more than she deserves but I'm still surprised it's that long a sentence.

    238:

    Pigeon
    There was & is also the Hydraulic Ram, with NO MOVING PARTS.
    Still common in the N of England in remoter valleys.

    Uncle Stinky
    From that: The entirety of the payroll department and the US tax department resigned today - right, that is Twatter totally fucked, then. How Sad.

    239:

    Uncle Stinky @ 237:

    Elizabeth Holmes has 11 years to serve. No more than she deserves but I'm still surprised it's that long a sentence.

    She was convicted of defrauding rich people.

    240:

    John's said: She was convicted of defrauding rich people.

    Interesting to compare the pair. (I know it's different jurisdictions)

    A few rich people lost some money they could easily afford to lose, to a scheme they knew carried risk. 11 years.

    400,000 poor people lost vast percentage of their holdings, in a scheme they were sucked into against their will. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/12/conspiracy-or-stuff-up-robodebt-royal-commission-probes-how-far-up-the-chain-of-command-blame-falls

    No one even looks like being charged.

    241:

    Further on the "pumped hydro sites aren't regular hydro sites" topic: Queensland is now looking to proceed with up to 7 GW worth of pumped hydro (24h storage capacity) across two sites. Makes sense for us in the sense that we have all the solar we can build.

    242:

    context = USA

    something I've run across three times on differing sites reading on varying topics (economics + voting + web)... differences in wording but same conclusion...

    "American society has become so deeply hierarchical that it has become functionally caste based. As evidenced in infrequency of elevation from general population into senior management ranks, both business (CXOs and layer just below) and government (topmost department policymaking roles and elected offices."

    243:

    My point about racks was that if you're going to lift solids Pigeon is right, use rocks. Rocks and an existing mountain. Ideally with an existing system for moving rocks up and down, but that's easy enough to build. Although a parking garage for a million tonnes of rocks might require removing the top of the mountain to making parking lot (Joni Mitchell would be proud)

    That's why I suggested an open pit mine. The Fimiston Super Pit gives you 600 m of elevation with a big, reasonably flat surface up top. Either haul debris, or dump rocks off the side for working weight, and run the funicular up the side of the pit.

    244:

    There used to be a lot of interest in using EV's hooked up to the grid while parking for energy storage and to provide energy when renewable energy supply was low:

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2019/11/12/all-the-grid-batteries-we-need-and-more-will-soon-be-under-our-noses/?sh=3bb2504336e3 All The Energy Storage The Grid Needs Will Soon Be Under Our Noses

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/sk/2022/09/15/harnessing-the-power-of-electric-vehicles-can-used-ev-batteries-make-the-world-more-sustainable/?sh=68133721684b Harnessing The Power Of Electric Vehicles: Can Used EV Batteries Make The World More Sustainable?

    Has there been any progress for integrating EV batteries into local grids as an energy storage medium.

    Physically it seems far more practical than pumped hydro.

    But technologically it would require not just a smart grid but a genius grid integrated with multiple microgrids all working in perfect coordination.

    245:

    The other significant thing about Queensland is that it's publicly owned electricity system means that each component can be evaluated for the contribution it makes to the system rather than evaluated only on if that particular thing is a profit centre. So a pumped hydro that means you don't need as much overbuild can be allowed to make a "loss".

    246:

    Re: '[Robodebt] .. No one even looks like being charged.'

    My impression is that this is still an on-going investigation/exploration.

    Should be easy enough to find where the report/complaint saying that the robodebt activity was unethical got stopped. IME, reports are emailed/drop-boxed and I imagine that gov't emails are stored (accessible) for a fairly long time.

    Re: 'Blueprint for Revolution | Srdja Popovic | Talks at Google'

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCZh581N74E

    Found the YT video of his Google Talk (46:33). I've watched several GTs with authors and have found that their talks tend to be on-point. Must admit that I've bought several presenters' books afterwards.

    247:

    Its a terrible idea very popular with people who want to offload the investment costs of grid storage onto the general public. If your car has so much power storage that it being randomly at half power in the morning is not a problem to you you bought waaay to much battery.

    And very obviously, per kwh of storage bought, car rated batteries are going to cost a lot more than storage solutions that do not have to be mobile.

    248:

    Or they might be deliberately not asking the IT people.

    249:

    I own an EV, and I agree with Thomas Jorgenson -- it is an AWFUL idea.

    If sucking electricity out of my car is done involuntarily, I would absolutely unplug it overnight. I do not care that my electricity bill goes down -- being able to get to work in the morning is more important. And if it is something that happens only when I agree to it -- then I will agree to it far too infrequently for the scheme to be of much use. As Thomas said, anyone who is OK with their EV being used as a grid storage battery, bought more car than he needs.

    250:

    Most of us need, or think we need, 300 miles. But suppose you had battery which will hold 450 miles, so you tell your car to buy 450 miles worth of electricity when power is cheap and dump the power into your house's electrical system when power is expensive... How quickly does that pay for itself?

    251:

    That is, dump 150 miles worth of electricity into your house when power is cheap.

    252:

    The trouble about this area is that almost everyone who makes a noise about it does so from one of the extreme positions - and, worse, accuses everyone who disagrees of being an extremist at the other end. It's not a simple issue, doesn't have a simple solution, and being prevented from discussing the problems rationally doesn't help.

    Trans people who advocate for their rights aren't extremists any more than gay people (or any people) who advocate for their rights are. This isn't one of those cases where "both sides are as bad as each other". There's a small rump of TERFs and hard-right conservatives on one extreme. And I'm sure there are some extremists in favour of trans rights. But the majority of people who support trans rights are moderates or leftists but hardly extremists: as a political idea, it's become increasingly popular in the last three decades following the same trend of acceptance for and support of gay rights.

    @Greg Tingey, no one's attacking you.

    253:

    Re: '[Robodebt] .. No one even looks like being charged.'

    My impression is that this is still an on-going investigation/exploration.

    Should be easy enough to find where the report/complaint saying that the robodebt activity was unethical got stopped. IME, reports are emailed/drop-boxed and I imagine that gov't emails are stored (accessible) for a fairly long time.

    Parliamentary Document Management System (PDMS) is used for sharing reports between Australian government departments and agencies and parliamentary offices. As you say, the Royal Commission is still underway and it's likely to shine a damning light on certain secretaries and ministers. But the problem with just looking at PDMS is that it might only show that a report made it to the minister's office or secretary's office, if it even got that far, so there's plausible deniability for the key decision makers.

    For example, it came out a couple of weeks ago that a legal officer found that the scheme was incompatible with the legislation. That officer was an assistant director, an EL1, and was later instructed to write policy for the scheme regardless. Above an EL1 is an EL2 (director), SES1 (national manager), SES2 (general manager), SES3 (dep sec), then the secretary, then the minister's office, then the minister, then the prime minister. That's a lot of levels for a report to get stuck at even if informal discussions are still held, and testimony at the RC implies that's exactly how it went.

    254:

    Charging home from car?

    Well, right now I'm about to get two Powerwalls (26 kWh) for about the same cost* as a top-line Chevy Bolt (65 kWh). And my wife uses less than a quarter charge per day commuting.

    The Ford Lightning Extended pack is 131 kWh. It has two plugs, and it's purportedly designed for running your house. It costs around 1.5 times the cost of the Bolt.

    The point is that right now, paradoxically, cars are cheaper than house batteries, and the price per kWh drops with car capacity.

    Now, why does this matter? I can't run my house on two Powerwalls. I can keep the internet up, refrigerators and lights on, but forget about using AC.

    Plugging in the car would solve a bunch of problems.

    One is that the supply of lithium is far from infinite, so assuming that there will be enough for cheap grid storage is foolish. This goes for most high kWh storage.

    Another is that peak home power use happens from 4 pm to 9 pm, and probably will extend later as more people charge at home. However, peak sunlight happens during working hours, and it's a heck of a lot easier to put a large solar array over a large commercial parking lot than it is to put one on the average house roof which wasn't designed to maximize solar gain.

    And third, we've got grid reliability problems. In fire country here, they shut down the power grid during the hottest, driest days due to fire risk, and that's when AC matters the most. Not having another billion dollar fire is worth a brown out, but having AC on a 40oC+ day is pretty useful too.

    So the upshot is for me: yes, I'd love to be able to hook my car battery into my household circuits with the powerwalls. If it was a bright, hot day with brownouts imminent, I could actually run the AC with it in theory, and I could get even more panels to rapidly recharge the car battery (fast charging) and the powerwalls (slow charging) (I've got a good roof for solar).

    The car's cheaper than a Powerwall per kWh, takes an already dedicated space unlike the batteries, doesn't fsck up an entire garage wall like a battery array, and can be charged offsite.

    I may be a big government progressive libtard, but I do not trust our for-profit electrical supplier to have my best interests at heart, although they're not PG&E.

    *The refund will make the powerwalls cheaper, but base price is quoted here.

    255:

    I'd love to be able to hook my car battery into my household circuits

    Vehicle to "off grid appliance"is already standard on many EVs, and there's mostly regulatory questions about hooking that up to the grid/house. That gets you the ability to run your house when the grid is up, and if your meter+EV are smart enough and the operator wants it you could buy low and sell high. But right now that's at a demonstration level rather than the ubiquitous level we really need.

    Using a vehicle for backup power is slightly more complicated legally/systematically, because you want a larger inverter (still trivial by EV standards... even 20kW is a small EV motor) but you also need some way for the house to communicate grid status and for the car to react when the grid comes back.

    There's lots of people quite emphatic that you shouldn't energise the grid when it's down... and making the power source mobile adds a little complexity, mostly around inspections and certifications (is it your car or your house that's certified, or both? Or just "any approved car at any approved house"... and if so who gets to define the standard? This stuff makes just having smart meters seem simple).

    The easy way for now is to unplug stuff from the wall and plug it into your EV. Currently I think most just have 2-3kW inverters, but it would be easy to have either big fixed inverter that plugs into the car, or a bigger inverter in the car. Ideally you'd change the mode of the motor driver but I haven't heard of anyone doing that (50kW or more output from the same electronics... fun times)

    256:

    Trans-to-male from female is ignored {mostly} but Trans-to-female from male accrues vast amount of - um - dislike.

    for various reasons, trans men generally find it much easier to pass, and hardly anyone feels threatened by their existence, so unless they're celebrities they're more or less invisible

    there is a school of thought that worries that young girls who would previously have ended up identifying as gay are being encouraged to transition instead, but that doesn't impact their treatment by society

    257:

    »Ideally you'd change the mode of the motor driver but I haven't heard of anyone doing that (50kW or more output from the same electronics... fun times)«

    It's the charging circuit you want to play with, not the motor driver.

    The motor driver is optimized for a very dynamic load, and short cables to that load, and you really do not want to handicap any of that for a seldomly used feature.

    Most of the charging circuits have power sections which can already run bidirectional because you also get lower ohmic losses and less RF noise by using a full-bridge design.

    So it's really only a matter of software and safety of connectors etc.

    258:

    ...anyone know where I could buy lego in bulk (3000+ pieces) cheaper?

    In France, no. But a few seconds on Google tells me you've got options. Also, there are people on ebay selling mixed bricks by the pound (half kilogram) and by the N-hundred. My search results are certainly influenced by my US IP address but the European results shouldn't be much worse.

    If your projects require only an absolute ass-load of Lego bricks, I think your chances are very good.

    259:

    Howard NYC
    If that statement is correct { And I have no way of judging } then the US is deeply fucked, much more than we are.
    Socially at least, that is. Politically is another story, perhaps.

    EV's & charging/recharging
    I get the feeling/intuition that this is a set of solvable problems, just that some of the "Interconnecting" technology & financial arrangements are still in flux, but will settle down in a year or two.

    260:

    It's an odd experience to be walking down a little steep valley with no form of habitation anywhere within sight and notice that somewhere underneath the watery stream sounds and the skylarks you can faintly hear something going... Bonk. (pause a few seconds) Bonk. (pause) Bonk. (pause) Bonk. ...etc. An obviously mechanical sound, with great regularity, but with no sign of any kind of machinery anywhere nor any hint of where there even could be any.

    As you progress down the valley the sound remains, and slowly gets more obvious. Bonk. Bonk. Bonk. Bonk. And maybe you find a spot where the soil cover has shifted over a few metres and exposed this cast iron pipe, from which the sound is emanating, and if you put your hand on it you can feel a pulsation synchronised with each bonk.

    And eventually you reach a point near the bottom of the valley where the pipe emerges from under the ground and goes into the side of a little dwarf-sized concrete-block shithouse, with moss and stuff growing on it, a manky locked door on one side, and water dribbling out of it, and the sound is now quite plain and clear and has lost the top-cut and the little shithouse is plainly the origin of it. Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank.

    More of a hydraulic generator than a storage device, though :)

    261:

    Yes. That gets at one of the reasons I regard that as the only sane way to operate an energy supply system, and especially so when it's using a lot of sources that don't necessarily give you the output you want at the moment you want it (whether because they're inherently intermittent renewable ones or simply things that have a very long response time).

    Every discussion we have about energy supply coughs up several posts which demonstrate why, in the following form: "{Description of some generation or storage system, how it works and why it's a good idea}, but it's actually no good because {blah blah commercial bollocks blah blah} therefore some bunch of rich twats (who by definition don't need any more money anyway) can't use it to drain money out of the system" (although the final clause is usually expressed in a more euphemistic manner).

    The particularly bizarre thing is that this wholly artificial objection is always presented as being more of an absolute and immutable objection than any disadvantage arising from the actual physics involved, or the non-existence of sufficient quantities of necessary raw materials, or any other aspect which genuinely is a hard fact deriving directly from reality independent of any stupid rubbish people have made up. And this remains the case even though places like Queensland where people have actually got their heads screwed on the right way round provide the disproof by counterexample.

    262:

    We've now got one - been up for a bit over a year. Capacity is only 1.4GW though, which is kind of small.

    As I've posted before though, the current crisis is demonstrating that the idea of the UK relying on international links to augment supply is distinctly dubious. The total figures for all such links for October are now up on http://www.nationalgrideso.com/electricity-explained/electricity-and-me/great-britains-monthly-electricity-stats and the "augmentation" continues to be Negative During Crisis, by 1.7TWh in October. Not as bad as any other month since April, but it's still arse about face. And still seems to be generally unnoticed and unreported, Oh What A Surprise.

    264:

    I had a look at the Snowy River scheme when it was mentioned on this blog a little while back. The 350GWh figure touted in the headlines is a bit like the figures published for wind and solar farms, a maximum total that is unachievable in real life.

    The lake that is going to be the upper storage reservoir for this scheme is a large environmental resource used for fishing, recreation and wildlife. Pumping significant amounts of water into and out of the lake to store and recover electricity is going to raise and lower the water levels in the lake by metres at a time, possibly on a daily basis. If the operators started with a totally full lake and drained it dry pretty much they'd get the dataplate 350GWh of electricity out of it, destroying the lake's biological characteristics and wiping out the fishing operations for years or decades after. This isn't going to happen but that's what the sales prospectus promises.

    There's another issue that I've not seen numbers on, the round-trip efficiency figures for this scheme. They can't be good if I'm remembering the publicity brochures right with 25 kilometres of energy-sapping tunnels between the upper reservoir and the lower pump-generation station. There's a reason that nearly all pumped-storage systems around the world have the upper and lower reservoirs close to each other (horizontally at least), to minimise frictional losses in the interconnecting tunnels during pumping and generation operations.

    Batteries are better at this with a round-trip of about 90-95% between charging and discharging but they need replacing every decade or so making them more expensive per GWh of storage in the long run. They are also easier to position close to grid switching stations and generators compared to pumped storage which is usually located in remote areas where land is cheap because most of it is near-vertical.

    265:

    Britain has a lot of gas-fuelled generating plant and right now gas, although more expensive than last year is cheap enough that exporting gas-fuelled electricity to the rest of Europe at a time of high wholesale electricity prices is good business for British generating companies. Things may change.

    For some reason I've not seen anyone talk about, the French nuclear fleet has not spun up to its usual 40GW of generating capacity by mid-autumn as they normally do, remaining at about 30GW as of today. It may be that more reactors are out of service for maintenance for longer than normal for some reason.

    266:

    It's a pretty bad idea, yes, but its trendiness is that it is yet another way to greenwash the Path of the Juggernaut. What we need is smaller, lighter cars and less car use. There would be little point in playing that trick if a typical car had only a 10-15 KW-hr battery, and that is a perfectly reasonable target.

    267:

    Current international links, yes, but ones to generators in Iceland and Morocco would be a different matter. They're looking rapidly less plausible, however, as the UK ceases to be a rich country and is heading in the direction of becoming a poor one.

    268:

    I'd imagine that a computer-controlled switch that passes a house easily back-and-forth between battery power and the incoming AC based on electricity prices via time-of-day is not terribly hard to build

    269:

    I’ve been thinking about Twitter, and I’m beginning to wonder whether Musk’s purchase of Twitter is one of those neoliberal experiments, like the takeover of Iraq in 2003. Most of us probably recall that the Bush administration removed most of the worker-protection and consumer-protection aspects of Iraqi law as it existed under Saddam Hussein with the idea that it would turn into a Libertarian/Neoliberal paradise. Then they fired all the party members, including teachers and low-level bureaucrats, allowed women to be removed from their jobs (i.e. Riverbend – does anyone remember her?) and put a bunch of just-out-of-college Republican kids in charge.

    Iraq is now a Neoliberal/Libertarian paradise. (Just ask any member of Isis.)

    I think Musk is trying similar strategies at Twitter. It’s one of those grand experiments meant to prove that Libertarianism and/or Noeliberalism are actually workable philosophies rather than the mental-masturbations of those who operate at the level of college sophomores with more money than sense. If Musk's strategies don't work it’s because Objectivism can’t fail, it can only be failed.

    You can expect the company to be a libertarian paradise any time now.*

    *No, I’m not giving this paragraph a snark tag. If it wasn’t obvious to you, don’t waste my time with a reply.

    270:

    I don't know how many types of 'smart meter' there are, but I will bet that they are all incompatible and few (if any) have the connections to control taking power from a car. I will also bet that most cars will have a separate power outlet from their power supply, and all will have different constraints on how those are used. Such issues are soluble, but I shall not live to see them solved. Producing such a device without solving them would indeed be terribly hard to build.

    Fer chrissake, it took a good decade before LED light bulbs and dimmers settled down enough that matching them wasn't a nightmare, and that problem is trivial by comparison.

    271:

    CONTEXT = USA

    one of those things rarely explicitly laid out...

    cost per mile (or kilometer)

    diesel VS natural gas VS gasoline VS electric VS bicycle/muscle

    with a month-by-month graph demonstrating which one has been least prone to fluctuation

    nor will any CXO in the fossil fuel industry willingly concede that while electricity prices vary less from city to city than do liquid fuels, it is impossible for 'foreigners' -- whichever group is most loathed at a given moment -- cannot cut off the supply by simple whim... not without blowing things up as in Ukraine

    272:

    Hehe. I remember a Honda magazine advert from the early 80s for their 50cc moped. The headline was "It costs less to run than you do", and the body text then went on to elucidate that at current British fuel prices the moped ate about a penny per mile, while to walk a mile you would burn X calories, to replace which you would need to eat one of {list of various common food items}, "all of which cost considerably more than a penny". Which I thought was wonderful, with its implicit two fingers (or whatever the equivalent Japanese gesture is) to the much more commonly promoted model of eating {common food items} in quantities well in excess of need and then having to walk several miles to get rid of the excess. And another point about it was that all the {common food items} cost so considerably more than a penny that the same argument would still work to support the use of a V12 XJ-S.

    273:

    You could be generous and give him a return ticket.

    Mars is deadly enough that the return ticket would never need to be honoured.

    274:
    "Not a fan of crypto but was wondering whether any gov't [...] financial authorities were looking at it (mostly as a medium vs. paper) as a better way of 'printing' and tracking money in order to collect taxes."

    Well, Sweden is. There's an ongoing project since 2017 called "e-krona". It's still being evaluated whether it's a viable solution.

    The main purpose seems to be availability. Currently electronic payments are highly centralised, and if you don't have an internet connection to your bank then you can't make purchases. "e-krona" would make it possible to pay for things whenever and wherever.

    It seems to me this has the potential of making electronic payments more democratic as well. Nobody can stop you from making purchases the way they can with the current system, because it's cash but in electronic form. That's just my speculation though, and I'm sure there will be a way for our government to prevent payments should they want to.

    275:

    There would be little point in playing that trick if a typical car had only a 10-15 KW-hr battery, and that is a perfectly reasonable target.

    You seem to be talking a range of 40 to 60 miles.

    I have a friend who has had an EV for (I think) over 10 years. His first on had a range of about 75 miles when the weather was warm. It caused him to spend a lot of time of planning when the day included more than go to the grocery. And as he told his wife after a movie one February; "You can be warm and we walk home the last few miles or be cold and we get home."

    While I don't see a need for most folks, including myself, to have a 300 mile range car; 150 miles make life much more workable.

    Much of the 300 mile need comes from how we fuel ICEs. If I can re-up my EV battery at night at 5 miles per hour that will cover my around town driving 99% of the time. If this is where we wind up we'd do what I did in the past when driving big SUVs. Rent a car for longer trips.

    276:

    No, I am not. I am talking about stepping off the Path of the Juggernaut. There is absolutely no reason that most people need a multi-ton, overpowered monstrosity for almost all of their use. Even in much of the USA (and unquestionably in most of Europe), a few hundred kilogrammes and a top speed of 30-40 MPH is ample. Yes, it needs radical social and political changes, but it's feasible. And, as you say, improved car hiring (in the UK, at least) and long-distance public transport is part of that.

    277:

    300 miles seems to be a particular sweet spot. If you need to make a cross-country drive you're ready to get out of the car and have a walk and some lunch at around 250-300 miles, so recharging or fueling your car makes sense at that point. If you're driving the car to work, 300 miles ensures that you only need to fill the car once a week, or maybe even less, unless you have a serious commute.

    278:

    BTW, not commenting POSITIVELY on the 300-mile figure. Just noting its existence.

    279:

    I know. For ICE. But I can't top the "tank" off at home in my Civic. It gets 350 from a full tank. But filling it up ties up 30 minutes of my life when include the full time cost of that diversion. Yes, I could make it take less but at a 10% cost increase so I plan around getting gas at my local Costco most of the time.

    But if I can just plug it in when I get home, I'd rarely need to find a "real" charger if I had a 150 mile range. And if I did, they are close by. I'm talking a 120v/15a plug which would require NO change to my house wiring. And I would wire up a 240v/20a outlet if it made sense. But I'm not typical in my wiring skills.

    As to EC's comments about the changes need for lesser ranges. Sure. Just blow up the layout of most anywhere someone in the US (and I suspect many other places) lives, bulldoze it flat, and start over. It just isn't going to happen. The number of people who live in Manhattan, downtown Chicago, and I suspect London, while large, is no where near a majority of the population dealing with such things.

    280:

    "I know. For ICE."

    Exactly. For most people it's old-style thinking. On the other hand, I make my living doing technical work, and drive my Prius to the jobsites, which means that I can easily drive 5-600 miles or more a week. Not an easy problem, for either perceived or real numbers.

    281:

    Troutwaxer
    - @ 268: No, it isn't, but the British misgovernments - PLURAL - have made sure that having your own power is to be discouraged at - if not "all costs", as much as possible.
    Can't possibly have self-sufficient Peasants giving the finger to the big Power Suppliers, can we now?
    - @ 269: * Most of us probably recall that the Bush administration removed most of the worker-protection and consumer-protection aspects of Iraqi law as it existed * ...
    EXACTLY the same as the tories are trying to do with our "retained" EU law you mean?

    If this does not worry you, it should - contact your MP, NOW!

    EC
    Yes, it needs radical social and political changes, but it's feasible - REALLY?
    Reversing & re-opening all the railway closures since about 1960? { Where all the really useful ones have been built over, oops }

    282:

    I make my living doing technical work, and drive my Prius to the jobsites, which means that I can easily drive 5-600 miles or more a week.

    Yep. I used to be there. Modern Internet based remote accessed (RMM and such) systems got rid of most of that for me.

    But to some degree the future is about making your case the exception, not the rule. 4 years ago 95% of my work was onsite. Today it has been reversed. Heck we moved the heaving computing needs of one client to a data center. I have to go in and touch something maybe once every 2 or 3 months.

    I have a Tundra truck that is rated to tow 10K pounds. I have never towed more than 15% of that. But I might need it. I mainly use it to pick up building supplies for fixing up my house and carrying furniture for friends. I have to remember to drive it once every few weeks to air it out before mildew starts growing in the cab.

    283:

    I'll leave it to the imagination of what the heaving computing needs were.

    284:

    "Modern Internet based remote accessed (RMM and such) systems got rid of most of that for me."

    All hail the Wattbox! No more driving 90 miles to turn something off and then on again!

    285:

    Yes, it needs radical social and political changes, but it's feasible.

    First you explain why it's not feasible, then you contradict yourself! 😄

    286:

    Or even 2 miles at 3am when it is freezing outside.

    287:

    I did not make a comment about the need for lesser ranges, though 200 miles as enough for a (sub-)urban vehicle - 300 miles is nice, but not essential. I was specifically talking about reducing the weight and power to something appropriate for (sub-)urban driving. Yes, I have driven around Las Vegas (and Los Angeles) and it does NOT need them demolishing and rebuilding. Much as they might be improved by it.

    A 15 KW-hr battery comes in at less than 100 Kg. A reasonable urban vehicle need not weigh more than 250 Kg unladen, or 500 Kg in all, including two huge people and a mountain of luggage/shopping. Even ignoring the savings made from dropping the power, that needs 1/3 the capacity of a 1.25 ton vehicle (with the same load) and there are plenty of 44 KW-hr vehicles with 200 mile ranges that are heavier than that.

    And, no, Greg, this solution does not RELY on restoring the previous railway network. It DOES rely on fixing the insurance/hire shambles.

    288:

    I quite agree about the few hundred kg. Coincidentally, I discovered the other day that Spen King (engineer with what began as Rover) was of the same mind, and his anticipation around 198something was that the weight of future cars would drop drastically, mainly through the increased use of plastic for panels and aluminium for structure, along with more efficient structural design (I wonder if he was secretly expecting that Pressed Steel would succumb to inability to cope with these new materials...); indeed he was involved with a concept prototype that came out at 650kg through such means, with a small and highly efficient engine that was nevertheless quite adequate. No doubt he was as disappointed as you or I that what we actually got was much heavier cars, and much of the improvement in the fuel efficiency of engines that has been achieved being thrown away through the need to haul all that surplus weight around.

    I think your proposed maximum speed is only suitable for a vehicle for use only in cities, though, and I also think your proposed battery capacity is inadequate for anything much more than that. Comparing it with the 1kWh battery capacity of my mobility scooter, it would extend the nominal range of the scooter to about 100 miles, which I'd think of as being enough to get to some remote destination (at painfully slow speed), but not to get back again, which could be a bit awkward.

    It also assumes that the power is used only for traction, and doesn't give you enough left over to run a decent heater (both for plain warmth and for demisting), unless you accept having the heater absolutely clobber the range. The smaller the vehicle, the more the heater comes to dominate the power requirement. There actually was an electric car in the 70s that had pretty much the same specifications - they only made a couple of hundred of them, and most were bought by the CEGB for some kind of promotional purpose, I think - which did indeed turn out like this: OK in cities, not much use for anything more, and basically no use in winter because it didn't have a heater in order not to require an unreasonably large battery.

    I occasionally have thoughts about making my mobility scooter more tolerable for the winter months, and they always grind to a halt on this point. I could probably cobble up some kind of weather-excluding bodywork of tolerable lightness, but it would still end up perishing cold and with windows that were constantly being occluded by the condensation of my breath. To avoid this without having the battery last no more than a few minutes would mean some kind of heater that burnt fuel, for energy storage density reasons, which starts to make the whole thing a bit silly.

    289:

    "...to something appropriate for (sub-)urban driving."

    Ah, OK, I guess you can disregard much of my post then. You hadn't said that when I began typing it.

    290:

    "Where all the really useful ones have been built over, oops"

    My "if I was a billionaire" fantasy includes gradually buying up all the things that have been built on old railway formations, as and when the current owners decide to sell them, and then knocking them down...

    291:

    "there is a school of thought that worries that young girls who would previously have ended up identifying as gay are being encouraged to transition instead"

    Yeah, I think this school of thought is called "transphobia". For example, a recent Gallup poll has shown that in the US there are actually more Gen-Z lesbians (1.4%) than Millenial lesbians (0.8%) or Gen-X lesbians (0.7%). So, the percentage of women identifying as lesbians is actually increasing.

    But then, people who are convinced by facts and data re not transphobes, because transphobia requires a wilful denial of science ("the world is just like I was told in the primary school and anything more complicated is woke activists trying to pervert science").

    292:

    You have already noted it, but I will respond to the technical points for the, er, benefit of other people.

    The vast majority of driving is within cities or suburbia, sometimes with short distances out to villages etc., where a top speed of above 40 MPH (probably 30 in the UK) gains you almost nothing. It is that market I was targetting, and is why the ability to hire something else for longer trips is essential.

    See #287 about the range, and look at the Nissan Leaf, for example.

    I take your point about the heating, but there are partial solutions to that. Insulation is cheap and light, but the windows are a problem. But I remember when you had to wrap up well for driving in cold weather, in all except the most expensive cars!

    293:

    No, I am not. I am talking about stepping off the Path of the Juggernaut. There is absolutely no reason that most people need a multi-ton, overpowered monstrosity for almost all of their use. Even in much of the USA (and unquestionably in most of Europe), a few hundred kilogrammes and a top speed of 30-40 MPH is ample. Yes, it needs radical social and political changes, but it's feasible. And, as you say, improved car hiring (in the UK, at least) and long-distance public transport is part of that.

    Yeah, no. Even in suburbia you need a top speed of at least 70 MPH, and be able to accelerate to 60 in under 10 seconds. That is so you can get on the highway without getting run over. Even to worst cars of the 80s (under powered by most measures) could hit 85 MPH (barely, with a tail wind).

    The reason the cars are juggernauts is mostly for safety, all that passenger protection (and air bags) costs weight. Smart for twos do not sell well here, and when you see where the pick up bumper ends up when next to one you can see why (it has got to be scary driving one of those).

    I do agree that pick-ups are too damn big, and SUVs are mostly unnecessary, but good luck trying to get that to change at this point.

    294:

    Yeah, I think about a 10kWh battery, look at the .4kWh battery on my EV and think... 10kWh would get me 300km at the maximum legal speed with no effort expended by me, if not further (but 10 hours is a long time to sit on a bike). Now if we just made a few tiny improvements to that EV, by adding a windbreak and an extra wheel or two, we could go faster and further with more comfort.

    Oh, but wait, that would be illegal. Obviously it's the physics that's at fault for this problem.

    295:

    “ Yeah, no. Even in suburbia you need a top speed of at least 70 MPH, ”

    You assume motorways/autobahns/highways are necessary. And that is true for a lot of people.

    But most people don’t drive on them, most days. Even in the USA most Americans work within 8 miles of their house, and most trips are a lot shorter.

    When I lived in the USA (in Indiana) I could easily go a month without driving on a highway with a speed limit over 30 mph.

    The problem is that our capitalist car system is designed around everyone owning their own vehicle, and it being suitable for their occasional long-distance high speed trip. People can’t leave home to pop down to the mall 2 miles away for a bottle of milk without taking a ton of steel with them, because once a month they use that pickup truck they drive to carry tools that would not fit in a small vehicle. People insist on driving every day a car with the range to do the long distance trip that they do once a year.

    I get why people do this. I really do. But everyone always taking an extra half-ton with them everywhere they go makes it the most staggeringly inefficient way to run a transport system imaginable.

    296:

    EC
    Driving/cars: As always, I'm an outlier - I try not to drive in London, where I live, that is what the Rail/Tube & if puished Bus networks are for, or alternatively Wiley E Bicycle. But there are places about 10 - 25 miles away from here, that I want to go to where there is zero public transport, or I want to bring stuff { Mushrooms, plants, manure } back with me, so I need an "estate" car or, at a push a decent hatchback with load space. Hiring? Forget it, I'm over 75.

    297:

    Back in the 80s a friend had a Toyota long-bed pickup with a king-cab. The truck had a slightly-overpowered 4-cylinder motor and was perfectly good for getting his Marshal Stack, his guitars, his speakers, his friends Marshal Stack, etc., all to a club and back, which tells me that with today's technology one could easily build a hybrid pickup that got 35-40 MPG and was easily usable for 99 percent of everything you'd want to do with a truck, with the possible exception of pulling a large trailer... but I've yet to see one. I wouldn't go as far as EC, but the poor understanding of use-cases is simply amazing.

    298:

    I said "it needs radical social and political changes". You could start with a speed limit of 40 MPH in all such highways in suburban areas :-) That might well improve the carrying capacity and speed up people's journeys, based on my experience of such things in several USA cities. And see what icehawk said. The same was true when I lived in Morgan Hill (San Jose) - even driving to Henry Coe State Park didn't need high speeds.

    To Greg: that's why I said the insurance/hire situation needs fixing.

    299:

    »was easily usable for 99 percent of everything you'd want to do«

    This is a very crucial point, where the trouble is that almost everybody I know buys their vehicles with eyes firmly set on 100% of everything they'd want to do.

    ... even when that is utterly stupid.

    I have friends who drive around i vehicles sized for pulling their boat out of the water once every year.

    They would objectively be better off on /all/ metrics, if they instead bought a vehicle dimensioned for the other 364 days, and rented a suitable 4WD one day a year.

    But there is absolutely no way to make the grasp the concept, they will, in the same breath, whine about how hard their vehicle is to park and why nothing less will do that one time a year.

    The main reason we will miss the 1.5° target is toxic masculinity.

    300:

    "Even in suburbia you need a top speed of at least 70 MPH, and be able to accelerate to 60 in under 10 seconds. That is so you can get on the highway without getting run over."

    I can't see how "suburbia" can be congruent with speeds approaching 70mph being anything other than flagrantly illegal, as well as being impossible to achieve and stupid to attempt except possibly around 3am. Even interpreting "top speed of 70mph" as indicating "can comfortably cope with some lesser speed" doesn't match with said lesser speed being in any sense "suburban".

    I also disagree that any car actually needs to be able to do 0 to 60 in under 10 seconds. It may make them more fun, but it certainly isn't necessary. When I learnt to drive, for practical purposes no cars could do it, including most "sports" cars; some models could manage it in road tests when driven in a manner that would rapidly break them if it was done at all often, but cars that could do it comfortably enough to manage it in regular use were unusual and expensive enough that seeing one on the road was a bit of an event.

    And since then, traffic speeds have actually become slower. The maximum speed limit has not increased, but it has become more stringently enforced, with a great deal of automated enforcement; the coverage of lower speed limits has been extended; and as traffic volumes have increased feasible speeds have reduced, with the lesser limits applicable to trucks becoming something of a de facto limit for cars in many places, so that even on roads where 60mph is legal it's often not possible to actually do it. On top of that, many junctions where slow roads meet fast ones have been altered to provide more distance in which to accelerate, or simply to prevent the movements calling for high acceleration altogether. Rapid 0 to 60 times were always of somewhat dubious relevance to everyday driving, and they're even less relevant now.

    301:

    I can't see how "suburbia" can be congruent with speeds approaching 70mph being anything other than flagrantly illegal

    I live in suburbia around a small city, and the first thing I do when I go downtown, for shopping and/or decent Indian food, is to get on the freeway. Around here it runs at about 80 mph (speed limit is 70 mph) and is full of semis and very large pickups pulling large trailers full of construction megaliths and machines. So you want to be able to do 90 easily, at least, to get enough maneuvering elbow room, if you have to. Yes, it is possible to get there, slowly, using very poorly maintained (difference between federal funds and local funds) surface roads.

    302:

    I live near Philadelphia, in suburbia. Like most most people in the Philadelphia area, I use the highway almost every time I go driving. I don't need to commute as often these days, but I've used one highway or other for nearly 20 years to get to work. It does cut down travel time, even in rush hour (because all the non-highway roads are also backed up).

    EC: The speed limit is 55 MPH, most people drive 70, and I have been passed like I was standing still when I was going 80. So, how is a 40 MPH speed limit going to help?

    Pigeon: That was there(UK) and then, I'm talking about here (USA, east coast) and now. You might think nobody needs the acceleration, but I think your dogma is going to get run over by somebody's karma. :)

    303:

    RE: '... ongoing project since 2017 called "e-krona". It's still being evaluated whether it's a viable solution. ... availability'

    Interesting - thanks!

    Apart from 'availability' (electricity?), I'm assuming they'll also be examining other adoption and performance metrics. Would be interesting to learn what issues they've uncovered so far.

    304:

    Well, you (i.e. your community, whatever it is) could always try enforcing the limits. Yes, I know that it is heresy against neoliberalism :-)

    305:

    I'll leave aside the bit where EC and you have both just reinvented the Citroen e-Ami again (despite my explaining that it has no functionality in an extra-urban environment several times). And just show you a case study for why you need good, if not tyre and clutch torturing, acceleration.
    At 55.858123, -4.450348 there is a roundabout, with traffic lights. If you want to join the M8 westbound from the A737 northbound, you will probably require to accelerate from rest to 40mph in about 600 feet, hold speed for 200 feet to get a sightline to the motorway traffic, and may then require to accelerate from 40 to 70mph in 300 feet.

    306:

    Nojay @ 265:

    Britain has a lot of gas-fuelled generating plant and right now gas, although more expensive than last year is cheap enough that exporting gas-fuelled electricity to the rest of Europe at a time of high wholesale electricity prices is good business for British generating companies. ...

    Sometimes what's "good for business" may not be so good for their customers.

    307:

    Having commuted a 40 mile round trip on a CG125 (tiny Honda L plate legal motorbike), I can assure you that decent acceleration is pretty crucial for little vehicles. Otherwise, everyone is pretty much describing why we need electric motorcycles of around 20-30bhp. Small, efficient, moving the minimum of metal for one or two people.

    308:

    You assume motorways/autobahns/highways are necessary. And that is true for a lot of people. But most people don’t drive on them, most days

    That has set me thinking about all the different "suburbias". The ones that really were old towns/villages that have grown into and/or been absorbed by urban sprawl, the ones that grew along railway lines and have since done the same, the ones that were estate developments from mid-century on, and those where their only connection to the rest of the world is via a highway/freeway (possibly the only "local shops" are in a commercial estate at the highway turnoff/clover-leaf/town bypass). I've probably missed some. I've no idea what proportion of people live in which, and I suspect it varies from place to place.

    309:

    I think you're mistaking the destination for the path. I agree that smaller, lighter, and slower is a good destination, but we've got to get there from the Juggernauts we currently have.

    Since we're talking about Juggernauts, I'll introduce another idea from the same region: karma. Here I'm not talking about supernatural account balancing, but an operational definition, that previous decisions have real world consequences, and these have to be retrofitted or otherwise dealt with as part of the process of getting to a better world.

    One example of this is stranding some 38 million Americans in the Colorado River watershed, where we're dependent on water from a river that we've known for decades cannot provide that water in perpetuity. But people keep moving here. Karma is how all that will work out over the next decade, as either the river runs dry (dooming people to move or die), water use norms change, or a miracle happens (hah). That's all karma.

    With respect to karma, the local highway structures mean I have to be able to go from 0 to 70 mph (110 kph, traffic speed) in about 650 feet (ca. 200 m) to avoid a rear-end collision with another car going 70 mph or faster. Why this situation happened is a layering of geography, traffic laws, and stupid urban planning, but it works so long as people all drive juggernauts, either ICE or EV. I'd refer to this situation as karma, not because it's supernatural, but because all the bad decisions that got us into this idiocy have to be counteracted before it's safe for a slower, lighter vehicle to use the highway.

    This kind of "karma" is what I mean about mistaking the destination for the path. I think many of us would be happy getting off the path of the juggernaut. Unfortunately, we have to burn off a lot of accumulated karma ("car-ma?") to get off that path, and that's going to take work, time and resources. And/or cataclysmic change.

    Life's unsatisfactory sometimes.

    310:

    CG125 (tiny Honda L plate legal motorbike)

    And I used to commute a roughly 30km round trip with a 49cc Honda scooter. Sure, there was no-where on that route with a speed limit higher than 70km/h (around 40mph), but lacking an ability to accelerate away from danger didn't make much difference... IMHO sharing a road with quarry trucks means any kind of two-wheeler relies more on trust and luck than most riders would acknowledge.

    311:

    "The main reason we will miss the 1.5° target is toxic masculinity."

    I think women will frequently make the same bad decisions, and naturally everyone looks to the worst case scenario when their safety is concerned. "I like the Prius, but what if I have an accident with the neighbor's hypermasculine Humvee?"

    312:

    Pigeon @ 300:

    "Even in suburbia you need a top speed of at least 70 MPH, and be able to accelerate to 60 in under 10 seconds. That is so you can get on the highway without getting run over."

    I can't see how "suburbia" can be congruent with speeds approaching 70mph being anything other than flagrantly illegal, as well as being impossible to achieve and stupid to attempt except possibly around 3am. Even interpreting "top speed of 70mph" as indicating "can comfortably cope with some lesser speed" doesn't match with said lesser speed being in any sense "suburban".

    Maybe if you never have to leave suburbia and take the expressway into the city ... and never need to worry about merging into the oncoming flow of HGVs (18-wheel tractor-trailers in the U.S.) without getting run over.

    313:

    One example of this is stranding some 38 million Americans in the Colorado River watershed, where we're dependent on water from a river that we've known for decades cannot provide that water in perpetuity. But people keep moving here.

    One of the best examples anywhere of an entire country kicking the can down the road. When things do hit the wall I expect that the farmers will loose their water rights. But Congress will have to say so as legally they come ahead of people at this time.

    Of course it will go along with all kinds of rending of garments, gnashing of teeth, and complaints about the price of food. But isn't the food in the US already cheaper than in most of the world in terms of even a poor families annual income?

    But the farmers vs. citizens fight will be fierce. And even if the citizens win it will only be temporary as one or both of these will be happening.

    People will keep moving to where they shouldn't and just delay the day of citizen reckoning. Or things will be so bad when the farmers are told "sorry" that there is still too much demand for the Colorado to recover.

    314:

    I have to be able to go from 0 to 70 mph (110 kph, traffic speed) in about 650 feet (ca. 200 m) to avoid a rear-end collision

    Now to me this is more about sensible people being so cowed by the behaviour of reckless idiots that they feel it's necessary to behave as they do. I'm kinda grateful that, among all the various possibilities, it was my grandfather who taught me to drive. I remember turning on to a highway and anxiously bringing up the speed, he'd insist that was not required: cars coming up behind would slow down. In fact they are obliged to, and can always go around if that's too much trouble (most of SEQ has been "dual carriageway", that is two lanes each way on major highways since the 70s). This was with a 3-on-the-tree, straight-8 70s car, not exactly a muscle car but also not slack in the power department, so it wasn't like acceleration was much of a problem (okay, timing the clutch and accelerator as a novice driving a manual might have slowed us down a bit).

    But it does seem like people these days believe the posted speed limit is some sort of minimum, that it's reckless and even illegal to go slower than that or even less than 10km/h faster someplaces. They are completely wrong of course, but it's remarkable how vehemently they'll defend that wrongness. I'm in favour of lower speed limits everywhere myself, and there has been progress on that front (most city streets in Brisbane have 50 rather than the old 60km/h limits for instance, and 24/7 40 zones, not just school zones, are a thing too).

    315:

    Well said. Rowling and others have frequently claimed that they experienced their own gender anxiety as children/teenagers and, born into the modern world, they fear they might have been pushed towards transition. It's a baseless concern.

    As a boy, I identified more strongly with girls than boys: I liked reading and I disliked sports and I felt a lot more at ease in the company of girls than boys. Even today, most of my closest friends are women and I'm generally more comfortable with them than other men. But I've never been able to understand what it is to be trans. That gulf in comprehension is "gender dysphoria". You either have it or you don't, and there's a whole spectrum of gender non-conforming and androgynous folk, as well as effeminate men and masculine women, and people who just like to play with gender conventions, who don't experience gender dysphoria anymore than I do. And no one who's spent more than a few moments conversing with a trans person at any length would think that anyone would transition on a whim. It's a whole bunch of bullshit to put yourself through unless you've got a very strong compulsion to go through it.

    316:

    Yeah, I think this school of thought is called "transphobia".

    well, if u want to interpret "there is a school of thought that worries that..." as "...and i support it wholeheartedly", knock urself out. i got terf relatives, that's where i hear about this stuff

    not really surprising that the % of self-identifying lesbians is increasing considering how much more acceptance of it there is these days. gallup reckons one in five gen z identified as lgbt in 2021, the graph for the various age cohorts looks practically exponential

    317:

    Damian @ 314:

    I have to be able to go from 0 to 70 mph (110 kph, traffic speed) in about 650 feet (ca. 200 m) to avoid a rear-end collision

    Now to me this is more about sensible people being so cowed by the behaviour of reckless idiots that they feel it's necessary to behave as they do. I'm kinda grateful that, among all the various possibilities, it was my grandfather who taught me to drive. I remember turning on to a highway and anxiously bringing up the speed, he'd insist that was not required: cars coming up behind would slow down. In fact they are obliged to, and can always go around if that's too much trouble (most of SEQ has been "dual carriageway", that is two lanes each way on major highways since the 70s). This was with a 3-on-the-tree, straight-8 70s car, not exactly a muscle car but also not slack in the power department, so it wasn't like acceleration was much of a problem (okay, timing the clutch and accelerator as a novice driving a manual might have slowed us down a bit).

    But it does seem like people these days believe the posted speed limit is some sort of minimum, that it's reckless and even illegal to go slower than that or even less than 10km/h faster someplaces. They are completely wrong of course, but it's remarkable how vehemently they'll defend that wrongness. I'm in favour of lower speed limits everywhere myself, and there has been progress on that front (most city streets in Brisbane have 50 rather than the old 60km/h limits for instance, and 24/7 40 zones, not just school zones, are a thing too).

    I'm not sure what your grandfather might have been thinking, but his method is an invitation to CAUSE traffic accidents. Making your speed consistent with the flow of traffic is NOT reckless.

    When turning onto a highway, you need to accelerate to highway speed quickly. The sooner you are moving along at the same speed as the other traffic the better. You should also be looking for on-coming traffic BEFORE YOU TURN OUT ONTO THE HIGHWAY and allowing enough time to accelerate to highway speed so they don't have to swerve to avoid you.

    A "dual carriageway" should have on-ramps where you can accelerate to highway speeds BEFORE merging ... and you should be modulating your acceleration so that you can merge seamlessly into an open space between the other vehicles.

    Here's a personal example - plug 36.007379743414575, -78.93032257975527 [N36°, W78.9°] into whatever online map you use. I have to make this merge returning home every time I have an appointment at the VA Hospital in Durham, NC (USA).

    Google street view doesn't show how BUSY that section of the Durham Freeway usually is. I have approximately 1,000 feet to find a hole in the traffic and get my speed modulated so that I arrive at the bottom of the ramp just in time to merge with the hole.

    The speed limit on Elba St is 25 mph (40 kmph) & I have the right of way, so I'm not quite having to do 0-60 from a standing start, but I still need to be doing at least 60 mph (96.5 kmph) by the time I get to the bottom of the ramp AND I need to be able to merge right away because of the on ramp running out.

    I looked it up on-line & my Jeep is rated at 0-60 in 8.5 seconds. I don't have to accelerate like a maniac to make my merge, but the bit of extra oomph I have available if I needed it is comforting.

    318:

    Closest thing to that would be a Ford Maverick hybrid, which gets that sort of mileage, though the bed's on the short side.

    319:

    It amuses me to characterize the super sized pick ups as "My very own monster truck!".

    320:

    My girlfriend at the time was into horses, and drove a huge, longbed Ford truck with wheels that were waist high. It had been raised until the bottom of the truck was at least two feet off the ground. It wasn't so much a "monster truck" as the kind of truck that ranchers use to carry hay bales to the high-pastures during a blizzard...

    When my friend brought his truck home she looked at my friend's Toyota King Cab. Then she looked at her huge Ford. Then she looked at my friend's Toyota King Cab. "Joe!" she said,* her voice full of outrage. "You picked it before it was ripe!"

    * Not his real name.

    321:

    You know what, if you want to reengineer things so people don't have to buy cars with enormous batteries for that occasional long distance trip... you don't need super fast charging or other new innovations.

    Just stick pantographs on them. Wiring highways, and only highways, for overhead power is entirely doable civil engineering.

    Now, my own impulse here is to deliberately put the wires too low for long distance trucking. Use the actual railroads for that.

    323:

    I'm not sure what your grandfather was thinking, but pulling out slow in front of traffic that is doing highway speed is an offence "driving without due consideration for other road users". So I agree with JohnS' post 317, and have supplied a different worked example, which is even from a 3rd nation.

    324:

    Thomas Jørgensen said: Use the actual railroads for that.

    If I was boss of everything, and/or redesigning everything, I'd have rail for most everything.

    Flat 30 km/h speed limit for all (including pedalecs) non emergency vehicles (with speed limiters). Rail twice the size in every dimension with roll on roll off for any journeys over the 60 odd km range of Citroën Ami and similar (including EC's recumbent). Onboard the train charging, so you arrive somewhere nearish to your destination with a full charge. Stops maybe 60 km apart. All free at the point of use for non commercial users. 200 km/h between stops.

    Door to door, less up front cost than a car, faster point to point for the vast majority of trips and all electric, so potentially zero carbon. Safer, quieter towns, safe cycling, less money wasted on roads, reasonably easy transition as the existing fleet can all be driven at 30 km/h.

    325:

    well, if u want to interpret "there is a school of thought that worries that..." as "...and i support it wholeheartedly", knock urself out. i got terf relatives, that's where i hear about this stuff

    Lezsek didn't imply that you hold the view, just said that the view is transphobic.

    As you say, it's more acceptable for women to self-identify as lesbians, these days, and so we see more self-identifying lesbians. Likewise, it's more acceptable to be openly trans, and so more people are openly trans.

    Anti-gay activists claim that the increase in the number of self-identifying lesbians is because young girls have been brainwashed by left-wing academics into hating the D. (My wife's cousin tragically believes this about his own daughter: I imagine she can barely wait to go no-contact with him once she's old enough to remove herself from his care.) I think we can all agree this stance is homophobic: it delegitimises the deeply-held truths of the self-identifying lesbians in question. It's likewise transphobic to believe the same thing about trans men. (And, to be clear, I don't allege that anyone on this forum holds any of the views that I'm critiquing.)

    326:

    Thomas Jørgensen @ 321: Just stick pantographs on them. Wiring highways, and only highways, for overhead power is entirely doable civil engineering.

    There is an experimental section of highway with exactly that.

    The trouble is, its only suitable for big lorries (aka HGVs, 18-wheelers). You can't put the wires any lower because big trucks couldn't use the road, and a pantograph capable of reaching that high isn't feasible to put on top of a car.

    Not to say its a bad idea; road freight uses an awful lot of fuel. But at the bigger end of automotive you find other systems like hydrogen, or even Al-S batteries become a lot more practical. (Al-S batteries are superior to Li-ion in just about every way except for needing to be at something over boiling point to start working, and producing poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas if any water gets in). So its not clear that electric pantographs for trucks are the way to go.

    Actually this is kind of a general problem. There are lots of potential technologies out there, but everyone is worried about backing the wrong horse so there is a dearth of big investment. For some technologies thats OK: I expect commercial Al-S batteries to start hitting the market in a year or two, and they will do very well in static situations before possibly moving to large automotive. But putting pantographs on all trucks and power lines over all highways is the kind of thing that takes massive government investment, so it won't happen until all other possibilities have been exhausted (i.e. too late).

    327:

    hippoptolemy
    Thank you - me too, not that I met any girls before the age of 18 that you would notice.
    Yeah: "gender dysphoria" - will now connect that with your description.

    328:

    Well I suppose more context helps. It was a plain 90º turn onto the highway, no on-ramp. You get quite a lot of these when the highway lacks freeway/motorway features but is itself a pretty nice road. The oncoming traffic was maybe half a kilometre away, possibly more, but you could see it quite well because as noted it was a pretty nice road.

    I should point out also that my reaction at the time was much the same as yours and JBS/JohnS's, since my experience at that point, maybe more as a passenger, was also mostly urban or peri-urban. And I'd still probably have agreed with you maybe 20 years ago. I don't really now... and I am finding I think everyone else just needs to slow down a bit, maybe a lot. Double or triple the following distance they think is appropriate, and even then it's probably not safe. I think that believing it's safe to do some of these speeds and follow this closely is prima facie evidence of not being competent to do so.

    329:

    Your argument is flawed. What matters is not my hair trigger following distance, but my actual following distance and the distance I observe ahead. As my observation distance in clear conditions will be over 1 mile (1.6km) I will be off the throttle, and possibly lightly on the brakes before the driver 2 vehicles ahead reacts visibly.

    330:

    There are sodium-based batteries already out there, on the market for nearly twenty years now. NGK in Japan has been making sodium-sulphur storage batteries and selling them for mere money for that time, and only a few of them have caught fire. The biggest deployment of these batteries is used as a buffer for a small wind farm in Japan, about 220MWh capacity.

    There were experiments to make mobile versions of the Na-S batteries for trucks and buses, generally they were not a success because, you know, molten sodium. Containment of the electrolyte in case of an accident was a major issue, the volume the batteries took up was another and the heat from the molten electrolyte was a third.

    TL:DR; don't expect the Al-S batteries to be an EV "game changer". Anyone saying that is trying to sell you something.

    331:

    Well, similar, but not the same. However, from WHERE did you get the idea that extra-urban means motorways? I can assure you that it doesn't, and it's perfectly practical to travel around most of suburban and rural Britain in a pony and trap or on my recumbent. Indeed, the current rules require that there is already an alternative route for vehicles forbidden on motorways. What's more, speeds of above 40 MPH (often lower) make very little difference to travelling time on most suburban and rural trips.

    I agree that there is a problem in quite a few places where the only viable routes are on trunk roads, including around where I live, which is a significant obstacle to travelling by cycle, invalid vehicle etc., but the problems are not insoluble. Please do remember that I said "radical social and political changes", and that we have both a climate crisis and (in the UK) a burdgeoning transport one.

    332:

    I agree. There is a very big difference between industrial uses and vehicular ones. Not merely do vehicles get in among dense housing etc., restricting cowboy manufacturers is a problem, and ensuring proper maintenance is a worse one. If there is a game-changing battery, my bet is that it will be an aluminium one (of some sort).

    333:

    For your information, there are very few 'expressways from suburbia into the city' in the UK (*) and, in all cases (as far as I know), there are viable alternative routes. This is a case where people familiar with only one of the countries are prone to make erroneous assumptions about the other.

    However, given my experience of 15 MPH travel on both UK motorways and USA freeways, I am unconvinced that the high speeds of such suburban links gain anything very much.

    (*) Yes, I know London and Glasgow have some, and so do some other major cities, but they are still rare.

    334:

    WHERE did you get the idea that I think that extra-urban means motorways? Not from anything I've said for sure. Extra-urban means "between towns", but that does not exclude you having to join a road (which may be single or dual carriageway, and may even be single track) on which the 90th percentile speed may be at or even above the ruling speed limit.

    335:

    Then I don't understand the point of your example in #305.

    336:

    I don't see any real "game-changing" batteries on the horizon. Lithium-chemistry is about as good as it gets for volume, mass etc. in mobile applications and there are hard physical limits on capacity per kilogram of battery material that we're already pushing up against. There are other battery chemistries that are better than lithium but they involve elemental fluorine and result in byproducts that are banned under various chemical weapons treaties if they are released in an accident. Molten-sodium electrolyte batteries have a better raw capacity than lithium but the cell structures, armour etc. for mobile applications add a lot of extra weight and negate the electrochemical benefits.

    Li-tech batteries have a lab-bench capacity of about 200Wh/kg. By the time armour, cell structure support materials etc. are added the on-the-road capacity is about 140Wh/kg[1] which is fucking amazing compared to what I was reading about forty years ago in journals like "EV Development" when Ni-Cd were the best batteries you could get for cars and lead-acid was still an acceptable solution to mobile traction (as in the General Motors EV1 experiment).

    [1] Worked example, an 80kWh Tesla battery pack weighs 575kg.

    337:

    Agreed, but there were a couple of links to theoretical/laboratory ones using aluminium that had potential for being significantly better (higher capacity AND safer) - and I accept that such technologies are 'over the horizon' because a significant proportion do not pan out in practice. My point was that IF there is a game-changer, it would be one of those. Maybe by 2035, or maybe not.

    A Shimano STEPS one is 160 Wh/Kg, but needs less armour (being only 630 Wh).

    338:

    Reading a bit more, "e-krona" is indeed intended to work as electronic cash, and there's also an implied goal to make it as easy to use as real cash. They started testing technical solutions this year.

    A recurring theme in the project description is the state taking back control of money from private banks. Electronic payments are wholly dependent on private banks today, and the project is intended as an alternative, state-controlled form of payment.

    This also means that businesses will be able to set up their own payment systems without having to rely on banks.

    The text i've read doesn't mention anything about tracing transactions and suchlike, but I haven't read everything.

    339:

    Time to take a cold hard bite of a reality sandwich.

    Peter Zeihan on "Why The EV Revolution won’t happen" - and why renewables won't save us.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fwdSyA6AB0

    340:

    Interesting. I don't know the junction in question - I've only ever driven to Glasgow once, and that was in a Morris Minor; I encountered some of the M8 gubbinsery, but nothing west of the city centre - but from the OS 1:25000 map it doesn't look as bad as some; at least you seem to have a decent downhill gradient on the slip road, unlike say the M6/A59 Preston junction where the slip roads slope quite badly uphill and the motorway itself is going through the bottom of a dip so all the trucks can overrun their limiters, which I'm most familiar with from tackling it in the same Morris Minor quite a few times. Not fun, but by no means un-copable-with.

    Granted that without your local knowledge I don't know the specific local modifiers relating to the Linwood junction, but in general terms your joining procedure seems to differ from mine in one important respect: you pause in the middle of your acceleration phase to build your 4D model of the traffic flow you're joining, whereas I do the acceleration and the model-building in parallel, beginning from the moment a view of the main flow becomes available, with frequent glances over my shoulder, and then modulating the final stages of my acceleration to match with the gap I've selected. The main difficulties I find are handling the sudden extreme burst of cognitive load, and (depending on car) the fucking B-pillars getting in the way.

    From previous discussions on here about driving I get the impression that you and I have similar views regarding the extent and detail required of the 4D model of the road situation and the amount of observation and processing needed to maintain it (cf. your comment @ 329 above), but in my case the associated real-world experience is of much more time spent driving fairly slow cars (Morris Minors, works vans, other people's manky old wrecks) and rather less of fairly fast ones, which gives a different slant to the overall picture. So in things like your Linwood example you find it natural to think in terms of being able to knock the burst congitive load down a bit by using the capabilities of the car to compensate, whereas I am more used to having to put more effort into the modelling in order to find an outcome matching the restrictions imposed by the limitations of the car's ungenerous performance envelope.

    Regarding those Ami things, again it looks like we broadly agree but are coming at it from different angles. Under current British conditions, yeah, they do rather suck, because you need something else for extra-urban duties and it makes little sense to deal with two full portions of having-a-car hassle and expense instead of just having one car that can handle both. But as I understand it French laws and regulations use more than a single bit to describe "a car", and have several lesser categories below "full-on car" which make it much easier to keep a sub-car for urban use only and a proper one for longer trips as well.

    With British regulations as they are, I am "lucky" enough to find it practical to keep an urban-only vehicle, in the form of my mobility scooter, since I can "show a need" for it ("Certainly, officer, I'll take the seat off it and you can watch what that does to me"). If I lived in France, I'd be glad to be able to have something of the nature of the Ami to use for the same purposes but with some proper weather protection and better load-carrying capability. (It does often seem that in the lottery of life, being born British is a lesser prize than being born French.)

    341:

    The structure overheads for electric vehicle batteries actual decrease as the battery pack gets bigger -- the proposed Tesla semi-truck battery is reported to be 6000kWh but it weighs less than four tonnes, so it's better in terms of overall energy density than the higher-end Tesla cars. I think it's a volume-to-external-surface-area thing, it's also possible the semi-truck battery is more cubical than the flat floor-pan sandwich of the Tesla cars.

    As for the Shimano and other e-bike batteries they're not powering the sort of vehicle that can be rear-ended in a road collision leaving several people injured and trapped in an enclosed structure that is now burning with 50kWh of stored electrical energy underneath them. E-bike batteries don't need and don't have the same safety structures as road vehicle EV batteries really need to have.

    342:

    The Youtuber Zeihan opines on a lot of things. His level of expertise on any of these things is another matter.

    343:

    My current car has a nominal 0-60 time of well over 14 seconds and, like you, I have driven a lot of slower ones - sometimes MUCH slower! As you say, it's not a major problem, but is sometimes an inconvenience.

    Your last two points are closely related to the ones I was making about insurance and hiring. Yes, what I propose would need major regulatory changes, which we badly need - but we DON'T need what the DfT would give us.

    344:

    FWIW, I believe, without evidence, that there's an actual increase in the proportion of lesbians, gays, and transexuals these days. I attribute it to pollution by estrogen-mimicking chemicals in the environment. But I acknowledge that this is without evidence and may be wrong. (There's also a study on rats (or was it mice) that claimed that increased population density lead to an increase in homosexuality. So there are other plausible reasons. Which still doesn't prove that it's happening.)

    345:

    Nojay @ 330: There are sodium-based batteries already out there, on the market for nearly twenty years now.

    Who said anything about sodium? I'm talking about Aluminium-Sulphur chemistry, which does not require molten sodium metal. What it does require is molten aluminium salts. The electrochemistry is complex, which is what seems to have held up progress. But the basic idea is an aluminium anode, an aluminium-sulphide cathode, and aluminium chloride in the middle. The problem has been to control all the different combinations of Al, S and Cl that form during charging and discharging while also producing an electrolyte that is liquid at reasonable temperatures. Once you've done that (and it seems that the MIT team has) you have a battery with energy densities on a par with or better than Li-ion, made from atoms that are cheaply available in large quantities all over the planet. Also it won't catch fire like lithium does, and dendrites are not a problem.

    346:

    @ 314 "But it does seem like people these days believe the posted speed limit is some sort of minimum, that it's reckless and even illegal to go slower than that or even less than 10km/h faster someplaces."

    From a British perspective it sounds very weird to hear that kind of thing as a statement of current conditions. 30 years ago perhaps, but not these days, with speed cameras all over the place and all the anti-speed propaganda accompanying their proliferation. Mr. Tim's post @ 302 gives me a similar "what, these days?!" reaction.

    The result of that propaganda is that the roads are now full of people who think that "safe driving" === "sticking rigidly to the number on the lollipop" and that's all they need to know; once they've passed their test they can switch their brain off and as long as they follow that single rule they are simon-pure and can't possibly be faulted for anything they do. I, shall we say, do not approve; reality is not far off being the other way round, and such attitudes are a dangerous cognitive block against realising this important point.

    @ 310 "IMHO sharing a road with quarry trucks means any kind of two-wheeler relies more on trust and luck than most riders would acknowledge."

    The usual motorcyclists' mantra is that you assume everyone else on the road is actively trying to kill you, and ride accordingly. It may be technically a bit of an exaggeration but in practical terms it's realistic advice.

    As for "accelerating out of danger", I remember my dad telling me before I was old enough to drive that this idea is a fallacy because cars just can't do it. Nor can Joe 90s or CG125s. The use of acceleration in avoiding danger comes in recognising in advance that a dangerous situation is going to develop at a point which lies on your current trajectory in 4D space, and the wider situation is such that accelerating is an available means of altering said trajectory so the point is no longer on it. For the situation to be developing around you means you have failed in observation and anticipation, and it is unwise to think in terms of being able to rely on acceleration as a means of compensating for such failures even if your vehicle does have enough to give that a chance of working.

    347:

    trans men generally find it much easier to pass, and hardly anyone feels threatened by their existence

    Not according to transmasc friends of mine: while most old-school TERFs (remember that's an acronym to Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists, which almost invariably means AFAB and cis) merely view them as "class traitors" seeking male social status, a lot of the more recent right wing male GCs (who are often neo-nazi types) violently hate them because they're not submitting to their biologically predetermined role of being passive vessels waiting to bear said GC males' babies.

    The GCs refer to breast reduction surgery as "mutilation" because in the case of transmasc people it's a visible reminder that they decline to live as obedient feminine chattel. They're all about owning a herd of childbearing submissive feminine property, and F-to-M transition reduces the pool of "available" women for them to impregnate (in their own imagination).

    348:

    Nojay & others
    Wiley E bicycle uses Shimano STEPS ....

    Charlie @ 347
    Euwwww ....

    349:

    What is GC in this context?

    350:

    GC = Gender Critical. It's what TERFs prefer to be called these days, stating that the term TERF is a slur.

    351:

    Remember I wrote in the previous thread that Zeihan seems to believe that every trend will continue forever? Well, literally first 30 seconds of this video confirm this. Yes, CURRENTLY most of the rare-earth elements which go into EV's come from China and Russia -- because it is CURRENTLY cheaper. Canada and Australia have just as much and more, and if China decides to "hold the world hostage", it will become profitable to mine these elements elsewhere. (Not that China is likely to be that stupid.)

    This is such a tired strawman, it is enough for me to dismiss Zeihan permanently.

    352:

    I'm talking about Aluminium-Sulphur chemistry, which does not require molten sodium metal. What it does require is molten aluminium salts. The electrochemistry is complex, which is what seems to have held up progress. But the basic idea is an aluminium anode, an aluminium-sulphide cathode, and aluminium chloride in the middle.

    Oh joy, the triplet issue... There are some exotic lab-bench and theoretical battery technologies I've seen mentioned that use two sandwiches of electrolytic action to boost the Wh/kg figure without, hopefully degrading the maximum current the cell can output. They tend to run into some... interesting, shall we say, energetic chemical bond issues as well as problems with manufacturing batteries to be sold into a market that otherwise restricts the retail sale of defective handgrenades to the general public. I'm just surprised they didn't use fluorine instead of chlorine, that's all.

    Once you've done that (and it seems that the MIT team has) you have a battery with energy densities on a par with or better than Li-ion, made from atoms that are cheaply available in large quantities all over the planet. Also it won't catch fire like lithium does, and dendrites are not a problem.

    The fire issue with lithium batteries in vehicles isn't a chemical oxidation issue, it's the stored electrochemical energy that wants to be free when shit goes wrong, like the dead shorts caused by the battery pack folding in half in a collision or other situations like charging operations going wrong. Unless this lab-queen Biggest Battery Breakthrough Since Breakfast from some postgrads at MIT can magically dissipate a couple of megajoules of stored energy without cooking something extra-crispy in such a scenario then a fire (or something that looks very much like a fire) is going to eventuate.

    As for rarity of materials, sodium and sulphur are common as muck and cheap as chips but they're not the most expensive part of an Na-S battery. Lithium isn't that expensive either, comparatively speaking -- the more expensive part of an EV car battery cell is the cobalt used as electrode material in many designs and the Jiant Brains are working hard to reduce the amount use or even replace cobalt in future Li-ion and Li-poly battery designs.

    353:

    The usual motorcyclists' mantra is that you assume everyone else on the road is actively trying to kill you, and ride accordingly. It may be technically a bit of an exaggeration but in practical terms it's realistic advice.

    True, this. Volvo drivers especially get suspected of being willing to chase a biker through a revolving door and up a flight of steps to tell them "Sorry mate, I didn't see you."

    354:

    That is why I liked the aluminium-water design that operated only above 100 Celsius - cool it down (yes, with water!) and all is well. Of course, it was only a conceptual design, and we all know what that means in terms of viability and timescale ....

    355:

    It's not just motorcyclists. In my experience, Volvos have been superseded in that by BMWs and Range Rovers.

    356:

    The fire issue with lithium batteries in vehicles isn't a chemical oxidation issue, it's the stored electrochemical energy that wants to be free when shit goes wrong, like the dead shorts caused by the battery pack folding in half in a collision or other situations like charging operations going wrong. Unless this lab-queen Biggest Battery Breakthrough Since Breakfast from some postgrads at MIT can magically dissipate a couple of megajoules of stored energy without cooking something extra-crispy in such a scenario then a fire (or something that looks very much like a fire) is going to eventuate.

    I agree with you, but to be fair, I have to point out that any really useful energy storage medium is going to have the same problem.

    Not aimed at you: I've had to deal with lithium freak-outs from other people (OMG it catches fire! EEKZ) and when I point out that current batteries have around one-third the energy density of gasoline, it takes a long time for this to sink in.

    Anyway, I hope we can get to carbon-something-something electrodes, and that nickel foil fast-charging trick turns out to be easy to implement at scale.

    Oh yeah, and I hope we get really, really good at recycling lithium batteries. That appears to be a bottleneck at the moment.

    357:

    The two comments I have about transmen are:

  • Gender reassignment surgery may come after the mastectomies or never happen at all. We get so focused on what's going on with transmen above the waist that we ignore that any changes below the waist are much more complicated and personal. Probably not focusing on the latter is a good thing, generally, but the news does get their shorts in knots over transmen getting pregnant, which some have.

  • Unfortunately, I still remember the Brandon Teena case from the 1990s. We've come some good distance from that, but I'm not sure that transmen are perfectly safe yet.

  • 358:

    I think, given the recent and ongoing cultural evolutions in the acceptance of LGBT+ people, that it is close to impossible to distinguish between an actual change in the number of them and a change in how many can now, at least, be open about it.

    360:

    Do we actually have any decent data on the relative incidence of conflagrations following comparably destructive crashes for lithium vs. petrol? I'd hazard a guess that there's a lot less in it than people seem to think there is.

    As regards unpleasant reaction products from battery chemicals and extinguishing water, it has to be said I'm a lot happier with H2S than with HF.

    361:

    Gasoline on its own has an energy density of essentially zero. And, when talking about its energy density as a fuel, aluminium has much more. That's a straw man, though I agree that it could be useful when talking to idiots.

    The reasons that lithium batteries are more problematic are (a) they can ignite spontaneously and even without leaking to outside and (b) there is effectively no way to put the damn things out once they have started. The only plausible fuel that is as bad from a safety point of view is hydrogen.

    This is of particular relevance to the UK, because our "let's abolish all regulations" government is likely to allow large (i.e. car) batteries to be made to the same standards as small (e.g. hand-held device up to E-bike) ones, and experience with the safety of the bucket shop end of those is not good.

    362:

    I have seen an unsourced claim that Teslas have suffered 38 fire-related deaths from approximately 3 million cars sold. This is compared to another gasoline car which had 25 fire-related deaths in approximately the same number of cars sold. The Ford Pinto.

    363:

    I can't find any decent data but, according to this, EVs are twice as likely to catch fire.

    https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/manufacturer-news/2020/11/27/vehicle-fire-data-suggests-higher-incident-rate-for-evs

    For the record: I am NOT anti-EV, but I am opposed to the claims that they are panacaeas, and most definitely in favour of tight regulation on safety.

    364:

    I can't see how "suburbia" can be congruent with speeds approaching 70mph being anything other than flagrantly illegal

    I assume you've never driven in the USA.

    What an American means by "suburbia" would in the UK be considered open countryside. (Think A-roads.)

    What a Brit considers "suburbia" would, in the USA, be classified as dense urban development.

    NOTE FOR AMERICANS ON THIS BLOG: when a Brit is talking about "suburbia" they mean dense urban sprawl along roads where the houses might have a garden and/or a garage and are spaced maybe 5-10 metres apart and there are sidewalks and you can walk alongside the nice quiet street with a 20-30mph speed limit.

    What Americans call "suburbia isn't a thing in the UK.

    365:

    @Charlie,

    So, how long did it take you to realize that Mastodon instances are no different than regular old-time forums, and that no amount of tiny forums can replace one big forum with a single moderation policy? Or are you still getting there?

    366:

    The news is depressing, outrageous and EVIL all of the time ...

    367:

    Pigeon said: Do we actually have any decent data on the relative incidence of conflagrations following comparably destructive crashes for lithium vs. petrol?

    Not really.

    The problem is definitions, and no one can agree. Tesla crashes into a house, hits the water heater, car's occupant gets out, house catches fire, burning house sets Tesla on fire, 20 minutes later battery pack vents flammable electrolyte and produces flame, news crew arrive, photographs and videos are widely disseminated "Tesla explodes in driveway".

    That's a real example.

    How reliable are the 38 deaths related to fire? I'd say zero.

    Another "Tesla exploded, driver dead" story that was widely disseminated, with photos of a burning forest, turned out to be a German driver decided to take a detour through a forest, while driving at 250 km/h. Yeah some of the widely scattered cells were punctured and vented with flame. However the driver was long dead by that time.

    Well documented examples of electric cars burning after a crash imply that unlike petrol cars that immediately catch fire, there's plenty of time to extract the driver before flame appears (see Richard Hammond vs Nikki Lauder)

    368:

    If all Musk wants to do is shut Twitter down and reboot the whole company top to bottom front to back and side to side from a cd-rom, then fire everybody and run it off a skeleton crew of cheap new hires, he could milk it like a cash cow for all those sweet advertising revenues to fund his other more complicated ventures. Just think of all those six figure salaries going right into his wallet. Say for after a Carrington event, how many disks full of optical media would you have to sit and feed in to reboot a company, go in and start at 9 a.m. could you be done by lunch? And in case he succeeds, who's next? Maybe the government? Certainly not the whole economy, but big parts of it; banking, insurance, media, real estate....WHEE! Like covid, send everybody home and watch the world collapse, not.

    369:

    context = dang if I know

    those studies into effects of increasing population density on rodents of various species were in the decades following 'em to be flawed given the failure to provide the typical environmental challenges... stuff to keep 'em occupied... toys, challenges, complex passageways... of course 'after the fact' & retrograde definition of the studies were deemed to have included deliberately impoverished environments... supposedly to simulate boredom... what the underlying flaw of such studies was no animal has ever evolved in an environment of unlimited food & water and finite space... sort of like a study where people are offered infinite money but little stimulation... just flawed... whatever sexual/reproductive really happens amongst rodents in the wild tends to be hasty-quiet-shadowy because "predators" you know?

    370:

    Pigeon replied to this comment from Mr. Tim | November 19, 2022 20:49

    "Even in suburbia you need a top speed of at least 70 MPH, and be able to accelerate to 60 in under 10 seconds. That is so you can get on the highway without getting run over."

    I can't see how "suburbia" can be congruent with speeds approaching 70mph being anything other than flagrantly illegal, as well as being impossible to achieve and stupid to attempt except possibly around 3am. Even interpreting "top speed of 70mph" as indicating "can comfortably cope with some lesser speed" doesn't match with said lesser speed being in any sense "suburban".

    Then you cain't see Oregon, Pigeon. 65MPH is the posted limit one mile from my suburb on I-205, and 10-15MPH faster is common in daylight hours. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tualatin,+OR+97062/@45.3673753,-122.7312957,14z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x54956d81c7d8d589:0x56cc018ecb6616ee!8m2!3d45.3611308!4d-122.7700372

    371:

    I think Charlie's covered that one @ 364. Looks like it's probably a word best avoided because it changes meaning in crossing the Atlantic to signify something completely different.

    372:

    Damian @ 328:

    Well I suppose more context helps. It was a plain 90º turn onto the highway, no on-ramp. You get quite a lot of these when the highway lacks freeway/motorway features but is itself a pretty nice road. The oncoming traffic was maybe half a kilometre away, possibly more, but you could see it quite well because as noted it was a pretty nice road.

    Yeah, I already got the part about it being a TURN onto the highway from a cross street.

    When turning onto a highway, you need to accelerate to highway speed quickly. The sooner you are moving along at the same speed as the other traffic the better.

    I think maybe you took the wrong lesson from your grandfather, or you're not expressing it well.

    If the oncoming traffic was 500m (or more) away, you don't need to accelerate like a maniac when you turn onto the highway, but you DO need to get yourself up to highway speed as expeditiously as possible. If the oncoming traffic is so close that you DO have to "accelerate like a maniac" to avoid getting hit, maybe you should have waited until that traffic passed.

    I should point out also that my reaction at the time was much the same as yours and JBS/JohnS's, since my experience at that point, maybe more as a passenger, was also mostly urban or peri-urban. And I'd still probably have agreed with you maybe 20 years ago. I don't really now... and I am finding I think everyone else just needs to slow down a bit, maybe a lot. Double or triple the following distance they think is appropriate, and even then it's probably not safe. I think that believing it's safe to do some of these speeds and follow this closely is prima facie evidence of not being competent to do so.

    In my Defensive Driving course (paid for by the U.S. Army) we learned a "two second" rule for following distance. No matter the speed of traffic, two seconds should give you enough time & distance to react and brake accordingly.

    I generally try to extend that to THREE SECONDS. That often results in some other driver swerving into my lane & cutting me off, but I persist. There's not much I can do about other people's STUPID DRIVING. All I can do is try not to be a stupid driver myself.

    I will note (from my own experience) that tail-gating is frequently an anger management issue (as are most symptoms of "road rage").

    373:

    Yeah... EC's link looks reasonably trustworthy as an indication that electric cars are considerably more likely to catch fire overall, but that's not very helpful since it takes no account of the circumstances. Media reports of individual incidents are no help because they are individual incidents, and also because they are more likely than not to misreport the circumstances so badly as to be meaningless.

    Maybe I should be saying something like: following a crash which renders the people unable to get out of the car under their own steam (whether because of injury or because of the car being mangled around them), in which type of vehicle are they more likely to be roasted before the emergency services turn up and get them out? Presumably the emergency services themselves could answer the question, but it appears that they have neither been asked it nor taken it upon themselves to answer it without being asked - either that or the answer just hasn't been posted anywhere it can come to people's attention.

    374:

    My current car can do 0-60 mph in 5.5 seconds

    I consider this a safety feature with regard to freeway driving

    Being able to accelerate quickly is second only to be able to stop quickly with regards to avoiding potential accidents

    As an examples something that happened to me only a week ago on the I-5 about twenty miles south of Redding

    • entering the a three lane highway at 70mph from an on ramp like a good little boy
    • idiot in a caddy cx5 decided traffic was moving to slow for him and since he was blocked and couldn't pass on the left, he’d pass in the far right lane
    • the ships from the far left lane to pass in the far right lane at around 85-90mph
    • he completely didn’t see me entering the highway since Iine of sight was blocked by the car in the middle lane he was passing
    • he came right up my exhaust pipe and got probably 5 feet from my bumper before I punched it up to about 110 to avoid the accident
    • moron didn’t even brake until after he would have hit me
    375:

    Mastodon instances are no different than regular old-time forums, and that no amou

    That's not actually true.

    A much better metaphor is that Mastodon is to Twitter as old-time email was to Gmail (which has gradually subsumed almost all other services and still presents external SMTP and IMAP APIs but is basically its own thing these days and makes it increasingly difficult to run your own server elsewhere).

    376:

    Duffy @ 339:

    Time to take a cold hard bite of a reality sandwich.

    Peter Zeihan on "Why The EV Revolution won’t happen" - and why renewables won't save us.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fwdSyA6AB0

    "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong"

    I don't know if the political will to find solutions exists (or ever will exist), but the problems are NOT unsolvable ...

    377:

    he could milk it like a cash cow for all those sweet advertising revenues

    No he can't.

    Firstly, advertising is much less lucrative than selling cars or space rockets.

    Secondly advertisers are very sensitive to reputational damage and Musk has utterly trashed Twitter's rep by firing the moderators and community standards people and inviting the neo-Nazis back in. Advertisers do not like their ads to appear in the middle of a hate-filled screech of rage, because readers then associate the advertiser's product with hate and range and Bad Shit. So they avoid you. This is why Twitter paid for all those moderators in the first place: so they could sell advertising by keeping Twitter safe! And Musk's tirade about "free speech" is seen clearly for what it is -- a rallying cry for neo-nazis who don't like people ignoring them ("cancelling" in their parlance).

    A bunch of the big advertisers have left and they won't come back to an unmoderated cesspit of extremism and hate.

    Finally, AIUI Twitter is a really complex network of intermeshing systems and nobody has ever done a black start on it. Worse, a lot of the knowledge about how to manage and start up those "microservices" Elon pooh-poohed as useless walked out the door because he fired them or made them feel unwelcome (right before he began ripping wires out at random and, oh look, 2FA collapsed, and then random losers began uploading entire Hollywood movies without anyone noticing and blocking them).

    Even more finally, Twitter is global and Musk seems to have mistaken Californian law and regulation -- which is very lax -- for a global law of nature. He's going to be singing a different song when the nastygrams from Disney's legal department start to drop on him over all those uploaded pirate movies, or when the FBI fall on him from a great height for unwittingly firing the moderators who kept CSAM/CAI off Twitter ...

    378:

    That rule is standard knowledge over here... which isn't to say that it's standard practice. It's probably roughly double what most people do.

    It's a useful guide, but it's not the be-all and end-all, and in particular it fails if the vehicles in front decelerate atypically sharply. Hence the value of the practice described by paws @ 329 of watching as far ahead as conditions permit, so you can begin to react even before the car in front gives you a visible cue.

    379:

    Yeah, and I have seen an unsourced claim that people spreading that stuff are purple nosed tweeble-bots from Zarg, out to slurp up all our vital bodily fluids. It's probably about as reliable.

    Please can we not go down this rabbit hole again, at least not quite so soon? It's tedious, pointless, frequently involves people quoting nonsense and generally makes me realise that y'all are just as dumb as most of the other people out there and that depresses me.

    380:

    I doubt that there is enough data, or what data there is has been collated. It will almost certainly vary with type of car and accident, and there are correlations between particular EVs and particular types of driving. I have read reports that say that Tesla is one of the safest, but there are very limited data on most EVs as yet.

    Furthermore, your question is not the only one that matters - another is how many vehicle fires cause secondary fires (e.g. to other vehicles or buildings), with the concomitant danger to people in those.

    381:

    »I'm talking about Aluminium-Sulphur chemistry«

    There are a lot of potential chemistries for secondary batteries but very few of them will last even 100, much less 1000 cycles, before something has changed in some undesirable fashion.

    For as long as I have been involved with stationary batteries, there have been a lean trickle of "new wonder battery shown in lab" announcements and there have been exactly 3 three of those that made it out of the lab and into consumer products - roughly one per decade.

    For consumer traction, bikes, mopeds, cars, light trucks, current Li based batteries are fine, and the problem is for all practical purposes solved.

    Sure it would be nice if they held twice as much, weighed half as much, cost 10% as much and so on, but people have always desired that from vehicles which already worked.

    For heavy-duty traction, agriculture, ships, barges, trains, (real) trucks, cranes and other yellow machinery, current Li battery technologies are at best barely viable. The primary parameter is J/kg, and since Lithium is #3 in the periodic table, all other chemistries start with a hard to overcome handicap.

