Retric

37 ms·

661.
by Retric 9mo ago
Efficiency is why things continue to work as fewer people work. Social programs, bank account, etc are just an abstraction you need a surplus or the only thing that changes is who starves.
662.
by Retric 9mo ago
Actual AI seems like a possibility here. Also the percentage of adults working has been dropping for a while. Retired used to be a tiny fraction of the population that’s no longer the case, people spend more time being educated or in priso
663.
by Retric 9mo ago
Sure, as long as you size the system to expected loads. An 8kW generator suitable for occasional use is only ~1,000$. A Powerwall 3 does 11kW continuous and peaks at 30kW for transitory loads like starting heavy equipment. The most conveni
664.
by Retric 9mo ago
Batteries or Generators don’t just let you cook and stay warm when the power is out but do everything else such as keep food cold as well.
665.
by Retric 9mo ago
Plenty of 30+ year old cars in Candida show rust isn’t that much of an issue. It’s increasing maintenance costs per year that take most vehicles off the road.
666.
by Retric 9mo ago
The average Canadian drives 15,200km / year is also from that same article you linked. 322,000 km / 15,200 = 21.2 years. Assuming nobody has multiple cars. From that link: Here's a breakdown of the average annual kilometres
667.
by Retric 9mo ago
The average car in Canada is 10.5 years old, in a steady state you double that to 2 * 10.5 =21 years lifespan on average. However the country isn’t in a steady state in 2005 there where 33.5 million people in Canada in 2025 that hit 41.5 m
668.
by Retric 9mo ago
Cars last ~25 years, 49,000 * 25 = 1.2 million Chinese EV’s on the road in a steady state. Not such as huge shift in total, but EV’s are still a small percentage of total vehicle sales in Canada.
669.
by Retric 9mo ago
The 10 year estimate comes from a range of projects including some that go very badly and others that didn't. You can always pick worse numbers by using a smaller sample of projects, but it isn’t necessarily meaningful to do so. Calif
670.
by Retric 9mo ago
Depends on what you consider the start date. Practically speaking there’s some investigation into building nuclear in Italy that already occurred but using that as a start date isn’t meaningful here. Similarly the announcement you point to
671.
by Retric 9mo ago
I’m anti nuclear on cost reasons but that’s excessively pessimistic. Nuclear can use seawater for cooling, and being colder offsets the cost premium of using salt water. Your 2050’s comment assumes a level of dysfunction that’s presumably e
672.
by Retric 9mo ago
When your country emits more CO2 there’s more CO2 in the atmosphere independent of what anyone else does. So it’s true each individual country only receives a fraction of the negative impact of their own emissions, but that fraction isn’t z
673.
by Retric 9mo ago
That’s possibly useful on an individual level, but not a solution. If existing institutions didn’t solve loneliness yet they aren’t going to without changing something. Promoting church attendance might help, but so would any number of gro
674.
by Retric 10mo ago
Being chemically inert isn’t enough for your lungs, the mechanical properties are also critical. Microplastics aren’t necessarily chemically inert either, but it’s worth remembering just how delicate your lungs are.
675.
by Retric 10mo ago
It’s a tunnel for air. Only using ductwork for heat recovery ventilation without also using it for heating and cooling means more complexity, instillation costs, and maintenance issues etc. Further moving air allows you to use dramatically
676.
by Retric 10mo ago
Having one place to handle humidity, temperature, and exchange of fresh air makes ductwork the king of comfort and efficiency.
677.
by Retric 10mo ago
What things are more important than the study of meanings in a linguistic context? Well semantics only covers an infinitesimal fraction of all meaning. Consider if I inject arsenic into a snakes venom sac is it now a venom? Nothing about
678.
by Retric 10mo ago
Dogs packs also do persistence hunting by having the animal pass back and forth. As long as the prey is forced to travel further than any individual dog it works fine. In the wider context there are other examples of cross species hunting w
679.
by Retric 10mo ago
Abstraction is only useful when it involves a consistent mapping between A and B, LLM’s don’t provide that. In most contexts you can abstract the earth as a sphere and it works fine ex:aligning solar panels etc. Until you enter the realm o
680.
by Retric 10mo ago
In practice the difference is mostly semantics. Venom is still almost always poisonous when eaten and poison is harmful when injected. 2-3% as dangerous when eaten vs injected only helps so much.
681.
by Retric 10mo ago
Crypto is decentralized but that only goes so far. There’s plenty of instances where bunch of armed guys have taken over data centers not just vaults.
682.
by Retric 10mo ago
What these indexes are and how they behave is definitely on topic. Some of the indexes we can point to have in the past seen outsized returns, but many haven’t especially over specific timeframes. Currency fluctuations play a huge role, as
683.
by Retric 10mo ago
> You can buy "into a market" by investing in a ETF following the MSCI EM or SP500. Nope. A more accurate description is saying you’re buying into a specific subset of a Market by buying shares of specific companies. Hand wavi
684.
by Retric 10mo ago
A set of Stocks != a market. For one thing you’re only buying public companies, that in and of itself is a significant difference.
685.
by Retric 10mo ago
You’re buying stock in a company not a market, and a company doesn’t need to be based in a country to profit from that country. Plenty of companies listed on foreign exchanges make the majority of their money from the US market etc.
686.
by Retric 10mo ago
Selling anything takes on unbounded risk for limited gain. That’s why the limited liability company exists. Risk becomes bound to the total value of the company and you can start acting rationally.
687.
by Retric 10mo ago
Google etc may be a US based company, but they can leverage emerging markets just fine. There’s a stronger argument to be made for small caps, but stock buybacks allow any company’s stock to effectively experience exponential growth even wi
688.
by Retric 10mo ago
Sure, that’s a reasonable take, but satiety research was also far less developed. The general understanding at the time was basically a full stomach tells people they have eaten enough. We didn’t understand the multiple systems the body us
689.
by Retric 10mo ago
The 80’s anti fat diet was mostly clogged arteries before we had all these anti cholesterol drugs and research showing how little impact dietary cholesterol has. US obesity simply wasn’t as common (15% in 1985 vs 40% today) and at the time
690.
by Retric 10mo ago
Novelty goes a long way, old enough YouTube video are optimized for their time period and end up looking stylized in their own ways. Fashion swaps styles fast enough most people can’t afford full wardrobes before it changes, which by defaul

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