Jistern

> Entry tickets, if handled properly, could be a great way to fix the issue.

I disagree.

This seems like a "great way" to damage the tourism industry in Venice. In other words, I think this is a terrible way to deal with tourists who are visiting Venice, yet aren't spending enough money in Venice.

I think it would be better to require every adult tourist to buy, say, €10 worth of "Venice Money" which they could spend at any restaurant or shop in Venice during the day they are visiting. Too many tourists? Then increase it to, say, €15. Too few tourists? Then decrease it to, say, €5.

Part of the goal is to require tourists to spend a minimum amount of money while visiting Venice. Charging an admission fee seems too heavy-handed. Sure, I realize that my suggestion is tantamount to an admission fee, but it's likely to be more palatable to tourists. The goal isn't merely to get tourists to spend a sufficient amount of money in Venice; part of the goal is to make tourists happy to do so.

Tourists are notoriously fickle. Furthermore, they have myriad places in and around Italy, Europe, and, well, the world where they can spend their money. The current problem of too many tourists could very quickly turn into a problem of a dearth of tourists.

"Killing the goose that lays the golden egg" would obviously be foolish. I presume the economy in Venice benefits immensely from tourism. This is precisely the sort of measure that people tend to look back at in hindsight and exclaim, "How could we have committed such a blunder! What were we thinking?!?"

Having opined all of that, sure, I can see why denizens of Venice would welcome a measure that would decrease the number of tourists generally, and particularly the number of skinflint tourists who visit Venice, yet don't spend a single euro in Venice.

Also, frankly, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for Venice to enforce dress codes and behavior codes. For example, nobody wants an endless "parade" of motley dressed drunkards wandering around their neighborhood.

Personally I happily shop at Costco, but haven’t set foot in a Walmart in perhaps 20 years. I detest Walmart. Why? Part of the reason is this: Costco has a “greeter” standing at the enterance. Ostensibly the greeter’s job is to verify that people entering are members. In fact, that greeter is also eyeballing each person who enters and is empowered to deny enterance to people who don’t meet Costco’s minimum standards (which aren’t very high, but are still much, much higher than Walmart’s standards).

Similarly, one of the "secrets" to the success of Las Vegas strip is this: although they allow a lot of rowdy behavior, frankly, they actually keep a tight lid on things: a very, very, tight lid, which I presume you would have noticed if you’ve ever actually been there and paid attention.

It's a delicate balance which requires discretion bordering on sophisticated and subtle diplomacy.

For example, when dealing with "drunk idiots" the Las Vegas police tend to use kid gloves as much as possible. Why? The powers that be in Las Vegas want "visitors" (tourists) to tell their family, friends, and associates they had a great time on the Las Vegas strip. They also want most of the tourists themselves to return over, and over, and over again.

The same is true for a myriad of tourist destinations around the world.

> fundamental problem is cargo cult developers trying to copy massive companies architectures as a startup. They fail to realize those companies only moved to microservices because they had no other option.

This.

Microservices add complexity; therefore, they should be avoided unless necessary. That's Engineering 101 folks.

Pro Tip: Buy a professional dental pick. I bought one on Amazon for around $35 about 10 years ago. I use it every day. It works great.

It’s 1997 and you want to build a website...

... just wait a decade or two; it will get much easier.

Seriously, I built a very simply static website around 1997 or 1998 with Adobe Page Mill. It was pretty easy.

Your reasoning is faulty and very probably self-serving. More and more companies can and will outsource their infrastructure. IT guys hate this because it threatens their "paychecks."

The optimal amount of cloud services for an established company like FedEx is 100%, not merely with a "disaster recovery plan" but with live, 99.99% redundancy by which I mean two almost exact systems running nearly simultaneously (within a second or two of one another) on two completely different networks.

FedEx enjoys almost all of its competitive advantage from its physical network. IT is not core to its business.

Here's the problem... almost no company actually does disaster recovery and "parallel redundancy" properly because most C-level executives only pay lip service to it.

Therefore, the whole notion that disaster recovery and "parallel redundancy" don't work is predicated on the false notion that companies actually have proper disaster recovery and "parallel redundancy" in the first place.

Good point! I hadn't thought of that.

Yeah. I agree. I often tend confuse the terms "mirage" and "oasis" in my own mind. After all, they are both things one might perceive in a hot desert, although the first is not real; whereas, the second is real.

Then one of the big players comes in and adds the feature to their main product. Poof, everything somebody worked long and hard for disappears.

There's a lot of wisdom in the statement above, but you also have a point... which I think you went much too far with.