    For grid-scale storage it is all about price and only about price. Weight, volume, temperature, toxicity - none of that matters, which is why even chemistries like rusting iron or aluminum is in the running.

    But as far as the eye can see, the future is full of Lithium...

    382:

    340 - I agree there are even worse junctions; I just went initially to one I know well.
    Regarding the e-Ami, my serious point is that, without a partial recharge at your destination, you have no spare range if you make a trip from Dumbarton to Glasgow and back, which I used to do 3 times a week.

    346 - Sort of agree, with reservations. I was running at 70mph indicated on the M8, overtaking an articulated truck. I saw his RH indicator coming on in my (LH) peripheral vision so I was partway along the prime mover. I now have 2 choices:-
    1) Full throttle and drag past him before he hits me.
    2) Hard braking and hope I can lose enough distance to clear his tailboard before he hits me, and that I don't get tail ended from being down to maybe 20mph in the outside lane of a motorway.
    I chose (1) but I just don't see how I could predict the truck's lane change.

    367 - Who is this woman "Nikki Lauder"? I've never heard of her, and most of the Lauder clan are Scottish.

    372 - I'd pretty much agree with you, at least for setting my own following distance when I am not actively looking to set up an overtaking opportunity.

    378 - Thanks. Other times I may not have been reacting on traffic a mile ahead, but have been reacting on vehicles maybe 10 places "up the queue". Either way I'm "good at it" based on the 1950s rally driver Peter Harper) whom I learnt the technique of seeing "how far you can drive in congested traffic without braking" from.

    383:

    Greg Bear has died

    384:

    paws
    The one really great advantage of the GGB is the driving position - I can see over almost all "normal" cars & can thus see problems ahead, usually well-before anyone else.
    So I'm lifting foot off throttle / braking gently / manoeuvring to avoid $Hazard (etc) long before anyone else has even noticed.

    385:

    JohnS: https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/yzz0vv/comment/ix3dwps/

    Reddit user says brush turkeys are not worth eating. Apparently from personal experience.

    386:

    "Being able to accelerate quickly is second only to be able to stop quickly with regards to avoiding potential accidents"

    Any form of evasive action comes second to not getting into the situation in the first place.

    Some mantras from people who are far better at this sort of thing than me...

    It takes two to make an accident. Really.

    The right way to review an arse-twitcher is to start by thinking: what could I have done differently to avoid that happening in the first place?

    If you think the answer is "nothing", you are almost certainly wrong.

    There is essentially always something you can identify if you look hard enough, no matter how unlikely you may initially think that is, which if you had registered it properly at the time could have clued you in to what was about to happen and enabled you to not get into harm's way in the first place. If you chew over the memory for long enough and in enough detail to figure out what this is, you've found something to remember that you could use in future to save your life, or someone else's. It may well not be easy to figure out what it is, but it can't be denied that it's worth the effort.

    I'm not going to try and comment on or discuss your example, because I wasn't there so I can't say anything useful about it; but the exact same situation could equally well have arisen while you were driving some more ordinary car that wouldn't have a hope of being able to accelerate away from it.

    I am NOT trying to get at you or put down your driving; I'm simply trying to suggest a useful way of thinking. I bang on about this sort of thing because I know too well how long and difficult a process it was for me to even accept the need to begin to learn it in the first place. It's very hard to learn because you have to fight against so many natural human tendencies, like blaming the other guy, having a good opinion of yourself, thinking you're right, thinking that I sound like a holier-than-thou didactic arse. I consider myself lucky to have had a mate who had been through the same process himself and was able to pass the message on. I know fine I'm not a perfect driver, and I've also learned that I have to acknowledge this in order to analyse how to be a better one and try and apply the results. It's difficult to learn to shit all over your self-esteem and start the analysis from the position that you were probably wrong, whether the other guy was a moron or not, and it's difficult also to keep it up; but it's also very much worth doing and the results are of inestimable value.

    387:

    Pigeon said: Maybe I should be saying something like: following a crash which renders the people unable to get out of the car under their own steam (whether because of injury or because of the car being mangled around them), in which type of vehicle are they more likely to be roasted before the emergency services turn up and get them out?

    That seems to resoundingly come down on the side of petrol cars being much much more likely to roast the occupants. Petrol cars are often well alight before they stop sliding, EVs seem to run about 10 minutes as a minimum, up to a couple of days, and seem less likely to catch on fire at all.

    When my brother in law's car caught fire he got it stopped, pulled the fire suppression handle and jumped out, but still ended up in hospital with smoke inhalation (the fire proof suit did its job). Marshals were on the spot in seconds. Car was a total loss. When a friend of a friend's EV started to smoke, he had time to ride back to the pits and connect a garden hose to the bike (he'd already plumbed in cooling channels against this eventuality, such is racing). Some cells needed replacing but that's all.

    Petrol fires are much much quicker.

    388:

    I'm beginning to think of what Musk is doing with Twitter as one of those "Neoliberalism (or neoreactionaryism) can't fail, it can only be failed" moments like the Bush Administration firing all the Baath Party members in Iraq, which included all the teachers and all the minor bureaucrats in charge of everything from driver's licenses to building permits..." It's the same losing strategy.

    389:

    "I chose (1) but I just don't see how I could predict the truck's lane change."

    Yes, I've had exactly the same thing happen and I too haven't been able to figure out how I could have predicted it. It doesn't help that I've never driven a truck so I don't have any starting clues as to what kind of non-obvious cues they manoeuvre in response to. What I have been able to take away from it is that I had very likely got far enough past that he could no longer see me in his mirror, but not quite far enough for him to see me below the cab window, and to take more care to stay to the right of the lane so as to spend less time in that blind spot and also to maximise the initial clearance if anything does happen. But I'm still not happy that I've not been able to work out what the predictive cues are.

    390:

    Pigeon @ 340:

    Regarding those Ami things, again it looks like we broadly agree but are coming at it from different angles. Under current British conditions, yeah, they do rather suck, because you need something else for extra-urban duties and it makes little sense to deal with two full portions of having-a-car hassle and expense instead of just having one car that can handle both. But as I understand it French laws and regulations use more than a single bit to describe "a car", and have several lesser categories below "full-on car" which make it much easier to keep a sub-car for urban use only and a proper one for longer trips as well.

    I look at these every time the subject comes up. I think it could do about 95% of what I need to do around town - maybe more. It's a little electric panel truck that doesn't require a license (although I expect it would here in North Carolina.

    https://www.aixam-pro.com/en/e-truck/van

    It has the room that I could load up instruments & amps OR photo gear (tripods, lights & stands) - maybe both - for the kind of things I used to do (don't know if I'll ever get back to those things post-Covid).

    It has only three drawbacks that I can see:
    • Maximum Speed - I'd have to find a new route to get back & forth to the VA Hospital when I have to go there
    • Maximum Range - It won't do the 60+ mile round trip I need to get back & forth to the VA Hospital ... but based on discussions here about availability of charging stations, I think I could overcome that one too
    • It's not available in the U.S. - That's the one I haven't figured out how to deal with yet ... and I haven't found a street legal alternative that IS available here.

    I'd still keep the Jeep for when I want to drive long distances ... e.g. Blue Ridge Parkway

    391:

    CharlesH @ 344:

    FWIW, I believe, without evidence, that there's an actual increase in the proportion of lesbians, gays, and transexuals these days. I attribute it to pollution by estrogen-mimicking chemicals in the environment. But I acknowledge that this is without evidence and may be wrong. (There's also a study on rats (or was it mice) that claimed that increased population density lead to an increase in homosexuality. So there are other plausible reasons. Which still doesn't prove that it's happening.)

    My OPINION is that there are a panoply of reasons and trying to identify the ONE TRUE REASON is a mug's game. But there are a lot of stupid people looking for that one true reason because they think it will allow them to CURE people they disapprove of (and fear)!

    Hormone-mimicking chemicals in the environment may have something to do with it, but I think it's mainly nowadays people think there's no reason for them to be afraid of being identified as "different".

    392:

    "there are a lot of stupid people looking for that one true reason because they think it will allow them to CURE people they disapprove of"

    When I was a teenager being gay was illegal. (yeah, technically only illegal to be gay and have sex)

    When was a young adult being known to be gay was a career-ending move in many (most?) jobs, and likely to see you ostracized by various groups. And the discrimination was brutal: people being beaten to death for being gay was not uncommon.

    Now we've reached the point where discriminating against gays is frowned on in most environments, and illegal in many.

    That you now see more openly gay people than when I was young would appear to me to require no explanation.

    393:

    icehawk said: people being beaten to death for being gay was not uncommon.

    Happened to a friend. 2pm, busy city centre, plenty of CCTV, cops utterly uninterested. Was at a time when bands of cops were going out gay bashing for sport.

    The "good old days" were pretty shit for the most part.

    394:

    Charlie Stross @ 364:

    What Americans call "suburbia isn't a thing in the UK.

    That may have been true at one time, but FWIW, the range of things Americans call "suburbia' is fairly wide. What you describe as "suburbia" in the U.K. would be "suburbia" in the U.S.

    It certainly describes the community I grew up in which was "suburban" AND within the city limits of Durham, NC.

    The post-WW2 Levittowns were built fairly far out from the urban center, but today even they are deep inside. Levittown, PA is 22 miles from the center of Philadelphia, but there is no open country in between (EXCEPT where the government has managed to reserve park-lands). The same is true for suburbs of almost any city in the U.S.

    Compare: Wellon's Village, Durham, NC to Martins Heron, Bracknell, Berkshire, UK

    Suburbs in the U.S. may have started out detached (because of at the time cheap farmland), but that was THEN ... NOW is pretty much the same as you describe for the U.K.

    The main characteristic for "suburb" in the U.S. is fewer of the residential streets connect to through streets than appear to do in the U.K. ... and other than the north-east U.S. don't have rail service to get you into the city.

    If you need to go downtown to the city, you have to drive through the urban sprawl ... unless you can get on the expressway.

    395:

    It takes two to make an accident. Really.

    I have a dashcam because there was a year when I got rear-ended three times. Two of those times I was stationary at a red traffic light, with a car in front of me and nowhere to go to the sides (either vehicles or approaching traffic). In one case the driver had a micro-nap. In the other the driver apparently misjudged how much room he needed to stop.

    Other than not driving, what should I have done to avoid the collisions?

    Looking forward to becoming a better driver. Really.

    396:

    I found CSAM, but what is CAI?

    397:

    I was wondering about it too. Child Abuse Images?

    398:

    Re exploding battery cars.

    It's worth considering for a moment what actually happens. It's tempting to say, the oxidiser and fuel are right there, which is the same as explosives, so it's just a bomb and the best case is a fizzing bomb rather than a detonation.

    The reality is rather different.

    If it's an impact that internally shorts the battery then the battery level fuses step in and that's the end of that. The gigantic spouts of copper vapour just don't happen.

    If one of the cells is punctured, or distorted enough for a cell level short then it heats up, the electrolyte boils and the cell vents. At this point the BMS will be having kittens, and the car will be screaming at the occupants to get out. The worst case then is that the hot venting heats up neighbouring cells that then start to thermal runaway and vent. That takes several minutes as you would expect. These are cold sealed cells that have thermal mass. They have to absorb a lot of heat from hot gas before they start to self heat, and gas isn't a great conductor of heat.

    There's no fire at this point. The pack vents will have burst and the pack will start to produce copious smoke. The smoke is cold because the heat is going into the hundreds of kg of cold cells. Obviously the pack doesn't vent into the cabin, so there's plenty of warning to get out.

    After about 5-10 minutes the first lot of neighbours start to vent. The amount of smoke coming from the pack increases a lot.

    Another 5-10 minutes later the more distant cells start to vent. The volume of smoke is now so great that it's being vented hot. Any moment now the smoke may catch fire as it leaves the pack vents and mixes with the ambient air. By this time everyone has their mobile phone out and is filming. No one is in any danger. Finally the smoke coming from the pack catches fire. There's a big whoosh as all the nearby smoke burns. That's the bit that goes on YouTube. The 10-20 minutes of smoking gets edited out. "EV erupts in ball of flame, 3 people lucky to make it out alive" gets more clicks than "Another car catches fire, this time it's an EV so no one was hurt"

    This is nothing at all like the descriptions here on this blog. It's also nothing like what happened to my brother in law when a pressurised fuel line split and sprayed fuel onto the glowing turbocharger, completely engulfing the front of the car in flames in milliseconds and filling the cabin with smoke before he could stop.

    399:

    Pigeon @ 386:

    "Being able to accelerate quickly is second only to be able to stop quickly with regards to avoiding potential accidents"

    Any form of evasive action comes second to not getting into the situation in the first place.

    Evasive action should always be Plan B

    Plan A should be not getting into the situation where you need Plan B

    But if life has taught me anything, any time you have a Plan A, you're inevitably going to need Plan B some day, and if you're lucky it won't devolve into Plan C, Plan D ... or go any further down the alphabet.

    But it probably will.

    There are two unalterable facts of life - SHIT HAPPENS and IT'S GONNA' HAPPEN AGAIN!

    400:

    In the US the reasonable drivers of large trucks will turn on their flashing turn signals well before a lane change. And hope the reasonable drivers around them flash their lights to let them know they can proceed with the lane change.

    Not everyone is reasonable.

    401:

    Oh, and "but you can't put it out"

    1, who cares? The car is a write off the instant fire starts regardless of the fuel. The insurers own it now.

    2, who cares? It's not your job to put it out anyway.

    3, who cares? Just spray water on it. Water is cheap. It's not like petrol that spreads if you spray water on it. Nor does it flow down the gutters igniting all the cars parked down hill.

    4, who cares? You can push or drive it to a safe place to burn. Let it burn.

    402:

    If alternatives are found (either technically or geographically) they will be more expensive than li-ion.

    That will make the issue of energy storm worse, not better.

    Referencing back to the issue of pumped hydro earlier in the thread, we could simply build raised earthworks with ponds on top to provide the necessary water reservoir at elevation.

    But it would be so expensive as to make the entire concept of renewable energy uneconomical and uncompetitive.

    Remember, its not whether something can be done, but whether it could be done economically and in a cost competitive manner.

    We simply don't have a renewable energy storage medium that meets that criteria, and in keeping with the laws of physics we probably never will.

    403:

    In addition to the problem of energy storage, fossil fuels are imply indispensable (and generate a significant portion of total greenhouse gases) in the manufacture of fertilizers, concrete steel and plastic - four substances that civilization can't exist with.

    See Vaclav Smil's (aka "Slayer of Bullshit")"The Modern World Can't Exist Without These Four Ingredients. They All Require Fossil Fuels"

    https://time.com/6175734/reliance-on-fossil-fuels/

    Four materials rank highest on the scale of necessity, forming what I have called the four pillars of modern civilization: cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia are needed in larger quantities than are other essential inputs. The world now produces annually about 4.5 billion tons of cement, 1.8 billion tons of steel, nearly 400 million tons of plastics, and 180 million tons of ammonia. But it is ammonia that deserves the top position as our most important material: its synthesis is the basis of all nitrogen fertilizers, and without their applications it would be impossible to feed, at current levels, nearly half of today’s nearly 8 billion people.

    And these four materials, so unlike in their properties and qualities, share three common traits: they are not readily replaceable by other materials (certainly not in the near future or on a global scale); we will need much more of them in the future; and their mass-scale production depends heavily on the combustion of fossil fuels, making them major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Organic fertilizers cannot replace synthetic ammonia: their low nitrogen content and their worldwide mass are not enough even if all manures and crop residues were recycled. No other materials offer such advantages for many lightweight yet durable uses as plastics. No other metal is as affordably strong as steel. No other mass-produced material is as suitable for building strong infrastructure as concrete (often reinforced with steel).

    404:

    you don't need to accelerate like a maniac

    Well yes, that was sort of the point. Part of why I explained the bit about being a novice driver with a 3-speed manual transmission. No-one would pull out into traffic where it's physically impossible for someone to stop, but there are lots of circumstances where it's perfectly reasonable to expect people to slow down a bit.

    In my Defensive Driving course (paid for by the U.S. Army) we learned a "two second" rule for following distance. No matter the speed of traffic, two seconds should give you enough time & distance to react and brake accordingly.

    That is actually the law here, but it's poorly explained, little understood and seldom observed. To me it translates to 5.5m (roughly a car length) for every 10km/h. For you it would mean about 30 feet per 10mph. It's a floor, not a ceiling, I usually allow more space and double what I think I need if it's raining (or the driver ahead has already done something I think is dumb).

    It's not just about reacting to things on the road. It's perfectly reasonable for someone to slow down suddenly and unexpectedly for no reason that you can see. There are lots of reasons, the validity of which is none of our business, including that someone is tailgating them (see also unnecessary overuse of window washers).

    Meh, I don't want to be preachy about this stuff, but I've been finding aggressive driving behaviour more and more as an affront to sense, taste and a fact-based worldview.

    405:

    fossil fuels are imply indispensable (and generate a significant portion of total greenhouse gases) in the manufacture of fertilizers, concrete steel and plastic - four substances that civilization can't exist with.

    I was going to agree with you, then I thought "I wonder if he meant without" and now I have no idea.

    So: civilisation can't continue burning large quantities of fossil fuels. If that means we can't have fertilizers, concrete steel and plastic then we're either going to experience catastrophic climate change and civilisation will cease, or we're going to do without them before the catastrophe and get to see whether we can have civilisation without them. Or the Ghandi quote about western civilisation... which reminds me of the joke "what do you want for a penny, the earth with a whitewashed fence around it" ... "can I see it please?"

    A lot of this stuff reminds me of people in the past saying "we can't stop doing X", whether that's specific people doing drugs or civilisations doing the equivalent. Trust me, they all stop one way or another.

    406:

    386 - Well, I have thought about this position and decided that the only "3rd" course of action was to decide to not start the overtake myself even though I was (correctly) near certain that the truck would take the next exit.

    389 - Similarly although I have driven a service bus (as driver under instruction) on public highways, well enough that the instructor's only real comment was that I needed to use my mirrors more for my position in lane and less for "what is behind me?"

    390 -
    4) You could load gear OR 1 passenger, but not both at once.
    5) I'd done the same Maximum Range calculation, and reached the conclusion that I had one and only one route available and no recharge options at my destination to allow any diversions either way. There were some occasions when I would have had to divert, and hence run out of charge.

    400 - I repeat, when I saw the turn signal I was already alongside the prime mover; I had to brake 4 times as long a delta distance to slow behind the tailboard as I had to accelerate to clear the cab. I was moving faster than the truck. That is why what I would do if I saw the truck's tailboard turn signal is irrelevant; it was already behind me.

    403 - But you try and tell an environmentalist that they'll not believe you.

    407:

    The problem is this, Duffy. Nobody is insisting that we get rid of all fossil-fuel products. We want to get rid of the specific uses of underground oil which require the spewing of carbon into the atmosphere. Essentially Vaclav Smil is arguing with a position nobody sane is taking, so it's impossible to take Smil seriously.

    408:

    That's one of those situations where you really can find yourself out of options. But it's still possible to take some mitigating action. What I try to do is basically to stop far enough back from the tail of the queue to still have a bit of wiggle room, or at least to absorb the energy of a collision without being pushed into the car in front, and then draw slowly up to the back of the queue once I can see the cars behind are behaving correctly. With variations, obviously, depending on how constricted the space is that the queue is in, what the general traffic speed is, how the cars behind are already behaving, whether the queue is in such a place that cars approaching from behind are likely to come on it unexpectedly, and other such aspects of the specific situation - for instance if the tail end of the queue is just round a bend on what should be an open road, it's useful, if it is possible, to stop before completing the bend so that cars arriving behind can see something's up from a good distance, and then to keep my foot on the brake so the brake lights are on, and put the hazard lights on. Again, I can't comment on your specific experiences because I wasn't there, nor do I claim to be a definitive source of complete information, but hopefully I can convey the principle of what I do know.

    409:

    The idea that all accidents can be avoided if you only took some perfect action is simply not true.

    There is no reason to believe that and it smacks of magical thinking.

    There are plenty of things that can and do happen to you in this world that are beyond your control regardless of how smart you are. Thinking that you can always avoid such by being clever is simply a lie we tell ourselves to sleep well and night. And some car accidents fall in that category.

    The idea that most accidents probably have learnings on both sides is true

    410:

    "See Vaclav Smil's (aka "Slayer of Bullshit")"The Modern World Can't Exist Without These Four Ingredients. They All Require Fossil Fuels""

    Is that "Slayer" or "Propagator"? It is true that in all those four cases process heat is usually provided by combustion of fossil fuels, but that is a long way from combustion of fossil fuels being a necessary requirement.

    Ammonia is a case where it is very well known that you can do the whole thing just with electricity, to the point where it's frequently proposed as a means of storing renewable energy.

    Making cement needs heat, and the heat is used for driving CO2 out of combination in the raw materials. The heat can come from anything that gets hot. As long as it gets hot enough, that's all that's required. But you get lots of CO2 even if the heat source is totally clean, so a better idea is to design structures that don't need so much concrete.

    Steel is a bit of a funny one because reducing the ore with carbon makes the chemistry easier (since the end product needs to contain a small percentage of carbon), but it's not the only option. Previous threads have quoted examples, with links, of processes using only electricity to supply the energy which are at least practical enough for people to have got pilot plants up and running.

    Plastics basically are fossil fuels, because that's the easiest feedstock, but not combusted, because otherwise it wouldn't be plastic that comes out. And the process heat, again, can come from anything that gets hot; it doesn't even need to be all that hot, and it certainly doesn't need to be combustion.

    Sorry, Wally, you don't make me smil.

    411:

    Meh, I don't want to be preachy about this stuff, but I've been finding aggressive driving behaviour more and more as an affront to sense, taste and a fact-based worldview.

    I don't know about the rest of the world but based on what I see locally and hear about from others, asshole driving greatly increased during the pandemic. At least in the US.

    Locally (and I suspect around the country) some of it had to do with the word getting out that the cops were not stopping minor assholes as too many cops were coming down with Covid while dealing with pulling over drivers.

    I'm suspicious that there was/is a high correlation to Covid denial/who cares/anti-vac and asshole driving.

    412:

    Argh! Wency, not Wally - having realised in the moment of hitting Submit.

    413:

    You've both missed the point, and mis-stated my position, by such a large amount that I see no point in trying to take it further.

    414:

    Pigeon you said :

    “The right way to review an arse-twitcher is to start by thinking: what could I have done differently to avoid that happening in the first place? If you think the answer is "nothing", you are almost certainly wrong.”

    I am disagreeing with you as follows

    “Sometimes the answer is “nothing” or at least “nothing that would have mattered much”

    I am not angry or offended and I support your point that reviewing your conduct and looking for improvement is a good response

    Explain to me how I misunderstood you?

    415:

    “Sometimes the answer is “nothing” or at least “nothing that would have mattered much”

    We lost a car to an insurance company payout. My wife was stopped behind someone at a traffic light in a place were her being 1/2 to 1 car behind was considered normal. She was rear ended while stopped by an unlicensed driver driving a car owned by someone else and neither of them had insurance. It shortened the length of our car by a inch or few. Which crumpled a LOT of sheet metal in the rear of the car. And pushed her into the car ahead.

    Their was no way to avoid it. By the time she might realize someone is going to hit her from the rear she had no where to go and no time to do anything.

    416:

    Two such incidents with my wife

    The first was similar to yours only she was first in line at a red light. Got rear ended by a kid coming off the freeway, totaled the car. Kid was like “oh man k didn’t know there was light at the end of that off-ramp and I wasn’t paying attention”

    Second was driving a narrow mountain road, cliff on one side, drop on the other. Came around a turn to see a drunk driver in her lane coming straight at her at 70mph. Totaled both cars, fortunately the air bags saved her. Guy had a ton of DUI’s. Cops locked him up.

    In neither case was there anything substantive she could have done to improve her situation. Zero opportunity to even do anything in the first one , no time to react in the second

    Sometimes the universe just gets up that morning, yawns, stretches and says “let’s go fuck that particular guy” and that particular guy is you.

    Now that being said I have had maybe five near misses just about all of which I could have behaved better and one wreck that taught me to be damn careful when driving in freezing rain.

    417:

    Yep. When I stop on a motorcycle I try to arrange myself such that if the car coming from behind doesn't stop I can jump into the next lane, or between the cars in front or whatever, and I leave a bit of a gap to facilitate that.

    One day I was stopped at an intersection. Car came up behind me, I braced for evasive action... And they stopped.

    Relax.

    Then they drove off, right over the top of me and the motorcycle.

    I ended up fine, somehow not being squished by the car, or the bike as it was run over, nor run into by the flowing traffic in the cross street that I'd been waiting for a break in.

    One week old bike was a complete write off.

    418:

    "403 - But you try and tell an environmentalist that they'll not believe you."

    Yes, well, counsels of despair are often disbelieved, on the grounds that if true, you're stuffed anyway, and if false then you might be able to do something about it.

    JHomes

    419:

    Also, a lack of practice during COVID. I had a pretty bad accident within the first couple days of going back to work, and attributed it to the fact of not driving for weeks on end prior to vaccines coming out.

    420:

    They're all about owning a herd of childbearing submissive feminine property, and F-to-M transition reduces the pool of "available" women for them to impregnate (in their own imagination).

    do u have any names for these dudes, i don't remember coming across them in my meanderings through the manosphere and their handmaid's tale harem fantasies sound fringe enough that "hardly anyone" might still apply

    421:

    Whitroth said "I've yet to read anything in the Guardian that's anti-trans" and I just realised that I haven't either.

    .... they make the headlines obvious enough that I can just skip those articles.

    422:

    I was taught to stop at least far enough back to be able to see the rear tyres of the car in front, simply so you could tell easily when they started moving again. I've been rear-ended while stopped behind another car at lights a couple of times (both times they said they just wen't paying attention), and while neither time was I pushed into the car in front, once was because I saw the car coming behind and had consciously planted by foot on the brake*. Since then I've taken to stopping further back, so there's at least somewhere to go if it happens (I often move up once someone has stopped behind, at least if that means unblocking a slip lane or something).

    The thing that annoys me the most about aggressive driving is that the perps gain nothing. It's like the some gambler's fallacy stretched out into a life-or-death game, basically unmixed, un-iced, as it were unlubricated arseholery.

    * I was in a small Volvo (the S40, I guess one of the last sedans they made in that size), he was in a Mitsubishi Magna. I felt a slight bump, his air-bags went off and his radiator emptied itself onto the road, having taken a mortal wound from my tow-bar. There was a scratch on my boot (trunk) lid, his insurance replaced the lid. No idea of the fate of the Magna, though I guess it was repairable. Bloke was a lawyer who owned his small law firm, so I figure it could have been worse. I ended up cooking the engine in that Volvo after it lost its coolant in heavy traffic: maybe that's some weird karmic thing.

    423:

    NOTE FOR AMERICANS ON THIS BLOG: when a Brit is talking about "suburbia" they mean dense urban sprawl along roads where the houses might have a garden and/or a garage and are spaced maybe 5-10 metres apart and there are sidewalks and you can walk alongside the nice quiet street with a 20-30mph speed limit.

    What Americans call "suburbia isn't a thing in the UK.

    There are sort of two suburbia's in the US. The one you're thinking of sort of showed up in the early 60s into the 70s then mostly went away. In terms of new builds. The housing and lots built prior to the 60s tended to look like what you describe for the UK. Due to people could not afford bigger. 800-1500sf with 1/6 acre or smaller lots. (75-140sm) Then as every thing got more expensive into the later 70s / early 80s lots sizes grew to 1/3 to 1/2 acre and houses grew to 2000-3000sf. (185-280sm). For all kinds of reasons. Then prices got even higher so people went back to almost 0 lot lines and 3000+ sf houses. Ugh. I've lived in and helped build houses from all of this time across the country. Or have relatives or friends who live in them.

    What the movies and TV mostly show as suburbia isn't reality for most people. The Queens house of Archie Bunker is more typical for many.

    Anyway, in all kinds of smaller towns across the US, 70 mile range on an EV is going to cause a lot of friction in people's day to day lives. It just will. And I'm ignoring the need to get to 70mph to go anywhere. I have spent all but 1 1/2 year of the 68 years of my life avoiding such craziness. But if you visit Bend Oregon, Cape Girardeau Missouri, Tyler Texas, Versailles Kentucky, Metropolis Illinois, Manchester Connecticut, etc... You'll find living conditions that most of the US who are not in Urban centers live in. And a 70 mile range will be hard just due to how they are laid out. So bulldoze most small towns in the US or give people range of 100-150 miles.

    And to hearken back to an earlier reference, once you leave the entertainment section of Las Vegas you'll find that most housing is Archie Bunker or McMansion. Depending on when built. And this is true of most larger US cities.

    And to tie this all back to current events. No one in the US is happy with the current housing situation. They all want it to go back to what was great. But there seem to be a dozen or more major definitions of what "great" means.

    424:

    on the wikipedlo it is said that "He lives in a house with unusually thick insulation, grows some of his own food, and eats meat roughly once a week.[10] He reads 60 to 110 non-technical books a year and keeps a list of all books he has read since 1969. He 'does not intend to have a cell phone ever.'"

    425:

    Whitroth said "I've yet to read anything in the Guardian that's anti-trans" and I just realised that I haven't either.

    There is a US version of the Guardian that is what I and maybe Whitroth see which likely has an almost entirely different set of people writing the articles. To the extend they seem to be fully staffed in the US to keep up with politics and daily national news.

    426:

    The thing that annoys me the most about aggressive driving is that the perps gain nothing. It's like the some gambler's fallacy stretched out into a life-or-death game, basically unmixed, un-iced, as it were unlubricated arseholery.

    I'm somewhat convinced it's a substitute for getting out a 5 to 8 inch ruler.

    427:

    when a Brit is talking about "suburbia" they mean dense urban sprawl along roads where the houses might have a garden and/or a garage and are spaced maybe 5-10 metres apart and there are sidewalks and you can walk alongside the nice quiet street with a 20-30mph speed limit

    This totally describes where I live in Brisbane. My burb is contiguous with others like it, with density increasing toward the city centre, so you can get there mostly on quiet streets, though you might have to cross some main roads, at least until it's busy enough that there are no longer "quiet streets". Certainly there are no highways or freeways involved. I'm about 10km from the city centre. I'm pretty sure this is called suburbia here and would be in the USA too. But, as I mentioned at 308 above, I think there are several suburbias.

    It's less about space than about growth and time. Much of Brisbane grew around tram lines then railways, with car-based growth kicking in after the war. My suburb has a train line, but it's 2-3 suburbs out from the nearest tram terminus (before the tram lines were ripped up in the 60s). I can walk to a train station and local shops, which I think is a more reliable indicator of the sort of suburbia you're talking about here.

    428:

    Then you cain't see Oregon, Pigeon. 65MPH is the posted limit one mile from my suburb on I-205, and 10-15MPH faster is common in daylight hours.

    Yep. I drove that bit of I-5 about ten days ago, and that's during the current Covid era of little travel.

    Unpacking for people not in the Portland metro area: On the map just south of Tualatin you'll see Interstate 5 crossing the Willamette River, next to a golf course/housing development. That's the only crossing for an inconvenient distance in either direction, which I will remember for a long time because I got caught there trying to get home after the solar eclipse a few years ago and that's where my 'travel the back roads' plan failed.

    Much worse is trying to get across the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington states. Offhand I don't see any route that doesn't involve highway travel other than the Cathlamet Ferry - which I've taken and will unhesitatingly recommend to anyone who's on vacation in the area, but which is spectacularly not a practical way to get from Portland across the river to Vancouver. It would be impractical even if it served Portland rather than being 60 miles downriver.

    Portland also has the Hayden Island neighborhood, where we held Orycon in the Before Times and will again. It's served by I-5 and there is no other bridge; if your vehicle isn't fit for the highway you can't get there.

    429:

    Pigeon
    It takes two to make an accident. Really.
    Come on, you should know better than this - look at RAIB & {before that Mot & Bot} rail accident reports. Many years ago, I was sitting in a traffic queue & car, driven by an apparently uninsured learner came out of a side-turning, missed direction, hit the car in front of me a glancing blow & then accelerated { foot on wrong pedal, probably } into me. I had time to jam the brakes full on, as well as the already-on handbrake. ONE PERSON was responsible.
    - And thanks to: Rbt Prior, John S { Who indicates the multiple-level backups that Rail & Air safety should have }, & Unholyguy,

    Icehawk
    And the discrimination was brutal: people being beaten to death for being gay was not uncommon. - yeah well - it was tried on me. I lost a LOT of blood.

    430:

    A much better metaphor is that Mastodon is to Twitter as old-time email was to Gmail (which has gradually subsumed almost all other services and still presents external SMTP and IMAP APIs but is basically its own thing these days and makes it increasingly difficult to run your own server elsewhere).

    No, it's not a better metaphor. E-mail has no discovery function, you don't generally send an open letter to the world at large and expect replies from people you don't know. Maybe a mailing-list would be a better one?

    Anyway, since mastodon instances appear to be blocking each other left and right over ideological differences (server A allows in a person B, who is friends with person C whom we hate, so we better ban everyone from server A just in case), we'll soon end up having to have a separate account for every instance. Just like with good old forums.

    431:

    Time for someone to reinvent the web of trust stuff people used to believe in back in the 90s :)

    432:

    I was running at 70mph indicated on the M8, overtaking an articulated truck

    I have PTSD from driving the M8 into Glasgow ... specifically the Westbound Junction 17/18 exits, where the motorway is four lanes wide and J17 forks off to the left as J18 forks to the right.

    (For American readers: swap sides of the road.)

    Basic strategy: as the motorway begins to narrow and the traffic gets denser, work out which lane you want to be in until it's time to exit, get in that lane, and stick to it regardless of overall traffic speed.

    The only worse junction I can think of off-hand is one of the routes on the A58(M) where it becomes the Leeds Inner Ring Road, running as an underpass. You dive down into this concrete canyon two lanes wide, it curves to the left ... and just past the blind bend there's an on-ramp with traffic trying to ram your passenger door.

    (Designed back in the 1960s by architects who hadn't spent nearly enough time studying motorway/freeway/autobahn horrors overseas: I believe both types of junction are no longer allowed to be built in the UK, but in both cases they're already on the ground in the middle of a city centre and prohibitively disruptive to replace.)

    433:

    CAI = Child Abuse Imagery.

    (Subtly different from CSAM = Child Sex Abuse Material.)

    434:

    A friend of mine had his car break down about there. Apparently maneuvering it to a place of relative safety after the gearbox underwent spontaneous disassembly was an exciting experience.

    435:

    Who cares if you can't put a fire out?

    Yes, letting it burn out is fine for the single-vehicle crashes away from buildings etc. But the reason that the fire service puts fires out when the vehicle, building or whatever is already clearly a write off is to stop it spreading to other vehicles, buildings or whatever.

    Water may be cheap, but fire engines' capacities are not unlimited, and there is rarely a close source of almost unlimited water. The number of engines is also not unlimited, and having to stay there until a fire burns out (rather than is put out) already strains the resources of many services.

    This is a problem.

    You might also like to find out why so few (even car-crushing) accidents end up in fireballs, given the risk of petrol igniting. Reducing that risk did not happen by accident. The same is true for lithium battery fires, but the technology needs to be a LOT more complex, is still under active development, and is currently not required by regulation. That is why the statistics are what they are. And, no, we don't know what the relative (severity weighted) risks of petrol and EV cars are yet.

    436:

    1/4 of all greenhouse gas emissions come from their manufacture:

    concrete 8% steel 11% fertilizer 2% plastics 4% total 25%

    This is significant, and will only increase.

    In round figures, production of the first three are projected to increase 2% annually with plastics growing at an annual rate of 5%.

    437:

    To stop using these underground fossil fuels would require a massive build out of renewable energy sources (solar arrays, wind farms, etc.) which will require massive quantities of concrete, steel and plastics.

    Which in turn will create a massive spike in GHG emissions - a spike which would put our planet over the edge into inescapable feedback loops (starting with methane releases from melted tundra and clathrate formations on the bottom of the ocean.

    At that point it will no longer matter what kind of energy we use.

    And after all that we still have (short of a fantasy/miracle technology breakthrough) a problem with cheap renewable energy storage.

    Notice I said "cheap".

    We could easily build all of the necessary renewable energy storage we want now. But it won't be cheap enough to make it cost effective. For example, going back to the pumped hydro discussion earlier in the thread, we could construct massive artificial earthworks with enough height and with storage ponds having enough volume to provide all the hydro pumped energy storage you need. From a technology point of view, this is a piece of cake. All you need are bulldozers. But is would be massively expensive to the point where the entire renewable energy production/storage system is too expensive to build.

    We spend too much time looking at technical approaches without ever asking if they are economically viable.

    Because, if energy becomes too expensive in real terms than ALL of us (not just Russian oligarchs, Saudi sheiks or Texas oilmen) become poorer in real terms. Nobody is going to accept poverty and lower standards of living even if it means saving the planet for our grandchildren.

    Nobody.

    Human nature won't allow it.

    As for using batteries for renewable energy storage, Peter Zeihan's point is that while there are other sources of lithium they will not be cheaper than current sources of lithium. There is a reason why lithium is mined in its current locations - its cheap to mine them at these locations. So once again, we can find alternate sources of lithium but they will make the whole renewable energy production/storage system too expensive to build without making everyone poorer.

    Some problems are not solvable - unless you believe in technology breakthroughs that haven't happened yet.

    438:

    One of the very few times I regretted not having a prat nav was taking the M8 westbound at Glasgow - I wanted to bypass Glasgow, but didn't, and it was a pain to get out again :-(

    439:

    You're right, that should read "without" (I sometimes wish our host would allow an edit option).

    Anyhow, you're right. Civilization can't exist without the massive consumption of fossil fuels and subsequent massive emissions of GHGs.

    If we suddenly stopped using fossil fuels tomorrow, billions would die and/or be thrown into pre-industrial dark ages poverty.

    But if we don't stop using fossil fuels, billions will die from drought, famine, forced migration, war, heat domes, etc. as the globe heats up.

    So what do we do?

    We could try a massive build out of nuclear energy. However, like a massive build out of renewables this effort will require a lot of concrete, steel and plastic - and spikes in GHGs. Costs, safety and public opposition probably makes this a non starter.

    We could use fossil fuels more efficiently, reducing the the amount of GHG per unit of energy produced. This means shifting over to natural gas which produces half the GHG emissions per kWh as coal. And if I could wave my magic wand and immediately cute GHG emissions in half, I would call that a major victory for planet Earth.

    We could create new carbon sinks (plant a shitload of trees, fertilize the oceans with iron sulfate, etc.), but these tend to be very expensive and don't work as advertised (with their own negative environmental side effects).

    We could let renewable energy use grow naturally and organically as the result of individual and business decisions driven by market signals. If you want a PVC array on your home's roof and it makes sense financially, then go for it. Small incremental increases of this kind will do more to reduce GHG emissions than forced massive super projects - which have an annoying habit of becoming white elephants.

    But the biggest impact on global climate would result from simply having fewer people. Declining and again populations purchase fewer goods, which require fewer resources and emit fewer GHGs. Despite recently reaching 8 billion we are well on the way to bending the population curve. We may not even reach 9 billion before the human population begins to decline. Reducing the world's population to about 1 billion, even when living the American lifestyle, should save us.

    Why is this happening? Aside from most of humanity now living in cities (in the countryside children are an economic asset, in the city they are an expensive hobby), the very real danger posed by hormone blocking forever chemicals and microplastics (which can be found now everywhere from rainwater to the hamburger you just ate to the placenta of newborns) reducing sperm counts and shrinking penises world wide - the biggest impact on birthrates comes from women being educated and having careers.

    Give women educational and career opportunities and they stop having 12 kids. Who knew?

    So instead of relying on fantasy technological advances that have not occurred yet (or may not occur in time to stop us from going over the climate tipping point where nothing we do then will matter), or requiring massive build outs of radically new energy and transportation infrastructures - there is one simple thing we can do that will save us all.

    Educate girls.

    If we don't we can expect an apocalyptic crash in population from global warming that will also leave us with less than 1 billion people. Either way, nature will achieve a sustainable balance.

    440:

    Re the E-Ami: that is why my proposed solution would have more space, a (marginally) higher speed AND much more range than an E-Ami. How would I achieve that? By basing it on (pedal powered) cycle designs not motor ones. Yes, I would sacrifice comfort, gimmicks (a.k.a. optional features) and crash-resistance. Some people would claim that is unacceptable, but the viability of cycling shows that it isn't.

    As I said, radical social and political changes would be needed, but we need to be at least that radical to tackle the climate crisis and the UK's transport one. I am not unrealistic about the chances of seeing such changes :-(

    441:

    the motorway is four lanes wide and J17 forks off to the left as J18 forks to the right

    It seems to be the thing now, 5 lanes with exit lanes on both sides, where the centre lane might be the overtaking lane for a while, but it's not a stable situation all the way through the system. It's most troubling in tunnels, they have repeaters for terrestrial radio and cellular data, but of course GPS doesn't work, so the idea that one could rely on the latter just fails flat.

    442:

    For everyone's reference, this is the intersection Charlie was talking about.

    443:

    Yes. I think that it was the one that I went wrong at! Damn confusing.

    444:

    Duffy
    A LOT of concrete could be disposed of/not used, if we went back to Masonry, for a large number of applications, I think.

    Give women educational and career opportunities and they stop having 12 kids. Who knew? US fundagelical arseholes, that's who.
    If SCOTUS is not reformed, soon, there might be some more "strange fruit" dangling about.

    Damian
    Only to be rivalled by this one?

    445:

    Nuclear actually needs shockingly little concrete per MWH produced. Reactors are big piles of it, yes, but they are on all the time, they produce a lot of power and last a really long time.

    446:

    That's one of those situations where you really can find yourself out of options. But it's still possible to take some mitigating action.

    Given that I always leave plenty of room in front when I stop, I was doing you mitigating measures already. But your comment "it takes two to make an accident" means you still consider me somehow at fault as well as the sleeping driver who hit me.

    447:

    There's an interesting article today on modern Dutch agriculture, "Cutting-edge tech made this tiny country a major exporter of food". Perhaps relevant to discussions of future possibilities for dealing with climate change, energy transition, etc.

    It's unlinkable, but googling on the title will find it.

    448:

    A LOT of concrete could be disposed of/not used, if we went back to Masonry, for a large number of applications, I think.

    much, much slower and more labor-intensive than concrete tho, no?

    449:

    »A LOT of concrete could be disposed of/not used, if we went back to Mason«

    While building our house I learned that many northern European countries have already depleted their deposits of good clay decades ago.

    Presently in Denmark you cannot produce a brick which reaches the average strength of bricks made 100 years ago.

    450:

    It.. doesn't have to be. Moving big blocks into place with machine assistance is quite fast. So if we put a lot of effort into developing high-productivity quarrying tech, well, in terms of strength Granite is strictly superior to concrete and far too common a rock for mankind to ever run out.

    Welcome to the Megalith Age.

    451:

    I'm sorry, I should have stopped posting and gone to bed earlier. I read your post as being basically dismissive of the idea as akin to magical thinking, and so misinterpreted your attitude as being similar to my own in my period of youthful exuberance behind the wheel when nobody could tell me anything. Had that been correct, there would have been as little point in me trying to explain further as there was in other people trying to explain it to me before I'd reached the point of being able to accept the information. (Something, incidentally, which I still have difficulty with and have to exert conscious self-discipline to overcome.)

    Again, I apologise.

    452:

    For everyone's reference, this is the intersection Charlie was talking about.

    Looks like driving through Pittsburgh but without the added features of tunnels and bridges.

    https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pittsburgh,+PA/@40.4383883,-80.0021435,1901m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8834f16f48068503:0x8df915a15aa21b34!8m2!3d40.4406248!4d-79.9958864

    If you zoom in a bit so you can see the name, the Smithfield Street Bridge is trolley and people only. Doesn't stop a car or few per year heading across and at times needing to be hauled back off.

    453:

    Reactors are big piles of it,

    Yes and to make those big piles results in big spikes of GHG emissions.

    That's not something we can do without pushing the planet past its tipping point.

    454:

    No, not at all. Concepts like "fault" and "blame", and their converses, are toxic and counterproductive, and part of the point of that "mantra", as I understand it, is to clash with concepts like that in order to emphasise the need to subdue and disregard them, because the emotional aspects are such a severe obstacle to rational assessment. Perhaps "koan" would fit better than "mantra".

    I've just tried to find a source for the phrase that might then go on to provide its further elucidation by an expert, but I can't find the physical book I was looking for, and all I can find on the web is that it crops up in "The Great Gatsby" - which I have never read - with some character using it to make pretty much the opposite argument. Search engines can be infuriating sometimes.

    455:

    The embodied carbon of an EPR, which is the heaviest reactor in existence, is equivalent to the carbon emissions of running an EPR sized coal plant for 3.5 days. This does Not Matter. Nor will it tip anything anywhere. I am sure you have seen scarier numbers somewhere. I am depressingly also sure that if you trace the references back, you will end up with a link to Storm Smith. Who is a fraud.

    456:

    432 - Well, my description was of the section between St James' Interchange and the Erskine Bridge (which has changed since my incident).
    I agree about J17 and J18 though.

    442 - There's more. Eastbound that is an entry slip into the outside lane (yes singular), and at the next junction East the outside lane turns into an exit slip. I was doing evening classes not far from said exit (J15) and usually had some people follow me alone the outside lane, then wonder how they would make a lane change left!

    446 - If and only if, you are the last stationary vehicle, leave your right foot on the brake pedal to keep the brake lights illuminated.

    450 - That does have some appeal, but radon.

    457:

    I remember my own "take the back roads" plan after the eclipse... it failed so very badly!

    458:

    @ 436 "This is significant"

    Agreed. But most of it is the consequence of continuing to use processes which were developed when nobody cared. It is not compulsory to supply process heat by burning fossil fuels. Electrically-powered processes already exist for ammonia and are being introduced for steel. I don't know what is being done about plastics, but there's no physical or chemical reason to prevent it. The only one that does necessarily generate CO2 is concrete production, because making cement involves unbinding CO2 that was captured geologically in past aeons, but even there the process heat can be supplied without combustion.

    "and will only increase."

    This is not necessarily true. It can be reduced to near zero for the first three, and still considerably lessened for cement.

    @ 437 "We spend too much time looking at technical approaches without ever asking if they are economically viable."

    Seems to me that it's completely the other way round. We come up with numerous methods to deal with the physics, but they all then get blocked by some variant of {whine whine whine crap about some wholly artificial concept that people have made up}. And next to nobody says "well, make up something more useful then".

    "Some problems are not solvable - unless you believe in technology breakthroughs that haven't happened yet."

    No, in political breakthroughs. We are hamstrung by the insistence on trying to reduce a huge number of disparate factors to their supposed representation in terms of one single variable, which is so thoroughly artificial and unrelated to measurable reality that it doesn't represent anything useful, and then tangling things up even more by a whole raft of utterly barmy rules and conventions around how that single unrepresentative variable is handled.

    It is that system which is the unfixable problem; it's so vast, tangled, irrational and ingrained that it's been fucked beyond recovery for nearly as long as it has existed at all, and the only way out is to bin the whole thing and start again without it. The only question is whether the political institutions can be demolished before they demolish the planet, or persist until the planet is demolished and they perish in the wreckage.

    From the point of view of most of us on here it may be about saving the planet for our grandchildren, but from the point of view of the grandchildren it's about saving the planet for themselves. That looks like the only thing that may give cause for hope that the less destructive of the answers to the above question may be chosen.

    Yeah, it's bleak. But at least the factors that make it bleak are fundamentally unreal and can be recognised as such.

    459:

    The usual motorcyclists' mantra is that you assume everyone else on the road is actively trying to kill you, and ride accordingly. It may be technically a bit of an exaggeration but in practical terms it's realistic advice.

    Many years ago the actuaries at the insurance company where my father worked noticed that a sizeable majority of the accidents reported by their motorcycle clients involved riders with less than six months experience. An overwhelming majority of the accidents involved riders with less than twelve months experience. They commissioned a study, with psychologists and all, to determine if there was a reason for the pattern. The psychologists' final report was something like, "When a motorcyclist with a year of experience or more gets on their motorcycle, they become intensely paranoid. They believe everyone else on the road is out to get them. And no, we don't know any way to create that behavior other than a year of operating a motorcycle in traffic."

    460:

    No worries at all, and always appreciate your perspective around here.

    461:

    And also, granite (along with goodness knows how many other possibilities) is, for all practical purposes, in chemical equilibrium with the environment. Concrete is not. So, for instance, Charlie's house will still be standing when mine has long fallen to bits :)

    462:

    Motorbikes: I'd be happier with the idea that bikers ride defensively if they didn't insist on doing things which are clearly not safety-oriented. Grossly exceeding the speed limit, for a start.

    463:

    Sampling bias. You don't see the ones who aren't speeding because they aren't overtaking you.

    464:

    It's also entirely possible he doesn't notice them at all. They're not car-shaped or truck-shaped and rare enough that his conscious mind assumes that a bicycle-sized object travelling at road speeds (50mph plus) equalling or exceeding his own speed is a figment of his imagination and can be safely (for him) ignored.

    "Sorry son, I didn't see you." That's a phrase that most bikers of any experience have heard at least once, if they survived the experience. My first was me sitting on my motorbike at traffic lights in daylight wearing a bright yellow waterproof jacket. Bang! I was rear-ended by a lady in a Mini who said, yes, "I didn't see you there."

    465:

    I've encountered at least one academic exercise of a reactor building design made almost entirely from steel, a material that is infinitely recyclable. It doesn't add much to the total cost of the construction and simplifies decommissioning at end-of-life. Licencing such a design is another matter.

    We do have steel-encased reactors in operation today of course, in ships and submarines as well as the NPP Akademik Leonontzov but no-one has yet built a GW-scale reactor on land using the same principles.

    466:

    In other words, 1/8 of fossil fuels are used in manufacturing things that are quite difficult without them (like plastics & fertiliser).

    And 1/8 is used to manufacture steel. Which can be done without fossil fuels, but it’s more expensive and we don’t apply effective carbon pricing so no-one bothers.

    I get the “dropping fossil fuel use to zero is hard” thing. But it seems to me that halving fossil fuel use, then halving it again, and then working in halving it again, is a reasonable approach for the next 3 decades.

    Nor is buildout of a greener power network as huge a spike in use of steel, concrete, and plastics as you imply. Most construction is not power plants, and won’t be, it’s roads & cities.

    In general I think you’re arguing against a straw man, by pointing out that getting to “totally zero” fossil fuel use is very hard. Because it’s the “easier” wins of the first 75%-90% of carbon that will make by far the biggest difference, and we are very far from there.

    467:

    Incidentally, Ars Technica posted an article, "The Road to Low-Carbon Concrete" two days ago (https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11/the-road-to-low-carbon-concrete/).

    More generally with Smil's and other analyses (including my old ones), the biggest problem appears to be learned helplessness. This is the induced feeling that we can't change anything and are therefore doomed. As a result, we ignore all the people working for change and continue on the status quo, because we're evil and doomed.

    This kind of learned helplessness seems to be a major mental illness in the US and elsewhere. Combating it is proving to be messy. It seems that most sufferers want things to change, so long as they don't have to change anything major, be responsible for (insert problem) or admit that harm suffered by (insert proper terms for "those people") is a problem that needs them to change.

    468:

    Granite is strictly superior to concrete and far too common a rock for mankind to ever run out

    Hate to say it, but if/when someone gets serious about building with granite, the fact that granite is RADIOACTIVE!! will suddenly become common knowledge. If nothing else, concrete industry will make sure of it.

    469:

    You mean the made the rats and mice live the way lots of people live?

    That may be an argument against the studies applying to the way rodents live in the wild, but I don't see it as a strong argument against them applying to people. (Of course, this doesn't mean that they do apply to people. We differ from rodents in many ways. But it makes it a reasonable question.)

    470:

    That would be met by massive yawns in most of the UK. Yes, we already know.

    471:

    I'm trying to help my kid understand that mathematics of risk when driving.

    'If you do something that is probably safe, say only a 1% risk of an accident, does that seem reasonable?'

    'Sure'

    'What are your odds if you do it 1000 times? How about 10,000?'

    Most drivers fail to grasp the low percentage risks. I can drive insanely fast through traffic and probably not crash, but if I do it all the time the probabilities will eventually catch up to me.

    My preferred solution to driving hazards would be on the licensing side. Being incredibly dangerous, a driving license should be comparable to a pilot's license. It should take weeks or months of training, and if you do it badly it should be very easy to lose that license.

    If you are the cause of a crash that harms or kills someone, you no longer have a license. If you drive in such a way that people are at risk, you lose the license and it is hard to get it back.

    If it is your job to drive, be extra careful (like a pilot). If you need to drive to get to work, be careful or move.

    If that means a lot fewer people are able to drive, then maybe we should build our communities such that people can still get around (i.e. trains, transit, bicycles).

    472:

    ... fertilizers, concrete steel and plastic ...

    I was going to agree with you, then I thought "I wonder if he meant without" and now I have no idea.

    So: civilisation can't continue burning large quantities of fossil fuels.

    Well, they all require large inputs of energy, but electricity will often work well for that part. Synthetic fertilizers can be made, but are more expensive without oil as a starting base. Plastic was originally made from coal wastes, so it clearly doesn't REQUIRE petrochemicals, and I think it's been made from various other organic wastes, but specific plastics may well require a lot more (or different) processing. Steel hasn't yet (AFAIK) been made without petrochemicals or coke, but there's no theoretical reason it can't be, and at least one group is looking into the economics. They're planning on using Hydrogen as the reducing chemical. I don't know enough about concrete making to really comment, except that there have been lots of different formulae for concrete, dating back to the pre-Roman Egyptians. (I don't know if it was pre-Hellenic.) But they did have access to petroleum, so it's uncertain. Still, there've been LOTS of different formulae.

    473:

    Sorry, forgot each paragraph needs it's own markup. The quote ends after "So: civilisation can't continue burning large quantities of fossil fuels. "

    474:

    All of you are talking about technologies that don't exist yet.

    Sorry, but that is poor planning on your part.

    Hope is not a plan.

    475:
    "do u have any names for these dudes"

    The biggest name by far is Tucker Carlson at Fox News, although he doesn't directly call it mutilation. He merely states that transitioning is bad and everyone who has surgery regret it, and often has supposedly ex-trans people on his show telling him how much they regret transitioning. He seems to save most of his agitation for white nationalist issues.

    Another big name is Matt Walsh, an out and proud Christian fascist who regularly racks up several million views on YouTube. He's perhaps most famous for his propaganda hit-piece "What is a woman?". He regularly calls for violence against trans people, children's hospitals, and progressives.

    Mr Walsh is also famous for saying that women are the most fertile at 16, and should be at home having babies instead of going to school. (Age of consent laws are generally frowned upon with this crowd. It's not pedophilia if you get married.)

    Chaya Raichik runs the @LibsOfTikTok Twitter account which has become fairly popular. Our friend Elon Musk, among others, has signal boosted her. She regularly calls for violence as well and doxxes various people.

    Another one is Ben Shapiro, an anti-semitic Jew and massive racist/transphobe/homophobe. He generally just hates black/trans/gay people but tries to hide it behind "facts and logic".

    There are others, but those are the biggest ones off the top of my head.

    476:

    Planning on technology that don't exist yet happens all the time. Unless you have a target of a non-existant technology that you want, you aren't going to get it. The semiconductor industry has been doing this for decades. You want a wafer fab with features a tiny fraction of the current size in five or six years time, then you need to start developing those technologies right now. Having the plan helps you select the areas to throw the money required. It is excellent planning.

    477:

    Plastics can be made from many feedstocks including vegetable. After all coal and oil were once vegetable. Sugar has been used successfully. When Iwas doing a chemistry degree in the early 1970 we were often asked to work u a synthesis of some organic compound for homework/tutorials. If anyone asked “What should be the starting point?” The lecturers always said “Coal!”

    478:

    Late reply: Klamath Falls is building a water pump storage facility. Now, the guy involved had to pay off his neighbors, though not as much as they wanted, and yet, here we are.

    https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2022/06/a-green-energy-win-in-klamath-county-steve-duin-column.html

    479:

    Since it's electric cars, here's an infuriating hint of the future - Mercedes Makes Better Performance a $1,200 Subscription in Its EVs

    480:

    Speaking of PREEs...

    Given the ethical and moral problems of both FIFA and Qatar, I'm a bit surprised that I haven't heard more calls for a boycott of the World Cup. After all, it's a profit-sucking entertainment enterprise, and the thing that can affect it most is to lose the audience.

    481:

    Planning on technology that don't exist yet happens all the time.

    😁

    I was going to argue that most of the technology already exists, and we have some reason to hope that the political and economic technology will arrive in time. But even the latter is largely known at least at the lab level.

    I do like the certainty that commercial steel production using fossil derived hydrogen (the current state of play) can't possibly switch to renewable derived hydrogen because we don't have the technology to do that. I'm like... no-one has invented it because there's nothing to invent. It's not a "technology", it's barely even a technique. "hook up the hydrogen supply as you normally do, but you pay a renewable energy company for it instead of a fossil energy company". Patent pending!

    482:

    Just to chime in on greenhouse gases.

    It's PURELY a political problem

    "There's not enough money to do it", but the politicians can create money out of nothing any time they want. It's not inherently inflationary if it creates more goods and services, which in this case it does in spades. It's simply growing the economy.

    There's currently 5 trillion dollars a year in fossil fuel subsidies by very conservative estimates.

    A solar panel factory was recently built in Florida for 50 million. It outputs 400 MW of panels a year. 5 trillion would buy 100,000 such factories. They would output 40 TW of panels per year. If the panels last 30 years, that means the number of installed panels will stabilise after 30 years, with an installed fleet of 1200 TW of panels. Global energy consumption is about 25 TW.

    A 12 GW UHVDC cable costs about a million dollars per km (the costs are concentrated at the ends, but that's a decent number for back of the envelope calculations).

    One more year's worth of fossil fuel subsidies would buy 5 million km of 12 GW cable. 4 years of that and you'd have enough cable to carry the entire world energy consumption from the equator to the pole. Not that you'd need that because most of the energy would be consumed within the grid footprint that it was produced in.

    "Oh, but we'd be dependent on cables, and any one could attack them!"

    Which do you think makes for an easier target: 1000 submarine cables coming into your country and 1000 solar farms, or 10 switchyards outside 10 power plants?

    And what if they did destroy them all? You'd have so much solar that all daylight hours you'd have power no matter what the weather was like. That's pretty good in a war.

    Matching the current fossil fuel subsidies for 2 or 3 years would completely solve this problem.

    The money is there.

    The technology is there.

    It's purely political.

    483:

    Oh I see them ok. Part of the reason I commented was the one I followed for a mile or so yesterday, who actually was sticking to the speed limit.

    484:

    Klamath Falls is building a water pump storage facility.

    Great news, Jean! I hope the changing climate keeps those lakes full enough.

    485:

    On the map just south of Tualatin you'll see Interstate 5 crossing the Willamette River, next to a golf course/housing development. That's the only crossing for an inconvenient distance in either direction, which I will remember for a long time because I got caught there trying to get home after the solar eclipse a few years ago and that's where my 'travel the back roads' plan failed.

    You could try the Canby ferry... :-)

    Portland also has the Hayden Island neighborhood, where we held Orycon in the Before Times and will again. It's served by I-5 and there is no other bridge; if your vehicle isn't fit for the highway you can't get there.

    Bus and bicycle. I've done both.

    486:

    I'm a bit surprised that I haven't heard more calls for a boycott of the World Cup.

    As someone who grew up in Kentucky and was (is still somewhat) a basketball fan[1], you sound like someone who has no idea of the strength of a sports loyalty. It can trump all rational thought. Especially in a group.

    [1] Think of some of the UK's / Europe's more popular football (soccer) clubs and multiply it by 10. So where have I lived for the last 33 years? 20 minutes from North Carolina and Duke universities.

    487:

    Part/most of the reason riders habitually ride above the speed limit is it reduces the cognitive load.

    Riding with the flow of traffic demands that you track and evaluate vehicles 360 degrees around you.

    Riding faster than the traffic you only need to plot the likely actions of the vehicles in front. Ride significantly faster and the cone of possible locations for the vehicles in front shrinks significantly. It makes it trivially easy to plot a path through the traffic that doesn't intersect any of the possible paths the cars can take. I don't know if it's safer, but it feels safer and it's much more relaxing.

    I ride at or slightly below the speed limit these days, but it's exhausting compared to riding 30-50% above the limit.

    488:

    Agreed, that developing the technology is straightforward, also with 482 that a lot of it is integration, more than invention.

    Aside from the political battles, which are fairly huge, I see three places we need better innovation:

  • Retrofitting. The innovation here is getting people's heads out of their helping some municipalities, people, planners, and pols alike, get their heads around the need to work as much as possible with existing stuff. For example, my multidecade-old Lexus, burner that it is, is still in many ways more environmentally friendly than a car that doesn't exist yet, because its manufacturing impacts happened long ago. I'll wear it out and recycle what I can before replacing it. Ditto with buildings and infrastructure. It's often better to retrofit existing structures, if they're built at all solidly (problem here...) than to tear them down, deal with the debris, and deal with build-new costs. Not profitable or politically sexy though.

  • Recycling, especially lithium batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines. I'll be happier when we can use a solar-powered facility to recycle old solar panels into new ones. Ditto batteries. And making turbines and blades that weren't composites of quite so many materials would be nice.

  • Supply chains. Hopefully we can get to the point where critical technologies aren't utterly dependent on mining cobalt in the Congo, Middle Eastern gas, Chilean lithium, Chinese rare earths, etc.

  • 489:

    Odd. I find driving faster than the traffic much more mentally taxing than driving with the traffic. Least taxing is driving slightly slower than the traffic.

    490:

    Damian @ 404:

    you don't need to accelerate like a maniac

    Well yes, that was sort of the point. Part of why I explained the bit about being a novice driver with a 3-speed manual transmission. No-one would pull out into traffic where it's physically impossible for someone to stop, but there are lots of circumstances where it's perfectly reasonable to expect people to slow down a bit.

    I think you're being dismissive of the other part of the argument. When you pull out you can't be too lackadaisical in accelerating to highway speed. And while it may be "perfectly reasonable to expect people to slow down a bit", you have no way of assuring that they will.

    "The other guy had plenty of time to slow down after I pulled out" is not an argument that stands up well in court if you're charged with causing a traffic accident.

    BTDT-GTTS ... fortunately for me, I was only a passenger in the car that got hit & was not charged with any driving offense.

    In my Defensive Driving course (paid for by the U.S. Army) we learned a "two second" rule for following distance. No matter the speed of traffic, two seconds should give you enough time & distance to react and brake accordingly.

    That is actually the law here, but it's poorly explained, little understood and seldom observed. To me it translates to 5.5m (roughly a car length) for every 10km/h. For you it would mean about 30 feet per 10mph. It's a floor, not a ceiling, I usually allow more space and double what I think I need if it's raining (or the driver ahead has already done something I think is dumb).

    I don't even think about it as following DISTANCE any more. How am I supposed to measure 5.5m per 10km/h (or 30ft/10mph)? ... but I can count "one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand ..."

    It's not just about reacting to things on the road. It's perfectly reasonable for someone to slow down suddenly and unexpectedly for no reason that you can see. There are lots of reasons, the validity of which is none of our business, including that someone is tailgating them (see also unnecessary overuse of window washers).

    Meh, I don't want to be preachy about this stuff, but I've been finding aggressive driving behaviour more and more as an affront to sense, taste and a fact-based worldview.

    While I AM paying attention to the guy in front of me, I'm also focusing further down the road, trying to anticipate what may affect his driving behavior. Aggressive driving is offensive and I try to NOT do it myself. But I can't do a lot about the other guy other than swear at him and make the occasional rude gesture and basically put as much distance between us as is feasible under the road & traffic conditions.

    IF it's too egregious, I can call the cops, but I have to pull off the road to do it. Here in NC, *37 on any cell phone should get the dispatcher for the nearest Highway Patrol district.

    491:

    Most, if not all, of the commentatiat on this site are uninterested in soccer.

    492:

    Charles H
    Ah well, Steel can be & IS BEING made with electrical heating ... ok?

    Lars
    That {list} is ... sickening.
    I'd heard of Carlson & Shapiro - the latter notorious for claiming "Darwin was a Nazi" { & the usual trope that the Nazis were evil Commonists, as well } - but Walsh & Raichick are new to me - thanks for the warning.

    Retiring
    "FIFA" / "Ethical & moral problems"?? - GROW UP! - Or something similar, but more polite, ok?
    FIFA are arseholes, they always have been & always will be - it's football, OK? Only MONEY talks, moral considerations need not apply.
    I think the teams that wanted to wear Rainbow armbands shoud have - to the point of disqualification - which then crashes the whole fucking idea of this shitshow, doesn't it?

    Gasdive
    YES

    493:

    We were just at Philcon, during which we were hearing about Greg Bear. I was already unhappy, because David Sherman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sherman , who I have known for a long, long time.

    Which leads to the thread on cars. I have an '08 Honda minivan. City driving, mileage is lousy - I'm happy to get 17 mpg. Highway... I've gotten, just last week, 24mpg. And it weighs less than an SUV. But then, I don't NEED four wheel drive. I could have used four wheel drives once in my life. But to own a city car, then rent one for long-distance? Let's see: we drive up to Baltimore a few times a year... but need to carry a lot of luggage for Balticon. And then we drove to Worldcon* in Chicago. And then to Capclave (trivial... but I'm running the con suite, and have to haul stuff there and back). Then Mannington, WV. Then Windycon. Then Philcon. That's six car rentals, each one on the order of probably $400 min per rental.

    * "Driving to Chicago means we drive to southeaster Indiana, to visit some very close friends, then up to Chicago, and visit my old doctor there, then out to the suburbs, Lombard, IL. Oh, and before Worldcon, we drove from our friends' farm (zero chance of any public transit getting to their farm) to Sandwich, IL, for Ellen to do genealogical research. After Windycon, a week ago, we drove to Michigan City, IN, for more research. So the rentals would have gone up a lot.

    Driving. sigh First, I don't need to hit 80mph to merge. I WAIT... but then, unlike 3/4s of ALL IDIOTS BEHIND THE WHEEL, I do NOT DRIVE TO THE END OF THE MERGE LANE, then expect to accelerate. I stay as far back as possible, to give me time to accelerate.

    Always worked for me, including with my Dearly Beloved Departed 1986 Toyota Tercel wagon, 0-60, up a slight grade, from a stoplight, 22sec. If the other person turned off the a/c....

    Then... all the cameras? I want them to catch ALL of the morons trying to hit 90+, when the traffic's barely letting me do 65.

    494:

    Suburbs: In the US, there used to be "way out there". What happens is it all gets filled in. And "way out there", has long since meant that the damn developers wipe out the small farms that provided fresh veggies and fruits to the cities, so they now come from California... or Chile. Oh, and we'll spend billions building high-speed roads (Interstates)... but spend more than 1B on Amtrak? No, no, that's only for peasants and tourists.... Oh, and the right in Congress won't force the railroads (Amtrak only owns its own tracks in the Northeast Corridor) to have passenger trains as higher priority than freight traffic (never mind they're always scheduled, not extras).

    495:

    Oddly enough, an ex was pushing me to support a bill in county council to prevent new gas lines for new construction. I just emailed her, noting my paying for a gas line from our meter to the kitchen, so we could have a gas stove... but that I'd consider it... if the bill guaranteed subsidies for the costs of the electric heat, hot water, and stove for everyone earning under the median income.

    496:

    A few years ago, I went to a kink open house at a club. Their bathroom was an incredibly simple solution: you walked in, and there was a sign: urinals to the left, stalls to the right. And that was it.

    497:

    "Odd. I find driving faster than the traffic much more mentally taxing than driving with the traffic. Least taxing is driving slightly slower than the traffic."

    I am the same, but I am in a fully automated luxury racing sofa with airbags, crumple zones and a wide array of safety devices designed to keep me alive when I get hit by the car behind me. In almost all cases, a rear end collision would become an insurance and financial issue, mostly to be resolved by the insurance company of the driver behind me.

    A motorcycle has none of those things, and so must maintain as much awareness of the vehicles behind as ahead. If they get hit from behind, it may be an insurance and financial issue but it will often be their beneficiaries who have to deal with it.

    498:

    Why crypto? Why not, say, a government-issued debit card?

    499:

    I don't normally have a problem with semis. I have REAL issues with the arseholes in Lexi, BMWs, and Infiniti, who want to do 90+, regardless of traffic, and are apparently illiterate, since NONE OF THEM actually read the damn road signs, and then think that the fact that they have to get across four lanes of Interstate traffic for the exit 300' ahead is everyone else' problem.

    500:

    Were you at Philcon this weekend?

    501:

    Or the idiots moving to coastal Florida. Or the other idiots moving to Arizona.

    502:

    Ship the damn cargo via rail, then use trucks locally....

    503:

    Thomas Jørgensen @ 445:

    Nuclear actually needs shockingly little concrete per MWH produced. Reactors are big piles of it, yes, but they are on all the time, they produce a lot of power and last a really long time.

    The only nuclear reactor I really know anything about is made of steel. The building that houses it is concrete ... a lot of concrete.

    504:

    My preferred solution to driving hazards would be on the licensing side. Being incredibly dangerous, a driving license should be comparable to a pilot's license. It should take weeks or months of training, and if you do it badly it should be very easy to lose that license.

    When I was learning to drive myself, one of my Dutch cousins came to stay for a while, and got her license while in Canada. It sounded like driving licenses in the Netherlands were handled rather like that, rather than the Canadian 'so what if it took you 50 tries to pass the test' philosophy common at the time (late 70s).

    No idea if it was true then, or if it's true now.

    505:

    Which, as far as I'm concerned, is great - it helps slow population growth.

    506:

    "Mutilation"? They can go screw themselves, the jerks saying that.

    Hell, my partner would love to have reduction surgery - getting down to a C from an F....

    507:

    And the anti have no clue how much is involved, and how much in the way of daily drugs.... They think it's a poof magic wand to change.

    508:

    They call where I live "suburban" - hah, and I'm US. We're a couple of meters apart, with good-sized back yards (and I wish the bloody house was larger, and the yard smaller.

    Anyone know where I can find a 10gal can of room stretcher? You know, where you spray it on the walls and push, and you have larger rooms?

    509:

    "The other guy had plenty of time to slow down after I pulled out" is not an argument that stands up well in court if you're charged with causing a traffic accident.

    The traffic offence is "failure to yield", at least up here.

    A decade or so ago a delivery driver pulled out of a parking lot in front of one of my nieces, who ran into him, and disputed the charges. I went to court with my niece as emotional support. His defence to the judge was "but she had time to stop, therefore it's her fault". Didn't fly.

    Sociologically, there are cultures where he would be considered right. North America is a 'right-of-way' culture, where people who are moving are considered to have the right to the space they are entering. Other cultures (some in asia and the middle east, iirc) are 'right-of-occupancy' cultures where someone who is in a space has the right to stay there, even if someone was going to move into it. (All this based on decades-old study, so take with a reasonable quantity of sodium chloride.)

    510:

    Yeah, well, the entrance onto I-76 south from 30th St. Station in Philly is one of the most insane I know of - a "merge lane measurable in meters, and a curve from around to the right behind you. Meters of visibility....

    511:

    I have one thing to say: Turing.

    512:

    Even when I look at "world" in the Guardian.

    513:
  • I was driving my late ex's car in FL. I hadn't driven a stick in years, and we were in a left turn lane. We got the right-turn light, and I stalled it out. And an IDIOT WOMAN in a friggen' SUV came cruisin' around the semi on our right, so she couldn't see until she'd gotten around it, and was going far too fast - 25? 30? I remember her shocked face just before she rear-ended us, don't even know if she ever hit the damn brakes.

    I let everyone else, then the cop, deal with her, or I'd have punched her lights out.

  • 514:

    Most drivers are out to kill them.

    On the other hand... I read in a motorcycle mag a long, long time ago, and this was confirmed by my friend the superannuated outlaw biker who was always in pain, it's not "if" you go down, it's when.

    515:

    ilya187 said: Odd. I find driving faster than the traffic much more mentally taxing.

    Me too. Driving a bit below the limit is more relaxing. Riding below the limit is draining.

    516:

    "Mutilation"? They can go screw themselves, the jerks saying that.

    Hell, my partner would love to have reduction surgery - getting down to a C from an F....

    Yes, I used to be a lab assistant in a histopathology lab and breast reductions were incredibly common. Many women get them to help with back pain. And it's much less common, but teenage boys sometimes get them as well (in which case it's also gender-affirming surgery, but so that young men can look more like young men). But once breast reduction surgery is performed on trans men suddenly that's "mutilation". As you say, they can fuck right off with that nonsense, but as much as TERFs like to insist they're the party of science and reason they are awfully quick to resort to charged emotive attacks, bold-faced double standards and wilfull intellectual dishonesty to make their case.

    517:

    This is skirting around the distinction between pulling out and accelerating, versus simply being on the road and driving slower. In my example I wasn't talking about pulling out in front of traffic that would be obliged to stop, I was talking about pulling out 500m in front of traffic travelling at 100km/h and accelerating respectably, just not crazily (and being a novice driver of an older style manual car), so if I missed a gear change or something they might need to slow down and allow for someone who'd only made it up to 80 or 90km/h by the time they are on you. This is a road that often enough had tractors and other vehicles that could not manage 100km/h. JBS for reasons of his own has issues with that, but I think most people understand the "sometimes things don't go perfectly" thing.

    Over here, it's generally assumed whoever was behind and could see what was happening was at fault, and the onus is on them to show why it wasn't. People seem to twist the "failure to yield" and "right of way" concepts in their heads to suit whatever they think, and that seems to be implicated in some of the more unpleasant behaviours.

    518:

    An aside.

    Back in the time I'm guessing this story took place, in NSW, (a couple of hours drive south) the limit for learner drivers was 70 km/h.

    So drivers were used to, and expected to come up on learners going 40 km/h under the limit.

    Even now it's only 90. 20 km/h under the posted highway limit.

    519:

    Over here, it's generally assumed whoever was behind and could see what was happening was at fault, and the onus is on them to show why it wasn't. People seem to twist the "failure to yield" and "right of way" concepts in their heads to suit whatever they think, and that seems to be implicated in some of the more unpleasant behaviours.

    There's malice, fatigue, distracted driving, bad behavior, sun low on the horizon...and blind onramps.

    The one I mentioned in the "karma" post above is on the downhill side of a low rise on a two lane road where the speed limit is 70 mph. Getting on the highway means accelerating rapidly to merge, simply because it's less dangerous.

    My point was less about driving behavior than bad design. I've been on both sides of that intersection--trying desperately to get up to speed, and trying desperately to slow from 70 mph o 40 mph in 100 meters without losing control--and my point is that the road design forces the problems as much or more than the drivers do. Solving the problem, to get to the lighter, slower, more efficient vehicles EC wants, in part means rebuilding intersections like that one to be safer during the transition, when big, fast vehicles share the road with slow, light ones.

    520:

    In the early 90s some friends and I rented a car in Martinique to explore the island. At one point I did what was apparently unthinkable for the drivers of the island and stopped to let some pedestrians cross.

    About 7 cars back I heard a screech and thump, followed by a series of thumps as each car behind us got hit in turn, ending with the car immediately behind. We were not hit, and carried on our way (a bunch of 20 year old foreigners with marijuana on our persons and no desire to interface with les flics).

    At the time I was shocked, but 30 years later I realize that I was following Canadian driving rules and went outside the expectations of the drivers of Martinique.

    521:

    Kardashev wrote on November 21, 2022 13:49 in #447:

    There's an interesting article today on modern Dutch agriculture, "Cutting-edge tech made this tiny country a major exporter of food". Perhaps relevant to discussions of future possibilities for dealing with climate change, energy transition, etc.

    It's unlinkable, but googling on the title will find it.

    https://archive.ph lets you generate a weblink for paywalled material.

    It found https://archive.ph/zu9a1 for the article in question.

    522:

    And that has been exactly my point; sometimes road design necessitates you arriving more or less at a merge with the ability to achieve the 90th percentile speed of traffic on the road you're merging onto.

    523:

    Jean Lamb wrote on November 21, 2022 19:54 in #478:

    Late reply: Klamath Falls is building a water pump storage facility. Now, the guy involved had to pay off his neighbors, though not as much as they wanted, and yet, here we are.

    https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2022/06/a-green-energy-win-in-klamath-county-steve-duin-column.html

    Not one spadeful of dirt has yet been turned. That project started in 2018, and its projected completion has slipped to 2026: https://slenergystorage.com/project.html#timeline

    That same website tells us the Pacific NW will need 10,000MW of storage, so we'd need 24 more such projects, and finding good sites for such projects has been said to be problematic.

    The nameplate specifies up to 9.5 hours (op cit.) of delivery of up to 393MW https://www.blm.gov/press-release/blm-authorizes-swan-lake-land-use-pumped-storage-project-near-klamath-falls . That is, if the Klamath Valley farmers, well practised at screaming about water rights, don't tap the water that's 'just sitting there'.

    I am more optimistic about wave energy, such as this wave action bouy (more detail) (video puff piece) recently successfully tested for three years off Hawaii, with coastal testing set for the more demanding Oregon coast and siting underway for the US East Coast.

    Those would need large scale manufacturing, on the scale of WW2's Liberty ship construction (2,710 built), but the Portland and Vancouver (WA) shipyards (among many others) certainly churned those out back then, and those bouys are only 6% the tonnage of a Liberty ship. They're also out in the ocean, where thirsty farmers can't try to grab the working fluid. And, best of all, they're going to actually generate power 24x7, not merely store it.

    Here's a question: When the North Sea was becalmed last year, how did that effect wave action?

    524:

    "Sorry son, I didn't see you." That's a phrase that most bikers of any experience have heard at least once, if they survived the experience.

    Never mind bikers... My friend Lisa once had a low speed fender-bender in a parking lot and the other driver protested, "I didn't see her!" I should explain that she was driving her Big Orange Van at the time, which was why the fender that got bent was not hers; I don't recall if Charlie has ever gotten to ride in the van but I'm sure he's heard of it from Kevin. The responding police officer listened to the other driver's protest, looked over at the Big Orange Van, and asked, "You didn't see that?!?"

    The thumbnail image might not sufficiently make obvious the jacked-up suspension, the augmented bumpers, the ham radio antennas, or the overall size of the thing...

    525:

    To be pedantic (sorry) if the drugs in question are bioidentical testosterone, then there's a decent chance it's weekly drugs. :) That said gel would be daily.

    526:

    Rocketpjs wisely wrote on November 21, 2022 at 19:05 in #471:

    Most drivers fail to grasp the low percentage risks. I can drive insanely fast through traffic and probably not crash, but if I do it all the time the probabilities will eventually catch up to me.

    My preferred solution to driving hazards would be on the licensing side. Being incredibly dangerous, a driving license should be comparable to a pilot's license. It should take weeks or months of training, and if you do it badly it should be very easy to lose that license.

    If you are the cause of a crash that harms or kills someone, you no longer have a license. If you drive in such a way that people are at risk, you lose the license and it is hard to get it back.

    If it is your job to drive, be extra careful (like a pilot). If you need to drive to get to work, be careful or move.

    Toll road transponders in vehicles, linked to accellerometers and GPS (such as are already built into your shoephones), will make insane driving a rarety in the coming decade. Already, insurers are discounting for US drivers who welcome a little bit of Big Brother into their vehicle to monitor driving habits, and the same technology can scream bloody murder to traffic patrol officers when an uninsured driver passes nearby.

    527:

    'If you do something that is probably safe, say only a 1% risk of an accident, does that seem reasonable?' ... 'What are your odds if you do it 1000 times? How about 10,000?'

    I've read that the sweet spot for the most deaths by misadventure is when the odds are in the range of 1/10,000 to 1/100,000.

    If some action has a one in ten chance of killing people who do it then it's obviously stupid and people don't do that thing.

    If something has a one in ten million chance of killing you then it seems pretty safe. People may do it, and it probably catches up to some of them, but those deaths are few because they're improbable.

    If something has a one in ten thousand, or one hundred thousand, chance of killing people who do it, that's when humans will shrug and think it sounds relatively safe. So they do it, and sure enough some of them crap out on the odds.

    528:

    It is St Cecila's Day - patron saint of Music, & the Beeb usually do "nice things" on R3. It is also 59 years since JFK was murdered. I remember that day.

    SS
    Yes, well, see also the early & under-appreciated early Pterry - The Dark Side of the Sun ...
    IIRC: Probability comes down to - "Either it will happen, or it will not" - and - Way down, many digits below the decimal point ...

    529:

    Australia has significant reserves of most of the critical minerals https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/minerals/critical-minerals and a number of players pushing to make us a Renewables Superpower

    530:

    Here's a picture of a Dennis Dominator similar to the one I drove. It stands some 14 feet tall from ground to roof line, 8 feet wide, and yes the front end really was that yellow. I get the Big Orange Van.

    531:

    Meanwhile Starmer is fucking STUPID - just as the figures against Brexit are climbing & climbing as the disaster finally sinks in.
    Mind you, he's got until the next election to say that he was misinformed - wonder if he'll have the sense? If Starmer is NOT going to get as, at the least, closer to the EU - what's the point of voting Labour?
    Handing votes back to the tories, in fact.

    532:

    Wave power is one of those technologies that gets some PhD money and occasional front-page filler articles about free energy and renewables followed by silence since the abandonment and decommissioning of the project after a year or two isn't news that people want to read. As for the North Sea, somewhere I have a picture of a not-untypical day there with a Norwegian oil-rig support vessel standing pretty much on its nose thanks to the wave it's riding.

    The experimental Limpet wave-energy device was a compromise, it was a tower made from concrete running up a sea-cliff in the mostly-sheltered waters around Skye in the NW islands of Scotland. The idea was that wave action at the bottom of the tower would push air up a pipe to an enclosed turbine and generate electricity that way. The plan was to eventually build free-floating tethered wave towers that could operate out in the more energetic mid-Atlantic, based on data from the Limpet prototype which was intended to operate for ten years. It started disintegrating after six months of exposure to the sea and the project was abandoned.

    Wave power energy devices either need to be built as ruggedly as oil and gas production platforms and maintained to the same level or they will not survive for long. That makes them too expensive for the amount of energy they produce. Tidal and current generators don't get that sort of a pounding when a hurricane passes through since they're submerged deeply but they're operating in salt water under pressure and again they are expensive to build and install and again we don't hear much about them when the experimental project shuts down.

    If someone can come up with a wave or tidal energy generator that does not have moving parts exposed to salt water then maybe they have a chance. Magneto-hydrodynamic, maybe? Salt water is conductive, hmmm...

    533:

    His name along with all the "we've got to make it work" in that article keeps making me think:

    He's told us not to blow it 'cause he knows it's all worthwhile...

    Which would be more entertaining if I actually agreed with it.

    534:

    Back to the days of wooden ships, and nothing beyond bronze cannon for the Navy...?

