I’m not an American and I read the whole 45 pages indictment. One one hand, because it was highly entertaining to read Agent Oranges tweet in such a serious context, on the other hand because, in a way, this affects the whole world. The defendant was such a horrible (and effective) role model to authoritarian politicians around the globe and I honestly believe the US won’t recover from a not-guilty verdict or even worse, a second term of that ape.
But even IF he somehow, miraculously, gets a prison sentence - there is still so much to be done. The whole apparatus that enabled him should face justice. Not only his direct co-conspirators but also republican congressmen & -women that violated their oath to protect your republic from exatly the tyranny that the defendant tried to establish.
But who am I kidding; In reality I am already waiting for the announcement of his second term, the pardoning of each and everyone of his co-conspirators plus a self-pardon (how crazy is that?!) from '47. Thats how much trust I have in your system at this point.
That’s the sad part. Trump couldn’t have possibly done this alone. It was the result of countless failures of both the moral fortitude of our political ruling class and the system of checks and balances itself. Even if Trump the Traitor takes the fall for this, the framework for his authoritarian ascension still remains firmly in place, and the next demagogue to come around will have all of Trump’s dumb mistakes as a roadmap to avoid.
It turns out, a lot of US politics is built on norms. You’re not supposed to hire your daughter and son-in-law, then let your son-in-law be in charge of freakin’ middle east peace, and then walk out with billions in investments.
You’re not supposed to lie all the time, and then be supported.
You’re not supposed to grab women by the you know what and get elected.
You’re not supposed to lie and cheat and do whatever. The Bulwark has an awesome piece on the corruption of Lindsay Graham. It is very informative about how it takes more people to make a Trump.
The apparatus should face justice as well as be evaluated. I could argue the electoral college system had one useful trait and that was to be a hedge against populist politicians. In this event that system has been shown the be ineffective. A political party has been able to weaponize stupidity against our nation.
And the sad part is there are no laws preventing him from running and winning office if a guilty verdict was the outcome for any federal indictments. Who’d thunk it, the Forefathers didn’t foresee this happening. Apologies for grammar.
I think that’s the core of the problem. I don’t believe there are any laws or rulings addressing any of these issues. Of course congress won’t touch on that subject without a complete overhaul of the way things operate in that dumpster fire (all of them). The only current method to remove a sitting president is through impeachment. Here’s to hoping the current republicans have the berries to not nominate the cancer for 2024.
There are downsides to nuclear these days. Incredibly high cost with a massive delay before they’re functioning. Solar + wind + pumped hydro + district heating is where it’s at in 2024.
Also, tie together more countries’ power grids to even out production and demand of renewables, and reduce the need for other backup sources.
For a fraction of the cost of nuclear, increase the storage capacity as well. We’ve had days where the price per MWh was negative in many hours, because of excess production.
The barriers to carbon free energy aren’t technical, they’re purely political.
it has got cheaper, but it has to get cheap enough that you can buy enough batteries with the difference. I’m not sure it has become that cheap. Maybe these sodium battery things will get developed.
No, there is pumped storage. Honestly, despite the plethora of start-ups claiming to have a solution (sodium batteries, molten-salt, etc) The only really proven way to store electricity for later is pumped storage, but that relies on geography (hills) which not everyone has. Batteries are great for phones, and cars but they simply don’t scale to countries.
That is actually very impressive. Thanks! I remain a bit skeptical as its only 1/5th of what they need and it’s only one region of one (rich) country. Still, 10GW of lithium battery would be one hell of a fire ;-)
Or convert excess to hydrogen and provide resilience, or have arrangements for industry to consume the excess. Or ramp down your generation at those times. Or shift excess to neighbouring grids.
This is wrong. Right now, europe is experiencing high pressure and doesn’t have any wind. Check this out its map that shows you how much wind is being produced right now! Can you provide a source that says " the wind is always blowing somewhere" or is it just a platitude?
You probably also didnt heard about Thorium based molten salt reactors, they are much safer than conventional nuclear, also cheaper, and you can have a 50MW installation in space not much larger than a shipping container. A 50MW solar installation is close to 1km2 and thats without any storage included. It even can be modified to run on spent fuel of conventional nuclear power plants.
Please understand that negative prices are the market for electricity breaking down! That is not a good thing. It should mean that if you have solar panels on your roof you have to pay to participate in the national grid because you are dumping energy into the grid when it can’t use it, but special rules have been made for renewable plants. Literally, imagine a contract-to-supply for wind or solar…
I understand very well the implications of the negative price, which is why I advocated NOT to spend trillions in nuclear, when issues of balancing demand and production can be solved for a fraction of what nuclear costs.
