chris_va

7 ms·

61.
by chris_va 1y ago
Health insurance generally has a fixed profit margin (state legislation). They have little incentive to reduce cost because then the entire pie shrinks. A nice example of where well meaning legislation can completely backfire. Of course, pa
62.
by chris_va 1y ago
I generally find that these things are put in during development, and then people forget to take them out.
63.
by chris_va 1y ago
(disclaimer that I was the TL of Google News a very long time ago, so feel free to ignore what I say as biased) I would argue that monster.com and craiglist, which collectively removed the majority of newpaper revenue, were probably the nai
64.
by chris_va 2y ago
This really does not seem like a balanced take, e.g. it does not address the main question of inflation destroying whatever value might be created. If we redistribute money (which is a proxy for scarcity) to a small number of people, it is
65.
by chris_va 2y ago
Quite the chilling story. The irony of the current administration making this argument: "The administration has acknowledged in court that not all the men have criminal records, but say it’s only further evidence of the threat they pos
66.
by chris_va 2y ago
It is amazing how inefficient water use seems to be in plants. Dry biomass growth is ~1kg/m^2/year, wet maybe 4-5x that. But they see ~1m of rainfall, so 1000kg/m^2/year of water. The roots fail to take up some, but the
67.
The Town That Went Crazy for Crypto(nytimes.com)
8 points by chris_va 2y ago|2 comments
68.
by chris_va 2y ago
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/05/2020-census-u...
69.
Airships, Blimps, & Aerostats(eaglepubs.erau.edu)
3 points by chris_va 2y ago|0 comments
70.
by chris_va 2y ago
Maybe Audit committees have been around forever, because people think they are a good concept. A large fraction of the (time) cost in government (or dealing with the government) is dealing with initiatives to audit everything, and cut waste
71.
by chris_va 2y ago
Slowly? :)
72.
by chris_va 2y ago
I've always wanted to ask... Why do turbines have a static duct and micron tolerances for the blades (and creep requirements) instead of a rotating (attached to the blades) duct that can be tensioned separately, and (presumably) no cre
73.
by chris_va 2y ago
The magnetic field here is acting as a nozzle. The circuit driving the field is not doing work on the ions, and any power loss is just parasitic. It's generally not worth it for small thrusters, because the extra efficiency gained by h
74.
by chris_va 2y ago
That was my first thought too. I've been flipped slideways flying short final (cessna) by a heavy jet that departed 90 seconds prior on a parallel runway. Fortunately I was high enough to recover, but it could have gone very differentl
75.
by chris_va 2y ago
I don't suppose you can recommend a place in Thailand that is not "becoming Bali" but still tourist friendly enough for non-locals to visit without feeling guilty about ruining the vibe?
76.
by chris_va 2y ago
Cement is actually great for renewable balancing, too. You can store high grade heat for calcination via grid load leveling (eg use curtailed solar, which sometimes the grid will pay you to take, to preheat rocks). This allows solar to scal
77.
by chris_va 2y ago
Pipelining is probably required, and there is no one magic solution here. It took solar 45 years to become low cost, and carbon capture will probably be just as difficult. If we did things one step at a time, carbon capture wouldn't be
78.
by chris_va 2y ago
(disclaimer that I manage a climate research group) Jacobson (first author) can be a little touchy about criticism against 100% renewables (litigious), but I think the paper presents a false dichotomy. Regardless of the conclusion, even if
79.
by chris_va 2y ago
Ultra-rich wealth disparity far predates 1970
80.
by chris_va 2y ago
History would strongly disagree with this pet theory.
81.
by chris_va 2y ago
With 5G, I have to downgrade to LTE constantly to avoid packet loss in urban canyons. Given the even higher frequencies proposed for 6G, I suspect it will be mostly useless. Now, it's possible that that raw GB/s with unobstructed
82.
by chris_va 2y ago
HFs are not very liquid, which makes it easier for managers to charge fees without losing their book of business.
83.
by chris_va 2y ago
Doesn't mean said participants can't get together and complain about it to try and improve market liquidity
84.
by chris_va 2y ago
"It’s unfair" ... I empathize, but it's a voluntary market, so clearly people think it is worthwhile. The article misses a few details that explain some of the difference. Founders have a lot of responsibility beyond engineer
85.
by chris_va 2y ago
While you are spinning around, just try to get your neighbors to align and things will snap into place.
86.
by chris_va 2y ago
Or ionic? :) On a boat, Aluminum "corrodes" and forms an oxide layer (also known as sapphire), which then protects it from further corrosion. But, said layer is not electrically conductive (or in this case does not allow Al ions t
87.
by chris_va 2y ago
One of my favorite parodies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k
88.
by chris_va 2y ago
If you really want to have fun, use ln2 (and make sure you have a well ventilated room, unless you want to asphyxiate).
89.
by chris_va 2y ago
It's a surprisingly convenient unit of measurement. Rainfall and irrigation typically are 0-1m per year, so if you have a 10acre farm you need 10acre-m of water to grow... Though, can't mix units, that would be silly :).
90.
by chris_va 2y ago
Both are true. Looks like the fab requires about 40,000 acre-ft/yr of water. If they really do start running out of water, adding desal of AZ's brackish aquifers would cost the fab about $20m/year. Not really worth it for far

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