rgmerk

37 ms·

571.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Yeah, in theory you can run existing vehicles off hydrogen, but hydrogen internal combustion engines have, thus far, sucked. BMW tried this with a hydrogen-fuelled 7 series V12 back in the mid 2000s. They could only get about 150 horsepow
572.
by rgmerk 4y ago
It’s industry jargon. The IT industry has plenty of its own.
573.
by rgmerk 4y ago
If your strategy involves massive investment in nuclear you don’t need hydrogen in Japan. Northern Europe and Canada have very seasonally-dependant energy demand that inversely correlates with solar availability. Japan has hot humid summer
574.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Seems like the “sunk cost fallacy” Wikipedia page might need an update. The choice to pursue hydrogen-fuelled combined heat and power is particularly mystifying, given that Japanese companies are market leaders in heat pumps. Tokyo’S clima
575.
by rgmerk 4y ago
For something that’s not a text adventure (the best of which are great), there’s also nethack. Be warned, it’s insanely difficult and a massive time suck.
576.
by rgmerk 4y ago
In the US. In most other developed countries a) healthcare is funded by the government (to a first approximation). b) end-of-life healthcare expenditure is considerably lower outside the US.
577.
by rgmerk 4y ago
You’re not required to any more, but there are heaps of people on annuities there. I haven’t read anything about it yet but a lot of them must be in pretty awkward straits because most aren’t fully indexed to inflation…
578.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Because meat (particularly beef and lamb) is environmentally disastrous and ethically problematic, but a majority of people really like the taste and wouldn’t want to give it up. Hence the desire to make a product that tastes like meat but
579.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Things might be bad in Silicon Valley right now but the broader economy is still chugging along pretty well.
580.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Here's Dolly Parton's "Joeene" at 33rpm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doz1QJ7LwjA Sounds pretty good, though not exactly like Springsteen :)
581.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Worth noting that the bill is purely a statement of support for the idea and does not change any Wyoming laws. It’s a stupid piece of theatre, but, hey, it’s what Republicans do best these days.
582.
by rgmerk 4y ago
BNPL is basically an attempt to avoid the limits on merchant fees, cross-subsidised by everyone who isn’t using BNPL. The whole industry can get a ticket on Golgafrinchan ark C as far as I am concerned.
583.
by rgmerk 4y ago
An example - California is banning the sale of combustion powered small garden appliances - lawnmowers, line trimmers, and so on. A lot of these are still powered by two-stroke engines, which are literally thousands of times more polluting
584.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Heh. The thing I find astonishing about the UK is the sheer number of tax-advantaged savings schemes. Half a dozen different types of pensions. Several different types of ISAs (tax-advantaged savings accounts). And we haven’t even mentio
585.
by rgmerk 4y ago
I get the emotional appeal, but if the OP (or anyone else) has a home loan locked in with super-low interest rates the last thing I would be doing is paying down a home loan early. At the moment, you could do extremely low-risk things like
586.
by rgmerk 4y ago
It occurs to me that the future of smartphone photography, particularly on low-end phones, is likely to use the image as a prompt to run through a generative AI trained on professionally-taken photographs. So the end result of your smartpho
587.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Apparently, VW are going to bring back buttons after lots of feedback like yours: https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/volkswagen-relents-and-brin...
588.
by rgmerk 4y ago
A few points: The number of people who have a go at playing music professionally far exceeds the number of people who end up making a living doing so. The majority of aspiring professional musicians end up as...music teachers. Of those tha
589.
by rgmerk 4y ago
The US Clean Air Act is estimated to prevent over 200,000 premature deaths each and every year. https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/benefits-and-cost... Like it or not, old cars spew highly toxic crap out their
590.
by rgmerk 4y ago
I’d add that the pollution from older vehicles causes the premature deaths of quite a lot of people and sickness in a whole bunch more. Particularly if it’s burning oil, which a lot of old cars do.
591.
by rgmerk 4y ago
This smells terrible, I agree, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Are there any stats comparing levels of banking-related cybercrime in South Korea with other jurisdictions?
592.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Short answer: yes to the first question. As to the second question, for most of Australia's history much of the most consequential pieces of racism were government policy. To get a sense of injustices inflicted on indigenous Australian
593.
by rgmerk 4y ago
This is hyperbole. The Australian government is bringing in a price cap of $12 per gigajoule (well above historical gas prices, and well above long-term contract prices for Australian LNG in Japan) for domestic customers. Whatever the merit
594.
by rgmerk 4y ago
I agree, but authors will scream blue murder and claim that you're depriving of their chances of any kind of security in retirement if you do so. Do they have a point? There are undoubtedly some creators making money from their old wo
595.
by rgmerk 4y ago
It might guarantee clean fusion power, but there's no guarantee it would be in any way economic. Edward Teller proposed something along these lines with conventional two-stage nuclear explosives back in the 1970s, but it was rapidly ab
596.
by rgmerk 4y ago
The point is that there isn’t progress on the most critical part of a viable aircraft - the engine. Some of us who weren’t born yesterday have seen this rodeo before, and when a startup aircraft manufacturer switches engines it tends to ind
597.
by rgmerk 4y ago
This. If you have to build a steam turbine to convert the energy from your fusion reactor into electricity, it's never going to compete with solar and wind power in most of the world. Doesn't mean that there won't be applicat
598.
by rgmerk 4y ago
I've heard it argued that this is inaccurate in most cases; if you relaxed the regulations, the value of the properties would actually go up because you could sell to developers to build multi-family housing (townhouses or apartments)
599.
by rgmerk 4y ago
As I understand it. most of these borrowers are on fixed rate mortgages at very low interest rates. Furthermore, with the strong labor market their wages are likely going up in nominal terms, and furthermore their chances of losing their j
600.
by rgmerk 4y ago
Further to this, you can buy a an EV city car in China for $5,000. But it’s tiny, it tops out at just over 60mph and it would never meet US crash regulations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuling_Hongguang_Mini_EV

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