Basecamp is not a relationship; it's a brand, but it's much weaker than, say, Apple, Ferrari, Nike, etc.

See, Basecamp was what all the kool kidz were using. And the Basecamp founders were soooo koooool! They even wrote a book! Oh yeah, and they used "the hot new technology" red choo-choo trains, er, uh, I mean Ruby on Rails.

Hey, if people can feel passionately about sugar-flavored water with bubbles in it, they can feel passionately about software... I guess.

Buuuuut the inherent problem is this: you can show off your Apple, Ferrari, Nike, etc. to your friends and to the girls/women you want to impress.

Basecamp, not so much. Basecamp seems like a dying brand to me. I don't see why anyone would begin using Basecamp these days because it's waaaaay overpriced.

But for a 40 year old who started using it 18 years ago, sure, he might have enough money, nostalgia, and, well, laziness, to keep using it.

I doubt Basecamp has many users under the age of 30, and probably never will. And I doubt it has many new users. At the end of the day most software doesn't have a social aspect to it; these days I assume Basecamp essentially is seen as a commodity (like a pillow case) by most people, even those who use it. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube are outliers which are extremely popular and have network effects.

> I actually think micro-SaaS is an oasis.

Did you mean "mirage" instead of "oasis"?

> I appreciate your style of acknowledging the points you agree on even as you dispute other statements.

Thanks. Hacker News is full of arrogant, ignorant engineers whom I despise. I’m brash, harsh, and opinionated. I have a take-no-prisoners style of arguing . Nonetheless, I’m neither arrogant nor ignorant. Really. I’m not.

I carefully consider my interlocutor’s arguments, and I readily admit when I have made a mistake or, gasp, actually been w-r-o-n-g. I don’t argue to win; I argue to learn. My goal isn’t to persuade my interlocutor; rather, my goal is to ascertain the truth.

Sure, these seem “simple and obvious”, yet, in reality, relatively few people on Hacker News actually engage their interlocutors in such a fashion.

Ironically, despite being a “non-engineer” I’m generally far more rigorous in applying the scientific method than most of the Hacker News hoi polloi. Furthermore, although I know it seems incredible (by which I mean “lacking credibility”, not “wow, man, that’s incredible”), yet as a non-engineer I’m better at engineering than most engineers I’ve worked with. Nope. That’s not arrogance; that’s an accurate assessment.

Frankly, that was a very depressing observation to me when I first realized it because I don’t enjoy engineering, and because I don’t consider myself to be good at engineering.

Furthermore, I am tired of embarrassing engineers whom I work with. It’s not fun for me; it’s a hassle. And, of course, they hate it. Engineers typically want to be right to satisfy their egos; whereas, I almost invariably want the products they create to work properly for my customers. In other words, they typically engage in self-righteousness; whereas, I’m focused on truth-seeking. Self-righteousness and truth-seeking are generally, although not always, mutually exclusive.

By the way, I’m not claiming to be selfless. I’m not. I like to learn.

I often need to expose many of the “theories” engineers proffer to me as little more than wishful thinking (a house of cards). It’s annoying and time-consuming. They become myopically focused on some bad technological solution; I want a good solution. I am barely interested in technology per se. To me technology (such as software applications) are like a bunch of hammers, screwdrivers, and chisels.

But if I don’t disabuse them of the falsehoods they are clinging to, they will almost invariably provide code to me that proves Weinberg’s Second Law: “If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.”

> In this spirit:

> Solar panel lifetime is approx ~20 years.

I've read figures like that too. Therefore, I'll grant you that point.

> Is the e-waste from solar panels a pollutant?

Sheesh. Please stop nitpicking. From what I’ve read, solar panels can easily be produced to be over 90% "recyclable." Why are their quotes around the word recyclable?

Because recycle means this, "return (material) to a previous stage in a cyclic process." In reality, everything can be recycled. But what is commonly meant by the term is "easily recycled."

No. I'm not nitpicking. I remember complaining to one of the two excellent engineers I've ever had the privilege to work with about plastic going into landfills where it would sit for thousands of years before decomposing. He calmly looked at me… like I was a complete and total idiot. That look is hard for me to forget, although it’s probably been 15 years.

He simply said something like, "You know, one day robots will go down into landfills and retrieve everything that is useful. It's just a matter of time." That hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized instantly he was right, and that I was wrong. It was then that I began to look at landfills like, say, iron mines instead of terrible places which should be minimized and avoided.