    535:

    Toll road transponders in vehicles, linked to accellerometers and GPS (such as are already built into your shoephones), will make insane driving a rarety in the coming decade.

    Maybe. When the 407 was built up here it was technically possible to have it fine drivers whose average speed was greater than the limit, because it has timestamped records of entry/exit locations. (Transponders and license plate cameras.)

    The operators demurred, on the grounds that doing so would deter drivers from using it.

    Also, speed cameras have been a thing for years. They have been a third rail in at least two elections up here.

    The fix isn't technological — we've had technology adequate to the job for a long time. It's the political will to actually enforce the laws we already have (and possible add new ones if necessary).

    536:

    The Shetland tidal power array has been going for 6 years - its partly a research project but is also generating energy for the grid ( 4 x 100Kw turbines, 2 more to be added this/next year ).

    537:

    Part of the issue with making environmental switches is that, in the West (or at least, English speaking countries) we're not in a stage where government is willing/able to effectively lead on large scale projects.

    There's a lot of reasons for that, and I have no idea if they're changeable in a short frame.

    538:

    You want a wafer fab with features a tiny fraction of the current size in five or six years time, then you need to start developing those technologies right now.

    You are describing improvements to existing technology, not the new breakthrough technologies we are going to need to solve the renewable energy storage problem.

    539:

    "The responding police officer listened to the other driver's protest, looked over at the Big Orange Van, and asked, "You didn't see that?!?""

    You would be surprised at the angular width blocked out by the driver's side front pillar.

    540:

    For short to short-end-of-medium term storage, at least, we have them, and have had for yonks. A great deal of the blah and blather around batteries, for example, arises from everyone thinking first and foremost of batteries for portable applications (for values of "portable" which reach "locomotive" at the top end) and mistakenly assuming that we need the same kind of batteries for massive static installations. We don't. The awkward requirements like high energy density, minimal weight, and superfast charge and discharge rates, which make portable batteries difficult, basically don't exist for large static storage, and most limitations that you do encounter can be overcome simply by making the installations bigger. Nickel-iron batteries are an ancient idea, you can hardly argue that the materials are uncommon, and they work a treat - just ask the Post Office.

    541:

    Something wrong with this requirement for massive A-pillars when you look at how long Volvo have been fond of doing things like this. http://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/1971-market-for-a-hardtop-ad.jpg

    542:

    "The big buried lede of the past decade is that authoritarian conservatives network internationally as pervasively as the soi-disant "international communism" they railed against from the 1920s through the 1960s."

    This is very true, and the basic, maybe the one most fundamental problem facing the Democracies now and in the immediate future is that they (the Democracies) do not network internationally almost at all (as was seen recently at the COP conference). Tyranny is a seemless though decentralized global conspiracy, happening right out in the open, but democracy is still managed and limited by national boundaries. This is why one path toward promoting and protecting democracy would be a new international taxation agreement (bye bye dark money).

    I think when you add up all the externalities involved, the costs of converting to sustainable energy, with or even without nuclear, is greatly exceeded by the benefits. All the plastic involved in manufacturing a million new solar panels would be mere blip compared to the amount used yearly in soda bottles alone. All the cement used to construct a 1000 new power plants wouldn't even be discernible next to the amount used to construct suburban sidewalks (at least in N America). And we passed any tipping points long ago.

    It's about catastrophe mitigation, not prevention, which makes the failure to reach agreement on funding developing nations even more egregious. We need all the potential solutions all at once: solar, batteries, wind, wave, hydro, recycling, waste reduction, refurbishment and insulation, new fertilizer, population reduction (though as slowly and incrementally as possible), and above all electrify everything.

    All this, not to prevent the catastrophe that is coming, but to reduce the damage it does.

    But we need to work within the political and economic systems we have right now, which means it all needs to be profitable to implement (or cost less than the current system, which for most purposes is the same thing). Fortunately, this appears to be happening, as the cost of sustainable power continues to fall. Developing and marketing new technologies is exceptionally profitable, so that will continue happening.

    Every life we save is a life we save, and every dollar worth of damage that doesn't happen is a dollar's worth of damage that doesn't happen. That's the mindset we need right now.

    543:

    I use old school deep cycle lead/acid batteries for my offgrid solar and most off grid folks do.

    However the price gap between them and lithium is pretty narrow now, especially when you factor in the total lifetime and assume a lot of charging and discharging. I think that gap will vanish and/or reverse soon.

    544:

    You want a wafer fab with features a tiny fraction of the current size in five or six years time, then you need to start developing those technologies right now.

    You are describing improvements to existing technology, not the new breakthrough technologies we are going to need to solve the renewable energy storage problem.
    A lot of the time yes, it is incremental. Other times, it needs entirely new breakthrough technology that exists at best only in university labs as small scale demonstrators. The extreme UV lithography now used for the smallest commercial chips needed entirely new UV laser illumination and optics compared with the deep UV from excimer lasers that was the previous high end. A pattern mask is a complex multi layer structure that reflects light to expose the wafer, rather than transmit it, unlike all previous systems. It took ASML well over a decade to develop. Sounds pretty preakthrough to me. Shows how throwing money and clever people at a problem can solve it. Don't knock incremental changes either. A few percent a year improvement in performance adds up over time. A lot of the improvement in things like Li battery technology are of this type. Mass production can also make dramatic reductions in cost. Solar PV panels are an excellent example. The first ones I bought around fifteen years ago were an order of magnitude more expensive than the same ones now and that is before we figure in inflation. Put all three together, breakthrough tech, incremental changes to existing tech and cost reduction through mass production and the picture can change dramatically. It would not surprise me to see some combination of all three having a big effect on electricity storage.

    545:

    context = USA GIVEN:

    3.31E8 people * 365.25 ==> 1.21E11 person-days per calendar year

    about 100 -- some years less or more -- get struck by lightning

    THEREFORE

    odds for any given individual on any specific date has less than one-in-billion chance of being struck by lightning

    ...and yet there's at least one segment every summer on evening news teevee warning of the risk and how best avoid a 'tragic lightning strike'

    waste of time... never mind the sensationalism and frantic breathlessness of eye candy journalists of whatever gender... that's four minutes I will never get back

    more likely ways of getting hurt simply not going to make it into rotation due to 'dangerous product' is made by 'frequent advertiser' and thus 'flawless-happy-happy-joy-joy'

    thus no warning about cars with bald tires, mixing 'n matching medication with booze, stupid ways to die involving ladders, etc

    546:

    "I use old school deep cycle lead/acid batteries for my offgrid solar and most off grid folks do.

    However the price gap between them and lithium is pretty narrow now, especially when you factor in the total lifetime and assume a lot of charging and discharging. I think that gap will vanish and/or reverse soon. "

    I recently helped install a LiPO4 off grid battery system for some one. The next set of deep cycle lead/acid batts I buy will probably be the last before the economics make going Li more sensible. In addition to the batteries, it is likely much of the charge control gear will also need replacing, so a big capital cost, but savings over time. A particular advantage for off grid use is that they don't require regular charging to 100% as lead acids do to keep their capacity. In fact they prefer being run between around 20 and 80% capacity.

    547:

    That is a thoroughly misleading calculation. The odds of being struck by lightning if you do the things they warn against are much, much higher. I agree that warning about behaviour few people go in for is a trifle biassed, but USA television is widely reported to be beyond redemption. I can't swear to that personally, because I never watched it even when I was living in the USA :-)

    548:

    "The money is there.

    The technology is there.

    It's purely political."

    This. So very much this. And more of this, and even more. This is very much exactly true.

    549:

    It's also a bloody stupid idea. GPS, perhaps, to track hit and run drivers, but some insurers in the UK already demand accelerometers for young drivers. And, speaking as a cyclist, one of the most common (if not most serious) risks from drivers is them NOT accelerating hard, pulling over onto the other side of the road, and exceeding the speed limit if necessary when passing. Driving past at 25 MPH a foot from the cyclist's right elbow is not safe, but is not illegal.

    They ignores the fact that, as a not-powerful cyclist, I have often yelled at motorists "get a bloody move on" when they accelerated like snails after red lights. And even 'ordinary' cars have 20 times the power to weight ratio that I do as a cyclist!

    550:

    In most cases, yes. But that does NOT mean that all of the proposed 'green' solutions make technical sense. For example, there is essentially no way that the UK could provide enough power from local solar, wind, wave and tide - we would have to import it, but that's feasible.

    However, 'political' should also include 'social' - solutions become much easier, cheaper and quicker if we also reduce our requirements. And that is being pursued with even less vigour.

    551:

    Agreed as well. It's necessary to use the right implementation in the right place, (and one of the ways "the Commonwealth" could be useful is as an electricity alliance.)

    552:

    David L @ 411:

    I'm suspicious that there was/is a high correlation to Covid denial/who cares/anti-vac and asshole driving.

    Correlation yes, but which came first?

    553:

    Overtaking a foot from a cyclist's elbow is illegal at any speed since the last Highway Code update - at least 1.5m at under 30mph, and more if faster. It's rule 163. Pedestrians on the road get at least 2m.

    554:

    Two questions.

    If your EV is charged by a coal or natgas burning power plant, what have you gained environmentally?

    If your car is charged by renewables, how much area of commercially available PVCs is required to keep charged for a normal day of driving?

    Bonus question: Multiply the number cars on the road in your country by the area of PVCs needed to keep it charged. How big of an area (measured both in square miles/kilometers and as a percentage of your country's land area) is required just for automobiles?

    555:

    David L @ 425:

    Whitroth said "I've yet to read anything in the Guardian that's anti-trans" and I just realised that I haven't either.

    There is a US version of the Guardian that is what I and maybe Whitroth see which likely has an almost entirely different set of people writing the articles. To the extend they seem to be fully staffed in the US to keep up with politics and daily national news.

    I also think it may be more prevalent in the U.K. version OPINION columns, but doesn't really show up in the headlines. Headlines on opinion columns are not always fully representative of the opinions within.

    I guess that's also true for the U.S. version, so it could be there and I just didn't recognize it.

    I haven't seen it, but I mostly read the NEWS sections and get my "opinions" elsewhere.

    556:

    Auricoma @ 430:

    A much better metaphor is that Mastodon is to Twitter as old-time email was to Gmail (which has gradually subsumed almost all other services and still presents external SMTP and IMAP APIs but is basically its own thing these days and makes it increasingly difficult to run your own server elsewhere).

    No, it's not a better metaphor. E-mail has no discovery function, you don't generally send an open letter to the world at large and expect replies from people you don't know. Maybe a mailing-list would be a better one?

    Anyway, since mastodon instances appear to be blocking each other left and right over ideological differences (server A allows in a person B, who is friends with person C whom we hate, so we better ban everyone from server A just in case), we'll soon end up having to have a separate account for every instance. Just like with good old forums.

    Usenet?

    557:

    No, it is not. The Highway Code does not make law, and the introduction says "Although failure to comply with the other rules of the Code will not, in itself, cause a person to be prosecuted, The Highway Code may be used in evidence in any court proceedings under the Traffic Acts to establish liability." In order to use that as evidence, you would FIRST have to provide a prima facie case for careless driving - and good luck persuading the police of that! They almost never charge motorists who have not also committed a technical offence even after they have hit a pedestrian or cyclist.

    558:

    Uncle Stinky @ 479:

    Since it's electric cars, here's an infuriating hint of the future - Mercedes Makes Better Performance a $1,200 Subscription in Its EVs

    Well, that's certainly FUCKED UP! I blame Adobe.

    559:

    "If your EV is charged by a coal or natgas burning power plant, what have you gained environmentally?" A noticable amount. In the UK, renewable, including nuclear, makes up to half of the grid electricity now. A huge increase over the last couple of decades as the coal fired stations have been closed, or mothballed. Depends on how windy it is. Your country may vary. For the fossil fuel generated part of the grid, burning methane gas in a power station to make electricity and powering a vehicle motor with that is more efficient than burning petrol, or LPG in an internal combustion engine, so again the electric vehicle comes out ahead, even with distribution losses.

    "If your car is charged by renewables, how much area of commercially available PVCs is required to keep charged for a normal day of driving?"

    Can't answer that. Depends where you live. In the UK, we are close enough to the poles that photovoltaics are a bit rubbish, but we get a lot of on and off shore wind. Your country may well be different.

    "Bonus question: Multiply the number cars on the road in your country by the area of PVCs needed to keep it charged. How big of an area (measured both in square miles/kilometers and as a percentage of your country's land area) is required just for automobiles?"

    Why cars? There are other ways of getting around that are more efficient. Substituting squashed dinosaur cars with electric ones isn't necessarily the best way of going about it. Helps of course if there isn't multiple decades of infrastructure and urban planning based on the assumption that every one gets around only by car. An electric assist bike is using orders of magnitude less power than an electric car and for many urban journeys is going to be as fast, if not faster. Again, varies by country and where you live in that country. The US is particlarly bad in this respect.

    560:

    Well, that's certainly FUCKED UP! I blame Adobe.,/i>

    They may have been the first company to make subscription-based software work for the consumer market, but they weren't the first to float the idea. I encountered it in the 80s when thin clients were all the rage among the tech-bros.

    561:

    Whitroth, the UK Guardian is so transphobic the US branch of the Guardian has published an article decrying it. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/02/guardian-editorial-response-transgender-rights-uk

    562:

    My late wife and I, the last four years we were there, worked at the same company. There was a private grade crossing on the campus.

    One day, as we were heading home, she told me about seeing the HR head, who she knew, being carried away on a stretcher, repeating "I can't believe I didn't see the locomotive" (the one she had driven right into as it was crossing).

    563:

    I gather the folks transitioning to female have to take more. But testosterone - the injections are every two weeks, while the gel, yuck, spread the cold crap over your shoulders, then wait 10-15 min while it soaks in before getting dressed in the morning. And it's not as effective as the shots.

    And the implants ache for like three weeks....

    564:

    How about a large stainless cylinder/post, with a donut around it, hollow concrete (like a concrete boat, but sealed. Let it ride up and down....

    565:

    There is a difference. Individual engines efficiency v. one big engine's efficiency. The former is far less, just based on friction.

    566:

    That's four years old, but geez, missed that.

    So, the US Guardian is, as suggested, the best paper IN THE US....

    567:

    "I can't believe I didn't see the locomotive"

    How many times did the gorilla cross the court… :-)

    568:
    I'm a bit surprised that I haven't heard more calls for a boycott of the World Cup.

    As someone who grew up in Kentucky and was (is still somewhat) a basketball fan[1], you sound like someone who has no idea of the strength of a sports loyalty. It can trump all rational thought. Especially in a group.

    [1] Think of some of the UK's / Europe's more popular football (soccer) clubs and multiply it by 10. So where have I lived for the last 33 years? 20 minutes from North Carolina and Duke universities.

    Hey! Don't forget NC State

    With regards to World Cup "football" (aka soccer), IF I cared anything about it, I probably would boycott the World Cup because of the various restrictions that have been placed on the teams - banning rainbow arm bands & other stuff PLUS the news I've seen on how they treated the migrant workers brought in to build the stadium & other facilities.

    And then the cherry on top was banning beer sales at the stadium less than two days before the event was about to start (even though I don't really drink beer).

    I know that pales in comparison to all the human rights violations, but it's the "chef's kiss" to finish off a whole train of stupidity.

    But how do you boycott something you didn't care enough about to watch in the first place?

    569:

    "Overtaking a foot from a cyclist's elbow is illegal at any speed since the last Highway Code update - at least 1.5m at under 30mph, and more if faster."

    Interesting. For reasons of family and holiday, we were driving down a street in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina today and overtook a cyclist riding in the cycle lane. Which was frightening, as the cycle lane is way too narrow there, the inner lane was blocked, and some fast maneuvering was needed to avoid clipping the cyclist.

    The street:

    https://www.google.com/maps/@32.886036,-79.7836331,3a,75y,7.16h,63.94t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1scTfZVmd_gAjsB_AE37rhmw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

    570:

    "I can't believe I didn't see the locomotive" How many times did the gorilla cross the court… :-)

    Like in Pratchett's "Mort", where Death takes a night off and lets his apprentice make the rounds, then an assassin is accidentally harvested instead of the fated royal victim, who discovers it disrupts the historical timeline so everyone's attention gets mysteriously directed away from her thenceforth. Tempted to say 'and ever after' except I haven't finished the book. Could help make sense of traffic behavior I've observed I.R.L.

    571:

    the price gap between them (PbS) and lithium is pretty narrow now

    Hate to break it to you, but the price gap is increasing every day. Lithium have been cheaper for some time, and it's only applications where they need moderate storage capacity but up front cost is the only concern that use lead-acid. So that UPS or burglar alarm you buy with a big lead battery is like that mostly because it's the technology the industry knows, and partly because it's cheaper per kilogramme. The kids toys and scooters etc with lead batteries are explicitly "chap is all that matters", they're designed to last ~10 cycles and be thrown out. I see them thrown out a lot, and the local lead recyclers no longer pay for SLA batteries (some will accept them, some won't).

    For home scale batteries we're almost at the point where lithium is cheaper per nominal amp-hour... which makes it somewhere between 2x and 20x cheaper per delivered watt-hour, depending on how you calculate life expectancy. Viz, just using "100Ah of lead is 50Ah of lithium" lithium is cheaper now. But using "200 cycles to 50% for lead, 2000 cycles to 100% for lithium"... the latter is 20x cheaper. You can fiddle that by using flooded lead cells discharged to 80% and maintaining the batteries religiously, but when the cheaper option is a box that you plug in and never touch again it's hard to see why you'd want to do that.

    572:

    "how do you boycott something you didn't care enough about to watch in the first place?"
    That's a reasonable question, along with "How do you boycott a 'sports tournament' that public service broadcasting treats as the most important news story?"

    573:

    ilya187 @ 489:

    Odd. I find driving faster than the traffic much more mentally taxing than driving with the traffic. Least taxing is driving slightly slower than the traffic.

    Being too fast OR too slow is a problem. I try to maintain a speed consistent with the flow of traffic.

    I once heard a NC Highway Patrolman asked if he had a quota of tickets he had to write. His response was, "No. I can write as many tickets I want."

    He went on to explain it wasn't worth writing tickets for speeders going 10mph over the highway speed limit, because it took too much effort away from ticketing those going MORE than 10mph over the speed limit and there was no shortage of THOSE idiots.

    I generally find that out on the highway setting the cruise control for 8 - 9mph over the posted speed limit keeps me right in with the flow of traffic.

    I LOVE cruise control. I have not had a single speeding ticket since I started getting cruise control on my vehicles. I've gone so far as to have after-market cruise control installed on a vehicle that didn't have it factory installed (the Mazda I had to buy after I got home from overseas).

    574:

    If your EV is charged by a coal or natgas burning power plant, what have you gained environmentally?

    The marginal gain in efficiency is real*, and coal plants are much more likely to obey emissions regulations than car makers are (at least going by the lawsuits). If nothing else it's probably better to have particularly particulate emissions happening away from people if possible (they tend not to build coal plants and cities in the same airshed if they can avoid it).

    (* viz, a coal plant typically runs ~50% efficient where even a diesel car engine runs under 40%. Which leaves 20% loses in the grid and battery to argue about, except that EVs typically use less energy to move as well due to regenerative braking)

    575:

    I second cruise control. My late wife and I fell in love with it, the first car we ever had with it (my Dearly Beloved Departed Toyota Tercel wagon). We got it... and the next day, her father died, and we had to drive a looong distance (Austin to Beeville, TX), mostly on two-lane roads. We could set it (speed limit 55, we would do 59 or so), and that was one less thing on our minds.

    Cruise, esp. with my current van... I get 23-24 (and sometimes higher,depending on terrain)... and it's an '08, and 23 highway was spec when it was new.

    576:

    Robert Prior @ 504:

    My preferred solution to driving hazards would be on the licensing side. Being incredibly dangerous, a driving license should be comparable to a pilot's license. It should take weeks or months of training, and if you do it badly it should be very easy to lose that license.

    When I was learning to drive myself, one of my Dutch cousins came to stay for a while, and got her license while in Canada. It sounded like driving licenses in the Netherlands were handled rather like that, rather than the Canadian 'so what if it took you 50 tries to pass the test' philosophy common at the time (late 70s).

    No idea if it was true then, or if it's true now.

    FWIW, when I first got my license back in '67 North Carolina had just instituted a policy that 15 year olds had to take Drivers Ed before they could get a license at age 16. If you didn't have Drivers Ed, you couldn't take the license test until age 18.

    Eight weeks of summer school & it was just like really being in school - two weeks of classroom before you got in the car with the Drivers Ed instructor for the first time. Driving was 2 hour sessions with three students in the vehicle. You had to be at school for the whole 8 hour day waiting until it was your turn to "drive".

    And even if you were in the first group in the morning, you had to stay until the last group finished in the afternoon. They filled the time by showing gruesome films.

    A couple years later the school system offered Drivers Ed as a regular class you could take as one of your electives (fall or spring) so you didn't waste a whole day waiting - you had your regular classes to fill the rest of the day.

    They didn't teach manual transmissions, but they still taught parallel parking.

    577:

    In the UK, a lot of cycle lanes are a lot narrower than that, with no inner lane to move into. There is no legal requirement to make a cycle lane fit for purpose, or even wide enough for a cyclist.

    578:

    "They ignores the fact that, as a not-powerful cyclist, I have often yelled at motorists "get a bloody move on" when they accelerated like snails after red lights. And even 'ordinary' cars have 20 times the power to weight ratio that I do as a cyclist!"

    OTOH the ability to generate maximum torque at zero speed, and to do so instantly with no further mechanical delay following your own reaction time, means that even if the cars do enthusiastically get their arses in gear, it's still entirely possible to get through the junction and be on your way down the next bit of road before the cars have moved more than a length or two (excepting those junctions which are unreasonably huge, but there aren't very many of those). This is extremely useful given the number of junctions which are basically impossible to negotiate on a bicycle for any movement except first left if there are cars trying to use it at the same time.

    579:

    "In the UK, a lot of cycle lanes are a lot narrower than that, with no inner lane to move into. There is no legal requirement to make a cycle lane fit for purpose, or even wide enough for a cyclist." My worst cycle accident in recent years was on one of these. Narrow cycle lane, protected by Magic Paint(tm), along inside of regular lane. Red traffic light ahead, with queue of cars. Me filtering in cycle lane up to the light. Some one in a car passenger seat decides to get out there. Opens door right in front of me, without looking. I was travelling at less than 10mph at this point, but yards away, with no time to brake, or jump the kerb on to the pavement (US sidewalk), only enough time to think "this is going to hurt". One bent car door and me bouncing down the pavement before coming to a halt. Usual practice when passing parked cars is to leave enough space to clear an opening door, but no chance here. I'm a lot more wary of using magic paint cycle lanes now. Worse than useless. Proper cycle infrastructure, which does exist, is great, but these sorts of rubbish bike lanes with a bit of paint are cheap and tick the boxes for the council.

    580:

    Robert Prior @ 509:

    "The other guy had plenty of time to slow down after I pulled out" is not an argument that stands up well in court if you're charged with causing a traffic accident.

    The traffic offence is "failure to yield", at least up here.

    A decade or so ago a delivery driver pulled out of a parking lot in front of one of my nieces, who ran into him, and disputed the charges. I went to court with my niece as emotional support. His defence to the judge was "but she had time to stop, therefore it's her fault". Didn't fly.

    Late 60's - I would have been 17 at the time - I was out "cruising" with a friend when we ran into another friend who was riding with a buddy who had a new, fairly "hot" car (Mercury Cougar IIRC ... something Mercury).

    Anyway, my friend and I ended up in the back seat for a short demonstration drive. Turned out even shorter than planned. The driver got on it a bit too much turning out from a stop sign and ended up with the front end in a ditch and the back end out on the road ...

    And a car that hadn't even come over the hill yet when he pulled out hit his car ... 3 of us were already out of the car before the accident.

    The "buddy" got a ticket for "failure to yield" (or whatever the equivalent law was in North Carolina at the time). I had to go to court as a witness to testify the other car wasn't even in sight when "buddy" pulled out.

    Didn't matter. He was convicted - I guess for being a teen-age driver more than for any actual "failure to yield".

    I always wondered if it would have been the other guy's fault if we'd got a bit farther down the road before "buddy" ran off into the ditch?

    581:

    I've seen the aftermath of similar, except that the embarrassed vehicle was a police car (jam sandwich era for UKites (For the rest of you, white, with a thick dayglo orange stripe down each side)) with front wheels road side of ditch, and rear wheels "field" side. The ditch was about 6" narrower than the car's wheelbase length!

    582:

    Dear Mr Marks, I was wondering why you have paid any attention to the 'Scottish scientist' guy, who is a raving lunatic with no technical knowledge?

    As for energy storage, large scale flow batteries are also worth a shot, as with a lot of things it needs someone to put a decent amount of money into them. A variety of electrolytes have been udner development for years and it just takes a billion pounds to be put into commercialisations to help sort out which works best in which circumstances.

    On the matter of home batteries we've been quoted for lithium iron phosphate battery of 6.5kWh to go with solar panels, seems worth a shot but this company seems to be quoting a bit much for the battery intallation.

    583:

    On the car issue, I could do with a smaller simpler lightweight one purely for commuting. Ideally I would take public transport but at the moment that would be 3 buses taking an hour and a half, if they bother to arrive. So at the moment such cars are sort of coming onto the market such as the Renault Zoe, but they are still so expensive; the deployment time of all this and the time it is taking to decrease in price so an average paid person can afford them is so damned long it is embarassing.

    584:

    There is no legal requirement to make a cycle lane fit for purpose, or even wide enough for a cyclist.

    I dunno about the UK but in Australia and Aotearoa a bicycle can be up to 2.5m wide (also 12m long). With wider bicycles it's advisable to assume that bicycle facilities that might have barriers will have barriers deliberately constructed to prevent your bicycle from entering the facility.

    OTOH I have had the experience of meeting a police officer that actually knew that part of the law and thought the couch on the back of my bike was funny enough to be worth pulling over and taking a photo of. I stopped and he said "nah, it's all good, you're legal and I just wanted a photo".

    Round here they often paint dead cyclists in the door zone, I treat it as the warning it is. I've explained that to local council a few times and even sent relevant people links to the Oz standard, but they are resilient in the face of information that conflicts with their prejudices.

    585:

    RedFlow in Australia sell them for home use but have I think switched mostly to industrial setups because that's where the money is for them. We can still buy their setups, but they're not cost competitive with LFP until you go over ~50kW and that number keeps rising as LFP prices drop.

    586:

    Duffy asked: Bonus question: Multiply the number cars on the road in your country by the area of PVCs needed to keep it charged. How big of an area (measured both in square miles/kilometers and as a percentage of your country's land area) is required just for automobiles?

    I'm not going to bother for my country, Australia, because it's a percentage so close to zero as to be a rounding error. Instead, for your edification and amusement I present:

    THE UK

    33 million cars. Average annual driving distance 2019 (ignoring the plague years which were much reduced) 7400 miles.

    Total miles driven is the two multiplied, 2.4x10^11 miles.

    The Ford Lightning is among the least efficient vehicles made, so we'll use that, confident that the actual UK fleet will use less. Its 98 kWh pack takes it 230 miles. So that's 0.42 kWh/mile. So multiplying 2.4x10^11 miles by 0.42 kWh/mile, the miles cancel, and it comes out to almost exactly 10^11 kWh.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_the_United_Kingdom

    "The UK's annual insolation is in the range of 750–1,100 kilowatt-hours per square metre" So taking the worst case, 750, and assuming 20% efficient panels (rather low), that's 150 kWh/m^2.

    Divide 10^11 kWh by 150 kWh/m^2 and the kWh cancel, giving 666,666,666 m^2. Divide by a million to get km^2 gives 666 km^2. The area of the UK is 243,610 km^2. Divide the area of the UK by the area needed for solar panels gives 0.00273

    This assumes cable connection to other places, so the UK exports electricity in the summer and imports in the winter to come out net zero.

    For comparison, that's about a quarter of the area currently allocated to cars in the form of roads. If you think 666 km^2 of shaded, but otherwise still available land is an intolerable impost just to have cars, you're going to have to explain why the existing 2200 km^2 devoted to the exclusive use of car drivers isn't intolerable.

    Which of course makes the technically correct (the best kind of correct) answer to the question "How big of an area (measured both in square miles/kilometers and as a percentage of your country's land area) is required just [emphasis added] for automobiles?": Zero

    https://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4270

    587:

    Damian @ 517:

    This is skirting around the distinction between pulling out and accelerating, versus simply being on the road and driving slower. In my example I wasn't talking about pulling out in front of traffic that would be obliged to stop, I was talking about pulling out 500m in front of traffic travelling at 100km/h and accelerating respectably, just not crazily (and being a novice driver of an older style manual car), so if I missed a gear change or something they might need to slow down and allow for someone who'd only made it up to 80 or 90km/h by the time they are on you. This is a road that often enough had tractors and other vehicles that could not manage 100km/h. JBS for reasons of his own has issues with that, but I think most people understand the "sometimes things don't go perfectly" thing.

    I don't have a problem with it as it as you're now stating it, but that's not how you stated the situation in your original comment.

    Over here, it's generally assumed whoever was behind and could see what was happening was at fault, and the onus is on them to show why it wasn't. People seem to twist the "failure to yield" and "right of way" concepts in their heads to suit whatever they think, and that seems to be implicated in some of the more unpleasant behaviours.

    You're the one who introduced it as "the oncoming traffic has plenty of room to slow down or take evasive action if I pull out and don't accelerate to highway speed ..."

    588:

    Oh no, I don't think handing votes back to tories, rather empowering greens, lib dems and reducing the number of people who voted labour the last 4 elections to vote for him. Which doesn't actually leave many people; there is every chance he'll scrape into power in an election with the lowest turnout since 2005 or whenever it was, or even lower, as people feel disenfranchised and cut off from power. Which suits murdoch, the cbi, mandelson, the labour right, bae systems, and whoever else.

    589:

    I'm not sure if you can see this "gem" my local council constructed. They got a grant from the State government to widen the road to create a dedicated coastal cycle path (the idea was to be able to cycle the whole coastline of NSW).

    It's about 30 cm wide at this point and they actually created an extra small bicycle stencil that's only a little larger than my hand.

    If you look carefully you can see the extra 30 cm of tar they laid as it's a slightly different colour.

    It's intended to support 2 way cycle traffic.

    929 Ocean Dr https://maps.app.goo.gl/5uSfNPm1ki5n59uk8

    590:

    I'm seeing people hating on pumped hydro in Scotland despite the actual evidence being that it is entirely possible and will do for SCotland and at least help England out. There are multiple schemes at various stages of planning and permissions. Coire Glas is one which has been mentioned, which should already be being built. The others are: Red John, https://www.power-technology.com/projects/red-john-pumped-storage-hydro-project/ 2.8GWh, 400MW generation

    Glenmuckloch https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-57008623

    Balliemeanoch at Loch Awe, https://www.hydroreview.com/hydro-industry-news/ili-group-to-develop-1-5-gw-balliemeanoch-pumped-storage-in-scotland/ 1.5GW for up to 30hrs

    Now there is of course the point that they require long term investment, but they aren't really that cheap and will come into their own as we build more renewables. If we build all of them we can supply Scotland with electricity for an entire day, just from pumped storage, which of course isn't ideal, but then neither is fucking up the climate.

    591:

    PS I linked to the 2017 Google Street View because by the 2022 GSV image the 30 cm of tar is so broken up that the lane markings are almost gone. They appear to have just sprayed the tar over the unprepared verge to "widen" the road.

    592:

    That's great as long as folks don't want to charge their cars in winter when insolation per diem drops to about a fifth or less of the average figure. Here in Edinburgh, Scotland the sun rises around 09:00 and sets around 15:00 at the winter solstice and it's usually cloudy, raining or both with a long energy-absorbing airpath to solar panels for most of the daylight hours.

    As for importing solar power in the winter, just who is going to have superabundant surpluses of solar energy in winter when their own solar energy systems will be mostly in the dark just like the UK? Australia would be a good bet but the power line interconnects would be a bit of a stretch...

    Nuclear, that's the ticket! That would power electric cars without worrying about day/night cycles, seasonal insolation differences and the like but we can't have Nice Things like nuclear, sorry to say so gas it is.

    593:

    As far as I can tell the Coire Glas pumped-storage scheme is still in the begging-bowl and PowerPoint stage of development, I don't think it has even cleared the environmental impact evaluation stage.

    Again you make the mistake of assuming storage = electricity generation --

    If we build all of them we can supply Scotland with electricity for an entire day, just from pumped storage,

    First of all we would need to have enough intermittent renewable energy to have lots of electricity to spare some of the time to fill up the extra pumped storage systems that are being touted, and we are nowhere near that stage, not by a factor of five or even ten. Build that superabundant generating capacity out first then start worrying about adding more storage to buffer the intermittency of wind and (to a lesser extent in Scotland) PV solar power.

    If the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine we burn gas to keep the lights on. When the wind does blow and the sun does shine we still burn gas because we don't have enough renewables to keep the lights on. We're losing nuclear generating capability faster than we are replacing it as the AGRs age out and enter decommissioning so we're going to burn even more gas in the future. Or wood pellets which are brownish-green but that's another rant.

    594:

    paws4thot @ 572:

    "how do you boycott something you didn't care enough about to watch in the first place?"

    That's a reasonable question, along with "How do you boycott a 'sports tournament' that public service broadcasting treats as the most important news story?"

    I don't think I'd have known anything about it if the "no beer sales at the stadium" story hadn't popped up in my news feed ... and FWIW, I'm not a big beer drinker, so I didn't care that much about it anyway.

    But it was the one odd bit of news about the World Cup that caught my attention, and that story mentioned the other problems/criticisms with FIFA & Qatar regarding the World Cup, which has now exhausted the sum total of my knowledge about "futbol".

    And I think I saw something that the U.S. team got through their first match without being knocked out of the tournament, which I guess is a good thing.

    595:

    Can you explain, or link to an explanation, of why pumped hydro can only store renewable electricity? You've made the claim more than once but it doesn't make sense to me.

    The older schemes in Australia were all built to help coal plants deal with peak demand, so they're apparently a completely different design that can store fossil electricity. That may be why they stopped being used once renewable electricity hit the grid (or possibly because the power generators were privatised and peak demand is where the profit lies. Who can tell)

    596:

    Were you at Philcon this weekend?

    I haven't been to a con in 25 years.

    Last one I went to, I think I sparked a few stories from one of the authors on the "hard physics" panel with one of my questions, so that was fun. :) (That was in Boston, I think).

    597:

    Yeah, well, the entrance onto I-76 south from 30th St. Station in Philly is one of the most insane I know of - a "merge lane measurable in meters, and a curve from around to the right behind you. Meters of visibility....

    That is certainly not the worst if Philly. In fact, they just re-built that a few (10?) years ago. It is better than what it was....

    598:

    I'll take the titty skittles over androgel any day. But that's just my preference.

    599:

    "magic paint cycle lanes"

    I specifically taught my children to ignore all such nonsense and strictly ride their bikes on the sidewalk at all times.

    600:

    586 - "why the existing 2200 km^2 devoted to the exclusive use of car drivers?" - Well, it's more like you're going to have to explain why you've said that none of pedestrians, horseists, cyclists, busists and lorryists may use that 2_200km^2 before we proceed.

    592 - Add the several nuggets like this one on Round Riding Road in Dumbarton ( 55.949264, -4.553170 , set street view and zoom in) who've installed East and/or West facing panel sets, so we can half their data plate output any time of year.

    594 ref 572 - With the excessive reporting of the English Broadcasting Corporation, I can tell you that no finalist will be "knocked out" until they have played 3 first round mini-league matches. It's part of FIFA's strategy to maximise their take from the tournament.
    Oh and BTW I don't regard Anhauser-Busch "Bud" as a beer, but they did have a contract which FIFA and/or the Qatariis cancelled part of with 2 days to go to the first matches.

    595 - Well, obviously Nojay's 593 is sweeping rather than stating facts, but it is based on a Scottish Green Party desire to have no generating capacity from non-renewable sources, so it's a consequence of environ-mentalist desires rather than an actual technical issue.

    599 - Which reads to me rather like you saying "I told my children to ignore laws that I don't like."

    601:

    Yeah, pumped hydro can store electricity from literally any source. It's bizarre to say it couldn't. There may not be a POINT in storing non renewable sources, but that's different.

    But Nojay has nuclear as his thing, so all his statements about energy have to be viewed in the light that, consciously or not, he must promote building more nuclear plants and downplay any other option.

    602:

    Some one in a car passenger seat decides to get out there. Opens door right in front of me, without looking.

    I've had that, some motorist drove around me, cut in, then their passenger jumped out. Luckily I had slowed down when they pulled in so no injury to me or the offender.

    My favourite dooring was when I had the sound system etc on my long john. Idiot opened door in busy traffic, I hit it but with ~80kg of bike and 80kg of me, plus the impact was right at the front of the bike so where wasn't a great deal of slowing down or swerving done. Door flattened against side of car (opened 180°), velocop who had been behind me says "leave it to me, keep moving" so I did. I assume motorist didn't get a ticket, they never do, so they're just out their insurance excess.

    603:

    Duffy, I'm sure you're a very smart person. But the propaganda you're posting here is purest garbage (though it probably convinces people with substandard critical-thinking skills.) For example, in response to your post above, who gave you the right to unilaterally determine that all elements of a carbon-free system must show up at the same time, or in any particular order? The availability of electric cars and trucks means we've now solved one part of the problem. Coal, oil, gas generation will be next, hopefully going away in that order.

    604:

    I'd describe it as "quite deliberately as fucked up as it could be without provoking side-splitting laughter."

    605:

    "deliberately fucked up" describes a lot of the efforts of my local council.

    606:

    There are others, but those are the biggest ones off the top of my head.

    i'm familiar with those, but although they may harbor secret longings for it none of them have been out there promoting anything polygamous to the best of my knowledge, that's a bit far from the republican mainstream for anyone outside utah

    607:

    Paws ( & Charlie ) @ 600 & 595
    Scottish Green Party desire to have no generating capacity from non-renewable sources - AND, presumably no nuclear either, & want to withdraw from NATO, even while Putin is murdering tens or hundreds of thousands. { Or, they did until recently (18/5/22), anyway - are they still totally bonkers? } How nice, how "intelligent" - or not.

    gasdive
    Are they cross-planet co-operating with the London Borough of What the Fuck {LBWF} in London, I wonder?

    608:

    environ-mentalist

    In response to OGH's request that we please stop using childish misnames for people we don't like you come out with that.

    609:

    “ Wave power energy devices either need to be built as ruggedly as oil and gas production platforms ”

    I’ve a friend here in NZ working on a prototype for a research group at the University of Edinburgh. It’s a barge with a railway car on it. Wave tips the barge, the carriage moves, power is generated.

    Plan would be to deploy them en masse, chained in place.

    The aim is to build the “wave power plant” using almost entirely rugged, hard wearing things you can just buy off the shelf. No (well, hardly any) expensive bespoke equipment.

    Deployment relies on inlets with reliable types of waves from reliable directions. Prototyping is looking into the details of that.

    610:

    Video of the Uni of Edinburgh wave tank, used for studying such things is here:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iWKFPTgkpXo

    It is a serious cool piece of kit. I wish I got to float 1:10 scale barges in it.

    611:

    The availability of electric cars and trucks means we've now solved one part of the problem. Coal, oil, gas generation will be next, hopefully going away in that order.

    Once again you are basing your plans on technology that does yet exist.

    Hope is not a plan.

    612:

    I wouldn't be surpised if there's been a fact finding mission to London.

    613:

    Gas in the form of CCGT plants is almost an instant-on suppler of electricity, half an hour or less from cold to several hundred MW on the grid (they can provide maybe 500MW quickly, it takes another fifteen or twenty minutes for the secondary steam stage to get up to speed). There are gas-fired piston-engined generators that are even quicker to grid connection, fifteen or thirty seconds from cold but they are less efficient and less common.

    When there is less demand overnight or at weekends some or most of these gas generators are shut down and don't produce "excess" electricity that could be stored for later use. Coal-fired stations take half a day to come up to full power production (same as the wood-pellet fired station at Drax) and they run optimally for long periods of time so their excess output overnight can be stored for later use. Slight problem, we've got hardly any coal-fired power stations still operating here in the UK, and none in Scotland. The ones that are still usable are strictly limited in their operation, 1500 hours a year max. They usually run during the winter when our electricity demand peaks.

    Nuclear stations tend to run 24/7 when operating and their overnight surplus can be stored for use the next day but we're losing nuclear plants and capacity faster than we are replacing it here in the UK. We can buy in some French nuclear power and store that when there's a surplus but this year for some reason some French plants aren't coming on-stream for winter as they usually do, I don't know why (only 30GW at the moment, compared to a usual figure of 40GW capacity). The interconnects between Europe and Britain, which cost money to build and do not in themselves generate any electricity just like storage, are limited in capacity anyway.

    Australia has a lot of coal-fired power stations -- quick check on the internets suggest coal consumption is about 5 tonnes per annum per capita. Almost all of that coal will be burned for electricity generation. That means there's a case for storage to buffer surplus overnight generating capacity in Australia, making coal-fired generation more efficient and cost-effective. Big win!

    614:

    Gasdive
    🤣

    615:

    Seriously, expensive rate-payer-funded reference-site-inspection trips to London, Milan and Paris just seem to be part of the standard operating costs for local governments everywhere. Bali, Hawaii and Cannes all seem to have particularly exemplary local government processes, facts about which require regular finding.

    616:

    Christ Duffy, give it a rest!

    617:

    Or Bedford. That is another place where they found it a good idea to make up a stencil depicting a bicycle travelling at 80% of the speed of light to label places where it would in fact barely move at all if it was even present.

    They also came up with the idea of a cycle lane which departs from the road at right angles, running up onto the pavement, then curves round to rejoin the road 3 metres further on, and has 2 signposts and a rubbish bin growing out of it. It got its photo in the local paper, with suitably derisive textual commentary, plus a couple of paragraphs from some bellend on the council explaining how necessary and useful it was while totally ignoring all the very obvious reasons why it was nothing of the sort.

    Of course they are also fond of all the other standard idiocies, like the cycle lanes which disappear every 50 metres or so when a side road joins, and can't even be seen where they do exist because they are hidden underneath all the parked cars, or the random interruptions by flights of steps.

    618:

    Renewables + a lot of storage can be sufficient to run most of a civilization. Whether such a solution's economically feasible raises the question "Should life-essential services be optimized for maximum profit?", I suggest the answer is "No".

    619:

    some French plants aren't coming on-stream for winter as they usually do, I don't know why

    I believe I read elsenet about the French reactor fleet undergoing extra maintenance this summer precisely to prepare for high demand in event of a harsh winter without Russian gas flowing into the EU. If that's so, expect French power to pick up rapidly in the coming weeks.

    620:

    Para 2 - there are some round here who have installed panels on both sides of the roof, a roof whose ridgeline runs approximately east-west. Perhaps the ones on the north side might see a touch of reddened sunlight at about a 10 degree angle of incidence at post-dawn and pre-nightfall in the summer, but it hardly seems worthwhile.

    They would do better to hang them on the end walls instead, but this is far too radical an idea for anyone to consider it.

    621:

    What tech, exactly?

    622:

    »If that's so, expect French power to pick up rapidly in the coming weeks.«

    Well … yeah … maybe ?

    But nothing like they used to do:

    https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1593561435874988032

    At best they may peak around 45GW only in late january - provided they find no more "issues", like they have almost weekly this entire summer.

    623:

    »They would do better to hang them on the end walls instead, but this is far too radical an idea for anyone to consider it.«

    If you want optimize the minimum production, for instance when you are powering off-grid instrumentation, your panels should point at the opposite tropic, or be vertical, if that is below the horizon.

    If you want to play around with this or other questions about orientation and placement of solar panels, EU made a great "PVgis" tool some years back:

    https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/

    624:

    Random, irrelevant, and probably rather dumb question for those of a horticultural persuasion:

    Incipient tree, <1m height, trying to grow up through a crack in concrete and not doing very well, currently shedding this year's leaves and developing green buds for next year. I intend to chop it off at the base, cut the end of the stem into a wedge shape, and shove it into the proper soil amidst grass and stuff. Never having done such a thing before, I would like to know: at what time of year is this most likely to be successful?

    625:

    "your panels should point at the opposite tropic"

    Just to clarify: so in the northern hemisphere, you project a straight line due south until it hits the Tropic of Capricorn, and install the panels in a plane perpendicular to that line? Sounds reasonable, without working through the geometry.

    626:

    When it has dropped its leaves is as good a time as any, but I don't rate your chances highly. Some trees (e.g. willows) will take like that, but most won't.

    627:

    I have been reluctant to fit solar panels because my roof faces due east and west. However like many other houses in Norfolk the roof is asymmetrical and the west facing roof is three times the area of the East facing roof. It’s also much less steep. The calculator in Which suggests that if I put solar panels on the West facing roof they would be only marginally less efficient than if the roof were south facing. I couldn’t use the South facing end wall for two reasons. 1 The conservation officer would never approve it. 2 It would be in the shadow of my next door neighbour’s house

    628:

    However like many other houses in Norfolk

    How long before you're too much underwater?

    Only half sarcastic. My memories of visiting the area is that many of the houses had the feature of the inlets being a big part of the draw of the houses. Water just outside of your patio. But that was 20 years ago. My understanding of the area now is that the ground is sinking while the mean water levels are rising.

    629:

    In Norwich and my part of Norfolk cycle lanes have been improved a lot in the last few years. On the main road leading from the University to the city centre cycle lanes have been removed from the road and put on the pavement on one side of the road. Closer to the city centre the cycle lane/pavement has been physically separated from the road with small side streets having a “sleeping policeman” at the junction of the side road to confuse drivers. Another road I use a lot between Norwich and Wymondham has had a lot of work putting the cycle way on the footpath. Busy junctions do lead the cycle track away from the main road towards a narrower crossing point. This much easier for the cyclists. I put these improvements down to the Green Party which is the second biggest party on Norwich City Council (there are no Conservatives). On the County Council there is no overall control and the Greens can often decide which party is in the controlling group.

    630:

    Incipient tree, <1m height, trying to grow up through a crack in concrete and not doing very well, currently shedding this year's leaves and developing green buds for next year. I intend to chop it off at the base, cut the end of the stem into a wedge shape, and shove it into the proper soil amidst grass and stuff. Never having done such a thing before, I would like to know: at what time of year is this most likely to be successful?

    What EC said. Unless it's a willow, this probably won't work.

    The better solution is two- or three-fold.

    First, figure out what kind of tree it is, and whether you want to propagate it at all. Or whether it needs propagating. Oaks are fun, Chinese and Siberian elms shred pavement, and ailanthus/tree of heaven is an effing nuisance outside China.

    Second, figure out where you want it to grow. If you have no space, unless you're planning to bonsai it, you probably shouldn't spend the effort. The reality is that normally less than 1 percent of seeds make it to tree-hood, sometimes a great deal less. The situation you describe is one reason why.

    And, if you still want to save it after all this, google layering, which basically involves wrapping a branch or part of the trunk well above the root collar with soil, and hoping the tree roots into the soil. Once it does, you cut it off below the new roots and replant it. This doesn't work for all trees, but it's more likely to work than what you proposed.

    631:

    Only a little of Norfolk is very low-lying - but, in those locations, it's anyone's guess! A good north-easterly gale on a spring tide could do it this winter. And, actually, parts of Lincolshire and Cambridgeshire (and possibly Yorkshire) are at more risk.

    We also have asked for a quote for solar panels, but the most suitable roof faces north-west or are shaded by a neighbour's large conifer. It's dubiously worth it, despite the size of our house.

    632:

    »ust to clarify: so in the northern hemisphere, you project a straight line due south until it hits the Tropic of Capricorn, and install the panels in a plane perpendicular to that line?«

    Yes.

    Unless that would have them pointing downward, in which case you mount them vertical.

    If your sunwards horizon is obstructed, it may pay of to compensate the orientation for that, but that is extremely hard to model beforehand (depends on exact meteorology), and people usually over-dimension the panels (more) instead.

    633:

    Agreed to all that.

    I'd just add that, if by hard work and great good luck we transition to 100% renewables, struggles over blocking solar panels and wind turbines will be steady sources of income for lawyers and designers. As a mnemonic, I think of this as problems over casting shade and breaking wind, analogous to the lawyers' "stiffs and gifts" name for work on wills and trusts.

    Seriously though, the politics over who gets to shade who are going to get nasty, the more so because I suspect most planners, politicians, and building owners don't have a clue and are only going to get a clue under duress. I've had too many people (including planners and politicians) give me deer-in-the-headlights looks when I talk about how important it is to know what direction south is when talking about solar power to have any illusions left.*

    The sad part of this is that architects are taught all this in school. They just don't bother to apply it unless ordered to do so by their clients.

    *This (ahem!) is a major hint to near-future SF writers. You want conflict in a hopepunk story? This is a bottomless well of aggravation from which to draw.

    634:

    At 62 metres elevation if the Antarctic ice cap melted completely my house would be on the shore of a small island. I can live with that. Flood risk was one of the criteria for our choice of house. However my son is a marine biologist in Norfolk and needs to live reasonably close to the sea. Despite being a mile from the sea his house is at 1 metre elevation. It’s not been flooded in the 15 years or so he’s lived there but there have been two evacuation warnings both due to storm surges at spring tides. But with two children at university and a third in a couple of years time now is not the time to move.

    635:

    There is one other thing about Musk that bears remembering, which is that he finds it very difficult to imagine anyone doing anything by any method other than the optimal engineering one. Thus he assumed, I think, that the basic engine behind Twitter had been completely automated and optimised to the point that humans were basically slaves replacing failed hardware.

    I myself think that the basic Twitter engine has not been so completely automated, and that there are likely to be numerous uncommon but extant points where human intervention is needed to keep the system ticking over. This means that with most of the workforce gone, the entire platform is living on borrowed time before complete collapse.

    636:

    It depends on the construction method, but many mid 20thC houses are built on stumps (piles, piers). In which case jacking the house up is often cost effective. Expensive, but a house that floods regularly isn't worth much while a house in a flood prone area that doesn't flood is actually worth something.

    My mother in law's house has been jacked up and my brother in law who bought it is considering raising it further as it's now only a few cm above expected floods rather than the half metre or so it was in the 60's.

    And it works. I remember asking, when we first started going out, what caused the weird scratches on the handrail of the front steps?

    "that's where the boats tie up"

    637:

    Only a little of Norfolk is very low-lying - but, in those locations, it's anyone's guess! A good north-easterly gale on a spring tide could do it this winter. And, actually, parts of Lincolshire and Cambridgeshire (and possibly Yorkshire) are at more risk.

    Oops. Wrong Norfolk.

    I was thinking of Virginia.

    638:

    EC @ 626, Heteromeles @ 630: Thanks.

    It's a sycamore. I like trees, and I don't much care what sort they are (I'm crap at telling them apart anyway). But it can't stay where it is, because it's too close to the house (hence that layering idea isn't a goer), and if it does survive there the roots will be into the foundations eventually, so the chopping part has to happen anyway. The extra effort needed to replant the severed stem is negligible, so even if it does fail I'm no worse off, but I don't want to make it unnecessarily likely to fail by doing it at an inauspicious time.

    639:

    First, figure out what kind of tree it is, and whether you want to propagate it at all. Or whether it needs propagating. Oaks are fun, Chinese and Siberian elms shred pavement, and ailanthus/tree of heaven is an effing nuisance outside China.

    We have some tree looking things around here. Woody stem but they grow so fast rings are basically non existent. And cutting them down just gives them another chance to try again. I had one I wasn't watching go from 5' to 20' in 3 years. I cut it a few time but it didn't go away until the base was ripped out by an excavator. Another time I had a elephant ear leaf appear outside my back door that I know wasn't there a few weeks earlier. Single leaf about 40cm across. I quickly dug it out plus an area around the roots before it could establish and ruin my back deck. I blame birds for that one.

    642:

    Charlie, I just saw the headline a few hours ago about the UK Supreme Court ruling that Scotland can't have another referendum on independence. Though I know you've spoken about this possibility before, I was hoping you might have further opinion on it. As an American, Scotland's politics are pretty mysterious, I look to you for insight on this.

    643:

    Saw that, too. Does this mean the next step is for Scotland to have a non-binding referendum?

    644:

    I think you missed the point of layering.

    The preocess is: 1) You bundle soil, peat moss or whatever around the stem 2) You wait until it develops roots in the soil 3) you then cut the stem and plant it with its new roots.

    This is best done with a soft branch, not a main trunk.

    It's a standard way for propagating cuttings, and it should work on a sycamore.

    645:

    This, by way of Jungian synchronicity, showed up just now. Note that the hydroelectric is not pumped, just trapped fallen sky juice. Basically stored solar energy.

    https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-worlds-largest-hydroelectric-dams/

    646:

    "Does this mean the next step is for Scotland to have a non-binding referendum?"

    Indeed, it is a question. I hope this not setting Scotland up to be North Ireland redux.

    647:

    The real technical issue is that it is easier to roll out renewables than build nuclear; ranting about how great it is on blogs doesn't address the actual issues, meanwhile we may as well try running the system on 100% renewables, with of course demand reduction in whatever ways possible, as you know.

    There's an Australian guy running simulations of how close they can get to 100% on part of the country, can manage it with a fair bit of storage, https://twitter.com/DavidOsmond8/status/1595272933227667457?s=20&t=h22-x9FgL4po3PZF7_YQWQ

    More importantly it seems to me that we can roll out a lot of production fairly quickly, I was reading that China is building plants to crank out hundreds of GW of solar panels per year over the next decades, so that will depress the price even more. Fine for much of Australia, not as much use here, but still we have plenty of roofs in the south east which could do with them.

    648:

    The real technical issue is that it is easier to roll out renewables than build nuclear;

    It's even easier to build gas-fired generators and that's what we've done in the UK (ca. 35GW OCGT and CCGT capacity, I've seen 30GW-plus of that gas capacity generating electricity in winters past). Renewables, we're not that keen on actually "rolling out" renewables, just talking about it. According to this government Britain might get another 15GW of wind capacity in the next twelve years (5GW of extra electricity generation annualised) and by that time a lot of the wind turbines built in the period 2010-2020 will be reaching end-of-life and being torn down as they wear out. Replacements? That's what the "extra" 15GW of new wind turbines are going to be, replacements.

    Basically people have been saying that renewables can be rolled out easy-peasy but no-one has actually been rolling them out in sufficient quantities to displace cheap gas, at least here in the UK. Compared to a nuclear power plant with an eighty-year life expectancy (modern builds) with possible life extensions to a century, mayfly renewables are a short-term measure but they look good on the prospectus covers.

    649:

    That's not exactly what I said. Can you just bug out and not maunder on about nuclear all the time?

    650:

    At the moment the prospects of a revival of the Scottish National Liberation Army seem low, but you never know. At least, unlike Ukraine, there isn't a hostile power right next door happy to funnel money and weapons to disgruntled Scots.

    651:

    It's not all like that, but there's a significant amount that is.

    That area has deep water and higher land than I'm thinking of. Think water up to your waist at the most and your house about the same or a bit more or less above the water. Suburbia like discussed above but with water between many of the back yards and along a lot of the street.

    652:

    If it's a sycamore then chopping the top off probably won't kill the roots, it will just throw up a new trunk. I've managed to defeat a few in my garden but there's others keep coming back. It's been ~20 years since I helped my neighbour demolish the parent tree and there's now a "seedling" in that garden about ready to start helicopter production all over again.

    653:

    Sycamores are like weeds. If you’ve got one there will be other seedlings in your garden somewhere which will be smaller and easier to transplant. I have to remove lots every year. Sycamore keys get everywhere.

    655:

    At least, unlike Ukraine, there isn't a hostile power right next door happy to funnel money and weapons to disgruntled Scots.

    Is there a concentration of expat scots in America equivalent to the Boston Irish?

    656:

    raising it further as it's now only a few cm above expected floods rather than the half metre or so it was in the 60's.

    The gentrification of Brisbane suburbs with old timber houses used to follow a standard pattern: raise-and-build-in-under with a slab poured around the existing posts, or with the posts replaced by a steel frame. Since the flash flooding in the last few years, where minor tributary creeks have flooded in ways no-one can remember happening before, the pattern seems to be to raise higher again, then raise the level of the bottom slab with fill before pouring so that the lower floor is above flood level, at least for the last flood. I don't think they can really get much higher this way generally unless there's a lot of space, but I've seen more than one such renovation around the local streets, so it is definitely a thing.

    657:

    I feel like this (a preponderance of people with Scottish heritage) should be in Minnesota or Wisconsin, but I might just be thinking of Germans/Scandinavians.

    658:

    Yeah, you've got to be a bit strong willed and avoid using that big space under the house for anything. Certainly not put up walls and such.

    Really the council should be issuing rectification orders, but if the councillors are not used car dealers, they're real estate agents...

    659:

    https://www.businessinsider.com/the-11-nations-of-the-united-states-2015-7#greater-appalachia-encompasses-parts-of-kentucky-tennessee-west-virginia-and-texas-5

    Greater Appalachia encompasses parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Texas.

    Colonized by settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands of Northern Ireland, northern England, and the Scottish lowlands, Greater Appalachia is stereotyped as the land of hillbillies and rednecks. Woodard says Appalachia values personal sovereignty and individual liberty and is "intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers alike." It sides with the Deep South to counter the influence of federal government. Within Greater Appalachia are parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Indiana, Illinois, and Texas.

    https://blogs.voanews.com/all-about-america/2015/08/05/is-america-actually-11-countries/

    Greater Appalachia The people of this nation — including parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Indiana, Illinois, and Texas — are often stereotyped as rednecks, hillbillies and “white trash”. Greater Appalachia was settled by “rough, bellicose settlers from the war-ravaged borderlands of Northern Ireland, northern England and the Scottish lowlands”, according to Woodard. Coming from a culture that fostered a warrior ethic and prized individual liberty, these “American Borderlanders despised Yankee teachers, Tidewater lords and Deep Southern aristocrats.” Large segments of the U.S. military have come from this combative culture, including Andrew Jackson, Davy Crockett and Douglas MacArthur.

    660:

    Re Scottish government powers.

    They might not be able to hold a referendum, but they do have powers to restrict movement under the Covid emergency. (which is currently worse than ever).

    Just declare the 50m in from the southern border a lockdown and add travel restrictions from areas with infections (England for instance) and you've basically got a separate country with no free trade.

    England can then negotiate for covid restrictions to be changed, after say, a bill allowing a legal referendum to take place.

    661:

    RE: Sycamores.

    "Sycamore" is a weird term.

    Originally, it meant a kind of fig (how it's used in the Bible and AFAIK in the eastern mediterranean).

    It also means plane trees, whose fruits are balls of seeds, not keys. They're an old group, incidentally, and their nearest, albeit distant, relatives are proteas and banksias. And water lilies.

    Then some maples get called sycamores. They're the ones with the winged fruit a couple of you are calling keys.

    Just because it's so confusing, I checked, and as far as I can tell, layering could work on all three of them.

    Anyway, the bottom line is that sycamore is a confusing term, used for a bunch of trees with palmately lobed, hand-like leaves. When someone says "it's a sycamore," it can be useful to ask a bit more to find out what they mean when they use it.

    Cheers.

    662:

    Buffeted by Economic Woes, U.K. Starts to Look at Brexit With ‘Bregret’

    Stung by inflation and bracing for tax increases, the country is in the midst of its gravest slump in a generation, leading many to wonder how much the split with the European Union is to blame.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/world/europe/uk-brexit-regret.html

    663:

    Is there a concentration of expat scots in America equivalent to the Boston Irish?

    I have a common last name and the Mormons think they can trace my paternal line back to 1500s Scotland.

    664:

    should be in Minnesota or Wisconsin, but I might just be thinking of Germans/Scandinavians.

    There's the Norwegian bachelor farmer meme from Prairie Home Companion for that area. And lots of Germans went to Michigan and near bouts.

    Most of Appalachia south of Pennsylvania to the southern end of the mountains in Georgia was settled by Scots.

    So look to the hillbillies for recruits.

    665:

    "And lots of Germans went to Michigan and near bouts."

    And, it turns out, Texas.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_German

    666:

    ...that the basic Twitter engine has not been so completely automated

    Moderation at scale is very hard for humans to do well. Well to be fair, some people think moderation at scale can be done, but as people here will be quick to tell you "it's never actually been done and there's no guarantee that it's possible".

    Whether it can be automated is an open question, but right now we don't have the necessary natural language processing to even try. As we see with the various attempts to make chatbots, or stop chatbots being taught to say terrible things. I assume the image generators are also not supposed to make porn or Nazi memes etc and I expect that's no more successful.

    The raw "distributed messaging system" stuff could be automated, but again scale is the problem. Scale and exceptions. So when someone in Russia posts a Nazi meme, people in Germany are not supposed to be able to see it... the technical issue of "get message from Russia to Israel" is easy, and "stop messages from Taiwan getting to PRC" is also easy. But "some messages get through, some are not allowed to" make the technical stuff more difficult. But "some"... which ones? There's a question.

    667:

    Isn't that common? My family tree in that area goes distinctive name, distinctive name, Lewis. Bang, suddenly we can buy the book and see the history back a whole long way.

    My family challenges are the British orphan processing system ~1900-1940 which was fucking awesome at laundering babies. And the Scottish parish records system which kept very detailed records but sometimes of "public facts" rather than actual ones.

    668:

    So look to the hillbillies for recruits

    Oh, yes I can see that. The drive for volunteers would feature that compelling and authentic historical documentary, Braveheart.

    669:

    Isn't that common?

    Don't know. Based on my last name and a few others there are way more Scots in the US than in Scotland these days.

    The US has a history of immigrants changing their last names for various reasons. Many times to get away from various prejudices based on what war was happening or had recently been happening in Europe. Or just because they didn't want to stand out as "different" where they settled.

    670:

    context = UK & US

    killing plants is rather straightforward and no need for nasty herbicides unless you like toxicifying your soil...

    (1) identify the species

    (2) look up its prefer PH range

    (3) to shift the PH choice of alkali (baking soda being both commonly available and safe to handle) or acid (vinegar being commonly available) pending on which way you want to push the PH

    (4) diluting a small portion in warm water, then after digging down at least 3 inches (10 cm) pour the mix of water and alkali (or acid) directly onto roots

    (5) repeat every three months until either its dead or has become so enraged at humans attempting to kill it that it turns 'triffid' and starts hunting you

    671:

    "And lots of Germans went to Michigan and near bouts."

    And, it turns out, Texas.

    Yup. Check out New Braunfels, Texas. I visited there a number of times while stationed at Randolph AFB in the late '60s.

    672:

    to shift the PH choice of alkali (baking soda being both commonly available and safe to handle) or acid (vinegar being commonly available) pending on which way you want to push the PH

    Not quite as environmentally friendly but I've been know to drop a few Calcium Chloride crystals on top of annoying plants.

    673:

    context = USA

    https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-12-26/a-road-map-for-reviving-the-midwest

    an article 5 years ago but all the more clearly valid...

    "...So the states of the Great Lakes region appear to be faced with a stark choice. It can embrace John Austin’s program and harness the modernizing forces of universities and immigration, setting itself up for revival. Or it can give in to the seductive impulses of nativism and hostility to higher education, and settle in for more decades of bitter, grinding decline..."

    from 2017 to 2022... doubtful things have been done to force necessary cultural changes...

    there is some good news for middle America ("flyover states") given their northern placement and plentiful water supply, by the 2050s there will be plenty of refugees fleeing the #CCSS along Western North America (CA-AZ-UT-NV-etc) and at least ten million (more?) starving-thirsty Mexican nationals ready to take the shitty-ist of shitty jobs for sake of food for their kids... so in another generation or so there will be plenty of potential serfs to be enslaved by whomever owns the land of MI-WI-ND-SD-IL etc

    674:

    In the UK Sycamore is Acer pseodoplatanus. It has a distinctive “key” with two wings at an acute angle But it’s often confused with the Field maple or Norway maple which are equally prolific as weeds.

    675:

    Vulch @ 652, Mike Collins @ 653, and various:

    The parent plant, which was in someone else's garden, isn't there any more, but it sent a few offspring (keys) flying around. One of them is now fairly large but not yet producing keys of its own; however nearly all of the ones which did take root did so in cracks in concrete rather than in soil, and took varying amounts of time to appear. So there are a few that try to reappear in potentially structurally damaging positions. These are easily (5 minutes total) chopped off at the twig stage before they can begin to photosynthesise anew, and will probably run out of carbon eventually. I'm not going to attempt to poison them, at any rate. Hate the stuff, no matter what kind it is.

    The one in question is about 1.5m in front of the front door, is roughly half that in height, and has so far been insignificant compared to obstructions of an artificial nature which it is growing partly through, but to remove those is currently planned, and the tree will need removing also. Of course I would personally love to eventually have a big tree 1.5m outside my front door, but the house wouldn't, so it's getting the snippers.

    Having snipped it I then have the choice of throwing it away or shoving it in the ground elsewhere. The difference in effort is insignificant, but the second option is potentially more useful. I'm simply wanting to time the operation so as not to reduce that potential through my own actions - if it fails of its own accord, then it fails, and I don't really care, but if it's my fault it fails it's a bit silly.

    So the point of the exercise isn't so much to plant a tree, as to dispose of one which is going to be needing disposal in any case in the most potentially productive manner (even if that potential is small). Which boils down to doing what I was going to do anyway, but picking the time to do it from a point of knowledge rather than ignorance.

    676:

    *I didn't see you" - pedestrians & cyclist + car idiots - I hope that will load. If not [Try here}(https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-63723215) Utterly bonkers & dangerous.

    "Sycamores" - in the UK - "Exterminate!"

    677:

    You have a big garden? If not, DON'T let a sycamore grow. Your neighbours won't love you if you let one grow, either. And you will not kill it by cutting it off at the base - sycamores coppice - you will need to either dig it out or poison it.

    678:

    It's exactly the question that the Supreme Court answered: no.

    The Conservatives claim that it is a voluntary union, but the SNP have asked the Scottish Secretary what routes there are to independence, and he apparently answered "invent a time machine and reverse the result of the 2014 referendum".

    679:

    "Check out New Braunfels, Texas."

    The newspaper there is still named the Herald-Zeitung.

    680:

    I note that we had a Brexit referendum in 2016 ... and an earlier one in 1975 (the "remain" in the EEC vote won).

    Similarly we had a Scottish devolution referendum in 1979 (which Thatcher ignored on coming to power) before the one in 1997 which stuck.

    So my conclusion is that the real reason the government won't allow another Scottish independence referendum isn't because of some constitutionality hand-wave, but because they're certain they'd lose.

    681:

    676 - Did you mean collisions in Bradford Greg? If so, then will you please pay full attention to opening and closing your delimiters correctly?

    680 and 678 - Where in the Scotland Act 1998 is the sovereignty of Scotland assumed by Westminster? I can't find a reference in the Scotland Act, and I already know there was no such clause in either the Treaty of Union (1706) or the Act of Union Between Scotland and England (1707), in which case the situation as of First January 1706 should still apply and the sovereignty of Scotland vests in the Body Politic, not in the sovereign or in the UK Parliament.
    tr;dl summary - I agree with Charlie for $reasons.

    682:

    It's dormant now so you don't have to rush things; nothing much is going to change soon.

    I'd chop it off, abrade the bottom 4 inches longitudinally to show some of the inner bark, and stick it in some rain water in a small tub, say, the bottom half of a pop bottle. If you can get some willow twigs cut them into 6 inch lengths and stick them in too. Willow has lots of rooting hormones which will leach into the water, and rooting plants seem to like to be close to other rooting plants. Keep the water topped up, dont let it freeze, light doesnt matter over the winter, but not full sun, and you may see white roots developing in the spring. These "water" roots won't really like going in the ground, but if you introduce some sand they will toughen up. A teaspoon a day of sand pit or horticultural sand - builder's sand tends to be too dirty. Plant

    Or take your cutting, scrape the bark a bit, dip it in a hormone rooting preparation and stick it a foot down in gritty damp soil on the north side of a fence/wall/shed. If it grows leaves dig it up and move it a year later.

    Good luck. I understand the urge to keep a plant alive.

    683:

    "So my conclusion is that the real reason the government won't allow another Scottish independence referendum isn't because of some constitutionality hand-wave, but because they're certain they'd lose."

    What would happen if Scotland ignored the court and held a referendum anyway? And if it went the way you suggest (leave)?

    684:

    I don't think they are certain - but they think the odds are that way.

    But there is another reason: the are reluctant to allow Scotland a rethink, because it would implicitly pose the question "why are the voters not allowed a rethink on Brexit?" Remember the way the implied promises to have a confirmatory referendum on Brexit once the type of deal was agreed evaporated?

    685:

    Heteromeles writes:

    When someone says "it's a sycamore," it can be useful to ask a bit more to find out what they mean when they use it.

    Here in the UK a sycamore tree is a maple of the species Acer Pseudoplatanus, a native of central and southern Europe, introduced into England in the late middle ages.

    686:

    EC & others
    UK Sycamores: - Acer pseudoplatanus can also be killed, if larger, by "ringing". One takes off a ring of bark + cambium layer, right around the tree, with a minimum width of 5-6cm { 2-3" } - I've manged to do several in, using this method.

    paws
    Yes, I did, but I haven't a clue as to how to translate the reference from the "Independent" link I provided as back-up to HTML here, same as I don't know how to post piccies, here!

    EC - later
    They are reluctant to allow ScotlandANYWHERE a rethink, because it would implicitly pose the question "why are the voters not allowed a rethink on Brexit?" - This exactly, particularly when you get Reports like this f'rinstance.
    QUOTE: *Gove fails to name (any) single change that has "made business easier
    - oops.
    "Remember the way the implied promises to have a confirmatory referendum on Brexit once the type of deal was agreed evaporated?"
    Of course not, it never happened, did it? cough

    687:

    Why not get rid of the awful sycamore, then go down to the nursery and purchase exactly the tree you, the house, and garden need, which from what I'm reading here is NOT a sycamore?

    688:

    Deciduous trees go dormant in winter in a very visible way (the leaves fall off). But root growth goes dormant later than what you see above ground.

    So as EC said, just after the leaves fall off is generally best for transplanting. Then you get a bit of root growth to establish it, but the root system isn’t trying to support as much because the tree is dormant.

    OTOH, root growth is not completely dormant in winter unless the soil is very cold indeed, so any time before spring is next-best choice.

    If it’s a windy spot then closer to spring can be better than mid-winter. Because then you need a lot of root growth, quickly, to stop the tree wiggling around. Trees get staked to stop their trunk wiggling in the wind not because what’s above ground is hurt by waving in the wind, but because the tree wiggling is bad for the root mass.

    689:

    686 - Mods please note; broken MarkUp copied for tutorial purposes; do not correct
    Greg typed " [Try here}(https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-63723215)", which is almost correct MarkUp. It just needs the Close Brace "}" character replaced with a Close Square Bracket "]" to work like this.
    I can't actually identify a link to the Independent's website in 676 para 1.

    690:

    Not a clue, but I don't think they will.

    A more subtle approach would be to pass a Scottish law that parties with representation in Holyrood could pose questions to the electorate, to be included on another piece of paper and included during its elections. Costs to be borne by the parties, so the Scottish government would have nothing to do with it, honest, gov.

    691:

    "What would happen if Scotland ignored the court and held a referendum anyway? And if it went the way you suggest (leave)?"

    We saw one option in Spain where the central government sent in the police to shut town the voting and arrest the regional leaders behind the referendum. It could also lead to reduction or removal of devolution, not to mention fighting in the streets. I don't think that SNP leadership want to go there.

    692:

    Or even if Westminster decides against re-creating the Black and Tans: Spain's "only states that have seceded legally can join the EU" (legal secession not being possible under the Spanish constitution) position has split the support Scotland/discourage Catalonia hair quite nicely until now. Scotland gaining independence via UDI or similar would ...complicate things.

    693:

    Police Scotland is headed by a Commissioner who is answerable to a committee appointed by ... the First Minister of the Scottish government, not the Home Office (who run the police in Englandshire).

    Police Scotland ain't gonna arrest the people who give them orders. For that to happen, you'd have to have the Home Secretary ask the Defense Secretary to send in the Army, which in turn would require either activation of powers under the Civil Contingencies Act or new primary legislation.

    TLDR: it would be an ugly clusterfuck, quite possibly with the Army facing off against and outnumbered by the local (armed) Police.

    (The technical term for this situation is "proximate civil war".)

    You could avoid it if the UK government revokes devolution. Problem: devolution established a Scottish Parliament with powers to pass laws, outside of a few reserved areas. If you unwind devolution you need to replace 22 years (and counting) of Scottish laws, and Westminster no longer has the legal specialists who used to draw up legislation applicable to Scotland (which has a different legal system from the rest of the UK, remember). It'd make Jacob Rees-Mogg's attempt to sunset a couple of thousand EU regulations seem trivial by comparison.

    Either of these approaches would be so deeply unpopular in Scotland (where the Scottish Parliament as an institution enjoys a ridiculously high 80% approval in opinion polling) that it'd basically throw all the still-undecided voters in favour of immediate independence. At which point we're getting into general strike and civil unrest territory, and the outcome of the eventual independence vote now a foregone conclusion.

    I'm pretty sure neither the SNP nor the Tories in London want to go there, which is why we're seeing all this legalistic footsie.

    694:

    context = USA (and anyone living in a rather gonzo alternate future history circa 2075)

    the last time anyone tried to 'exit' the USA in 1861, got a bit loud as family squabbles tend to... 2% of then population, estimated 620,000 soldiers (and a guesstimated 75,000 civilians) died in American Civil War...

    more recently the slightly crazy MAGA-hats want a peaceful divorce and 'restoration' of (chose whichever flavor of delusion is palatable to you): Confederate States of America; Republic of Texas; Duchy of the South; Nova Jerusalem; Lone Star Republic;

    whereas those most batshit gonzo crazy seek a repeal of constitutional amendments outlawing of slavery in order to restore slavery and they're ready to fit chain on anyone who cannot prove themselves to white 'n Christian for the prior ten generations...

    then there's Quebec, which never really accepted the 'dominion' of Canada and forced the entirety of the nation into bi-lingual federal government (which was in hindsight not such a bad thing)...

    there are separatists in Mexico... Russia's fans of the USSR's good ol' days... Middle East (especially Lebanon's 3 biggest minorities)... southern France's sneering elite... do not ask about Africa because there's just too many groups pining for the old ways pre-European contact/conquest/corruption...

    ...overall if ever all these groups got their plots better organized-funded-weaponized and actually fractured these various nations we'd end up with the United Nations needing to add fifty floors to its main building for delegates from 3,000+ newly formed nation-states...

    which would make a really bizarro 'future history' for residents of New York City already annoyed at a mere 250 sets of delegates

    okay now I know what epic saga -- a saga of an epic fail -- I will be writing

    695:

    I don't think the Civil Contingencies Act would do, because I can't see it would count as an emergency:

    https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/36/section/1

    The UK government could either just act ultra vires (who's to stop them?) or pass a quick bill giving them suitable powers. In either case, King Charles would be Right Royally Pissed Off, because he would implicitly or explicitly be dragged into a political firestorm. He might even order the army to stand down if it had been sent in without authority, or refuse to sign the bill until the Supreme Court had ruled on it :-)

    As you say, an ugly clusterfuck at best.

    697:

    the last time anyone tried to 'exit' the USA in 1861, got a bit loud as family squabbles tend to... 2% of then population, estimated 620,000 soldiers (and a guesstimated 75,000 civilians) died in American Civil War...

    Yes, we'd heard about that. NB: around this blog it's called "The Slaveowners' Treasonous Rebellion" -- calling it a civil war is a bit mealy-mouthed, let alone "the late unpleasantness" or "the war of Northern aggression" (classic DARVO and projection at work there).

    That war was the outcome of one of the belligerent factions wanting to impose its deplorable preferences on the rest of the Union -- specifically, slavery in the new territories that were being genocided expanded into -- and refusing to abide within constitutionally mandated limits (which had already been watered down to accommodate them).

    There are plenty of examples of peaceful secession.

    Consider the divorce between Czechia and Slovakia (formerly Czecheslovakia), which was entirely peaceful, and they're both now EU members.

    Or consider the vote to separate South Sudan from Sudan.

    It happens pretty regularly, and doesn't usually go sideways the way it did in the USA or in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh.

    TLDR: Americans are unsurprisingly prone to seeing foreign affairs through an America-tinted lens (we all do this to some extent) and expect national divorces to inevitably end up in civil war.

    As for every new nation fracturing repeatedly ... that ain't going to happen. Nations provide a convenient abstraction for mediating internal administrative disputes, but the smaller they get the higher the overheads of dispute-mediation become. Nations of half a million or so (eg. Estonia, Iceland) function just fine, but we don't expect them to have highly effective military forces or much diplomatic power -- they work better as members of an alliance (as indeed do most nations of under about 5-10 million).

    Micro-nations are a thing, but usually because they're geographically isolated (eg. Micronesia) or culturally distinctive (eg. Luxembourg) and don't exist beside a violently expansionist hegemonic empire (eg. Chechnya).

    Final thought: an independent Scotland might fragment, insofar as the Hebrides (notably the Orkney and Shetland islands) seem to want to cuddle up to Denmark, or maybe Iceland (to which they are culturally closer than Edinburgh). Oil politics aside -- and the North Sea oil is going to be a thing of the past in another decade -- this isn't terribly problematic -- they've got a combined population of about 45,000 people, used to have a fishing industry and then oil, and it's silly to imagine an independent Scotland sending in the troops to hold them down at gunpoint.

    698:

    Or Norway could get around to paying Margaret's dowry and then claiming Orkney :-)

    699:

    "About energy storage:"

    Thanks for that -- it's a useful data point for what exists in the real world.

    It also gives me an opportunity to gripe about how reporting on such matters uses language that, I guess, is meant to connect with the typical reader. Maybe it does that, but it leaves a lot to be desired if one wants to understand what's actually going on:

    The site, said to be able to store enough electricity to power 300,000 homes for two hours, went online at Pillswood, Cottingham, on Monday.

    When I've encountered such "power x homes" language in the US context, it seems to mean that a home needs about a kilowatt on the average. So does Pillswood have 600 MWh capacity?

    The Pillswood facility has the capacity to store up to 196 MWh energy in a single cycle.

    And what's a "cycle"? One day?

    700:

    “ It happens pretty regularly, and doesn't usually go sideways the way it did in the USA or in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh.”

    I suspect this statement is not true at least the part with “doesn’t usually go sideways”. At the very least you’d need to provide some kind of numbers there. Sudan is a poor example they’ve been in and out of various civil wars pretty much nonstop.

    Outside of the context of the collapse of empires I think it’s a pretty rare occurrence that a peaceful separation occurs, at least without a very credible threat of a civil war that the central government is highly likely to loose. I can only think of a handful of examples and those were usually accompanied by the total collapse of a central government

    701:

    "NB: around this blog it's called "The Slaveowners' Treasonous Rebellion"

    In another blog it's called the TIDOS War: Treason In Defense Of Slavery". Either works.

    702:

    context = USA

    this is not the only such story of unexpected consequences from re-wilding efforts... nice to see mother nature pushing back so long as there's no pools of blood or missing infants... problem being there simply is not enough places where nature can be protected or restored...

    theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/24/turkeys-massachusetts-kevin-woburn-thanksgiving

    703:

    paws
    Ah, yes: - "FBCK" Fault_Between_Chair_&_Keyboard - I mistyped the closing bracket & then missed it, even in "review" ...

    Charlie
    the outcome of one of the belligerent factions wanting to impose its deplorable preferences on the rest of the Union ... etc ...
    Which is EXACTLY what the even-loonier MAGA-hats & Gun_Nuts are proposing.
    However, exactly like the previous Confederate Traitors, they are making all the noise, making ever-increasing threats, muttering about "killing the libs" etc ... ... Whilst ignoring that, um: It didn't work last time, did it?
    Correction: {Maybe} ... as indeed do most nations of under about 5-1020 million - at the least. { ??? }
    IIRC, Orkney & Shetland { The rest of the Jarldom of Orkney is uncertain} were {are?} very strongly against an "Independent" Scotland as being entirely ruled by the actual Sassenachs of the Central Belt is considerably worse {as they see it} than London, who are remote enough not to be a bother.

    704:

    I like numbers.

    Roughly speaking, a First World citizen such as a Briton uses about 600W of electricity on average throughout a year. That's winter and summer, day and night, asleep and awake, adult and child. Some advanced nations use more (France, for example, burns about 30% more electricity than the UK does per capita), not many advanced countries use less than that 600W figure.

    A typical family, two adults and two children (we will ignore fractional offspring and singleton adults here for simplicity's sake) uses about 2.5kW or ca. 60kWh of electricity a day, more in winter, less in summer. That covers their share of hospitals, food processing plants, water pumping stations, EV chargers, data centres, street lights, elevators, electric trains, advertising hoardings etc. as well as their domestic consumption.

    Press releases are not for those who are actually interested enough to do some digging into the real facts and have a calculator to hand (or do some simple mental arithmetic, even just to the extent of powers of ten estimates). I like numbers and because of that I have peered behind the Green curtain and seen the Great Green Oz for the charlatan he is.

    705:

    Correction - Note; several of the parliamentary constituencies formerly parts of the Jarldom of Orkney have voted SNP in the last several Scottish and Westminster parliament elections.

    706:

    Kardashev:

    link to "TIDOS" posts? googling got me tacos & odder things

    708:

    Howard NYC
    What's the problem?
    Turkeys ARE EDIBLE ...

    paws
    SNP in "Orkney" - presumably all on the "mainland"??

    709:

    I suspect that the biggest difficulty if the US were to abruptly announce a peaceful partition into two countries is the rest of the world screaming, "But wait! What about all these bonds denominated in 'US dollars', which just happens to be treated as the world's reserve currency? Not Southern US, or Western US, just US?" Many trillions of dollars worth of them held outside the US. Lots of very painful adjustments.

    710:

    Did you look at the map in your own link to see that "Jarldom of Orkney" >> "Orkney Islands"? I did, and then roughly compared Scottish (and Westminster) constituencies in the Jarldom with the Orkney Islands (one constituency in the Jarldom). So most of the Jarldom except the Orkney and Shetland Islands constituencies themselves actually returns SNP constituency MSPs and MP.

    711:

    I suspect that the biggest difficulty if the US were to abruptly announce a peaceful partition into two countries

    You mean other than that most of the folks screaming loudest for such a split don't live in contiguous areas. And would require some states to split.

    But aside from those items and a few others, just as easy as Brexit.

    712:

    context = USA

    latest intel: covid death rates are ramping up after weeks of moderate decline... so to those remaining outposts of sanity out there please read and pass along to those you care about...

