coryrc

No, because the phosphors glow for much longer than human persistence of vision.

Long distance trucking gets heavily subsidized by all other road users. Damage is caused by the fourth power of weight, but trucking only paid 35% of maintenance while being responsible for 99% of the cost.

https://truecostblog.com/2009/06/02/the-hidden-trucking-indu...

I hate having to come up with different variable names than `list` so I don't shadow the function `list`. Repeat that for a lot of common words: count, first, length, map, max, min, search, string; that you would then actually consider calling said function after declaring a value. Happens to "list" the most, but definitely the others on rarer occasions.

That's a stupid point to be trying to make and irrelevant.

Building interconnects costs money. What's the ROI on building more?

Positive ROI becomes present if Texas has large amounts of nondispatchable power and the neighboring areas do not have the same. So if Texas builds more wind and solar than they can consume themselves, then it makes sense to invest in more interconnection capacity. But that's predicted on excessive production first.

Finally, let's just say they built 70 GW of interconnection, because you seen to think that number is important. Do you think Louisiana and Arkansas have that much generation and transmission capacity themselves? Let alone EXCESS?

Washington and Oregon are on the same grid, with about peak generation of 31 GW and 18 GW, yet only about 7 GW of transfer capacity exists, and it's only that high because of sales to California because of seasonal hydroelectric oversupply, an oversupply which doesn't exist in Texas, Arkansas, or Louisiana.

Significantly higher interconnection capacity does not yet make financial sense. They're right to not yet waste money on them.

GGP didn't say ERCOT, they said "Texas". Which further demonstrates how ignorant it is to say there are "no major connections".

Every place I'm familiar with has demand charges on large-scale users that is supposed to pay for that equipment.

The real problem is boomers have stopped allowing things to be built efficiently, so supply is limited, had been limited for decades, and demand still grows, so prices spike disproportionally with demand increases.

Additionally we subsidize wind and solar heavily, but the fixed costs of large plants don't drop, so we end up spending for our power twice and for natural gas plants to replace coal, because that's the only solution we will do to keep power during the winter in Northern states.

Texas is the second-biggest state. Where are they going to make major connections to -- the Great Prairie? There's a whole New Mexico-worth of sparse population between Dallas/Austin/San Antonio before you get to New Mexico itself, which you would then need to cross halfway before you hit a major population center.

Enron fiasco put a local power company here in WA in insurmountable debt because they couldn't ship power to California because the lines were already overloaded. If you build a major new power-consuming plant in Washington, you'll need to get power from someplace closer than half the width of Texas (and only even that far because historically we had coal power plants in Montana, so there's existing long-distance transmission).

I'm not saying they haven't made mistakes, but saying a place had "no major connections" is both wrong and ignores why. El Paso has "major" connections to New Mexico. It shouldn't be surprising Dallas doesn't have "major" connections to New Mexico, just like Denver CO doesn't to Portland OR.

You're looking for "deep adaptation"

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

because there is no realistic path for nuclear reactors to compete with PV+batteries

It's not that in Northern climates, it's PV+batteries+Natural Gas turbines, because PV doesn't supply enough power for winter heating. In more tropical locations, you're correct.

Have you considered electric heaters to run for a few hours just if temperatures are consistently low for multiple consecutive days?

I was thinking the same thing 10 years ago, but people are still buying houses, the stock market keeps going up. It doesn't make sense. But I lost a lot of money not being more heavily invested and buying a house I could easily afford. I also feel like we're a zombie economy that doesn't know it's dead yet, but all I know is somehow I'm going to be screwed and I won't see it coming.

In 2013 you couldn't say that prices have nearly doubled since 2013 under ZIRP, which is the argument that buying now would be buying high.

But in 2013 you could say they've nearly doubled since 1998 under ZIRP, and then everything you say applies.

It's also an option on continuing to live in your same COL but a different city, with a nice large house. Worse case, prices fall enough you can afford a new mortgage even if your investment is wiped out. Worst case of renting is you can never buy because houses appreciate faster than you can save. You said

then you'd still have the entire $380k plus whatever interest it earned.