In other words, when we toss stuff into a landfill, we are merely creating a new type of mine. Obviously, cases where, say , groundwater is being polluted, would be problematic (and should be avoided). Nonetheless, normally a landfill is just a man-made mine in my mind. (alliteration unintentional).

Soon after that conversation I lost almost all interest in the entire concept of “worrying about recycling everything” because I realized that most of the stuff that is valuable in the landfills will probably be recycled in 100 or 200 or 500 years. As for the stuff that isn’t valuable in landfills, it will simply remain in the ground, like over 99% of the stuff that is sitting in the ground around the world.

> If not, is the spent fuel from a nuclear reactor a pollutant? If so, how do you reconcile the apparently inconsistent position that solar is non-polluting but nuclear is not?

I don’t intend to answer those questions directly, but I hope I will indirectly. My problem with nuclear power plants used to, say, produce electricity for cities (as opposed to say, “nuclear power plants” to power US navy submarines) has nothing whatsoever to do with pollution per se.

I don't care much about nuclear waste one way or another. It's simply something that needs to be dealt with. In other words, I view nuclear waste as a cost, not a boogeyman. Nuclear waste is no big deal in my eyes. I don’t mind burying nuclear waste in some mountain somewhere until, say, we find some bacteria that will gobble it all up and render it harmless.

My problem with nuclear power plants has to do with cost: they are too expensive compared to solar and wind today. Furthermore, solar and wind look like they will keep dropping in price.

If nuclear were significantly cheaper than solar and wind, I'd very probably be advocating for nuclear. The dangers associated with nuclear are overblown by the general public, but they are real nonetheless. Therefore, at the same price point, I’d pick solar and wind over nuclear.

But these days, solar and wind are much cheaper than nuclear power plants. Therefore, building new nuclear power plants isn’t a feasible option for, say, providing electricity to a city.

These days any working engineer who generally advocates, say, constructing nuclear power plants to generate electricity for cities, is almost certainly a bad engineer. There might be some exceptions, but I don’t know of any.

Sure, in 10, or 20, or 30 years from now a new form of nuclear energy might produce electricity cheaper than wind and solar. I realize that. Frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me at all. Nuclear power has a lot of promise.

The main point you should focus regarding energy production in this: we are on the cusp of cheap, readily available electricity. That matters; that matters, a lot. As you might know, in 1850 steel was expensive; yet by 1870 it had become cheap. As a result skyscrapers started appearing in cities such as Chicago, New York, Rotterdam, and Turin. The Romans and the Japanese had steel. But it was super, super, super expensive compared to wood and bricks. (Oh, wait, what’s that you say? The Romans had famous concrete too? Huh. Well, I guess you learn something every day).

Cheap electricity is poised to change the world, much like cheap steel did about 150 or so years ago. How that electricity is produced doesn’t actually matter much for engineering projects. For example, when the Bessemer process was replaced by the Basic oxygen steelmaking process, I doubt many structural engineers at the time cared much about the technology. What they probably cared much about was obtaining cheap steel that met their requirements.

Finally, here is the most important point of all for you. (Yes, I saved the best for last). Engineers often become sooooo infatuated with “their toys” (their preferred technology) that they often become extremely biased and unscientific. I have excoriated many engineers for lying to me about their preferred technology.

No, I am not exaggerating. They lied to me; and I did indeed excoriate them. My tongue lashings were necessary because engineers often act like helpless drug addicts when they are enthralled with a piece of technology. They will “lie, cheat, and steal” to use what, to me, is a mere widget (tool).

Again, I am not exaggerating; I’ve lost a lot of time and money when working with engineers who have flat out lied to me in order to use their favorite technology, although it was obviously the wrong technology for the job.

Bring on the downvotes… cowards!

Good grief. First and foremost I was simplifying to make a point.

> You can’t just hire 1 DevOps superstar

Secondly, that assertion is not necessarily true. Obviously, you should just hire 1 DevOps superstar... in some cases.

Don't nitpick and don't argue foolishly.

> I agree entirely.

I agree entirely too.

> Start with a monolith on two VMs and a load balancer. Chips and networks are cheaper than labour,

Kudos to you! You are a dangerous man for you opine the truth.

My advice is generally, "Build something. Then see if you can sell it." or "Sell something and then go build it." Either way, it all starts soooo small that the infrastructure is hardly a problem.

If you "get lucky" and things really take off. Sure. Yeah. Then get a DevOpps superstar to build what you need. In reality, your business will very probably fail.

> Nukes will fade out with a whimper as they become increasingly unable to produce power at a price to match renewables'. The plants will be quietly mothballed, however much was spent on them, because we are not, as a society, chained to the sunk-cost fallacy.