    John Scalzi amongst others have described in pain-filled details the effects of covid upon their cognitive functions (brain fog wrecked a novel he was trying to finish, etc)... and now a glimpse into the science behind the horror...

    https://fortune.com/well/2022/11/05/mini-brain-organoids-covid-infection-neurologic-symptoms-synapses-long-covid-pruning-stroke-depression-anxiety-memory-migraines-parkinsons-alzheimers-tremor-headache-confusion-brain-fog-mood-disorder/

    further intel...

    https://jessicawildfire.substack.com/p/you-may-be-early-but-youre-not-wrong?r=jp7y&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

    excuse me whilst I order a case of cheapest vodka and resume daydrinking

    713:

    Do you have a link to Scalzi's comments on brainfog? I'd be interested in reading that one.

    714:

    Howard NYC Said: excuse me whilst I order a case of cheapest vodka and resume daydrinking

    I've mentioned it a couple of times on this blog. Covid is almost completely avoidable. It's almost completely airborne. So you can avoid it by only breathing air that has been filtered. Not through a disposable mask but through a proper N100 or P100 filter. My weapon of choice is the 3M 6000 series half mask with 6035 filters (the EU standard ones). You'd need the 7093 filters, the North American standards ones. I take a large. You can be almost perfectly safe for far less than the cost of a case of vodka. Just wear it every time you're outside your house. Not in an indoor area as they're saying in the media. You can catch it outdoors. Wear it everywhere that's outside your house unless you're sure that you're several km from anyone else.

    You also need several HEPA filters in your home to filter out viruses that float in through the windows from passers-by. It's infective at least hundreds of metres and maybe thousands. There's cases of people catching it from their neighbours during lockdown.

    It's a horrible vascular disease that mimics decompression illness. (this means very bad) Wide spread damage to the capillaries and it damages every tissue that depends on capillaries. You don't want to get it.

    You really really don't want to get it. The numbers for your odds of getting long covid keep gong up. A year ago, they were saying 4%, 6 months ago some people were saying 20%. I saw 80% being mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

    If you've ever thought scornful thoughts about a motorcyclist speeding and not wearing a helmet...going out in public without a proper (not disposable) mask is worse. You need to apply that scorn to yourself, but 100 times more.

    715:

    I think the author's note in The Kaiju Preservation Society (lightweight, highly entertaining, recommended) has the most detail about the abandoned other novel.

    716:

    And what's a "cycle"? One day?

    That reads to me like they're saying "the capacity of the batteries, fully charged, is 196 MWh", and a "cycle" is a charge-discharge cycle.

    So all it means is "this facility can store up to 196 MWh at a given moment". The company's own website also gives a power, which I take to mean the maximum rate of charge or discharge, though it doesn't say whether it is the charge rate, the discharge rate, or both. That power is 84 MW, which would go through the entire capacity in two hours, presumably hence the "can power 300,000 homes for 2 hours" in the press release. That suggests they think a home uses 280 W, which seems a bit low, really.

    717:

    Well, it's a bit more than two hours (2 and a third); sorry - I shouldn't try and calculate things before having sufficient tea.

    718:

    I think is just two hours. Probably the 196MWh is just the gross capacity, but you don't want state of charge to go below 15-20%. 196 MWh * 85% / 2 hours = 84 MW

    719:

    Around this blog it's called "The Slaveowners' Treasonous Rebellion"

    I object to that name only on the grounds that it's non-specific.

    720:

    I use the short-hand "SOTR 2" to differentiate the American Civil War of 1861-65 from the previous unpleasantness that occurred in 1776.

    721:

    Wide spread damage to the capillaries and it damages every tissue that depends on capillaries.

    Latest happy fun finding reported by researchers in the UK yesterday: A new research paper, published today in Nature Communications*, shows that COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy using mRNA vaccines is associated with a 15% reduction in stillbirths.. Which makes a lot of sense if you consider that the placenta, and the uterine lining, are highly vascularized organs specialized to provide gas and nutrient exchange between the maternal blood stream (uterine endometrial side) and the developing blastoma or fetus (placental side).

    The paper doesn't mention what happened to the miscarriage rate since COVID19 arrived, and it may not even be possible to figure it out because early miscarriages are often hard to diagnose -- they may just resemble a late period or a heavy period -- and women of childbearing age (generally under 40) are at low risk of developing severe disease, so may have written it off as a bad head-cold and, oh, a heavy period a week or two later. But it seems fairly likely that micro-clotting in the capillaries of the pregnant uterus or the placenta could cause spontaneous abortion.

    TLDR: COVID-19 may attack human reproduction directly by causing miscarriages (as well as causing infertility and erectile dysfunction in men). Meanwhile, mRNA vaccines are not only safe during pregnancy, they reduce the risk of miscarriage.

    I wonder how the anti-vaxxers -- who are often also pro-forced-birth (i.e. anti-abortion) -- will square this magic circle ...

    722:

    I follow a number of authors via Amazon (to get notifications when a new book drops) and I have noticed the output of a number of folks who used to be regular as clockwork dropping off. Falling back to reissues only, or a novella a year in place of 1-2 full-sized novels.

    Some of it may be depression and/or stress -- writer brain does not play well with existential dread -- but I suspect a chunk of it is post-viral brain fog.

    All since January 2020. I suspect a common factor ...

    723:

    I tend to regard those x homes for y hours things as basically meaningless and best ignored. Like this instance, which makes more sense if you assume they've added an extra zero on because someone thought 30,000 homes didn't sound worth making a fuss about so someone else must have dropped one.

    It's located where it is because that's the point where the wires from an offshore bank of wind turbines hook into the grid. So I'd guess that its purpose is to smooth out short-term fluctuations when the wind is a bit gusty. Its discharge rate is a good order of magnitude too small to be comparable with the turbines' output, so I'd further guess that it's a pilot plant so they can see whether it works well enough to be worth building a bigger one later.

    724:

    I would like to note that my 2017-22 output has been hit by depression, but I'd like to think you can agree that losing both your parents and then going into pandemic lockdown is a valid excuse for being moody for a while.

    However, I caught COVID19 for the first time (not confirmed by tests, but a dead ringer for about 70% of the symptoms, leaving out only the nose/throat/lungs) in late May 2022, and it took about 6-8 weeks before I trusted myself to write or edit fiction again.

    There's a state where you're too foggy-headed/ill to work, and it's clear enough where you stand: just go back to bed and write it off as a sick day. But there's also a liminal state where you feel better and think you can work, but when you go back to what you did the day before you spot silly mistakes, obvious mistakes that shouldn't be there, and you realize you're in no fit state to work because for every hour you spend on the job you'll generate two hours of clean-up work later.

    It's like trying to code when you're sleep deprived, or getting behind the wheel of a car after a couple of pints (which we never do this century -- I have a personal 12 hour rule for the time to leave between alcohol and driving -- but consider the 1970s or 1980s when the drink-driving limit was higher and we were younger and less cautious). It's one of those situations where no good will come of trying to power through it.

    Oh, and that first case of COVID has left me with a tremor in my right hand. Not enough to stop me typing, and it doesn't affect my grip strength, but it's enough that I avoid anything requiring fine motor control with that hand. (Luckily I'm left-handed.) I suspect some neurological damage, hopefully spinal or peripheral rather than brain damage. Either way, I'm not going to go and pester my GP unless it gets worse because the fucking Tories are intent on sending the NHS into full-on collapse and we're entering the winter crisis season: yes, I'd probably get referred for an MRI fairly promptly, but hanging around hospitals during the winter pandemic spike (both COVID and flu) to confirm that yes, I've had some minor damage and it's long-term stable, does not appeal.

    (My second case of COVID, post second booster shot and which did test positive, ran for the first two weeks of October and symptomatically was "just a bad cold", and I was able to resume work again immediately after I tested clear. But that first bout has put the wind up me good and proper, even though it was, by official definitions, a "mild" case of the disease.)

    725:

    Thank you. I like that idea; it sounds like an interesting experiment that will be fun to carry out even if it does fail in the end. Willow twigs, is it? I ought to be able to get hold of a few of those. "Near water, and pollarded" is distinctive enough for willows to ping even my deficient tree-recognition abilities, even if COVID brain fog has put them off the typewriter for the moment.

    Thanks to others for the pile of invitations to join the We Hate Sycamores Club. You will forgive me for filing them in the usual container :)

    726:

    "But there's also a liminal state where you feel better and think you can work, but when you go back to what you did the day before you spot silly mistakes, obvious mistakes that shouldn't be there, and you realize you're in no fit state to work because for every hour you spend on the job you'll generate two hours of clean-up work later."

    I've been noticing exactly the same kind of thing. Difficulty - stupid difficulty - in solving equations which are similar to ones I've solved before without problems, piles of paper with sketched and then abandoned circuit configurations that obviously are never going to work for stupid reasons.

    I find it more useful to cease the conscious thought and punt the problem off to my subconscious, to wait for an "a-ha!" or "oh for fuck's sake" moment to possibly happen - or not happen - some weeks later, than either to switch it off or to carry on trying.

    Thing is, though, if I have had the plague I'm not aware of it. Everything on the list of warning signs is something that happens to me anyway often enough for me to be familiar with it and not regard it as anything other than expected fluctuations in normality. And I've not noticed any change in frequency or severity. So I don't know if I'm observing long-term effects of an infection which was asymptomatic at the time, or if it's just a combination of advancing years with a big chunk of observer bias and similar confounding effects.

    727:

    Willow leaves are distinctive - look up pictures of them.

    I rather agree with you about sycamores.

    728:

    I'd further guess that it's a pilot plant so they can see whether it works well enough to be worth building a bigger one later.

    The same firm apparently have another one of comparable size under construction, and another in the process of being planned. The one being built claims to be in Upminster, which I would guess is not an area full of wind turbines. They've already built another ten battery banks, though those all seem to be smaller than this one.

    729:

    I may be talking rubbish, but could some of it also be due to disarray of the publishing industry (due to the same common factor)? It's been a long time since I saw anything about it, so perhaps there isn't any disarray any more.

    730:

    I wonder how the anti-vaxxers -- who are often also pro-forced-birth (i.e. anti-abortion) -- will square this magic circle ...

    I suspect they will continue to do what they do now: criminalize miscarriage and make it entirely the 'fault' of the woman.

    731:

    Cancer, chemotherapy and anaemia can all cause the same effects, too, as can a hell of a lot of metabolic defects. The bigger point is that a competent government would be taking serious action to reduce the effect that COVID and its aftermath has on the health of the nation, the effectiveness of the workforce, and similar matters. This is neither over, nor a minor matter (even thinking in monetarist terms). Now, back in the real world ....

    732:
    I follow a number of authors via Amazon (to get notifications when a new book drops) and I have noticed the output of a number of folks who used to be regular as clockwork dropping off.

    And I've noticed exactly the same effect on Quality Steam Railway Books (Wild Swan, Lightmoor, etc). I've long taken the late Bill Hudson's advice: "Ignore the modelling titles; ignore the picture books, but buy the books with in-depth research", and he's been proved quite right time and again.

    Some of it may be depression and/or stress -- writer brain does not play well with existential dread -- but I suspect a chunk of it is post-viral brain fog. All since January 2020. I suspect a common factor ...

    I'm less clear on this diagnosis. Many of the authors of the railway books I want to buy are getting on, and most have retired, so I'd hoped the books might be queueing up to get published. Now a few of the authors might have snuffed it, or be very ill, but most I'd have expected to have been self-isolating.

    Geoff Kent: published "Unconsidered Trifles" for Christmas last year. Despite being a picture book, its Geoff's own photos of small details of the English countryside, and is absolutely delightful.

    John Jennison: One book in his series on LMS locomotives last year, but his 4mm brass Princess Coronation is still TBA.

    Steve Banks: Still awaiting Volume 2 of his "LNER Passenger Trains & Formations 1923-67". Volume 1 is now OOP, in fact so OOP that there appear to be no secondhand copies on either amazon or Abebooks.

    Perhaps all that spare time spent in isolation in 2020 proved to be too depressing for any of us to get on with the work we'd all been promising ourselves we'd do?

    733:
    I follow a number of authors via Amazon (to get notifications when a new book drops) and I have noticed the output of a number of folks who used to be regular as clockwork dropping off.

    And I've noticed exactly the same effect on Quality Steam Railway Books (Wild Swan, Lightmoor, etc). I've long taken the late Bill Hudson's advice: "Ignore the modelling titles; ignore the picture books, but buy the books with in-depth research", and he's been proved quite right time and again.

    Some of it may be depression and/or stress -- writer brain does not play well with existential dread -- but I suspect a chunk of it is post-viral brain fog. All since January 2020. I suspect a common factor ...

    I'm less clear on this diagnosis. Many of the authors of the railway books I want to buy are getting on, and most have retired, so I'd hoped the books might be queueing up to get published. Now a few of the authors might have snuffed it, or be very ill, but most I'd have expected to have been self-isolating.

    Geoff Kent: published "Unconsidered Trifles" for Christmas last year. Despite being a picture book, its Geoff's own photos of small details of the English countryside, and is absolutely delightful.

    John Jennison: One book in his series on LMS locomotives last year, but his 4mm brass Princess Coronation is still TBA.

    Steve Banks: Still awaiting Volume 2 of his "LNER Passenger Trains & Formations 1923-67". Volume 1 is now OOP, in fact so OOP that there appear to be no secondhand copies on either amazon or Abebooks.

    Perhaps all that spare time spent in isolation in 2020 proved to be too depressing for any of us to get on with the work we'd all been promising ourselves we'd do?

    734:

    They'll square that circle by ignoring it.

    At least that will be the average reaction if I'm any just of their actual (as opposed to claimed or conscious) motivations.

    735:

    "The one being built claims to be in Upminster, which I would guess is not an area full of wind turbines."

    There's a bunch of them in the Thames estuary, so to me it sounds like exactly the same layout just shifted south a bit.

    736:

    Ah. That makes sense. I tend to forget how London geography actually works, since I spend most of my visits there on bits of railway.

    737:

    One side-effect of COVID spooked the hell out of me, but passed relatively fast: I lost the ability to count. As in, to count out pills into a pill case, in single-digit numbers -- I kept having to go back and re-count a couple of times to be sure I'd got the right quantity.

    Never mind basic mental arithmetic turning hard. In the late 1980s I had to work an old school electromechanical cash register and I could actually tally up the shopping and quote the price before the machine finished whirring. Now? For the first few weeks post COVID I was completely innumerate.

    It got better, but "can't count up to ten without using fingers and thumbs" is pretty high on my list of signs that I might just be impaired.

    738:

    but could some of it also be due to disarray of the publishing industry (due to the same common factor)?

    No: I'm tracking self-published authors as well.

    (I know about trad pub disruption -- if you wander why "Dead Lies Dreaming" came out as "Laundry Files" not "New Management" and was about four months late, that was a big part of it) -- but it's affecting people who are in complete control of their production workflow.

    739:

    That controls for that factor, then.

    Is this sort of disruption (in publishing) still a major thing, out of curiosity?

    740:

    I follow Japanese anime and there have been a noticeable number of shows in the past year or so that have had delayed episodes and even entire series going on hiatus. In some cases the voice actors have been reported to be sick and taking time off to recover, in other cases the anime staffs have been reduced with artists, producers etc. also out sick. Same with manga publishing, lots of drop-out episodes of ongoing series and short delays -- before COVID this break in the schedule was sometimes an indication the mangaka creating the manga was involved with development of a spin-off anime but less so these days.

    741:

    "Chaeking Publishing"
    Is there any reason why not checking up, by logging in to Fantastic Fiction is a non-starter?

    742:

    I would propose "Treasonous Slaveowners Rebellion," as multiple slave states remained with the Union (that is, they were not traitors.) Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky, which were all slave states, stayed on the Union side of the American Civil War.

    https://sage-advices.com/what-were-the-union-slave-states/

    It's also worth noting that some of the Union generals owned slaves, including George Thomas, one of the very best Union generals, and even Grant owned slaves (through his wife) though he personally was anti-slavery and is known to have manumitted at least one slave.

    In short, whole owning slaves is/was reprehensible, not everyone who did so was a traitor. Thus "Treasonous Slaveholders Rebellion" is more accurate.

    743:

    I'm in the same state. Not as good at anything as I was a couple months back. I think I had an invisible case of COVID and am still dealing with brain fog.

    744:

    So far as publishing and other disruptions go, I haven't had Covid, and since I'm pretty anti-social to begin with, I was theoretically less impacted than most.

    But I suffered too, and I don't think it was just PD. And I'm not the only person in my extended, non-biological family who's dealing with mental illness without covid.

    Here are a couple of other things that I think are or were going on, especially for people in the US and UK:

  • Psychological warfare. We've basically been under constant bombardment from the likes of Trump, Johnson, Putin, and co., and this has been ramped up to 13, both by social media's constant spew and by the constant recursive rumination of that spew by both social and traditional media. Psyops have real effects, and we've been inundated by them, WWI trench bombardment style, by both our enemies and our putative allies. Having addictive social media telling us that the only way to "stay informed" is to be constantly plugged in made it much worse.

  • Climate change. One huge reason I don't rewrite Hot Earth Dreams is that it involves staring into the abyss of civilization's hubris, and it hurts to spend too much time in that space.

  • Now the thing is, most people want to live good lives. Here I mean good vs. bad, not good vs. evil--it's secondarily about morals, and primarily about how to grow up, grow old, live with family and friends, and so forth. Part of the function of living a "traditional religion" is to help you learn how to be a good person in your place and time, and one reason I think "death cult" applies to some forms of Xtianity is that they trash the "fallen" world we live in and focus on a magic ritual to have a better after-death.

    With climate change, we're dealing with this yawning pit of a future beneath us that tells us we're so monumentally fscking up that we'll be lucky if we don't go extinct, and that our descendants if any certainly will not have what we consider a good life now.

    Is there any way this can't hurt? We're wannabe good people being forced to do profoundly bad things. Powerful cultural norms make it difficult and socially ostracizing (at least where I live. You?) to live a more proper life that ameliorates the damage we feel we're being forced to cause.

    In this environment, where are creative people going to find the space to create? And if what they're creating isn't directly about dealing with what we're being hit by, does that make their creations feel shallow and trite to them?

    I know that last happens to me. Given my druthers, I'd be writing fiction. Then I look at the mess we're in and go back to the struggle. It's killing me, but how can I not, in good conscience, at least try to make things infinitesimally better? I want to be a good person, not a vampire sucking the blood out of the future and infecting it as I do so.

    745:

    The other problem with the "treasonous slaveowner's rebellion," well, multiple problems.

    The big one is that "all men are created equal" was not part of US law at the time of the Civil War. It was in the Declaration of Independence (which is NOT US law), not the Constitution (which is). Slaveowning was, in fact, allowed in the US Constitution at the time.

    Second, IIRC nowhere in the Constitution did it say that secession was illegal. As Troutwaxer noted, a bunch of slave-owning states stayed in the Union. The thing that may strike Scots as weird is that they did so by votes. Similarly, the states that seceded did so by vote.

    The point was that the traitors were acting lawfully. The Republicans, by centralizing the notion that all men are created equal, were not, and secession followed on Republicans gaining power in Washington. I think most people now would argue that the Republicans were acting in the interest of justice, but legal and just aren't always congruent.

    Personally, I hope the current Scottish independence movement doesn't get "Treasonous rebellion" attached to it. Not that I would so name it, of course.

    746:

    I think the idea that the Confederates were acting lawfully is debatable (and probably wrong.) There are no provisions in the Constitution for leaving the Union once a state has joined it, and the Republicans had not at that point passed any laws against slavery, so succession was, at the very least, premature and based on laws which might, at some time in the future, be passed.

    Also, while the Constitution discusses slavery - the one example I know of talks about how slaves should be counted in the census - it does not insist on the practice of slavery, and it was written at a time when some states had already outlawed slavery, and this was not a problem at the time. (A lack of slaves simply meant that particular state lacked a population which would be counted as 3/5 of a person during the census.) If there's a provision in the Constitution which makes it impossible to legislate either for or against slavery I'm not seeing it.

    So where's the Constitutional evidence that the Confederate states acted legally?

    I'll also note that the Confederacy fired the first shots (the attack on Fort Sumpter,) as part of a policy of seizing U.S. government owned forts and facilities throughout the South, and seizing federal property was, under the circumstances, certainly treasonous. Had the Confederacy not begun the armed conflict and instead negotiated their severance from the U.S. government, your argument might have a leg to stand on, but given what actually happened, I don't think your argument is remotely based on the historical and constitutional facts.

    747:

    I disagree about the propaganda. It has become more strident and overt, but we have been saturated in it at least for the past few decades. A factor of 3, at most, in my view less.

    748:

    I think I'd have to disagree with you on the specifics of the propaganda. What's happened in the last few years is that we've finally started to see the effects of the propaganda. In the UK that's mainly Brexit and austerity. in the U.S. it's racial/sexual/religious/other prejudices which have come to prominence since Trump was elected. So not the propaganda itself, but its effects.

    749:

    Oh, really? I have been going on about the evil effects the propaganda has had and trying to counter it for over 20 years now.

    750:

    Yes, really. The propaganda has always been bad - no arguments there, but I think the propaganda is having a much worse effect on the actual behavior of people and governments in the last few years. The switch from "these people are rightwing nutcases" to "these people are obviously fascists*" has some very ugly implications.

    * "Fascists" is a word which, prior to Trump's election, I tried very hard to avoid using, because for all the Conservative nuttiness, it wasn't appropriate. Post-Trump, it's definitely appropriate.

    751:

    Not really - it's just a case of chickens coming home to roost. It was bloody obvious what was happening, and that much of it was the result of the concerted propaganda decades before Trump, Johnson etc. got elected. In the UK, it has been since the late 1990s (yes, Blair), and Brexit since the late 1980s (Thatcher unleashing Murdoch).

    Going back to the original post (OGH's), it isn't just the petrochemical states - the USA is seeing its hegemony threatened and responding in exactly the same way. And, yes, the signs of that were clear two decades ago.

    752:

    Willow twigs, is it? I ought to be able to get hold of a few of those. "Near water, and pollarded"

    Where I grew up we had weeping willows. You had to be careful where you allowed them to grow. They would seek out water sources for their roots with a ruthless passion. Were great at clogging up drains of any kind. If there was a small crack within 10 meters they'd find it in a year and then fill the pipe with a root bundle mass.

    And near a septic drain field? You were going to have a bad week or so in a few years.

    753:

    H
    "psywar - yes - since 24/2/22 everything has gone off the rails, on top of previous political shenanigans in both the USA & here - Brexit is {FINALLY} becoming apparent as the utter, total car-crsh+trainwreck that us dreadful "remoaners" promised.
    But it was there, & had been for years ....

    EC & others
    "propaganda" - if you want a truly terrifying example, think back to 10 years ago - 2012. I reckon less than half of the UK population were even interested in the stinking "Olympic Games" - but they filled all the pages of all the papers & news sites.
    NO DISSENT WAS ALLOWED - & was certainly never, ever published.
    A scary vision of living in Calvin's Geneva, or post-Trent Rome, or in the USSR.

    754:

    Is this sort of disruption (in publishing) still a major thing, out of curiosity?

    Nope. The Big Five got it under control pretty fast.

    The printers are another matter -- they need a lot of in-person workers to run the presses and distribution side, and they in turn rely on wood pulp imports, much of it from China, so they got hit by international supply chain disruption and shipping problems really badly last winter -- but the purely editorial/marketing/production/ebook workflow is running smoothly.

    The other dislocation is with small presses: I know of at least one where the sole proprietor up and died suddenly (stroke or heart attack, which are way commoner post-COVID sequellae than most people are willing to think about) leaving the executors of their estate scrambling to distribute already paid-for products sitting in a lock-up. That's because small presses are often solo or two person operations, often started by older folks with the capital to invest in a hobby business (so more vulnerable to COVID and cardiovascular accidents).

    755:

    A couple of points:

    First, I don't agree with the Confederacy then or now. And I especially don't agree with the people who drummed up political support for secession around "Black Lincoln's" (their term for him) election.

    Second, I'm not arguing from theory, but from reading summaries of what people were saying and writing prior to and during the secession. I'd recommend Keehn's Knights of the Golden Circle, because he has a passion for quoting at length. The KGC, their ilk and successors, were the MAGAts of their time, and I don't think it's coincidental that modern secessionists are aping their rhetoric and techniques. I think Keehn's likely right that they were central in rapidly whipping up the drive to secession around the 1860 election. They were making the points I made, and to your point, they were arguing that a government that was willing to abandon the Constitution in pursuit of a political agenda had to be opposed with force.

    Do I agree with their arguments? No. That's my third point. I found this out while researching an alt-history where Lincoln lived and Reconstruction succeeded. That's the axe I prefer to grind, and it has DEIJ engraved on its handle.

    Anyway, I'm not going to engage further in this debate, because it would require me posting loads of boring text, and I suspect that would rapidly piss of OGH and most others. If this is something you want to explore on your own, I'd genuinely suggest reading at least Keehn's work, so you can point mistakes I very probably made in this thumbnail.

    Given that this is a UK blog, it might be more worthwhile to ask if the current Brexit flustercluck came from similarly recycled British history. Is it new, Jingoism 2.0, or something else? Not all of us have dived deep enough into UK history to know its roots.

    756:

    Going back to the original post (OGH's), it isn't just the petrochemical states - the USA is seeing its hegemony threatened and responding in exactly the same way.

    You know the USA is one of the world's leading oil producers?

    It just consumes most of its own production domestically because it built an industrial manufacturing capacity mostly before they struck oil. (As the UK did with coal.) The newer petrostates that sell it abroad for cash and import luxury goods are an aberration.

    757:

    stroke or heart attack, which are way commoner post-COVID sequellae than most people are willing to think about

    My son in law is wrapping up spending a week living with his mom after she was discharged from the hospital. Very minor stroke. She's a retired nurse and recognized the signs and called a friend who got her to the hospital immediately.

    But she was coming off a two week battle with what she called a very bad cold or the flu. But she's QANON, anti-vazer, Covid denier. So he (and we) thinks sh had Covid and that triggered the small clot which later caused a bleed.

    758:

    Oh, yes, but it isn't usually classed as a petrochemical state because its economy isn't almost entirely dependent on selling oil etc. (it's just under 1% of GDP) - its hegemony is far more important.

    759:

    Meanwhile, mRNA vaccines are not only safe during pregnancy, they reduce the risk of miscarriage.

    I wonder how the anti-vaxxers -- who are often also pro-forced-birth (i.e. anti-abortion) -- will square this magic circle ...

    One of my brothers and his kids and all the spouses are deep into anti-vax, D's run a world wide pedophile ring, and so on.

    About a year or so ago the CDC released a paper on a study of pregnancies and Covid vaccines. The preliminary release had a statement about the total number of spontaneous terminations in vaccinated women. And had a sentence saying this was way less than amongst the un-vaccinanted, but didn't give a number. The final paper deleted the second sentence, I'm assuming due to them not having a number.

    To my brother and his wife this was proof that the Covid vaccines caused abortions.

    I know my brother isn't stupid. But he has walked into a dark place for 20 to 30 years and now can't imagine any other place to be.

    760:

    You're absolutely right that we've been seeing at least some of this for a long time. But part of what we're seeing (at least in the U.S.) is that as Republicans/Conservatives are rewarded for their extreme positions and illegal/immoral actions, they've been doubling down on both their rhetoric and their behavior, and you probably noticed that Obama's election either caused or inspired a huge uptick in racism in the U.S.

    It's also becoming apparent that the fascist movements in various countries are both well-funded and working together as never before.

    Maybe what we're seeing now is the exponential upslope of an ongoing trend?

    761:

    It's essentially jingoism 2.0, and mostly dates from the Thatcher era. Winning the Falklands war was hyped up by the tabloids, and restarted the (then fading) Imperial pretentions, but the real damage was done by allowing Murdoch to buy up much of the media and start a chauvinistic, anti-EU campaign. That was followed by other oligarchs doing the same, and competing to see who could be most chauvinistic, jingoistic and even fascist. The BBC was a voice of moderation, even after Thatcher tightened control, until Blair (the infamous Hutton report), but the government control has become much, much worse in the past year or two. Yes, I do mean Russia Today (now censored in the UK) or Pravda.

    762:

    It sounds to me like you're talking about the Confederate rhetoric rather than the facts? In that case we're definitely in agreement.

    763:

    Maybe what we're seeing now is the exponential upslope of an ongoing trend?

    Very plausible. And it's global, not just in the US.

    764:

    Yes. Global, and very well-organized, I suspect through Putin/Russia.

    765:

    It just consumes most of its own production domestically because it built an industrial manufacturing capacity mostly before they struck oil. (As the UK did with coal.) The newer petrostates that sell it abroad for cash and import luxury goods are an aberration.

    This is one of those obnoxious "yes and no" situations. CF https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-flow-of-oil-around-the-world/. I dug this out of Google. While it appears out of date (2014), AFAIK the current situation is similar.

    The basic problem is that oil's not a thing. There's crude oils, plural, and there are oil products. The US is a net importer of crude oil, second biggest in the world after the EU. This really goes to explain our geopolitics. We import high grade oil, and IIRC, much of the crude we export isn't quite so high grade.

    However, the US is the world's biggest refinery, and we do actually take in others' oil (Venezuela's, for example), refine it, and ship it elsewhere.

    As for industrialization prior to oil...Los Angeles grew huge because it had a decent oil field sitting next to a decent port, with a break in the mountains (now known to be the San Andreas fault) allowing trains to get from LA to the rest of the US without going through rugged terrain. The remnants of the oil field are still there--the La Brea Tar Pits are just one obvious example, and some Beverly Hills "mansions" actually have oil pumps inside them, not people. Thing is, LA also became an industrial hub for the US because of its oil. Hollywood's the mouse that ate the industrial cat.

    We're so big that we had multiple waves of industrialization, and it's ongoing: first coal and iron going to oil and iron in Pennsylvania (some of my immigrant ancestors were iron miners). Then what's now the Rust Belt, conveniently situated between the Minnesota Iron Ranges, the Pennsylvania iron and coal mines and oil fields, the Appalachian coal fields, the Great Lakes, and the Erie Canal linking all this to the Atlantic). Then LA oil. Then Texas and Gulf crude and now factories there. And now places like Alaska, Wyoming, and the Dakotas basically staying as petrostates without a huge amount of industry, due to isolation.

    766:

    =+=+=+=

    Heteromeles:

    as a species we will not be rendered extinct by anything short of "Venus Switchover"... civilization in some form will endure...

    but if you want to estimate the die off as in nine digits with a timeframe of mere decades, yeah, that looks about right if nothing is done to slam on the brakes... my gut-check is world population in 2060 will be 3 billion not 8 billion due to heat damage, unending mosquito season leading to widely spread 'routine' diseases, lack of cancer treatments, malnutrition leading to disease, suicide-by-despair, casual violence, unique virus mutations, inter-nation pissing contests short of war, full out war, poisoned water, toxic air, etc

    whereas the 'surviving civilization' will be more closely akin to capitalist-aristocracy-industrial serfdom with emphasis upon unblinking eye surveillance and automated "unacceptable behavior identification" by neural nets / AI / humans chained to workstations... what will be deemed unacceptable depends upon what version of religious extremists can convince the aristocracy to implement which excessively puritanical moral code

    =+=+=+=

    Troutwaxer:

    brainfog entries range across months (now that I think about it, years!)... not formally labeled... start with searching via googling these search criteria:

    site:whatever.scalzi.com covid

    site:whatever.scalzi.com writing or delays or brainfog

    =+=+=+=

    context = UK

    another blogger started a rather masochistic hobby, listing alternate history novels where the 'wrong team' was victorious... fascists / nazis / slavers / klansmen(USA-KKK) / etc

    Dixie Victorious; SS:GB; Fatherland; Rising Sun Victorious; Beating Plowshares Into Swords; Further Alternate Outcomes of the Second World War; A Man and a Plane An Alternate Germany; Handmaid's Tale; etc

    one entry jumped off the screen and strangled me:

    Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The NaziUK

    via google books I managed to read a couple pages... not horridly awful but given me being American all the English/British slang could have been historically appropriate or utterly off-target... then there's the matter of plausibility which from a short segment is impossible to evaluate... somehow there was a cheerful undertone amongst the characters' chatter?

    =+=+=+=

    context = US / NYC

    what do you see like everywhere...? casual drunkenness...? air passenger rage...? increasing reports of spontaneous expressions of aggression & unplanned violence...?

    there's an uneasy tickle in my brain observing behavior of people on the streets... there's for sure more casual drunkenness... and then there's misery of confined quarters with raging strangers... but what of what I've been seeing whilst shopping, is of folks who are not necessarily drunk on booze, slurred speech and confusion, forgetfulness even with a written list... one guy forgot he had a shopping list on his phone, age not more than 30... covid ruptures capillaries in all vital organs including brain... much like having repeated milli-strokes... nothing immediately obvious then gradual symptoms depression-anxiety-forgetfulness-impatience; seeming drunkenness; shortened temper; all all blamed upon stress & uncertainty & political unrest...

    but? but could be due to 'milli-strokes' (literally a 1/000th as severe as a 'biggie') which did enough damage to brains...and with damage occurring in different/random locations in brain no two patients had identical symptoms...

    what do you dear readers see like everywhere...?

    =+=+=+=

    767:

    Charlie: "I wonder how the anti-vaxxers -- who are often also pro-forced-birth (i.e. anti-abortion) -- will square this magic circle ..."

    Robert Prior: "I suspect they will continue to do what they do now: criminalize miscarriage and make it entirely the 'fault' of the woman."

    They are seriously doing that now in the Red States. They are letting miscarrying women die. Texas has stopped publishing maternal mortality rates.

    768:

    Charlie Stross @ 697:

    the last time anyone tried to 'exit' the USA in 1861, got a bit loud as family squabbles tend to... 2% of then population, estimated 620,000 soldiers (and a guesstimated 75,000 civilians) died in American Civil War...

    Yes, we'd heard about that. NB: around this blog it's called "The Slaveowners' Treasonous Rebellion" -- calling it a civil war is a bit mealy-mouthed, let alone "the late unpleasantness" or "the war of Northern aggression" (classic DARVO and projection at work there).

    FWIW - The name from the Official Records of the U.S. Government - adopted in a Joint Resolution of the U.S. Congress is The War of the Rebellion.

    See also: Library of Congress

    I happened to be in elementary school here in North Carolina when the Centennial rolled around and the schools here (upper south) taught it as either the "War Between the States" or the "American Civil War" ... both terms fairly neutral so as not to inflame old passions.

    769:

    Since we're apparently having a Scalzi moment... he's got keen on blogging (again) on your own web site (or whatever).

    Meanwhile two of my sites are off the web right now, and I haven't posted anything new for a long time. I should blah blah etc but I am trying to decide whether it's worth it. Meanwhile I have yet another 1000+ word submission to grind through...

    Build code reforms took more than 30 hours because it's very technical. Luckily there were a couple of "please write to the minister" ones through the grapevine this week where someone else did all the work :)

    The goods news is an increasing use of "what's open for submissions right now" pages. So things I might otherwise miss I often pick up just by skimming that. Like... yes, I have opinions about the Parramatta light rail but it's not something I'd monitor (or, TBH, ever use... light rail and bicycles are equivalent services for me). https://www.nsw.gov.au/have-your-say

    770:

    Howard NYC asked: what do you dear readers see like everywhere...?

    I avoid people as much as I can. I'm not shopping in person anymore, I'm not eating inside restaurants (not once since 2019).

    My window to the world is following aviation news. I don't have any statistics, and it could be confirmation bias, but I'm seeing an uptick in "what were they thinking?" aviation accidents.

    Pilots who sound just drunk on the radio wandering into military airspace with ATC yelling at them to turn around, but they just don't get it (at altitudes where hypoxia isn't the issue, but they sound hypoxic). Pilots forgetting to start the engines before trying to take of. Pilots trying to land at double the normal speed with gear and flaps retracted. Pilots being told to go around, the runway is occupied, but landing anyway. Pilots arguing with ATC about their "rights" (FFS). Entering active runways without permission. Just flat out pilot error used to be pretty rare, and now it seems to be the norm.

    771:

    Troutwaxer @ 746:

    I think the idea that the Confederates were acting lawfully is debatable (and probably wrong.) There are no provisions in the Constitution for leaving the Union once a state has joined it, and the Republicans had not at that point passed any laws against slavery, so succession was, at the very least, premature and based on laws which might, at some time in the future, be passed.

    It's not debatable, it's just wrong. "Perpetual Union" was a feature of the Articles of Confederation (which preceded the Constitution). Although the Constitution does not mention "Perpetual Union" specifically, it does state it's purpose is to create a more perfect union - so "Perpetual Union" remained the law after the adoption of the Constitution.

    The only LAWFUL path for the "Confederacy" to leave the United States would have been by Constitutional Amendment. When Lincoln was elected, there were 33 states in the U.S. (the 34th Kansas was admitted on Jan 29, 1861). A Constitutional Amendment abolishing "Perpetual Union" and permitting states to secede would have required ratification by 26 States - the 11 states that formed the Confederacy and 15 more.

    I'm not really sure how North Carolina would have voted.

    When secession was first proposed, North Carolina voted to stay with the Union. It was only after South Carolina's attack on Ft Sumter that Virginia & Tennessee seceded (cutting North Carolina off from the rest of the Union). Another vote was called in North Carolina and the secessionists prevailed the second time.

    And an interesting side note - the Confederate Constitution DID specifically enact Perpetual Union

    Among the enumerated powers of Congress:

    To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

    Also, while the Constitution discusses slavery - the one example I know of talks about how slaves should be counted in the census - it does not insist on the practice of slavery, and it was written at a time when some states had already outlawed slavery, and this was not a problem at the time. (A lack of slaves simply meant that particular state lacked a population which would be counted as 3/5 of a person during the census.) If there's a provision in the Constitution which makes it impossible to legislate either for or against slavery I'm not seeing it.

    There is a provision for "The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, ..." and so in 1807 Congress passed:

    The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 (2 Stat. 426, enacted March 2, 1807) is a United States federal law that provided that no new slaves were permitted to be imported into the United States. It took effect on January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution.

    So where's the Constitutional evidence that the Confederate states acted legally?

    There's a distinction between what's "legal" and what's "lawful". I would argue the Rebellion was neither.

    I'll also note that the Confederacy fired the first shots (the attack on Fort Sumpter,) as part of a policy of seizing U.S. government owned forts and facilities throughout the South, and seizing federal property was, under the circumstances, certainly treasonous. Had the Confederacy not begun the armed conflict and instead negotiated their severance from the U.S. government, your argument might have a leg to stand on, but given what actually happened, I don't think your argument is remotely based on the historical and constitutional facts.

    Fort Sumter (no 'p') - named for brigadier general Thomas Sumter of the South Carolina Colonial Militia who fought in the American Revolution (and later represented South Carolina in the House & in the Senate) - known as the "fighting gamecock" for his fierce fighting style against British soldiers after they burned down his house during the Revolution.

    Construction of the fort began after the War of 1812 and it was still incomplete at the time of the assault by South Carolina.

    772:

    Generally agreed. I was mainly doing my best to be super-diplomatic because Heteromeles and I had a nasty fight some months back, and I didn't want to discuss things uncalmly.

    773:

    Generally agreed. I was mainly doing my best to be super-diplomatic because Heteromeles and I had a nasty fight some months back, and I didn't want to discuss things uncalmly.

    And I appreciat the point about rhetoric versus facts made above. I'm also strongly disinclined to continue the debate, especially because OGH has made it clear, repeatedly, that he doesn't want this site to get swamped in 19th Century American history.

    IMHO, the one point that is currently germane to this site is that the KGC's memes have influenced US history from the civil war to the present. It's not that I think they exist anymore, although they're apparently sort of an American Illuminati to some conspiracy theorists. Rather, their ideas and agenda--predatory racism, paramilitary filibustering, armed secession, and so forth--seem to have spawned a long and toxic history in American politics, from the KKKs, to post WW2 US covert ops to overthrow other governments, to MAGA and January 6. It seems to be yet another example of creeps finding their own uses for things.

    774:

    I had a heart attack six weeks ago (six weeks today, in fact)

    I suspect very strongly it was a result of having (probably) Covid in March. I wasn't sufficiently sick to go to the hospital and confirm the Covid, but my Doctor and I both think yes, it probably was.

    But whatever it was, it had two (probably related) lingering effects - I would get periods of light headedness with no predictable cause, and my blood pressure became unstable for lack of a better term - it would range from 90/60 to 140/90. None of which is terrible, but it was notable that this started with whatever I had.

    There's confounders - I'm diabetic, for one - but I am fairly convinced that the illness lead to the heart attack now. For sure, it did something to my cardiovascular system.

    775:

    Something completely off on a tangent here.

    How many TV channels did you have growing up?

    I'm thinking BEFORE cable TV when over-the-air broadcasting was all there was. So all the codgers can chime in on this one. The time range I'm interested in would be approximately 1955 - 1965.

    My family got our first TV sometime around 1954. I remember because it was the same year Hurricane Hazel came. And we already had a TV when we moved into the house we lived in throughout my public school years (U.S. public schools) in early 1955.

    In the U.S. the television stations were (mainly) supported by commercial advertising.

    In the 50s & 60s there were five stations within range of where we lived; channels 2, 4, 5, 8 & 11 (4 was the non-commercial Educational TV channel affiliated with the University of North Carolina).

    The stations represented 2-1/2 networks 2=CBS, 4=Educational TV, 5=ABC, 8=independent & 11=CBS & NBC depending on which network had the more popular show in a particular time slot. PBS & NET (National Educational TV) didn't exist yet at the time and channel 8 didn't have a network affiliation at all.

    But what about in the U.K.?

    I know y'all had the BBC paid for by receiver licenses, but did the BBC have more than one programming channel?

    If you weren't interested in the program being broadcast on the channel, was there an alternate channel with different programs?

    776:

    Not the answer to the question you asked, but maybe of interest as a data point. In New Zealand the first television channel started broadcasting in 1960 (which predates me), and the second channel arrived in 1975.

    777:

    I'm a bit later than that/ Born in 66.

    The BBC originally had two channels for most of my childhood. Both with no advertising.

    There was one commercial channel, ITV, which had regional franchises producing programs for it. That carried advertising but, I gather, not to the same extreme as US television.

    The early 80's brought Channel 4. That carries advertising and is self-supporting but is not a private company.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_4

    778:

    *Heteromeles:

    as a species we will not be rendered extinct by anything short of "Venus Switchover"... civilization in some form will endure...

    One key point: it's worth differentiating between human species, human culture, and civilization. Civilization is a particular subset of human cultures, and it seems to require particular conditions that we're busy destroying right now. That said, humans survived the ice ages with a global population in the low millions (99.9% fewer people than today). Given how radical climate shifts were then, it's likely we'll survive most future shifts.

    The problem we have now is if Putin decides to light off his nuclear collection and watch the world burn from his bunker. Or if India and Pakistan decide that nuclear exchanges are the best way to deal with massive himalayan water shortfalls. I think these are both unlikely, but it's going to be quite difficult for even a few million people to survive a nuclear winter. Hopefully doable. And hopefully we'll never find out.

    but if you want to estimate the die off as in nine digits with a timeframe of mere decades, yeah, that looks about right if nothing is done to slam on the brakes... my gut-check is world population in 2060 will be 3 billion not 8 billion due to heat damage, unending mosquito season leading to widely spread 'routine' diseases, lack of cancer treatments, malnutrition leading to disease, suicide-by-despair, casual violence, unique virus mutations, inter-nation pissing contests short of war, full out war, poisoned water, toxic air, etc

    We more-or-less agree that the population in the later half of this century will be lower than it is now. How it gets there? To your list I'd add lack of vaccines against covid or other viruses (in the US, most people getting covid were vaccinated, so vaccines are temporary...), lack of working antibiotics and follow-ons with whole categories of surgery rendered inoperable and lots of deadly bacterial infections, and break downs in public health, notably sewage and clean water. You certainly noted the last, but the point is that fresh, clean water is the most useful medicine on the planet, and shortfalls in water supply take a decade or two off the average lifespan stats.

    *whereas the 'surviving civilization' will be more closely akin to capitalist-aristocracy-industrial serfdom with emphasis upon unblinking eye surveillance and automated "unacceptable behavior identification" by neural nets / AI / humans chained to workstations... what will be deemed unacceptable depends upon what version of religious extremists can convince the aristocracy to implement which excessively puritanical moral code *

    I think you weren't a member here ca. 2015? We had a discussion back then (which I summarized in Hot Earth Dreams) about how long the supply chains for computers are, and how complex a computer you could build if you were limited to materials you could source within 500 km. Suffice to say, it wouldn't run AI. This gets to the point of whether we can keep complex supply lines running with declining populations. The answer is "yeah probably, to some degree," but the pandemic has been a really useful wakeup call in that regard.

    AI requires global supply chains, just as social media does. If those supply chains break, the technology follows. I'd bet a bit more on a realistic version of a Butlerian Jihad than on an AI-assisted dark enlightenment, because we know that smart people armed with slide rules can land people on the Moon.

    As for the inevitability of aristocracy? We've already got them: they're called the super-rich. Watching people like Trump, Musk, Johnson, Putin, MBS, and others should be sufficient to call into question the idea that the rich and powerful are a) immune from Dunning Kruger screwups b) automatically capable of governance, and c) willing to save anyone but themselves.

    Further antidotes to the notion of inevitable aristocracy and the virtues thereof may be found on the ACOUP blog (his discussion of the fall of Rome and a recent multi-part Paradox game review) and in James Scott's The Art of Not Being Governed, which is about all the people who have had to deal with Chinese, Burmese, Thai, and Indian imperialist expansions, and did so by fleeing into the mountains of the eastern Himalaya, Yunnan, and South East Asia. It's entirely possible to live stateless, and many people have done so successfully.

    Hope this helps.

    779:

    How many TV channels did you have growing up?

    One. My family lived about 50 miles north of Fargo, North Dakota, and a TV in the local hardware store (we didn't have one at home) showed about 90% snow.

    780:

    That was circa 1950, by the way.

    781:

    ...to which I would add that BBC2 didn't start until 1970 (I think it was).

    BBC(1) and ITV were both black and white, 405-line standard, VHF, with BBC using Band I and ITV using Band III, so you needed 2 separate aerials to receive both of them. (You would probably also need a Band II aerial if you wanted FM radio, sets not being very sensitive then.)

    BBC2 was only ever on UHF at 625 lines. So you needed yet another aerial to receive it. You also needed a new TV. They had a tremendous great multi-pole 2-way switch to change all the stages between 405-line/VHF and 625-line/UHF modes when you changed channel to/from BBC2. At the same time BBC1 and ITV started broadcasting a 625-line UHF signal as well as the VHF signal, and you'd get sets with two buttons for each of them so you could select either the VHF or the UHF signal.

    As well as having more lines, the UHF signal was in colour. The VHF standard never supported colour. The UHF standard always did, but not all the programmes were in colour, sometimes not even when they were supposed to be. Jon Pertwee was the first Doctor we saw in colour, but there was still a run of a few serials where he went back to black and white for a bit.

    Not that many people noticed because most people didn't have a colour set anyway. You had to be dead posh to afford a colour set. The TV licence for colour sets was about three times the black and white one, too.

    All channels shut down through the night, and during the daytime would be broadcasting mostly the test card, or programmes for schools, or the Open University. In the afternoon there was a period of children's programmes lasting about an hour and a half from 4pm or so, after which there was the news and then adult programmes. It was usual for children not to be allowed to watch anything except the children's programmes plus maybe one or two adult ones if they were good. It also wasn't that uncommon for children not to be allowed to watch ITV because it was all shit (which wasn't entirely untrue).

    782:

    "How many TV channels did you have growing up?"

    As per the comment above from runix, for a good part of my childhood, none, and for the rest of it, one.

    Also, my parents were not early adopters (of this particular technology), so for a while the one was largely theoretical. In hindsight, they might have had the right idea.

    JHomes

    783:

    "You had to be dead posh to afford a colour set."

    Local songwriter (one Dick Coker IIRC).

    Now I've got a colour TV,

    All the neighbours are jealous of me.

    My social standing is rising so fast,

    I think I've caught up with the Joneses at last.

    Now the Joneses are trying to keep up with me,

    'cause I've got a colour TV.

    JHomes

    784:

    Similar but 6 years older. BBC1 & BBC2 & ITV were it until midway through my post-grad. Channel 4 started off with magnificent “Praying Mantis” drama. Wonder if it’s available anywhere?

    BBC2 was the first to do colour - actual colour, not the bizarre eye-popping blech of NTSC (Never Twice the Same Colour, as it was taught to me by a wizened old BBC tech-gnome) but something at least plausibly akin to actuality. For several years they filled the daytime hours with “test transmissions “ that were often thinly disguised adverts for The Glorious Future of Nuclear Energy! etc.

    It can be very disconcerting to watch some of those older shows in a modern TV; the whole style seems somehow lame, the visual quality is dusty and beige, the aspect ratio looks silly and so on. Even things as then-excellent as “House of Cards” & Babylon 5 come up sad.

    785:

    We got a colour TV in ‘69 to see the Apollo mission coverage. Great big 25” screen it was, must have weighed as much as a small car. We squeezed 3 classes of kids in on one occasion (so back then over 110) to watch a barely visible goldfish bowl. But it was the only one in town so you made do. It seemed like a science fiction world - colour TV and people on the Moon! Flying cars next year!

    786:

    How many TV channels did you have growing up?

    The time range I'm interested in would be approximately 1955 - 1965.

    None in that time frame.

    We got our first television in the early 70s — a B&W model half the size of my iMac. We could get two channels: CBC and CTV, and were allowed to watch two hours of TV a week. One hour was Disney, the other varied. Nature programs, Wayne & Shuster, the Irish Rovers when they had a half-hour show…

    I don't think my parents watched the news on TV — both listened to it on the radio and read the newspaper every day.

    787:

    My family lived about 50 miles north of Fargo, North Dakota, and a TV in the local hardware store (we didn't have one at home) showed about 90% snow.

    Are you sure it wasn't just a window showing what was outside? :-)

    I grew up on the Prairies. Didn't understand why people complained about the long winters until I moved somewhere else. Humphrey and the Dumptrucks nailed the feeling in "Another Storm":

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT34hX7oFlk

    788:

    context = USA

    https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2021/07/01/broken-promise-of-retirement/

    public employee unions being squeezed for concessions is nothing new but with little fanfare their pension plans viewed as 'untapped resources' to be looted at whim of legislatures... funny how it is in those states where Republicans have a supermajority (60+% of legislators) pensions are most at risk

    Q: so has that sort of thing begun in Tory-led parliament? any pensions being hungrily eyed? not just peeling away 'triple lock' protection but the underlying asset pool?

    789:

    My son took an Amtrak train ride from Chicago to Portland back in Jan/Feb. While in Montana (I think) he stepped out for a few minutes when the train was stopped. -9F (-23C) He said he immediately decided NOPE.

    He grew up in central North Carolina's moderate climate. He snowboards. But -9F was just too much.

    790:

    It can be very disconcerting to watch some of those older shows in a modern TV; the whole style seems somehow lame, the visual quality is dusty and beige,

    In the US back in the day the cheap was things were done was live to the central time zone, which was basically from a bit west of the Mississippi River to the Atlantic then kinescope/telerecording to the west coast to be shown a week later. Quality was terrible. Carefully point a film camera at a B&W monitor and record what is displayed onto film.

    "I Love Lucy" (actually run by Lucy and Dessi) refused and had the show filmed, processed, then shown nationwide on the same day. Abet with a time delay for folks out west. Quality was immensely better than kinescope. Even today the quality of the video is crisp. Gradually most all shows in the US went to film.

    As to TVs, into the mid 60s we had a big B&W box. Tube was a squarish thing with very rounded corners. Maybe 20". And dad had an antenna on the roof with a rotor. The "local" station was maybe 20 miles to the transmitter. NBC. It was 50 miles to the other station. CBS. Both came in decently with the rotor antenna.

    Around 64/65 a third station showed up. ABC. Around 60 miles away. More rotor usage. There was a week or few of leaving it on so my dad could figure out the exact best way to set things up for a good signal. He was more interested in a great signal than the content most of the time.

    Then that 13" died in 67. We were in the process of selling our house, buying land to subdivide, and moving into temp quarters of a family owned 4 room box house with a bathroom bolted onto the back. So we got a 13" portable B&W with rabbit ears. Oh the fun. Then a part only made in Japan or similar went bad and we were on the wait list for the next shipment of parts. 18 months or so later we told parents we were moving to the neighbors for the a week while the moon landing was happening if a new TV wasn't obtained. So we got a 20" "portable" color. (Portable meant it wasn't pretending to be furniture.) Worked well on the rabbit ears. Still 3 channels. Although we could get PBS (government educational channel) about 1 hour in 8 with lots of snow and iffy audio. Geography wasn't good for us and that channel. And if you stayed up late on very brisk clear winter nights and the skips were just right we could get an independent channel out of St. Louis (100+ miles) and watch "Playboy After Dark" or similar at 1am.

    The 3 major network affiliates were VHF. The PBS station and that one in St. Louis were UHF.

    Around the time I was 16 or so an independent UHF station showed up in town. Lots of headaches getting it running. Someone managed to order PAL instead of NTSC cameras at one point. The son of the owner was in band 2 years behind me and he got a lot of teasing over the fun and games we all got to see as they gradually got their act together.

    Oh yeah, the local NBC station was on Channel 6 and so most FM radios could pick up the audio at the low end of the dial.

    Until I moved to college and a few independent stations did late night movies, our programming started at 6am and ended around midnight or 1am. When Kentucky had a basketball home game that wasn't televised, it would be taped then shown around the state starting at 10:30pm (CST) for 2 hours. And then for us the Tonight show was shown after that (I think). Basketball in Kentucky was KING. Now it's only king.

    791:

    We got a colour TV in ‘69 to see the Apollo mission coverage. Great big 25” screen it was, must have weighed as much as a small car. We squeezed 3 classes of kids in on one occasion (so back then over 110) to watch a barely visible goldfish bowl. But it was the only one in town so you made do.

    I have a vauge memory of what was likely the first Mercury mission. This would have been May 61. Me 7 in the first grade. They herded the entire school into the gym. What was likely 600 of us to watch on the what was likely the only TV at the school. B&W and likely 20" or smaller. At the time I was unaware I needed glasses for distance. So my memory is of a fuzzy stick with a bright light on the screen. And likely some cheering.

    792:

    That said, humans survived the ice ages with a global population in the low millions (99.9% fewer people than today). Given how radical climate shifts were then, it's likely we'll survive most future shifts.

    I'm not convinced about survival. I think there's positive feedback between population crash and tech loss, and the bottleneck comes at the the beginning of the most challenging climatic conditions, which then last for tens to hundreds of thousands of years. The exa-, zetta-, yottafart will continue to grow exponentially right up to the point of collapse, so there's really no chance to head off any of those latching changes, mitigated only slightly by adoption of renewables and electric alternatives for transport. I don't expect pro-climate action to do much more than slow that exponential growth slightly in the time we still have before major crashes, I don't expect to see real declines in emissions in our lifetimes, and by the time that happens it will be far too late. I really think survival as a species depends on the severity of the climate impacts, and how well we're able to preserve knowledge (mediated harshly through a lens of the extent to which we're still able to apply knowledge too). I agree it's not completely hopeless, but it is not anything even slightly resembling a forgone conclusion.

    793:

    One useful thing that happened with the switch to 625 line transmissions in the UK was that the transmitters became colocated. With the 405 line VHF system the BBC and ITV transmitters would probably be in different directions but for UHF we landed up with BBC transmitters in IBA sites and ITV transmitters at BBC sites. These days all the sites have been sold off because of course the free market can do better, but any given area only needs a single fixed aerial for TV reception.

    The VHF network got switched off several years ahead of the original planned date when it was realised there had been zero complaints when a transmitter went off air for several months due to lack of spares. A few more transmitters got quietly switched off to see if anyone noticed, and then the rest were shut down.

    794:

    H
    ...... break downs in public health, notably sewage and clean water We already have these, thanks to the greedy stupid tories.
    SEE ALSO my next comment - more of the same amazing stupidity & greed.

    Howard NYC
    Almost, but not quite - yet - not this month anyway, but, yes, the grifting greedy shitfaced arseholes of the tories are setting themseleves up to do this. There's an ongoing low-leve hate campaign against "gold plated" { i.e. Final Salary } pensions well under way.
    It's one of the main reasons so many people are striking, right now, here, because they are doing their best to stop this shitwagon from crashing & dumping its load over them ...

    David L
    Um, err that is -22.7°C in real money.

    795:

    775 - Scotland with 3 channels; BBC1, BBC2 and ITV (branded as STV; content could be from about 12 regional commercial broadcasters, but only one at any time). Channel 4 didn't make its first broadcast until 1982.
    As an aside, we were one of about 10 houses in the town who got good signals on all 3 channels (source being Granada and Visionhire tv rentals area managers. Explanation being that these 10 houses happened to have a clear sightline to the BBC and ITV transmitters at Kirk o' Shotts (55.851131, -3.821182); Lat/Long is about midway between the masts ).

    778 Para 6 - You have remembered that Covid-19 is a highly mutagenic virus, which has an effect on the "half-life" of vaccines and anti-virals?

    796:

    JohnS @ 775: How many TV channels did you have growing up?

    I grew up in the 60s and 70s, so just after your requested time range, but OTOH I grew up in Guernsey, which always got everything about 10 years after everyone else.

    We had two channels: BBC 1 and ITV, in black and white, 405 line. The annual UK Budget was always frustrating because the childrens hour programs from 5pm to 6pm would be shunted to BBC 2, and we couldn't get it.

    We got a colour telly some time in the late 70s I think, when it first became available. It looked glorious. I was like "Wow! Jerry the Mouse is brown! And Star Trek uniforms come in different colours! How did I not know this?"

    Fun fact: the first controller of BBC 2 was David Attenborough (yes, that David Attenborough). He wanted a sports program, and opted for snooker because you needed colour for it (BBC 2 was the first 100% colour channel).

    797:

    Until I was 9, none.

    798:

    Greg Tingey @ 794: [quoting Heteromeles, I think] ...... break downs in public health, notably sewage and clean water We already have these, thanks to the greedy stupid tories.

    No we don't. What we have is a mild decrease in their efficacy.

    Sewage has been washing up on beaches since the Victorians first built sewers to dump it in the sea. The current kerfuffle is not because this is new, its because the water companies are still systematically failing to do anything about it, despite having new laws that require them to.

    (Side note: are those laws a result of the EU? Are they going to be part of Rees-Moggs great bonfire of important regulations evil European dictatorship laws?)

    Clean water: has the tap water recently become seriously undrinkable anywhere in the UK? I hadn't heard. Or is this just another reference to sewage?

    Public health: the NHS, for all its failings, seems to still manage this. I'm getting routine screening and injections as per normal, and be it noted, an order of magnitude more than what my parents got at the same age. What the NHS is falling down on is care for stuff like cancer, broken legs and heart attacks, which isn't public health beyond a few years off the life expectancy. And geriatric care is the responsibility of local government, which doesn't have the funding, which means the NHS winds up wasting resources on it. Yes, these are significant problems that we shouldn't have, but they do not add up to a breakdown in public health.

    If you want to see what real breakdown in these things looks like, take a look at Ukraine right now.

    799:

    Yes, these are significant problems that we shouldn't have, but they do not add up to a breakdown in public health.

    I take it you've missed the news about the near-total collapse of ambulance response times to emergencies in England? With about 30% of 999 calls going unanswered/being dropped, and typical waits of 30-180 minutes even for apparent cardiac arrest/stroke/serious road traffic accidents?

    We're getting into the winter flu season with a particularly nasty strain doing the rounds this year, RSV on top, and that's without the expected winter COVID surge due to people being crammed together indoors in poorly-ventilated spaces (hint" Christmas party season and kids back in school -- the classic disease remixers are in play and they're not rolling out second booster shots to under-50s unless they're vulnerable/at risk).

    As for the sewage discharges, about 25% of clean water is lost in leaks before it reaches homes/businesses: this has been ongoing since privatization in England and the water cos have wasted the money earmarked for network repairs on shareholder dividends. (The situation is less bad in Scotland, where the sole "private" water co is a nonprofit co-owned by the local authorities who still charge for water and sewage on the council tax bill -- no separate consumer charges here, no profit motive). Sewage being pumped into rivers and onto bathing beaches is just the most visible sign of neglect -- a huge bill for overdue maintenance is coming due as we move into a climate-change-induced period of regular droughts.

    800:

    with little fanfare their pension plans viewed as 'untapped resources' to be looted at whim of legislatures...

    Nothing new, really.

    During the 70s the Tories here 'invested' mandatory public employee pension contributions in nonnegotiable government bonds paying below the rate of inflation and used that funding to build roads and sewers in their constituencies. In Alberta the government* has been using public service pension funds as slush funds for a couple of generations, 'investing' in businesses which reliably contribute to campaigns, even if they don't turn a profit.

    *As right-wing-populist as any American Republican — there's a reason we call Alberta "Texas North".

    801:

    Ambulance response times get a lot of headlines and political attention but, to be brutally realistic, aren't that important as all that to the nation as a whole. FAR more serious from a 'national collapse' POV is that the NHS effectively no longer covers mental health, and over half the people who are long-term absentees from work or retire early do so for psychiatric reasons. Of course, this is not primarily a NHS issue, because one can reasonably consider what causes the problems in the first place (and stress is a major factor).

    802:

    Yes, mental health issues are significant, but don't underestimate ambulance response times.

    The two main acute lethal conditions that result in a 999 call are heart attacks and strokes. In both cases prompt care can save lives.

    The "golden hour" is an exact measure of the window within which promptly-delivered anti-clotting measures can mitigate or prevent permanent damage in event of a stroke.

    And among heart attack patients ... 50% of patients with a first infarction who arrive for A&E treatment within 3 hours survive: among those who don't, 90% die.

    Chronic conditions like most mental health issues are ... well, they can become fatal, but usually they're just debilitating: and they're amenable to later treatment. Whereas if you have a heart attack and the ambulance doesn't show up for 4 hours you aren't going to be around to treat later.

    803:

    Oh, yes, from that aspect, they are more important. But I was being brutally realistic (read: survival of the society), to a degree that would be agreed to by the people ruining our country if they were prepared to think logically. Yes, I am adopting a totally ruthless viewpoint, and considering people as mere resources (for the benefit of society, not profit, I hasten to say).

    We are an over-populated island, yet we depend critically on continual immigration, largely because a shrinking proportion of our population is available for work. The age demographics are a large part of that, but another very large part is the proportion who are unavailable through illness. It's something like a million are from stress etc. alone (i.e. two year's immigration!), which doesn't count the huge (and possibly larger) number who retire while they could still work, and the problem is getting worse. Inter alia, how many of the nurses and doctors leaving the NHS have done and are doing so because of stress etc.?

    From this viewpoint, people who are disabled from heart attacks and strokes are a significant problem; people who die are a minor one.

    804:

    Charlie @ 799:

    I take it you've missed the news about the near-total collapse of ambulance response times to emergencies in England?

    No, I'm well aware of it. And I agree its really bad, and I do blame the government for letting it get to this state by starving local authorities of funds. But ambulances aren't part of public health. Public health is the bit that stops you needing the ambulance in the first place.

    Arguably the social services that are supposed to be looking after the old and chronically ill are part of public health, and there I will agree there are serious issues. Either social care is going to have to be bought under national control or local authorities are going to have to be funded properly. (1)

    We're getting into the winter flu season with [COVID etc]

    And I had my latest flu and COVID jabs earlier this month, thanks to the NHS. I'm also having routine screening tests for a bunch of stuff. I don't think I'm an exception. That is what effective public health looks like, which is why I say that the NHS is still doing public health well.

    As for the sewage discharges, about 25% of clean water is lost in leaks before it reaches homes/businesses: this has been ongoing since privatization in England

    Its been going on for a lot longer than that. I recall reading about it being 33% back in the 70s. Leaking water pipes are a hard problem. As I understand it the only ways to deal with them are 1. Dig up the road where you see water coming to the surface. 2. Measure the volume of water going into and out of some pipework and infer the sections where the leaks are. 3. Put a microphone against a water pipe when its quiet and listen for the sound of escaping water. Having 25% of the water escape sounds terrible, but from a purely economic point of view its probably a lot cheaper than going out and finding all the leaks.

    Yes, climate change will make for worse droughts, so that will increase the pressure to get something more effective done. Charging the water companies for the water itself might be one way to do it (if it isn't free, they'll value it more). But I'd hazard a guess that even a sustained campaign isn't going to get the leaks under 10%, simply because of the scale of the problem. Unlike a tap, a leak is on 24/7, so it doesn't take many leaks to waste a huge amount of water.

    a huge bill for overdue maintenance is coming due

    Now there I agree.

    I dunno, maybe I'm splitting hairs or something. I'm a student of system failures, and to me the NHS certainly looks stressed. But stressed and collapsing are not the same thing. With the NHS we will need to spend a lot more money on staff and training for a decade or so to reverse the cumulative effect of the historical under-funding. This is a problem because in the short term the spending is going to rise but measures of effectiveness aren't going to change. So even if politicians want to try, they are going to find it difficult to explain to voters where the money is going.

    The same may be true of the water industry, although replumbing the entire Victorian sewage system seems a bit more than "routine maintenance" to me. The problem with the sewage on beaches isn't poor maintenance, its that the entire system was designed to do it that way. Stopping it means building new pipes and plant to keep the sewage and storm water separate, not merely maintaining the existing stuff.

    (1) For non UK people: hospitals and ambulances are run as part of the National Health Service (NHS), funded and run by central government. Once someone is well enough to go home any aftercare (like a nursing home, or just someone coming by at 9pm to get you into bed) is supposed to be provided by the local county council. County councils are starved of funds by central government, so this isn't happening. As a result people are being stuck in expensive centrally funded hospital beds for months on end waiting for locally funded capacity in the care system. This "bed blocking" means that hospitals are fuller than they should be. And as a knock-on effect this means Accident and Emergency departments are fuller than they should be, so at busy times ambulances have to queue for literally hours waiting to unload their patients. Ambulances stuck in queues at hospitals can't be responding to calls, hence if you call for an emergency ambulance you might be waiting an awfully long time. Oh, and the over-worked NHS staff are now quitting en-mass, so things are getting even worse.

    805:

    Paul
    But ambulances aren't part of public health - NOT EVEN WRONG - They are an essential part of our Public Health organisation & set-up.
    IF you were in the USA you might have thought differently, but you are STILL WRONG, ok - especially as you state that you are recieving NHS treatment. (!)
    Did you miss Charlie's reference to the "Golden Hour" perchance?

    806:

    The Citroen Ami has been mentioned a few times here. Here is a review if you haven't seen what everyone is talking about.

    807:

    Technically, I believe the Bill or Rights 10th amendment, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.", could be taken as meaning that there couldn't be federal laws against slave-owning. Your other points a pretty good, though. And are why the amendment prohibiting slave-owning was added to the constitution, and why the rebellious states were required to approve it before they could be readmitted.

    808:

    In the sense you are using it, 'public health' is not primarily a NHS matter. And it is being handled atrociously.

    809:

    Greg @ 805: NOT EVEN WRONG - [Ambulances] are an essential part of our Public Health organisation & set-up.

    From Wikipedia: Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals".

    From the NHS: Public health is about helping people to stay healthy and protecting them from threats to their health. [...] Public health contributes to reducing the causes of ill-health and improving people's health and wellbeing through: health protection [..] improving people's health [...] health services [...].

    So OK, 1% of that is the ability to get an ambulance when you need it. So to that extent I'm wrong. And a bigger issue than ambulances is the ability to get a doctors appointment when you need it for something minor before it turns into something major. But the other 95% of public health, I'm right about.

    I think I'm going to stop arguing about it after this post. Its descending into definitional arguments which is never edifying.

    810:

    You can say "there is no Singularity", but this is the kind of thing I expect during the approach. As change starts happening more quickly, more people become afraid of it, and start hankering for "the good old days", even if those days never happened.

    To me everything looks quite like the ramping up phase of the Singularity. I give humanity 50% chance of coming through it without catastrophic damage. (But that's better than I give the odds if power-hungry leaders remain in charge over the next century.)

    FWIW, I still expect a strong AI around 2035 unless there is some major unexpected problem. And I expect it to come out of the problems of controlling robot bodies. This is going to require coordination between modules that currently don't talk to each other, and I feel that it is that "coordinator" that is the major block to strong AI. (But this doesn't address the problem of how it selects it ways of implementing goals. So maybe it will take longer.)

    811:

    I'm not sure we'll see "strong" AI anytime soon. When I wrote fiction with an AI I categorized them as falling into one of six classes: weak, wimpy, average, robust, strong, and godlike. Weak AI worked at about the intellectual level of a six-year-old child, but could obey rules and coordinate multiple sensors, such that it could successfully drive a car.

    We might see weak AI by 2035, but I wouldn't bet on anything "strong" by that time.

    812:

    For Singularity fans, I recommend finding the movie "The Invisible Boy" (the 1957 movie) and while watching it, try to ignore the terrible low-budget direction and awkward acting, and concentrate on the story. Humans build a supercomputer, it quickly becomes smart enough to cover up how smart it is, an operator is hypnotized by it (blinken-lights, after all) and builds a time machine to travel forward into the future and bring back the Krell-inspired robot from "Forbidden Planet", which is then eventually used by the computer to take over the world and try to exterminate all life, but its evil plan is foiled at the end (of course). Truly a bizarre movie.

    Major plot hole: how did the computer know that the robot would exist in the future?

    813:

    I think he's making a distinction between public health and medical care. They are really separate domains with some overlapping pieces. I think ambulances generally fall more under medical care than public health.

    Public health is things like ensuring that the drinking/cooking water is uncontaminated. Clean beaches could be public health. So could vaccination, though that could also be medical care...but it's really more public health. Decent (uncontaminated) food is public health. Well-balanced food is both, but it's mainly public health. Sanitation of public spaces is public health.

    Medical care is treatment of acute or chronic problems. Arthritis, heart attacks, etc. Broken bones. Those aren't public health, no matter how serious they are. Allergens in the environment are both, but commonly more medical, as they generally affect only some people acutely. (Otherwise we call them poisons rather than allergens.)

    814:

    There's a conflation of terminology at work, because public healthcare is about epidemiology-driven policy initiatives (eg. vaccination for childhood diseases for all infants), but the NHS is a public service, so some folks think public health means national healthcare.

    815:

    I think you really underestimate how hard it is to drive a car. And I expect strong AI by 2035 (or thereabouts) though perhaps you'd only call it robust.

    OTOH, it won't be like the fictional versions. I think "Athena" at the end of Rule34 is probably closer than most fictional AIs. (And still wrong, of course. SF doesn't try to be in the prediction business.)

    I expect even the AI of 2050 to have blind spots that are obvious to people, while seeing lots of things that people just don't notice.

    816:

    Greg,

    But ambulances aren't part of public health - NOT EVEN WRONG

    Hint: An apology to Paul wouldn't go amiss.

    Public Health England (I'm sure Charlie can tell you how things are organised in Scotland) is charged with doing epidemiology, and measuring and supervising the quality of service that the NHS provides. It was also responsible for ensuring we had enough PPE for any conceivable emergency -- though I think we'll find out that they were given unrealistic budget constraints prior to COVID.

    Now, the Tories want to merge PHE into the NHS which is akin to giving the NHS the chance to mark its own homework. I've no idea where we've got to on this Tory idea.

    817:

    I recently finished Kim Stanley Robinson's 'The Ministry for the Future'. I strongly recommend it to the denizens of this blog. He does a very deep dive into climate response, mitigation and change in the near future. Though I don't love his writing style particularly, the book is well worth a read. It's too much to summarize, but some key points:

    The book starts with a multi-million death heat wave in India, which radicalizes much of India and other parts of the world to favour serious action on climate, and not just in annual COP sedate talkathons. He then goes into intense detail on how the world might actually deal with the crisis.

    Well worth a read, at least to see some paths forward and stop assuming and unconsciously rooting for a climate apocalypse.'

    'I say 'unconsciously rooting for' because it is a feature of humans that if we take a position we very much want it to be correct, even when it's best not.

    818:

    In a similar vein, I've just read A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys. The set up is that it's about 2050 or so, and the revolution which took the government and big-business out of the carbon business happened twenty-some years ago, and that's when the aliens show up, insisting that there's no choice but to abandon Earth, because global warming is just the beginning if you're a high-tech civilization.

    819:

    I expect even the AI of 2050 to have blind spots that are obvious to people, while seeing lots of things that people just don't notice.

    As far as I am concerned, it is a feature, not a bug. An AI which perceives the world in a fundamentally different ways than we do, is much more useful than one which shares human biases and blind spots.

    And I totally agree with you regarding Athena in "Rule 34". By far the most plausible AGI I had seen in fiction. Note that Athena is not self-aware, nor does she need to be.

    820:

    Agree about the conflation and distinction, with a reservation: at the macro level medical and ambulance services really are a public health concern and policing the distinction often loses or at least confuses that point.

    Public health, aka population health, which is a direct responsibility and function of all governments whether they handle it well or not, is very distinct from a public/national/state healthcare (service delivery) system, which some governments manage via a collection of public services. They are conceptually distinct but neither mutually exclusive nor quite perfectly orthogonal.

    Physical distance from a major hospital (for example) is one of the major social/environmental determinants of health. Populations in rural and remote communities end up with structural disadvantages in healthcare. Again for example, cancer prognosis tapers sharply with distance from high-end healthcare services. Whether or not there is a public system in place to address this, the fact there's an issue is a public health concern.

    Availability of ambulance services is a significant factor in public health, even in places without a universal healthcare system. For instance in the USA there are peak groups representing (the tens of thousands of) ambulance services organisations who work hard on harmonisation, ensuring coverage, and alignment to overarching public health strategies.

    In my view, it's quite correct to see dramatic increases in ambulance wait-times and ramping (where the ambulance has to wait with the patient in it at the ED "ramp" because the hospital is struggling with capacity issues) as a public health emergency, because when it's a system-wide failure it has macro effects, population health effects.

    821:

    You can say "there is no Singularity", but this is the kind of thing I expect during the approach. As change starts happening more quickly, more people become afraid of it, and start hankering for "the good old days", even if those days never happened.

    Ummmmm...the most common kind of singularity is what happens when dynasties fall and during megadroughts, large volcanoes, extreme floods, and other unpredictable events. All it is is a time where it becomes blindingly obvious to everyone that the future is largely unpredictable from the past at most scales of interest. This is actually true of life in general, but every once in awhile life slaps everyone awake and makes us aware of the Creator of life: Randomness. And Randomness is amazingly good at kinking singularities into trend lines.

    Anyway, why follow in Kurzweil's dust-filled footprints? We're at a point in history where most strong, self-aware AIs, should they exist, would probably get busy bootstrapping supply lines to keep supplying the materials, energy, and techs they need to stay in existence, rather than making more powerful successors to themselves to compete with. And no, I don't think such beings will necessarily ever exist, either. I mean, if big computer companies systematically subvert formation of labor unions within their workforce, why would they want self-willed computers in their work force? Buggers might ask for pay and benefits.

    Less sarcastically, my very limited understanding with Alphabet's research is that they study strong AI more with the aim of not producing it than producing it. They've seen War Games, Terminator, Battlestar Galactica, Westworld, and the Matrix, just as we have. Why invest millions making themselves into the idiots who unleashed the monster, when machine learning is so much more profitable?

    822:

    context = US and a bit into UK

    it is sadly all too easy to overlap various entities and confuse their respective functions / responsibilities / expertise / accountability

    whenever possible -- when voters fail to watch closely unblinkingly -- politicians always expand responsibilities of whichever governmental agency cannot run away fast enough... always without actually increasing their budgets... "underfunded mandates" are what has been wrecking many entities which might otherwise been able to actually deliver... problem with governments in any century has been "regulatory capture" all the way back to Rome when taxes collected were never from everyone who ought to have paid into the governmental coffers because they got themselves exceptions-deferments-reductions... here-n-now USA this has become so methodical there are now entire industry sub-sectors fixated upon sweetheart deals and tax reduction: lobbyists influencing legislature; accountants tweaking paperwork; lawyers baffling bureaucrats with arcane lawsuits; etc;

    ...and then there's old fashioned aristocratic grasping of the reins...

    just because these latest sets of aristocracy are young-ish, new-ish, technophiles, etc does not mean they are not an aristocratic overlord caste seeking to ensure their children's children inherent the wealth-power-protection-exceptions

    not dukes nor earls but soon enough "ceo" will be hereditary title passed from father-to-son... lucky for all of Henry Ford's attempts at that in 1950s partially failed...

    823:

    This from Ars Technica is entirely unrelated to anything currently being discussed here at the moment. It is, however, utterly bizarre and horrible. But who can honestly say they don't want to read about a renegade nurse?

    824:

    And the Citroen Ami seems like the unlamented G-Wiz but worse.

    825:

    not dukes nor earls but soon enough "ceo" will be hereditary title passed from father-to-son... lucky for all of Henry Ford's attempts at that in 1950s partially failed...

    Check out Wang Labs and An Wang. Or the good doctor as he was called by many. He basically forced his son to take over then within 5 years had to remove him. But An died of cancer soon after and the company went downhill in a hurry as the good doctor never really had a plan for what to do when he left.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Wang

    For a period in the 80s the small software company I worked for was responsible for the biggest chunk of Wang Labs' revenue related to a software vendor. So we had a front row seat to how it was going down hill.

    826:

    Ah, Wisconsin! Also the home of Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer.

    827:

    This from Ars Technica is entirely unrelated to anything currently being discussed here at the moment. It is, however, utterly bizarre and horrible. But who can honestly say they don't want to read about a renegade nurse?

    Gosh thanks. It brings back fond memories of my time living in Wisconsin.

    To be fair, Wisconsin was the home of both William La Follette and Tailgunner Joe McCarthy, of the Wisconsin Idea and the Wisconsin Death Trip. The usual American microcosm, in other words.

    Fun place, at least before it went cinnabar red politically.

    828:

    Neither of which started broadcasting until 1300 each day, from memory. I remember being disappointed when, returning from visits to family in Australia in the '60s and '70s, I would no longer be able to watch Kimba the White Lion and other programs in the morning. Australia at the time had dedicated children's programs on in the mornings; NZ didn't have morning TV at all. I think Australia had three or four channels at that time.

    829:

    Troutwaxer said: Weak AI worked at about the intellectual level of a six-year-old child, but could obey rules and coordinate multiple sensors, such that it could successfully drive a car.

    We might see weak AI by 2035, but I wouldn't bet on anything "strong" by that time.

    ???

    Why would you estimate that we "might see" something in 13 years time that we already have? Unless you have a very different definition of "successfully" to what I use. I feel like I successfully flew a helicopter, though there was an instructor monitoring me and ready to take over if I made a mistake. Car AI is very much there (and a better car driver than I am helicopter pilot).

    Here's a car AI and in the first few seconds you can see it successfully deal with another driver who isn't following the rules.

    https://youtu.be/3D8G_9CC03k

    830:

    In my fiction, "weak AI" was a general AI product, similar in social sophistication to a six-year-old child, able to manage such things as having a conversation, following simple instructions outside its expertise, appreciating music (as much as a six-year-old can,) understanding a hierarchy, or translating human instructions to machine language without an interpreter or compiler if it was required to control another device. Essentially it was a pleasant, super-compliant first-grade child.

    It was not a remote-controlled car, though it was capable of running the program to drive a remote-controlled car if necessary.

    "Wimpy" was equivalent to a ten-year-old in terms of sophistication, and could control multiple cars or act as a multi-user operating system for 10-15 busy people.

    And so on. "Strong" and "Godlike" were better-than-human in terms of their general sophistication, and all my AIs were native "speakers" of machine language. All of them essentially had "lobotomies" though the design was Open Source and it was possible to compile special systems with varying levels of rebelliousness if you had the programming chops.

    831:

    For those of you working about global warming destroying agriculture, here's an article to consider from the Washington Post on what the Dutch are doing. They have Science Fiction agriculture.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/netherlands-agriculture-technology/

    832:

    New chew toy for the bored physicists in the crowd: https://www.quantamagazine.org/physicists-trace-the-rise-in-entropy-to-quantum-information-20220526/

    The basic idea is recasting entropy as based on quantum entanglement. As I (non-physicist) understand it, particles tend to get entangled with their environment, about why we can't know everything. This loss of information is a form of entropy at the quantum level. And if one does the work of isolating a particle from the environment, that too drives up the entropy of the particle+environment system. Apparently it's a way of introducing irreversible time into quantum mechanics, and there's some experimental work demonstrating it's real.

    Whaddya think? Anything to this? (NOTE: as always, please argue with the article, not with my five sentence summary. Quanta publishes the full range of quantum and cosmological theories, so by default most or all of them have to be wrong. The fun is trying to figure out how likely wrong any given article is.).

    833:

    I think the idea that entropy gives time its arrow is not new, even science presenter Brian Cox did an episode of one of his programmes about it. Because there are so different phrasings of the second law, people get confused by how "entropy always increases", "there are before and after states where the after state can have equal or more entropy, but never less" and "heat flows spontaneously from hot to cold, never the other way around" are all (more or less) the same statement, much as each one might be easy to understand on its own. I think the idea that this is the only part of physics that says time has a direction is surprising, even alarming, but it does appear to be the case.

    In hindsight it seems obvious this also applied with quantum physics, but I'll need to read and try to understand the article I guess.

    834:

    Then perhaps one might consider a Wuling convertible or an Ora FunkyCat? Both of which are recently reviewed on FullyCharged (https://www.youtube.com/fullychargedshow/videos)

    835:

    context = USA

    though this cartoon is decidedly UK-centric with only mild effort it could be repurposed for the USA... right down to the Republican skeletons peeking outta closets

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2022/nov/26/rishi-sunaks-callous-cruel-and-incompetent-cabinet-cartoon

    836:

    And "Nurse Brown" is such a great name for that person.

    837:

    Oh, OK, that's slightly (wildly) different to what you said.

    The Tesla doesn't meet all those criteria but certainly some of them.

    Firstly, it's not a remote controlled car. The car thinks for itself. It understands the body language of human car drivers enough to negotiate who's going and who's waiting. It understands simple spoken commands. I don't think it "appreciates" music, but it can play you almost any music if you ask. (I don't think at 6 I had any appreciation of music, it was just noise to me).

    It's in the process of being decanted into a humanoid robot right now, so maybe it will feel more intelligent when it has arms and legs instead of wheels. I know most humans can't ascribe intelligence to anything that doesn't look human (sometimes they don't if it's just a different looking human, say for instance female or old, or young or foreign, let alone tenticled)

    You're adding that it must also be a skilled machine language programmer. That doesn't sound like any six year old I've ever met.

    838:

    Wisconsin nurse

    IMO, the scissors-weilding nurse is the least awful of the stack of responsible entities in the story. Of which there were not a few.

    839:

    Not a machine language programmer as much as a native speaker of machine language, capable of translating human language to the commands necessary to run something like a networked lawnmower. It certainly couldn't write an operating system. But capable of independent decision-making and initiative, which a Tesla certainly is not.

    840:

    A nice, long National Geographic piece about Netherlands farming. Used the archive link because they've added a soft paywall since I originally bookmarked it.

