Overzeetop

Not only that, but SP500 pays dividends practically every year, whereas gold costs money to store securely. $15M in SP500 would have netting something around $300k last year in dividends alone.

Solid fuel for rockets burns relatively slowly at 1 atm and in solid form, much like a flare, though still faster than I would expect you’d want for a hot pot unless these were a hybrid (so no oxidizer in the pellets, just a solid fuel source like modified PVC, with a separate oxidizer like nitrous oxide). The water was replacing the jet fuel, which - assuming it was similar to Jet A - is basically kerosene. Though I’d be worried what modifiers or stabilizers were used for a green flame if I were cooking over it. I’ve made green flames with boric acid and methanol for Halloween decorations (outdoor, of course), but who knows what is causing it in their fuel.

A Bell, Book, and Chicken in a Hatbox

I mean, that’s a weird-ass AI prompt. But if fascism wins and you voted third party, yes - it’s partly* your fault unless you’re too stupid to understand how first past the post voting works.

*conditionals against massive fascist party majority states notwithstanding.

My only reason to believe that is not what is happening is that China, and the Chinese, are too smart to using coal as a peaking or emergency source of power. The only thing worse than coal for peaking is nuclear. Oil, Gas, and hydro are all much better for short-to-mid term peaking and batteries - something they’re very good at and have vast resources for - are perfect for short term emergency/failover loads. I believe (without documentation) that they are building extra capacity for the possibility of another expansion - the incubation of so many “third world” economies and partnerships across Asia and Africa to spur demand for their domestic production. If they don’t use it, it was a jobs program; if they find they need it, they will accept short term cash and economic power for a worsening of the world environment. In a way, the largest communist country on earth is also the largest capitalist power. Ironic.

his past year, China couldn’t run their hydro at peak capacity because of a drought.

Well, yes. The simple facts we have are that fossil fuel use is up. What happens next year will be speculation, but what we know is that they are using more coal this year, and they are hedging their future bets by building out their coal generation capacity. So if climate change means a further drop in hydro output, or more cloud cover where they install solar, or they need to make more power than they’re installing because the world wants more steel (I’m in the building industry and steel supply is still a bit tight) - they can start belching out a massive amount of CO2.

Only time will tell - and I hope you turn out to be the one who is right :-)

China has increased their coal generation in terms of absolute GW, and increase the coal usage per GW this year. I’m not sure where your data is from. Here’s mine:

“China’s CO2 emissions have seen explosive growth over recent decades, pausing only for brief periods due to cyclical shocks.” and “…CO2 is rebounding in 2023 from zero-Covid lows (see: Why emissions grew in Q3 of 2023)…”

both from a link in the original posted article, https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2024-after-record-growth-in-clean-energy/

“Domestic coal output tonnage has continued to grow in 2023, following the steep increase in 2022 resulting from government efforts to boost output. However, coal quality has declined, resulting in a much smaller increase in energy supply from domestic coal. Poor quality of coal supplied has also pushed users to shift to imported coal for blending, the result being a record surge in imports.”

https://energyandcleanair.org/china-energy-and-emissions-trends-june-snapshot

The analysis points to a reduction in 2024, but that is speculation. What is clear is that 2023 is higher. And if the Chinese economy should pick back up and steel and concrete production come back up to recent historic levels, the CO2 is definitely going go continue to go up for a while. They’re bringing renewables online, yes, but if we look at what is actually happening the CO2 is currently increasing. Both of us would be speculating beyond that.

That says nothing about reducing total energy output, though. They’re only talking about paying back installation costs for additional capacity. Adding 50% more capacity and then running everything at 80%, for example, still means burning more coal and making more power. And, often, running a plant at below optimal will decrease it’s efficiency, leading to a higher CO2 load for every kWh. It’s an incentive for growth and surplus capacity, not an incentive to lower carbon emissions.

I presume “decline” is used in the percentage sense and not the absolute sense. If the total power amount of carbon-based fuel generation plants is increasing, and the fuel is coal ©, then the carbon emissions must go up in an absolute sense. But the rapid deployment of non-carbon fuel power sources are increasing faster than the the carbon based, so percentage will go down. Am I reading this wrong?

Also, in a linked article: "And, as Myllyvirta highlights, numbers in the communique stating that coal consumption rose 4.3% in 2022 and total energy use rising 2.9% “appear to contradict weak or falling industrial output”

So consumption of coal - the most carbon-producing fuel - rose in 2022, and according to this article their energy consumption jumped again after Covid restrictions were lifted this year. Renewable installation is rising faster than carbon installation (280GW installed this year vs 136GW of coal “under construction”). The data given in these articles seems intentionally inconsistent, from annual installation (only given for renewable) to total capacity (only given for future Coal). One has to wonder if The Guardian is running their articles through some kind of Donald Trump AI filter to ensure that no verifiable content gets printed.

Its a joke - yes.

Though, realistically, an empathy test would probably filter out a large portion of the haters. It’s harder to hate when you internalize the condition of others.

Sad, but true. About the only way to control it would be to require online comments to be directly identifiable to the person. Even Republicans appear to be embarrassed - and attempt to expunge their vitriol - when their homophobic, misogynistic, and racist comments and activities online are publicized. And even that wouldn’t eliminate it, it would just push it back underground to further fester.