I agree.

> The coming climate catastrophe will bite hard, over and over, for decades before it subsides -- if it does.

Shake yourself my man. That is 100%, complete rubbish. Don't conflate your personal agenda with reality. Sure, global warming is real, yet it is something we can and are dealing with. Don’t you remember how we all died from skin cancer as a result of the irreparable hole in the ozone layer?

Besides, as we transition to renewables (solar and wind at this point) we won't be burning much fossil fuel; therefore, global warming fear mongering will fade out with a whimper as it becomes increasingly difficult to sell.

It's like COVID. It destroyed civilization. Right? I mean, we're all just barely hanging on. Right? Oh yeah. Sorry, "Long COVID" is going to come for the rest of us any day. Sure. Right. Of course.

I suggest you go back and read some of the doomer “non-fiction” (which was actually fiction) from the hippie era such as the "Population Bomb" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb and "Diet for a Small Planet" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_for_a_Small_Planet. Those authors were spinning dystopian tales that "shockingly" never came true…. just like the greenhouse effect, er, uh I mean global warming, no, no, no, I mean today’s climate change liars.

Every month or so they need to come up with some new set of falsehoods to feed to their minions. It’s as predictable as it is despicable. It reminds of William Randolph Hearst’s infamous Yellow Journalism.

To me it looks like we've got way too many jobless PhD's who can't get jobs as professors. Therefore, they stand on the street corners ranting and raving, "The sky is falling... er, uh… buy my book! I'll explain how you can survive! Buy my book (I need to pay my mortgage)!!!"

> Civilization might collapse, first.

As a result of global warming? No way. As a result of World War III, sure that's possible.

> That would cut CO2 emission sharply, but it will remain for many generations, despite that trees would fill out abandoned fields once the fallout fades.

Speaking of trees, you do realize that all of this “noxious and evil” CO2 is actually beneficial to vegetation. Right? In essence we had a bunch of “dead plants” (not really, but I’m oversimplifying to make my point easier to follow) that were underground. For the last couple of hundred years we’ve been burning them up. All of that “pollution” will eventually become “live plants”. And no, in the meantime the Earth isn’t going to turn into Mercury. Raising the temperature a couple of degrees might cause some rich movie stars in Malibu and Formula One race car drivers in Monaco to have their houses washed out to sea. Boo-hoo. I’ll be sure to shed some tears for them.

> Economically, switching to non-polluting energy is a shoo-in.

I agree.

> An economic model that drives sequestering atmospheric carbon is harder to imagine.

Here’s an idea: have Elon’s kids R2-D2 and C-3PO take it with them to their utopia on Saturn, or is it Jupiter?

My man. Please. Shake yourself. Carbon isn’t some rare, and dangerous element. Here ya go. Read and learn…

Carbon-based life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-based_life

Yeah. Sure. Over the last 200 years or so we’ve released too much CO2. But think of it like an oil spill. It’s a form of pollution. Gradually “Mother Earth” (I hate tree huggers) will reach a new equilibrium. Relax.

Do you remember “The War to End All Wars.” It was really, really, really, horrible. The Zone Rouge still exists. See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_Rouge

“The Zone Rouge (English: Red Zone) is a chain of non-contiguous areas throughout northeastern France that the French government isolated after the First World War. The land, which originally covered more than 1,200 square kilometres (460 sq mi), was deemed too physically and environmentally damaged by conflict for human habitation. Rather than attempt to immediately clean up the former battlefields, the land was allowed to return to nature. Restrictions within the Zone Rouge still exist today, although the control areas have been greatly reduced.”

Guess what? We figure out how to deal with the pollution we create.

> Most extraction schemes just sell it to be burned again.

Most extraction schemes are absurd. CO2 isn’t a problem worth worrying about anymore due to cheap solar and wind rapidly replacing fossil fuels. People who have dystopian fantasies are a real problem. You are suffering from “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

Climate change has been unpleasant for many people. Sure. I agree. But really, it’s something we can and are dealing with. Furthermore, all that’s really going on is we’ve been “burning too many dead plants too quickly.”

Of course as fossil fuel use plummets over the next couple of decades climate change won’t be a suitable topic to sell books. Not to worry, unemployed PhDs will come up with some dystopian tale of “doom and gloom” to sell to people who are into that sort of nonsense.

Whatever is going wrong in your life: deal with that. Stop focusing on “big problems” you can’t solve and hardly affect you at all.