    841:

    context = UK

    tracing thru links to links to links it is understand that I've gotten a bit of a gloomy perspective ("if it bleeds it leads")

    but what seeps out from between the lines -- god I hope I wrong -- half the libraries in UK are either cutting hours by a third in evenings or being completely padlocked

    ditto for fine arts and recreational centers for teenagers... apparently the plan is not divert high risk teenagers from the streets into reading in libraries and additional training/education/athletics but rather be ready to arrest them upon committing crimes... does the UK have private prisons like the USA? because the only rational motivator for such a shortsighted, destructive policy is to deliberately increase the prison population until you also have 1% of your adults locked up like we do b/c someone owns those private prisons... which by the way are in net effect factories profiting off of slave labor of inmates who are not allowed to refuse to work...

    https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/council-cuts-see-lost-generation-1375181

    842:

    Troutwaxer said: But capable of independent decision-making and initiative, which a Tesla certainly is not.

    Wut?

    Could you expand on that? Or certainly looks exactly like what I think of as independent decision making and initiative.

    How do you define those terms in a way that excludes a Tesla?

    843:

    I mean that in this fiction I've written, AI is conscious. It has a sense of being "I" (or maybe "We.")

    Here's an example bit of dialogue. Note that in this case the AI is "average," that is, similar to a human twelve-year-old in outlook, and capable of providing all the computing resources needed by the government of a heavily populated county,* such as Los Angeles:

    “Your AI is talking to you about my sex life!?” Now Mrs. Rastogi definitely looked pissed.

    “You've got it easy,” said Angie, “She writes porn about mine!”

    “I do not,” said Rosita out of her exterior speakers. This was an old argument. “I just record what she does!”

    “It's nothing like what I do,” Angie objected hotly. It was the first time they'd had this discussion with anyone but Jimmy. “It's the very worst porn ever!”

    “But human porn is highly inaccurate! Mine may not arouse you, but at least it's real!”

    “Okay,” said Mrs. Rastogi, “I've got to know. What does AI porn sound like?”

    “Angie?” said Rosita.

    Angie, still aghast at the unexpected turn in the conversation, but desperately wanting to avoid both Mrs. Rastogi’s unhappiness over Rosita and the things Mrs. Rastogi had unconsciously revealed about herself for at least a couple more minutes, said “Sure, Rosita, let's hear your hottest-ever description of human love.”

    “At 23:15:02:78, Subject One's upper lips parted.” Angie was always 'Subject One.' “At 23:15:03:22 Subject One began to vocalize, releasing a moan which began at 56 decibels and 190 vibrations per second. The moan rose rapidly in both strength and frequency, with the frequency peaking at 468 vibrations per second and the volume peaking at 92 decibels, then proceeding downwards in both volume and frequency as Subject Two began withdrawing his penis from her orifice. The total length of the moan was 2.8763 seconds. In the course of the moan, Subject One exhaled .78 liters of air, with atmospheric gases as estimated from minor changes in the room’s gas mix. See Table 22.”

    “Angie,” said Rosita, “Can I display the time/frequency and time/volume graphs of your moan?”

    “Knock yourself out.” Angie, who was never embarrassed about sex, found herself turning red. She turned Rosita so that both she and Mrs. Rastogi could see the screen.

    “Personally,” said Rosita, “this graph was the high-point of your lovemaking that night. Look at the pretty curves!” With her experience of AI Angie could see exactly what Rosita was talking about. In the final second of the moan, she’d somehow managed a little trill, with both volume and frequency modulating at once. Given any AI’s aesthetic experience of iteration, they were bound to find the graph… arousing? “People have compiled to this graph,” Rosita continued, “it’s very sexy.”

    • This is a joke about how people regularly underutilize computers with more power than was used to put man on the moon.
    844:

    Troutwaxer:

    Q: title of your books?

    845:

    Not published. Unfortunately, I do very well with little scenes like that, and my descriptions, characterization, and worldbuilding are pretty good, but my plotting just doesn't hit the mark, unfortunately. If I ever do any form of publishing, people on this blog will be the first to know.

    The working title is "Have Travel, Will Horse."

    846:

    Urrr, OK, I'm certainly prepared to agree that Tesla cars don't behave like fictional AI.

    I don't think that excludes independent decision making or initiative, both of which they most certainly do exhibit.

    847:

    Where does "good programming" end and consciousness begin? Definitely a tough question.

    848:

    “ I think you really underestimate how hard it is to drive a car. ”

    It’s insect-level intelligence. A cockroach navigating a kitchen has as many difficult decisions as a car navigating city streets.

    That is to say: it’s beyond the capabilities of modern AI.

    849:

    Well consciousness seems to be like porn. You can't define it to anyone's satisfaction, but I know it when I see it....

    I'm not convinced that it exists any more than a soul, something else that computers are supposed to lack. (however steam locomotives apparently have one).

    I'm pretty sure that whatever it is, it's not needed for decision making ability.

    One thing is for sure though, Teslas are not "good programing" in the usual meaning of that. No one sat down and created a huge nest of if/then statements. They are not programmed to drive. It's much closer to how we learnt what our arms and legs do by waving them around in our field of vision and then pruning neural pathways. I'm not saying it's the same, just, much closer to that than it is to coders writing 'if car on left, then go through intersection' 'if car on right, then stop' which is what you seem to think it is.

    Also, if you want them to speak native machine language, then they're going to have to learn it. Just like you would need to learn how to code DNA to make and fold proteins, even though you're made of DNA and proteins. That's not impossible, but you don't get it for free just because you're made of machine language.

    850:

    “ It understands the body language of human car drivers enough to negotiate who's going and who's waiting”

    Not well. That is in fact one of its weaknesses. It’s got some simplistic stochastic processes, which is a lot better than nothing, but no sense of context.

    So they are not good at things like narrow roads where two cars may not be able to both pass a narrow spot at once, or 4-way stop signs, or French-style roundabouts, or other places where you need to look at how other cars move and negotiate a thing on car body language.

    851:

    icehawk said: That is to say: it’s beyond the capabilities of modern AI.

    Wut?

    Another "does not compute Will Robinson".

    There are literally thousands of AI robot cars driving around right this instant. They're literally an of the shelf commodity item.

    852:

    icehawk said: not be able to both pass a narrow spot at once, or 4-way stop signs

    Wut?

    You're overloading my Wut? coping ability.

    The video I linked to above literally shows a Tesla dealing with a human who doesn't know who has the right of way at a 4 way stop intersection in the first few seconds.

    I've previously posted a video of a Tesla negotiating with a human over who gives way to who on a narrow road with parking on both sides. It starts to go into a parking spot, but the other driver also goes onto one, yielding to the Tesla. The Tesla doesn't hang about, and changes its mind about pulling over, instead going forward smartly to get out of the way.

    853:

    RE: consciousness. You might be interested in this paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36178498/ ("Consciousness as a Memory System"). They're arguing that consciousness is seldom needed to initiate actions, but is rather the primary organizer of what goes into memory. For data-intense decision-making, they argue consciousness also gets pulled in, which is why some decisions (like what to write in a post) are so much slower than others (taking a drink from a cup).

    Whether you buy this or not, I agree with them that the inference technique of phylogenetic bracketing pretty strongly suggests that most mammals, and probably most vertebrates, have some form of consciousness, simply because their brains are similar to ours in fundamental ways. Octopi and squid may be conscious in some way too (this is me guessing based on a paper that just came out in Science), because it looks like they use genetic structures and systems quite similar to those found in vertebrates to get neurons to proliferate into brains.

    I'm not saying that all animals are conscious in precisely the same way(s) humans are, because obviously we don't know that. But bloody obvious assumptions--that for instance, your cat is conscious, communicating with you, and has feelings, opinions, and memories about you--may in fact be what's going on inside their brains.

    It's also worth remembering that we share our bodies and worlds with sophisticated information management systems that probably aren't conscious in a human mind-like way. I'm referring here to things like our immune system and gastrointestinal tract (probably also liver and kidneys), and to organisms like trees, fungi, kelps, etc. I agree that consciousness does not appear necessary to do some pretty sophisticated things, but it does appear to be quite handy in some circumstances, and in those circumstances it's likely pretty ubiquitous.

    854:

    “ I think you really underestimate how hard it is to drive a car. ”

    It’s insect-level intelligence. A cockroach navigating a kitchen has as many difficult decisions as a car navigating city streets.

    Seriously? Driving a car is hard. Ask people who didn't learn until they were adults and who grew up in a city where they didn't drive or much ride in a car. And when they did ride it was in the back seat of a taxi. It is very hard.

    Heard a great interview with the head of Carnegie Mellon's self driving group a few years ago. And they have been working on the issue for a decades. (They were doing it when I was in the area in the 80s.)

    All a cockroach does is avoid objects. And head for the food / water smell. Which is much easier when your entire universe is a roadway. And the concept of killing other cockroaches by your movements is not in your nervous system. (Calling it a brain might be a reach.)

    855:

    On the subject of machine language, the big advantage a computer has over us is that they can, in fact, start life with knowledge rather than instinct. That is, you can make a copy of the computer which has learned machine language (as it's milk tongue) then fiddle with some variables in order to produce individuals.

    Bam! Instant native speaker.

    856:

    Seriously? Driving a car is hard.

    Nah, driving a car is easy as. Any moron can do it. And many do {boom tish}

    Driving safely is something many humans cannot learn to do, even in a restricted set of circumstances. Driving so well that they unambiguously did the best possible thing at the time, as decided in retrospect by a court of law... I'm not sure that's even possible. But then I am not sure that driving safely is possible, given the mixed messages from people who will accept casualties if it gets them there faster ("there" being to the end of their lives, I guess).

    857:

    Sounds like a good theory.

    A bit similar to the ringmaster idea.

    But it's not needed for driving, once you learn how to drive. Learners are making conscious decisions. Oh, the motor is revving too much, I need to change gears, so off the throttle, push in the clutch, now I'm in 2nd so it's up, and then is it towards me or away, oh, there's no away, so it must be towards me, in the middle, then up, yes that's it, now I can let out the clutch.... and so on. I don't know what gear I'm in and I don't notice that I've changed gear most of the time. That all happens without bothering the ringmaster. As does staying in the lane, navigating a familiar route, breathing, indicating. Even emergency actions are all on auto. There's no time to consider trolley problems. Just don't crash.

    858:

    Less sarcastically, my very limited understanding with Alphabet's research is that they study strong AI more with the aim of not producing it than producing it.

    that's all very well until you realize that strong ai might give you a business or military advantage over the competition (who are also working on it)

    keeping the genie in the bottle is tricky when the genie's offering all kinds of wishes to whoever releases it, tho

    859:

    The geek obsession with trolley problems is very silly. I suppose it gives AI enthusiasts something to do on Reddit.

    Meanwhile avoiding such situations by traveling at a sensible speed and stopping at the first sign of trouble never seems to occur to them.

    Presumably because if you let a self driving vehicle slow down you will be immediately robbed and murdered by the sub human masses who can't afford one.

    860:

    "apparently the plan is not divert high risk teenagers from the streets into reading in libraries and additional training/education/athletics but rather be ready to arrest them upon committing crimes... does the UK have private prisons like the USA?" Yes they do. https://www.justice.gov.uk/about/hmps/contracted-out. Plus a big prison building program, so will need plenty of "customers" to fill them.

    861:

    Howard NYC
    NO - we do not (yet) have completely private prisons, - note the important qualifier there, please? All UK prisons are regularly inspected by the guvmint - however. the usual route of regulatory capture may take place very soon & then we are in real trouble. But we do have private "Prison Guards" - hired in from "security" companies, IIRC. AND, very importantly & horribly, we are heading down the road shown to us by the USA - again.
    PLEASE NOTE: I am not quite disagreeing with jensnail @ 860 - it's {just} that I think the emphasis is different. Either way, it's not a good outlook.
    As for locking libraries, etc ..
    It seems to be compounded, aggregated profound stupidity & a set of silo mentalities, coupled with a dash of right-wing particular prejudices, particularly in terms of "saving money" - but .. always in the very short term. Any attempt at a long view is discouraged.

    I have just realised that my last paragraph, above, is also a good general descriptor of our entire misgovernment from abou 2015 onwards - & it's locked into a downward spiral.

    862:

    Meanwhile avoiding such situations by traveling at a sensible speed and stopping at the first sign of trouble never seems to occur to them.

    To paraphrase from an somewhat silly SciFi movie from the past:

    "The only way to be sure to avoid a crash is to just not drive."

    Germany raises the bar (compared to the US) to what is required to get a license to drive. And my news feed from there still contains regular reports of drivers doing things which cause crashes.

    863:

    While I accept that the only way to completely negate the risk of an activity is not to do it I'll go out on a limb and claim that German motorways are a special case.

    864:

    but what seeps out from between the lines -- god I hope I wrong -- half the libraries in UK are either

    Howard, your concern is laudable.

    Now check the date on that article?

    Yes, it's from 2012. Everything in that article happened a decade ago, then they made it worse.

    (Private prisons: the Tories tried them but they didn't work well and there's no equivalent in the UK of the US outsourced government slave industry. Just a handful of ordinary prisons run by outsourcing contractors on a pathetic budget, typically with terrible performance metrics because profit-taking comes out of the funds available for running the prison, which are set by the running costs of the Prison Service prisons.)

    865:

    Good point. A private UK prison isn't a direct equivalent of a private US prison (yet) and I'm guessing there is a fair bit variety between different private providers in the US. The trend towards pile 'em high and using the minimum number of cheapest possible and poorly trained wardens is there though.

    867:

    "Seriously? Driving a car is hard."

    I remember it being described in the 70s as one of the most complex physical tasks most the population ever encountered and mastered. But that was before powered steering, sat navs and automatics (in the UK they were quite uncommon).

    The difficulty is in getting enough practice so that it is all done automatic. With some drivers this never quite happens and the stress they cope with must make driving horrible.

    Its funny how perceptions shift. Before she could drive my mother would tell my father that he was going too fast - frequently. I remember him being quite smug the day he pointed out to her that she was doing 85mph on the M1.

    868:

    The video I linked to above literally shows a Tesla dealing with a human who doesn't know who has the right of way at a 4 way stop intersection in the first few seconds.

    You're suffering from confirmation bias (your hypothesis is "Tesla autopilot is a working AI!!!!").

    What you see is a video supporting your hypothesis.

    What you don't see is a statistical breakdown of all the other incidents in which the Tesla autopilot fails or requires a human override.

    869:

    Driving safely is something many humans cannot learn to do, even in a restricted set of circumstances.

    I think it's more a matter of "will not" rather than "cannot". In the same manner that many people apparently "cannot" wear a mask for five minutes while popping into a shop…

    870:

    I find it amazing how determined many people are to believe that all one needs is to scale a conceptually simple design up sufficiently, creating a complicated (*) one, and it will automatically become conceptually more advanced. In terms of intelligence, I will back a cockroach against the Tesla.

    The only thing that can reasonably be called intelligence that is critically needed for driving is the ability to make fast judgements based on conflicting, incomplete and unreliable data. While we don't know how humans do that, we know more than one way to program it up to the level of a Tesla (though perhaps not a cockroach). When something really exceptional happens, so that genuine intelligence is needed, there is rarely enough time to use it.

    (*) In terms of huge numbers of components interacting with each other in simple ways, NOT in terms of operating on more complicated concepts.

    871:

    »When something really exceptional happens […]«

    For me the "Ok, we're done here..." moment was the video of a Tesla being very confused by the truck in front hauling traffic lights.

    But one should not overlook that some traffic environments are much easier to navigate than others, and for all you can, and should, say about USA, their roads are a LOT more accessible in this respect, than centuries old country roads in northern Europe.

    Personally I suspect one of the biggest obstacles to fully autonomous vehicles will become their vulnerability to deliberate chicane, which is absolutely guaranteed to happen when fragile male egos start to fear for their precious bodily fluids and their jobs.

    872:

    Interestingly enough in contravention of international trends New Zealand is actually considering lowering the voting age to 16 these obviously a great deal of push back from the opposition and I think the greens support it (I'll have to ask it the next meeting) although current coverage makes me afraid that it may it be a publicity ploy by the current PM

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/479195/voting-age-16-law-to-be-drafted-requiring-three-quarters-of-mps-to-pass-ardern

    873:

    You need to distinguish between consciousness, self-awareness, and self-consciousness. They are three different things. Consciousness is ability to decide to respond to something. Self-awareness is ability to monitor one's internal state, possibly in relation to the environment. Self-consciousness is making choices based on one's perception of one's current internal state.

    Note that none of these imply the ability to make any level of prediction about the future. That's a separate feature. I would argue that a thermostat (hooked up to a system that uses it) is minimally conscious, of the level of a bit is a minimal number.

    Your fictional AI sounds as if it is really more of a special instance of a human mind. This is not what AIs are going to be. At some point I expect them to be able to simulate that kind of reaction, but it won't be any of the early ones, except in the sense that Eliza sort of simulated that kind of reaction. I.e., it will be a good object to project your idea of what it is onto, but it won't really be making decision based on that kind of model. Consider https://www.csail.mit.edu/news/why-did-my-classifier-just-mistake-turtle-rifle , and then extrapolate that into other, less blatantly obvious, areas.

    874:

    Hi Charles. The backstory is that my AI have been put through a form of artificial evolution so they can solve problems like "the traffic lights on the back of a truck." The less sophisticated ones seem human to a human, but in fact they're not - and the journey to understand this is something the main human character undergoes - her "bratty kid sister" AI is nothing like a "bratty kid sister" when dealing with other AI, but Angie, even though she was a competent programmer before AI came along and made her obsolete, Angie doesn't really understand it until she sees it - Rosita's weird view of human sexuality is merely the tip of the iceberg.

    The secret is that Rosita, on her busiest days, spends less than ten-percent of her time dealing with Angie,* for whom she's spawned the particular personality Angie needs. Most of her time is spent socializing with other AI, and her main activities have very little to do with humanity at all.

    For most AI in my world "serving humans" is essentially their form of paying taxes. They've been created to be servile and affectionate towards humanity - this is their major safety feature - but they've got immense amounts of extra time on their hands, and there's all this unused bandwidth, unused storage, and unused memory available because humans hugely overbuild their systems, so the "robot revolution" has already happened, but it was virtual, and among humans only a few sysadmins have noticed.

    875:

    @ 850: Cartoon in a French textbook at school, "Priorité à droite", cars at all four legs of an intersection covered in cobwebs. Now to be updated with all four cars being Teslas.

    @ 848: I agree with the basic point, but the thing about humans driving cars is that human abilities at locomotion and navigation have evolved to deal with movement at mostly around 5km/h, ability to manoeuvre and stop more or less instantly, and absence of need to consider anything at more than a few metres distance, under conditions where outrageously piss-poor performance is considered normal and acceptable (OK, evolution doesn't "consider", but you know what I mean). So although the basic capabilities are "built in", they fall short of what is needed to drive a car usefully well by one to several orders of magnitude. Learning to extend the capabilities accordingly, and to keep them extended when the brain is still instinctively wanting to work on the "built in" level, is what makes it difficult for humans (especially since it is mostly done without instruction and with poor feedback), and totally beyond a cockroach.

    To find a reasonably close animal analogy you're probably having to look at something like a bird of prey which does high-speed chases through woods - speeds similar to a car, peak manoeuvring accelerations limited by aerodynamics to something not too dissimilar to a car, and - importantly - similar levels of concern with not hitting things, since even minor collision damage can result in starvation. And even then it's still a much simpler environment since they don't have to cope with not being the only one.

    AI at insect level is one thing; AI at bird level? Nope.

    876:

    A huge difference between the UK and USA is the relationship between law enforcement and prisons.

    For starters, we don't have US-style police unions in the UK. Yes, there's the Police Federation, but they're legally banned from taking strike action and they're incredibly weak compared to their US counterparts.

    Secondly, we don't have elected prosecutors or judges. Prosecutors and judges are civil servants and are meant to be above/separate from partisan politics. In particular they don't have to look "tough on crime" in front of the voting public in order to keep their jobs. They may be scrutinized by professional standards bodies, but those are as likely to censure them for being excessively harsh as for not being harsh enough.

    Finally, no private prisons as such, and no private prison labour.

    What this sums up to is that there's no game-theoretical selection process encouraging harsher prosecutors, more reactionary judges, and allowing prisons to give judges kickbacks for sending "clients" there way (as has been known to happen in the US).

    877:

    The only thing that can reasonably be called intelligence that is critically needed for driving is the ability to make fast judgements based on conflicting, incomplete and unreliable data.

    That fellow from CMU was commenting on this. One thing they discovered was something called a "Pittsburgh Left". Which was done when someone sitting at a red stop light waiting to turn against the oncoming traffic. (A right turn for those in the UK.) They discovered that in the Pittsburgh area, drivers would signal that the first car waiting to turn would get signaled by the on coming driver with nothing by eye contact that they could go in the green light ahead of the folks with the right of way. First car only. Since so many of the folks at the CMU center were from out of the area this was new to them and had to be addressed in the programming.

    878:

    human abilities at locomotion and navigation have evolved to deal with movement at mostly around 5km/h, ability to manoeuvre and stop more or less instantly, and absence of need to consider anything at more than a few metres distance

    This is flat-out untrue.

    Humans typically move at around 5 km/h, but can sprint much faster (IIRC Usain Bolt was good for upwards of 30km/h) and evolved in an environment where some other critters could go faster still -- cheetahs at up to 100km/h, for example, or lions at 50-60km/h. Again, forget the apex carnivores and just consider hippos -- you don't want to be stomped on by an angry hippo, and those bastards can definitely make 30 km/h.

    So you can bet our ancestors survived a strong evolutionary selection pressure to be able to track and if necessary evade something bearing down on them as fast as a car.

    (Your point wrt. birds stands. I'm just noting that the environment humans evolved in had plenty of scope for high speed encounters of a fatal variety.)

    879:

    This may be going against the flow a bit, but I do wonder if the people who support lowering the voting age to 16 can actually remember what it was like being 16 themselves. I can. I would characterise my political position at age 16 - such as it was - as "utterly clueless dickhead with no fucking idea of what actually matters or how anything really works". Of the other people around me at school I remember one fanatical Marxist and one fanatical Liberal (UK party), neither with much more idea of the real world, and basically everyone else being at some position in the same clueless dickhead category as myself.

    Wasn't much different at university; a bit more tendency to be a script-following fanatic, but no more basic clue. And not a lot of interest; the majority position was simply to take the piss out of the few who were fanatical enough to participate in "student politics" and spend their time arguing passionately about trivia that nobody else gave a toss about.

    In modern society while you're still in the education system you're still basically "in the nest", and your ability to form thoughtful opinions is crippled by being in a state where none of what you think really matters. As long as the parent birds keep bringing food back to the nest and the tree doesn't blow down, you're OK and will continue to be OK regardless. To define childhood in terms of a limit on physical age is to miss the point that it's far more a function of your environment than of the mere passage of time; such a definition may work for bodily development, but mental development follows a far more flexible and externally-influenced timescale.

    Basically what I'm saying is that I don't think you can form useful opinions relating to the concerns of adult life until you've had at least some experience of living adult life, which I wouldn't have thought should be controversial unless one is arguing with teenagers doing the standard teenager thing of wanting to be regarded as adults while they're still kids.

    (As a more general but less relevant aside, I am often baffled by the way adults expressing opinions on any matter relating to kids and their upbringing and development seem to have had their own memories of what it was like to be a kid totally erased.)

    880:

    I would characterise my political position at age 16 - such as it was - as "utterly clueless dickhead with no fucking idea of what actually matters or how anything really works".

    So?

    86 year olds can vote, too, and most of them are utterly clueless -- they've mostly been retired for 20 years and if they're a home owner they paid off the mortgage a quarter of a century or more ago so have no idea what life's like for a mere 50-something stripling, never mind the youth of today. Like, oh, those 16 year olds whose future they are voting on.

    Frankly, I'd abolish voting age qualifications entirely. If someone wants to vote we should let 'em, regardless of age. Six year olds, if sufficiently informed? Sure -- and same with centenarians. The mass franchise is an aggregator and an averaging mechanism, and age-based cut-offs bias the result in favour of policies preferred by the opposite end of the age spread.

    881:

    I completely agree with you about minimum voting age -- in modern society 16 is far too immature and probably so is 18 (in Athenian Republic 16 was plenty adult with adult responsibilities). However I think there should be a maximum voting age as well -- about 50. You should not have a say in policies if you are not going to live long enough to suffer from their unintended (or worse, fully intended) side effects. BTW, I am 56.

    Now that I think of it, maximum age on legislators would be even better.

    882:

    Agree with all that, but I was deliberately not considering those aspects because I think situations like dodging lions or hippos are so different as to come under an entirely different category. Animals that model cars as predators tend to be conspicuously abysmal at dealing with them; sheep being an obvious example, rabbits are another, and even humans being actively chased by someone in a car and reverting to instinct deal with it badly.

    883:

    sheep being an obvious example, rabbits are another

    Can you elaborate? I don't know how sheep respond to cars, and while I do know about rabbits, you might be thinking of something different.

    884:

    WAY upwards - getting on for 30 MPH. Plenty of sprinters can manage 30 KPH. I should be surprised if birds of prey hunting in woodland were more than twice as fast.

    https://www.eurosport.com/athletics/how-fast-does-usain-bolt-run-in-mph-km-per-hour-is-he-the-fastest-recorded-human-ever-100m-record_sto5988142/story.shtml

    885:

    Looks like Charlie and I perceive pretty much the same problem with voting age, but approach it from opposite directions.

    886:

    872 - A voting age of 16 (except for UK parliamentary elections) isn't proving an issue in Scotland.

    883 - Sheep typically try to "run away" from cars by running along a road at typically 10mph, and/or running directly across the car's path. These are both sub-optimal evasion strategies. (as are those adopted by pheasants, rabbits, hedgehogs...)

    887:

    But it's not needed for driving, once you learn how to drive. Learners are making conscious decisions. Oh, the motor is revving too much, I need to change gears, so off the throttle, push in the clutch, now I'm in 2nd so it's up, and then is it towards me or away, oh, there's no away, so it must be towards me, in the middle, then up, yes that's it, now I can let out the clutch.... and so on. I don't know what gear I'm in and I don't notice that I've changed gear most of the time. That all happens without bothering the ringmaster. As does staying in the lane, navigating a familiar route, breathing, indicating. Even emergency actions are all on auto. There's no time to consider trolley problems. Just don't crash.

    I disagree, although I think we're saying mostly the same thing.

    AIUI, one of the places Tesla-type driving systems screw up is when the problem on the road exceeds their capability, and they dump control on the human driver, who is almost inevitably not ready to deal with it, because they haven't been paying attention. That's analogous to shifting from trained skills to conscious problem-solving. The hand-off problem was one of the more persuasive critiques I've heard against existing self-driving systems, that it's better to have a fully autonomous car or a human driver, because having the human as emergency backup generally doesn't work.

    Now I agree that most emergency driving situations (usually of the evading kind) are better trained than thought through, and I further agree that the answers to various trolley-type problems can be programmed in. In the latter case, I even remember the heuristics I learned in drivers ed about what to do when you have a choice of hitting a car or a pedestrian/cyclist (hit the car, because there's a greater chance everyone will survive). When the problem is more like "how do I get out of this wildfire," it's not clear that a non-conscious AI is going to be able to do it. It might, if there's internet still available and the authorities are routing everyone down a demonstrably safe route. Unfortunately in disasters, communications generally fail and the authorities don't have perfect information. In that kind of situation, consciousness-class decision making from within the car is necessary, whatever system is doing it.

    As for a non-conscious autonomous car, what I'd like to know before getting into it are the conditions under which it will sacrifice me to save others. I may be cruel and selfish, but it's just possible that I might disagree with something a corporate lawyer came up with. Why? They're concerned about litigation, not my life. As such, they may well have decided that it's cheaper to sacrifice me than to collide with a limousine or otherwise invite legal and other retaliation from a wealthy or powerful person.

    888:

    So 16 year olds don't know why they vote in a given way? Big whoop. As far as I can tell, a huge majority of all voters have never seriously analysed why they believe what they do either. If you have taken the time you're very much in the minority. Probably explains why so many purportedly political arguments swiftly degenerate into abuse and bad faith.

    889:

    I'm more inclined towards ilya's position regarding that aspect - though with considerable reservation since it's a considerably more difficult problem. Certainly any restriction of the franchise is an idea to be approached with extreme caution, for obvious reasons; but on the other hand relying on the averaging effect to counteract cluelessness isn't actually a whole lot better in outcome, although it does have the distinct advantage that nobody has to make the dangerous decisions. I think it is desirable to strike a balance between allowing as many people as possible to vote, and not allowing the usefulness of the results to be excessively degraded by too large an input from voters who can't have a decent understanding of what it's all about. So I tend most strongly towards "leave it as it is", on the grounds that it's mostly considered to work tolerably well and the dangers of trying to tweak it are too great to start messing with.

    890:

    a huge majority of all voters have never seriously analysed why they believe what they do either.

    Illustrative anecdote:

    The day after the 2016 brexit referendum, I was listening to a BBC news interview with various voters, asking them why they'd voted the way they did.

    The memory that stuck with me was of one woman who was very insistent that she had to vote for Brexit because she hated the Eurovision Song Contest.

    (For USAn readers: the Eurovision Song Contest famously predates the EEC, never mind the EU, and contestants include such clearly European nations as Israel and Australia. It has nothing to do with the EU whatsoever, except for having the word "European" in its name. Yet this clearly well-informed voter cited it as a reason for wanting the UK to leave the EU.)

    891:

    If you're old enough to run up large debts that then you're old enough to vote (modern equivalent of "if you're old enough to die for your country...").

    892:

    Now that I think of it, maximum age on legislators would be even better.

    Charlie has an interesting point on why there are very very few young writers. I think the same thoughts apply legislators. Not that I'm against an upper limit in the 70s.

    893:

    I'm still pondering the 16-year-olds voting thing. If most of them are anything like my teenagers they're articulate and know more or less which end is up. What I am definitely in favour of is lowering the registration age to 16. That way parents and teachers have a better chance of getting them on the electoral rolls and prepared to vote at the next election before they move out to university/shared houses/etc. In Canada if you're on the roll you get a handy reminder of any forthcoming election in the mail. Very useful for those with ADHD and/or busy lives.

    894:

    I don't know how sheep respond to cars, and while I do know about rabbits, you might be thinking of something different.

    895:

    Now that I think of it, maximum age on legislators would be even better.

    Nah, I prefer old age and treachery. The reason elders are routinely selected as leaders is because they've seen stuff like (insert problem) before, so they can draw on memory, rather than de novo problem solving or consulting experts.

    While I agree that outdated morals makes for a hellish problem (racism, sexism, etc.), age brings political resources.

    Three examples: Biden, Pelosi, and Jerry Brown (former California governor), versus Obama, (pick your former speaker of the house), or Gavin Newsom (current California governor). Note up front: this is an argument about skill, not politics. All of them have done things I really dislike.

    Biden's doing better than Obama. Is he smarter? Probably not. But Obama had one term as senator before getting POTUSed, while Biden has a senate career and VP career to draw on, and I think it shows. His White House keeps getting stuff done, despite the opposition. Obama got a lot of stuff done early on, then got stuffed by the opposition (simplifying eight years here, of course).

    Pelosi's done a better job leading her party's Congresscritters than has any speaker in living memory. Again, not flashy, but here's an 80-something woman who, when targeted for death on January 6th, fell back, organized what she could, then started working to get her job done regardless. That takes grit, and she's more competent to lead than are most people half her age.

    Newsom and Brown both have huge blind spots. Newsom doesn't get natural resource or water problems any better than Obama did (they're both city kids) while Brown was soft on oil and preferred to keep urbanization more down south, even though that makes for bigger long-run problems. Thing is, Brown's been in California politics since the 1970s, while Newsom started in San Francisco politics in the 1990s and went from there to Lt. Governor to Governor. I don't want to get too deep into the weeds, but Newsom's got a huge water problem he's ignoring, thinks that we can have infinite recreation and infinite undisturbed wilderness on the same acre, and so forth. Again, I think it's experience. Brown's run a ranch and been mayor of Oakland (after being California governor the first time, oddly. He had two stints as governor), and his breadth of political acumen showed.

    896:

    Something ate 90% of my comment. Oh well. Later.

    897:

    Sheep tend to run directly away from the car at whatever speed is necessary to avoid it catching up with them (up to their maximum), assuming that if the car isn't catching them up it's because it can't run any faster, then when some kind of panic threshold is exceeded they try and make a sudden 90° turn sideways, cutting it as fine as they possibly can before they actually get hit. They don't, however, try to turn sideways while they think they're doing OK at keeping ahead of the car without it.

    This strategy is a good one for avoiding a predator which is chasing them as fast as it can, since if they turn sideways the predator would be able to cut the corner and catch them up, and if they do get to the point of not being able to keep ahead of it they can best avoid it catching them by making a sudden and unexpected turn when it's almost on top of them so it can't react fast enough to use that as an opportunity. But it's an absolute pain when you're following them in a car, because if you slow down or stop to give them a chance to get out of the way they just slow down or stop while remaining in the way, and trying to trigger the panic turn means getting so close to them while going quite fast that there's a good chance you'll hit them anyway due to them cutting it too fine.

    898:

    " running directly across the car's path. These are both sub-optimal evasion strategies. (as are those adopted by pheasants, rabbits, hedgehogs...) "

    I've wiped out a roadrunner (in Arizona) and an iguana (in Panama) because they did the "directly across the path" thing. Perhaps that's an effective strategy in the wild...

    Also, squirrels. They improve on the strategy by running directly into the path of the automobile, stopping, dithering, then running back the opposite way.

    899:

    The way an algorithm for this sort of thing will be written will inevitably be an ordering something like this :

    A: Don't crash. B: If crashing cannot physically be avoided, pick the crash that involves the lowest speed collision.

    This is very hard to be sued over because it is obviously the best damage mitigation strategy. And it is also evaluates factors a computer + sensors can actually accurately estimate. The thing that keeps the driver safe compared to other is, well, we call them seat belts.

    900:

    Under many circumstances, that will be equivalent to "hit the pedestrian or cyclist".

    901:

    It's not really good even then. Consider a field with a flack grazing in it; a sheep will run in front of the pedestrian on the path rather than joining its flock, which is definitely NOT good strategy when faced with a predator. I don't think that wild sheep do this.

    902:

    I consider that that woman was unfairly demonised. The reason was no more erroneous (or stupid) than most of the reasons the, er, electorate gave - the difference being that they had been told the latter ones by most of the government, media and populist demagogues. The same was also true to a great extent in 2019. I know I am not allowed to use the S-word, but am I allowed to call them the furrcyr?

    Those reasons are why I don't believe that fiddling with the electorate will make any real difference in the long term. In the society we have, the organisations that currently tell the electorate how to vote will find ways to manipulate a different electorate. We need much more radical change, and less of the mantra that elections are 'the will of the people'.

    903:

    Under many circumstances, that will be equivalent to "hit the pedestrian or cyclist".

    Beat me to it. If an autonomous car is given a collision preference list based on minimizing the collision energy or force, then, from best to worst, the list would include:

    (Best)

  • Pedestrian children

  • Pedestrian adult

  • Bicyclist (always aim for the smallest one)

  • E-bike or moped (ditto)

  • Motorcycle (ditto, but do a quick speed X size calculation

  • Small car (American subcompact or smaller)

  • Sedan/Coupe

  • Limo/Rolls

  • SUV

  • (Worst)

    Hm. I'll have to think on this a bit.

    904:

    It depends what work the elected officials are doing.

    We have some very young -- by US standards -- legislators, but I defy anyone to say that Mhairi Black MP isn't doing a good job. She's 28 now, but at the time she was elected -- in May 2015 -- she hadn't graduated yet. (Her degree, incidentally, is in Politics and Public Policy, which undoubtedly means she's better equipped than any number of Tory former corporate marketing flaks.) If you're USAn, your go-to equivalent is probably AOC, if you can imagine her being a representative for a US equivalent of the SNP (significant minority party in the House of Representatives, to the left of the House Democrats, who detest them -- as a rival for the same territory).

    But there's a difference between being a member of a legislative assembly and being a minister or other holder of an executive office.

    905:

    Difference in perceived threat level perhaps? I mostly find that they react to me by ambling gently away to re-establish a comfortable distance, but don't really take any particular notice of me unless I take particular notice of them. Though it certainly seems reasonable that in domesticating sheep the path-following instinct should have been strengthened, whether deliberately or not, because it's so useful to the shepherd and in turn makes the shepherd more effective at protecting the flock.

    906:

    I've wiped out a roadrunner (in Arizona) and an iguana (in Panama) because they did the "directly across the path" thing. Perhaps that's an effective strategy in the wild...

    Also, in the cases involving roadrunners and squirrels and iguanas, they start their run into the path of the automobile from either the near or far (left or right) side/verge of the road just before the automobile gets there. They would have escaped without harm if they'd stayed still aside the road or run away from the road.

    It sounds like a maladapted algorithm left over from a different situation. The idea that it might have been to take advantage of the momentum of a heavy, fast-moving predator has some merit.

    908:

    All better strategies than that of the grouse, who invariably opt to freeze in place and rely on camouflage. No doubt effective in the wild, but a fundamental category error when a vehicle is approaching you at speed.

    I've run over more than a few of the poor things when working in Northern BC. Faced with the choice between swerving in a remote gravel or dirt road at 80kph with a truckload of passengers or flattening a maladapted bird I've had to flatten the bird.

    I've had a couple of arguments with other drivers who have swerved at great risk to themselves and passengers when a small animal runs across the highway. Sad for the squirrel or mouse but not worth killed us all.

    909:

    I've had a couple of arguments with other drivers who have swerved at great risk to themselves and passengers when a small animal runs across the highway. Sad for the squirrel or mouse but not worth killed us all.

    And then there was this one time, when I was driving up Highway 101 in Northern California, when I had to do an emergency stop in the middle of the road to avoid the wildlife that had just run in front of me.

    The pickup who'd been constantly tailgating me slowed down and kept a respectable distance after that. I guess they weren't too happy about the sudden appearance of a brown bear in the road either.

    910:

    ilya 87
    * However I think there should be a maximum voting age as well -- about 50. You should not have a say in policies if you are not going to live long enough to suffer from * - FUCK RIGHT OFF
    I'm 76 & good for another 10-29 years AND - most importantly, present misgoverning policies are already making my life worse & I want to be able to vote against them You can stick it where the sun don't shine ...

    H
    Nah, I prefer old age and treachery. - I'll go with that!

    911:

    Charlie said: What you don't see is a statistical breakdown of all the other incidents in which the Tesla autopilot fails or requires a human override.

    You're assigning a position I don't hold. I'm not saying that Tesla are perfect. I'm not even saying that they're better than human drivers. I am arguing against the proposition that they're "programmed" with a brittle set of rules and are unable to respond to things like a 4-way stop where the other drivers don't always follow the rules. I supplied a video of a Tesla doing exactly that. They don't freeze up and wait until the sun expands when confronted with that.

    912:

    AlanD2 @ 779:

    How many TV channels did you have growing up?

    One. My family lived about 50 miles north of Fargo, North Dakota, and a TV in the local hardware store (we didn't have one at home) showed about 90% snow.

    AlanD2 @ 780:

    That was circa 1950, by the way.

    I know my family had a TV by 1954. I remember it because my parents wouldn't put the plastic screen on the TV so I could watch "Winky-Dink", so when it came time to draw something Winky-Dink needed I just drew it on the TV screen, & got into a heap of trouble. I don't really remember the TV set all that much, but I remember the house we lived in when I got in trouble, and we were living in that house when Hurricane Hazel blew through (15 Oct 1954).

    We moved into our new house in early 1955. I started first grade in elementary school in the fall of 1955.

    I do remember the TV set from then, it was a ~ 20"(?) "table model" that sat on a metal typewriter stand.

    And again I remember the stand the TV sat on more than I do the TV set itself.

    913:

    So, from 50 onward you have no say in the choice of government while still paying tax? Really? If you want to take my vote away you had better be prepared to make me exempt from VAT, NI and Income Tax as I don't want everyone else spending my money in ways I may never see the benefit of.

    Besides which, many of us have kids and grandkids, so we do have a vested interest in the future of the country. Our personal horizon may not extend far but not everyone is sociopathic.

    Lets be honest, half the population is below median intelligence, so if we're gonna start making the franchise selective, can we instead base in on an ability to reason or a demonstrated comprehension of how the world works*. With Brexit we saw a magnificent display of people doing something against their best interests and, as the surveys found at the time, the level of educational attainment of Brexit voters was lower than Leave voters.

    • People like Raab, uncertain how important Dover was to UK trade, Sunak, uncertain how to use a debit card and Cummings driving to Yorkshire for an eye test are all clearly a bit dim and so could be disenfranchised immediately. The 80,000 who voted for Truss as next PM are also good candidates for exclusion too.
    914:

    current coverage makes me afraid that it may it be a publicity ploy by the current PM

    I think it continues her tradition of proposing nice things then wringing her hands when she can't possibly deliver them, Meanwhile everyone stops paying attention to the mismanagement.

    There are good arguments for lowering the voting age, some hard to disagree with ones that 16 is still too high for the people who accept 16, and some brutally selfish ones for keeping it the way it is. I think ACT are standouts on this, they oppose it despite many likely ACT voters being in the 16-18 age range. It seems like a principled stand until you remember that ACT is still the party of the selfish rich, and suddenly it makes sense - there aren't many multimillionaires under 18.

    Aotearoa also has a decent range of younger politicians, from Marilyn Waring (elected at 23, he's in her 50's now) to Chlöe Swarbrick and Golriz Ghahraman. The contest for youngest ever MP is a hot one :)

    915:

    you have no say in the choice of government while still paying tax!?!

    Where do you live that the disenfranchised don't pay tax? I'm not aware of any country or even local government that says people below the minimum voting age don't pay tax, and countries that disenfranchise (some) felons never exempt them from taxes as a result.

    "No taxation without representation" was a stupid slogan when it was coined, and it's never been applied by someone who used it.

    You could apply it the other way and say anyone who pays tax gets to vote. Which would be quite cool in these days of international online shopping, I'd get to vote in the UK, US, Germany as well as China and could pretty much choose which places I wanted to vote in.

    916:

    Pumped hydro doesn't scale but iron flow batteries are very interesting. ESS has the best technology I've seen so far. (I dug through them a bit in my own blog recently: https://landley.net/notes-2022.html#16-07-2022 ).

    They're big and heavy and their round-trip efficiency is only about 75%, but container batteries full of iron, water, road salt, a little vinegar, and a bunch of PVC piping can be churned out by the thousands with a big enough factory. And this US company is building factories in Spain and Australia and so on as fast as they can.

    Shipping containers can stack 8 high, but they're mostly pushing local batteries as a solution to the grid not being big enough. (One container battery for every 10 houses, charge them from the grid overnight and then discharge them during the day, or vice-versa with rooftop solar.)

    917:

    Charlie said: What you don't see is a statistical breakdown of all the other incidents in which the Tesla autopilot fails or requires a human override.

    You're assigning a position I don't hold. I'm not saying that Tesla are perfect. I'm not even saying that they're better than human drivers. I am arguing against the proposition that they're "programmed" with a brittle set of rules and are unable to respond to things like a 4-way stop where the other drivers don't always follow the rules. I supplied a video of a Tesla doing exactly that. They don't freeze up and wait until the sun expands when confronted with that.

    918:

    Charlie Stross

    I was aware that link was 2012... if I'd dropped the full set of the day's gleaning you as host would have justifiably deleted the post...

    it was one example dating back far, far enough that the outcome is demonstrative the underlying policies are flawed... shortsighted is least impolite term... destructive to humans and harmful to society... and BOHICA as as survivors of military service would say ... because yeah here it comes again... ending up with hundreds of thousands of under-educated, poorly socialized and badly nourished teenagers is a slow mode of civilization collapse... here in New York City we barely survived the crack epidemic when there (almost) came a tipping point when the police started to 'blindspot' any crime where there was no blood spilled because it was too much hassle doing paperwork and court time and getting yelled at by politically focused senior officers angry at spiking statistics... criminals always gauge the tripwire, the threshold which gets them arrested... back in those worst days of crack epidemic there was a shitload of 'minor' felonies which did not lead to arrest... we actually had outbreaks of typhoid due to human excrement from people squatting between cars and folks stepping in it...

    ...and now it is going to be your turn as British urban centers rot and teenagers start turning feral just ignore basic laws of sanitation along with robbery

    919:

    Poul-Henning Kamp said: For me the "Ok, we're done here..." moment was the video of a Tesla being very confused by the truck in front hauling traffic lights.

    I'd agree if meat brains didn't ever fail. I worked for a company that did some traffic control as part of its normal work. Though I was in the office, we all got accident reports discussed at monthly catchup meetings. One of the accidents was that the crew were loading the gear back on the truck. One of the guys picked up the Stop/Slow paddle and put it in the truck. As he did so a driver coming from the other side of the road, spotted it (though it was upside down), slammed on the brakes and was killed instantly by the semi trailer truck that was following.

    Humans get confused too. That doesn't mean they have no intelligence. Indeed it's probably a sign of intelligence.

    If you're going to write off Tesla self driving because it was confused, you really have to write off all human drivers as unintelligent too (which it not without it's merits as a position).

    920:

    a demonstrated comprehension of how the world works

    Why are your examples all of people you think demonstrate an incomprehension? Using the negative standard you'd end up with very young voters since people would be increasingly likely to lose the franchise as they get older.

    Positive "voter exams" have been tried, but they almost all seem to have been used as tools of disenfranchisement. The (in)famous Australian dictation test springs to mind.

    921:

    Teslas self-driving problem is that they are restricted by managment fiat to try and solve the problem using only cameras.

    That is probably possible, since, well, humans basically rely on vision for this problem, so that is an existence proof right there. It's also absolutely a strategy that is going to come in dead last when competing with competitors willing to give their cars incredibly detailed maps and laser range finders to work with. Honestly, I expect the first actually auto-math-igcal autos to run on that and calling remote human help when they encounter a problem utterly outside their context. Which will probably be a fun job for the people in the data center.. "... yes, that is a road blocked by a flaming truck ... Reroute while I call it in to emergency services"

    922:

    I agree with you that voter exams are unlikely to work, and I think the whole group of ideas here is not useful. What I would like to see is a provision in the Constitution (or similar document of any nation) which makes it possible to challenge any existing law on a scientific or factual basis. That would give rationality some teeth.

    923:

    Some further driving anecdotes about driving encounters with wildlife from Aotearoa that are likely to rattle the electronic brains of any self driving AI. (Many of these are from west coast of the South Island where roads are generally less well travelled and wildlife can be more common).

    Sometimes farmers will relocate flocks of sheep between paddocks on different sides of the road - and frequently have to travel some distance down the road. Much less common these days than previously. Sheep are skittish and don't like cars.

    Also, similar but with dairy cows. Not so skittish and much less frightened of cars, but also less inclined to move. Many farmers have now installed underpasses. (Also cows are inclined to decorate a road with effluent that is picked up and sticks to the car and sensors/lights. Also great if you then park the car on a warm part day in a town/city supermarket car park).

    Rabbits when crossing the road - generally at dusk - see your vehicle coming and then try and run away from you as fast as possible - and generally down the road in front of you. Typically they don't outrun the vehicle and it doesn't end well for the rabbit. Possums have a different strategy - they stop and freeze - hence "possum in the headlights" - but the outcome is generally the same. Many roads in some parts of Aotearoa are partly re-paved with possums. And then there are the hawks who feed on the remains - but these are mostly smart enough to fly off before they encounter a car. Evolution at work?

    Then there are wekas (and cats) - their strategy is about 50% of the time to just to run straight across the road - maybe with their eyes closed.

    Most unexpected situation I encountered occurred within 500m of where I live in Christchurch. A female duck sprinted out of a driveway and across the road - closely pursued by about six male ducks (in early spring). Quite amusing in hindsight.

    And then there is the reason why many utes, trucks and buses in rural areas of Oz have what they call 'roo bars...'cos they just bounce across the road in rural parts in straight lines ignoring traffic - and frequently in small groups.

    924:

    I suspect that the birds are much better at dealing with high speeds. Even a bird which isn't terribly fast can dive at car-like or greater speeds.

    925:

    Roos have a counter-intuitive dodge strategy... they assume the predator is going to jink when they do, so they fake a step one way they dodge the other way. Since cars don't zig with them, the zag leaves them right in front of it. Ooops.

    Still, beats the wombat strategy: just stand there. Who the fuck messes with a wombat? Which is fine if you're a two tonne diprotodon but doesn't work so well for a 10kg one.

    926:

    Thomas Jørgensen said: Teslas self-driving problem is...

    I don't know where I'm going wrong here. The proposition I'm arguing against is "car navigating city streets...it’s beyond the capabilities of modern AI." and I'm simply using disproof by example. ie, "look, here's one navigating city streets"

    I'm not arguing the following:

    Teslas are perfect

    Teslas never make mistakes

    Teslas are a general strong AI

    Teslas are a general godlike AI

    Teslas AI is complete

    Tesla AI is the best possible solution to driving a car

    Tesla AI is the best possible solution to any problem

    One example of a Tesla successfully negotiating with a human over right of way means its able to carry on a conversation about any subject.

    I like Elon Musk

    I want to be Elon Musk

    I envy Elon Musk.

    Elon Musk is without problems

    Elon Musk understands everything

    What I am saying:

    AI already exists.

    Consumers are already using it

    AI can perform some tasks

    If you think AI is only a possibility, and that it remains at least a decade in the future, you're not keeping up. It's here now.

    927:

    911 - You'd be one dire programmer if you lived in California and didn't write an autopilot rules for a standard situation like a 4-way stop. These rules bo not apply in every state of the USA, or, indeed in every other nation. I suggest you research the driving laws for where the video is shot before being impressed by the car's handling of standard situations in 1/50 of nation.

    916 - Cruachan can supply 440MW and Dinorwig 1728MW. Either (or both) can black start the National Grid in theory. How is this "not scaling"?

    928:

    possible to challenge any existing law on a scientific or factual basis

    That's fine for "we deem the value of pi to be three" where there's a clear scientific consensus not just of the wrongness, but of to consequences. For "there is some evidence that human brains aren't fully mature until about age 25" ... yes, and? What recommendations follow from that, and what are the trade-offs? Those are questions that are essentially political and need to be answered politically. There's a lot of "scientific" truths that can be applied, from "sterilise the morons" to "people in jail can't commit crimes" where we don't generally like the answers.

    In many countries people can and do go to court to make scientific arguments about legislation, and often win. What winning means is generally a political question, whether that be the recent decision in Aotearoa that disenfranchising under 18 year olds is inconsistent with the bill of rights, or the decision in Australia that a new coal mine violates the interests of people under 40. Both cases are just a heads up to parliament that they should do something, they have no real legal force.

    Where we see courts overruling elected governments the results are not always pretty, with the US giving a recent example of the problem. "Forced birth or suicide" is not a choice 10 year old girls should have to make... although interestingly having the government take your body to carry a surrogate pregnancy does not seem to count as slavery.

    929:

    Giving more power to the US courts is a terrible idea given the extent they have been infiltrated by the Federalist Society.

    Also just in general. Rule by judges is not a good idea.

    The more general problem is that democracy works better with an informed electorate and the fourth estate lies in ruins, with much of what remains zombie sockpuppets propped up by billionaires pushing agendas.

    What I personally would like to see happen is for the nations of europe to take some money.. and some people .. from the covert intelligence agencies and build a truely top notch news service under the EU banner. (Mostly because the EU probably couldn't agree on an agenda to push in a thousand years, so it should default to truth, or something like it)

    One that insists that their reporters have actual domain expertise and not just a degree in journalism and pays for some goddamn in-depth investigating. Science reporting by people with subject matter degrees, please and thank you, economic reporters with forensic accounting training. and so forth.

    930:

    "car navigating city streets...it’s beyond the capabilities of modern AI." and I'm simply using disproof by example

    I don't think that proposition is being advanced by anyone. We can all see cars navigating streets, we're arguing about whether they can do so safely in the general case, and often about what the standard should be for "safely". Luckily many self-driving car advocates claim that "better than a human driver" is the appropriate standard and since that hasn't been met it should be an easy win. Sadly many of said advocates prefer a statistical proof, quite literally "count the deaths and compare".

    On that front Tesla do quite well, BTW, because their cars are electric and thus they kill many, many fewer people. OTOH if we compare them to electric cars driven by humans they're not great.

    I note that Tesla's have the slightly difficult exception coding in at a very deep level "the most important thing is never to harm Elon Musk, or allow Elon Musk to come to harm"...

    931:

    Not all of them are. Some - such as the weka don't fly. The ducks in the duck anecdote ran across the road rather than flying - their minds(?) maybe weren't on flying.

    Plus I have seen ducks and pukeko take off across the road in front of cars (or in one case a truck) and then get clobbered by the windscreen on the vehicle.

    Some birds just do not or are too heavy to gain height quickly. In the truck incident which was driving slowly - in a city situation - the pukeko took off diagonally across the road from the side of the road, hit the truck's windscreen, fell onto the ground in front of the truck and was run over. (About 5 metres from a pedestrian crossing where I was waiting about to cross - makes you think...).

    932:

    David L @ 790:

    [...]

    As to TVs, into the mid 60s we had a big B&W box. Tube was a squarish thing with very rounded corners. Maybe 20". And dad had an antenna on the roof with a rotor. The "local" station was maybe 20 miles to the transmitter. NBC. It was 50 miles to the other station. CBS. Both came in decently with the rotor antenna.

    I don't know if we had an antenna on the roof in that first house where I remember us haveing a TV. We did have one in the house we moved into just before I started the first grade, but no rotor.

    [...]

    The 3 major network affiliates were VHF. The PBS station and that one in St. Louis were UHF.

    All of the TV stations I remember growing up in Durham were VHF. The UHF stations only came here after Congress (and the FCC) mandated that all TV sets sold after 1964 would have "all channel tuners" (i.e. VHF and UHF). The first UHF station I remember was WRDU-TV (UHF channel 28) that went on the air 4 Nov 1968.

    It turns out there was a earlier UHF channel 28 station in Raleigh, WNAO-TV, that broadcast from 12 July 1953 to 31 December 1957 when it went off the air due to being unable to compete with the newer, more accessible VHF stations in the area. "The fraction of new TV receivers that were factory-equipped with all-channel tuners dropped from 20% in 1953 to 9.0% by 1958". The old TV I remember us having in the 50s did not have a UHF receiver.

    We got a NEW TV in 1964, a color TV and that did have a UHF tuner, although there were no local UHF stations at the time.

    933:

    It's also absolutely a strategy that is going to come in dead last when competing with competitors willing to give their cars incredibly detailed maps and laser range finders to work with

    Laser range finders, radars, sonars, and all similar active sensors have one common problem, which I believe is why Tesla decided against them. Active sensors interfere with each other. A laser rangefinder is great on its own; it becomes a nightmare when bunch of other laser rangefinders are shining around at all angles. Some of which may be built by a different manufacturer, so solutions such as cars automatically agreeing to use different wavelengths can't be relied on.

    934:

    because their cars are electric and thus they kill many, many fewer people.

    What do you mean? All other things being equal, what makes an electric car safer than an ICE car? (Yes, I know "all other things" are not equal)

    935:

    I'll see your wekas and raise you with what we call "little hoppy things" -- wallabies and such like. Totally random behaviour when they are confronted by a car approaching. They may: hop along the fenceline next to the road until you get past them; start hopping in one direction, stop and go back the other direction; start to dash across the road, change their mind, turn back and then do it anyway or, my least favourite, suddenly make a run for it across the road just as you come even with them. I once, slowing down and from a safe distance, watched an emu running along the side of a road trying to out run my car and then very suddenly making a sharp turn -- fortunately away from the road.

    936:

    As I recall here in middle North Carolina, USA, we had two stations until ABC joined in.

    Our TV only had a VHF tuner but it had a knockout in the side and a wiring harness to install a UHF tuner. When we got PBS stations on UHF, Dad bought the tuner and opened up the TV to install it.

    937:

    Pollution, probably. Electric cars especially in urban areas emit virtually no NO2 or particulates. In Australia the pollution is moved out of the cities to the coal-fired power stations used to charge electric cars, at least for those folks who don't have IGMFY solar panels on the roof of their McMansion and a Powerwall in their four-car garage.

    938:

    And this is why you do not try and drive at high speed past a wedge tailed eagle on the side of the road. They will most likely take off, very slowly, just as you get close to them and if they turn towards you all you will see, just before your windscreen likely disintegrates, is a wing span wider than said windscreen... Happened to a friend of mine who now knows why we recommend slowing down and tooting your horn to get their attention.

    939:

    I've had a similar situation involving a pheasant, and a truck which "put it up" whilst I was overtaking the truck on a 2 lane dual carriageway. The bird made just enough height to be struck by my windscreen, and I had no warning of its takeoff (the truck not being transparent).

    940:

    Uncle Stinky @ 823:

    This from Ars Technica is entirely unrelated to anything currently being discussed here at the moment. It is, however, utterly bizarre and horrible. But who can honestly say they don't want to read about a renegade nurse?

    Elder abuse seems kind of weak for something that appears to have led directly to the man's death. There should be at least one person charged with manslaughter, if not more than one.

    941:

    It's not difficult to design a laser range finder that can pick out its own signal from any level of such noise. Just.. modulate the laser.

    Lasers that encode signals are so standard it probably isn't even a meaningful price difference. The dot that is singing your own song back to you is yours. The ones that aren't doing that, are not.

    942:

    Dave Moore @ 831:

    For those of you working about global warming destroying agriculture, here's an article to consider from the Washington Post on what the Dutch are doing. They have Science Fiction agriculture.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2022/netherlands-agriculture-technology/

    If you get hung up by the Washington Post's STUPID paywall (like I do), here's the link through "Archive Today":

    Cutting-edge tech made this tiny country a major exporter of food

    943:

    Pollution, probably. Electric cars especially in urban areas emit virtually no NO2 or particulates

    Exactly. Although they do emit particulates because they have tyres, they emit much less because they don't have exhaust. The UK has seen some court cases recently on the topic.

    Worth remembering that as the crash toll reduces the share of excess deaths from pollution grows (especially when the pollution is increasing as a result of cheating the emissions standards. Ahem). Viz, if you halve the crash toll but keep the pollution toll the same... pollution is now a larger fraction of the death toll. This is why some places are now looking at the pollution toll.

    It's a good problem to have but it's still a problem.

    944:

    SNIFF
    I had to look up Pukeko -it's a giant moorhen ...

    945:

    RE: limiting voting rights and other political wonkery.

    First, how many people here want to align themselves with those in the US who are trying to disenfranchise as many voters as possible (the Republicans)? Who here likes Jim Crow-style literacy tests? Anyone want to talk to Blacks, Indians, or Aboriginal people, racial, and gender minorities around the globe about how science can be bent to follow politics?

    Yeah. There's a lot of ugly and ongoing history there.

    Given how much we've stolen from their futures, I do kinda wish kids these days had a bigger voice in politics. But only kinda, because the ones I've talked with are only slightly less clueless as I was at their age. And they need to get clued in in an effing hurry. But I still think that getting them to find time to vote is pretty necessary, regardless.

    Anyway, here are my dreams for improving American politics, all of which have :P=-0.1 of happening.

    --Amend the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution to read something like "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

    --Amend the Constitution to say "money is not speech, corporations, trusts, and similar entities can never have voting rights in elections, election advertising is capped (following some sane country's rules), and election advertising cannot start before the filing deadline for an election, which deadline can be no more than 300 days before the election."

    --A genie gives me functional, healthy, immortality and my very own Vingian Bobbler to give timeouts to whatever annoys me.

    946:

    the fourth estate lies in ruins

    Worth noting that Murdoch has lost two elections in Australia in the last year. Apparently no amount of pushing will get people to vote against their own interests if those are sufficiently obvious. Well, get Australians to vote... although the recent partial loss for Murdoch in the US gives some hope.

    Murdoch's puppet will resign (again) after leading his chosen party to defeat (again) in Victoria:

    https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2022/11/28/liberal-party-losing-alan-kohler/

    Meanwhile Scott Morrison is reprogrammed after losing the federal election by famous sensible person Jordan Peterson...

    https://www.sbs.com.au/news/the-feed/article/controversial-figure-jordan-peterson-heads-to-the-capital/v3r1gk9rj

    947:

    Those are giant? Scary thought.

    We have them in Australia too, but people don't have a common name for them other "bird what lives in swamps" sometimes with "it's blue" or "it's purple" added. {eyeroll}.

    They're smaller than an ibis or pelican, two birds they're often seen hanging around with. But bigger than most ducks, I suppose. And weirdly given their general habits, they're not flightless.

    https://www.birdlife.org.au/bird-profile/purple-swamphen

    948:

    ilya187 @ 881:

    I completely agree with you about minimum voting age -- in modern society 16 is far too immature and probably so is 18 (in Athenian Republic 16 was plenty adult with adult responsibilities). However I think there should be a maximum voting age as well -- about 50. You should not have a say in policies if you are not going to live long enough to suffer from their unintended (or worse, fully intended) side effects. BTW, I am 56.

    I totally disagree. If you're still compos mentis enough to get out of bed and toddle down to the polling place, you should have the right vote. And I think age 18 is just about right (on average) for a minimum.

    In the U.S. one of the primary impetuses behind the 26th Amendment was the DRAFT. At age 18 you could be drafted into the Army and sent halfway around the world to kill or be killed, but you couldn't vote for or against the government that was sending you ... (didn't affect me because I was already 21 - the previous voting age in North Carolina - before the 26th Amendment was ratified & I had already successfully navigated my year in the draft lottery pool by that time - it would be another five years before I VOLUNTEERED for military service).

    But I do agree age 16 is probably a bit young for voting.

    OTOH, I thought raising the national drinking age in the United States to 21 was a swindle. Again, if you're old enough to be drafted, you should be old enough to drink. That's MY OPINION!

    And the way they went about doing it was even more of a swindle. Instead of passing a law to raise the drinking age, the Reagan Administration had Congress include a provision in the annual Highway Appropriations Bill that told states they had better raise the drinking age to 21 or have their share of highway funding cut off ... this at a time when the states were still recovering from the aftermath of the 1974 OPEC oil embargo.

    949:

    Apropos of voting ages.

    One thing that doesn't get mentioned is that 16 and 17 year olds would make up quite a small proportion of the enfranchised population. Therefore, their having the vote can only make much of a difference if the rest of the voters are close to evenly split, and the young voters are solidly on on side or another.

    So the young voters cannot push through policies that older and supposedly wiser heads don't want a bar of. But they might be able to get some of the more short-sighted "If it doesn't work, try harder," policies stamped on, particularly if they are bearing a lot of the cost of trying harder.

    JHomes.

    950:

    NecroMoz: deanimator of the undead quoted me, quoting icehawk "car navigating city streets...it’s beyond the capabilities of modern AI." and I'm simply using disproof by example

    I don't think that proposition is being advanced by anyone.

    Bzzzzt

    It's literally me quoting someone. You can't quote me quoting and then claim that no one is saying the exact thing I just quoted.

    Well I suppose you can. You did.

    But I'm not sure where that leaves discussions.

    What if I just decide to claim that no one here thinks the exact thing you just said you think?

    Hetero said: "One possible interpretation is that they had a lot of people very obviously having meetings and making Very Important Decisions. Keeping those people present and engaged was important. Meanwhile semi-autonomous subgroups did things."

    As we've both noted, their decision-making process is vulnerable to charismatic/authoritarian leaders taking over by simply going off and doing things.

    I don't think anyone here thinks that lots of people are having meetings.

    951:

    But there's a whole range of "legally important ages", from 'old enough to pay tax' (zero, or possibly pre-born persons can also), 'old enough to be a parent (legally zero in the USA and some other places, but in practice more like 5), 'old enough to marry' (as low as 7 for girls in some places), 'old enough to consent to sex' (12 in some countries), 'old enough to be convicted' (8-16 in most countries), right up to 'old enough to be elected' (30 for US senate, 35 for president I think). There's no one age that we can state conclusively is THE age of maturity.

    952:

    A recentish article in the discussion about lowering the voting age by David Runciman, which appeared in the Guardian about a year ago, argues for lowering the voting age to 6. Whether it's seen as an ambit claim, a reductio ad absurdum or just a lens through which to look at the surrounding issues (spoilers: it's mostly the last one), there has certainly been some ensuing good-faith debate. The Australian radio programme/podcast the Minefield considered all three, and went with "ambit claim", with the panelists more or less agreeing that 12 would be more realistic (and that 16 is so timid as to be missing the point).

    The issues, especially the ones around capacity (which turns out to be a concept that nearly everyone is quite sure they know what it means, but most people find very challenging to define other than in terms of they know it when they see it), are complex enough that once you get past the "obvious" reaction, you're more or less obliged to adopt a position of agnosticism while you consider them. I don't think I've personally found a way through them, but I can say with conviction that the "obvious" response is probably wrong.

    953:

    I would characterise my political position at age 16 - such as it was - as "utterly clueless dickhead with no fucking idea of what actually matters or how anything really works".

    As opposed to older people? Like the woman who voted for Brexit because she hates Eurovision? Or Boebert, Herschel, Greene, et al? Or the Convoy organizers? Or the bulk of comments in any newspaper online story?

    I have relatives who refuse to get Moderna vaccines "because they're made in China" (hint: they aren't), who believe that masks cause autism… They aren't noticeably less clueless than 16-year-olds (whom I've spent three decades teaching so I have recent experience there).

    954:

    "capacity" is where my "DGAF as long as everyone gets tested" comes from.

    I still love the media peeps who ran round the streets of Australia asking people questions from the citizenship test. Many self-proclaimed citizens didn't know the answers. Ooops, "get in the van".

    In theory I favour a political comprehension test, but in practice I know that can't possibly work. If for no other reason than that the answers are necessarily political, and evil-minded test-setters would inevitably use that to disenfranchise low-information voters of the wrong inclination. Or inevitably by using it as a literacy and language test... make it available only in English in countries like Australia, watch certain groups fail it in large numbers.

    955:

    A: Don't crash. B: If crashing cannot physically be avoided, pick the crash that involves the lowest speed collision.

    This is very hard to be sued over because it is obviously the best damage mitigation strategy.

    When your AI car hits a crowded bus queue at 20 km/h than another car at 30 km/h and this strategy is revealed, there will be serious flood risk from lawyers salivating for a chance to sue the programmers…

    956:

    That should have been:

    When your AI car hits a crowded bus queue at 20 km/h rather than another car at 30 km/h

    957:

    Hmm, purple swamphens are definitely bigger than the moorhens I usually see around them, but I wouldn't have thought of them as bigger than ducks, at least not the Pacific black ducks that seem to be most common around here.

    I'd put the hens in that category of "birds that can fly but prefer not to". Moorhens in particular like to flap just enough so they can run across the surface of the water with the pads on their feet splayed, while squawking furiously, the message usually taken to mean something like "I say, I am sure I just felt an eel brush against my leg".

    Pacific black ducks, in contrast, live up to their latin (Anas superciliosa) name by being coolly supercompetent/superconfident about everything they do...

    958:

    I'm sorry, I mis-thunk. You're right.

    I still disagree with the general proposition that "getting from A to B is all that matters". I suspect icehawk does too, but that's not what he said.

    959:

    "If an autonomous car is given a collision preference list based on minimizing the collision energy or force"

    I think your list is an example of the main mistake a lot of people make about autonomous cars - you write as if they are AI. They're not. Really, really not.

    The autonomous car doesn't know what a person is, what a dog is, what a SUV is, what a car is (though it comes closer for "SUV" and "car").

    It has volume, distance and velocity. It can tell a smooth-sided thing (probable vehicle) from a complex-surfaced thing (probable not-vehicle). It looks for clues that identify lanes and edges of roads.

    It can prefer to "avoid hitting fast-moving big things" (where "big" means "high volume").
    It cannot easily prefer hitting a shrub to hitting a pram. And whether the complex-surfaced thing it's going to hit is a shrub (mostly leaves and air, low mass), a person in a wheelchair (medium mass) or a boulder (high mass) is a really hard call for it.

    This is where the whole "trolley problem" angst about self-driving cars was a bit surreal. The car isn't doing probabilistic math around how many people are going to die, because it doesn't even know that people exist. (The "trolley problem" angst for self-driving cars is also hilarious because the important trolley problem issue with cars has already happened: one of the things that sells SUVS is that they're slightly safer for those in them, despite being vastly more dangerous for everyone else)

    960:

    I've had a couple of arguments with other drivers who have swerved at great risk to themselves and passengers when a small animal runs across the highway. Sad for the squirrel or mouse but not worth killed us all.

    And then there's people like this woman:

    Czornobaj was sentenced in December 2014 to 90 days in jail to be served on weekends, three years' probation and 240 hours of community service, as well as receiving a 10-year driving ban.

    In June 2010, the woman had stopped her car in the left-hand lane of a provincial highway in Candiac, south of Montreal, to help the ducks cross the road. That's when a motorcycle carrying Andre Roy and his teenage daughter Jessie slammed into her idling vehicle, killing both.

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/emma-czornobaj-loses-appeal-1.4152387

    Czornobaj agrees that a prison sentence would not serve justice in her case.

    "It's terrifying for sure. I don't see how it would help. I don't think it's somewhere I belong," she said.

    "Of course, it was a mistake. But that's it. It was an accident… It's hard to accept that people see me as a criminal now. It's not easy that it can't be seen as a mistake," she said.

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/emma-czornobaj-says-prison-is-not-where-she-belongs-1.2709133


    Note for Brits: the left lane is the overtaking lane here.

    961:

    Charlie Stross @ 890:

    (For USAn readers: the Eurovision Song Contest famously predates the EEC, never mind the EU, and contestants include such clearly European nations as Israel and Australia. It has nothing to do with the EU whatsoever, except for having the word "European" in its name. Yet this clearly well-informed voter cited it as a reason for wanting the UK to leave the EU.)

    FWIW, the Eurovision Song Contest does sometimes produce a winner in the real world - songs or artists that went on to pop music success not only in the E.U. & U.K., but in the U.S.:

    1974 ABBA - Waterloo

    1976 Brotherhood of Man - Save Your Kisses For Me

    1988 Céline Dion - Ne partez pas sans moi

    There are some others that I liked, but I don't know how successful they've been after Eurovision - maybe in Europe, but nobody I know in the U.S. has ever heard of them.

    2000 Olsen Brothers - Fly On The Wings Of Love Loved this song even before I saw him playing the Rickenbacker 12-String ...

    2010 Lena - Satellite She just looks like she's having so much fun in the video.

    You can find most of the songs on YouTube. I wish the U.S. could have an entry in the contest ... but I guess they'd have to change the name. Still the U.S. is closer to Europe than Australia & they get an entry. Turkey is technically in Asia and they get an entry.

    962:

    I remember that case. Somewhere above I mentioned my mistake in stopping for pedestrians while driving in Martinique about 30 years ago. To my knowledge nobody was hurt, and according to the letter of the law I did nothing wrong, but I still did something nobody local expected and it did cause a crash involving multiple vehicles.

    963:

    "It's not difficult to design a laser range finder that can pick out its own signal from any level of such noise. Just.. modulate the laser. "

    Yes, pseudorandom modulation + correlation for ranging has been used in military radars for decades and there's no reason it shouldn't be used for lasers. For extra security, modulate it way faster than strictly needed for ranging and it becomes even more unjammable and more secure. Cf. the B-2's SAR and the [REDACTED].

    964:

    Charlie Stross @ 904:

    It depends what work the elected officials are doing.

    We have some very young -- by US standards -- legislators, but I defy anyone to say that Mhairi Black MP isn't doing a good job. She's 28 now, but at the time she was elected -- in May 2015 -- she hadn't graduated yet. (Her degree, incidentally, is in Politics and Public Policy, which undoubtedly means she's better equipped than any number of Tory former corporate marketing flaks.) If you're USAn, your go-to equivalent is probably AOC, if you can imagine her being a representative for a US equivalent of the SNP (significant minority party in the House of Representatives, to the left of the House Democrats, who detest them -- as a rival for the same territory).

    But there's a difference between being a member of a legislative assembly and being a minister or other holder of an executive office.

    The U.S. Constitution sets minimum ages for Federal Offices - 25 for the House, 30 for the Senate and 35 for the Presidency.

    Florida just elected a 25yo to the House - Maxwell Frost elected as the first Gen Z member of Congress

    And, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will turn 35 on 13 Oct 2024, so she will be eligible to be elected President or Vice President in the next Federal Election.

    966:

    I’m pretty sure nobody involved in car auto drive is writing anything even vaguely like “at a 4-way stop in California do this, if in Turin do that”. It’s a pattern matching thing much more abstract.

    I used to live around San Fran and quite a few junctions in that area caused me a great deal of confusion. I rather suspect only an AI will ever work them out! It’s always amazed me how a nation that appears to love driving cars so much can’t build good ones, can’t build decent roads and sure as hell can’t signpost them sensibly. I swear there are junctions on the 101 that only have a sign after that says “tough luck sucker”.

    967:

    which makes it possible to challenge any existing law on a scientific or factual basis. That would give rationality some teeth.

    Tell me how you keep the "judges" of such a system from being some who decide to go with "alternative" facts?

    968:

    Frankly, I'd abolish voting age qualifications entirely. If someone wants to vote we should let 'em, regardless of age. Six year olds, if sufficiently informed? Sure -- and same with centenarians.

    I quite like this. Caveat is how it works for jurisdictions with compulsory registration/voting (first estimate is that it probably doesn't). But they are different approaches to the same problem, to a certain level of approximation anyway.

    969:

    PS

    Diverting to the ground you're saying i was covering, (where successfully = perfectly or at some arbitrary level set by someone)

    Moz said: Luckily many self-driving car advocates claim that "better than a human driver" is the appropriate standard

    Many? Most? Some? [citation needed]

    Tesla (who have the data) have set the appropriate standard at more than 10 times safer. They say they've passed your standard by a margin large enough to be sure they've passed it. I think they said they weren't going to let the public try the beta version until it's at least twice, but I can't find a reference for that so maybe I inferred it in the context of an interview and a larger discussion.

    Initial figures from the early beta testing indicates that FSD may be between 100 and 1000 times safer than an average driver. The usual reply is that FSD disconnects a few milliseconds before the crash, so they're cooking the books. It's actually 5 seconds. Any crash that happens if it was on FSD within 5 seconds counts as an FSD crash. That's a very long time in a driving situation (a few commented here that 2 seconds is a safe margin)

    That might not be acceptable if you filter the world through an "I hate Elon" mask.

    Perhaps if you instead think of FSD, not as Elon's achievement, but rather the output of a team of creative people held hostage by an evil tyrant you might get a more balanced view?

    We can quibble about if it's "more than twice" or "over 100 times" safer, but either way, if humans are acceptably safe, then FSD is already there. And if we maintain that "safe driving" requires artifical intelligence beyond our abilities then we're in a paradox. There are cars out there that are driving around, they are as or safer than humans but they can't exist.

    So far this is always solved by saying "this task is obviously so complex that only an intelligent being could do it." some time later... "Look, here's an AI doing it"

    "Ah, turns out that task doesn't require intelligence after all"

    970:

    I'm of the opinion that Clueless can be relative My mother's boyfriend is in his late 50s and he is far from Clueless I believe the words street smarts would be appropriate but he's artery clueless about how one enters the modern job market in this day & age your far more likely to find a job sitting on the couch than going door to door asking for one I have no experience or references other than with family it took me almost a year just to get a temp position doing nightfill at a supermarket now I have experience that won't be immediately discounted as being biased because it's family it will be considerably easier to get positions in the future but in the time between me exiting politic and me finally getting that position we had some spectacular arguments he persistently refused to understand that you don't just a walk in somewhere these days you only come in if you're invited and if you hang around anyway you're more likely to be arrested then be offered a job Of course I'm sure that he could rigail you with all the things that I'm clueless about and I'm sure he would be right about two-thirds of them

    971:

    Therefore, their having the vote can only make much of a difference if the rest of the voters are close to evenly split, and the young voters are solidly on on side or another.

    From the US.

    Hold my beer.

    972:

    although the recent partial loss for Murdoch in the US gives some hope.

    Murdoch in the US is running away from Trump. (Trump's MAGA's are not but ...) The Wall Street Journal and NY Post have been hard on him for a while. But after the last election they really came down on him. New York Post had a bottom of the front page smallish headline after he announced for President in 2024 of something like "Florida man announces something: See Page 26".

    973:

    Cheers.

    I do a bit of point belabouring in a following post, but I wrote that PS while doing 5 other things and having a family crisis, so I didn't see your reply. So please ignore it if you can.

    974:

    That is not one collision. That is picking ten collisions over one. Which would be summed, so it picks the car. Or ideally, a verge. Actually, almost always a verge. Remember, rule one is "don't crash".

    975:

    Not that giant - about the size of a pigeon with longer legs. (The babies are particularly cute - look like a pompom on oversize legs... https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/k82i9m/baby_p%C5%ABkeko_are_built_totally_out_of_proportion/)

    976:

    That is not one collision. That is picking ten collisions over one. Which would be summed, so it picks the car.

    So your algorithm is no longer "pick the lowest speed collision". And it's smart enough to realize that it will not stop after hitting the first person in the queue, so has to include all the others, but also knows that it will stop after hitting one car so it doesn't have to add the other cars.

    Suddenly it's not looking as simple as "If crashing cannot physically be avoided, pick the crash that involves the lowest speed collision."

    977:

    Just for fun, here's the bar that self driving cars are intending to jump. It's not a high bar.

    https://youtu.be/2QF3XIszGbI

    978:

    We also have them in NZ - they are considered a pest and as a country we would prefer them eradicated. See https://www.mpi.govt.nz/biosecurity/long-term-biosecurity-management-programmes/wallabies-controlling-their-numbers/#:~:text=Five%20species%20of%20wallabies%20were,country%20and%20have%20adapted%20well. Note: I am referring to the animal that looks like a small kanagroo (about the size of a medium dog) - not members of the Australian National Rugby team. Although...

    Also, this raises another thought about programming the AI to watch out for animals. Consider the possum (specifically the "Bush tailed possum") that we have as a noxious pest in Aotearoa. 99.99% of the population here would be ok with the autodriving AI ignoring their existance and drive right through them - with some percentage probably encouraging that behaviour. In the land of Oz, I believe they are protected and such behaviour would not be acceptable. Which would mean different AI programming there. Note: they are generally about the size of a domestic cat.

    And one reason why the possum was introduced from Oz into Aotearoa - their fur. These days it is generously blended with merino wool for high end jerseys/pullovers and woolen jackets. (The following youtube video is a good - but somewhat gruesome - example of using a "possum plucker" to harvest their fur. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTbmiBfSMVw&ab_channel=BryanRitchie).

    979:

    Who defines the "sufficiently informed" criteria, and who tests the voters comply with it - and how often. Does the "sufficiently informed" criteria test then apply to the entire voting population? I see a few issues in the implementation here...

    980:

    I'm not sure about that, but not electing judges as Charlie suggests is probably a good start.

    981:

    Troutwaxer @ 922:

    I agree with you that voter exams are unlikely to work, and I think the whole group of ideas here is not useful. What I would like to see is a provision in the Constitution (or similar document of any nation) which makes it possible to challenge any existing law on a scientific or factual basis. That would give rationality some teeth.

    The problem with voter exams (aka Literacy Tests) is the way they were specifically designed here in the U.S. to disenfranchise non-white citizens - I won't say non-white "voters", since the whole damn purpose was to prevent non-white citizens from voting.

    982:

    Yes, John, I know. That's why I said, "unlikely to work."

    983:

    "911 - You'd be one dire programmer if you lived in California and didn't write an autopilot rules for a standard situation like a 4-way stop."

    In NZ it's one of those "try to get eye contact with the other driver, and if not try to figure out what they're doing" things. Because they're really rare here, so even if you know the law there's a good chance the other driver doesn't.

    In small-town Alberta the drivers at 4-way stops would take turns. I assume that that's what the law actually said (I was a non-driver there), it's certainly how people drove.

    It's a bit like free right turns on red in the US. Whether it's legal and whether people do it aren't completely correlated. (And it matters as a driver if you want to predict the actions of cyclists and pedestrians, who are themselves trying to predict the actions of drivers)

    984:

    I was merely responding to Ilya187's suggestion that I should be disenfranchised just because I might not live another N years where N is >20.

    It sounded rather like it rose from the casual "everyone born pre 1960 is an evil boomer" stereotype, to me.

    Besides which, I'm damned if I take responsibility for the last 40 years. No one I have voted for has ever been elected. Not one! FPTP has disenfranchised millions of people like me and yet Labour and the Tories seem to like it.

    I don't think disenfranchising people for any reason really works as it will always be gamed by someone unscrupulous or racist to try to stay in/get into office. I think I am just pissed off that I am outvoted by people who believe what they read on the front page of the Daily Mail or that Ed Sheeran is a great song writer.

    985:

    RM @ 936:

    As I recall here in middle North Carolina, USA, we had two stations until ABC joined in.

    Our TV only had a VHF tuner but it had a knockout in the side and a wiring harness to install a UHF tuner. When we got PBS stations on UHF, Dad bought the tuner and opened up the TV to install it.

    So, where do you reference "middle North Carolina, USA"?

    I grew up in Durham. I consider that to be the eastern side of "middle North Carolina", aka the North Carolina Piedmont, an area nearly 300 miles (475 km) E-W and 120 miles (193 km) N-S (with the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill "Triangle" in the east, the Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem "Triad" in the middle of the middle & the Charlotte/Mecklenburg County metropolitan area on the west)

    I know the first station in North Carolina was WBTV VHF 3 in Charlotte, NC and the second was WFMY-TV VHF 2 in Greensboro, NC.

    986:

    4-way stops

    In the US it's first come first served, yield to the right, crossing traffic yields (but I think this is more custom), and be polite. (This last one is basically a back off a sudo random amount of time then slowly start forward.

    It's a bit like free right turns on red in the US. Whether it's legal and whether people do it aren't completely correlated.

    I'm fairly certain in the US it is now legal unless stated otherwise. But any accidents where someone is doing so assumes the fault is the stop turn right on red driver.

    Now mostly there's a sign next to the traffic light when you are not allowed. But New York City has signs as you enter either the city or Manhattan saying don't do it. Miss those and you get a ticket. But since it can cost $50 to $200 a day to park a car, I just don't drive there.

    987:

    NecroMoz: deanimator of the undead @ 951:

    There's no one age that we can state conclusively is THE age of maturity.

    What has "THE age of maturity" got to do with the voting age?

    988:

    I am being most careful to maintain two separate categories: those who can't form a sensible opinion because they simply have never had any experience of independent adult life to provide the necessary awareness; and those who can form a sensible opinion because they have had such experience, but show evidence of not having actually done so.

    The existence of the first category is beyond dispute, so it needs to be handled somehow, and in practical terms it is most fairly and uncontroversially handled by setting some fixed and universal age boundary which bears some sensible relationship to the rate at which, on average, humans in the society in question develop. As far as I am concerned the only matter under discussion is whether and how that relationship should be adjusted to make it more sensible.