Still not a reason to not build them, the entire point is for nuclear to handle the load when solar/wind can’t provide due to weather. Other renewables will still be producing the bulk of the power we need, but at night nuclear will be handling any demand spikes, each of them would greatly reduce the number of batteries required to satisfy the demand. They can stay until our solar output is so high we can just start electrolyzing water into hydrogen as energy storage.
Though pumped hydro is sometimes opposed by environmental groups because it does absolutely decimate local environments.
I have high hopes for sodium batteries. The ones that have been released on the market are simply perfect (if scaled up) for local grid storage in countries with a lot of space and will hopefully get better energy density in line with Lithium Iron Phosphate with time.
Salt batteries have been the cold fusion of battery tech for like 10 years, but now it is finally coming to fruition. I hope to install a solar installation with salt batteries in 5 years or so, myself.
If you’re suggesting using Nuclear as a peaker plant or to turn it off and on whenever wind/solar is not up for it then I’m sorry to say that it’s not viable. Nuclear generators don’t handle well being turned off and on.
You can make Thorium reactors much smaller and cheaper, basically a 50MW unit is not much larger than a shipping container, while being much more safe than standard nuclear plants. The largest issue is over-regulation of the nuclear power in general.
A 50MW of solar installation is HUGE, and thats 50MW at the sunniest part of the planet: newsaf.cgtn.com/news/2019-12-15/…/index.html, We are basically talking about close to a square kilometer installation…
there is simply no way to call a 50MW solar plant cleaner than nuclear and its probably not even that much cheaper in the end. Compare that to a shipping container sized reactor… Only thing in the way, is the nuclear scare and government regulations.
The cost is less from the design and more from the safety regulations. Best case scenario the state just starts making nuclear power plants, it’s just not a good idea to mix profit incentive with nuclear.
Ah, yeah, Venom is just a suit in the same way that a TARDIS is just a box, heh.
IIRC, isn’t it that you don’t actually wear a symobiote as much as it kinda completely absorbs you? Sort of like … After a caterpillar goes inside a cocoon, it … Dissolves. Into caterpillar goop. And then the goop reforms into a butterfly.
In the limited series from the 90s, Venom: Carnage Unleashed, Venom is thrown in to a train by carnage and merges in to a stripe on the train to hide and escape.
It used to be that they paired a known word with an unknown word, and if you got the known word right you would pass no matter what you wrote for the unknown one.
I remember reading that somewhere (probably 4chan) figured out a somewhat high accuracy way to tell which was the control and which was the variable, and started spam solving them by correctly doing the assumed control but putting the same thing (knowing 4chan, probably a slur) for the assumed variable until the system got enough confirmation to move the word to the control rotation and started accepting the word for that. Can't remember where so it may be unconfirmed
I fucking hate motion-sensing faucets so much. We can edit the human genome, but are unable to make a motion sensor that actually fucking works?! Fuck outta here.
I actually prefer the old-school “push-down and have limited time” type at this point.
If they only relied on the sensor it would constantly turn on and off which is something I have never seen on that kind of faucets. I think there is always a delay before shutting down but sometimes that delay is set so low that it feels like you need to constantly activate the sensor.
Edit: clarification: What I meant is that if you just move once your hand in front of the sensor it should remain ON longer than just the time your hand was detected. I have never seen a sensor that literally activates only to the millisecond when something is moving. Even just to prevent false activation for half a second you kind of need a delay in there. If not you could have a 100ms activation that doesn’t even have the time to let the water out by opening the faucet and you create unnecessary wear on the valve system. My point being it never really makes sense in engineering to have a button or sensor direct output used. Usually you have mechanisms to prevent “bouncing” and so on. But I’m no plumber so it is just assumptions.
I can only see wheelchairs being an issue, but you need special toilets and sinks for that anyway. Any foot pedal should be able to be activated with a crutch or prosthetic.
You have correctly identified that it’s not a lack of technological advancement that is holding our society back.
Now go solve social sciences, economics, psychology, and neuroscience. Come back and we’ll talk about how to design a world where nobody happens to install a motion sensor with a wrong range.