Besides, climate change isn’t all bad anyways. It has enabled some excellent grapes to be grown for wine in southern England.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/climate-change-makes-engl...

“DORKING, England — The damp and cool English terrain hasn't traditionally been known for producing quality wine.

But vineyards are sprouting up all over the countryside as climate change makes England increasingly suitable for making sparkling wines to rival those of France's Champagne region — winning prizes at international competitions.”

Doomers. Ugh. They are people who are happy to be miserable about problems that don’t directly affect them.

> So, ammonia, or synthetic methanol, metal hydride, or even mined and refined kerosene.

Perhaps one of those would be best. I really don't know. But based on my limited knowledge, at this point, I'd bet on coal over any of those.

> You could be right about the US, but other places are geopolitically less stable.

Actually, in my penultimate posting in addition to terrorism I was going to mention, "As long as Idaho doesn't declare war on Oregon" but it seemed a little over the top to me.

> And, transmission lines have outages, and there are never quite as many as you would like.

The rich run the world. They always have. When some rich guy living in a 10 million dollar home on the beach in La Jolla, California (near San Diego, California) has his power go out for a few hours several times in the same week, his wife will "read him the riot act." The rich got rid of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) down there (near La Jolla). They'll make sure they have a reliable source of power.

But yeah, in Flint, Michigan or rural Mississippi, well, the impoverished folks who live there are generally "hanging on by a thread." Those people invariably suffer. But their suffering isn't a result of technological problems; it's a result of political problems.

> And, the US is getting less stable as we speak, with avowed insurrectionist election suppressors poised to take over Congress and Senate, and maybe the presidency again.

We've had an extremely long period of peace in the USA. Eventually war comes to all lands. It will return here one day. Regardless of the source of power, once war comes "all bets are off." That's part of the reason I like coal. Massive amounts of it can be stored cheaply and indefinitely. If I were in charge of running a state, I'd want a huge supply of coal on hand so we could produce electricity locally 24/7/365 for a long-time. Obviously, solar, wind, and hydro would be the ideal choices. But in case solar, wind, and hydro weren't producing enough, I'd want to have lots of coal to burn.

These days burning coal, as a first choice to generate electricity, would be absurd. But as a backup, it would be great. During peacetime it would likely be used very seldom in a country like the USA as we know it now. But, yeah, if we had something like a civil war, then coal might become a very important source of power.

> Coal plants are monstrous beasts

That assertion is obviously false.

Certainly, most commonly used coal-fired power plants used to supply the overwhelming majority of power around the world are monstrous beasts.

Nonetheless, small coal plants are neither monstrous beasts nor difficult to fire up. They've been around for centuries, though, admittedly they aren't what most people think of when they think of coal-fired power plants.

> and a little one makes as much economic sense as a big one

Nope. That's a common lie trotted out. Read what you wrote, and ponder about how inane it is. Utility companies lie... a lot. The problem is this: we are so accustomed to building huge power plants we simply overlook many smaller scale solutions.

Sure, the small ones tend to be much less efficient. But, "the perfect is the enemy of the good." During emergencies, "You do what you gotta do." Engineers get way, way, too focused on efficiency. Generals, particularly during wartime, hardly focus on efficiency much at all. Instead, they focus on effectiveness. In case of emergencies, effectiveness is generally much more important than efficiency. Sure. It's expensive. But, hey, guess what? Wars, which can be seen as the most terrible of emergencies, are expensive.

During wartime enemies are going to target power plants. I'd rather have a few dozen small ones to protect, than one or two big ones because I wouldn't want to "put all of my eggs in one basket." Most Americans are so accustomed to presuming that peace will continue indefinitely, that they fail to make calculations based on the assumption that war has befallen us.

"Economic sense" during peacetime is very different than "economic sense" during wartime. Put simply: when the enemy destroys both of your, big, efficient, coal-fired power plants, those plants end up being of almost zero economic value. As a result, you might end up suffering massive losses of human lives and you might even lose the war because you were unable to provide much-needed power.

It's common knowledge the USA squanders vast sums of money on its military. Nonetheless, these days most American engineers have an "efficiency during peacetime" mentality; whereas most generals (thank God) have an "effectiveness during wartime" mentality.

I am weary of Americans assuming peace will always prevail. It won't. When war returns, how are we (and, by the way, who are "we" in the first place?) going to produce power locally in case solar, wind, and hydro aren't producing enough?