And it's not enough to buy a house if prices continue up, and you've lived in a cheap (so probably small and undesirable) apartment for years while your friends are building up their household.

It's the same. Dextromethorphan gets you high; there were only 17 deaths from 2000-2010, as I said. That's per-week numbers for acetaminophen.

Nothing you said is wrong, but you could say that in 2013 too, and in that time apparently prices have nearly doubled and you missed out if you didn't take advantage.

Mortgages are "heads I win, tails you lose" in non-recourse states like California. You're not down more than your down payment, but the upside is huge, and for the past fifty years it has been more financially advantageous to use that leverage to buy the most expensive home they will allow you to.

That's the bank's problem.

Lets say housing appreciates +50% everywhere.

Your podunk home went up $50k.

HCOL home went up $500k.

Better deal would be to hold the expensive house.

Why is it a sin in America to take advantage of economies of scale for cooking but not for anything else?

First, cough syrup ID checking is not about deaths, as nearly none are associated with dextromethorphan abuse (17 from 2000-2010, and most not from OTC). But an estimated 980 deaths/year from acetaminophen abuse: https://www.propublica.org/article/tylenol-mcneil-fda-behind...

So that's a great example: harm adults because young people have access to something which is hardly dangerous, but set them free with multi-ton killing machines once they turn 16 years old and let them buy an actually-deadly medicine with no restrictions.

Regulation which says "adults should easily be able to enable client-side child protection settings on retail devices" would be fine. It's not okay for government to make it necessary for LLM providers to verify my identity.

Essentially no one in the USA fails to get a license if they try for one. There's no ongoing competence testing. Washington State recently failed to advance legislation to make the fourth DUI have a jail sentence because it would be too expensive imprisoning that many people.

Cars are dangerous.

You can kill yourself with a kitchen knife in your own kitchen. Should be "heavily regulate" that too? How about we have remotely-locked drawers and medicine bottles and you have to talk with a government shrink before opening?

Comparing anything to a car ... means it should be tightly regulated and controlled

Popsicles come in many colors, just like cars! Regulate the popsicles!

AI is, so far, like having a bottle of acetaminophen. Deadly if used incorrectly. It should be easy to lock away from children. It is not for the government to get in the way of how adults want to use it.

> Cars harm kids

This is tobacco-industry rhetoric. The relevant facts are frequency, magnitude and novelty

Cars are literally the number one killer of children 0-14 in the United States. More than cancer, more than guns, more than the next 7 reasons combined.

But AI companies are uniquely defensive, dismissive and negligent when it comes to harming kids.

You should see how people feel if you ask them to give up some street parking to make streets safer for kids and everybody else! Jesus Christ himself gave them the spot in front of their house and fuck you for suggesting they park across the street or on their own property!

whereas O2 is 20% of the air.

The goal of a gasoline engine's sensor is to accurately and precisely measure the point where O2 concentration reaches zero, so ambient air levels are not quite as relevant.

China's coal use alone is more than all energy sources in the USA combined. Something like 70% of all energy, then oil, then about 10% renewable. USA is also near 90% fossil fuel but morally natural gas and oil, coal on the way out while China still opening gigawatts of plants yearly.

You mean boomers have been voting against any and every infrastructure investment besides more roads while they lived off the investments of their parents and grandparents? Worse generation in American history.

I think GP's point is that winter heating can shift to nuclear- and wind-powered instead of mostly burning fossil fuels.

Personally I'm a fan of the simple improvements

Stockholm Syndrome. Because our government is so paralyzed and ineffective, we can't even dream big anymore.

We don't either. It's a Democratic Republic. Our electeds could do their job.

because we have an almost infinite number of examples in the US of it doing it.

... before the 1970s. Nothing this millennium, or even the last quarter of the 20th century. It's been, at minimum, 50 years since we've cost-effectively built anything at scale.

And another, our recidivism rates are much higher than comparable countries. Is that how we do a "good job" helping people?

Our public transportation infrastructure literally cost 10x per mile than France or Hong Kong. That's not waste to you? For what California has spent/is spending on high-speed rail from nowhere to nowhere, China blanketed their country?

Notice you also left out police. How's our spending working there?