I always hate that argument. Why be a decent human without the threat of eternal damnation? I mean that threat doesn’t seem to stop a vast number of religious people from being unbelievably cruel to their fellow humans, so…
wtf this guy is still around?! I watching some cringy debate video with him vs Christopher Hitchens (RIP) or someone like 15 years ago when I was an edgy teenager and YouTube was new (shit it’s actually like 20 years ago fml)
The main issue is that religion is something that makes you feel better when you have emotional pain, like a loved one dying. Like any painkiller, it has a purpose and if you abuse it you can deaden your response to actual issues that need your attention.
Originally Christianity was mostly about helping the poor, sick, dying, etc. That genuinely makes you feel better about yourself. Judaism has a lot of references to remaining strong in the face of adversity. Religions are just mental tools. What you do with that tool is up to you. If you hurt other people, it’s your fault.
Please don’t misunderstand. I was not saying that that was the be-all-end-all of religion. I wasn’t speaking against religion in general, just in regards to the irony of suggesting that religion makes people more good. At all.
I don’t. It tells you, in clear language, the type of person that this “loving Christian” is. They literally can’t imagine altruism, and that says more about them than what they think they’re saying about me.
That kind of person is revealing an innate sense of right and wrong that’s independent of their teachings. You should fear the Christian who’s envious of your disbelief in hell.
Yep. Even though I’m not an atheist, I still don’t understand this argument. I’m a good person (or at least try to be) for the sake of being a good person, because I don’t need to be threathened with eternal damnation in order to not murder people.
The only way I would touch these DNA tests is if I was somehow assured that it was completely anonymous and would be shredded as soon as I've seen it.
They literally turn around and sell your data, grouped along with others, to whoever wants it, and then get hacked and lose personal info. Hot mess.
You can delete your dna after submitting it and viewing your results. Most dna sites have that option. Just curious, what are you afraid someone would do with your dna results? The government in America already keeps dna results on all babies born in the 80’s and later.
You have more to risk by joining NDMP to be a bone marrow donor, but in that case you’d probably want them to use your dna to find patients you could help. I honestly think everyone should join NDMP. I don’t work for them, or have anything to gain from their organization. I just think everyone should join and help people with cancer.
Just curious, what are you afraid someone would do with your dna results? The government in America already keeps dna results on all babies born in the 80’s and later.
Corporations aren’t exactly known for being honest or fair, or following the law, when they have valuable data to sell. They might tell you that they’ll delete your data but there’s always a chance that they’ll retain it and sell it under the table if someone makes a compelling offer. Or an employee could steal the data and sell it secretly, or they could have a security breach and someone could make off with it.
Why would any of that be bad? Because health insurance companies are salivating over new ways to deny your claims (or crank up your premiums) and genetic data that reveals an elevated risk of a serious condition is a damned good excuse for them to do just that.
You can delete your dna after submitting it and viewing your results.
But how do you know it’s actually deleted. Like, unrecoverable deleted and not just soft deleted. I can’t change my DNA when the data is eventually leaked.
They also sell it along with personally identifying inform information to your health insurance provider and the government. It’s quite bullshit and should be illegal.
We just saw the episode where the wraith took over Kinko’s body and threatened to kill her if O’Brien didn’t reconfigure the comm relays. I thought, “Here’s your way out, Miles!”
I’m glad that O’Brien got so much focus on DS9 after being a side character on TNG, but man did they ever fuck with him.
But then if they did acknowledge all the shit the writers put him through they would have one seriously messed up officer who should probably be discharged.
I had to give up on The Black Mirror after that episode where they have to exercise to earn credits and are forced to watch advertising. Then that girl thought she could make it out by singing but had to do porn instead. Couldn’t watch anymore after that.
I mean wasn't season 1 episode 1 where we all watched a guy fuck a pig? Like if that wasn't enough to get you to stop then you probably should go ahead and watch the rest of the series.
Ya, I watched that one too and thought it was funny. Then for some reason the workout thing really got to me hard too. I was working at a bank as a manager that was literally scamming people out of their money/ homes and hated my life. Living in a shoebox and barely able to afford my apartment. I hated my life. It really hit me hard.
FWIW, I think that episode is one of the weakest early season episodes. It’s somehow both too explicit and not explicit enough, because their world doesn’t make any sense beyond simply “capitalism”. The rest are a lot more in the realm of existential horror and questioning the morality of things. Black mirror just isn’t a good medium for an explanation of why capitalism is evil.
“You’re not being sacked, no, we are releasing you into a world of opportunity!” Yes, a friend of mine actually heard that one a while ago when he was ‘let go’. 🤨
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