Me? I'm a big, big coal guy. I think the stuff is great... as an emergency solution. But I hope we never need to burn any of it. Ditto for nuclear weapons. I hope we never launch any of them again. But I'm glad we have them. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were terrible. But I presume you know how many Americans died in the "Battle of Hiroshima" and the "Battle of Nagasaki" that never occurred. 2 men, 1 plane, 1 bomb, 1 second (more or less). Then 2 days later: 2 men, 1 plane, 1 bomb, 1 second (more or less). Then the war was over. As a result on those battles that never occurred, in the USA, there were no grieving widows, nor any grieving children, nor any grieving parents. Obviously, that was not the case in Japan.

Any ordinary adult who is anti-nuclear weapons is a fool. I hate watching people protest nuclear weapons. Sure, the US military should be reformed. If memory serves, all retired generals and admirals who I've ever heard speak on the subject of reforming the military, have very strong opinions about the dire and urgent need to reform the military because it is currently incapable of protecting the US of A properly. But being anti-nuke is like being a pacifist: it's complete lunacy.

Having opined all of that I'll close with this: coal (and coal-fired power plants) as well as nuclear weapons are great to have... not to use. But if you need 'em; you'll be glad you have 'em.

"Imagination is more important knowledge" said some guy with messy hair who knew a thing or two about energy times something squared.

Just as castle towns went from refuges to death traps (starting about 800 years ago when cannonballs started knocking down castle walls), and were soon generally abandoned, large modern cities, as we know them, are on the cusp of both shrinking and transforming.

Once the vast majority of people stop commuting long distances to work and school, it's very likely that cars (as we know them) will become as common in cities as, say, horses. If you work 2 or 3 miles from where you live, and cars have been outlawed for most people, even in the middle of winter in Prince Albert in Canada or Irkutsk in Siberia, one could simply get into something like a fully enclosed, heated, pedelec velomobile with spiked tires and go to work.

This vehicle wouldn't be some ridiculously overengineered self-driving car like we see them today, but rather could be easily guided by computers placed every 25 feet along the roadway that communicate with each velomobile's onboard navigation and braking system.

Therefore, there'd be no need for mom to take the kids to school. Kids, even as young as 5 years old, could go on their own. Of course the vehicles would have video cameras built in, so that mom (or school employees dubbed "commuting monitors") could monitor/talk with her children as they commute to school.

I suppose the amount of energy needed to power such vehicles for would be, perhaps, 90% less than current conventional electric cars.

Perhaps compressed air (and people, gasp, actually peddling) might be used instead of hydrogen or batteries. Regardless of the energy source used, not much would be used (compared to current conventional cars) because commute distances would be shorter and vehicles would be much lighter than current conventional cars.

All of the above would apply when vehicles were actually needed. Much of the time I imagine people would, believe it or not, gasp, walk to and from work or school. Imagine that. People actually walking to and fro in a city.

I think you are obsessed with ammonia as a fuel source. Ammonia might never make it to peaker plants, nor farm, nor construction equipment.

The sun shines brightly 100% of the time and the wind blows strongly 100% of the time... somewhere. California currently imports electricity from... Wyoming.

With a network of ultra-high-voltage electricity transmission (UHV electricity transmission) lines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity... throughout the USA, the current concern many engineers seem to have with "the energy storage problem" associated with renewable energy might vanish into irrelevancy.

At 7pm on Tuesday, most of the East Coast might get 80% of its electricity produced by photovoltaics in the Mojave Desert in Nevada; whereas on Wednesday at 2am, Florida might get 90% of its electricity produced from wind generators in Custer County in Oklahoma.

Even if 20% of the electricity were lost due to long-distance transmission, it wouldn't matter much if the electricity were produced extremely inexpensively.

Currently, almost 100% of the aforementioned solar and wind energy are "lost" because almost all of the sunlight in the desert simply lands on the ground, and the wind in the prairies simply blows along without being utilized.

Sure, for airplanes and cargo ships, fuel is important. But for most terrestrial uses (such as in cities and farms) "just in time" electricity might be the best solution.

"But, what about outages?" I'm glad you asked. The military and hospitals have backup diesel generators. Personally, I think "evil" coal-fired power plants might be a feasible source of local, backup electricity which would normally be used very rarely.

The current "anti-coal" bandwagon is absurd. Coal is a great source of fuel. However, much of the world "went crazy" burning way, way, way too much coal for a couple of hundred years. We never should have done that because of the terrible pollution we suffered from.

My favorite things about coal are this: it's very easy to store and very easy to burn.

If people want to store tanks of hydrogen gas in their backyards above ground, or tanks of ammonia underground, that would probably be fine too. But for large scale, backup sources of electricity (say for a city like Portland, Oregon) "evil" coal-fired power plants might be the cheapest and easiest method.