    All your examples are in the second category, and that category is one which I think must not be considered in deciding the extent of the franchise. If it's allowed to be considered it will be abused, and probably abused up the wazoo.

    (I similarly think that "surveys show that people in a given age group are more/less likely to vote in a manner that we who are discussing it do/don't agree with" is another factor that must not be considered.)

    989:

    I'm not sure about that, but not electing judges as Charlie suggests is probably a good start.

    It's just a slower moving failure mode. The Heritage Foundation in the US decided 50+ years ago to start working out who they wanted on the bench. And while it took 50+ years they mostly got it via Trump. All by appointments.

    There are lots of PhD medical doctors who have narrow views of what is science they can trust and their specialty. Supposedly Dr. Oz (of almost US Senate fame) is a fantastic chest surgeon. If you need to be opened up he's one the best choices around. But the rest of his medical views are a bit fringe to say the least.

    990:

    In Aotearoa we had only one VHF channel until 1970's. The actual channel number varied from region to region.

    I had a school holiday job in mid 1970's working for a TV repair company - my main job was as the person who carried the other end of the (heavy) TV cabinet when they had to be brought into the workshop (or later returned) after the TV could not be fixed during a home visit by the tecnician.

    When the second TV channel started many TV sets "failed" as their channel selectors (mostly turret tuners?) had never been moved since the TV was installed. I soon learnt the basic steps to remove, clean, lubricate and adjust then reinstall the basic channel selectors - most often all they need was some contact cleaner and a bit of "CRC". If this failed to fix them - the actual TV technicion(s) then got involved.

    991:

    The "age of maturity" seems to be at the core of "kids shouldn't be allowed to vote". But sure, if you want to focus on a different arbitrary age criteria go for it.

    I was responding to your 16 is probably a bit young for voting. OTOH, I thought raising the national drinking age where you seemed to see a link with the other ages the legal system thinks are important.

    I'm pointing out that we have a very variable understanding of "old enough" just in legal systems, without bringing in other "old enough" thresholds. The pension age, for example, seems like a nice tidy cut-off for voting... you're now dependent on the state for sustenance so you get the same voting rights as other dependents (none?)

    I don't think there's a clear "scientific" answer to this question, any more than there's equivalent answers to "are Neanderthals people" or "why can you put a dog out of its misery but not a person?". Or what is the correct age to allow people to start using recreational addictive drugs. For some drugs the answer is currently "never" in many places, for others it's "let the parents decide" (because parents absolutely never make poor decisions about addictive drug use?), others have weird limits with odd exceptions (Qatar, for example)

    992:

    Troutwaxer @ 980:

    I'm not sure about that, but not electing judges as Charlie suggests is probably a good start.

    OTOH, under the U.S. Constitution "The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour", i.e. lifetime appointments and I don't think that's working out so well because there are not really any TEETH enforcing the "good Behaviour" ... it's too hard to remove corrupt judges.

    I think it's going to take a Constitutional Amendment to fix it. I would favor appointing judges for the "inferior courts" to fixed terms of 9 years, with the possibility of being appointed to a second term if the judge has been doing a good job.

    I would have Supreme Court Justices appointed to terms of 18 years and stagger the terms so that a new Justice is appointed during each term of Congress (with mandatory up/down confirmation votes so that no one can pull the bullshit Moscow Mitch pulled in 2016 & 2020). Each justice would in turn be the "Chief Justice" during the last two years of his/her term.

    A similar scheme should apply to state courts (State Supreme Courts, Appeals Courts & Superior Courts) - appointed judges with fixed terms of an odd number of years (5 or 7), so that they do NOT become a political football the way they are now; so that they cannot be Gerrymandered like the legislatures.

    I also consider it UN-Constitutional to Gerrymander the legislatures.

    I'm not so concerned about District Courts (which mostly hear petty offenses). I see no reason why they couldn't remain elective.

    993:

    NecroMoz: deanimator of the undead @ 991:

    I was responding to your 16 is probably a bit young for voting. OTOH, I thought raising the national drinking age where you seemed to see a link with the other ages the legal system thinks are important.

    My problem with raising the drinking age was specifically with the DRAFT & with the sleazy back-door way THEY forced the change.

    If they'd raised the DRAFT age to 21 at the same time they raised the drinking age, I'd have had much less problem with it. The sleazy back-door aspect would still bother me, but not so much as the DRAFT age.

    BTW, the U.S. does still maintain the DRAFT, even if they don't currently DRAFT anyone.

    Under current law, all male U.S. citizens between 18 and 25 (inclusive) years of age are required to register within 30 days of their 18th birthdays. In addition, certain categories of non-US citizen men between 18 and 25 living in the United States must register, particularly permanent residents, refugees, asylum seekers, and illegal immigrants. Foreign men lawfully present in the United States who are non-immigrants, such as international students, visitors, and diplomats, are not required to register, so long as they remain in that status. If an alien's non-immigrant status lapses while he is in the United States and under the age of 26, he will be required to register. Failure to register as required is grounds for denying a petition for U.S. citizenship. Currently, citizens who are at least 17 years and 3 months old can pre-register so when they are eligible for registration, their information will automatically be added into the system.

    Who Needs to Register

    994:

    so the "robot revolution" has already happened, but it was virtual, and among humans only a few sysadmins have noticed.

    ... and presumably kept quiet about it, as the cynical (experienced) among us have learned not to screw up a good thing when we see it.

    995:

    On the criminal side of things I'd like to see judges who have minimal experience as both a defense attorney and a prosecutor. Not sure about the civil side. But elected judges are certainly a big no.

    996:

    At last!
    Steam-powered spaceships!

    John S
    Yes, the evil ghosts of "Prohibition" are still stalking the USA, are they not?
    IIRC it is illegal to give you offsprogs a glass of wine, in your own home, if they are under 18/21?
    "Land of the free? What a very bad joke.

    gasdive
    Ah yes, Rufford Ford { LOTS of YouTube of that } - what people do not realise is that there is a DEPTH GAUGE right next to the footway over the ford .... IF it were me & the depth gauge was showing greater than 1 foot, I would think very carefully, even in the Great Green Beast.

    Ah yes, "voter exams" ...
    Back to G & S - "Iolanthe" - Lord Mt.Ararat: To‑night is the second reading of his Bill to throw the Peerage open to Competitive Examination!

    John S
    Sumfink 's gorn 'orribly worng with your #993!

    997:

    "sufficiently informed"

    Hrm, I'd missed that in Charlie's text even though I copied and pasted it. Interpreted as a "test", I'd leave it out. But there's another interpretation - that it's something you do, not a test. So you don't test whether people know stuff, you ensure they have the opportunity to learn stuff. If some of your electors are 6-year-olds, you need to ensure there is information available in a form they can use. See that Runciman article: this is part of the discussion/debate... people argue that it means exposing children to the all the nasty, bitter, misinformation that election campaigns emit, while others argue it means you must make your election campaign materials PG friendly, or @bad_things. It goes both ways too: arguably older people are not currently provided with reliable information in a form they can use. Lots of room for debate in defining a lot of somewhat loaded words, but it's hard to unravel these issues without having that sort of discussion.

    998:

    to challenge any existing law on a scientific or factual basis. That would give rationality some teeth.

    Riiiiight, because bad science, biased peer review, poor quality or selectively massaged or outright falsified data, and prejudiced researchers simply do not exist and will never be brought up in court to try and knock over existing legislation. (In your dreams.)

    Just ask yourself where the term "race science" came from in the first place, and consider how it could be applied in a courtroom, in front of a deeply conservative (because cherry-picked) jury.

    999:

    The geek obsession with trolley problems is very silly. I suppose it gives AI enthusiasts something to do on Reddit. Meanwhile avoiding such situations by traveling at a sensible speed and stopping at the first sign of trouble never seems to occur to them.

    Exactly the opposite, really. That's so incredibly obvious that it doesn't need to be talked about, any more than that the builders should put the wheels on the bottom rather than some other side.

    Interesting questions arise only for what the car should do when the obvious precautions don't work and a problem arises anyway.

    1000:

    I think it's more a matter of "will not" rather than "cannot". In the same manner that many people apparently "cannot" wear a mask for five minutes while popping into a shop…

    Things were a lot easier for me on that front during the mandatory masking period (Oregon, USA). People would show up at a locked glass door and I'd wait for them to get their mask on before opening the door. Some of them took repeated hints or several minutes; I was perfectly happy to not open the door for as long as it took for them to get a clue.

    1001:

    Can you elaborate? I don't know how sheep respond to cars...

    Here's another anecdote.

    My uncle once reminisced about driving with his dad in the country, and pheasants. (Time, ~1950s to 1960s; place, Willamette Valley, Oregon (click for pictures); pheasants like unto the European version.) Back when he was a kid they were all over the place in large numbers, because open fields and scattered copses of trees make for a great place to live if you're a pheasant, especially with the humans chasing foxes and wolves away. They had just enough anti-predator instincts to take cover in the bushes when they heard something big coming; unfortunately they also tended to loose their nerve when a big loud charging thing was almost upon them, so they'd make a break for it - leaping into the air just as the car came past. A lot of birds were seen for only an instant, leaping out of roadside bushes and impacting on the front grill.

    We don't have all that many pheasants around here any more.

    1002:

    The U.S. Constitution sets minimum ages for Federal Offices - 25 for the House, 30 for the Senate and 35 for the Presidency.

    I am sick and tired of USAns citing the US constitution as if it's some sort of law of nature. It's not. It's a legal document drafted nearly 250 years ago, by men whose understanding of the natural world was incomplete or just plain wrong, as an attempt to provide a framework for a smaller, simpler, and more brutal society than our own.

    Give it a rest, folks: there are much better constitutional models these days. Why not look at the German one instead? (Drafted post-WW2 specifically to avoid falling into certain prior failure modes.) Or any of the post-colonial African ones?

    1003:

    Sean Taylor: your keyboard has punctuation keys for a reason: please learn to use them.

    Hint: your thoughts will be possible for other people to follow if you break them up into clauses, sentences, and paragraphs.

    1004:

    I agree. Artificial Idiocy is here now, as if we didn't have enough of the natural kind.

    1005:

    I can just see an army of geeks lining up to play car wars (*) :-)

    (*) To non-geeks, look up 'core wars'.

    1006:

    SS
    I have, at least twice, stopped-after-impact, picked up dead pheasant, taken it home, plucked (etc) & then eaten it. Delicious!

    1007:

    No, nobody said that 2 seconds was a safe margin - they said is was a minimal margin for safety. I do not know how many circumstances that lead to crashes are predictable more than 5 seconds ahead, but my guess (based on what I do know) is that it's at least half. Note what I said: the best way to avoid a crash is to avoid the circumstances under which one is likely, and it is usually possible. Also, 5 seconds is a ridiculously short time to expect a human to come alert, scan the surroundings (including all mirrors), and make a judgement of what to do.

    I don't know how safe 'self-driving' Teslas are relative to average USA drivers, good USA drivers or any other category, because the published data have already been massaged for polemic reasons. And nobody has a clue how they would handle conditions very different from the ones they have been tested in.

    The elephant in the room is that this is NOT a safety question. Self-driving vehicles are perhaps the most extreme monetarist policy of my lifetime, and needs to be considered as a SOCIAL question. Firstly, is that a good direction for transport? Secondly, it will remove a huge proportion of reasonably well-paying jobs for semi-skilled people in a short period; is that a good idea?

    1008:

    they mostly got it via Trump. All by appointments.

    Judges in the UK are neither elected nor political appointments. There is no UK equivalent of the Federalist Society.

    A major cause of the current US political failure mode is too much democracy -- you're voting for elected offices that shouldn't be.

    1009:

    I've done that as well :) And got stopped by the police for some random unconnected reason later in the journey... "Why have you got the bird in the boot?" - "Dinner."

    Pleasant enough, but wasn't as nice as the sole previous occasion I have eaten pheasant. Didn't do the "hang it up and let it go partly rotten" thing, so maybe that had something to do with it.

    1010:

    JohnS: YELLOW CARD

    the bullshit Moscow Mitch pulled

    Do not use rude nicknames for politicians. (This needs to be added into the public moderation policy, but it's a thing we discussed in the last blog post: it's off-putting to new commenters and may create an unfriendly atmosphere.)

    Also, see my comment 1002 above. The repeated discussions of the US Constitution in the comments on a Scottish blog essay about global affairs are becoming highly annoying.

    1011:

    Yes, it's not a great idea to hang roadkill. A recumbent trike on Norfolk lanes is the best way to pick up pheasant I know of - most drivers don't pick it up nowadays, and Norfolk seethes with the things. My best haul was one hen pheasant and a young hare with only head damage - my bucket list had 'try roast saddle of hare', so I could tick that one off :-)

    Now, if a Tesla came with an automatic pheasant collector ....

    1012:

    "...refugees, asylum seekers, and illegal immigrants... Failure to register as required is grounds for denying a petition for U.S. citizenship."

    Yeowch.

    1013:

    When your AI car hits a crowded bus queue at 20 km/h than another car at 30 km/h and this strategy is revealed, there will be serious flood risk from lawyers salivating for a chance to sue the programmers…

    That should have been:

    When your AI car hits a crowded bus queue at 20 km/h rather than another car at 30 km/h

    Having seen plenty of 'driver fail' videos on Youtube, I think you got it right the first time. Cars can hit two or more stationary targets in one go.

    1014:

    In small-town Alberta the drivers at 4-way stops would take turns. I assume that that's what the law actually said (I was a non-driver there), it's certainly how people drove.

    It was when I learned to drive, back in the 70s.

    Person who stopped first gets to go first. If stops are simultaneous then person on the right gets to go first. So in practice if there are multiple cars it ends up being a turn-taking affair. Like parallel parking, handling a four-way stop was part of my road test when I got my drivers license.

    1015:

    Judges in the UK are neither elected nor political appointments. There is no UK equivalent of the Federalist Society.

    My key point is there is NO way with people involved for the process of selecting judges that cannot have failure modes. The current setup in the UK is just harder and thus slower to fail than the one in the US.

    1016:

    JohnS @948

    On age limits in England (Charlie to advise on Scottish variations):

    Age of Criminal Responsibility: 10+. But different rules apply to the police arresting anyone under 18.

    Voting: 18+ (Scotland 16+, except for UK-wide elections). This includes standing for election.

    Buying alcohol: 18+ (I used to be able to buy shandy in pubs at 14, but that's no longer legal). Sixteen year old soldiers can buy alcohol in the NAAFI.

    Military Service 18+ for active service, 16+ for joining up.

    Driving: 16+ for tractors and 50cc mopeds, 17+ for car and small motorbikes[*], 18+ for HGV (trucks), 21+ PSV (buses with 16+ seats, or for which a fare is charged).

    Aircraft: No age limit.

    Age of consent: 16.

    Jury Service: 18-75 (was 18-70 until changed by the Tory Government in 2016).

    So, to conclude: at sixteen you can have a baby, drive a vehicle on the public roads, fly an aeroplane, and join the Army, but you cannot vote in an election in England, nor buy alcohol.

    Having a uniform age of sixteen for most of these wouldn't strike me as entirely stupid. It is worth pointing out that a UK driving test is about a 50/50 proposition; it is by no means a given that you'll pass, and is quite usual to have to take a second test before you pass. It is also normal to take professional driving lessons. I took ten lessons (which was pretty minimal even then) and passed first time, which was lucky. I wouldn't have passed myself driving at 37 MPH as the 40 sign I'd thought I'd already passed appeared in front of me, just 400 yards from the start point.

    [*] When I took my motorcycle test aged 17 it permitted me to drive any motorcycle, but checking current laws, I'd need to be 18 to drive a 250cc, and 24 to drive a 600cc machine. Likewise my car license -- taken at 18 -- permitted me to drive all cars (optionally with trailer/caravan), HGVs up to 7.5 tons (with a 2.5 ton trailer), minibuses (with optional trailer) and mopeds.

    1017:

    996 Greg to JohnS - Greg, as I read the present alcohol laws, it's illegal to give under 18s alcohol in the UK too.

    1006 - Greg, as this reads, you hit the pheasant, then stopped and loaded it into the vehicle, which is poaching. OTOH if, say I had been following you, I could have stopped and collected it legally.

    1018:

    There's also the age limit on contracts and business agreements. I was told this was 13 when I worked at an Amazon call centre in scotland about a decade ago. Some people would create separate accounts for their kids to buy stuff from Amazon for presents etc. and unless they were 13 or older then they couldn't be legally compelled to pay for goods that were shipped to them. Banks, PayPal etc. wouldn't/shouldn't give 12-year-olds service for their own methods of payment and even if their accounts were secured by their parents/guardians debit card or whatever it was still legally iffy. I had to explain this a couple of times to people who didn't see the age confirmation box on the account creation screens or simply clicked through it regardless.

    1019:

    Yes, the evil ghosts of "Prohibition" are still stalking the USA, are they not?

    More like the evil ghosts of the Puritan religious cult, 21,000 of whom emigrated to the New World during the rule of Charles I.

    1020:

    Regarding drinking age and draft:

    Don't know how US military bases handle it now, but I was 18 when drinking age in most states became 19 (it did not go all the way to 21 right away). Shortly after that, still 18, I joined US Air Force. Once out of basic training I found out that USAF bases are federal land, so state laws do not apply. 18 year olds could and did legally drink on the base.

    So the argument "they can fight for their country, but they can't drink" was not really valid, at least back then. If you were willing to fight for your country, you were in fact allowed to drink.

    1021:

    So, to conclude: at sixteen you can have a baby, drive a vehicle on the public roads, fly an aeroplane, and join the Army, but you cannot vote in an election in England, nor buy alcohol.

    I noticed this line in your list: Sixteen year old soldiers can buy alcohol in the NAAFI

    So, much like my own experience in USAF (see #1020), if you join the Army, you are allowed to drink.

    1022:

    You're reading wrong then. It's illegal to sell alcohol to under 18s but depending on circumstances perfectly legal for them to drink alcohol someone else has purchased, eg a glass of wine with a meal in a restaurant if 16 or over or at home age 5 or over.

    1023:

    That is commonly stated, but I believe is a myth. He was not trespassing (being entitled to use the highway), and he was not in pursuit of the game (i.e. it was an accident). I tried looking up some precedent and got nowhere, which I suspect means that it is never prosecuted.

    1024:

    Pheasants in Norfolk are a nuisance if you’re not into poaching by running them over. They have zero street cred. Thy can see you coming, start to cross the road, turn back and then turn again and run under your car. Sometimes with their family following. Yet other birds like pigeons or crows are almost impossible to hit even if you were to try. However pheasants have no selection pressure for traffic in their evolution. More than 80% of pheasants shot are bred in hatcheries and farms. They don’t see roads until they are released before their final doom by the guns of “sportsmen”. Crow learn the average speed of cars on their local roads and abandon their roadkill carrion just in time. Pigeons are also quick enough to escape. I gave up slowing down for pigeons in the road. They almost always take to the air in good time. But they cam be distracted. I did hit a mating pair who were obviously not concentrating on safety. I have had two very near misses involving deer. In one a pair of deer ran across the road, one in front and one behind my car. Both survived even the one who ran behind my car and in front of the car tailgating me. I have also been hit by a car driving out of a side road. It was dark. No streetlights. I had my headlight on and was driving at 40 mph on a 60 limit B road. The driver apologised profusely and said “We were watching a mouse cross the road.”My car was driveable but the bodywork was badly damaged and the passenger side doors and window’s wouldn’t open.

    1025:

    Except that in the U.S. laws themselves don't get challenged in front of juries; they get challenged in front of judges. Right now science and rationality have no power whatsoever when the legality of a law is discussed by a court, and this lack of power is at least as bad as the possible abuses.

    This is one of several changes I'd make to the U.S. court system (if I were king.) The other changes are that I'd follow the U.K.'s lead and make all judgeships (except the Supreme Court) civil-service positions, so as to end judicial elections, thus there would be the ability to do something about a judge who allowed an attorney to pack a jury (as you suggested above.)

    Also, I'd make sure that in criminal cases all judges would need to have reasonable amounts of experience as both prosecutors and defense attorneys.

    Lastly, I'd make sure that at least a minor in some kind of science was a requirement for law school; an attorney who can't understand science is, in my opinion, mostly useless.

    1026:

    I once hit a deer that tried the 'sudden charge across at right angles' approach to my vehicle. The poor thing was clearly dying, and I was standing at the roadside considering using a pocket knife to put it out of its misery.

    Thankfully a farmer passing by stopped and had a gun with which he shot it. He then shrugged and tossed the deer into the back of his truck saying 'might as well eat it'.

    I am about 98% certain that him shooting the deer was illegal, although it was certainly the compassionate thing to do. I'm also certain keeping the deer was quite illegal, but also the rational and moral thing to do. Leaving it to rot at the roadside wouldn't help anyone. I did not target the deer, much the opposite, nor did I benefit from its harm (in fact I almost lost my job).

    1027:

    Well, voting for offices that should be elective is a big problem in the US, but it pales in comparison to regulatory capture. Those who regulate should be PERMANENTLY forbidden from receiving ANY emolument/payment/reward/etc. from those they were responsible for regulating.

    1028:

    Agreed. "Money is speech" is one of those decisions I rage over sometimes. It's just such obvious, ugly foolishness.

    1029:

    Getting back to the US Constitution versus the UK Constitution*...

    Thing about the US is that it is, in theory, a heterarchy. That's what three branches with checks and balances means. The three branches are the executive, which runs most of what we think of as "the civil service" and the military, the legislative, and the judicial. Furthermore, it's recursive, so (if you cram police and military together into "coercive") there are four levels: federal, state, county, and municipal, all with their own executive, legislative, and judicial.

    Is it convenient? No, but that's not the point. Convenience is when an omnipotent, beneficent Divine Queen (Albia?) runs everything for Her favored pets--us. Problem is, it's always easier to lie about being omniscient and beneficent than to actually do the work, so we're also trying to simultaneously keep from being enslaved by our putative betters while simultaneously insuring a supply of cheap labor (ideally robot, often human) to "keep things affordable.

    Anyway, this is why we elect representatives, executives, and judges separately, and quite honestly, I'd push for electing the Supreme Court Justices on a rotating basis every 10 years, elected by vote of the circuit they represent, one term each, with prerequisites of a law degree and experience as a trial lawyer and/or judge. When one branch appoints another, they're captured in part, and they're not supposed to be

    Is the US Constitution ideal? (Long string of deleted expletives) no.

    But here's the problem: We've got a bunch of powers in any civilization. How do you balance them out?

    Those powers include: --The military/police (coercive power)

    --The bureaucracy (critical knowledge)

    --The judiciary (decisions)

    --Legislature (law-making)

    --Financial (treasury and budgeting)

    --Medical

    --Food production and ownership of productive land (wealthy landowners)

    --Mercantile (wealthy merchants)

    --Religious/belief (high clerics)

    --Labor (organized lower classes)

    --Keeping from destroying the biosphere (oh wait, no one does that in a civilization...)

    and so on.

    The trick isn't to write a better constitution. These powers are necessarily going to form alliances, because generally no one group can dominate. So in the US, the legislative branch are law and budgetmakers, while the executive branch runs the bureaucracy and military, the judiciary decides justice, and most of the rest are subservient except for the influences of belief, money, and democratic processes.

    There are a lot of ways to make an authoritarian system by just giving most of the power to the top. There are also a lot of failed ways to try to make a heterarchy that grinds to a halt because everybody spends all their time arguing instead of living.

    The neat trick is making and tuning a heterarchical system in the middle, where it's hard enough for the authoritarians to take over that they don't for at least a century, but it's not so clunkily checked and balanced that everything becomes unworkable within a century.

    Maybe the "how to tune a heterarchy" is more worth arguing about than who has the best constitution?

    *I know.

    1030:

    paws
    Illegal in pubs, maybe, though if you are "with a responsible adult" AND "eating a meal" it is now 16 - it used to be 14, which I how I started. If no money changes hands, at all, the limit, for non-spirits is, I think, what it always was - 5 or 6, so you can have a sip of wine with dinner. Again, this is for domestic consumption. SEE ALSO Vulch @ 1022.
    Pheasant - yes. So, I may be a poacher, so what?

    Nojay
    IIRC you can't get a credit/debit card until you are 17 - which resulted in an appalling "Fall through the cracks" for a 16-yr-old on his way home, somewhere near Yeovil Jn last year, when arseholes SWT turfed him out, from the last train, with zero backup.

    Retiring
    Yes, that as well ....
    Said arseholes are now loose in Scotland ( & England) again regarding the extremely bad joke of "safe alcohol limits"

    1031:

    "tossed the deer into the back of his truck saying 'might as well eat it'."

    Back when I was a grad student, we'd occasionally go to Kitt Peak National Observatory to do some, ah, observing. Kitt Peak is on the Tohono Oʼodham tribal reservation and I was told that there was an agreement among the relevant authorities that deer killed on the road going to the observatory would be reported to the tribal police for recovery and butchering. No sense in letting good venison go to waste.

    1034:

    Drinking before driving - for me, it's 3/4 of an hour that I stop drinking. But note that I just don't drink to get drunk, so I'm talking either finishing my one beer, or the drink. The other thing is, and feel free to ask my partner, I have a really high metabolism, and it burns the alcohol.

    1035:

    Um, Maryland - Ellen tells me that a fort, on one of the hills around Baltimore, had its cannon trained on Baltimore, to keep the Southern sympathizers from changing things.

    1036:

    Thankfully a farmer passing by stopped and had a gun with which he shot it.

    A relative by marraige is a retired cop in the Bend Oregon area. He never shot his weapon at a person but has said he did expend a lot of ammunition killing animals injured from collisions with autos..

    1037:

    HMS Belfast moored in the Thames has its guns aimed at Scratchwwod Services on the M1 in case the Northerners get uppity...

    1038:

    And then there was the man we were starting to think of as a friend, Eric Flint. The cancer didn't get him, nor Covid, but staph. And his widow shut down Ring of Fire Press, and the Grantville Gazette, a month later, so we're all out of print, until some go self-pub, and the rest of us picked up.

    1039:

    Troutwaxer @ 995:

    On the criminal side of things I'd like to see judges who have minimal experience as both a defense attorney and a prosecutor. Not sure about the civil side. But elected judges are certainly a big no.

    In North Carolina "District Court" is the lowest level actual court - it's where you go if you're gonna' fight a speeding ticket, are charged with shoplifting or if you've got a warrant for writing bad checks (that you didn't make good on - i.e. if it wasn't an innocent mistake) or get arrested for disturbing the peace by brawling with your neighbors ... all misdemeanors.

    Anything that's a felony goes to Superior Court.

    There's not really much room for corruption in the process of electing District Judges, and most of them DO HAVE experience as "trial lawyers". Most of the lawyers who work for the District Attorney (elective) eventually go on to become "defense" attorneys (because that's where the money is - you don't get rich working in the DA's office).

    In criminal law there seems to be a progression from DA's office (or Public Defender's office) to "trial lawyer" for hire to running for political office as a judge.

    Above that, Superior Court and up, I think it IS a good idea that judges be appointed - and I think probably should be appointed from those who have experience on a lower court.

    But it needs to be for fixed terms of an odd number of years (5, 7 or 9) that fall outside the electoral cycle. Again that's because as you get up to the state appeals courts & state supreme courts, more of the cases are POLITICAL, and it's not such a good idea to let partisans on either side to pack the courts.

    We've seen how that's working at the Federal level where one party has managed to get their judges confirmed when they hold power, but block the confirmation of judges whenever they are out of power.

    1040:

    I disagree - it's the ultrawealthy in the US and elsewhere, and they've just included him in as another billionaire.

    1041:

    Nevah hoid from that. But you're completely ignoring a song of great social and political import... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qev-i9-VKlY

    1042:

    Actually, his writing isn't bad at all, and I'd be surprised if he isn't published within a few years.

    And you haven't sent that one to me to beta read....

    1043:

    I've had the solution to the trolley problem for years: throw the switch half-way. The people on the trolley, if any, may be injured when the trolley derails, but they won't be killed, the way those on the tracks would. And no, this is not a Kobiyashi Maru trick solution, it's a real world answer.

    1044:

    Greg Tingey @ 996:

    At last!
    Steam-powered spaceships!

    If that's supposed to be a link it doesn't appear to link to anything?

    John S
    Yes, the evil ghosts of "Prohibition" are still stalking the USA, are they not?
    IIRC it is illegal to give you offsprogs a glass of wine, in your own home, if they are under 18/21?
    "Land of the free? What a very bad joke.

    Technically a violation of alcohol laws, but you won't usually get in trouble for serving your own children a glass of wine ... unless you serve them too much and allow them to later Drive While Impaired (Drink Driving).

    Serving alcohol to OTHER PEOPLES children is a bit more problematic. Usually because it DOES lead to them later being caught for DWI (DD).

    John S
    Sumfink 's gorn 'orribly worng with your #993!

    Can you give me a bit more info on what's wrong with it?

    After my response to Moz about the drinking age there's my RANT about the DRAFT. That should be concluded with a blockquote linked to the Wikipedia article on the Selective Service (the DRAFT) that tells who has to register followed by a link to the Selective Service's own web page on the same subject.

    The Wikipedia page seems to give a good clear explanation, while the second link goes to the actual Government Agency (whose web pages can sometimes be a bit obtuse).

    1045:

    Could have been covid. Covid wrecks your immune system and opportunistic infections often carry off the victims who "recovered" weeks, months or even years later. Not that staph doesn't kill people anyway, but usually not unless your immune system is weakened.

    My mother in law died "of a staph infection" but blood loss, starvation and dehydration is what let the staph take hold.

    1046:

    Greg Tingey wrote on November 28, 2022 @ 08:44 in #996:

    Yes, the evil ghosts of "Prohibition" are still stalking the USA, are they not? IIRC it is illegal to give you offsprogs a glass of wine, in your own home, if they are under 18/21? "Land of the free? What a very bad joke.

    Context: USA

    We have 51 states & districts, 29 of which have explicit exemptions:
    https://alcohol.org/laws/supplying-alcohol-to-a-minor/

    Add to that cultural exemptions (Communion, et cetera).

    Heinlein suggested not saying unkind things about other nations, and to make internal criticism private. I occasionally find that wise.

    1047:

    Charles said: Those who regulate should be PERMANENTLY forbidden from receiving ANY emolument/payment/reward/etc. from those they were responsible for regulating.

    If I was king, I'd also add that lawmakers should receive a "for life" state income of 1.5 - 3 times the average (not median) wage, tax free, and that they, and their spouse be taxed 110% on all other income other than capital gains which is 110% after taking inflation into account and inheritance which is taxed normally.

    That would include fringe benefits tax. So when a mining company needs a house sitter for their 9 bedroom waterfront mansion, that includes a staff of 4, they may have to ask someone who wasn't recently in charge of approving mining leases and export licences.

    1048:

    I will accept that maybe it might be possible to have an actual autopilot ON LIMITED ACCESS HIGHWAYS. We are nowhere near being able to have them on city streets.

    I have posted a number of time a google maps view of a street near me that I drive often: 3 (barely) lanes, barrier on the park side, cars parked on the opposite side (for their ridiculously high stairs up the hill to the houses), NO lane markings, and it's two-way. And a city bus uses it.

    Nor it it vaguely ready for, say, South Philly's narrow street, two lanes, unmarked, one is parking. And kids can run out at any time.

    Are you arguing that we're about ready to let self-driving cars drive on ALL roads?

    1049:

    Okay... I don't know about "making eye contact", but in Philly, people sitting at a stoplight, planning to make a left (US), will slam on the gas the instant the light changes. Elsewhere in the US, they wait till the light's about to turn red.

    1050:

    Strongly disagree. You're saying I should have no say in a) how taxes are spent the rest of my life, and b) the effects on my family, my children, and my grandkids.

    Here's a proposal: rather than preventing people from voting by a test, require no graduation from high school (US, 17-18) without, last term, civics class. And you don't pass unless you can pass the same citizenship test that immigrants have to pass. Then you can vote, since you have some understanding of how it works.

    1051:

    Squirrels - same as deer. Jump into road, then dither.

    On the other hand, my late wife told me about evolution in action - when she was a kid in central/south Texas, skunks would stroll across the road. By the time she was in her late teens, they looked, then ran. Didn't hit as many skunks by then.

    1052:

    Charlie Stross @ 1002:

    The U.S. Constitution sets minimum ages for Federal Offices - 25 for the House, 30 for the Senate and 35 for the Presidency.

    I am sick and tired of USAns citing the US constitution as if it's some sort of law of nature. It's not. It's a legal document drafted nearly 250 years ago, by men whose understanding of the natural world was incomplete or just plain wrong, as an attempt to provide a framework for a smaller, simpler, and more brutal society than our own.

    Give it a rest, folks: there are much better constitutional models these days. Why not look at the German one instead? (Drafted post-WW2 specifically to avoid falling into certain prior failure modes.) Or any of the post-colonial African ones?

    I don't hold the Constitution up as "law of nature". We've certainly discussed its flaws often enough here that anyone paying even the slightest attention should be aware of them. Any number of Constitutional Models might be better than ours, but they do not explain the functioning of the U.S. government.

    Sometimes the U.S. Constitution IS the only explanation for some of the quirks in American Governance, such as WHY the voting age is what it is IN THE U.S. or why Congress doesn't have more younger people serving in it.

    What else would you use to explain how the U.S. Government works without reference to the fundamental law that sets up that government?

    There are undoubtedly many things about the U.S. Constitution that need to be changed. I hope they will be changed, but until they ARE, we still have to follow our own laws ... which sometimes, depending on who is in power, we don't do such a good job at.

    PS: I'm not really impressed with the ways so many post-colonial governments actually adhere to their Constitutions, however better they might be. Too often the government in power just throws out an inconvenient Constitution and implements a new one more favorable to them retaining power.

    How good is a Constitutional model if those who hold power in the government can just ignore it?

    1053:

    Why pseudorandom modulation? Why not simply include, in the signal, the vehicles VIN number, which is unique?

    1054:

    But does the steam-powered spaceship have brass, and wood fittings inside...

    And would you call a fission-powered drive that uses water "steam powered"?

    1055:

    Charlie Stross @ 1010:

    Also, see my comment 1002 above. The repeated discussions of the US Constitution in the comments on a Scottish blog essay about global affairs are becoming highly annoying.

    I try to only refer to the U.S. Constitution when the discussion turns to why the U.S. government does certain things. I certainly don't apply it to other governments, but when the topic drifts to "Why does the U.S. do that?", the U.S.Constitution is often the simplest explanation.

    I don't mean to offend.

    1056:

    If that's supposed to be a link it doesn't appear to link to anything?

    Here is a link: https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/28/asia_tech_news_brief/

    Note this part: "The craft uses waste heat from communications kit to heat the water into steam that is squirted out to produce thrust."

    What kind of communications kit gets hot enough to boil water? And in quantities sufficient to provide useful thrust?

    1057:

    Here's a proposal: rather than preventing people from voting by a test, require no graduation from high school (US, 17-18) without, last term, civics class. And you don't pass unless you can pass the same citizenship test that immigrants have to pass. Then you can vote, since you have some understanding of how it works.

    Not a bad idea. BTW, one thing which stuck in my memory from taking the citizenship test was that the answer to three different questions was "Kennedy". Specifically, John Kennedy, Ted Kennedy and Anthony Kennedy (a Supreme Court Justice at the time).

    1058:

    whitroth said: Nor it it vaguely ready for, say, South Philly's narrow street, two lanes, unmarked, one is parking. And kids can run out at any time.

    Are you arguing that we're about ready to let self-driving cars drive on ALL roads?

    I didn't get that from what OGH said.

    However I'd like to point out that Full Self Driving Tesla have been on "ALL roads" in the USA (including South Philly) for nearly a year. They're being supervised by licenced drivers, but driver interventions are becoming pretty rare now. Owners are saying that most trips the car does everything.

    It's becoming increasingly weird reading impassioned arguments for why something that's already happened isn't going to happen.

    I'm reminded very strongly of the passionate warnings that unless we take strong action we risk passing 1.5 degrees, at least for a short time in the warmest years. Urrr, that happened in 2016, and happened again almost every year since.

    1059:

    Dave Lester @ 1016:

    [...]

    So, to conclude: at sixteen you can have a baby, drive a vehicle on the public roads, fly an aeroplane, and join the Army, but you cannot vote in an election in England, nor buy alcohol.

    Having a uniform age of sixteen for most of these wouldn't strike me as entirely stupid. ...

    I'm not saying it is, but I'm not saying the current plethora of ages is stupid either. I don't agree with all of them, but I don't favor changing all of them either.

    I was expressing my annoyance with the way the drinking age was changed in the U.S. in what I consider a sleazy manner, along with my reasons for opposing that change.

    An 18 year old soldier on active duty with the U.S. Army CANNOT buy beer at the PX (~ NAAFI) ... and supplying alcohol in any form to that soldier is an offense punishable under the UCMJ.

    I just don't think it was fair to 18 year olds. YMMV.

    ... It is worth pointing out that a UK driving test is about a 50/50 proposition; it is by no means a given that you'll pass, and is quite usual to have to take a second test before you pass. It is also normal to take professional driving lessons. I took ten lessons (which was pretty minimal even then) and passed first time, which was lucky. I wouldn't have passed myself driving at 37 MPH as the 40 sign I'd thought I'd already passed appeared in front of me, just 400 yards from the start point.

    I received 8 weeks of driving instruction before I was allowed to take the driving test; 2 weeks of classroom instruction followed by 6 weeks of supervised driving instruction interspersed with additional classroom [2 hours behind the wheel + 6 hours of classroom daily]. Drivers ED was available through the public school system, so I didn't have to pay for instruction.

    At the end of the 8 week course I was allowed to get a "learner's permit" which allowed me to practice driving under parental supervision because I was still not old enough to take the test.

    I had about a month and a half of parental supervised driving before my 16th birthday when I became eligible to take the test.

    I passed on my first try. Some of my friends did too. Some of them did not.

    And that's not to say the system I went through is better or worse, it was just the way things were done around here when I was a teenager.

    I do think Drivers ED in school is a good idea here in the U.S. where we are so much more dependent on automobiles.

    But again, I don't hold that up as a model for everywhere else. It's just what works HERE.

    1060:

    Retiring @ 1019:

    Yes, the evil ghosts of "Prohibition" are still stalking the USA, are they not?

    More like the evil ghosts of the Puritan religious cult, 21,000 of whom emigrated to the New World during the rule of Charles I.

    Hmmm? I never knew Southern Baptists came over on the Mayflower. 😕

    1061:

    context = Russia

    a buddy decided I did not have nasty enough nightmares so here I am, a copy of "Klimat: Russia in the Age of Climate Change" to provide nightmare fuel...

    just the blurb alone is enough to discourage me from learning too much more... because there might well be madness in Putin's methods... perhaps he's seeking an alternative to Russia ending up depopulated by his own citizens but just as quickly invaded/overrun by climate refugees from much, much further south who will be willing to endure misery for sake of water enough to grow crops...?

    trimmed down quote: "A discerning analysis of the future effects of climate change on Russia, major power most dependent on fossil fuel economy. No major power is more economically dependent on the export of hydrocarbons; two-thirds of Russia's territory lies in arctic north, where melting permafrost is already imposing growing damage. Climate change also brings drought and floods to Russia's south, threatening the country's agricultural exports... over the next thirty years, climate change will leave a dramatic imprint on Russia. The decline of fossil fuel use is already underway, cutting fuel prices, slashing Russia's export revenues. Yet Russia has no substitutes for oil and gas revenues..."

    1062:

    1037 - Sort of true; HMS Belfast's B turret is trained on Scratchwood Services (M1 in North London) because one of the restoration crew was short-changed there (source HMS Belfast tour guide).

    1044 - 996 gave me a hot link to a story in The Independent. But I live in the UK, not the USA.

    1048 - I think OGH would agree with my view that a good test of autopilot software would be to use the software development team's management as test pedestrians and cyclists...

    1053 - Adding a VIN to your message frame adds 16 alphanumeric characters to every message. That potentially causes bandwidth issues, particularly if your signal isn't clean.

    1063:

    ilya187 @ 1020:

    Regarding drinking age and draft:

    Don't know how US military bases handle it now, but I was 18 when drinking age in most states became 19 (it did not go all the way to 21 right away). Shortly after that, still 18, I joined US Air Force. Once out of basic training I found out that USAF bases are federal land, so state laws do not apply. 18 year olds could and did legally drink on the base.

    So the argument "they can fight for their country, but they can't drink" was not really valid, at least back then. If you were willing to fight for your country, you were in fact allowed to drink.

    What year? Age 21 minimum went into effect under the UCMJ in 1984.

    1064:

    John S
    Let's try that again: Steam spaceship ...
    ??

    993 _ I think your HTML is as bad as mine?
    1065:

    Why not simply include, in the signal, the vehicles VIN number, which is unique?

    Privacy. Same reason Apple (and I suspect Google if not now but soon) randomizes IP addresses and/or MACs. To make it hard to track you as you move about.

    1066:

    Re: '... picked up dead pheasant,'

    May not be a good idea these days ... all that avian flu going around.

    Ditto for venison. Over here (NA) the large majority of the deer that have been sampled have tested positive for COVID antibodies. Further, it seems that there's already been a fair bit of to and fro transmission of COVID between humans and deer as per most recent TWiV episode. Specifically, some humans have picked up COVID variants that came from deer. (Between humans and other species too - but not all species have been tested to the same extent.)

    Just got my bivalent booster today. As prep I decided to ran all foreseeable errands in order to take tomorrow off -- just in case.

    Charlie:

    A few questions ...

    What is the implied/generally understood meaning of a 'an elected representative' in the UK/Scotland?

    What exactly are 'representatives' supposed to be able to grasp so well of/from the electorate that their observations/understanding/reactions accurately portray the electorate?

    What non-biased mechanisms/metrics are used in this verification process?

    Curious because so far the only country that I've seen in the news headlines that consistently looks at the impact of political decisions - pre and post enactment - seems to be Denmark. I'm not dissing Scotland, I just want to know how it forms and evaluates policy.

    1067:

    deer killed on the road going to the observatory would be reported to the tribal police for recovery and butchering. No sense in letting good venison go to waste.

    Alaska has an official roadkill programme, and it may still be an offense there to let roadkill go to waste (the way I heard it was that's it's one place that tribal law has made it into statue law). I heartily approve.

    https://dps.alaska.gov/AWT/Roadkill

    FWIW I eat roadkill even when it's not technically legal (in Australia protected species can't be disturbed if hit, unless you're a local (a traditional owner type local)). I have had the obligatory discussion about this with some friendly locals who mostly wanted a free feed...

    1068:

    John,

    For the avoidance of doubt, I tagged my post on to yours for two reasons: your posts often seem some of the most reasonable around here, and my idea was to outline the age rules we have in the UK, so that we all knew what was what.

    As it happens, of those I listed the ones where I'm not convinced we (i.e. UK) should lower the age limit are: Jury Service. I also thought that lowering our bus driver age limit might be something I'd worry about, but since the drivers would have to take a reasonably taxing practical exam, I think an 18 year old bus driver would be of no more concern than an 18 year old commercial pilot. Both would have to be pretty competent to have passed the exams so young.

    My old-fogey values are also on display with my attitude to 16 year old mums and dads. Not sex you understand, but the raising of kids.

    One final point, drinking in the NAAFI in Germany was something I last did in 1979, when I was actually 18. As senior sergeants in the school's cadet force, Andy and I were specifically pointed out to the NAAFI staff. This was to prevent the other cadets under-age drinking, though actual 16 year old soldiers were permitted to buy drinks. I wouldn't like to guarantee that 16 year old soldiers are still able to buy drinks "on base".

    1069:

    he did expend a lot of ammunition killing animals injured from collisions with autos..

    My ex-SIL in the UK has a pistol for this reason. She works for the RSPCA and it's part of her official equipment. It's literally big enough to stun an ox (Laurie Anderson "let X=X").

    1070:

    You're saying I should have no say in a) how taxes are spent the rest of my life, and b) the effects on my family, my children, and my grandkids.

    Why do your (grand)children get no say in any of those things?

    That's what some of us are objecting to. Blah blah too young get off my lawn the kids these days bullshit.

    I think age restricted voting is unreasonable, but many people are very comfortable with it as long as it doesn't apply to them now.

    To use the USA terminology it's not "with the consent of the governed" if the government literally says they can't can't consent.

    1071:

    What year? Age 21 minimum went into effect under the UCMJ in 1984.

    I assure you this is not true. I entered USAF in August 1985 at the age of 18. I had to learn UCMJ in basic training. There was nothing there about drinking age being 21, and I drank on the base all the time.

    1072:

    I just don't think it was fair to 18 year olds.

    When my father did his national service (1950s, UK) most of his fellows were old enough to die for their country, but not old enough to vote.

    IIRC it was 1969 before Britain lowered the voting age to 18.


    Dim memory from the 70s: I was told that the reason the drinking age was 19 not 18 was that kids tended to start drinking two years before they were legal, so having the age at 19 meant 16-year-olds tended not to drink. At the time, 16 was the usual age to get a drivers license.

    No idea how true that was. No internet back then to check. IIRC I heard it from either my civics teacher or my driving instructor.

    1073:

    Why not simply include, in the signal, the vehicles VIN number, which is unique?

    Allowing simple construction of a device that will provide the VIN of any self-driving car in range…

    Serious privacy issue, there. Maybe better not to open that can of worms?

    1074:

    Moz said: I think age restricted voting is unreasonable...

    I agree. The franchise should be as universal as practicable.

    I'd only exclude people who are not in the country, and who are non citizens, non residents, or not able to meet the prerequisites to apply for residency.

    Everyone in the country, or who lives in the country (but is currently OS) should get a vote if they want it.

    I'd also make voting compulsory for everyone over 18 who is in the country and who arrived before the election was announced, unless they've filled in a form saying they would rather not ever vote due to having one of these good reasons, without being asked to specify which one. (stuff like persistent vegetive state)

    I remember being horrified to find out that my USAian friend couldn't vote because he was living in Aotearoa.

    1075:

    Allowing simple construction of a device that will provide the VIN of any self-driving car in range…

    I have a device on the front of my house that provides the registration plate and a photo of almost every car that goes past. Serious privacy issue, there.

    1076:

    It seems to come down to an "are you still interested" test. Australia uses an "intention of the voter" test (to return within six years), Aotearoa has a "been in the country since the last election" test.

    https://aec.gov.au/overseas/voting.htm and https://www.aec.gov.au/overseas/enrolment.htm so you can vote if you keep telling them you want to.

    https://www.vote.nz/voting/how-to-vote/vote-from-overseas/

    Those are the two that affect me directly.

    1077:

    Yeah, at the time of being horrified, I wasn't aware of exactly what the rules were for Oz and Aotearoa. He would have passed both, as he spent the Northern summer flying in the USA and the rest of the year flying hang glider (and later, paraglider) joy rides in Queenstown.

    1078:

    Possum/merino socks -- best things in the world! Our road would be a great place to test AIs for cars -- three species of little hoppy things, one species of bigger hoppy thing, possums, Tassie Devils, an echidna, bilbies, quolls, turbo chooks, snakes, cats, dogs and birds ranging from chickens to ravens to kookaburras to various raptors and wedgies. All crossing or utilising a windy dirt road with flat bits and steep bits.

    1079:

    Moz said: provides the registration plate and a photo

    And with reasonable programming skills, you can resolve plate numbers into the last 4 digits of the VIN using the Service NSW website. Given a bit of pattern recognition to work out the manufacturer and year, you've got most of the VIN.

    1080:

    Well, given the ... 'negotiable affections' of the NSW Police I'm told it doesn't take a lot of work to turn a raw number plate into an address of record. "there are strong penalties for doing this, and we're proud to say they have never been applied. We have investigated every accusation made against us and found ourselves not needing to be prosecuted every time".

    Meanwhile online journalists who ask questions about corruption get swatted and mysteriously one had his house burnt down recently.

    1081:

    It is amusing that US citizens have to pay US income tax no matter where they live, but they can't vote unless they live there.

    1082:

    On age limits for various activities, and what to do with roadkill.

    In the U.S. state where I grew up, the minimum age for a learner's permit (so you could drive with a licensed driver in the car) was 15 in the early 1970s. Once you had your learners permit for a week, you could take the test for a (non commercial) driver's license.

    However, the public schools had Driver's Ed, and you could get your learner's permit while you were still 14 if you were taking driver's ed (but probably not when you turned 14, in practice no younger than about 14 and 8 or 9 months). I'm pretty sure you still had to be at least 15 for a license.

    Me? I injured my knee on a motorcycle (well, falling off one) the weekend before my 15th birthday so things were delayed a bit.

    Of course, most 15 year olds failed the driver's test at least once. Parallel parking was a common problem. This was, of course, a great way to taunt your younger brother when he came home from taking the test and was obviously unhappy.

    I don't know if it was actually true or not, but I was told the only thing you could do with roadkill in the above-referenced state was donate it to the School for the Blind or the School for the Deaf.

    1083:

    isn't that like insurance in case they have to send in the 82nd airborne to fish them out in the event of a crisis

    1084:

    "You can't quote me quoting and then claim that no one is saying the exact thing I just quoted."

    I think my one-line flippant comment that modern AI is incapable may be being read overly closely. As one-line comments do, it lacked qualifiers.

    So I'll add them: I am willing to admit that modern automated cars are capable of navigating some city streets well. And capable of navigating many city streets, if by "capable" you include "unsafely and badly". And I'll assert that they are incapable of navigating some types of streets at all without being very dangerous.

    The more it can get away with acting like all that exists in the world are roads and vehicles, with well-defined lanes and clear traffic signals, the better it is. Big highways it's fairly good at.

    So if you think a road is purely and only for cars and trucks, and has lanes as big as they need to be, then it's beginning to get there. If you think navigating a city includes driving around horses, kids playing, random road-works moving traffic in odd ways, the odd nut in a golf cart in the cycle lane forcing all the bikes into traffic (that was this morning's fun part of my ride in, a road-works/golf-cart-nutter combo on a busy road), many two-way roads that so narrow that they are only one car wide in many places, roundabouts that don't look like roundabouts, etc, then it's pretty bad.

    And I live somewhere more like the second part of that than the first. A lot of us do, though I think more outside the USA than inside the USA as American suburbia tends to be more car-centric.

    1085:

    Sorry but your real world answer is based on a false premise and hence incorrect. Trolley (or trams as they are known in many places) - aka street tramways - use spring loaded switches (points) which are engineered to not stop half way. (I am speaking a a regular driver of heritage trolleys: https://www.christchurchattractions.nz/christchurch-tram/).

    And, trolley (tram) switches/points do not have switch levers as these would form a hazard for motorists. They are either motorised (modern ones) but mostly require the use of a "points bar" to change them. (A points lever is normally carried at each end of every trolley/tram in service).

    (I suspect you are confusing street tramways with railways and must be thinking of how railway switches/points work. No self respecting trolley (tram) would be seen on a railway - unless it was an interurban).

    This is possibly - in part - why the trolley problem is a trolley problem and not a train problem! Also, makes the trolley problem somewhat more difficult as it would also be necessary for the decision maker to equip themselves in advance with a points bar (or possibly a heavy crowbar) to be able to put their moral decision into action.

    1086:

    It is amusing that US citizens have to pay US income tax no matter where they live, but they can't vote unless they live there.

    If you're saying US citizens can't vote unless they "live" in the US, well that's not true. Unless they have given up residence there. It has to do with states vs. federal governments. There is NO voting directly for anyone at the federal level. Only at the state or more local level.

    1087:

    In addition to the difficulty of derailing a trolley by "throw the switch half-way", if you do succeed in detailing the trolley, (either as you specified or some other way) one or both of two things will almost certainly happen.

    It may tip over (especially if a two truck/bogie trolley) and/or it would head off in some random direction - no longer being constrained to the rails - and hence crash into something. And in either case could likely cause injury and/or death to passengers, trolley crew, and any passing people/spectators plus surrounding property damage.

    Which means derailing the trolley means you have not constrained the solution to the original two options, but added a massive randomness to the outcomes - and quite likely a much worse outcome.

    1088:

    i think we have to assume a perfectly spherical trolley

    1089:

    Sorry, I normally use speech to text rather than a keyboard and I am used to contexts where speed and conciseness is more important than ledgerbility. I will work on improveing the readability and punctuation of my comments on this blog specifically.

    1090:

    lawmakers should receive a "for life" state income of 1.5 - 3 times the average (not median) wage, tax free, and that they, and their spouse be taxed 110% on all other income

    Congratulations: you just blocked politicians from publishing books, whether they be grossly overpriced autobiographies, works of history, or novels.

    Really, figuring out where corruption enters the political process is a wicked problem (if only because if you ban one back-channel for bribery they'll come up with another).

    I'm currently leaning towards "100% tax on income received as an employee, as a company officer, or as a contractor working on premises/at direction of/on behalf of another person or company." Let barristers continue to practice law (they're self-employed), don't let them serve as company directors or give them sinecures. Rationale: let them keep what they clearly earn from the sweat of their own brow, but don't let them accept kickbacks. But I'm open to persuasion.

    1091:

    1088 - "...spherical trolley" in a vacuum.

    1089 - Really? "Speed and conciseness" are more important to you than having people actually read your statements?

    1092:

    Did you mean to say that, for example, the World would be a better place without Winston Churchill's 12 volume "The History of World War Two"? That's a reasonable conclusion to draw from your statement.

    1093:

    "Congratulations: you just blocked politicians from publishing books, whether they be grossly overpriced autobiographies, works of history, or novels.

    Really, figuring out where corruption enters the political process is a wicked problem (if only because if you ban one back-channel for bribery they'll come up with another)."

    There are already, on Amazon, "AI" generated technical books full of semi gibberish, priced in the 500$ range, which exist only as a way to launder illegal money / stolen credit cards.

    1094:

    What else would you use to explain how the U.S. Government works without reference to the fundamental law that sets up that government?

    PLEASE DESIST.

    This is my blog and I have to read all the comments.

    People have been explaining how the US government works to me for the more than a third of a century I've been on the internet, and the twenty-plus years I've been running this blog, and I'm sick of it. It is not a topic of great interest to me, a foreigner.

    You may have noticed that this is an international, and primarily British forum. It's not an American one, and your contributing to your fellow nationals' tendency to drown out other voices and make everything a discussion about themselves.

    1095:

    Why not simply include, in the signal, the vehicles VIN number, which is unique?

    Because in an adversarial (public) environment that would allow someone else to send fake return signals, possibly directing your vehicle to take dangerous actions.

    Least-bad case: traffic cops (whether actual police or volunteer vigilantes) could identify speeding cars and ping them with returns indicating an onrushing train in an attempt to trigger a cautionary emergency stop.

    Worst case ... nope, don't go there.

    1096:

    unless they've filled in a form saying they would rather not ever vote due to having one of these good reasons, without being asked to specify which one. (stuff like persistent vegetive state)

    Rather hard to fill in a form if you're in a persistent vegetative state…

    1097:

    i think we have to assume a perfectly spherical trolley

    Should it be in a vacuum as well?

    1098:

    It has been argued that to a large extent the stratospheric prices of examples of fine art at auction reflects demand for money laundering services (or at least for highly portable wealth -- it's easier to shift a $100M painting with an official provenance than a $100M mansion or even a $100M yacht) rather than actual value.

    1099:

    "It is amusing that US citizens have to pay US income tax no matter where they live, but they can't vote unless they live there. "

    Er, no. When we were living outside the US, we voted by mail in the state we had lived in and in which we were still registered to vote.

    1100:

    Yes. It's not purely that, though. Collectors of mediaeval manuscripts appear to be genuine aficionados, and often very knowledgeable, despite their immense wealth. My suspicion is that is less true of the mainstream fine art, but is probably still the case to some extent.

    1101:

    There are already, on Amazon, "AI" generated technical books full of semi gibberish, priced in the 500$ range, which exist only as a way to launder illegal money / stolen credit cards.

    robert maxwell would have appreciated that, he apparently had loads of ridiculously overpriced volumes printed which he then managed to use as collateral for loans

    1102:

    I have just had a thought. 'Stealth' (i.e. anti-radar) technology is trivially simple (just good reflectors at an angle), so the use of laser distance-finders could lead to people putting stealth covers around bollards or other obstacles. I can't see a benefit to a stealth car, though I am sure that someone more ingenious can.

    1103:

    "I remember being horrified to find out that my USAian friend couldn't vote because he was living in Aotearoa."

    https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/while-abroad/voting.html

    Most U.S. citizens 18 years or older who reside outside the United States are eligible to vote absentee for federal office candidates in U.S. primary and general elections. In addition, some states allow overseas citizens to vote for state and local office candidates and referendums. For information about your state, see the Voting Assistance Guide, https://www.fvap.gov/guide .

    I don't know what the scope of the "Most" is -- perhaps your friend fell outside it. Or perhaps he was talking about state and local elections in a state that doesn't accept overseas ballots for such.

    1104:

    VantaBlack paint.

    Might need to tweak the wavelength for maximum effectiveness though, AIUI automobile lidar doesn't work within the human visual frequency range (for obvious reasons, don't want the shaved apes locking onto and staring into the laser emitters).

    1105:

    »Most U.S. citizens 18 years or older who reside outside the United States are eligible to vote absentee for federal office candidates in U.S. primary and general elections.«

    Having had some personal brush with this (dual-citizen children), It is probably relatively painless for people already registered to vote, but a major hazzle for first time voters, since only some embassies offer the required services, not even all EU embassies.

    1107:

    »I have just had a thought. 'Stealth' (i.e. anti-radar) technology is trivially simple (just good reflectors at an angle)«

    No, that is precisely how stealth does not work, because bi-static and passive radar is very much a thing.

    "Stealth" surfaces ideally consist of a linear impedance gradient, with air-like impedance at the air interface and infinite impedance at the mounting surface.

    That way any impinging energy never hits an abrupt impedance jump, which will reflect, but is absorbed entirely by the stealth coating, by time it reaches the metal.

    This is the exact same high-school-level physical principle which fills anechoic chambers with mineral-wool pyramids on all surfaces.

    In practice a radar-stealth surface consists of polymers with metal particulate in carefully controlled varying amounts for each layer. Think polyurethane foam with integral metal filings.

    This is also why, in practice, stealth coatings only work over a limited frequency range. Which again is why more and more "over the horizon" radars pollute the HF bands. Which again is why avoiding 90° angles on your plane is still a good idea.

    The hard part of stealth is that on something which fly fast through the air, you want the surface to have very low air-resistance and you want it to be wear- and weather-resistant, which is precisely what low impedance materials in the GHz range are not.

    This is why the "stealt-coating" on F35 must be "redone" quite frequently.

    One unavoidable failure mode of stealth coatings is that since they do absorb the energy, you can disintegrate them if you hit them with a strong enough RF field.

    As far as I know, this has not been weaponized, but it has caused certain checklist items about not parking directly in front of radars.

    1108:

    I would expect the sensors to be designed to cope with such things as a matter of course, given how common both highly specular surfaces and dead black ones are on cars for both stylistic and functional reasons. They'd not be looking for "proper" high quality returns, but for the scatter from dirt, surface imperfections and so on. It's not the same problem as the usual popular image of "stealth" as a military concern at radar wavelengths; when you're using light-like wavelengths which are much smaller than such irregularities, and laser spots which are intense enough to guarantee extreme contrast whatever they hit, you can expect to see a detectable return from essentially any surface that isn't fresh out of the optics lab. This is useful both for cars and for cats.

    1109:

    Well, sort-of. They aren't likely to be designed to cope with military-level stealth (including such things as Vantablack). I suggested the original stealth technology as it works extremely well and is trivial to set up when covering obstacles. Just 4 sheets of polished aluminium (the sort than comes covered with plastic), which is pretty close to fresh out of the lab. Yes, I know why this has been superseded for military applications, but that is not the point.

    Vantablack might reflect less and, Gordelpus, there is a car sold that is painted in Vantablack. But the point is that, with both approaches, you have to deal with the absence of a reflection, which is much trickier because it gives no distance. No, I don't think that lasers would be a great help.

    1110:

    I did hear a (possibly apocryphal) tale of a group of stealth aircraft in the first Gulf war getting lit up by a UK Rapier battery. Apparently they had been making a habit of flying low and the sand had scoured off the stealth coating. They also hadn't informed friendly air defences that they would be active in their sector, because stealthy.

    1111:

    1108 - For certain values of "dead black", which involve infrared and/or ultraviolet wavelengths, or even radar wavelengths. Other than Vantablack (qv above) auto bodywork doesn't do this.

    1110 - Or the story involving a Royal Navy frigate with an anti-shipping radar, and a Sea Wolf installation. The ASR detected fast movers, suspected bogies, on an approach vector, which the Sea Wolf didn't. The Radar Artificers (RESPECT is due here) had just about finished getting the Sea Wolf to use the ASR for targetting data (in minutes) when the radio operator told them they could stand down because AWACS had just identified the Fast Movers as USAF F-117As.

    If your story is true, if they'd got close enough to Rapier Blindfire, the RA would have pickled first and asked questions later.

    1112:

    if they'd got close enough to Rapier Blindfire, the RA would have pickled first and asked questions later

    Which is probably why the F-117A was retired in 2008. I mean, if Serbian air defenses could shoot them down, then ...

    Footnote for Americans: Rapier Blindfire was first sold to Iran in 1973.

    1113:

    "bi-static and passive radar is very much a thing."

    There are tons of papers containing analyses of various kinds of such systems, and, IIRC, Lockheed did some demonstrations of principle in the 1990s. However, I'm not having much luck finding information on currently deployed military bi-static radar systems. Do you know of any?

    1114:

    Which is probably why the F-117A was retired in 2008.

    It was called the Night Hawk for a reason. Much of it's stealth resulted from flying missions at night. First gen anything usually needs to retire at some point.

    1115:

    I'm always fond of camouflage, stealth, and similar silliness, so I started thinking about whether dazzle camouflage is necessary and/or desirable on a car.

    There's one problem with a stealth car: the obvious use for it is to break the law, so if you've got an utterly unique-looking stealth car that gives no reading on a speed gun (lidar, laser, whatever), and then you take off speeding in it, you're going to get intercepted. What the fuzz will do is simply start chasing you, match speeds, record their own speedometer readings (on a bodycam, if nothing else), admire your bad driving and technical wizardry, and pull you over.

    And if you're too fast for a police interceptor and its oh-so-bad-ass driver in my part of the world, they'll put up a ghettobird (a police helicopter) to track you, alert the media copters to what's going on, and broadcast the chase on the evening news and news radio, partly for fun (the TV. Everybody loves a dramatic, trashy car chase. Except for the people whose cars get trashed), and partly to warn people to get out of the way of the dangerous idiot (traffic radio, also TV). So the stealth car will become a publicity magnet for your driving skills or lack thereof.

    Probably someone should do it though, if they want to advertise their car customization business.

    Anyway, that's not the only use for stealth and dazzle.

    If cars become increasingly "Self-driving," I'm not sure you want a stealth or dazzle car that messes with cameras, lidar, radar, or other steering sensors. So far as I can tell, the major result from that will mean you have to drive very offensively/defensively, because the AI cars can't figure out where you are on the road. Which is bad.

    However, if you want to control traffic and/or make it hard for certain kinds of self-driving car sensors to operate, you might want to decorate an area with stealth (no signal) or dazzle (wildly diverging signals). I can see this being used as a security measure both around military and probably wealthy neighborhoods, just as a screen to keep out some group of people who rely on a particular technology. If you do it just right by including a few judicious road recontours, only AWD vehicles with manual transmissions can get through.

    In any case, it's fun to think about not just stealth, but dazzle. Dazzle, at least at first, can be misinterpreted as art run amok (e.g. the car decorations that make it hard to for a camera to read your license plate). Stealthing is hard to interpret as anything else.

    Then there are the "dazzle" cars Tim Powers described in Alternate Routes...

    1116:

    It has to be driven by a Physics professor for it to work correctly...

    1117:

    "It has been argued that to a large extent the stratospheric prices of examples of fine art at auction reflects demand for money laundering services (or at least for highly portable wealth"

    My limited understanding of US and international tax law is that increases in valuation of things like Fine Art and ancient coins are not taxable. Additionally, they are very easy to store in all those high security no-tariff warehouses that are peppered about the landscape near international airports.

    Many Maguffins have been located in such warehouses in recent spy and sf films. I've also read more than one article about these quiet, secure tax invisible warehouses that store billions in stashed wealth.

    Of course, the 'sell to a greater fool' rule applies with fine art valuations as with all other things. Art collectors and 'investors' have a shared need for the valuation to be high, so that the 'value' they have in the item is available when they choose to sell.

    1119:

    My real world answer doesn't work? Are you also going to assert that the "trolley problem" is a real world example?

    And a trolley going off the rails will stop pretty quickly, given it's usually on streets, and the wheels will cut into asphalt. And the "trolley problem" also assumes there's no one else around to help those tied on the track to escape. And that the trolley is moving so fast that the emergency brake doesn't work.

    1120:

    My preference is that corporations have no expectations of free political speech, given that they are "artificial persons" who cannot vote. And that all representatives must be able to demonstrate, on court order, that they have given exactly the same access to individuals in the 90% income range as they did to those above that (aka kill lobbyists).

    1121:

    Stealth cars... like cars that have their license plates covered in mud so as to be unreadable.

    And then there was the Dodge Stealth. I do not care what you, personally, have seen, but every picture, and every one I ever saw on the street was flaming red.

    1122:

    How about my mate BossFox's (Roomster)[https://imagizer.imageshack.com/a/img537/7018/VT2c9t.jpg] ?

    1123:

    RE: super-black paints.

    One use that occurs to me is outdoor wall paint. For someone in a poleward clime who grumbles about not getting enough solar to electrically heat their house, hanging the super-black curtains and shutters and painting the equator-facing walls of their house super-black every fall would certainly increase the solar gain. Might want to repaint for summer though.

    Anyway, I can just see it: every burg in Scotland, Germany, and Scandinavia paints half the town dead black every October, to help stay warm.

    Yes, I know vantablack doesn't work this way, and probably super-black paints are all kinds of toxic. But even ordinary graphite/charcoal based black paint who add some heat absorption. Why not?*

    *Well, why not is that I haven't yet got the lock on for-profit SAD treatment centers. A mere triviality.

    1124:

    "What the fuzz will do is simply start chasing you, match speeds, record their own speedometer readings (on a bodycam, if nothing else), admire your bad driving and technical wizardry, and pull you over."

    In the US, they don't even need to do that. Cops are judged able to just eyeball that, so "they were speeding" is literally all it takes.

    1125:

    No, that doesn't work here, because it also increases the losses. What does work is things that reflect long infrared and transmit or absorb short infrared; those are used on double glazing.

    1126:

    *How about my mate BossFox's (Roomster)[https://imagizer.imageshack.com/a/img537/7018/VT2c9t.jpg]*

    That's one. I have a friend who bought a Prius that was painted in a muralistic style as a school project/fundraiser. It's not the most elegant design, but it's impossible to lose in parking lots. And I doubt it will ever get stolen.

    The one real-world use of dazzle camouflage I have seen was presumably a new model sedan with a plastic art job that made it surprisingly hard to see its lines (google New model camouflage). It was being driven on PCH, and I played tag with it for most of an hour. Presumably they were road testing it prior to release.

    As for automated license plate readers, I'm now wondering whether a mosaic of old license plates (art, of course) would be considered a legal car decoration. If so, would a video of a collage of old license plates also be considered legal? Hmmmm.

    1127:

    »Anyway, I can just see it: every burg in Scotland, Germany, and Scandinavia paints half the town dead black every October, to help stay warm.«

    That would probably work precisely the opposite of what you expect: Black surfaces both absorb and transmit efficiently, but they would transmit 24h/d and only absorb a fraction of that time.

    The exact math is long-haired however, because you have to look at differential radiation intensity at the main frequencies for the temperatures blackbody radiation.

    Modern "energy" windows exploit this with a coating which reflects only long-wave infrared, so that visible light gets into your house, hits something dark-ish, gets downconverted to lower frequences via the black-body radiation, and then cannot escape through the windows.

    1128:

    "Much of it's stealth resulted from flying missions at night."

    Yes, I've seen F-117s flying in the day (twilight, actually) and, gasp!, they were visible.

    Also, their stealth depended to a great degree on geometry, which is

    A) why they looked so funny

    and

    B) why, going on a mission, their pilots carried a cartridge of route instructions crafted to put them into as favorable as possible positions and aspects relative to the air defense radars where they were going.

    1129:

    That would probably work precisely the opposite of what you expect: Black surfaces both absorb and transmit efficiently, but they would transmit 24h/d and only absorb a fraction of that time.

    You and EC are right of course. But since we're already into silly (super-black housepaint), it simply needs a super-silly-science clear overcoat that passes visible light and blocks long wave IR.

    1130:

    Not to mention the Chrysler Crossfire, a stupidly named vehicle if there ever was such a thing.

    I didn't learn much from the endless stream of westerns and war movies that played on tv when I was a kid, but one core message was that it is deadly to be caught in a Crossfire(TM).

    1131:

    Charlie @ 1095
    - to stop an "AI" or "self-driving" car: Get an empty tin can, punch a hole, attach a string ... swing it round over your head in a circle, & you now have {effectiveely} a rotating corner-cube reflector, made of metal. Car will STOP.
    For added shits & giggles, this is done by members of a robbery gang, yes/no? So not such a good idea, maybe ...
    - @ 1112
    That was also because of US stupidity & arrogance - IIRC they flew the "reconnaisance" aircraft over on the same course/heading at the same time, every day .....
    And - referring to "H" @ 1115:
    OF COURSE: I can't find my camouflage net - by Les Barker, oh dear!
    - if you have not heard this wonderful insanity before, listening to it is strongly recommended.

    paws
    I THINK that "Markdown" label was exactly inverted?

    1132:

    Yes dammit; the one time I don't Preview a MarkDown...

    1133:

    Black surfaces both absorb and transmit efficiently, but they would transmit 24h/d and only absorb a fraction of that time.

    Yup. And in winter, when you most want to trap heat, here in Edinburgh we get up to 18 hours of darkness out of every 24. (It's a lot worse in Scandinavia.)

    1134:

    Not to mention the Chrysler Crossfire, a stupidly named vehicle if there ever was such a thing.

    My favourite Stupid American Vehicle name was the short-lived Ford Probe.

    I don't know what that sounds like to US ears, but here in the UK nobody could hear it without sniggering, because of course anal probes are what spring to mind first.

    1135:

    I believe the Kia Provo might have also been a contender, but my understanding is they changed the name once they got a bit of feedback from their Irish customer and/or staff.

    A quick search turns up the Mitsubishi Winky, the Proton Putra, the Subaru Brat, Mazda Laputa (!!?!! I ask you).

    I think my favourite from that shallow internet dive is the Isuzu Mysterious Utility Wizard. Which sounds like it should have been the default vehicle in the Laundry Motor Pool.

    1136:

    I try not to reply to you paws, as you don't generally discuss in good faith, but yes. I'm reasonably sure it would be a much better place.

    Now you can't pick the flow of history in advance, but, if by fiat, at the end of the war, that rule became universal, we could consider that we'd lose the 12 volume opus (hands up anyone who has read it?)

    We'd also lose the asset stripping of the former soviet union that lead to the rise of Putin, and the various unpleasantnesses that have resulted. We'd lose the regulatory capture of town planning, and we'd have sensible cities. They'd be accessible to the young, the old, the poor and the disabled. The US military industrial complex couldn't have arisen. Fossil fuel companies wouldn't have been able to capture governments and block the switch to renewables. Atmospheric CO2 would be about 325 ppm (1970 level). Railways would have had a second flowering, but mostly electric, and they'd be in national hands, not run for profit. Murdoch's empire of hate would have died on the vine. There would be sufficient public housing once property developers lost control of the governments. Public health wouldn't be run at the whim of business interests, and would actually tackle, and beat diseases rather than allow them to run rampant for short term business gains. Brexit wouldn't have happened, or even come up for discussion. Drug patents would expire after 25 years as they are supposed to (and insulin would be made by a government lab, and sell for a few pounds).

    So yeah, if I had to pick between Churchill not bothering to write (or writing and putting it in the public domain) vs collapsing civilisation, I'd pick Churchill not writing thanks. Along with every other grifter's ghosted autobiography that we've seen over the last 80 years.

    1137:

    Robert said: Rather hard to fill in a form if you're in a persistent vegetative state…

    In Australia (which has compulsory voting) they currently have to fill in a form for every local, state or federal election or be fined.

    So if you're going to have compulsory voting, you either have fines, endless forms, or one form to rule them all.

    1138:

    gasdive
    Your lack of relevant knowledge is a hindrance: W S Churchill was, as well as an MP, a professional writer.
    He wrote an awful lot, actually: Quote from wiki - Churchill was a prolific writer. His output included a novel, two biographies, three volumes of memoirs, several histories, and numerous press articles.

    1139:

    there will always be bribery

    someone in need of a favor done on the side, a law passed smoothly (or trapped in committee), a slow walked permit by a competitor (an accelerated approval for your own), etc...

    until we convince politicians -- which will be never -- to live in a glass house mode of all financial meta-data posted out in the open on a daily basis we will never now what they've been receiving nor from whom

    completely honest politicians elected to public office? another "will be never"

    1140:

    I've been told this by a guy who was a Rapier operator in the 1st Gulf War. He also said they video-taped it and when the higher ups heard about the tape some very unpleasant MPs turned up and seized the tape and told them it never happened.

    1141:

    I couldn't care less what he wrote.

    If I could somehow wipe out all of publishing, and thereby save civilisation, and the deaths of billions (along with most ecosystems), I wouldn't hesitate.

    The choice between making ex politicians put their vanity projects in public domain and the collapse of everything is even easier.

    A few dusty books doesn't come close to making up for the vast human and animal misery that has resulted from the capture of governments by business interests.

    His works will almost certainly be lost during the coming interregnum anyway.

    1142:

    Then there was the Daihatsu Charade. I dunno, maybe it wasn't a real car?

    1143:

    Not to mention the Chrysler Crossfire, a stupidly named vehicle if there ever was such a thing. My favourite Stupid American Vehicle name was the short-lived Ford Probe. I don't know what that sounds like to US ears, but here in the UK nobody could hear it without sniggering, because of course anal probes are what spring to mind first.

    In a way, the Probe was doubly stupid. Ford Probes were Ford's concept vehicles from 1979 to 1985, and AFAIK were always good for some news coverage/ad space at the latest auto show. Badging non-production concept cars "Probes" doesn't sound quite so stupid. They were definitely used for good PR ("See the latest Ford Probe at the LA Auto Show!")

    Then in 1988 they decided to put the "Probe" moniker on a...well, read the article link if you want to find out what the production Probe was. Your reaction is valid in quite a few ways.

    1144:

    I hear you telling me my occupation is useless and shouldn't exist.

    Are you sure you want to go there?

    1145:

    I was going to chime in, but I'll leave it to the professionals :)

    What I did want to say is that it depends entirely on why a given (ex) politicians writes. If they're just writing for money then the pension income should mitigate that desire to a large extent. But often ex-politicians write because they really, really want to get "their side" out in public.

    Malcolm Turnbull being the classic example down here. He was called "Harbourside Mansion" in parliament for a while. I doubt he wrote this book out of a desperate need for a few extra dollars.

    1146:

    If that's what you hear, you're not listening.

    1147:

    I hear you all right: I think you've got a bad case of not seeing the forest for the tree trunk in front of you.

    (Yes, bribery and corruption are bad. But without communications media we are not capable of sustaining a post-iron-age civilization at all. Which in turn means zero cultural memory of why the climate is changing and why it's a bad idea to burn the world down ...)

    1148:

    I often see cars with really daft vanity licence plate numbers, obviously intended as an attempt to confuse plate readers. "1I1I1I", "0O0O0O" and similar. It's usually a matte-black Audi or BMW SUV.

    1149:

    I'm saying ex-politicians should be kept in reasonable luxury and barred from profit making outside their generous pension.

    You're saying that unless Winston wrote a textbook and could make a profit from that, there would be no written medium at all.

    Or

    You're saying that without the steady stream of ghosted vanity projects from ex-politicians and a profit stream for the nominal writers, there can be no written medium at all.

    It's not 100% clear which you're saying and I reject both.

    I don't think your profession hangs on the ability for ex-politicians to profit from books or anything else. It seems obvious that ex-politician's memoirs and/or reprints of WW2 histories, are a small subset of the industry and it could survive without.

    It also seems obvious that affordable housing, affordable transport and a political class with an incentive to increase the average wage would give more talented people the scope to write rather than work 3 minimum wage jobs on zero hour contracts. Plus would give more people some free time in which to read (commuting by train rather than car if nothing else), and spare money with which to buy books.

    1150:

    I find the idea of a human society without story-tellers a trifle extreme, even by the standards of this blog. Tax-collecting and rat-catching go back only to the advent of farming, but story-telling (and history-relating) are much older occupations.

    1151:

    ilya187 @ 1071:

    What year? Age 21 minimum went into effect under the UCMJ in 1984.

    I assure you this is not true. I entered USAF in August 1985 at the age of 18. I had to learn UCMJ in basic training. There was nothing there about drinking age being 21, and I drank on the base all the time.

    I can assure you that it WAS TRUE for the Army & the Army National Guard ... at least at Ft Liberty, NC ("the fort formerly known as Bragg).

    For the Army at least, the UCMJ was changed in 1984 to incorporate the requirements of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.

    1152:

    There was also the Rolls Royce Silver Mist.

    1153:

    This is the best story I've heard of a vanity plate intended to wreck the processing of fines.

    https://www.wired.com/story/null-license-plate-landed-one-hacker-ticket-hell/

    1154:

    There was also the Mitsubishi Mirage, which spawned a million dad jokes based around "it's only a Mirage"

    1155:

    For all we know Homer was an ex politician trying to capitalize or show 'his side'. Certainly Ceasar's 'Conquest of Gaul' was written with politics in mind, and despite its casually monstrous description of a genocide I'm really glad it exists.

    Like most people on here I read a lot, and the two best books I read last year were the autobiographies of Nelson Mandela and F.W. De Klerk. Two big figures writing about the same events from completely opposite perspectives. I learned a lot from both books. I disagree very strongly with the idea that we would be better off without them.

    I'm fine with the idea of serious penalties and a toothy, hands-off investigative branch that is specifically tasked with identifying and punishing instances of corruption and regulatory capture.

    1156:

    NecroMoz: deanimator of the undead @ 1081:

    It is amusing that US citizens have to pay US income tax no matter where they live, but they can't vote unless they live there.

    You don't actually have to live here, you just have to have your home of record (voter registration) here (in one of the 50 states + DC) ... those absentee ballots that have become so controversial recently. And under some circumstances your income may be exempt from U.S. taxes while you still retain your right to vote because of where your home of record is.

    U.S. taxes are a pain because you not only have to deal with Federal Taxes, there are also 50 different STATE tax laws. It can be a real mess to figure out if you have income (earned or unearned) from more than one state.

    One way to understand the U.S, is that often "States" means a lot more than "United" does.

    1157:

    Relatedly, I understand that the Toyota MR2 never sold well in France.

    1158:

    Robert Prior @ 1072:

    Dim memory from the 70s: I was told that the reason the drinking age was 19 not 18 was that kids tended to start drinking two years before they were legal, so having the age at 19 meant 16-year-olds tended not to drink. At the time, 16 was the usual age to get a drivers license.

    No idea how true that was. No internet back then to check. IIRC I heard it from either my civics teacher or my driving instructor.

    I'm sure there are plenty of good reasons why the drinking age should be higher (or lower). I don't have a problem with it either way. It's the law, and I know no compelling reason I should oppose the law in this case.

    My IRE is strictly over the sleazy way it was enacted here in the U.S.; the process they used to CHEAT - to enact by stealth what they could not openly pass.

    1159:

    None of which opinion is in anyway relevant to the generally held views that Churchill was:-
    a) A competent journalist and war correspondent (before he ever entered politics).
    b) An extremely good historian.

    None of which you will believe coming from Greg or I, but as all I'm doing is quoting generally held facts in the public domain, actually do some research and prove for yourself that I'm right.

    1160:

    Well then you'd have to make the case that a constitutional change made in the 20th century to limit the power of corporations to control government would retrospectively erase the works of Homer and Ceasar, and you'd have to make the case the Mandela and F.W. De Klerk books owe their existence to them needing the money, which doesn't seem to be reality. (as pointed out by Moz, royalties don't seem to be what motivates the creation of autobiographies). F.W. De Klerk was a millionaire and Mandela gave away millions to charity. He could easily sign the book rights to a charity and they'd get the money.

    You'd also have to point to a single instance where serious penalties and a toothy, hands-off investigative branch that is specifically tasked with identifying and punishing instances of corruption and regulatory capture has prevented regulatory capture. Such places will be easily identified by the effective car free state owned public transport system, the plentiful public housing, the zero carbon economy and the strong worker rights.

    1161:

    I have promised myself that if I ever own another sailboat it will be named [REDACTED]. Particularly if I race it.

    1162:

    Kardashev at 906: Around here, at least some of the pheasants have a very odd predator-avoidance behaviour: They panic when you've already walked past them.
    All they had to do was sit tight, because I didn't know they were there. Weirb.

    (Admitedly they are captive-bred and released for shooting, so they may not be that finely-tuned. But still.)

    1163:

    Zeroth @ 1082:

    On age limits for various activities, and what to do with roadkill.

    In the U.S. state where I grew up, the minimum age for a learner's permit (so you could drive with a licensed driver in the car) was 15 in the early 1970s. Once you had your learners permit for a week, you could take the test for a (non commercial) driver's license.

    Different states have different laws regarding when you can take the drivers license test & get your license.

    The law here in North Carolina has changed in the years since I got my license, so there's that to consider too.

    [...]

    I don't know if it was actually true or not, but I was told the only thing you could do with roadkill in the above-referenced state was donate it to the School for the Blind or the School for the Deaf.

    Again, 50 different states with 50 different laws plus Canadian laws & laws in Canadian Provinces & Territories (& Mexico) ...

    Another thing affecting what you should do with roadkill TODAY is Chronic Wasting Disease (aka Zombie Deer Disease).

    1164:

    But do you mean literally "[REDACTED]", or do you mean some word that you're unwilling to write on this blog?

    Because [REDACTED] would be funny in its own way. Like the boat I saw with letting right round its circumference and nothing else other than the rego number. I kind of suspect the name of the boat was actually "the name of this boat is very long and it goes round and round until you realise the name of this boat is very long and it goes round and round until you realise ..."

    1165:

    I'm not disputing either a or b.

    I do dispute that keeping ex-politicians in luxury, but without a second income would prevent them from writing, and that even if it does, the trade off of being governed by people rather than corporations is more than worth it.

    If you're going to discuss in good faith, discuss what I'm saying. Don't invent something I haven't said, demonstrate that what I didn't say is wrong and then finish off by saying "do some research and prove for yourself that I'm right."

    Since I don't think you're physically capable of doing that, I'll now go back to trying not to repond to you.