And we know how strict these big companies are about voluntary compliance to the GDPR. ;-) I’m glad at least someone is putting in rules against this fuckery but, sadly, once that data is sold to the first outside vendor (Cambridge Analytica, Palantir, etc.) it’s out there and lives on the internet forever, even if the big boys are brought to heel by the EU.

If you’ve ever had a contact allow a service to read their contacts, you are in their database. That then gets cross-referenced with the (relatively few) online store providers the first time you use that address - or the obfuscated emailname.store@* version that was meant to serialize or identify spammers but which the simplest script can undo. Now your shipping/billing address, phone, and partial purchase history can be linked with every social media company that weird chick who did upside down keg hits with you that one night decided to allow contact access. Or your aunt Gertrude.

And it’s not even that complicated. Are you in the contacts list of anyone who has ever used the internet? Google, yahoo, or microsoft definitely know who you are in their internal databases and can create a web of contacts and likely contacts just from a couple of emails. Heck, I remember when there were “contact synchronization” websites where you could transfer your contacts between gmail addresses, or to/from other mail services. It was free, so I can just about guarantee they’re selling all of your info, which has been checked and corroborated by however many of your contacts decided to use their services.

That “not having” Facebook or [insert nearly any other major information-based corporation] means that those companies don’t have your information and profile already completed in their database.

Indeed. A relatively lightly administered area which was predominantly (3/4) Muslim. Then Britain took it over following WW1 and said “The Zionists supported us during the war so we’re going to carve out a Jewish homeland in this space where they say they used to live a couple millenia ago and we’re going to pretty much ignore that there’s someone already living there.”

Now you have people displaced who felt their homeland was taken and people transplanted who believe their homeland is due them and the most extreme factions have guns and bombs to argue about it. There is no solution where Israel remains and stays at peace with it’s neighbors, some of whom were displaced to make space or Israel.

It saddens me that this is the case. My great grand-parents were Jewish and fled the pogroms in western Russia to come to the US. Zionists are a stain on our religion.

Terrorists and Religious zealots (a Venn diagram which is nearly a perfect, single circle) will never recognize basic humanity, because power and control are more important than any human life. To expect peace in a land claimed as sacred by multiple groups is simply guaranteeing unending violence.

I don’t know how deep that area is, but damage to a pipe and the comm cable cut makes me wonder if it was some numbnut dragging an anchor - plain incompetence rather than an act of sabotage. Not that it wasn’t sabotage, just that it seems sloppy for someone looking to disrupt gas supplies.

LOL

Sorry, in advance, for the long, descriptive post, but the value of a dedicate, slide mute switch is somewhat nuanced.

The mute switch on an iPhone is a physical slide switch. Without looking, you can feel if it’s muted (back) or active (front) position. Alternately, you can see the condition as, when it’s in the “mute” position, it has an exposed orange (painted) indicator. Neither of these verifications require that the phone be awake or to light up the screen. It can also be activated with the device off, so that if you turn the phone on in a quiet place you don’t have to wait for the UI to become responsive (usually after start notifications have actuated, which occur before software buttons can be pressed to mute the phone). It is a single action to mute, compared to a 5 gesture sequence to silence the phones primary sounds (which can be ringtone OR playback volume, but not both) and an 6-8 gesture sequence (depending on the wake-status of the last used app) to silence the secondary phone sound. Note: I’m assuming that face unlock is active and you are staring at your phone obtrusively; entry of the unlock code would add 7-9 additional touch gestures.

While I agree that a button is nice, it still takes at least two actions - press the button and visually confirm its actuation puts it into the desired mode. There are times when you are unsure what mode the phone is in. On an iPhone, that is not visible from any screen until you either a) wake the phone and actuate a volume button (neither visual nor haptic feedback occurs when a volume button is pressed) or are logged into the phone (two minimum gestures plus face authorization) and use the action center (swipe function) to visually verify th volume position.

Now, you could easily argue that this is fucking terrible UI design, and I would 100% agree with you. I would, likewise agree, that most technical features on an iPhone are certifiably obtuse - ex: you cannot turn on your hotspot without entering the settings app; it’s not even an action center icon option as it is on Android. I would add that it’s also monumental dumbfuckery that your hotspot is the name of your phone and cannot be changed. Or that there is no function to alter the Prompt volume in the phone (ie. for GPS directions) unless the prompt audio is actively playing - difficult if the prompt volume is accidentally (or temporarily) set to zero. In 3rd party apps the prompt volume is several menus deep; for the OEM map application, it doesn’t exist - there is literally no setting.

But, it remains - if you want to mute the alerts on your phone, the switch requires fewer actions and zero view of the device to actuate, and zero activation of the screen or login to verify it’s condition. You may never need to discretely silence your phone or check that it is in silent mode without taking the phone out and unlocking it, but many of us find it quite useful.

The author is under the impression that the button will be infinitely remappable. Given Apple’s history, I expect it to be rather limited. I will sorely miss the mute switch which has both a tactile and visible position indicator which does not require waking the phone, or even having the phone on, to actuate (should you want to turn on your phone without getting bombarded with notification sounds).