As long as the ultra-high-voltage electricity transmission network has suitable redundancy, is maintained properly, and is not sabotaged (say, by terrorists) then I would guess that within 10 years or so, it would be up over 95% of the time; and within 25 years or so, it would be up over 99% of the time.

Actually, you were the one who taught me this. Please see...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31832490

Thanks.

Here's a link I suggest you include when posting on the subject...

https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-the-shipping-industry-is-betti...

"Also by 2024, the Viking Energy is poised to become the first vessel propelled by ammonia fuel cells...."

Hydrogen and ammonia per se are not very important. What's important is that as a result of cheap, plentiful, renewable energy, a huge opportunity now exists for an efficient and effective means of converting that energy into a useful fuel (or fuels).

Please understand that I’m not arguing that hydrogen, generally, and ammonia, in particular, are bad fuels. They seem to be very promising… today. But I can imagine that they might be replaced in, say, 25 years with “the next big thing.” What’s unlikely to change in, say, 25 years is this: cheap, plentiful, renewable energy.

When looking at energy these days, most engineers and business people are struggling with the following: they are so accustomed to energy being dear (being expensive) that they are having a difficult time wrapping their minds around the new reality. Namely, energy, much like most popular commercial agricultural products in the West from, say, 1650 to 1875, and steel from 1850-1875, and long-distance phone calls from 1985 to 2005, is on the cusp of becoming extremely inexpensive.

One of the results of cheap energy is obvious: energy efficiency will become much less important than it is today.

Imagine if you lived in Phoenix, Arizona. You’d probably be somewhat focused on conserving fresh water because, well, fresh water is expensive there, just as it is in the middle of most hot, arid deserts.

But what if you moved from Phoenix, Arizona to, say, Recife, Brazil? You probably wouldn’t bother much with conserving fresh water because, well, much of the time, you could quench your thirst simply by walking outside, looking up, and opening your mouth. (I’m being facetious).

Collectively, vis-à-vis useful energy, it is as if we were all quickly moving from Phoenix, Arizona to Recife, Brazil.

Of course the Hacker News hoi polloi will need to find a new casus belli once the global warming boogeyman abruptly vanishes ignominiously into the dustbin of history along with their pet energy fantasy, nuucuuler energy (read in the accent of President George W. Bush).

Finally, I’ve become extremely contemptuous of the arrogant and ignorant arguments in favor of nuclear energy on Hacker News that seem to pop up every month or so. These days wind and solar are generally cheaper and easier means of creating useful energy. (Sure, nuclear-powered submarines make sense, but that’s a very small niche case).

Bring on downvotes… cowards!

In addition, NH3 (ammonia) would probably first be used in cargo ships (which I learned in another thread here on HackerNews) which currently produce vast amounts of pollution.

The main point is this: cheap, clean, renewable electricity promises to make fuel cheap.

Those who claim "Hydrogen isn't a fuel; it's a means of storing energy." are absolutely wrong.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel

"A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work."

Usually, the hydrogen-isn't-a-fuel wonks seem to be social justice warriors who are arguing speciously out of anger against fossil fuel companies which they believe are pushing hydrogen as a means to increase the use of "dirty hydrogen."

You are missing something important. Uber is like a bit like Walmart or Costco. They all enjoy economies of scale; Uber simply has bad management.

Unless missiles are raining down on your kitchen or there is a famine in your area, there's no defense for using garlic in a jar. Never. Ever. Learn how to peel and then crush, slice, and mince garlic quickly. There are a variety of techniques. Watch some videos on YouTube.

If you are desperate to save time, you may use canned tomatoes. But that should be a last resort. Fresh garlic and fresh onions are two of life's simple pleasures. Seriously.

> One of the best solutions to out fossil fuel problems

Mankind has survived just fine since ancient times without burning anywhere near the amount of fossil fuels burned over, say, the last 200 years.

With wind and solar, we are an the cusp of extremely cheap electricity.

> is to simply have less people.

Feel free to follow your own advice.

Hmmm. I suppose you never heard of a "chicken tractor", have you? Try searching for it on Google. It's a thing.

> I don't think the certificate days would be much use today,

Think again.

> given how fast frameworks change and just how many different technologies are involved with modern development.

That is not a problem.

There could be theoretical and applied certifications.

The theoretical certifications would be "one and done" (take the test once, and you are, for example a "Level 3 Software Architect). Theoretical certifications would be based on fundamental (fungible) abilities.

