HN user
We get that Zig doesn't have memory safe features. How much of a big deal is that anyway - what proportion of issues are caused by memory safety errors? And as an aside - how many Rust codebases use unsafe code?
(I don't know the answers to these - I'm a humble C programmer who intends to look at Zig soon).
That's an excellent point. The US is a prime example of a nation-state that is too good to last. Humans just can't take it.
The US has significantly more cultural and economic cohesion than the EU, and there's a good chance it won't last my lifetime either.
Battery storage and conversion losses are far less than the conversion losses from generating electricity from an ICE.
No, they are not. Here's some research for large-scale battery storage systems:
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1409737 Rround-trip energy storage efficiency is reported as 70% - 80%. Any crappy genset will match that.
I really don't understand this idea for a "hybrid" ship. What size battery would you need, to power the electricals of a ship for a sea voyage? What is the payback period to the shipping company?
Fuel oil is a very cheap way of generating power, when you have several thousand tons of it already on your ship :)
The possible few percantage difference in efficiency between ship-based oil-powered generation, and land-based power generation, is more than wiped out by the storage and conversion losses of a battery-based system. It's also very expensive (and heavy). Why pay to fill a container with batteries, and then pay more to charge them, when you can be paid to carry a container of other stuff as cargo?
There isn't a way to do that without HGVs (heavy goods vehicles) paying practically all of the annual VED.
It's pretty clear that "smart chargers" will become "smart tax revenue generators" in the near future.
The least efficient part of any ship is turning mechanical energy into electrical
I think you meant "most".
The least efficient step is converting chemical energy into mechanical energy.
Given the cheapness of fuel oil and geneator sets, and the expense of batteries, what possible financial argument is there for doing this?
VED (Vehicle Exercise Duty), as it is currently known, is now based on emissions. It would be a hard sell to undo that, and base it on something else (like vehicle weight/size/etc). The most acceptable way to tax EVs at this point is probably taxing at the charging point.
If by "us vs them" you mean, "those of us who support the right of crypto users to demand support and software for free vs those who support people's right to choose where they invest their efforts", then I'm in the latter category.
Would you have the same opinion if the maintainer announced they were going to stop working on requests originating from FB/Google/big bad mining corp/big bad animal testing corp/etc?
If this is typical sentiment from crypto users, then the maintainer has done the right thing. I too would not like to spend my spare time and energy supporting people who can't distinguish between "oppressing minorities" and "giving away my time to demanding internet strangers".
As you feel so strongly, I look forward to seeing what replacement for websockets you are able to create.
How are those statements possibly true?
https://www.google.com/search?q=bitcoin+annual+energy+usage https://www.statista.com/statistics/580087/energy-use-of-fac...
Facebook uses 6% the amount of power, as all bitcoin miners.
The amount of power consumed by all of the cloud services we unknowingly use almost 24/7 is a hugely underappreciated problem, I will agree there.
Education is failing a big time
Indeed.
Their existence is threatened by crypto adoption and open source permissionless banking infrastructure.
The only thing threatened by such things is the amount of time and money that devotees pour into them.
While we're picking random data points - Malillia (Sweden), at 57° N, set a record temperature of 38°C in 1947.
Pretty clearly you would have to radically re-think how much animal produce you would get to eat. Also - countries like The Netherlands have a strong tradition of backyard chickens to suppliment a household's diet.
How many of the animals that are
"Domestically FED and raised"
??
I'm fully aware of that, which is why I said "domestically FED and raised".
Also, the feeding animal 10KG to get 1KG looks rather wasteful?
Depends heavily on what animal product you are producing. Obviously we won't be eating beef all the time. It also depends on what kind of farmland you have available, and what uses those crops have.
Where I am (Wales, UK), the combination of the farmer' lobby and the "Welsh culture and heritage" lobby has meant that largely unprofitable sheep farming has been subsidised, and what should be productive wooded hillside makes lamb that no-one wants. I'm not saying that raising animals is always the best use of land.
What is morally and ethically worse - eating an animal fed and raised domestically, or eating soy-laiden "plant-based" foods that were grown on recently-raized rainforest several thousand miles away?
It's our demand for goods that is causing this.
I have worked very hard to stop my addiction to Youtube. I watched a lot of "lifestyle instructional" videos (ToT, Ave, Fireball Tools, LPL, Tom Lipton, Matt's Recovery, etc), but after you've had your "inspiration moment" with these, you're not learning much and are essentially spending your life watching someone else's.
That brings me on to my second point - video is a HORRIBLE format for most forms of instruction (for me). Practically every time I decide to try watching one to learn something, it could easily have been communicated in text form. Coding is a great example - I really hate having to skip through a 10-minute video that boils down to a single screen's worth of basic code.
Saying that, I've saved myself a bunch of money watching youtubers who very generously give away their time and experience for free to show me how to disassemble and re-assemble electronics and cars.
You say "radical". I say "attempting to undo some of the damage of the past few years". Anyway, I've always had an independent streak, and never liked how my of my life was controlled through my phone by big tech. I've tried all of the typical steps - fully-FOSS phone (CyanogenMod), quitting social media, and leaving my phone in a different room at night than my bedroom (which was probably one of the single most helpful steps). The hardest thing to quit was Whatsapp - at least where I live (UK), it has come to dominate social organisation.
I can only recommend this process, even if you don't make it all the way. I also appreciate that where I live, less of life has become dependent on smartphones and apps, and making these choices might have more sideffects on your life if you are somewhere like the US.
you are likely to understand my concern for privacy and personal integrity,
I've given up on the high ideals I used to hold about (online) privacy (and anonymity). There's an argument that they, in some circumstances, are the antithesis of personal and public responsibility.
My current plan is that my kids will get tech when they can afford it themselves. I'm also dreading it, as more parents bow to the pressure and allow kids to have phones and tablets at an ever-younger age. I do understand the downsides of this, and also don't want my kids to be social pariahs.
Also - you role model what your kids will do. If you think it's ok to sit and scroll on your phone at every opportunity, so will your kids. If you game till the early hours, so will your kids.
FWIW both my wife and I gave up smartphones last year, and all "tech" in the house is banished to our home office. When a family computer becomes a necessity, it will be in a shared area.
1. Ensure all docs/pics are backed up somewhere on a PC I own 2. Discard smartphone 3. Delete gmail account 4. Enjoy a peaceful and productive life!