xyzzyz

20 ms·

331.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
The article explicitly discusses the fact that this is possible specifically because of the shape of the dome, and does not work on a hemisphere, precisely for reason you bring up.
332.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
None, that’s what I meant by “not so easy” (just in case you missed the mild sarcasm, and took my comment to literally mean that it’s not easy but still doable to not see ugly buildings).
333.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
It’s very easy to avoid seeing or paying for modern “art”, not so easy with modern buildings.
334.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
Yes, we can do this for some dams, but not enough to move the needle. Hoover Dam’s generating power is quite tiny relative to the total storage needs, and if you add up all the other viable dams, you’ll find that it doesn’t add up to a lo
335.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
> recall most of them operate as giant annual batteries, they refill in the rainy season once per year, then dispense that energy over the dry season That’s not quite how it works. Consider the biggest hydro project in US, the Columbia r
336.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
“Permaculture” is just a meme among hobby farmers with an environmental knack, it’s simply not possible to feed the people this way (whatever permaculture actually is in practice, as it seems to mean something different every time I hear ab
337.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
There is no guarantee that this is possible. For example, if farming didn’t already exist, it would probably be illegal to start it, because of how turning big patches of earth into monoculture completely destroys preexisting ecosystems. Th
338.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
No, this is very wrong. You always need to be asking this, because you want to be using the most effective approach towards your goals, and price signals are irreplaceable tool to determine the effectiveness.
339.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
> We should be blanketing every inch of desert with solar. And pair it to use excess energy for carbon fuels synthesis. Is there any EROEI analysis for this approach? Direct air capture of carbon is rather energy intensive, because CO2 c
340.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
> The more people drive, the less amenities need to be near them, the more space is taken up by roads and parking, the less walkable the area becomes, the more people drive, and so on, until no one can walk anywhere. We have to be cogniz
341.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
There are a couple of daycares that are significantly closer to me than the one than the one I drive to. One is 20 minutes walk. However, none of them are viable options for me, for different reasons, which I could go into, but then people
342.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
I have been driving my children to daycare for past 3 years. I will be driving my children to daycare for at least 3 more years. Bicycle is not a viable replacement for this use case, sorry. My situation is far from unique, raising children
343.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
Lines for literal bread were only 80s thing to be sure, but general shortages of everything, bribing officials to be advanced in a queue to get apartment, or a car, or bribing shopkeepers to get dibs on building materials, or bribing doctor
344.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
Replacing Home Depot-style locks in Home Depot-style doors is extremely easy, it’s only a couple of minutes of work using only basic tools. Maybe up to 30 minutes if you’re doing it for the first time, and forgot where you put your screwdri
345.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
Depends on whether they are reversible or not. Reversible ones, which can act as AC in summer, simply reverse themselves and act briefly as AC, essentially using heat taken from inside the house to defrost themselves. Only a little heat is
346.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
You don’t need to dilute a gallon of sea water at all, it is perfectly safe to dump it back into sea as is.
347.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
Thanks for that link, seems like I wasn’t careful enough while digging through the data. Your link does say that a third of the trips of Franciliens (who outnumber Parisians by a lot) are by car, but you are correct that when you restrict
348.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
This might be true about you and people around you, but is very much false about Europeans in general. Even in the Netherlands, one of the most bike-heavy countries in Europe, two-thirds of commuters drive a car, which is almost three times
349.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
Most European commuters don’t live in metros with good subways, and so they drive. In France, for example, something like 4 times as many people commute by car than by public transit. Even in Paris, something like a third of all commuters d
350.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
Do you know how many current Twitter engineers are on H1B? Is this based on some data, or just speculation?
351.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
You are wrong, we have excellent tests of potential. Read about, for example, about SMPY, where researchers identified kids with high potential in middle school, then tracked their life as they grew up and built their careers. The test they
352.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
There are, but Harvard is not the only one competing for them. Once you consider all top schools, the population of ADOSes who can make it based on academics is really tiny: given the fundamental constant of sociology being 1 sigma differen
353.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
Indeed, but the goal of affirmative action as actually practiced is not to help people who are unlucky in terms of where they are born and are growing up, but to literally just achieve desired racial balance. It is pure racism, it’s all abo
354.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
The recent decision didn’t so much “strike down” the protections, but rather ruled that the relevant law does not apply to the wetlands the EPA used to apply it to. There was previous ruling, which according to SCOTUS, was erroneous, and so
355.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
You’re right in principle, this is indeed how it should work in theory. In practice, though, it’s all very much "thanks for the taxes, now fuck off", and US is not much better here.
356.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
There are successful grid battery installations, but as far as I know, there are no grid-scale battery installations. Existing installations have really small capacity, and are only used for things like demand smoothing. The only energy s
357.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
10-20mph won’t make much of a difference for a commute, but when you’re driving on roads with loads of RVs, it means that you’re probably doing bigger distances, and with those, 10-20 mph will absolutely make a difference. For example, when
358.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
Because private insurers have incentive to accurately price risks. If they price them too low, they will go bankrupt. If they price them too high, the competition will steal their customers with lower rates for the same coverage. The govern
359.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
> When you sell this to another party, are you going to report it on your taxes? If you do report it, is your buyer going to like that? You don't need to declare who gave you the money on the income tax filing.
360.
by xyzzyz 3y ago
> Libraries have deeper historic, political and legal significance than books the majority wants around. If a public library doesn’t do what the majority of people want, why should they keep it around? In our political system, the people

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