But yeah, if you had been a certified Level 5 Java software engineer, and then Java became eclipsed by "the new hot language" then you'd need to get certified in the new hot language to claim, "I'm a Level 2 New Hot Language engineer."

Have you ever actually bothered to make a cursory study of the history of food production over the last, say, 100 years in the USA?

Since FDR came into office in 1933 the US federal government has actively been dealing with a serious food problem: tremendous agricultural surpluses.

Virtually every wealthy country, even Japan, has the same problem: too many farmers and too much food.

"We are running out! The sky is falling!" Hey, if that's what you want to yell and scream, that's your prerogative. But, as the adage goes, "Facts are stubborn things."

In terms of crop value, California is the largest agricultural producer in the USA. I'm almost certain if California were to produce zero food whatsoever, the USA could still easily produce massive agricultural surpluses.

Go read Frances Moore Lappé’s infamous "Diet for a Small Planet" which was a very famous bestselling book in 1971. It has been almost 100% debunked as inane wishful thinking.

She claimed meat production had a negative environmental impact, was wasteful, and contributed to global food scarcity. Sure, just like factories can pump rivers full of pollution, if not properly regulated, cattle producers will tend to do the same thing. The answer is good laws and proper enforcement: not requiring people to eat tofu as a main course for dinner.

Frances Moore Lappé was an unhinged "tree hugger." Don't be like her. Use your head: study the history, and look at the technology.

While you are at it, imagine wind turbines spinning in the empty wastelands of the American West, pumping water from Canada to California.

Kansas and Nebraska were part of what was known as the "Great American Desert." But then some engineers figured out how to pump water from what is now the "dying" Ogallala aquifer.

We aren't living in caves, my man, trying to fight off lions and bears with spears.

Doomers. Sheesh. You guys disgust me. Go spread your falsehoods elsewhere.

> I imagine there's an element of artistry there too, but they seem to cope.

You are a diplomat sir; I'm merely a common street brawler.

> Big difference is that there are standards and accepted practices in the fields in detail.

I agree.

After enough bridges fell down causing massive human fatalities, standards and accepted practices almost certainly "emerged."

Standards and accepted practices in software engineering will emerge, as if by magic, once enough "bridges fall down."

Yikes. This is very poorly argued.

Engineering is overwhelmingly an applied science, not an art.

Sure, arts have elements of science and sciences have elements of arts. But, there's a reason we don't normally call scientists artists and vice-versa.

Birds are not fish, even though some birds swim and some fish fly. See?

> That's because programming is nothing like any of those professions.

That assertion is blatantly wrong.

Software engineers are like civil engineers and mechanical engineers because, ummm, yeah, of that word engineer. See?

I found the following on The Internets...

"California licenses Professional Engineers in the following engineering disciplines: Agricultural, Chemical, Civil, Control System, Electrical, Fire Protection, Industrial, Mechanical, Metallurgical, Nuclear, Petroleum, and Traffic."

It's almost certain that software engineers will be licensed... just like many other engineers. Why? Because certification helps to ensure people who call themselves "software engineers" meet certain standards.

Just like blind people normally aren't able to obtain a driver's license, people who can't solve FizzBuzz shouldn't receive a license to be software engineers.

You are always free to launch a revolution in the hopes of overthrowing your national government so that you can make the regulations and laws you would like.

In the meantime, when the jurisdiction you are in creates a requirement for certain software engineers to become certified (not "if" but "when"), even if the law were to apply to software engineers like you (the arrogant artistic types, you know what I mean, right?), I suppose you'll probably be grandfathered in because governments usually don't want to fight too hard to initiate new regulations and laws.

Grandfathering the "crusy old-timers" like you keeps you off their collective back because, at the end of the day, you probably don't really care about the issue generally. You probably simply don't want to be bothered to spend the time and energy to become certified.

I think you are correct; I was very probably wrong. I did some research. NH3 (Ammonia) seems like it will be used, at least, to power large cargo ships in the near future.

I didn't realize that Ammonia is essentially a cheaper and easier way to store hydrogen.

Thanks for enlightening me! I appreciate it.

Well argued, but you didn't address the need for tests and/or certifications to prevent companies from being overwhelmed by a flood of unqualified candidates.

A doctor, lawyer, public accountant, and, well, many types of engineers obtain public or private certifications. As a result, it is much, much, much easier for hiring companies to find and interview qualified candidates.

I suppose, in the "old days" universities kind of, sort of, filled this role. A hiring manager looking at a resume might have said, "Oh, he's got an EE/CS from Berkeley, there's a good chance he's qualified.