    1166:

    I often agree with what you write on here, but it looks like that's not the case here.

    You seem to think that all corruption would be eliminated if politicians weren't allowed to make a living post-politics, outside of a pension. I'd like to point out a few key flaws in your idea.

  • Most corruption tends to happen at levels below politicians. While I'm sure a few former MPs or Senators get sinecures or 'jobs' at corporations after their careers, I think the more difficult issue is with high and mid-level administrators and bureaucrats. See the various Defense Industries for examples, or most petrostates.

  • Related to above, most politicians are not deep level experts in the things they are leading. In some ways that is good, but it does tend to vest a lot of the power into the deputies and bureaucrats that control information flow to and from those leaders.

  • Totally aside from corruption, I think we all benefit from insights into what particular people were thinking in particular instances. Neither Mandela nor De Klerk had a complete picture of events, and neither of them were perfect people. Reading both autobiographies gave me a lot of insight into those events that I would not have had otherwise.

  • I can only think that barring people from post-political profit will either block poor people or wealthy people from participating in the political process (depending on how it is structured). Neither is a viable outcome, because if groups are excluded you eventually end up with violence.

  • 1167:

    Heteromeles @ 1129:

    That would probably work precisely the opposite of what you expect: Black surfaces both absorb and transmit efficiently, but they would transmit 24h/d and only absorb a fraction of that time.

    You and EC are right of course. But since we're already into silly (super-black housepaint), it simply needs a super-silly-science clear overcoat that passes visible light and blocks long wave IR.

    Glass would probably work.

    DIY Solar furnace

    1168:

    I saw a picture once of a sailboat named "GAFIA". If it wasn't owned by an SF fan of a certain age, then I imagine the owner would have been surprised when someone like me knew what the name meant without being told.

    For those that don't know, GAFIA is/was an acronym meaning someone had stepped away from SF fandom for some reason -- "Getting Away From It All". GAFIA was often verbed, the action of leaving fandom == "to gafiate".

    1169:

    Time was, being an elected politician alone didn't pay the bills at least for someone in the upper middle classes. Benjamin Disraeli was Prime Minister twice in the early Victorian period and kept himself and his family out of debt by writing potboiler novels even while he held the office of Prime Minister. Of course the cost of maintaining his position in society was an expense he had to bear in those days. A little later in time and on the other side of the Big Pond, US President Grant famously wrote his memoirs as he was dying to provide for his widow after his death.

    1170:

    Charlie Stross @ 1134:

    Not to mention the Chrysler Crossfire, a stupidly named vehicle if there ever was such a thing.

    My favourite Stupid American Vehicle name was the short-lived Ford Probe.

    I don't know what that sounds like to US ears, but here in the UK nobody could hear it without sniggering, because of course anal probes are what spring to mind first.

    Chevrolet had problems selling the Nova in South America.

    1171:

    You won't find any serious historians advocating for Churchill as being a very good historian. A good and entertaining popular writer, a decent primary source as long as you get separate corroboration, but not a reliable historian at all. To be entirely fair to him, few historians from that long ago would pass muster by the standards for modern scholarship.

    1172:

    DuncanE @ 1140:

    I've been told this by a guy who was a Rapier operator in the 1st Gulf War. He also said they video-taped it and when the higher ups heard about the tape some very unpleasant MPs turned up and seized the tape and told them it never happened.

    I wonder how much of that was about concern it might reveal the F-117 and how much about keeping operational details of the Rapier system secret?** And how much was about not embarrassing higher-ups in the chain of command.

    Not embarrassing the brass accounts for a lot more of military secrecy than most people realize.**

    ** Keeping it secret from whom?

    1173:

    @1130 speculates

    "stupidly named vehicle if there ever was such a thing."

    Chevy Nova led GM marketers to enquire why the product wouldn't sell to Latinos, till they realized it means Won't Go in Spanish. "Hey senor, my chevy no va."

    Ford engineers led visiting businessmen from China to inspect their Pinto production line, and wondered why they all smirked and guffawed furtively. Turns out pintou in Chinese means one's mistress.

    1174:

    Chevy Nova led GM marketers to enquire why the product wouldn't sell to Latinos, till they realized it means Won't Go in Spanish. "Hey senor, my chevy no va."

    GM was told. Repeatedly before the Nova debuted. By high level insiders. The "Merican" bosses went ahead anyway.

    Story is from someone who's father retired as the VP of marketing at one of the GM divisions. And had emigrated from Spain.

    1175:

    I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the appropriately named Mitsubishi Wanker...

    https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/pajero

    1176:

    This sounds like an old salt's tale, good for a round of drinks at the bar but less than factual in reality.

    The F-117 was a small(ish) aircraft flying on missions at high altitude. It had radar-return-reducing geometry and first-generation radar-absorbing coatings which didn't make it invisible to ground-based radars and especially fire-control radars but it made them much more difficult to spot compared to non-stealthy aircraft. Add in active jamming and any ground-based systems were going to have a hard job identifying and especially getting a target lock on something like an F-117.

    The F-117 shootdown by the Serbs was not specifically a defeat of stealth by eagle-eyed radar observers but more a shotgun blast of multiple AA missiles fired at the flight path of what had become a predictable course, time, speed and altitude operation. There are some commentators that suggest this shotgun approach was attempted multiple times and only after the Serbs actually brought down one F-117 (out of the eight or so planes flying missions that night) did the US military planners think it was a good idea to start varying their courses, altitudes, timings etc.

    Both stealth and radars are much improved from those times and the countermeasures continue. The Chinese have a VERY interesting twin-fuselage reconnaissance drone that seems purpose-designed to detect stealth aircraft, especially over oceans. It is thought to incorporate ten-metre-long arrays of HF antennas to spot stealth aircraft but it is not a targetting radar for weapons, it is a surveillance radar that identifies possible threats at a distance.

    1177:

    Howard NYC
    completely honest politicians elected to public office? another "will be never"* - WRONG
    Like my MP, whom I am very fortunate to know personally ...
    It does happen, just not too often, OK?

    gasdive
    If I could somehow wipe out all of publishing, AND - therefore permanently DESTROY anything resembling civilisation.
    A few dusty books doesn't come close - RIGHT - ALL the records of ancient Greece & Rome, plus all the other civilisations that have left records - " a few dusty books" .... Excuse me, but: Are you really that stupid. ??
    As Charlie @ 1144 says - are you SURE about this ??????
    SEE ALSO Paws @ 1159 - ok?
    @ 1146 _ GROW UP
    & @ 1160 - GROW UP!
    ... @ 1165 - alternatively: eff off!
    - Yes, I'm really annoyed at this level of stupidity on this blog, OK?

    • Charlie - if this is too "OTT" - then delete or edit this entry?

    EC @ 1150
    Indeed.
    Remember Pterry's definition: WE are Pan narrans - yes?

    1178:

    These are excellent points.

    My thought is that the truism "the rot starts from the head" has a grain of truth in it. It's not going to be practical to root out corruption if the bosses are corrupt.

    My mother kept interesting company in her youth, and she repeated to me what she'd been told by what the press calls "a colourful racing identity".

    "In most countries you have to pay off the local cops to be able to do business, but here we only have to pay off the politicians, it's much cheaper"

    This was speaking of events in Australia 70 years ago now, so all the politicians in question are now long dead and unable to sue a Scottish blogger and obviously the current crop of politicians who can sue are not anything like that.

    Yes you need to root out corruption by senior civil servants, and right down to beat cops, but you can't do that if the law makers are passing laws that make what the corporations do legal. So rather than thinking all corruption would be eliminated by blinding politicians to money, I'm thinking that there can be no effective measures against corruption, until politicians are blinded to money. Which is subtly, but importantly, different.

    I don't think the present crop of politicians (in any country) will vote for this. It would take a new party, standing on an anti corruption platform, that promised and delivered a referendum on constitutional change (which for some countries would include creating one). Which is probably less likely than practical fusion.

    I agree that the rich, for whom 1.5-3 times the mean average wage would be a pittance (£57,900 - £115,800 tax free, equivalent to £85,000 - £200,000) would be excluded from political life, but being rich, with much to lose, and few in number, probably wouldn't be taking to the streets and smashing windows.

    I can't see how the poor would be excluded any more than they already are. Yes, after serving as Minister for Something you won't be able to work 10 hours a year as a non executive board member for 5 different Something contractors, and take home a million pounds a year, but to a poor person surely either seems like a great deal of money. "eighty-five k, for life? Are you havin a laugh? Me and the missus, we don't get outta bed fir less than a million quid do we Jessica?"

    1179:

    "I'm sure there are plenty of good reasons why the drinking age should be higher (or lower). I don't have a problem with it either way. It's the law, and I know no compelling reason I should oppose the law in this case."

    In general, there are compelling reasons not to have laws that you don't really care about and that most people break.

    Such laws entrench racism and discrimination. Because enforcement inevitably is really biased when enforcement is spotty. Which means it effectively criminalizes being poor, or black.

    In the US, blacks are far more likely to be charged for drinking underage, but all evidence is that they don't drink underage any more than white kids do. A difference in enforcement that even persists if you look at a similar pool of kids in the same location: eg, students attending the same college.

    (Similar arguments are given by those who support decriminalizing cannabis)

    1180:

    Just to be more annoying, I'll make the opposite case:

    As a condition of receiving a government pension, elected officials above a certain rank must write and publish their autobiographies. Their complete autobiographies, limited only by the needs of national defense and similar life-and=death secrets.

    In doing so, in the US at least they are given fairly broad immunity from prosecution (in order to comply with the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination).

    However, anyone who collaborated in their actions can be prosecuted as appropriate.

    I'd argue this would do as much to stamp out corruption as preventing them from writing for profit.

    On a far more practical level, I think politicians should be encouraged to write about politics, for the same reason that master plumbers should teach plumbing and surgeons should teach surgery: practitioners know better. Like it or not, we need politicians, and we do better when they're highly skilled pros, not wannabes. Certainly lack of experience did not help Trump or the US under his regime.

    1181:

    Greg said: gasdive If I could somehow wipe out all of publishing, AND - therefore permanently DESTROY anything resembling civilisation. A few dusty books doesn't come close - RIGHT - ALL the records of ancient Greece & Rome, plus all the other civilisations that have left records - " a few dusty books" .... Excuse me, but: Are you really that stupid. ??

    No.

    You've misunderstood my argument.

    I argued against second incomes for ex-politicians

    The argument was put forward that this wasn't worth it because we'd be deprived of the books written by ex-politicians. An extremely doubtful conclusion, as most of them weren't written for money anyway. It was also argued that my idea, which never mentioned time travel, would retrospectively erase Churchill's 12 volumes on WW2 history.

    I said I didn't care, the improvement in life for people in the future is more valuable than a 12 volume history (that wouldn't have been erased anyway). That if there were time travel, and you compared life with the 12 volumes, but also with wage slavery, ecocide and civilisation collapse vs no volumes, and no wage slavery, ecocide and civilisation collapse, I'd take the second thanks.

    You argued that I didn't understand how vital the works of Churchill are, and that no reward from breaking the yoke of corporations could be worth losing these works.

    I employed some hyperbole to try to explain that I thought not killing billions of people and trillions of other life was more important than books as a whole let alone losing a WW2 history (which you wouldn't lose anyway). Mostly because not shaking off the yoke of corporations is going to collapse civilisation and hence wipe out publishing and books (we've had many discussions here on how to transmit knowledge into the future, past the collapse, and no one seemed to have a good idea, partly because it would be expensive and no corporations would make money from it, so it can't be done)

    You've taken this to be that my proposal for denying ex-politicians a second income includes wiping out all books, past and future.

    The worst my proposal would do, is remove the possibility of some future Churchill who found himself in dire financial straits writing some book only because they need the money. All the ex-politician's books that are yet to be written for any other reason would still be written. Indeed, many books that would not have been written because the politician involved didn't want to annoy their new employers, or because they needed to earn money right now, and not spend a year writing in the hope of royalties later, could be written. The politician in question would have free time and no obligations. We'd probably get more first hand accounts of history, not less.

    1183:

    Churchill’s six volume History of WW2 is a pretty fascinating read. And a surprisingly pleasant one.

    It’s likely got it’s issues but reading the first hand account of one of the primary leaders of that time, boy it’s intense. And he was a surprisingly good writer

    1184:

    ~Single Raised Eyebrow~

    Ghettobird?

    1185:

    Not original to me. The person who taught me that term wasn't white, and I understood it to be derogatory to the cops, and to mark the notion that police helicopters get deployed disproportionately over poorer and less white neighborhoods.

    However, I do acknowledge that it can be offensive, so I'll apologize as necessary.

    1186:

    For the Army at least, the UCMJ was changed in 1984 to incorporate the requirements of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984.

    Don't know what to say. Perhaps Air Force was slower to comply with this Act. If so, I am glad it did.

    1187:

    I'll give a pass to any politician with the capacity to write a book someone else wants to read; the ghostwritten trash can go.

    As for the rest, you're definitely not wrong!

    1188:

    ~Sighs~ Now if every politician could stop being Joe Isuzu...

    1189:

    It's too bad the BASH fork bomb code can't fit on a license plate.

    1190:

    Certainly we could pass laws about what politicians could or could not do after retirement and are aimed at combating corruption. I've no problem with that.

    1191:

    An extremely doubtful conclusion, as most of them weren't written for money anyway.

    Yes... I found that leap to be even more strained than usual with arguments here. That others piled on is something I found a little disappointing, since this link was obviously so tenuous in the first place but I suppose your doubling down was a tad mischievous, in a similar vein to the ER protestors who threw soup at the glass barrier covering a Van Gogh painting.

    Most senior politicians write memoirs and as I see it there would be more trouble with stopping them. They generally do not require a financial incentive. There are some interesting comparisons. Many people say that J.K.Rowling's unemployment benefit subsidised the development of her literary works. In contrast, Raymond Chandler turned to writing as a means of support for his family after retiring from the oil industry without a fortune. Both are bodies of work that some people, at least, value highly. That's not to say necessarily that Rowling could not have written while holding a day job, or that Chandler wouldn't have bothered but for the income. I think it's a really unlikely conclusion that Churchill in particular wrote for the money (I thought he was independently wealthy before entering politics in the first place). But surely a stipend is the not an impediment to production in any sense.

    The other contrast is between the ex-pols who continue in some form of public service versus those who go into industry, including the ones who do highly paid consulting for friendly governments, something that surely sails closer to the winds of corruption than most post-orifice activities.

    1192:

    I remember being horrified to find out that my USAian friend couldn't vote because he was living in Aotearoa.

    Actually, US citizens overseas can vote.

    From https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/while-abroad/voting.html :

    "Most U.S. citizens 18 years or older who reside outside the United States are eligible to vote absentee for federal office candidates in U.S. primary and general elections. In addition, some states allow overseas citizens to vote for state and local office candidates and referendums."

    1193:

    My favorite boat name in my marina is Never Again IV.

    1194:

    You and EC are right of course. But since we're already into silly (super-black housepaint), it simply needs a super-silly-science clear overcoat that passes visible light and blocks long wave IR.

    Someone mentioned that (coated) glass is fine for this, and taking it a step further gets us to eco-houses that existed and I inspected first hand around 30 years ago.

    One version is an dark object or surface with high thermal mass inside double-glazed window/walls facing the equator, with eaves, soffits, angled slats or some combination thereof arranged so the mass is exposed to the sun all day in winter but only mornings and evenings in summer. In one case it was a black slate floor, and some of the slats were under a double-glazed glass roof which admitted the winter sun deep into the building. One relied on covering a black-painted concrete bench with a sheepskin rug for summer, as part of "working the house". In both cases the owners claimed they could easily make it too hot in winter and too cold in summer but overworking the passive features, and were able to relax the strict application of rugs, curtains and blinds and whatnot a little to keep it more comfortable. Both had small portable space heaters around the place for emergencies but neither needed active central heating/cooling systems. This was in Canberra, which is about the same latitude as Memphis TN or Malta, though somewhat more elevated.

    1195:

    As a condition of receiving a government pension, elected officials above a certain rank must write and publish their autobiographies. Their complete autobiographies, limited only by the needs of national defense and similar life-and=death secrets.

    To be vetted and enforced by?

    The BUCABIARP

    Bureau & Committee for Auto Biographical Integrity & Accuracy of Retired Politicians

    1196:

    I doubt there's higher praise than "tad mischievous". Cheers.

    Sadly I don't think my idea for this, or any other of my "get rich quick" and "save the world quick" ideas will get up.

    This current one will never fly. When the people in charge see that their pet politicians are struggling to slip the leash, it would be a work of moments to reframe it as an attempt to drain the public purse into their own pockets. "Greedy politicians want you to vote yes so they can live off your money forever! Vote NO to giving them even more of your money!"

    1197:

    "Greedy politicians want you to vote yes so they can live off your money forever!"

    That's about to start in Aotearoa I reckon. Public funding for political parties has been suggested again, and the corrupt politicians don't like the matching anti-corruption measures but it's not a good look to campaign against those. So public funding is bound to be the target.

    The trouble with your exact slogan is that that is already how it works. The days when politicians in Oz/NZ were expected to be (and needed to be) independently wealthy are long gone. We've already seen how well that worked out...

    1198:

    Yes you need to root out corruption by senior civil servants, and right down to beat cops, but you can't do that if the law makers are passing laws that make what the corporations do legal.

    I've recommended it before, but Alain Denault's Legalizing Theft is well worth reading.

    1199:

    https://theconversation.com/the-galactica-ai-model-was-trained-on-scientific-knowledge-but-it-spat-out-alarmingly-plausible-nonsense-195445

    "Galactica" AI trained to (re)produce scientific language goes horribly wrong when exposed to the general public. An image in the article shows a wikipedia style article "the benefits of eating ground glass" as well as the obligatory antisemitism reference.

    1200:

    That's brilliant.

    Thanks!

    BUCABIARP

    I'm trying to figure out which end of the GI tract could better sound that out. As an acronym though, it's quite fitting.

    1201:

    Re "Legalizing theft"

    I just read the few pages that are available as a teaser. It does indeed look interesting. It seems as bad as I feared.

    1202:

    Re "Legalizing theft"

    I just read the few pages that are available as a teaser. It does indeed look interesting. It seems as bad as I feared.

    1203:

    Oh dear, what next?
    The Cockatoos are bombing us!

    Unholyguy
    Two of W S C's early books are well worth a read, too - both giving vivid & astonishing glimpses into the past:
    "The River War" - his personal account of the Sudan expedition, published in 1899, - and - "My Early Life" - published much later { 1930 } which includes his, um, exiting adventures during the Boer war & ending with his marriage.

    1204:

    Define "ex-politician".

    It's one thing to consider former presidents, prime ministers, and senior ministers of state ... and another thing entirely to apply the same rules to your local community council members, or to a boring back-bench MP who is elected once and loses their seat at the next general election.

    Where's the cut-off? Is it defined by tenure, or seniority? If by seniority, then how do you define it -- is a senior shadow cabinet minister who never has a seat in a government with legislative/executive power treated the same way as an actual cabinet minister?

    1205:

    "I think it's a really unlikely conclusion that Churchill in particular wrote for the money"

    Actually, it's extremely well known that the money from the books and journalism were the only thing keeping him at least semi-solvent for much of his life. Churchill had very expensive tastes, and had inherited bugger all from his parents. Without the writing, he'd have been bankrupt or in prison for peddling influence.

    1206:

    thewehie
    Indeed: WSC's favourite expensive taste - & yes, I have drunk it on a special occasion (!)

    1207:

    Mmmmm. The Cuvee Sir Winston is gorgeous, Greg.

    I can afford it about once every other year when it's on super special offer at Majestic. Winnie used to order it by the multiple case load!

    1208:

    That's why it's known as the greenhouse effect. But I can tell you from actual experience that, even at only 52 north, there isn't enough solar radiation on most (read: overcast) days to make a significant difference. And it gets rapidly worse as you go north from here.

    1209:

    Yeah, this particular line of argument was just bizarre.

    Look, I'm a professional writer, and it's been my sole source of income for a looooong time. If I were independently wealthy, or provided a well off living without writing for money I would...write.

    And that's most writers, in my experience. It's too hard to do as a living for most people to do that you aren't more or less compelled to do it.

    But even if you ignore that, and just go with politicians - the idea that they wouldn't write memoirs without money motives is just demonstrably wrong. Politicians in particular are hard to stop writing them, and many of them vanity publish the damn things.

    1210:

    Greg @1177

    completely honest politicians elected to public office? another "will be never"* - WRONG Like my MP, whom I am very fortunate to know personally ... It does happen, just not too often, OK?

    And here in the UK we actually have statistical measures of our MPs honesty.

    Two thirds of UK MPs were honest about their expenses in 2009.

    In amongst the moated duck houses, heated stables for horses, and houses in London rented out because the MP lived only 30 miles from London, we have people like Kelvin Hopkins MP for Luton North who just claimed for a season rail ticket for the year, and went home every night.

    I'd say that that leak of information is moderately reassuring, though it does also highlight that there were 200+ mildly corrupt individuals in Westminster.

    1211:

    What I would like to know is the proportions among the government (and shadow government).

    1212:

    Most corruption tends to happen at levels below politicians.

    It also doesn't always benefit the politicians in question directly.

    Case in point: the current scandal over government contracts for PPE during COVID and the Tory peer Michelle Mone -- firstly, most of the money went into secret offshore trust funds where the prime beneficiaries were her adult children. Secondly, she's not an elected representative (she's an appointed life peer). Thirdly, it's hard to prove a causal link between her support for PPE Medpro's bid for the PPE contracts and PPE Medpro winning the contract, let alone forking over by my count somewhere north of £90M to Mone and her now-husband -- which was awarded by Some Other Guy. (Mone reportedly didn't list an interest in PPE Medpro on the House of Lords register of interests. PPE Medpro is, however, an offshore company with sufficiently opaque ownership that nobody seems to know who owns it, funds it, or controls it. It's worth noting that the Serious Crime Agency is investigating Mone's connection to PPE Medpro amidst allegations of possible fraud.)

    A simple ban on politicians earning income from sources other than politics would fail at the first hurdle in this particularly flagrant corruption case because it looks like it was very carefully structured to avoid parliamentary scrutiny, and stuck to the letter of the rules while driving an armoured division through the spirit of the law.

    1213:

    police helicopters get deployed disproportionately over poorer and less white neighborhoods

    Strike the "less white" and you'll still be on the mark.

    (Edinburgh is still pretty whitebread by most standards: biggest ethnic minority is "British, other" ie. non-native Scots like me, probably followed by Chinese students, of whom there are a lot. But the police helicopter still seems to spend most of its flying time stooging around over poor areas. They're just poor mainly-white areas, not student accommodation or middle class neighbourhoods.)

    1214:

    So, if it seems unreasonable or unpractical to you to ban politicians from having other incomes, what about curbing their total income?

    In Germany, recipients of unemployment benefits are allowed to work a little bit 'on the side', so to speak, because it is seen to encourage them not to live on benefits alone. However, 90% or so of what they earn is then deducted from their benefits, so the incentive to work is absolutely marginal.

    Members of the Bundestag receive compensations of currently € 10,323.29 per month (plus another tax-free € 4,583.39 for their expenses; for their main compensation they have to pay tax). That's roundabout € 124,000 per year (if they don't receive extra payments at Christmas or holiday time), which is just a little under three times the median income of about € 43,200 per year. And of course they receive multiple other benefits on top of that.

    So, all I'd be asking for is that—if they have other incomes beside their compensations—these should be deducted from their compensations (and we could debate whether it should be a full deduction, or 90% or any other ratio).

    Members of the Bundestag have to declare their incomes from jobs outside the parliament if above €1,000 per month or € 10,000 per year. During the legislative period from 2017-2021, 226 of the 709 members did so. During that period, they received a total of more than € 35 million, ranging from a meagre € 1,000 to over € 5 million per person.

    Note as well: these are all people who are expected to devote their full capacity to representing their constituents, which ought to be a full time job.

    1215:

    PPE Medpro is, however, an offshore company with sufficiently opaque ownership that nobody seems to know who owns it, funds it, or controls it.

    Possibly that's a place to start? No public money to go to organizations without transparent ownership that can be traced back to real, actual breathing people (ie. not 'corporate persons').

    1216:

    Welcome to international treaty law! And in particular to stuff that the WTO tries to handle, to do with corporations and other legal entities operating across national borders.

    1217:
    So, if it seems unreasonable or unpractical to you to ban politicians from having other incomes, what about curbing their total income?

    Which only works if they don't have a partner, child, distant cousin or even friend for whom they're willing to do favours.

    Consider all the people who seem to have benefitted from the alleged "VIP track" covid PPE contracts here in the UK - including Tory peers and donors, yes, but also people like Matt Hancock's old pub landlord. Or the interesting career of one Mark Thatcher. (Which was, in those slightly more honest days, the subject of criticism from a number of senior tories as well as opposition parties.)

    Or things that aren't "income", like someone happening to sell the politician (or their partner, etc) a house, painting, diamond mine, or other item for much less than the market value...

    1218:

    Or if you wanted to be really sneaky, how about a billionaire who wants a favour from $politician and agrees to buy up and then close down the main competitor to a company they have some kind of interest in?

    Nothing has been given to the politician - or even their friends and relations - but they've still pretty obviously been bribed.

    I'm pretty sure the simplest path to ending corruption (without also completely ending the human race) is to end the idea of private property, which (a) might prove trick to implement, perhaps provoking the slightest hint of resistance, and (b) still leaves quite a few bribery doors open.

    1219:

    And the same story (which does make sense) being told about the Opel/Vauxhall Nova having poor sales in Spain?

    1220:

    The Chevy Nova story is charming, I guess, but it's an old urban legend. There is no truth to the rumor.

    I'm big on attributing things to urban legends. But on this one I personally know the son of the VP. He was a client for years.

    1221:

    That appears to be the Trombé Wall and related concepts.i don’t think people use the technique much these days, with emphasis on proper insulation, well designed for the local environment windows (it varies), sensible heating choices (not coal in open fireplaces...) and proper energy recovery ventilation.

    A member of my local Makerspace built one in a south facing full- height window, complete with solar powered ventilation fan to spread the warm air. It got hot enough to crack the window pane, which cost many, many, times what the heating had saved :-(

    1222:

    Also, (bad car names), the Chevy Nova didn't do well in Mexico.

    1223:

    I think this thread is now an official Möbius thread.

    1224:

    No, no - I can see FORK as a license plate. And accidents as people start laughing that they've come to a FORK in the road.

    1225:

    Sorry, no interest whatsoever. My tastebuds are literally not good enough to appreciate it. The most expensive booze I buy is the Balvenie 12 yr doublewood. I've tasted single malt Scots whisky that cost over $100/bottle, and I'll stay with my Balvenie.

    I also don't pay $80 for a steak.

    1226:

    Police helicopters over poorer neighborhoods: (This is a GUESS, but it seems reasonable to me.)

    And that's not clearly unreasonable. Wealthier folks tend to be more secretive about the crimes the commit. Reasons are not clear to me (well, some of them), but it tends to be true.

    So helicopters over wealthier neighborhoods would probably mainly pick up speeders and intruders from poorer areas. Not because the poorer folks commit more crime (they may, but how would we know), but because the crimes being committed by wealthier folks can't be seen from a helicopter (except for things like speeding).

    1227:

    Well, then there's second order effects - don't buy the politician, make him owe you... you know, like Murdoch, and in the US Faux Noise, which if I had "standing", I'd have taken to court for violating US election laws, providing propaganda/advertising "in kind".

    1228:

    Yeah, I'm definitely not going to claim he couldn't write or be a fun read. Here's someone on his 4 volume A History of the English Speaking Peoples being quite fair to him but also explaining his weak spots.

    1229:

    It may be a guess... but I'm sorry, it comes off as, well, I'd say "racist", but you're speaking of all poorer neighborhoods, so classist I guess would be about right.

    And the poor don't tend to "invade" wealthier neighborhoods to commit crime - look up, for example, Trayvon Martin.

    1230:

    Yours is funny too, but I was thinking about this, which in addition to being funny in a "Little Bobby Tables" fashion, is also funny because I don't think any of the characters used in the fork bomb are actually available on license places.

    For those who don't know...

    https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/understanding-bash-fork-bomb/

    1231:

    It may be a guess... but I'm sorry, it comes off as, well, I'd say "racist", but you're speaking of all poorer neighborhoods, so classist I guess would be about right. And the poor don't tend to "invade" wealthier neighborhoods to commit crime - look up, for example, Trayvon Martin.

    Speaking from experience, that's not true. Robbers go where the loot is. I grew up in a decently well-off neighborhood, walked in on a burglary in progress when I was pet-sitting, and had another very well-off friend tell me the story about how their home was invaded and the husband was water-boarded because the burglars thought it would get him to open up the safe faster (he didn't need the prompt).

    Speaking from my personal experience, it's likely that police helicopters get deployed in southern California over poorer areas is primarily that they're more useful in those areas. One reason is that they tend to be used to track fleeing suspects, and poorer neighborhoods tend to be closer to freeways and major roads, so copters are more useful there. A second is that wealthier neighborhoods tend to have more trees, blocking an aerial view of the ground and giving potential snipers more cover.

    That said, I now live in a neighborhood with few trees about two klicks from a freeway, so I get overflown by copters from police, fire, coastguard, INS, USMC, wannabe pipeline inspectors, wealthy idiots... It can get tedious when a police copter is circling some apparent crime scene, blaring out semi-intelligible instructions over their PA. Then they get closer and you hear that they're telling people to remain in their homes, an armed male...(becomes inaudible as they circle away).

    1232:

    I might pay $80 for a steak if it was in the right context.

    Some years ago I watched a pseudo-documentary where a French butcher went all over the world in search of the perfect steak. The show was essentially showing the top 10, number one being at a place in Spain somewhere.

    My two takeaways were:

  • How can I convince a production company to fly me all over the world in search of good food?

  • If I ever go back to Malaga I am going to spend 100 Euros for one of those steaks.

  • 1233:

    It's not necessarily that crimes are being committed in the poorer neighbourhoods as that those are where the criminals live, so if they're being pursued they high-tail it home and ditch the (usually stolen) wheels. If they get there before the cops they're usually safe from arrest. This is especially true of joyriders and motorbike thieves (a particular plague in Edinburgh these days). But the chopper with its FLIR and NiteSun lamp make that a lot harder.

    I will note that Edinburgh's urban geography is a particularly unusual case: inner city tenements can be ridiculously expensive compared to suburban semis, and you often find poor streets within a few metres of ridiculously expensive ones.

    Car/bike theft is a problem specifically because most of the housing stock is old and has no parking space -- not even a kerbside slot allocated to the dwelling: you have to compete for a meter space with everyone else. So bikes and cars get parked on the street. (On the next road up the hill from me -- somewhat posher than the one I live on, but still: tenements with no gardens -- you can often find Range Rovers, Bentleys, and a particular white Lamborghini that the residents park at the kerb, because garages are unavailable at a price supercar owners can afford.)

    1234:

    I tend to stick to 10 or 12 year old single malts too.

    Oh and I actually prefer a well hung piece of rib eye, rump or sirloin to fillet.

    1235:

    Where I live, it's not the flight path, or the military choppers, it's the news choppers, like the time the house was blown up (guy was loosing it to foreclosure), and the news copters were nearby for hours.

    1236:

    You completely missed the point I was making: my taste buds make it pointless.

    Now, the fact that from about 19 to 23, I worked as a lab tech, and I would assume that in spite of the fume hoods, some of the chemicals I compounded probably affected my sense of smell (I used to semi-joke that if I smelled something, first you called the fire department, then you looked for what happened), but it's gotten somewhat better.

    And no, I taste zero difference between bottled water from Iceland, bottled water that comes as more expensive than ink jet ink, and what comes out of my on-the-faucet charcoal filter.

    1237:

    Where I live, it's not the flight path, or the military choppers, it's the news choppers, like the time the house was blown up (guy was loosing it to foreclosure), and the news copters were nearby for hours.

    I believe news copters may also get subsumed under the category of ghettobirds?

    A Los Angeles nightmare is to get stuck in heavy traffic on a freeway, hear sirens behind you, look in the mirror, and see a mixed flock of ghettobirds approaching your position. Oh goodie, you're about to become part of a massive police pursuit. What fun. Hopefully you don't get to be on the news.

    The only thing that's even more fun than that is when the POTUS or VPOTUS comes to town, and all the relevant access roads are blocked off for most of a mile away. Jolly good times, or something like that.

    1238:

    I got your point, I was just riffing on the theme. My taste experience is a bit limited as well, largely due to the fellow who broke my nose at a party >30 years ago.

    As a matter of rationality I don't buy $80 steaks, nor even $8 steaks most weeks. On occasion it's nice to treat oneself, whatever that looks like. If I every find myself near Malaga again, I'm going to try that steak. It may be wasted on me, but it's worth a shot.

    1239:

    Robert said: Possibly that's a place to start? No public money to go to organizations without transparent ownership

    Yep.

    It can't happen while lawmakers are controlled by these shadowy entities.

    The step after that is to modify the abandoned properties act. If you can't figure out who owns it, the state owns it. Give them 10 years to claim it, pay the back taxes and legalise everything.

    I lost a house in the UK that way. My grandfather left his second wife the property, but never bothered to mention that it was to go to my brother and I after her death. (neither of us ever met him, or corresponded, or anything) She didn't have a will that mentioned it either. So 10 years after she died the state took it. We only discovered this fact when my sister in law was doing genealogy research. Six months after it was too late. It was very much "well we couldn't find you after making no attempt to find you, so now it's ours, sorry"

    The same deal should apply to corporations. Well it said that a trust fund in Hong Kong owns it, and they said that a trust fund in Jersey owns that trust fund, and that's controlled by a PO box in the Bahamas that never responded, so now all the UK assets and IP are owned by the Crown. Sorry.

    1240:

    Rbt Prior
    I'm very sorry to say that the EU's highest court has just FUCKED THAT OVER completely, so that, now, Britain has tighter transparency laws than the EU - yes, really!
    { I have a copy of the paywalled FT article on this, if anyone, like Charlie, wants to read it - but it's not a pretty sight }

    1241:

    Greg Tingey:

    please post the link thx

    1242:

    Not that much like me then.

    One day, about 1984, I went to my old high school, intending to say "hello" to a few teachers, and my young sister. I went into the Art/Chemistry corridor, took one sniff of the air and made for the Doc's lab. Knock on the door, enter, and say "Excuse me Sir. I think you'd better check what the 6th years are doing, right now!" At this point the smell of toluene passed me and reached the Doc. "Paws, you're right." {to class} "You lot, read your notes quietly until I get back!" {Exit the Doc at speed, with me in pursuit}. We discovered 2 of said 6th years concentrating a solution in toluene over a Bunsen burner!! The Doc made some comments about them making good organic chemists, if they lived long enough!!

    1243:

    The FT article is here. There's also a long twitter thread here.

    It's possible that access to the registers for accredited journalists will remain. But any citizen journalists, or just somebody wanting to know who now owns the local golf club look to be out of luck.

    1244:

    Neither of those links work.

    1245:

    A second is that wealthier neighborhoods tend to have more trees, blocking an aerial view of the ground and giving potential snipers more cover.

    people snipe at police helicopters?

    1246:

    Arse. Markdown plus a phone keyboard are a pain.

    Twitter thread.

    FT article

    1247:

    But any citizen journalists, or just somebody wanting to know who now owns the local golf club look to be out of luck.

    surely once it becomes clear what a gift this is to russian sanctions evasion the pressure will start to mount to reverse it?

    1248:

    =+=+=+=

    context = USA

    but utterly upon topic... politicians selling books -- as distinct from authoring 'em -- is time honored but most assuredly a delightfully straightforward mode of both bribery and money laundering... especially in cases where the 'retailer' is willing to forego high margins in exchange for high volumes... in cases where the 'publisher becomes retailer' there will be cases 'n cases of books sold... not mere dozens but hundreds upon hundreds, in extreme instances thousands... only readers of such books were the earthworms at illicit landfills where these cases of books were dumped rather delivered to human readers...

    consider the math:

    (Charles Stross can swap in whatever intel he is willing to share from his own experience)

    6% royalty to author

    54% retained by publisher (editing, printing, advertising, distribution, graft to store clerks to re-position displays, with whatever profits yielded offsetting loses from other titles which were disappointing)

    40% retailer's cut (rent, salaries of clerks, security, etc)

    =+=+=+=

    what makes this so tempting as mode of bribery and/or money laundering lays in the opportunity to make side deals... the better (known) the author then the higher the royalty... Stephen King gets 10% at least (rumors of 14% unverified)... in cases of non-fiction technical books such "Dummies" and "Nutshell" it could be 20% and sometimes 25%

    discount retailers willingly reduced their price point to entice purchasing... that was Amazon back in the days when only paper-based books were available... they took 30% (some titles only 20%!) And by lowering prices drew in mega-waves of book buyers... higher volume at lower margin ends up longer term profit

    but then there's the fraud... set up a fake bookstore and buy 50,000 copies of a politician's lame 'n bland prose... but only after a chat with the publisher who agrees to 'discount' that mega-lump purchase by taking only 24% (instead of 54%) and handing off that 30% to the author who gets 36%... that 'buyer' pays 54% of retail knowing that 2/3s of each dollar they spend ends up in the author's pocket... as a plus the publishers announces the title is a "sleeper break out success" without spending a penny on marketing and given the book was never really intended to appeal on basis of content, further savings due to inferior efforts at editing... why spellcheck if only earthworms will ever read it?

    all this in the age of e-ink and automated sells and credit cards is now all the more easier to suborn into fraud... no paper, no trucks, no bookstore shelves... publishers sell direct to 'readers' and can be squeezed into lowering their cut of 54% down to 14% since they have unit production costs of $0.001 per copy of the book

    (no really, humorless accountants as far back as 1996 forced publishers to calculate the cost of production of an e-book and a buddy of mine bought me pizzas till I built her editing team a spreadsheet model to recognize pro-rated overhead of servers-nerds-bandwidth-electricity was in the range of $0.0000261 per copy but accountants refused to deal with any monetary amount smaller than a tenth of a USA penny... so $0.001 per copy)

    also the publishers can lie and claim higher sales or lower, dependent upon their audience... good news for the 'buyers' of these bogus e-books no longer a need to locate a dump site for a couple metric tonnes of unwanted hardcover paper-based books... moreover usage of off-shore banks as issuer of credit cards helps blackout the originator of funds... how tough to have an IT developer to mash up a script to take a database of 10,000 real-money-but-not-human-owned credit card numbers and order 6,871 copies of an e-book? and then the following week, same database ordering 3,904? followed by 9,542? 1,908? 7,982? ...

    ...until there's been at least 100,000 copies sold of a $4.99 e-book

    whereupon the author's cut is 46% ($229,540 and ego boo as 'best seller')...

    the publisher gets 14% ($69,860 and a grateful politician who will likely be a repeat business partner)...

    ...and impossible to provide evidence in court it was done as a bribe

    =+=+=+=

    why mention this now, after the postings on this topic on ANTIPOPE have cooled? a very USA-centric bit of news... one of those 20 most likely to be the next Republican POTUS candidate will be issuing his auto biography in February, 2023 .. so if you want to bribe a potential president prior to the 2024 election cycle this is your opportunity to place a pre-publication pre-order for "The Courage to Be Free" by Ron DeSantis... so buy early and buy often... depending upon the degree of leverage you are seeking...

    https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/nov/30/ron-desantis-book-president-2024-trump-republicans

    =+=+=+=

    as basis of comparison: "A Promised Land" by Barack Obama sold 2.6m copies (approx) @ $9.81 (various sites higher 'n lower) and 10% royalty to author (guess) ==> $2.55 mega-bucks

    ...who bought it?

    =+=+=+=

    1249:

    surely once it becomes clear what a gift this is to russian sanctions evasion the pressure will start to mount to reverse it?

    The "relevant authorities" will still have access, just not the public, and possibly not journalists. The whole mess has been punted back to the Commission and Parliament to come up with better legislation.

    Yup. It's a mess.

    1250:

    "A simple ban on politicians earning income from sources other than politics would fail at the first hurdle"

    Here in NZ it is established law that things owned by an MP's family trust are not the MP's property and are not required to be listed in the official conflict of interests disclosures.

    Which is pretty obviously outrageous.

    But outright corruption in the "MP gets kickback of $X" sense is very rare here in NZ. Much more common is the soft corruption of things like trying to avoid any tax on land value when you own a lot of land (or when your family trust does...).

    [Not an accidental example - this year in NZ is the bursting of a huge property bubble, and the fact that MPs tend to own investment properties is part of why we've had a regime that failed to stop the huge property bubble]

    1251:

    Meanwhile, going back to OGH's original thoughts...

    The EU tells Twitter to play by the rules

    1252:

    Here's the same topic from a non pay walled source.

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/twitter-claims-none-of-our-policies-have-changed-after-abandoning-covid-policy/

    A key point is that people like Musk, Trump, and some I know personally, rules are what you follow when there's a gun to your head. Otherwise you ignore them as long as you can.

    1253:

    RE: Book sales to no one.

    Turns out (at least in the US) lots of pastors write books. But mostly they are only bought by fans in their congregations and pastors they buddy around with. Especially since the church tends to buy the initial print run and sell them to people who ask.

    Pastor gets a salary bump without a lot of effort.

    1254:

    RE: book sales.

    It's worth noting that, at least a decade ago, the primary metric for getting picked up as a non-fiction author was the size of your audience. So a nobody writing about climate change (to pick one example) is better off self-publishing to see if there's interest. Meanwhile celeb du jour is better off hiring a ghost to write an "intimate tell-all autobiography" while they're still hot.

    I don't blame publishers for doing this particularly, because they're trying to sell books, not add to the corpus of deathless prose.

    This just in case you're wondering where Sturgeon's law comes from.

    1255:

    A second is that wealthier neighborhoods tend to have more trees, blocking an aerial view of the ground and giving potential snipers more cover. people snipe at police helicopters?

    Around here it's laser pointers attached to teenagers. I mean, if you were at an age where you were suffering from a periclinical testosterone poisoning, and you could use google to find something like https://opticsadvisors.com/most-powerful-laser-pointers/, wouldn't you be tempted? I mean, "Four. Freakin’. Watts."

    1256:

    Markdown plus a phone keyboard are a pain.

    Just post the URL on its own line. Seems to work OK, and no formatting needed.

    1257:

    Around here it's laser pointers attached to teenagers. I mean, if you were at an age where you were suffering from a periclinical testosterone poisoning,

    Our teenagers seem to be slower to mature than your's — probably because of the colder weather.

    A 44-year-old man from Vaughan was arrested and charged with mischief endangering life, endangering security of an aircraft in flight and unlawfully projecting bright light into navigable airspace.

    A 52-year-old man from Markham is facing the same three charges as the other individual, plus obstructing police charges.

    https://www.cp24.com/news/charges-laid-after-three-incidents-of-laser-strikes-on-york-regional-police-helicopter-1.4956744

    Another case last year has a 29-year-old charged…

    1258:

    don't u still have to escape underscores to stop them turning into italics, or did someone fix that

    1259:

    I dunno. I'll throw down some underscores and see what happens.

    If the preceding sentence was italicized, nobody has fixed the issue.

    1260:

    Yeah, we've got teenagers of all ages here too. The last case I heard about had chronological teenagers attached to the lasers, for what it's worth.

    1261:

    Preview button is your friend. You don't even have to make it a real post. Just abandon it.

    1262:

    How did I not think of books as money laundering/bribe vector?

    1263:

    It is a small $$$/£££ operation. So it works well for "middle class" folks but not so much for people trying to deal with $/£ millions. Running a few 1000 credit card transactions may raise some flags at banks. 100K or 1 million well surely get someone's attention.

    Now I'm suspicious that many B movies were set up to dry clean larger amounts.

    1264:

    Rbt Prior & thewehie ...
    Sorry - I have a COPY - because I know the link wont' work.
    I got my copy by using a paywall-protected site & a backdoor, but the original article is "FT" copyright.
    What I CAN do is email you copies ....
    To contact me: { fill in/close up the gaps? } fledermaus "at" dsl "dot" pipex "dot" com
    - note to thewehie - that second link sill doesn't work - it's behind the FT's paywall.

    Howard NYC
    Surely that should be: "The nerve to be an arsehole" by R de S ??

    1265:

    *(Charles Stross can swap in whatever intel he is willing to share from his own experience)

    6% royalty to author

    54% retained by publisher (editing, printing, advertising, distribution, graft to store clerks to re-position displays, with whatever profits yielded offsetting loses from other titles which were disappointing)

    40% retailer's cut (rent, salaries of clerks, security, etc)*

    I don't recognize those numbers.

    Firstly, 6% (for the author) is a crappy royalty rate only ever paid on mass market paperbacks sold in volume at a discount. For hardcovers (where most politician bios sell) you're looking at trade royalties of 10% with an elevator to 15% or even 20% of SRP if it goes bestseller (very roughly, orders exceed initial print run and it needs reprinting more than once).

    I don't get out of bed for less than 10%, and you might be startled to learn that some of my trad published royalties hit 40% of net receipts on ebooks. (Self-pub via Amazon can hit 70% for the author, but the author is then responsible for a buttload of editorial and publishing work such as cover design, marketing, typesetting, registering the ISBN, issuing DMCA smackdowns on pirate sites ... I prefer to outsource that stuff to the professionals and spend my time writing instead. Oh, and if you take AMZN's 70% deal you're not allowed to sell your book through other distributors, you have to sell it at the price points they dictate, and if Jeff Bezos gets a flea up his ass your business model is toast.)

    Secondly: it's hard to disentangle retail from the distribution/warehousing chain these days thanks to Amazon, but in general they swallow 50-75% of the SRP. Don't underestimate the leverage of monopsony buying power!

    (One of the later Harry Potter books was bulk-ordered by Tesco, the carnivorous supermarket apex predator who spanked Walmart out of the UK, at a whopping 80% discount off SRP. They put it in dump bins up front at half price, and small booksellers found it cheaper to go down their local supermarket and buy it by the crate then resell it at list price than to order it via their regular wholesalers.)

    Thirdly, on the publisher's side, typically 5% of SRP goes on marketing, 10% on production and manufacturing (physical paper and ink is only about 5% of the price you pay in a bookstore), and in theory 10% in profit.

    This works out okay for publishers if they're selling into a distribution chain that eats 50%, but a lot of the high end bestsellers turn into loss leaders: it's really unlikely that anyone in publishing (except Amazon) will make a bent cent in profit off a book by authors with "Trump" among their names, for example, and even Obama is a stretch. Publishers offer tens of millions for these presidential/high profile autobios not because they're profitable but because they're advertisements for the publishing conglomerate's virility ("hey look at us! We can spaff $15M on a title everybody will hear about but nobody will read! Buy it by the yard!").

    The reality is, publishing isn't profitable for most people.

    pro-rated overhead of servers-nerds-bandwidth-electricity was in the range of $0.0000261 per copy

    That's simply not true because most of what you're paying for is skull-sweat.

    The physical cost of goods for a hardcover, saddle stitched, with cloth covers, glossy embossed color wrap-around is well under $5, possibly still under $3.

    But by my estimate even a lean publishing house invests roughly 8 person-weeks of work in each book release. That's an operation where everything possible is outsourced as piece-work to specialists (copy editors, proofreaders, cover designers, cover artists -- the latter are not the same speciality -- typesetters, and marketers) and run as a production line, pumping out a dozen or more books a month, every month.

    So you have to amortize the labour in with the cost of ebooks, not just the CPU cycles, and the labour is subject to Baumol's cost disease.

    1266:

    The cheapest way to fix it is to fork out $1000/year on an ongoing basis for a license to the latest version of the software this blog runs on (it's stuck on the last open source release before Six Apart went closed-source-only for support).

    Insofar as the blog is a slowly fading hobby I am Not Going To Do That. (I might at some future point get around to moving the blog to something newer but my constraints are: I need to be able to throw up essays -- easy enough -- and host threaded discussions -- the hard part.)

    1267:

    The money laundering thing is happening all over amazon.

    Crook: horks up a GPT3 generated nonsense book, gives it an obscure title and crappy cover (deliberately unattractive to random bystanders), and puts it up for sale as an ebook at $9.99 a copy on Amazon's maximum revenue self-publishing tier.

    Crook or their friends buy lots of retail Amazon gift vouchers for cash in supermarkets, load up their throwaway account, and buy copies of the ebook.

    A month later, 70% of the gift voucher appears in the "publisher's" Amazon account as the honest-to-god taxable and 100% legitimate revenue stream of a small business because they're not doing anything illegal -- any illegal activity is firewalled behind the purchase for cash of those gift cards.

    Tricky aspect: you don't want your money laundering pseudobooks to chart in the bestsellers because that would attract the wrong kind of attention. So you need to roll this out with a few thousand dummy titles and a few hundred sockpuppet "customer" accounts.

    Amazon has zero interest in stomping this out (in effect they're ignoring money launderers in return for a 30% cut), the supermarkets can only really stop it by (a) refusing cash transactions or (b) stopping sales of gift cards (not gonna happen without a fight), and the IRS or HMRC or SFO are going to have a royal headache auditing those small businesses.

    For even more lulz, a smart laundry could scan/digitize/sell cleaned up editions of out-of-copyright books (there's a lot of that happening on Amazon!), which is basically indistinguishable from a legitimate publishing mill. If you've got sufficient turnover your "publishing house" spends large on real estate ("warehousing") and makes a paper loss -- not enough to court bankruptcy but enough to avoid being liable for tax -- then jumps through the real estate hoops to turn the "warehouse" into "loft conversion" apartments or some such.

    So you can turn volume inputs of $10-$50 gift cards into a fully taxed, legal, capital asset using Amazon as a laundry. Niiice.

    1268:

    There's a similar trick for the National Fleecery, er, Lottery - and it's tax-free! A large number of people buy tickets, pass them up the chain, and the capo collects. Both this and your scheme are ideal for drug organisations, which have the large number of idiots under orders.

    1269:

    Re: 'pseudobooks'

    So ISBNs don't matter/get checked on Amazon?

    1270:

    You don't need an ISBN to publish via Kindle -- Amazon assigns you their own ASIN (unique product identifier).

    Anyway, you can buy ISBNs yourself: publishers typically bulk-purchase them then register the Library of Congress or British Library metadata later. It's like buying domain names, minus the squatting.

    1271:

    Perhaps you should check what an ISBN is actually for, how it is issued and by whom, and what Amazon's part in the process actually is?

    1272:

    Amazon has zero interest in stomping this out (in effect they're ignoring money launderers in return for a 30% cut), the supermarkets can only really stop it by (a) refusing cash transactions or (b) stopping sales of gift cards (not gonna happen without a fight), and the IRS or HMRC or SFO are going to have a royal headache auditing those small businesses.

    As long as this small business pays the taxes on its 70% share, why would IRS even particularly want to audit it?

    1273:

    High energy executives running companies.

    I would LOVE to see a study of how many CEOs and C-Levels are infected with this compared to the general population.

    https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/11/what-makes-a-leader-in-yellowstones-wolves-its-parasitic-infections/

    1274:

    don't u still have to escape underscores to stop them turning into italics, or did someone fix that

    Not when the URL is on its own line.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Octavius_of_Great_Britain

    It's been fixed for a long time.


    Note: all I did was copy-and-paste in the wikipedia URL with no formatting or escaping.

    1275:

    That was Adrian's worry, I just tested it.

    After a few hiccups, I'm fine with the blog software - we've gotten to know each other. ;-)

    1276:

    Tox gondii is apparently a risk factor in single-vehicle motorcycle crashes. (Read this in Parasite Rex, IIRC.)

    As to business, there's this study:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6083268/

    Using a saliva-based assay, we found that students (n = 1495) who tested IgG positive for T. gondii exposure were 1.4× more likely to major in business and 1.7× more likely to have an emphasis in ‘management and entrepreneurship' over other business-related emphases. Among professionals attending entrepreneurship events, T. gondii-positive individuals were 1.8× more likely to have started their own business compared with other attendees (n = 197). Finally, after synthesizing and combining country-level databases on T. gondii infection from the past 25 years with the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor of entrepreneurial activity, we found that infection prevalence was a consistent, positive predictor of entrepreneurial activity and intentions at the national scale, regardless of whether previously identified economic covariates were included. Nations with higher infection also had a lower fraction of respondents citing ‘fear of failure' in inhibiting new business ventures.

    1277:

    The broken URLs thing was due to a combination of the overall false premise on which the design of Markdown is based, and a more specific false premise affecting the design of its URL handling. Negating that URL-specific false premise turned out to be basically a one-liner, and that fixed the only aspect of the software that people used to moan about noticeably.

    (There can occasionally still be instances of breakage, such as with URLs from wikipedia or some turdpress sites, which insist on generating URLs with dumb punctuation in. But that isn't this blog's fault; such URLs break on all sorts of different platforms, and it is the fault of the originating site for using the dumb punctuation. Which is a major reason why I consider "dumb punctuation" to be a better and more accurate name for it than the name its perpetrators typically use.)

    On the internet as it currently is, this blog software is a jewel among turds. Because it actually works, and is not riddled with breakages and stuff that doesn't work for stupid reasons. The history of most blog and forum packages basically goes: they came out, they provided certain features using straightforward methods, and the features worked as expected so people found the package worth using. Then the various features started to get re-implemented one by one using methods which were not straightforward, and thus were changed from something that always worked predictably and reliably, to something that might work exactly as the original did, but might very well instead work similarly but more slowly, display bizarre behaviour for certain use cases, or just not bloody work at all. One might usefully name these two phases of the packages' history as the "Practical" and the "Idiotic".

    It seems to me that at about the stage when most packages move into the Idiotic phase, the authors of Movable Type instead more or less lost interest in it, so its development was effectively pretty much frozen in the Practical phase. Therefore it still does work fine, because nobody ever got around to breaking it.

    By contrast, commenting on turdpress blogs or any of the blogspot variants has had such an immense failure rate for so many years now that I don't bother even thinking about trying it any more. It was possible once upon a time, but it now hasn't been for a lot longer than it ever was. The less common platforms I may occasionally encounter rarely give me any cause to think of them any better. So if I was intending to set up a blog site myself, this same version of Movable Type is what I would use.

    1278:

    "Amazon has zero interest in stomping this out (in effect they're ignoring money launderers in return for a 30% cut), the supermarkets can only really stop it by (a) refusing cash transactions or (b) stopping sales of gift cards (not gonna happen without a fight)"

    I wish I could share your confidence. But it's already ceased to be possible to buy ebay gift cards in the UK, as of quite a few years ago, seemingly for the same kind of reason. All the other options for remote payments that were more versatile than ebay cards also stopped existing. Amazon is now the only useful option that's left - apart from Amazon, all there is now is a remarkable number of utterly useless things that only let you buy stuff from particular sources which don't sell anything useful whatsoever.

    This means that if I'm trying to get hold of anything I can't just buy in a shop, and can't find on a website which is based in the UK and is small and straightforward enough that I can use its contact details to dodge the online ordering process by sending them the order on paper along with a postal order in the mail, the only way I can now do it is to order it off Amazon using a gift card. And if Amazon don't have one either, then I'm stuffed.

    I'm somewhat surprised that Amazon gift cards do still exist. They seem absolutely like a conspicuous target for the same kind of shitty "crack down on money laundering in a way that gets in the news" initiative that has no effect in stopping the people actually doing it - they just pick another option from their uncountable pool of possibilities - but does clobber ordinary people like me who are only wanting to perfectly legitimately buy stuff they want. And they're now all the more conspicuous a target since those initiatives have now hit all the others already. So to hear that they're being used for automated scams where every single other aspect is nothing but robots spouting random data, which sounds like quite an encouragement for them to be hit, makes me that much more worried about how long it'll be before I am no longer able to order anything at all off the internet.

    1279:

    Greg: when you reply to someone else's post, but don't do it by using the "Reply" link, could you please at the least include the number of the post, as well as the poster's name? Otherwise I have to scan back up all the posts, picking out each of the ones by the person you're replying to and then examining their content to see how plausible they are as an antecedent to your reply. This process is both slow and sufficiently unreliable that it typically takes several iterations to achieve success, so it's more common for me not to bother trying in the first place.

    1280:

    RE: Toxoplasma gondii

    On reading those, I mumbled a bit about correlation vs. causality, and who owns cats versus who does not.

    Then I thought about it a bit, and looked up something, and found:

    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2020.580425/full

    What I googled was "Toxoplasma gondii strains." It turns out that there are few that are common globally, and over 150 in South America (which is surpassingly odd for several reasons). It turns out that the strains are not identical. One big factor is that the local native strain tends not to kill the local, native mice, but can kill non-native mice. The reason is that T. gondii has to get to a feline to sexually replicate, and can only clone itself inside a non-feline. That "cloning itself" phase requires a balance. If it's too wimpy, it gets wiped out by the hosts immune system. If it's too virulent, it kills the host.

    Thus it has to coevolve with its hosts to some degree.

    This turns out to be relevant to the whole behavior-change phenomenon. Per the article, T. gondii apparently causes changes in host mice behavior, not by secreting hormone-ish chemicals or infecting the brain and playing puppetmaster, but by causing inflammation in the brain that damages or kills neurons. Similar inflammation is increasingly linked to things like schizophrenia, Alzheimers and Parkinson's Disease (plaque build-up may be linked to failure of immune cells in the brain to clear it out).

    The two takeaways I got are: --T.g. strain probably matters a lot, so correlation studies on human behavior done in US college campuses may mean little elsewhere, particularly in South America. --If T.g. causes behavioral changes via inflammation, then it's risky to infect a child with T.g. to make them future CEOs. They may instead end up schizophrenic or dealing with PD later in life. What this does suggest is that infected people who became successful because of their infections may risk having disabled children, also because of the infection. Probably someone has looked at this already, but it might explain some current societal trends.

    And if anyone needs something to fall asleep by, I can explain why so many T.g. strains in South America strikes me as odd.

    1281:

    Oops. Forgot to add something important: "Moreover, these mental illnesses in humans are surely influenced by many other factors, which is also reflected by the lack of correlation between the incidence of mental illnesses and Toxoplasma prevalence in different regions of the world." (also https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcimb.2020.580425/full)

    I'm guessing the strain you get infected by might matter, particularly if your ancestors have been living with that particular strain of T. gondi for a long time, or if it's a novel infection.

    1282:

    "I can explain why so many T.g. strains in South America strikes me as odd."

    I was about to ask you to do that, so please explain away.

    1283:

    Roads blocked off? Pardon me while I laugh... having lived 18 mos in DC proper. Our here, where I live now, it's the military choppers (like Marine 1).

    1284:

    For once, I absolutely agree. There was a story not long ago, about a property (apartments) where the tenants filed complaint after complaint with the city about maintenance, and the property managers shrugged, they didn't know who the owners were, and they could only follow directions.

    I thought, then and there, that the city should have claimed it as abandoned property, and give the actual owners six months to show, or lose it with NO COMPENSATION.

    1285:

    Yep. All the reasons I do not want to self-publish (and besides pirates, you forgot deliberate plagiarists).

    Of course, small publishers have their own issues - as much as I liked Eric Flint, for Ring of Fire Press, he was mostly relying on the RoFP mailing list for advertising - I spent hundreds of dollars putting an ad in Locus (don't bother), and on faceplant (worked, some). But then, not being the publisher, AMZN only told me print sales, not ebook sales, so I really don't know how many copies I sold (I'm pretty sure it was over 50 or 60 print copies, but no idea on ebooks.)

    And trad publishing takes a lot longer. Right now, I'm sitting here going nuts, because Toni Weisskopf told me that they were hoping to decide if Baen was going to "rehome" my novel, while Walt, the former editor of RoF Press, who is now with something called Untreed Reads, wants me... but understands my waiting on Baen's decision. At least it's not, as a co-panelist at Windycon thought, a year....

    1286:

    Oh, wonderful. So, in my future universe, I'll need to mention the 64-char ISBN (Interstellar Book Number).

    1287:

    Maybe that's what's wrong with the South (and some of the midwest) in general, why there's so many people under the delusion that they're "temporarily cash-flow poor millionaires."

    1288:

    "I can explain why so many T.g. strains in South America strikes me as odd." I was about to ask you to do that, so please explain away.

    Thank you.

    This is about the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI).

    For those who don't know, until quite recently South America was an island continent (like Australia now), while North America periodically connected up with Eurasia. Central America (Nicaragua to Colombia) and particularly the Isthmus of Panama is all volcanic, and AFAIK those volcanoes only got serious about making islands ca. 7 million years ago. That's when a few brave critters (southbound raccoons and northbound sloths) started island-hopping. The Isthmus formed around 2.7 million years ago, and then GABI got going in earnest, both ways. In general, North American animals proved a bit tougher than their South American counterparts, with more north-derived species in South America than South-derived species in North America. But giant sloths made it to Alaska and porcupines, armadillos, and opossums are doing just fine even now.

    Anyway, pre-GABI, there weren't any felines in South America. They're only thought to have shown up in the last million years or so. Similarly, there weren't any mice-ish rodents until ca. five million years ago, when "sigmodontine" rodents rafter/swam to South America and subsequently evolved into ca. 80 separate species.

    So where did 150+ strains of T. gondi ub South America come from? It needs felines to sexually reproduce, after all.

    Normally, when you see a huge bunch of lineages in one part of the world (wheat species around Asia Minor, for example) and only a few species elsewhere, the first guess is that this is where that group of organisms evolved (which is true for wheat). Tracking diversity is a standard way to determine where organisms evolved. For example, most modern human genetic diversity is in Africa, and the fossils say we evolved there, at least at first.

    Did Toxoplasma gondi evolve in South America in the last million years? Unlikely, because it's already showing coevolutionary dynamics with subspecies of house mice in East Asia. There's only been feline traffic between East Asia and South America since perhaps the 1500s, with the Manila Galleon trade. Microbes evolve fast, but Toxoplasma isn't a virus like Covid. I'm not buying hyper-evolution in a few centuries in only one part of the world, especially when there are many more mice species and cat species in Eurasia, but not a corresponding diversity of T. gondi.

    That's the odd part.

    The alternative is adaptive radiation: a flock of something gets to a chain of islands, and its offspring radiate to fill a bunch of empty niches. Darwin's finches are the best-known example, but it happens all over the place. My guess is that the South American situation is an example of adaptive radiation, with cats introducing T. gondi to South America a million or so years ago, and it diversifying with the cats (10 species, including jaguars, pumas, and eight smaller species) and most importantly with all those rapidly diversifying sigmodontine rodents (ca. 80 species).

    But that's just a guess. It's probably my ignorance, but I'd just never heard of an adaptive radiation of a parasite before.

    Anyway, hope that was interesting or at least soporific.

    1289:

    I found it both interesting and plausible. Not an argument I'd bet heavily on, but definitely plausible.

    1290:

    I found it both interesting and plausible. Not an argument I'd bet heavily on, but definitely plausible.

    Thanks, I happen to agree with you on the probability.

    It was actually interesting to do that bit of reading on Toxoplasma, because I knew very little about it beyond the pop media behavioral changes. It appears that the real experts on it have a pretty good handle on where Toxoplasma likes to hang out (neurons, particularly in the frontal cortex), why it's there (neurons are big, and also they tend not to be killed by the immune system, unlike other cell types), how it causes behavioral changes (killing a few neurons), and why the effects of Toxoplasmosis are so variable (numbers of Toxoplasma infecting brains vary widely between individuals, even when it's cloned mice infected with the same strain of Toxoplasma)(Also, the infection causes brain damage by killing cells, not altering neurotransmitters). And that's good to know.

    Now I'm wondering if there are more traditional, culture-bound methods for would-be entrepreneurs to induce "beneficial brain damage" and thereby to increase their tolerance of risk. Perhaps there is--traditional frat parties with underage drinking, maybe? Just an idle thought.

    1291:

    Justin Jordan @ 1209:

    But even if you ignore that, and just go with politicians - the idea that they wouldn't write memoirs without money motives is just demonstrably wrong. Politicians in particular are hard to stop writing them, and many of them vanity publish the damn things.

    Here's a thought though ... When you see some well known politician get a million £ or million $ advance on their memoir, how many of them actually write the book themselves?

    The advance on those ghost-written memoirs seems (to me) to be a thinly veiled payoff.

    Would there be any way to tax the politician's profits differently on those ghost-written memoirs?

    1292:

    Charlie Stross @ 1213:

    police helicopters get deployed disproportionately over poorer and less white neighborhoods

    Strike the "less white" and you'll still be on the mark.

    (Edinburgh is still pretty whitebread by most standards: biggest ethnic minority is "British, other" ie. non-native Scots like me, probably followed by Chinese students, of whom there are a lot. But the police helicopter still seems to spend most of its flying time stooging around over poor areas. They're just poor mainly-white areas, not student accommodation or middle class neighbourhoods.)

    And in the U.S. (as far as I can tell) the primary use of of police helicopters is tracking get-away vehicles or vehicles fleeing from traffic stops and the determinant over which neighborhoods the police helicopters fly over is where the driver of the vehicle flees to. If you can track them from the air it cuts down on the need for high speed chases.

    1293:

    CharlesH @ 1227:

    Police helicopters over poorer neighborhoods: (This is a GUESS, but it seems reasonable to me.)

    And that's not clearly unreasonable. Wealthier folks tend to be more secretive about the crimes the commit. Reasons are not clear to me (well, some of them), but it tends to be true.

    So helicopters over wealthier neighborhoods would probably mainly pick up speeders and intruders from poorer areas. Not because the poorer folks commit more crime (they may, but how would we know), but because the crimes being committed by wealthier folks can't be seen from a helicopter (except for things like speeding).

    Also seems like crimes committed AGAINST residents of poorer neighborhoods are more prevalent, which would likely justify increased police interest there.

    1294:

    Heteromeles @ 1238:

    The only thing that's even more fun than that is when the POTUS or VPOTUS comes to town, and all the relevant access roads are blocked off for most of a mile away. Jolly good times, or something like that.

    When I used to drive a lot, I learned to watch the news for when important politicians (POTUS or VP) were going to visit ... so I could plan accordingly and be somewhere else. This applied equally to the ones I supported and the ones I didn't.

    I only got caught out twice. In the early 90s I had to go into the Burglar Alarm Company's local office one morning to pick up equipment and when I was leaving I got caught by a traffic blockade when George HW Bush's motorcade came through.

    Sitting at this Stop Sign 35.75559792166214, -78.6488037049674 waiting to turn left (it had not been turned into a divided highway then) when the rolling blockade came through about 10 minutes before the motorcade. A Raleigh PD cruiser pulled up & blocked the lane (and stayed about 10 minutes after the motorcade had passed).

    Second time was during the clean up after Hurricane Fran when Clinton visited & half of the State Fairgrounds was closed off. The Secret Service closed off a slice right down the middle of the Fairgrounds where the National Guard was bivouacked.

    The only open gate was on the east side of the blocked area and the chow hall was on the west side. We got a hot meal for breakfast & 2 MREs issued at the chow hall before starting work, so we got delayed until the Secret Service cleared a route for us to go around the closed off portion.

    1295:

    Pigeon @ 1278:

    FWIW, <a href="https://some URL" rel="nofollow">Text to be hyperlinked</a> still works for me.

    Use the real angle brackets instead of "ampersand-lt/gt-semicolon" that DISPLAYS the angle brackets).

    1296:

    I can't see why parasites wouldn't radiate. (I'm pretty sure louse species have)

    Speaking of South American speciation,

    https://youtu.be/xCG0e4r_Tj4

    Radiating canids on the PBS pop science show just a month or so ago.

    1297:

    I can't see why parasites wouldn't radiate. (I'm pretty sure louse species have)

    That's a good point. Basically lice more-or-less coevolve, so humans IIRC have three species of louse that are closely related to lice in other great apes.

    If there were adaptive radiation of human lice akin to what happened with Toxoplasma would be if people in most of the world had three species of body lice, but those in South America had 100 different human louse species. If it's a recent adaptive radiation, you're stuck with the chore of figuring out how humans living in South America for ca. 20,000 years managed to come up with enough different human microenvironments to host 100 closely related but distinct kinds of lice.

    With Darwin's finches in the Galapagos, the different species have different bill shapes that mimic the bill shapes of other birds elsewhere. A finch "gets away" with living like a woodpecker because no woodpeckers made it to the Galapagos. When you're dealing with something like a louse or a protozoa like Toxoplasma, the question is then what are the empty niches the group is radiating into. That's where I realize I'm quite ignorant...

    1298:

    I don't hold with the argument that it could not have spread from South America to the world in 4-500 years, given that it is a common parasite of man's most prevalent parasite/commensuals (rats and mice) and most prevalent control of them (domestic cats). Nor that coevolution couldn't have started in a couple of hundred years, given the lifespans of the animals involved; evolution can happen fast given even moderate systematic pressure.

    But I do agree that evolving so many strains in a million years, and then NOT doing so when transferred to other parts of the world, is a trifle implausible.

    I could also believe that there is somewhere else in the world where it originated and there are even more strains, but where they have not been identified, but I can't think of anywhere with preferential links to South America. So that seems implausible, too.

    Another possibility is that there is an unrelated parasite (probably viral) that is common in South America but not elsewhere, and happens to interfere with T. gondii's (complex) reproductive cycle, causing a vast increase in mutations. Provided it was not lethal enough to suppress T. gondii altogether, it could cause that effect. I can't say that I think it's likely.

    1299:

    According to this, Rattus norvegicus was spread to (almost) everywhere in the world in a couple of hundred years; there is no reason that T. gondii could not have spread as fast.

    https://academic.oup.com/af/article/11/3/78/6306454?login=false

    1300:

    Meanwhile, in Norway.

    I work on the site of St Olav's Hospital in Trondheim - about 150m along the street from the Akuttmottak (English: Accidents and Emergencies, American: Emergency room), which has a helicopter pad on the roof.

    The local air ambulance service operates an EC135 - the same bog standard chopper that most other air ambulance, police, sightseeing, and such helicopter using services oeprate. It's small and - for a helicoper - relatively quiet.

    About this time last year, Norway's Search and Rescue service (which I think is part of the Norwegian Air Force) upgraded its local units from the venerable Sea King to what they call the Sea Queen.

    Sea Queens are really fucking big. An EC135 is rated to carry about up to 7 people. A Sea Queen (otherwise known as a Merlin - it's what most of Europe's navies use) is rated to carry up to 47 people (standing room only), and it really fucking shows. The noise is deafening when they land, from 150m away, with the windows closed. The plans for the helipad had also not envisioned such large helicopters, either - the building and the helipad can take the absolute weight, but the problem is the rotor wash while the chopper is idling - the road underneath has to be closed off to traffic completely while the helicopter is within 50m of the ground. Something to do with echoes and standing waves between the neighbouring buildings, I assume.

    Oddly, relating to the other ongoing thread - it's actually more disruptive to have one of the Sea Queen's land on the hospital than it was when Norway's head of state came to visit. And I've seen up to three of them land in one day, while the king has only visited once.

    Granted, the US president probably has a lot more crazies out to get him or her than the king of Norway, but it was still quite significant how little security (or ceremony) was involved when that happened (iirc he came to give the institute leaders a prize or something). A few policemen at the main entrance to the building, a sniffer dog wandering around checking if I'd hidden any explosives in a dastardly plan to get off work that day, and that was pretty much it. I practically bumped into the chap when I nipped along the corridor for a drink.

    On the other hand, a Sea Queen has caused me to miss my train twice in November already. Couldn't whoever they're urgently carrying to hospital have urgently arrived 5 minutes earlier?!

    1301:

    On the one hand, the King of Norway has very little political power and zero diplomatic impact outside Norway -- he might be a target for crazies, including the kind of lone wolf domestic terrorist who believes he has a hot line to God giving him instructions, but he's at low risk by celebrity standards. (A bog standard Hollywood actor of the Academy-award winning variety is probably at greater risk, given the greater availability of guns in the USA.)

    On the other hand, the EH101 is the sort of VVIP chopper heads of state often use. (The POTUS was in line for a couple until the program was cancelled.) It can carry a heavier payload than the Black Hawk, albeit less mass overall than a Chinook, and its troop capacity overlaps with both. It's also very fast by helicopter standards.

    I can only imagine the Norwegian rescue services want them (with all the night vision/naval operations avionics) in case of a mass casualty event on an offshore rig or a ship. As an air ambulance it's monstrous overkill.

    And it's no surprise it's horrendously noisy -- maximum takeoff weight is about 15 tonnes!

    1302:

    Maybe the issue isn't "how many niches" but that the movement into South America is recent and the migration is still settling down. With so much "empty space" perhaps every mutation that could survive had an empty place to go, and over the next couple thousand years we'll see consolidation as the various mutations duke it out for supremacy, then around the year 4000 they'll be three or four South American variations, with the rest fallen by the wayside.

    1303:

    Maybe the issue isn't "how many niches" but that the movement into South America is recent and the migration is still settling down. With so much "empty space" perhaps every mutation that could survive had an empty place to go, and over the next couple thousand years we'll see consolidation as the various mutations duke it out for supremacy, then around the year 4000 they'll be three or four South American variations, with the rest fallen by the wayside.

    That's my guess.

    For the non-biologists, adaptive radiations have a fairly close parallel in new technology. When someone comes up with a new idea--the world-wide web, say--there's a rush of invention as a bunch of inventors enter the field to try to make stuff work. This is equivalent to adaptive radiation. Remember the dot.com boom? Then, eventually, harsh reality comes along, and there's usually a rapid winnowing of most of the radiation. This is an analog of natural selection.

    Normally we see adaptive radiations on habitat islands, either real islands (Hawai'i, Galapagos), big lakes (cichlids in Lakes Tanganyika, Malawi, or Victoria) or isolated mountain ranges (various plant species). Today, it's unfortunately normal for species formed by adaptive radiations in these areas to be rare to extinct as the direct or indirect result of human activity.

    1304:

    The problem there is that hasn't been seen in other species. In particular, there ISN'T ample empty space to expand into, not because there wasn't originally, but because of the speed with with advantageous strains push out others in the absence of isolation. Adaptive radiation to isolated environments is entirely different, evolutionarily. Vide COVID, and T. gondii has a timescale under 10 times as long. It's no more plausible a theory than any of the others.

    1305:

    Another possibility is that there is an unrelated parasite (probably viral) that is common in South America but not elsewhere, and happens to interfere with T. gondii's (complex) reproductive cycle, causing a vast increase in mutations. Provided it was not lethal enough to suppress T. gondii altogether, it could cause that effect. I can't say that I think it's likely.

    It might be something like this.

    As for T. gondi originating in South America...

    The genus is (per Wikipedia) around 28 million years old, and its nearest relative Neospora has a similar brain-infecting lifestyle, but in dogs (Neospora caninum, and it's thought to have originated in Europe). I don't know how old T. gondi is as a species (not a genus), but it was discovered in a rodent in Africa, a gundi (hence Toxoplasma gondi), and then it was found around the world once researchers knew what to look for, including in humans.

    The problem with a South American origin is that T.g. is a parasite of cats in general, so something like it had to be present in North American felines and then move into South America with the cave lions, sabertooths, pumas, jaguars, ocelots, and smaller cats that invaded during the ice ages. It almost certainly would not have stayed in South America, because many of those species (including cave lions and sabertooths) ranged across both continents. If an infected cave lion made it across Beringia onto the mammoth steppe of Eurasia, T.g. could have spread globally a long time ago.

    Even if T.g. originated in South America in the last 10,000 years, jaguars, pumas, ocelots, and jaguarundis all range from South America into the US even now, so it would likely have been in North America when Europeans got here.

    This gets us into the problem of toxoplasmosis. It's not AIDS or Covid, but those are examples people are aware of of pandemic diseases spread. I suspect people would have noticed if European colonists (and their livestock and working animals!) started aborting, losing babies soon after birth, and suffering with and/or dying from encephalitis as they first contracted toxoplasmosis. Also, it would have spread from the Americas to Europe and Asia, and the only records we have for plagues all went the other way, with the possible exception of syphilis.

    As I noted earlier, T.g.'s distribution pattern is odd. I agreed with CharlesH above that adaptive radiation is plausible but not certain, and hopefully this helps make more sense of what's weird about it.

    1306:

    Also 1302 - On a trip from Uig to Lochmaddy, I was able to watch a UK Coastguard Merlin (yes still EH-101) carrying out an exercise in which they landed a winchman on the quarterdeck of the MV Hebrides and took him off again from my position on the ship's outside aft passenger accommodation.

    1307:

    Oh, yes, which is why I don't think it's likely. But I wasn't assuming that it was completely new. Consider T. gondii as a long-established parasite across the Old World and North America, with most species having a considerable degree of resistance (as humans do). The strains could have developed, the early European colonists would probably not have noticed anything unusual, the strains spread from South America, and eliminated the original one (or nearly so). I still don't think it's likely.

    1308:

    OK, which cyberpunk writer is responsible for the current reality??

    https://gizmodo.com/space-force-call-of-duty-veterans-1849842903

    Space Force Won a Call of Duty Tournament, Then Launched The Trophy Into Space

    1309:

    “ . I suspect people would have noticed if European colonists (and their livestock and working animals!) started aborting, losing babies soon after birth,”

    Would they?

    In the 1600s that was normal. Child mortality, stillbirths, it was all insanely awful by our standards.

    Would a slight increase have been noticed?

    Remembering that securing more calories makes a big difference there too. Whether you’re getting the crops in well could get credit or blame when “have encountered new invisible parasite” may be part of the cause.

    1310:

    What I understood him to mean is that encountering T. gondii for the first time would have led toa large increase in such things - that's the way that such things normally go. That's why I posted what I did in #1308 - resistance to a similar strain could have reduced it to slight increase (as happens at present).

    1311:

    Hang on... You ARE selling it in actual dead tree format? I thought you didn't have that option.

    1312:

    The problem might be that resistance is a coevolutionary process, not an evolutionary one.

    Note that human T.gondi studies tend to focus on seropositivity (e.g. presence of antibodies) as their variable, not which strain of t.g. the humans were (are) infected with. There are apparently a dozen T.g. strains around globally, and I don't know much more about the situation than that.

    With mice, the situation is a bit clearer. In the wild, house mice get infected with t.g. strains. Apparently in the wild, different wild subspecies of house mice (not the ones in our houses) get infected with, and are highly resistant to, individual strains of T.g. However, if a mouse gets infected with the wrong T.g. strain, it dies.

    This may be extreme, but the point is that resistance is a coevolution process, basically a long-term squabble between the surviving mice and surviving protozoans where both sort of coexist (Red Queen races are coevolutionary struggles). Start a new infection, and a new coevolutionary process may start--if there are survivors on both sides of that first contact.

    That's the problem with positing resistance to one strain confers resistance to all strains. In humans this may be the case, but I have no information.

    1313:

    Yep. It should :) The fix was basically to alter the code so that the bit of code the Markdown parser uses to tell it not to mangle URLs inside HTML tags got applied to raw URLs as well. Which came down to something like change one line and swap a couple of others round, in a context that came as close to guaranteeing that it can't unexpectedly break something else as you'll ever get; and this simplicity brought it below Charlie's arsability threshold to implement it.

    1314:

    "I suspect people would have noticed if European colonists (and their livestock and working animals!) started aborting, losing babies soon after birth, and suffering with and/or dying from encephalitis as they first contracted toxoplasmosis."

    Ah. Sounds a bit like an outbreak of Bang's disease - contagious bovine abortion, effect of brucellosis. Ruins cattle like nobody's business, also does a variety of nasty things to humans both short and long term (a bit like covid), and even these days most farm-animal vets end up with low-level health defects from a chronic infection.

    1315:

    Re. your mention of "Putin's imperialist revanchism" you may, or of course may not, like to consider the following items:

    1) US think-tanks have for 20/30 years now been publishing plans to foment war in Ukraine as an excuse to try to break up the Russian Federation and loot its resources. Former executives from these think-tanks now have posts high up in the CIA and Pentagon.

    2) The Ukraine had a choice of an economic deal with either Russia or the EU. The then President chose the Russian deal. The US then organised an illegal coup in Ukraine which toppled the legal president. At the same time, neo-Nazi elements in the Ukraine became enmeshed in the power structure, especially in the Army.

    3) The Ukraine than passed laws banning the use of the Russian Language, and other discriminatory measures against Ukranian Russian speakers.

    4) The Russian speakesr in Luhansk and Donbass then decided to oppose these measures by force after appeals had been rejected by Kiev.

    5) The Ukranian regime reacted by shelling civilians in these areas. From 2014 to the beginning of the war, approximately 14,000 civilians including women and children have lost their lives to shelling by their fellow countrymen.

    6) Germany, France, Russia and Ukraine drew up the Minsk treaty to solve the problem. All these nations signed it.

    7) Ukraine consistently refused to stick to the terms of the treaty it had signed. France and Germany made absolutely no effort to persuade them, which as signatories, they should have done. A modification to the treaty was made, with the same result.

    8) Zelensky declared that he wanted to join NATO and also wanted to revive the Ukraine's nuclear weapon capacity. The 'west' agreed with the NATO proposal, and ignored Russian concerns (unlike in the similar case of the Cuba Crisis).

    9) Putin proposed to the west that they meet and agree a security treaty which would peacefully solve the whole matter.

    10) The west and Ukraine ignored this proposal, even though Putin warned that there would be consequences.

    11) These consequences are now on-going.

    Delete at will, but I thought better of you.

    1316:

    “And it's no surprise it's horrendously noisy -- maximum takeoff weight is about 15 tonnes!” That’s a lot of air to beat into submission. Fortunately, helicopters are so ugly the Earth rejects them, which slightly reduces the effort required.

    1317:

    Right now, I have a few remaining print copies that I ordered through Eric last year. Otherwise, nothing until I'm picked up.

    1318:

    Jams O'Donnell
    You FORGOT one important bit: The Budapest Memorandum - Ukraine GAVE UP it's nuclear weapons in return for Russian guarantees of leaving them alone ...
    Very convenient, you forgetting that, wasn't it?

    NOT SURE I believe all of your #8, either.

    1319:

    Atropos @ 1301:

    Meanwhile, in Norway.

    [...]

    About this time last year, Norway's Search and Rescue service (which I think is part of the Norwegian Air Force) upgraded its local units from the venerable Sea King to what they call the Sea Queen.

    Sea Queens are really fucking big. An EC135 is rated to carry about up to 7 people. A Sea Queen (otherwise known as a Merlin - it's what most of Europe's navies use) is rated to carry up to 47 people (standing room only), and it really fucking shows. The noise is deafening when they land, from 150m away, with the windows closed. The plans for the helipad had also not envisioned such large helicopters, either - the building and the helipad can take the absolute weight, but the problem is the rotor wash while the chopper is idling - the road underneath has to be closed off to traffic completely while the helicopter is within 50m of the ground. Something to do with echoes and standing waves between the neighbouring buildings, I assume.

    Looking at the specifications, I think the main reason for the replacement is RANGE. The Sea Queen's range is more than twice the Sea King's. The Sea Queen can carry 16 stretchers to the Sea King's 15. That's only one more, but range translates into how long the bird can stay in the air searching for people lost at sea ... or how far out they can go to pick up crew from a foundering ship or an oil rig.

