alvvayson

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alvvayson ,

I agree.

Due to temperature fluctuations it will not always be at 100%, but at equilibrium it will be.

Hypothetically speaking, what alterations to our biology/genome would need to occur in order for us to be able to safely drink saltwater?

Could we, in theory, use something like CRISPR to give a new baby replacement super-kidneys (or whatever organ it is that makes drinking saltwater be a bad time)? It seems like if we cracked that, we’d be set as a species....

alvvayson ,

This is the best answer.

Also, we need a lot of freshwater for our food (plants and animals). The amount we personally use for drinking is neglible.

It would solve nothing.

Now, if we could grow something like corn or soy with salt water… That would be a game changer.

On the other hand, we already have the technology to desalinate water. It’s mostly a cost and energy issue, not a technology issue.

alvvayson ,

Good point. Another reason to favor desalination.

alvvayson ,

In the winter, I emit more when I WFH.

At the office, I don’t need to heat my house. And my bike+train commute emits very little.

alvvayson , (edited )

This is the answer, I work in a corporate office that is heated regardless of whether I am present or not.

But to be fair, the office is never empty during office hours, so it’s not like an individual working from home would allow them to turn off the heat.

alvvayson ,

Yes, I do. It saves easily 50 kWh of natural gas consumption per day.

On the days nobody will be home, we just let the thermostaat on 13 degrees Celsius for the whole day. When we are home it’s 18 degrees during the day.

alvvayson ,

It’s reasonably insulated - above average for my location, but it does get cold in the winter.

Obviously, I’m only saving this heating fuel on the colder winter days.

alvvayson ,

At this point, it’s only surprising if something Trump related turns out to be genuine.

alvvayson ,

That ruling is limited. It only applies for jobs where there is no local job site, e.g. construction workers who have changing construction sites.

If you work in an office or factory, or if your work is limited to a certain region (e.g. you clean houses in an area), then commuting to the office/factory/region is not part of the work day.

Otherwise you would get weird situations where people could apply to distant jobs and the employer having to pay those costs and hours. Get a job with a 2 hour one-way commute and you would then only need to work 4 hours… obviously not going to work.

Many employers in Europe actually do pay for some or all commute costs in order to attract workers, but usually they don’t pay for the commute hours.

alvvayson ,

Sure, but at least in the EU, that would be unlawful discrimination under current rules.

Only if the job has specific requirements, e.g. firefighters need to be at the station within X minutes, can you impose a distance requirement.

So you would need to change those rules then.

alvvayson ,

Private companies moderating content != censorship.

And I think you have a wrapped few of how it went down.

Pre-musk moderation was a necessary evil to combat spam, fake news and hate speech. Nobody was cheering, except when some notorious idiots got the boot. Then we were just laughing at the idiots. Fine, call it cheering if you want.

Now, we are mostly just all laughing at Musk destroying his investment.

I don’t care if he censors the UAW or whatever. Go ahead and censor everyone except dogecoin evangelists.

And yeah, people can say stupid shit I disagree with. But I reserve the right to laugh.

CEO pay has skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978 ( www.epi.org )

“average top CEO compensation was $15.6 million in 2021, up 9.8% since 2020. In 2021, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 399-to-1 under the realized measure of CEO pay; that is up from 366-to-1 in 2020 and a big increase from 20-to-1 in 1965 and 59-to-1 in 1989”

alvvayson ,

The CEO is the link between the company and the shareholders.

They get paid by the shareholders to extract as much value as they can from the company to the shareholders.

On the other hand, if the company needs more investment, the CEO is the one who has to attract that investment, too. Otherwise the company will stall or go bankrupt.

alvvayson ,

Spending 5 minutes on Google shows that the number of construction workers is at all time highs.

It’s just that a hot economy requires even more labour.

My 2 cents, the economy could use a rebalancing by raising wages and reducing profits a bit.

If salaries of construction workers get raised from $40K to $50K, then the number of openings will go down and the remaining workers can focus on the more important work while getting a better wage.

alvvayson ,

Perhaps, those are the BLS figures from 2023.

In terms of kWh per kWh, by how much does greenhouse CO2 from running an air-conditioner heat up the rest of the Earth?

It is said that ACs are counterproductive in fight against global warming, in that while they may make the local environment temporarily livable, the greenhouse gases produced while making the electricity needed to operate them heat up the rest of the Earth by much more than the relief from the AC itself. By how much exactly is...

alvvayson ,

A/C for cooling is one of those things that highly correlates with the availability of solar power.

So your assumption that they are running on coal is suspect.

Heatpumps running in the winter are a more pressing concern, since those are highly correlated with the unavailability of solar and therefore often run on coal or gas (unless wind or hydro is available)

Even so, burning gas in a power plant and then running a heat pump is more efficient than burning gas to warm a house.

alvvayson ,

Using a static model is too simplistic.

An A/C consumes more energy when the temperature difference is higher, which is when it’s sunny outside. At those points in time, the grid is receiving a lot of solar power.

So just saying a grid has 10% solar is too simplistic. That grid probably has 30% solar during summer noon and 0% solar on a winter morning.

If your goal is to save emissions, your best bet is to get some solar panels if you can, run the A/C when the sun is shining. Have a well insulated house that acts as a thermal battery and turn the A/C off during the peaks of the duck curve.

alvvayson ,

Fear + stupidity = conspiracy

Sadly, we have no cure for stupidity.

I guess the rest of us will need to figure out living in a world where we have conquered lions, bears, the Black Death and famine, but not yet the stupidity of our fellow countrymen.

alvvayson ,

The number of highly educated idiots is too damn high.

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