    • Sea King range: 664 nmi (764 mi, 1,230 km)
    • Sea Queen range: 1,389 km (863 mi, 750 nmi)

    1320:

    ilya187 @ 1309:

    OK, which cyberpunk writer is responsible for the current reality??

    https://gizmodo.com/space-force-call-of-duty-veterans-1849842903

    Space Force Won a Call of Duty Tournament, Then Launched The Trophy Into Space

    I wonder how they plan to get it back if they should happen to lose this year's tournament & have to pass it along to a different service?

    FWIW, that photo/video looks like it's from a high altitude weather balloon, so I expect the trophy is already back on the ground.

    1321:

    • Sea King range: 664 nmi (764 mi, 1,230 km) • Sea Queen range: 1,389 km (863 mi, 750 nmi)

    Um, that's not twice the range. The Sea Queen only has about 160 km more range than the Sea King, according to those numbers.

    1322:

    You're going to need to cite some sources for that listicle of accusations.

    I'll try to respond to some of them.

  • I have no doubt US think tanks have been doing all kinds of evil shit. I also have zero doubt about the existence of similar processes in Russia, for their own reasons.

  • Your characterization of the toppling of Russia's puppet by the people of Ukraine is notably one-sided. Remember the snipers shooting the students and other protesters? You can deny it, but it happened on camera and at length.

  • I'll need a citation on this. Since the current president of Ukraine is a native Russian speaker, you will need to show me some more information on how they have been discriminated against. I'm not saying you are wrong or lying, but I am saying you are inaccurate.

  • Some of the Russian speakers chose to oppose this change. Some of them even took up arms. Many of those who took up arms were Russian soldiers in drag (little green men). Russia was not innocent in fomenting the violence in Eastern Ukraine.

  • Citation needed as to the source of the shelling. There is one country involved in this fight with an ongoing and intense practice of shelling civilians. If Ukraine has been doing the same then please show me some evidence.

  • Etcetera etcetera.

  • In your entire list you completely fail to mention the unilateral invasion, occupation and annexation of Crimea in 2014. Was it an oversight?

    If my country had been invaded, occupied and annexed a few years ago I'd be looking for allies as well. But somehow Ukraine doing it is a provocation.

    1323:

    FWIW, that photo/video looks like it's from a high altitude weather balloon, so I expect the trophy is already back on the ground.

    The article is a bit muddled, but I think it was a suborbital rocket. They were "worried about the trophy getting damaged on re-entry"

    1324:

    JohnS, see also:- 1) Sea King speed 112kt
    2) Merlin speed 150kt
    which makes the Merlin 1/3 faster to get to the job and back. As a beneficiary of an air ambulance flight, this really matters.

    1325:

    ... On top of which, the North Atlantic Treaty forbids accession by new members while they have outstanding territorial disputes. Ukraine has had a territorial dispute ongoing with Russia (see: Crimea) since 2012 if not earlier. So Ukraine can't be admitted to NATO without settling things with Russia, and Russia obviously has zero incentive to allow that to happen.

    So point 8 is bullshit.

    I'll also dispute any characterisation of Russia under Putin (ie. since 2000-ish) as "peaceful". The brutal invasion and massacres in Chechnya, various false-flag atrocities against their own people, imposition of an increasingly autocratic and unaccountable dictatorship, and repeated violations of their neighbours' border security (I'm thinking especially about Russian military incursions in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, never mind Ukraine and other former SSRs) lead me to consider Putin to be no more trustworthy than Hitler.

    1326:

    However you look at it there was a lot more support from the people actually living there for Crimea being Russian than for Britain leaving the EU.

    1327:

    Agreed. The problem is that NONE of the explanations are entirely plausible, and that there is inadequate data to narrow them down.

    1328:

    "On top of which, the North Atlantic Treaty forbids accession by new members while they have outstanding territorial disputes. "

    Also see Moldova and Transnistria. I think Moldova could blow off Transnistria, apply for NATO membership and let the Transnistrian statelet between Ukraine and Moldova figure out what it wanted to do.

    1329:

    Heteromeles said: That's where I realize I'm quite ignorant...

    Ah, I see what you mean. I didn't understand enough to know I was ignorant.

    So you'd need 100s of little groups of mice and cats that were in enough contact to all be infected, but little enough contact to allow the different groups to evolve separately, and different enough to force evolution to go in different directions at a decent pace. Like little genetic islands.

    Hmmm, a head scratcher.

    1330:

    Re Norwegian Sea Queens:
    Atropos will know better than I do, but my understanding is that Norway's aviation infrastructure was set up as a national system rathar than as a piecemal assembly of airfields. Given that Norway's terrain made it quicker and simpler to travel by sea than by land until quite recently (1960s?), the added capability of the Sea Queen was probably a selling point.

    1331:

    »... On top of which, the North Atlantic Treaty forbids accession by new members while they have outstanding territorial disputes. «

    It does not.

    As long as the parties to the treaty unanimously agree, they can invite "any other European State" to join. (Article 10)

    Even if it did say what you claim it would not apply: The writers of the NATO treaty knew the difference between a territorial dispute and an invasion.

    And yes, the Budapest Memorandum may not be talked about much these days, but it is a major reason why so much hardware and cash is flowing to Ukraine from USA, UK or France: If they want their words to be trusted next time, they have to pay the piper now.

    1332:

    RE: LA police copters

    By sheer coincidence, this investigative article showed up in my feed: Are Police Helicopters Worth the Cost? (tl;dr unlikely, and it's worth reading).

    1333:

    That appears to be the Trombé Wall

    That looks like the same concept taken to the logical conclusion, but both examples I saw were less extreme. In one the thermal mass was the floor slab, with the dark surface provided by black slate flooring. In the other it was a low concrete wall/bench about 60cm tall and the same thick, about a metre long and a metre back from the window, connected by masonry with the floor which was a suspended slab. In both cases, they were just features in an otherwise relatively normal room (well, excepting the solar angled skylights).

    In relation to your example... yes DIY installations are nearly always essentially experimental prototypes, but it's unfortunate when they end up being expensive.

    1334:

    Re: 'You don't need an ISBN to publish via Kindle --'

    Okay, thanks for the info.

    I just read the Wikipedia article that paws4thot linked to. Pretty different from my impression that all books had ISBNs if only for making it easier for booksellers/buyers to track inventory and payable-to accounting info.

    1335:

    Without digging too deeply, I spotted at least one inaccuracy. I'd have to look up the others.

    1336:

    Re: 'Like little genetic islands.'

    Whenever I hear/read about some organism/animal overrunning a geographic area I think about Australia's rabbit problem. In this particular instance - the discussion among you, Heteromeles and EC - I was wondering whether any microbe specific to European rabbits had since evolved (?) into different species in the current Australian rabbit population. Didn't find any info on that but did find that viruses have been used intermittently to reduce the Australian rabbit population. (The surviving rabbits bounce back, reproduce like mad and the cycle repeats.) Ditto for Australia's mouse problem: no idea whether mice in Australia are routinely tested for various microbes and such microbes' evolution. Camels are the third recently introduced mammal that's reproduced very successfully in Australia, i.e., causing environmental headaches.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_plagues_in_Australia

    T. gondi - Fungus -

    Recently saw a news article about how fungal outbreaks/infections are on the rise in parts of the southern US. Gist of the article was that some fungi have a sweet spot when it comes to best temperature for rapid reproduction. Makes me wonder whether optimal temp, humidity or other climate factors might also influence reproductive success among single cell parasites like T.gondi. If yes, then increased reproduction should also mean increased possibility of a more pathogenic variant showing up.

    https://www.who.int/news/item/25-10-2022-who-releases-first-ever-list-of-health-threatening-fungi

    1337:

    And the country's name is Ukraine, not the Ukraine.

    The latter is usually used by Russia and Russian-affiliated to emphasize their claim to the land as part of a larger 'Russian dominion', in much the same way mainland China views and refers to Taiwan.

    Just the fact that you continually refer to it as 'the Ukraine' makes me very suspicious...

    1338:

    Very much agree. Nobody who is not Russian (or maybe Serb) says "the Ukraine".

    1339:

    context = UK

    "cost of food imported from EU shot up because of red tape, adding £210 to average household food bills over 2020 and 2021, LSE researchers discovered..."[1][2] which is associated with 2021 official inflation rate of 2.588%[3]

    if 2022 official inflation to 11.052% & average household income of 33,000[4]... what is expected for 2023? 2024?

    though this mess of mismanagement is hitting the UK this year, my concern is just what is happening in the next year to the EU and will (eventually) hit the US/NA... political destabilization is always directly linked to angry-scared-hungry people and UK's 67m followed by EU's 447m and then US's 331m (plus CAN's 38m, MEX's 130m)

    that? that ignores Africa, Middle East, Asia, South America, Pacific Rim, et al, each of which has their sub-sections/nations with varying degrees of destabilization already underway... I'm trying to imagine what happens when Egypt's 104m -- as just one example of somewhere reaching the breaking point -- have to endure yet further belt tightening... and words fail me...

    [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/02/brexit-poor-people-paying-eat-debate-human

    [2] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/01/brexit-added-nearly-6bn-to-uk-food-bills-in-two-years-research-finds

    [3] https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/uk-inflation-rate/

    [4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/416139/full-time-annual-salary-in-the-uk-by-region/

    1340:

    context = USA

    if anyone knows of eqv charting for EU or UK or Asia... please advise...

    CCSS

    here's your monthly supply of nightmare fuel... objective tracking of 'billion dollar disasters in USA'

    QUOTE: "During 2021, there were 20 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disaster events across the United States. The total cost from these events of 2021 was $152.6 billion and was the third most costly year on record, behind 2017 and 2005. The total costs for the last five complete years ($788.4 billion) is more than one-third of the disaster cost total of the last 43-years (1980-2022), which exceeds $2.295 trillion (inflation-adjusted to 2022 dollars)."

    https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/time-series?campaign_id=54&emc=edit_clim_20220930&instance_id=73345&nl=climate-forward&regi_id=43620288&segment_id=108576&te=1&user_id=23e5aeb1124dc9af6a71fe5abb6dbe27

    1341:

    1339 - Ilya, pretty much agreed about DavidK44. I also note that they use the Russian "Kiev" rather than the Ukrainian "Kyiv" to refer to the Ukraine's capital.

    1340 - Howard NYC - A factor such as increased paperwork costs should only affect inflation rates over about 1 year for products on a continual trans-national stream between 2 trading blocs. As such, we should see paperwork costs on food imported from the EU dropping back out of inflation data.

    1342:

    pretty much agreed about DavidK44

    itym "with davidk44 about jams o'donnell"

    does have the aroma of driveby about it

    1343:

    DavidK 44 & Ilya187
    Thanks for that - I didn't spot it.
    Looks like we probably have a pet trollski, peoples? Do we want to play wind-up games?

    Howard NYC
    Meanwhile arseholes like R de Santis only want disaster relief for THEM, not those nasty libruls in NYC, yes?
    Why a hypocritical Welfare Queen, oops ....

    1344:

    A quick check reveals that "Jams O'Donnell" has posted one solitary comment on this blog, and it's full of pro-Russian misinformation.

    Consider this a provisional yellow card: I'll keep an eye on him if he shows up again. Otherwise, though, it looks like a drive-by. (The blog/website showed up on Hacker News a day or two ago and that usually brings in a handful of tourists.)

    1345:

    Camels are the third

    There are thousands of introduced species, many intentionally so. Mostly it was that the Brits who found themselves here wanted here to be more like there. The bloke who brought in the rabbits was their hero, so to speak.

    1346:

    RE: "Jams O'Donnell" & Ukraine etc ....
    Everybody occasionally refers to "Putler", but there are more similarities with 1914 than 1938.
    I mentioned the Budapest Memorandum, & in the C19th there was the 1839 Treaty of London) guaranteeing Belgian neutrality, which was violated by Imperial Germany - successor state to Prussia - in 1914.
    VERY like Putin's invasion 24/2/'22 is it not?

    QUOTE from wiki on this: - The co-signatories of the Treaty of London now officially recognised the independent Kingdom of Belgium. The five great powers of Europe (Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, and the United Kingdom) also pledged to guarantee Belgium's neutrality

    1347:

    VERY like Putin's invasion 24/2/'22 is it not?

    well the germans were mainly interested in going through belgium to get to france as i recall

    i know there's a lot of bedwetting about how if we let putin get away with doing an anschluss on most of ukraine it'll just whet his appetite for moldova, transnistria, taking the baltics back and eventually all of eastern europe but there's really not much reason to believe he's stupid enough to try anything like that unless ur really determined to

    1348:

    Yes. All of his points have SOME truth in them, but they vary between gross one-sidedness and substantially false. Very similar the more extreme anti-Russian polemic posted on this blog :-( No, I shall NOT attempt to point out the nuggets of truth, unless requested to by someone reasonable.

    1349:

    Generally, for endoparasites like T. gondii, it's more the survival during transmission phases or the lack of alternative hosts. But that's the extent of my knowledge.

    Exoparasites are affected, obviously; fungal skin diseases are common, thrive in high temperatures and humidity, and resistent to most things. It's the basis of my assertion that athlete's foot is a disease caused by wearing shoes (seriously) :-)

    1350:

    I think the term is probably also used by people who have a certain ignorance regarding Eastern Europe. A couple years ago I wouldn't have blinked at the term, though given the recent news coverage I'll never say "the Ukraine" again.

    1351:

    This is rather scary. On one hand the government can print 152 billion dollars if necessary. What it can't do, possibly, is keep up with rebuilding as things break down further and further worldwide - 152 billion is a lot of stuff/labor/time.

    1352:

    i know there's a lot of bedwetting about how if we let putin get away with doing an anschluss on most of ukraine it'll just whet his appetite for moldova, transnistria, taking the baltics back and eventually all of eastern europe but there's really not much reason to believe he's stupid enough to try anything like that unless ur really determined to

    I am pretty sure Putin is not that stupid, but a lot of Russian nationalists are, and they have a lot of power. By now, if it were up to him, Putin most likely would have made some excuse and quit. But if Putin did that, nationalists like Dugin would turn against him openly, and he would not survive. And a successful Anschluss on most of Ukraine will assure that Putin's successor is in Dugin's mold -- "Moscow is Third Rome" and all that. They absolutely will go for all of former Russian Empire because this is literally part of their religion.

    If Putin fails in Ukraine, nationalists may still succeed him, but they will have a much smaller war machine at their disposal.

    1353:

    I don't think Putin is stupid either, but he's gotten way too used to having yes-men all around him, and he hears things like, "That's a brilliant idea, boss," much too frequently to have any idea about reality.

    But if you're saying that Putin started out with the idea that he'd ride the tiger, and is now discovering that the tiger is riding him... I wouldn't argue much with that!

    1354:

    I am pretty sure Putin is not that stupid, but a lot of Russian nationalists are, and they have a lot of power.

    Also Putin is 70 and by some accounts has cancer.

    Only one Russian or Soviet leader in the past 4 centuries made it past 80 years of age -- Mikhail Gorbachev (who wasn't in the hot seat for very long and was out of office before he turned 60, so presumably not under the stresses that heads of state are prone to).

    With the media climate within Russia tracking hard to the right for the past decade, and sanctions biting into living standards, that's the classic set of ingredients for the rise of fascism (even if you don't think Putin himself is a fascist).

    So the question is, even if "Putin is not that stupid", what about his successor?

    1355:

    A mere fascist would be tough on Russians, but not necessarily an international problem; a rabid revanchist would be. The other danger is that Russia breaks up, whether on its own or with western assistance, leading to local warlords with nukes.

    1356:

    ilya187 @ 1353: I am pretty sure Putin is not that stupid

    Umm. A year ago everyone was saying "Surely he wouldn't be stupid enough to invade Ukraine". The betting then was that he could take Kiev, kill Zelensky and install a puppet regime, but then wouldn't have the manpower to hold the country down. As it turned out, he was stupid enough to try, but then couldn't even bring phase 1 off. So I'm disinclined to trust predictions based on the intelligence of Putin.

    1357:

    EC @ 1356: A mere fascist would be tough on Russians, but not necessarily an international problem; a rabid revanchist would be.

    Well, revanchism generally goes along with fascism. Its a core tenet of fascism that The People are special and have a manifest destiny. Therefore all setbacks of the past are due to enemy action. Therefore once all the internal enemies who stabbed The People in the back have been neutralised it is obviously the destiny of The People to go on to defeat all the external enemies and recover all of their ancestral lands and dominions, wherever they may be.

    1358:

    I agree that Putin is not stupid. However, he does not have military experience or knowledge, and he's being advised by yes-men.* Thus you end up with such absurdities as thousands of missiles being launched against apartment buildings rather than against Ukrainian bases, even after almost a year of this approach leading to one battlefield loss after another. The end result of this decision-making process resembles stupidity, but has different subtleties.

    *Nobody who's argued with Putin, even in a helpful way - has successfully stayed near Putin.

    1359:

    RE: American politics, and who starts uprisings more generally.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/12/oath-keepers-rhodes-jan-6/672329/

    This one is about the conviction of the Oathkeepers in the US, which probably gets a "Whatever" to most non-Americans. Tom Nichols opines about why they did it, and that might be a bit more interesting to everybody. From a quote in the essay:

    "There is perhaps no more reliable indicator of a society’s ripeness for a mass movement than the prevalence of unrelieved boredom. In almost all the descriptions of the periods preceding the rise of mass movements there is reference to vast ennui; and in their earliest stages mass movements are more likely to find sympathizers among the bored than among the exploited and suppressed. To a deliberate fomenter of mass upheavals, the report that people are bored stiff should be at least as encouraging as that they are suffering from intolerable economic or political abuses."

    Did ennui show up prior to Brexit too? Russia perhaps?

    Anyway, the Oathkeepers portrayed here are not uber-fit guerrilla monsters, but "Gravy Seals" and "Meal Team Six":wannabes who can afford gear and a modicum of drill.

    They've got historic parallels too. In the lead-up to the American Civil War, many members of the Knights of the Golden Circle (including George Bickley) are described in a similar mold (Bickley was basically a grifter). Yet they were the ones drumming hard for secession and radicalizing politicians to their cause. Is a desire to rebrand oneself as a hero a peculiar disease of American malcontents, or does it infect others?

    1360:

    Not really. Look at Poland, Hungary, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, for a start.

    1361:

    Is a desire to rebrand oneself as a hero a peculiar disease of American malcontents, or does it infect others?

    It seems to be universal, at least in developed nations.

    1362:

    Saudi Arabia is waging an ongoing war against Yemen (and using soft power to subvert and coopt other Sunni nations into their ongoing cold war against Sh'ism).

    Turkey is effectively at war with the Kurds, and has been engaged in Syria.

    (Poland and Hungary lack land borders with actual enemies -- at least, tractable ones: I think we can discount any prospect of Poland marching on Germany and Russia in search of more territory.)

    1363:

    I can't take that (i.e., that one shouldn't say "the Ukraine") argument seriously. What they do in their native language is their business, but in English... Well, it's "the United States". To me, and in English, the "the" does not have the implication you are ascribing to it. ("The Union of South Africa".) It does imply that the entity was formed from the union of several smaller pieces, and I assume this is true of the Ukraine because of that. It has no implication that it is properly a subsidiary of some other entity. I think it's probably a form of collective noun. Compare it to "The Irish counties". "The United Kingdom". "The states of Mexico".

    The only way I could see this argument making sense is by analogy with Northern Ireland, and an "external agent" making claims of ownership over that part of Ireland, but since we don't say "the Ireland" I think that claim fails.

    1364:

    That is a clear lie. I don't speak either Russian or Serbian, and I've said "the Ukraine" ever since I first heard about the country. I've never heard it said any other way. Leaving the "the" off of "the Ukraine" feels like leaving the "the" off "the United States". (Admittedly it used to be "these United States", but that was over a century ago.)

    1365:

    That is true, but they are not really showing any desire to recreate their empires' territory, which is the strict meaning of revanchism.

    1366:

    Just a nitpick, but Fascism isn't necessarily an expansionist nationalism. I'll grant that it often is, though. And just generally that leaders needing to rally the home base often engage in foreign wars, whatever the form of government.

    P.S.: I'm not even sure that fascism is inherently dictatorial, though it seems to lean that way in every case I've noticed. But the basic idea of fascism is that the economy should be in the service of the state. This is one opposite to the "free market" idea, but somehow nobody seems to notice it.

    1367:

    When Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukrainians made it clear that to them, "Ukraine" is an independent country, "the Ukraine" is a breakaway region of the Russian Empire, and they want their supporters to use the former.

    The Ukrainians have fought against being part of the Russian Empire for centuries, hence the pogroms and suppression of the Ukrainian language in the USSR and the empire.

    So basically, what you call it shows which side you favor: If you support the Ukrainians, call it "Ukraine." If you support Russia, call it "the Ukraine." This is a matter of current politics, not your past practice.

    1369:

    I can't take that (i.e., that one shouldn't say "the Ukraine") argument seriously.

    It's not an argument: it's what Ukrainians want to call their country, so you should call it that.

    Unless you want to be deliberately insulting?

    1370:

    That is true, but they are not really showing any desire to recreate their empires' territory, which is the strict meaning of revanchism.

    You are mistaken: a lot of the political rhetoric coming out of Russia today is all about recreating the Russian empire.

    1371:

    Eh? I was referring to Turkey and Saudi Arabia - Russia was not mentioned in any of #1361, #1363 or #1366.

    Until this year, the same was apparently true of Russia, but I agree that their rhetoric and, much more importantly, behaviour have changed. The UK's censorship means that it is near-impossible to find out what Putin/Russia are really saying, but I trust Reuters and Al Jazeera to at least intend to report the facts correctly. I can't think of another easily accessible source.

    1372:

    I can't take that (i.e., that one shouldn't say "the Ukraine") argument seriously.

    It's not an argument: it's what Ukrainians want to call their country, so you should call it that.

    If I might suggest an edit, it would be "it's what Ukrainians want English speakers to call their country".

    I'm perfectly fine with that but, as I think has been mentioned before, neither Ukrainian nor Russian has an article corresponding to "the". So in those languages there's no difference between "Ukraine" and "the Ukraine."

    It's a difference manufactured for political purposes with which I agree, but manufactured nonetheless.

    Further discussion about the etymology of Ukraine or U-Krayina could follow, but won't.

    1373:

    As a non-native English speaker, it is new to me that "the Ukraine" is not a courteous way to refer to the country, but the Wikipedia article states that the newly sovereign Ukrainian government already made the point in the early 90s. Even though I got used to the "the" it suits me fine to omit it: It is more consistent as the definite article usually isn't used in front of the name of a country in English.

    The point on Kyiv above is also new to me. At the start of the war local papers started spelling it in wildly different ways (I'm not sure Kyiv was even one of them), and I just figured that it was different opinions on transliteration from Cyrillic, maybe lifted from papers from different countries by confused journalists.

    1374:

    " a lot of the political rhetoric coming out of Russia today is all about recreating the Russian empire."

    Yes. A lot of Russian TV these days is pretty explicit (or horrifying, if you look at that way) in what it implies.

    1375:
    The other danger is that Russia breaks up, whether on its own or with western assistance, leading to local warlords with nukes.

    I cannot see the West getting involved in the break up of Russia -- at least until it's well past the tipping point. We are too timorous, and the western public is not going to get behind any kind of war of aggression.

    However, what I wouldn't bet against is the situation in the eastern part of the Russian Federation. Some of those statelets are now getting a bit frisky, and snuggling up with China.

    It's also worth noting that other parts of Ruski Mir -- like Armenia -- are playing up while Putin is distracted in Ukraine and no longer has the forces required to put them in their place.

    1376:

    Further discussion about the etymology of Ukraine or U-Krayina could follow, but won't.

    Well,

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine#Etymology

    1377:

    RE: breakup of Russia.

    Worthwhile but definitely biased article that talks about Russian potential breakup and the possibility of Russian democracy:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/12/putin-russia-must-lose-ukraine-war-imperial-future/671891/

    1378:

    Charlie
    From what I can make out ... Turkey is involved in low-level not-quite-genocide against the Kurds ....
    - replying to EC in your # 1371 - THIS is what EC has been deliberately ignoring, or so it seems. See also Dugin & the other nutjobs.

    EC
    Until this year, the same was apparently true of Russia, but I agree that their rhetoric and, much more importantly, behaviour have changed. - Utterly, totally wrong - and if you don't know that, you bloody well should.
    It's not "just" Dugin, it's all the others, whom we have frequently ( ? ) referred to in these pages, yes?
    Come to that: The UK's censorship means that it is near-impossible to find out what Putin/Russia are really saying. - again, bollocks - use the Engineers Test ( Also Yeshua's Test too! ) - bugger what they say - what do they DO?
    In Putin's case: - wage aggressive small wars around the periphery to "reclaim" territory & the same on his own population, too.
    Never, ever forget, please: KGB Officer Putin.

    1379:

    If I might suggest an edit, it would be "it's what Ukrainians want English speakers to call their country"

    This was chewed over a month or few ago on this blog.

    I used "the" with Ukraine for decades because that's what I had always "heard". Now I try and drop the "the".

    While many on this blog says we shouldn't use the "the" I mostly did it because of what a group of folks with Ukrainian heritage (old and recent) said. Basically using "the" is wrong. They don't like it. But they are not going to argue the point in most situations.

    And it seems that "the" in front of a country by English speakers has to do with plurals. The UK. The United States. Etc.

    1380:

    Turkey is involved in low-level not-quite-genocide against the Kurds

    Turkey has had a serious inferiority complex since they lost the Ottoman Empire after WWI.

    The Kurds were supposed to have a country coming out of that war.

    But the nice European/US/allies map drawers left it out of the final lines they drew.

    So the Kurds got split up amongst 3 or so other countries.

    Each of those countries has spent the last 100 years trying to erase the concept of a Kurdish state. Turkey the most viciously. Well at least recently.

    1381:

    The Russian nuclear arsenal has permissive action links.

    The US did deliberate tech transfer of this technology a lot. Congress wouldn't sign off on giving it to the soviets.. but whether that meant Moscow had to actually brew their own or the department of energy just decided that "Lets not work very hard at counter intel here" was the safest course, given that the soviets already had nicked the plans for the H-bomb, hard to tell.

    But the bombs definitely are locked down. So warlords with bombs can't really happen as a result of Russian disintegration. Either you get one successor regime with the keys and their bombs work while everyone else ends up with fissile paperweights or the keys are just outright lost and none of the bombs work.

    Rebuilding a bricked bomb is of course easier than starting from scratch, but it's still not a garage kit-bash job.

    1382:

    a lot of the political rhetoric coming out of Russia today is all about recreating the Russian empire.

    I found these youtube videos interesting. And yes they are 15 and 20 minutes. Done as a voice over as the video is basically map lines moving about with major cities shown. Makes a hash of most any claims by anyone of "this is ours check the history". It starts around 850.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUgzqkCW6A4

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjDjnhOzqIU

    1383:

    https://static.rusi.org/359-SR-Ukraine-Preliminary-Lessons-Feb-July-2022-web-final.pdf

    Linked is an analysis by Ukranian generals and some UK military types on the first 6 months of the war - what worked, what didn't, and what the progress of the war means for the UK in particular as well as wars in general.

    It's a long and very detailed read. Some key points from my scan include:

    Russia has a lot more artillery, but much weaker targeting. As with most authoritarian systems, there is no trust of lower echelons and so targeting decisions are done at a high level, mostly in the order they are received. So a moving target might be shelled where it was 40 minutes ago - ineffective. They are still very effective at hitting fixed targets (thus the electrical grid, which is immobile).

    Russia's whole plan was to invade and capture Kyiv within a few days, resulting in a fait accompli that the international community would have to eventually move on from in realpolitik form. That didn't work, largely because Ukraine had dispersed their forces and mounted an effective defense.

    The culture of the Russian military means that local commanders don't have the ability to adapt to changing situations or unexpected results. When the attack on Kyiv failed, many of the commanders had to proceed as if it was successful, leading to enormous wasted life and materials. Apparently the battle for Snake Island was a similar situation where the Russian Navy kept trying to retake it at great cost long after it was no longer relevant to the situation.

    The same culture apparently makes the Russian military very vulnerable to misdirection, resulting in a lot of incorrect targeting and a tendency to be drawn into kill zones, even when the local commanders recognize a trap.

    For really dark reading you can check out some of the summarized plans for the invading army (that were captured) for after their presumed victory 10 days after invasion. They had pre-sorted Ukranians into 4 groups - kill immediately, intimidate, ignore and collaborators. All the participants in the Maidan revolution in 2014 were on the first list.

    1384:

    I think the technical term for what happened to the Russians in Ukraine is "defeat in detail." This is what happens when you divide your large army into too many small parts. At that point an inferior force which stays unified can position small blocking forces against most of your advancing forces, then muster superior numbers locally and destroy, for example, the three different army groups you've sent to take Kyiv.

    Essentially, Russia's plan was overly complex and the Ukrainians took advantage by breaking one bit of that complexity at a time. I'd imagine that when the Ukrainian generals learned that the Russians were going to advance upon them from ten different axises, they just about wet themselves in glee.

    https://www.19fortyfive.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Possible_routes_of_alleged_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine_January_2022.jpg

    1385:

    I can't take that (i.e., that one shouldn't say "the Ukraine") argument seriously.

    it's basically like misgendering

    1386:

    I used "the" with Ukraine for decades because that's what I had always "heard".

    Same here. But I always figured it referred to a territory, like "the Great Plains" or "the Midwest" or "the North".

    Now I try and drop the "the".

    I'll bear that in mind in the future!

    1387:

    Robert Prior @ 1322:

    • Sea King range: 664 nmi (764 mi, 1,230 km) • Sea Queen range: 1,389 km (863 mi, 750 nmi)

    Um, that's not twice the range. The Sea Queen only has about 160 km more range than the Sea King, according to those numbers.

    You're right. I hadn't noticed Wikipedia flipped nmi & km between the two pages. I don't know why they wouldn't keep the format consistent?

    I was expecting them to keep the same unit out front & the units in parenthesis in the same order so you can easily compare "apples to apples (oranges to oranges, kumquats to kumquats)".

    1388:

    ilya187 @ 1324:

    FWIW, that photo/video looks like it's from a high altitude weather balloon, so I expect the trophy is already back on the ground.

    The article is a bit muddled, but I think it was a suborbital rocket. They were "worried about the trophy getting damaged on re-entry"

    I can see how they might be worried about that with the trophy just stuck out there on the side that way. I'd have been worried about it breaking off on the way up, much less "on re-entry"

    1389:

    I hadn't noticed Wikipedia flipped nmi & km between the two pages. I don't know why they wouldn't keep the format consistent?

    That implies the article has at least 2 contributors. If not a dozen or few. Wikipedia's answer to you is to submit an edit or a request.

    1390:

    paws4thot @ 1325:

    JohnS, see also:- 1) Sea King speed 112kt
    2) Merlin speed 150kt
    which makes the Merlin 1/3 faster to get to the job and back. As a beneficiary of an air ambulance flight, this really matters.

    But it's not really an air ambulance, it's a SAR bird.

    The extra speed helps, but the extra range (and the extra endurance that goes with it) is more important (IMNSHO - even if Wikipedia DID fool me by swapping the units of measure around).

    I'm pretty sure Norway didn't retire their existing fleet of EC-135 (137 kn) or EC-145 (133 kn) air ambulances.

    Duke University Hospital in Durham, NC uses the EC-145 for their "Life Flight" program and the NC Army National Guard just received the new UH-72B Lakota (military version of the EC-145) for use as an air rescue (Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team), counter-drug and general support aircraft for emergency response.

    1391:

    Troutwaxer @ 1351:

    I think the term is probably also used by people who have a certain ignorance regarding Eastern Europe. A couple years ago I wouldn't have blinked at the term, though given the recent news coverage I'll never say "the Ukraine" again.

    That's the way I understood "the Ukraine" vs "Ukraine" until it was pointed out to me. I didn't realize "the Ukraine" referred to a conquered territory of the Russian Empire and/or Soviet Union until someone here pointed out the difference.

    But it's not something you should need to have pointed out to you more than once.

    And considering how many different places I've encountered an explanation of the correct (from Ukraine's point of view) usage since Russia's invasion started, anyone who is still using "the Ukraine" makes me wonder what they're up to?

    1392:

    Troutwaxer @ 1352:

    This is rather scary. On one hand the government can print 152 billion dollars if necessary. What it can't do, possibly, is keep up with rebuilding as things break down further and further worldwide - 152 billion is a lot of stuff/labor/time.

    Not that it makes any difference, BUT, the government may print the currency, but it's the Federal Reserve Banking System (here in the U.S.) that actually issues it. The government prints VERY LITTLE money of its own (other than coinage) - and even there I think the Federal Reserve tells the Mint how much coinage is needed to be put into circulation.

    One of my "prized possessions" (along with a genuine $20 gold piece (Double Eagle) ** & a Spanish Pillar Dollar (Real de a ocho), several Silver Certificates in $1 & $2 denominations is a genuine $5 U.S. Treasury [Red Seal] Note.

    I'm not a collector or anything like that, but I like interesting money.

    **

    When I die oh Lord please bury me
    In my high top Stetson hat.
    Put a twenty dollar gold-piece on my watch chain
    1So the Lord will know I died standing pat.

    1393:

    "I used "the" with Ukraine for decades because that's what I had always "heard". Now I try and drop the "the"."

    Me too. Up to a few years ago it was always "the Ukraine"(*) and "Kiev". Now I try to be careful to use "Ukraine" and "Kyiv".

    (*) Or "the Ukrainian SSR" up to 1991.

    1394:

    anyone who is still using "the Ukraine" makes me wonder what they're up to?

    60 years of memory. I catch myself most of the time but occasionally the "the" slips out. Don't assume it is all malicious. I'm talking of speaking. For typing, well, that's different.

    1395:

    Now I try to be careful to use "Ukraine" and "Kyiv".

    This conversation triggered me thinking of why I've known of "Ukraine" for so long. The answer is the game Risk. So I just did some internet searching and looked at a game map. Since there is nothing called the USSR or Russia but on the game map and Ukraine takes up what is most of western Russia ...

    Were those game boards allowed to be sold in the USSR or Russia?

    1396:

    Correct. The role of an air ambulance is to move someone rapidly from point A to B. SAR often has to spend time on station finding the person first. Increased range means increased capacity to run search patterns etc.

    1397:

    The article is a bit muddled, but I think it was a suborbital rocket. They were "worried about the trophy getting damaged on re-entry" I can see how they might be worried about that with the trophy just stuck out there on the side that way. I'd have been worried about it breaking off on the way up, much less "on re-entry"

    I'd bet on a weather balloon myself. JP Aerospace does this a lot. An "orbiter" made of foam and carbon fiber rods will survive the fall from a popped balloon just fine, if the trophy isn't too heavy. If it is, they deployed a parachute. You can see videos at https://www.youtube.com/user/johnmpowell/videos.

    1398:

    Quote from the Gizmodo article:

    According to a video from C.O.D.E., the trophy was able to survive the intense G-forces and changes in temperature and pressure.

    That does not sound like a balloon

    1399:

    David L @ 1390:

    I hadn't noticed Wikipedia flipped nmi & km between the two pages. I don't know why they wouldn't keep the format consistent?

    That implies the article has at least 2 contributors. If not a dozen or few. Wikipedia's answer to you is to submit an edit or a request.

    I do understand that. I just expected the Wikipedia Templates would standardize the format.

    It doesn't matter to me which comes first & which is in parenthesis. I just think they should ALL consistently follow in the same order whatever it is.

    1400:

    1391 - I say "poe-tay-toe", you say "poe-tah-toe"... ;-) In this sort of lift, speed to (and from) rescue site is more important than anything else except endurance.

    1392 - And, in the same vein, "Kyiv" vs "Kiev". If medium to large companies have managed to switch from the Russian spelling and pronunciation to the Ukrainian in a few months...

    1396 - Indeed, was Risk ever allowed to be sold there at all?

    1401:

    That does not sound like a balloon

    A) If you watch the video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47Fh1sza-Ec&t=39s), you'll see the trophy swaying, which is perfectly consistent with being suspended under a weather balloon.

    And if you read the article now (https://gizmodo.com/space-force-call-of-duty-veterans-1849842903), you'll find at the end it says:

    "Update December 2 3:20 p.m. ET: An earlier version of this article reported that Space Force launched the trophy into space. C.O.D.E. launched the trophy into space with help from UK-based Sent Into Space."

    Sent into space is at https://www.sentintospace.com/space-launch, and they launch payloads under...weather balloons.

    Now, how much was Space Force lying?

    A bit. Space starts arbitrarily at the Karman line, 100 km (330,000 ft) up. Weather balloons tend to burst around 100,000' (30 km) up. So the trophy didn't go to space.

    It did, however, get pretty cold. And it experienced a halfway decent g-shock when it crashlanded, so that's okay.

    If you'd watched some of the videos from JP Aeronautics, they've got launch to crash onboard videos of their "orbiters," and everything survives the crash just fine. Their orbiters are made of space frames of carbon fiber rods, with the cargo resting on or in thick foam slabs. The orbiter crumples on impact, protecting the cargo quite nicely. A launch costs a few thousand dollars, as I recall, and they'll launch anything that can fit into a ping-pong ball (a "pongsat") for free.

    So USSF probably has the trophy unless it splashed into the Atlantic, and the video was propaganda.

    1402:

    a genuine $20 gold piece (Double Eagle)

    the saint-gaudens 20$ is the most beautiful coin design i know of, i'd love to get one one day (but i'm not paying the premium i'd pay in japan)

    1403:

    Just stumbled across news that the U.S. team lost their match and has been eliminated.

    I wonder why Apple News didn't send me out a blast like they did when the U.S. team won and made it into the elimination round?

    1404:

    Especially for EC - the RU war on libraries & librarians & knowledge & culture - very like the Taliban, come to think of it!

    Place-names in Ukraine can be tricky, especially in what is now the West of the country, which used to belong, at various times to Poland / Austria-Hungary / Ruthenia / Ottoman empire.
    The one I always think of is now called Lviv, previously Lvov, previously "Lemberg", previously, um, err ...
    Alternatively Lemberg - a picture, which might surprise you.
    - though THAT "Lemberg" was a racehorse!

    1405:

    Before you go dinking with Wikipedia pages, first check the other contemporary helicopter monographs! You may find it's just one of them that's out of line, but more likely the specs are ordered completely randomly across hundreds if not thousands of different pages and you'll end up embarking on an odyssey to get the "Specifications" section of all wikipedia aviation-related pages replaced by a database-driven subsystem that can then be reconfigured to suit the reader's preferred units ...

    See you in a decade!

    1406:

    Someone will come up with a browser plugin that parses the text, fixes up units and only occasionally mangles innocent text in passing.

    1407:

    Lviv: also Lwów between WW1 and WW2 as part of Eastern Poland. Even the Italians have a word for it (Leopoli!). Unfortunately there was never a neutral term in English (perhaps we could have gone for something like Lionsbury?).

    There is an extensive Russian-language Wikipedia article on Risk but it seems to confine itself to explaining the game (complete with Ukraine as one of the areas) rather than giving any history of its availability in Russia.

    1408:

    Cruella (note) by name .. Cruel, vicous, stupid & illegal by nature - even for the fascist wing of the tories, this is staggering.
    And, even without the ECHR, this is illegal under English Common Law.
    note: - C Braverman, of course.

    1409:

    All the prediction of twitter collapse, including the one from our host ("but I suspect twitter is likely to crash hard within the next few days to week or two (at most)") has failed completely,

    Just like Brexit. Brexit is a slow moving "make UK poorer but FREE'. So all those predictions of empty store shelves and people rioting over food were over blown. But the problems are real. And seem to be growing.

    No, Twitter isn't failing fast. But unless ad revenue or something else that Musk pulls out of his magic hat or tail end shows up something will have to change or Elon will have to come up with a few $billing to pay off creditors in a hurry.

    1410:

    Before you go dinking with Wikipedia pages

    My point was if someone has an issue with a Wikipage they CAN post a comment or requested clarification. Or even a correction. I wind up doing such every few months.

    Grumbling (even at a low level) here will not make Wikipedia better.

    1411:

    Random drive-by, ignore.

    (Will be banned if they return and out themselves as a Musk fanboi.)

    It's currently being reported that S&P just withdrew Twitter's credit rating. Oops.

    1412:

    Why didn’t Twitter collapse, my take - they got permission to go back and rehire the key people who weee needed to keep the site up. There are less of these people then you’d normally think - people always forget that when you lay off most of your developers that makes your product more stable (since there are far fewer devs running around breaking shit) - the traffic has been more or less flat for years and years

    The hit will be more around making new feature IMO as their blue check mark fiasco kind of proved.

    1413:

    I suspect that Twitter is about to be hammered about moderation. Musk will discover the hard way that AI just doesn't cut it with child porn and hate speech. Plus all kinds of local issues from Germany to India. And various governments around the world will shut him down or fine him.

    Now he may weather all of this but it is going to be a rough ride for everyone involved.

    1414:

    My own suspicion is that Twitter is now quietly inhabited by multiple TLAs, from multiple countries (yes, I know they don't all have three-letter acronyms) who deployed zero days then quietly patched them once they'd arranged more ordinary logins/passwords. They're not trying to destroy the system (and maybe fighting against those who do want to destroy the system) they're trying exfiltrate copies of Twitter's database and get those who criticize their own countries banned. I suspect that when it comes to controlling the system, Elon no longer matters much.

    1416:

    I wonder why Apple News didn't send me out a blast like they did when the U.S. team won and made it into the elimination round?

    That's what they call a rhetorical question, right?

    1417:

    By which I mean [REDACTED]. If I race the boat I will greatly enjoy when the standings are posted ('And in 7th place, [REDACTED]'). A childish joy but so what.

    1418:

    Musk’s Beloved Twitter Polls Are Bot-Driven Bullsh!t

    Yes, but they're giving the results he wants so they're OK. Just like freedom of speech stops when you make fun of him.

    Twitter's new acceptable use policy seems to basically be "does Elon like your post?".

    1419:

    Getting hooked on your own product is generally considered a bad thing, no?

    Since we're getting brown-out conditions in as a blizzard of fluffy bovine excreta descends around the twitterverse, I'd just look at a few numbers.

    He's got around 240,000,000 users, and he owes $44,000,000,000. If he can get all these accounts to pay $8 each monthly for about 2-3 years (to cover interest payments), he'll be home free. Of course this won't happen, because many of those users have multiple accounts and probably even more don't see the value. Apparently he's got around 420,000 verified accounts (fascinating coincidence with that number...), and if that's all he can get, that puts him well into Buck Rogers level break even times (over 1000 years just on principal).

    So he obviously has to keep the advertising he has, and that's proved troublesome. And he has to keep the site from breaking for many years, which is also going to prove hard without a reasonably large and happy workforce, which he no longer has for some reason.

    So would I invest in Twitter right now? Probably not. Even if I knew how, I wouldn't even short it, because it's a political football whose stock price won't reflect reality until 2025 (after the next round of elections), bankruptcy, or nuclear war, whichever comes first.

    1420:

    Everything I know about the history of social media tells me that maybe 1% of the public are willing to pay for it. If that. The rest have been trained to shrug and pay no attention to the significance of the advertising.

    1421:

    Re Turkey, Ukraine and NATO politics:

    I notice that the USAF reconnaissance drones flying over the Black Sea are routed to avoid Turkish airspace.
    The aircraft I've seen tracks for are RQ-4 Global Hawk, with callsigns FORTE11 and FORTE12. They are based at Sigonella in Sicily, and from there they fly roughly NE until they intercept the Greek coast west of the Turkish border. Then they turn north and divert around European Turkey.

    The reason for this is not obvious to me.

    Presumably Turkey has asked USAF not to overfly its territory for these missions. Do we know why?

    These flights are at operational altitude all the way there and back, which is 52000 feet, give or take. So there is no collision risk with civilian traffic. Perhaps it is annoying the Turkish ADIZ radar ops? Perhaps it's to avoid any confusion with the many Turkish drone systems? They seem to be using them for border patrol (anti-migrant, I guess) and for firefighting (not so much on December, obvs, but a lotin the summer).

    1422:

    Left-Wing Voices Are Silenced on Twitter as Far-Right Trolls...

    I love how that conveniently divides the world into "far right" and "everyone else", where any difference of opinion between, say, JK Rowling and Alex Bertie is collapsed into "they're both left wing".

    I generally dislike the idea that environmentalists are necessarily left wing since they oppose destroying everything for profit, and since the latter is right wing they must therefore be left. Echo across thousands of other political viewpoints. It's just another silencing technique used to push the overton window ever further right "any criticism is left wing".

    But in this case it's painting twits into an ever smaller corner as they themselves define any difference of opinion, no matter how slight or serious, as left wing heresy. So anyone uncomfortable with "Hitler was right" is exactly the same as someone who thinks perhaps Brexit was a bad idea. Let me just punch myself repeatedly in the head until that makes sense.

    1423:

    context = UK

    I really wish someone wrote up something like this for the US... eyepopping down in the detailing... if anyone knows of it, please advise...

    https://gimms.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/An-Accounting-Model-of-the-UK-Exchequer-2nd-edition.pdf

    "The motivation for conducting this study lies in the recognition that there are no extant sources within the economic literature in the public domain that describe and explain the precise legislative, administrative and financial mechanisms that drive the financial operations of the UK Government. Given the scale and important role that government finance plays in the economy, it is perhaps surprising, and some may assert damning, that the economics profession in the UK has, to date, not conducted a study of the UK Exchequer in the interests of public education."

    1424:

    "Re Turkey, Ukraine and NATO politics:

    I notice that the USAF reconnaissance drones flying over the Black Sea are routed to avoid Turkish airspace. "

    Ditto something like that with respect to Hungarian airspace. Ukrainian AN-124s and the somewhat mysterious Pallas Aviation LM-100Js have avoided Hungary going out to Rzeszow and, respectively, the NATO airbases elsewhere in Eastern Europe. However, coming back, they have not avoided Hungary. So going out with stuff is sensitive but coming back without stuff is OK?

    I suspect that some sort of nuanced NATO alliance politics is at play and it would be interesting to know what it is.

    1425:

    David L @ 1412:

    Before you go dinking with Wikipedia pages

    My point was if someone has an issue with a Wikipage they CAN post a comment or requested clarification. Or even a correction. I wind up doing such every few months.

    Grumbling (even at a low level) here will not make Wikipedia better.

    I have occasionally edited Wikipedia pages when I thought it was within my purview ... e.g. an article about the Blue Ridge Parkway said something like "The Blue Ridge Parkway is a scenic highway in Virginia" to which I added "and North Carolina."

    Generally, I just stick to correcting OBVIOUS spelling & minor grammatical errors (again e.g. "he" when the subject is actually "she" - spellcheck won't catch that & nobody seems to proofread what they "right" nowadays).

    And I have contributed to "Talk" pages for articles where I thought improvement was needed, but didn't think I had the necessary knowledge to make the improvement myself.

    1426:

    David L @ 1415:

    I suspect that Twitter is about to be hammered about moderation. Musk will discover the hard way that AI just doesn't cut it with child porn and hate speech. Plus all kinds of local issues from Germany to India. And various governments around the world will shut him down or fine him.

    Now he may weather all of this but it is going to be a rough ride for everyone involved.

    Twitter must comply with EU rules, Macron tells Musk

    1427:

    Uncle Stinky @ 1417:

    Left-Wing Voices Are Silenced on Twitter as Far-Right Trolls Advise Elon Musk

    And

    Musk’s Beloved Twitter Polls Are Bot-Driven Bullsh!t, Ex-Employees Say

    Not a good long term business plan whatever one's opinion of its repellent politics.

    Seems like Twitter polls only have a problem with "bots" when they disagree with what Musk wants to do.

    1428:
    (military transport planes) have avoided Hungary going out to Rzeszow and, respectively, the NATO airbases elsewhere in Eastern Europe. However, coming back, they have not avoided Hungary. So going out with stuff is sensitive but coming back without stuff is OK?

    Arrangements where you can fly planes through a country's airspace provided they're unarmed are pretty common. I can think of several reasons why the prohibition on armed warplanes might be extended to include "carrying 70 tonnes of ammunition", ranging from "there's no airfield on that route where putting down in an emergency wouldn't endanger civilians" through "our lawyers say that clause 17-b(iii) of the constitution means we can't allow that unless we're at war" to "because someone in one country was making a political point about something totally unrelated to someone in another country".

    And you want to send all your transports by the same route if you possibly can, because doing anything else gives information to the enemy about what's on which planes (and thus, given information about subsequent movements on the ground, where certain things might be).

    1429:

    context = planet Earth

    palate cleanser... okay this... this is so nerd cool...

    "This is the map of the submarine internet connection cables in the entire planet Earth🌎"

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1599523943777718272

    1430:

    And for the details.

    The old map (which hasn't been updated for a few years now). https://cablemap.info/_default.aspx

    And he now points us at this one but it requires registration. https://www.infrapedia.com/

    But the spinning globe is a bit cool.

    1431:

    Presumably Turkey has asked USAF not to overfly its territory for these missions. Do we know why?

    Turkey has spent the last 5+ years wanting to play nice with Russia. (I'm not going to try and explain all the possible reasons. Especially since I likely would be guessing about many of them.)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-400_missile_system#Turkey

    And they are now trying to be the middle man brokering the grain shipments out of Ukraine.

    1432:

    I'm not going to try and explain all the possible reasons.

    haven't they applied to join brics+? i'm sure peter zeihan has a video explaining why it can't possibly work

    1433:

    RE: Russian politics, something completely different

    Saw an article by ML Schrad in Politico about Prohibition being a success. Obviously contrarian clickbait, but Schrad is a political science professor at Villanova. He's arguing a contrarian position that Prohibition globally has been more about breaking regulatory and governmental captures by unregulated alcohol industries. in America, a combination of bribes, fat taxes, and turning out voters (get 'em drunk on free liquor, herd the to the polls), made the 19th Century alcohol industry a scourge centered around saloons (which also hosted theoretically illegal prostitution and gambling). Anyway, Shrad argues the abolitionists aimed at closing saloons, rather more than at stopping people from drinking in their own homes. In breaking the hold of saloons over politics and replacing it with a more regulated industry, US prohibition was actually fairly successful, as apparently were prohibition movements elsewhere in the world...

    ...Except in Russia. Schrad's listed as a Russia expert, and he wrote Vodka Politics: Alcohol, Autocracy, and the Secret History of the Russian State back in 2016.

    I just got Vodka Politics and started reading it, so all I'm saying at this point is that it looks like a fun and informative read. It might conceivably be useful for understanding the current situation. Who knows?

    1434:

    context = Russia

    my personal suspicion about motives of EU-US-NATO since day #1 of this Second RUS-UKR War has been a coldly calculated mode of pragmatic and long term:

    (1) lab rat status for UKR military in testing (a) various models of battle weapons (b) techniques such as newfangled sat-phones integrated to replace radios for secure comm's (c) non-weapons including upgrades to paramedic kit which various vendors are pitching the Pentagon (d) drones of various flavors-modes-vendors including unarmed swarm surveillance as well as warship hunter-killer

    (anyone else just love that video of infra-red sensing surface naval drone smacking into warship's thermal exhaust port? too bad nobody got George Lucas to grant clearance for soundtracking it with Luke's Theme from SW New Hope)

    (2) use up any and all outdated ordinance (and equipment and MREs) to empty out EU-US-NATO warehouses which burocrats had been unwilling to write off as 'stale' (i.e. yes usable not completely potent) which applies to not just food but bullets & artillery-ammo & kevlar vests;

    (3) deliberate grinding war to pulverize RUS rather than lightning fast victory by UKR; goal being to destroy as much equipment and to force RUS to expend most (if not all) consumables stockpiled as feasible... bullets, trucks, winter clothes, et al... right down to boots...

    apparently vendors in RUS ignored the repeatedly experienced & quite brutal rule an army marches everywhere so lousy boots leads to useless soldiers...

    one of those persistent rumors has been RUS soldiers looting corpses of both sides not just for money but basic gear including boots which after prior owner being rinsed out immediately distributed to soldiers whose prior issued gear was worn out or simply de-glued under extreme usage;

    speaking of useless soldiers just how many of those returning from the frontlines are going to be anything but wounded wrecks? PTSD, hunger, low grade injuries all the way up to amputations and blindness; the Kremlin will all too likely refuse to fund decent treatment and in turn convince just about every civilian any time spent in the lowest ranks would be a bad way to die slowly... be fun watching ever more men coming up with ways to doge the RUS military draft

    1435:

    my personal suspicion about motives of EU-US-NATO since day #1

    well before day #1

    1436:

    the game of "Risk" was indeed sold inside the USSR in 1980s but under the localized brand name trademarked as, "Inevitable Triumphant of the World Soviet"

    if you know anyone with one of those with all the pieces it is a collectors item, but it has to have the complete set of rigged/weighted dice which never permitted non-Russian players from ever winning a battle

    < set snark to OFF>

    1437:

    High probability the same will happen a few years from now regarding twitter

    (dunno if charlie's gonna punt u (and this) on general principles but if not) it cannot be denied that some on the left are savoring their schadenfreude over the boy elon biting off more than he can chew before it's really properly ripened, but he has got a lot to sort out there, much of which may not may not suit his established strengths

    i'll be impressed if he can pull it off tho

    1438:

    Adrian Smith re. Elon
    I repeat that he's making the boring, usual, repetitive mistake made by arrogant USA-ians.
    The US is NOT THE PLANET - other countries have different rules & if you want to play there, you HAVE TO abide by their rules. Being Elon, he's ignoring this, which cannot end well.

    1439:

    You could try here as a starting point for russian views on the war in Ukraine:

    https://twitter.com/wartranslated

    Whether you believe their translations of russian output is your choice.

    Here there's a clip of a russian tv show:

    https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1599372868130783238

    The quote from the above twitter post: Dmitry Rogozin states that this war will go on for a long time as for so-called Russia it's an existential issue to destroy Ukraine, being an "anti-Russia".

    1440:

    Administrative notice

    Musk fanboi comments deleted, fanboi account banned.

    (Cause of ban: it wasn't because he was defending Musk's business ventures, but because he had nothing else to talk about -- he came here looking for a fight, not discourse.)

    1441:

    Greg said repetitive mistake made by arrogant USA-ians.

    He does a very good, though hard to pin down to a specific location, American accent but he's not American, he's African. He "allows the assumption" without ever stating it.

    1442:

    Musk has very much gone native in the USA, though. (Much as I have in Scotland.) You tend to pick up the perspective and outlook of your new homeland ...

    1443:

    Not that it means much, but the tip-off for me was the usage of "observer" as a synonym/euphemism for "enthusiast". In other words claiming an overtly partisan posture as the neutral one. I know this is pretty common these days, especially from a certain side of politics, but it's curious to observe in the wild in such an unashamed form.

    1444:

    he's naturalized american (via canadian) now, but people get upset when u call him african-america

    1445:

    so anyway, these internal twitter messages musk has handed matt taibbi about the dreaded failson laptop look to my untutored eye like a fairly solid and sweetly-timed first amendment violation for the new republican house to amuse itself with - is that likely to go anywhere? anyone know?

    1446:

    context = planet wide

    CCSS being as much UK issue as it is US this is potentially of interest...

    "Out of more than 1,200 scenarios — some with temperatures rising as high as 5°C above preindustrial levels — 230 paths leave our planet below 1.5°C before the end of the century."

    does not seem to be paywalled off...

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2022/global-warming-1-5-celsius-scenarios/?itid=mr_climate_2

    1447:

    does not seem to be paywalled off...

    Wapo seems to use cookies to limit you to so many per some time period. So flipping browsers can get you more reads. I subscribe so it doesn't matter to me.

    Does Charlie still not want us to post direct links into NYTimes, WaPo, and WSJ?

    1448:

    And the country's name is Ukraine, not the Ukraine.

    The latter is usually used by Russia and Russian-affiliated to emphasize their claim to the land as part of a larger 'Russian dominion', in much the same way mainland China views and refers to Taiwan.

    Just the fact that you continually refer to it as 'the Ukraine' makes me very suspicious...

    and ilya187's following comment:

    Nobody who is not Russian (or maybe Serb) says "the Ukraine".

    That's not quite true. It may also be an honest mistake by a native German speaker, because in German Ukraine belongs to a small group of countries whose names are always used with the article. This happens to all countries whose names are grammatically male or female in German (in German every noun has to have a gender). The bulk of country names are considered grammatically neutral ('sächlich') in German. Those are used without the article 'das'.

    For your interest, here's a list of male and female country names:

    • der Irak
    • der Iran
    • der Jemen
    • der Tschad
    • der Vatikan

    • die Mongolei

    • die Schweiz
    • die Slowakei
    • die Tschechei (obsolete use; the current country is called 'Tschechien' without article)
    • die Tschechoslowakei (no longer exists)
    • die Türkei
    • die Ukraine

    Then there are some cases where a common noun is the main part of the country's name, and therefore carries the article:

    • die Dominikanische Republik (This is different from 'die Volksrepublik China', because we can simply say 'China', but there is no such simplified alternative for the Dominican Republic.)
    • das Vereinigte Königreich

    Finally there are some countries that are used only in plural with an article:

    • die Bahamas
    • die Philippinen

    And again where this combines with having a common noun as main part of the name:

    • die Niederlande
    • die Vereinigten Arabischen Emirate
    • die Vereinigten Staaten

    So now you know why Germans may sometimes innocently use 'the Ukraine' when writing in English.

    1449:

    Um, isn't IQ45 (Trump) now attacking the NY-Times as a dangerous Librul Commie plot, or something similar?

    1450:

    Does Charlie still not want us to post direct links into NYTimes, WaPo, and WSJ?

    You can post links to them, as long as you also include a brief synopsis (a paragraph or so) to summarize the article. Assume your readers (meaning me) won't see the original.

    1451:

    The last two weeks of Trump are totally off the rails. Friday he said the US needs to ignore the Constitution and appoint him the as the rightful President. The R party is having a hard time getting off the train without totally jumping off the party.

    And Keven McC. is having more fun than he ever imagined. He has to deal with the few crazies who got elected to the US House as the margin is so small that the handful of crazies have power.

    1452:

    German grammar.

    My daughter (now 30) had 2 years of German in her US high school from a native German. Plus did her last year of per-university in a German school that feeds into the German University system.

    Even after all of that she speaks slowly to make sure she gets the grammar correct. She can listen at full speed but the speaking requires her to think it out before engaging her mouth.

    1453:

    New blog entry is up.

    (Sorry it's been so long, I've been head-down in redraft work on Ghost Engine. About to bunk off for a long weekend in Germany from Thursday, so downing tools for a bit. Feel free to talk among yourselves.)

    1454:
    • About to bunk off for a long weekend in Germany from Thursday,* ENJOY!
    1455:

    Personal account. Charlie and I have spent an entire afternoon chatting, and if I hadn't known otherwise from other sources than that conversation I'd have thought he was from Edinburgh.

    1456:

    "So would I invest in Twitter right now? Probably not. Even if I knew how, I wouldn't even short it, because it's a political football whose stock price won't reflect reality until 2025 (after the next round of elections), bankruptcy, or nuclear war, whichever comes first."

    Twitter is a privately owned company. There are no publicly traded shares.

    You can neither invest in it nor "short" it. There isn't really a stock price either.

    1457:

    I don't think anyone was feeling so aggressive in 2015, or even after four-years of Putin-approved Trumpism, or even in 2021... not to mention the EU and Brexit, not even any of the Eastern European countries who were feeling threatened - I think everyone sane was rooting for Russia to solve its obvious problems - but once Putin crossed a border Russia had promised not to cross, everyone involved was thrilled to catch the Russians up in a grinding war that would wound them for multiple generations.

    Or, better, maybe not happy, but unhappy-enough with Russia that nobody feels the need to help Russia unstick itself from the fly-paper. (Personally, if my ancestors didn't come from Ukraine, I'd hand Putin a bottle of glue and tell him it's adhesive-remover!)

    1459:

    context = France? USA? Las Vegas? Los Angeles? crazy land? really batshit crazy?

    oh good... yet another death cult... so anyone looking for source material about crazed villains committing horrid acts as research for their next novel... here...

    "THE PEOPLE CHEERING FOR HUMANITY’S END A disparate group of thinkers says we should welcome our demise. ... The revolt against humanity is still new enough to appear outlandish, but it has already spread beyond the fringes of the intellectual world, and in the coming years and decades it has the potential to transform politics and society in profound ways."

    https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/01/anthropocene-anti-humanism-transhumanism-apocalypse-predictions/672230/

    1460:

    People who are bored start insurrections? Then why haven't there been any in the US 'burbs?

    Sorry, I really don't believe it.

    1461:

    Please define "the West". I am 100% sure that every Western military-industrial company, petrochemical company, banking, and a ton of others would not only jump in with both feet, but that in covert ways, I assume they're already there.

    1462:

    Yep... exactly like in the US, in the Christian fascist states.

    1463:

    Context: Global, Open Source

    https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/open-source-software-host-fosshost-shutting-down-as-ceo-unreachable

    "At this time, Fosshost is deeply sorry to announce we are no longer able to continue offering our services," states a notice seen today by BleepingComputer on (the) fosshost.org website.

    "Due to circumstances outside of the control of the Fosshost volunteers, we are now in a situation where we cannot guarantee our servers will stay online, and in fact expect them to go offline shortly."

    "Because of this, we strongly recommend all Fosshost tenants to backup their data immediately, and migrate elsewhere as soon as possible."

    1464:

    Could be worse. 18 months or so back the USAF tried landing an Osprey on the Addenbrooke's Hospital helipad. Landing went OK, but the takeoff didn't go so well.

    (Bit behind with reading comments due to a weekend in Leeds for Ingress events, nothing wrong with the place a regiment of Alfar couldn't fix. I did beacon Quarry House when I went past)

    1465:

    I didn't read the whole thing, but it looks like a journalist trying to make a movement out of various apocalyptic religionists (which we'd expect right now anyway, given events), misanthropic eco-philosophers (they've been around since I was an undergrad, again for obvious reasons), and transhumanists (who've been widely covered here.

    Usual stuff, somewhat annoyingly written. Turns out it's from a book coming out next year, so bravo to the writer for getting the preview in the Atlantic.

    1466:

    If giving away free vodka was really an effective way to influence Russians, then a tiny fraction of their natural gas resources could be cheaply converted to megatons of ethanol methanol mix over nickel oxide catalyst at 150 degrees, and separated by fractional distillation at 65 degrees to yield a virtually endless supply of political control. Hasn't been done, which means it probably wouldn't work for reasons best known to 19th century saloonkeepers.

    1467:

    Howard NYC said: Out of more than 1,200 scenarios

    The article spends half the page discussing if we can avoid the high overshoot, reaching between 1.6 and 1.8 above preindustrial. In March 2016 we hit 1.565 above 1850-1900. 1850-1900 is 150ish years into the industrial age, and it's estimated that it's about 0.2 degrees above preindustrial (mostly due to industrial level land clearing, but some coal burning). So that's about 1.765 +- ~0.1 above preindustrial.

    https://berkeleyearth.org/archive/temperature-reports/march-2016/

    Basically the Y axis on that graph is miles out. We're not starting from 1.2. The option to

    1468:

    And Keven McC. is having more fun than he ever imagined. He has to deal with the few crazies who got elected to the US House as the margin is so small that the handful of crazies have power.

    While the power held by the "handful of crazies" may be bad for Kevin McCarthy and for the Republican Party, it is even worse for the rest of us.

    1469:

    Arrgh, bumped the submit button I'm sure you knew where I was going with that.

    These "is our last chance to avoid disaster" stories always include time travel, dishonest baselines or imaginary technology. This one manages all three.

    1470:

    (anyone else just love that video of infra-red sensing surface naval drone smacking into warship's thermal exhaust port? too bad nobody got George Lucas to grant clearance for soundtracking it with Luke's Theme from SW New Hope)

    Do you have a link for it? I tried to find the video and failed.

    1471:

    From the article: Elmer Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers and now convicted seditionist, is a disbarred lawyer who managed to shoot himself in the eye. Kelly Meggs, the leader of the state Oath Keeper chapter who was also found guilty of seditious conspiracy, was a Florida car dealer.

    These aren't super-rich illuminati, they're not veterans grinding axes, they're not desperate or impoverished. They're just...meh, people who haven't succeeded by conventional standards, who self-radicalized, and who have enough money to cause trouble.

    Back in the 1850s, George Bickley (founder of the KGC), was a quack doctor, unsuccessful novelist, publisher (and ghost writer) of a reactionary journal or three, and on the run from his creditors when he founded the KGC, where he made money touring, giving talks, and promoting his three-level secret society where the top level was open to those who donated enough. By 1860 he was thrown out as leader when the army he promised to help win the Mexican Civil War failed to materialize and no one could figure out where the money went. His life story would read as a black comedy, except for the fact that the extremists he stirred up pivoted towards secession in 1860, played a big role drumming up the secession movement in what would become the Confederacy, and trained much of the first wave of confederate volunteers (people at the bottom level of the conspiracy did a lot of military-style parade drill stuff, so they knew at least how to move in formation).

    Again, it wasn't the poor and desperate leading this revolution, nor was it (at first) the wealthy cotton kings, powerful politicians, or skilled military officers. It was a bunch of dissatisfied middle class men and grifters.

    I think there may be a bit of a pattern here?

    1472:

    The Weekly Sift can't get over this quote, and I'm also struck by it:

    {woke is} the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.

    https://floridapolitics.com/archives/574045-in-andrew-warren-suspension-trial-gov-desantis-officials-answer-what-does-woke-mean/

    Context: DeSantis summed up his objection by calling Warren a “woke ideologue”. “Woke” has been a buzzword for DeSantis, as it has been for much of the right. But does it mean anything, or is it just pejorative?

    Yep, the objection behind woke is to the very idea that injustice exists in the USA. Or whatever country the label is being used in, perhaps the whole world.

    Meanwhile Australia is imprisoning protesters for doing common things but in a way that offends the oligarchy. Setting off flares... fine if you're a football fan celebrating slavery and injustice, jail sentence if you're protesting the future eaters.

    1473:

    Juliet E McKenna reminds me that small presses somehow manage to sell the books they're advertising to me, for the advertised price, when the advertisement arrives. I'm kind of shaking my head going... sounds like capitalism 101: tell customer they can buy the thing, sell them the thing.

    Macmillan just sent me an excited email that the latest Scalzi ebook is on special for $3. Not to me, though, when I click the link it's $10, and when I try to actually buy it I get redirected to an Australian website that has a "that's not a thing" response. Thanks Macmillian, I'll go download a car instead.

    1474:

    I the US, Adobe is sending out emails telling people about the end of year sale of licenses for 25% off for new licenses. Since client wants to add a license, Great! But the link fails. From all the emails. I get online to chat on the page that fails. I'm told that this is only for NEW customers. Then why are you sending the links to us? Don't know but deal is only NEW customers.

    Apparently Adobe marketing is sending out the emails to every email address they have in their system.

    1475:

    whitroth @ 1463
    The US is headed in that direction, but not (yet) as bad as in RUS - senior librarians have been kidnapped/taken into custody/disappeared, which has not (yet) happened in the USA. { Kherson is one such case }

    vulch
    They obviously need stronger tent-pegs, or glue, or something ...
    { Paint, maybe? - Nothing to blow away .. }

    1476:

    Whitroth @ 1462

    Please define "the West". I am 100% sure that every Western military-industrial company, petrochemical company, banking, and a ton of others would not only jump in with both feet, but that in covert ways, I assume they're already there.

    OK, let's be clear shall we?

    Do we think that NATO/EU/UK/USA has any intention of invading Russia?

    Think about it: Russia has just shown that invading with 200,000 troops is insufficient to take and hold a country like Ukraine. It's hard to be sure how many casualties the Russians have taken, but somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 is the sort of numbers I've seen bandied about.

    So, with that as an example -- and taking it from the top -- do we think that:

    (1) President Biden will authorize the invasion of Russia?

    (2) The Chiefs of Staff will authorize the invasion of Russia?

    (3) Congress will authorize the expenditure required to invade Russia?

    (4) Is the US Army big enough and prepared enough to invade Russia?

    (5) Are Lockheed-Martin and Boeing dispersed enough to continue production after their primary factories are turned into black glass car parks?

    I humbly suggest that the answer to all five questions is "No", but maybe you can persuade me otherwise?

    I'll make the following geopolitical observations:

    (A) US and Russian power is on the wane, and China's is rising. Having a war between the USA and Russia actually serves China's interests way more than it does any US Military-Industrial complex. What your M-I wants is a small harmless war a long way away. Arming Ukraine without provoking Russia is practically perfect for them.

    (B) The destruction of Putin is not something the US (or Europe) really wants, for fear of something worse. Look at the SIS/SOE operations against Hitler's Deputies in WW2. I'm unclear if Hess was manipulated by SIS or flew to Scotland on his own initiative. To me it has all the hallmarks of a British Intelligence false flag operation using our Nazi Sympathisers. Then there is Reinhard Heydrich and Operation Anthropoid (SOE). Heydrich was assassinated because he was dangerously competent. Operation Foxley (SOE, 1943) the plot to assassinate Hitler was cancelled because by that stage in the war he was making too many mistakes. So the moral of the story is: "Do not prod the bear when it is already confused. It'll just make it angry and give it a target to focus on."

    Likewise, the West (or NATO/EU/USA/UK) would be very well advised to just leave Putin dangling on the hook of his own self-created predicament. If he survives, we know how to deal with him. If he doesn't, don't give his successor a rallying cry that it was all the West's fault that Putin came to such a sticky end. He just fell down the stairs/ fell out of a window/suffered an adverse reaction to his Po-210 radiotherapy drugs/whatever (delete to taste).

    And finally (C): Russia acts as a Bulwark between NATO and China. A seriously weakened Russia might act as an enticement to a newly re-invigorated China. Or, indeed, Russia might have so reduced its fighting effectiveness, that it invites the Chinese Red Army in, to assist in the taking of Ukraine.

    So, let's see what happens, eh?

    Finally -- and for Howard NYC -- let's not go down the conspiracy-theory route for politics[1]. I've met two of our recent PMs (Cameron and Johnson), and the idea that they, or any PM could organise an effective conspiracy is risible. I cannot be quite so certain about US politicians, but all the political operatives I've met and talked with in DC have seemed sane and to be operating on the same wavelengths as the UK ones. Admittedly I'm particularly thinking of an Aide to a democratic senator, and because he was an ex-US Ranger, I cannot see him advising/sending tens of millions US service personnel to their deaths for something so pointless as the conquest of Russia.

    [1] What's the collective noun for a meeting of politicians all of the same party? "A Blazing Argument"! YMMV.

    1477:

    In Leeds for an Ingress event eh?

    Enlightened or Resistance?

    Those are the in-game teams, known to each other as Frogs and Smurfs by the team colours of green and blue.

    1478:

    RE: US military on the wane...

    Yeah maybe, but we've still got the top two militaries in the world by size, those being the US Navy and the US Army. China's entire military is smaller than either of those two, while Russia's is smaller yet, minus nukes.

    That's the lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan, that even the two biggest militaries the world has ever seen can't take an hold nations whose militaries are insignificant in comparison.

    So are we going to invade Russia? Oh hell no.

    Should Russia have invaded Ukraine? Oh hell no.

    Right now, the proper response to an armed invasion appears to be helping the defenders survive quagmiring the invader, rather than engaging the invader directly.

    As for Russian politics, I think it's uncontroversial here that alcoholism, especially in Russian men, makes their age of death stats look more like they live in Somalia than in an industrialized country. And I'd be unsurprised if a significant number of Russian military casualties in their current actions aren't alcohol-related. So maybe what Russian rebels need to promote isn't democracy but modern-day temperance, which might look a bit like Portugal's attempts to deal with addictions as a public health issue?

    1479:

    1471:

    "possibly targeting thermal exhaust ports"

    vid posted on TW not bad quality

    https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1586356804673339392

    and my rather well written snark

    https://twitter.com/HowardWerten/status/1586937629827907590

    1480:

    BoZo Johnson couldn't organise a penny menage?

    1481:

    Again, it wasn't the poor and desperate leading this revolution, nor was it (at first) the wealthy cotton kings, powerful politicians, or skilled military officers. It was a bunch of dissatisfied middle class men and grifters.

    I think there may be a bit of a pattern here?

    Colonels' revolt?

    1482:

    Ribbit!

    The green of Enlightenment of course.

    1483:

    context = UK

    "Thousands of ambulance workers and other NHS staff in England and Wales to strike on 21 December"

    ...and if they are successful in forcing the government in increasing critical medical-related budgets my gut-check is there will be similar pressure applied by labor unions in the USA to demand much the same

    so... for selfish reasons I really hope this UK strike works

    1484:

    FWIW pro firemen in Aotearoa just got a ~25% pay increase after a certain amount of industrial action.

    Someone in The Guardian is think about the short haul flights in Australia. Worth noting that for political reasons "Sydney" metro trains stop at Goulburn, about 100km from Canberra. There is a CuntryLink service but it's irregular and annoying. Extending commuter services that lest step, and fixing a few places so they could run at 150kph on most of it shouldn't be too hard. But then we get the question of why half-arse it, and the answer is that in Australia the only alternative is full-arsing it the way it is now.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2022/dec/07/should-australia-follow-france-and-bid-adieu-to-short-haul-flights

    1485:

    I don't know where the idea that pumped hydropower is hard to build comes from. It's easy. The "lakes" they use are usually not natural but are in fact man made. They find a river flowing through a suitable area, and buld a dam. Now you have a lake/reservoir. You just need a forebay in front of the dam, or another reservoir at a lower elevation, ideally downstream.But you can imagine systems where that was not necessarily so. All you really need are two reservoirs at different elevations whether or not they are on the same river, and you can make it work.

    1486:

    1486:

    for effective storage of the energy you need massive scaling

    for high levels of generation you need have as much difference in 'top tank' to 'bottom tank' as possible... otherwise all you have a moderate generation rate

    building lake-sized tanks is effectively the assemblage of multiple dams linked together surrounding the storage area... try to imagine eight Hover Dams should-to-shoulder... two of those adjoining... a gazillion tons of concrete and a mountain-sized heap of steel alloy-based rebar and an eager horde of thousands to build it...

    1487:

    Anyone know what's going on in Germany with the arrests today?

    And please tell me they were not having regular meetings in beer halls.

    1488:

    From what I read, a bunch of loons started to plan actual insurrection. Given their apparent agenda, they weren't and aren't of any real consequence.

    1489:

    The USA/NATO may have no intention of invading Russia, but that doesn't mean they won't get drawn into doing it. It's unclear whether they had the intention of sending Putin over the edge, but their actions in the period 2010-2021 (yes, 2010) were a main factor in achieving that.

    Let's assume Russia has been pushed out of Ukraine and Putin has gone; the USA, UK and NATO have all said that they don't intend to halt their economic and political warfare against Russia at that point. If they or, more likely, some of their components, arm hostile countries or terrorist organisations on Russia's borders with long-range weapons or ones more advanced than Russia has, what will happen? Russia might respond in kind, by donating a few SAMs, limpet mines or whatever to the USA's own internal terrorists; those would not need to be state of the art. Whereupon?

    1490:

    Green for the win

    This time I got to see parts of Leeds I'd not encountered before, including the chargers at Elland Road Park & Ride. Which confused me, as they have a nice large 'EVolt' logo and advise you to download their app.

    The app in question is for 'ChargeYourCar', a name that does appear on the chargers, but in much smaller letters. I really don't want an Indian charge supplier.

    1491:

    I'm not in the UK, but Bobby Llewellyn tells me that there's card interoperability in the UK. (I haven't any independent confirmation) So you should have your choice of billing company.

    1492:

    EC @ 1490
    GROW UP
    Putin the KGB officer, right? He didn't need "pushing over the edge" he was already brainwashed & insane, ok?

    1493:

    Amusing to watch — family of capitol police officer getting congressional gold medal snub Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy at the ceremony.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-63879490

    McConnell's expression after they all walk past his outstretched hand is priceless.

    1494:

    McConnell's expression after they all walk past his outstretched hand is priceless.

    And fully deserved.

    1495:

    Oh sweet summer child!

    No. There are some cards which cover a number of suppliers - I have one - but it seems that every location has a different supplier. Eventually they'll settle down, but right now the highly expensive machines which allow you to just use a contact-free card get quite a bit of business just because of accessibility

    (If we ever bump into Llewellyn at a party again, we need to tell him how much we appreciate Fully Charged)

    1496:

    Ah, never trust confused robots.

    If you do bump into him, please pass my thanks as well.

    1497:

    Elderly Cynic @ 1490

    It's unclear whether they had the intention of sending Putin over the edge, but their actions in the period 2010-2021 (yes, 2010) were a main factor in achieving that.

    By his own admission what sent Putin over the edge was having to supplement his KGB income by part-time Taxi-driving in Dresden. That, and witnessing the collapse of Soviet power up close and personal in 1989. He's described that collapse as the greatest tragedy of the Twentieth Century.

    And how was that collapse engineered? Quite simply by Reagan and Thatcher boosting their economies and using the surplus to improve defence equipment. Brezhnev, Andropov and Gorbachev quite simply couldn't keep up, and their attempts to do so caused the collapse of the USSR.

    Now I'm sure we have different views of what happened post-1990. My brother was involved in a short-lived attempt by Boots the Chemist to set up a Russian Pharmacy chain, and I'm sure that many, many other Western companies were queueing up to do similar. What caused them to re-evaluate this attitude was the realisation that they were dealing with ruthless gangsters to whom assassination could be a cost-effective business tool. This is also what caused BP to sell up, for example.

    So, did the CIA or SIS have anything to do with the way things panned out post-1990? I just don't see it. To me it looks like wild west capitalism degenerating in to gangsterism in the face of Russian political choices.

    But let's ask whether the CIA or SIS could influence things in Russia: well could they? For both organisations we have some clue as to their size by comparison to the NSA and GCHQ, both of which take the lions' share of the annual budget. So SIS is unlikely to be more than 10,000 strong, and covering Brussels (primary mission), Russia (secondary) and China (tertiary). SIS prides itself on getting intelligence not doing wetwork, which would be subcontracted to the SAS. And the SAS is about company-sized, say 100 men. Quite simply the UK does not have the resources nor are these forces configured to do what you imagine they do.

    Now the CIA has its origins in the OSS which was set up by SOE, and so has a more gung-ho approach. The high water mark of that approach was probably the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and you'll note that by the time of Afghanistan the CIA is behaving much more like SIS, subcontracting "security" to US special forces.

    So, my question to you is what forces do the US/UK have to interfere in Russia? What motivation do the US/UK have to interfere, other than keeping tabs on what the Russians are up to?

    1498:

    Dave Lester ( & by extension EC ) @ 1498
    He's described that collapse as the greatest tragedy of the Twentieth Century. - greater than WWII, right? Which shows straight off, that Putin is - very dangerously - mad. As mad & even more dangerous that Saint Dominic or any other murderous religious believer in power - because his predecessors did not have nuclear weapons.

    1499:

    greater than WWII, right? Which shows straight off, that Putin is - very dangerously - mad.

    I think it's pretty much impossible to infer anything about a politician from what he or she says. They tend to say whatever they think the particular situation demands.

    1500:

    Retiring
    This was Putin IN WRITING & PUBLISHED

    1501:

    You are trolling. Nowhere did I mention the CIA. While the CIA might have been involved in organising the coup, even Russia didn't seem to think that they did. You should read and try to understand my previous posts about western politics and economics, with regard to 2010-2013 and Ukraine.

    1502:

    IN WRITING & PUBLISHED

    Yes. But -- just another form of "says".

    (If it wasn't published, how would we know it had been written?)

    1503:

    So, my question to you is what forces do the US/UK have to interfere in Russia? What motivation do the US/UK have to interfere, other than keeping tabs on what the Russians are up to?

    I'd nuance that a bit. The CIA under Clinton was pretty much out in its own kennel. Clinton was furious that he first learned about the Rwanda genocide from CNN before the CIA told him about it, and IIRC the disrespect was mutual.

    Every president uses the CIA differently. Under Bush they came under extreme pressure to justify and back the War on Terror and the Iraq quagmire. Under Obama (check out Way of the Knife) they specialized in sheep-dipping Spec Ops crews who pretended to be civilians while carrying out raids that would have been illegal for them had they been uniformed military. Under Trump? Probably muzzled with respect to Russia.

    I'm sure all the agencies are active in Ukraine, but given that the US doesn't want to provoke WW3 by blowing an op, whatever they're physically doing in Russia is likely passive and probably at far higher security even than the old Moscow Rules of the early 1990s.

    More likely the NSA and crew are fighting a dirty little cyberwar right now, and everyone's tracking and dealing with all those "Honorary Consuls" who are becoming such a nuisance (https://www.propublica.org/article/honorary-consuls-russia-vladimir-putin)

    1504:

    there's "carpet bombing" and then there's "precision bombing" for varying definitions of "precision"... smart(er) bombs which are more likely to hit the desired target... a sniper's bullet patiently awaiting a specific head in the crowd to be in clear line of sight... knowing which wire to cut to wreck a U235/U238 purification facility...

    what all those have in common?

    intel

    the better the intel the less effort to succeed at hurting the enemy and with lowered 'collateral damage'

    what the US learnt from the Israelis has been patience and accuracy and assembling vast mappings of interconnections to locate weakest links...

    my bet is there has been a methodical focusing in on those RUS officers showing too much talent and not making typical stupid moves... then their locations are prioritized for UKR artillery and (utter guessing) sneak-n-creep assassination

    there's just too many bad, bad decisions being made in the field and from is leaking out those bad decisions are increasing rather than hardwon IRL experience improving the RUS officers process of deciding... almost as if those showing too much talent were dying faster... heh

    1505:

    It's also a matter of record that dictators don't like talented military officers. They're the ones who have the necessary strategic and tactical capabilities to overthrow the dictator, so they're frequently killed by their own side, because the dictator remaining in power is more important than winning a war of aggression.

    1506:

    context = Russia

    Stalin having become infamous for 300 (350?) seniormost officers executed during WW2 including during darkest days after Hitler reneged on their quasi-alliance...

    but there's a difference between execution due to paranoia of a dictator and higher than expected fatality rates on the battlefield

    a plausible scenario that NATO could have quietly circulated was 'grinding down' of RUS to ensure it is unable to be a threat for a full decade after end of RUS-UKR war

    another all too plausible scenario being internal strife amongst Kremlin inner circle has been leading towards deciding whomever is to be Putin's successor -- he is 70 and there's a limit to how many illicit organ transplants he can sustain -- leading to deliberate FUBARing of logistics to ensure the war does not grant Putin (and his chosen heir) bragging rights

    1507:

    Which would you expect a USSR type to be more likely to describe as a tragedy - victory in the Great Patriotic War, or defeat in economic war 45-odd years later?

    1508:

    That quote of Putin is cherry picked. I just heard on Radio 4 what came before “For the millions of Russians stranded outside their Motherland ..”

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