Manuel_D

> they will absolutely be legalized on some party line vote in the middle of the night.

What would be legalized? You realize that recording people in public is already legal, right? I'm puzzled where people are getting the idea that Flock is doing something illegal.

So you don't understand that briandear's comment is a question?

That's a near verbatim quote of the comment.

Again, this glosses over the scale of grid storage. If the US decides to provision a day's worth of electricity storage then, that amounts to 12 years worth of global battery production.

The question of how to supply daily and seasonal storage requirements demanded by intermittent sources remains unanswered, even if we assume battery recycling is performed. The US alone uses 12,000 Gwh of electricity daily and about 30,000 GWh of energy daily (transportation, burning gas for smelters, heating, etc).

Even just a day's worth of energy is decades worth of global lithium ion battery output. For just one country. People rarely appreciate the scale demanded to make grid storage feasible.

By simply asking "do you support nuclear power" is not? How is it less controversial to lead with an assertion that alternatives are not suitable?

In what world is simply asking if someone supports nuclear power confrontational?

It really is weird how many people are enthusiastic about stemming climate change but don't support one of the few non-intermittent sources for carbon free energy.

Cost is influenced by demand. To put this in perspective about 60 TWh of electricity is used globally per day. About 1 TWh of lithium batteries were produced last year.

Even if every country tried to provision just one day of storage, that would cause a massive spike in demand that would inevitably drive up prices. Not to mention it would make EVs more expensive which would have its own negative consequences for emissions reductions.

The idea has been around for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas

The obstacle for this process (and in synthetic hydrocarbon fuels more generally) is obtaining the carbon dioxide efficiently. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is in too low of a concentration to be viable. You could source the carbon from coal, but that makes it no longer carbon neutral.

Prometheus fuels is one of several startups pursuing this kind of technology. But it's still blocked on effective air capture of carbon dioxide.

Nothing in your link contradicts the fact that the vast majority of abortions are not terminating rape-related pregnancies.

My understanding is that these apps' TOS explains that by using the app you consent to having third party traffic routed through your device. For example [1] the Hola VPN's free users agree to let third party traffic get routed through their networks. Now, how closely users actually read the TOS is a different story, but it's arguably not malware on the grounds that users are, at least on paper, informed and agree to this behavior.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hola_(VPN)

But crucially:

> However, the court did not reverse its holding in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition as to virtual child pornography which is not obscene under the Miller standard

Not quite. There can be more restrictions on the distribution or promotion of obscene material, but mere possession of obscene material is protected by the first Amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_v._Georgia

The reason why the Supreme Court upheld bans on possessing CSAM is not because it's obscene, but because it incentivizes abuse of children to produce it.

At least in the US, fictional content is legal even if it depicts minors sexually: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._Free_Speech_Coalit...

There have been a handful of convictions based on fictional content, but usually the defendants also possessed real CSAM so there wasn't much point in contesting the charges over fictional images.

But delaying the opening probably means that the decommissioning date is also pushed back. The total life span is probably unchanged.

I mostly see commenters quipping about how this will just mean the concert will have to be re poured, resulting in yet more emissions. The bulk of the comments are about the protestors, not the environmental impact of this data center.

Are we talking about the environmental impact? Or are we talking about the vandalism perpetrated by activists? Attention on the protestors is not necessarily attention on the protestors' cause.

True, but if each run of CI takes 6 weeks then you're going to vastly hamper development.

I'm no mechanical engineer, but can't any motor be run with greater power if the fuel mixture settings are remapped? Is it possible to design a motor that runs at 25 horsepower at leaner emissions-compliant settings, but can't run at higher power if a user changes the fueling settings to a richer mixture? I'm skeptical if it's even possible to design an engine that runs at 25 horsepower when complying with emissions requirements, but can't be tuned to run at higher power if users have the ability to change fuel settings.

> They were purposefully avoiding the regulation by telling farmers, "do not loosen that screw, or you'll break the law, wink-wink!"

They were? The whole point of John Deere locking down the firmware was to prevent this metaphorical loosening of the screw. It looks more like John Deere invested heavily in preventing modification of its hardware, much to the chagrin of farmers who wanted to cheat emissions.

It's more like: every engine has a metaphorical screw that can change the fuel mixture - this is inherent to combustion engines. John Deere made it really difficult or impossible to change that screw. Now farmers regained the ability to change that screw under the guise of repair.

The point is that when the firmware was locked down, it was vastly more difficult to bypass emissions restrictions. I'm not sure what you mean when you say John Deere was cheating the system. Arguably they were taking compliance more strictly before this ruling.

Ah sorry, I meant to write "calls for". To be more specific:

> he hilariously tries to convince people that the best way to have democracy is to not have it at all. a kind of “to protect your freedom, we’ll take away your freedom” idea that only a certain kind of person falls for.

Where does he say anything like this? You made some specific allegations about what he said in his manifesto. Can you point to the passage that you're referring to when you make the above point about not having a democracy?

Is making the government's job hard a good thing? If medicare delivers care half as good as it could have been, that's a good thing? If fraudsters go unchecked because the FBI is stymied, is the country better off?

Facebook was created more than a decade earlier than your link. Of course if the government starts to threaten to regulate social media, Meta will want to influence the decision to benefit them. But Facebook changed the world well before the regulation push, and I'm pretty certain Facebook would have preferred that the government continued to remain uninvolved.

> How would you interpret Thiel's “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible"?

The point is that democracies tend to want to erode liberties. Take the age gating bills floating around as an example.

The solution Thiel proposes is not eliminating democracy. It's building technology that governments cannot easily control. Cryptocurrency is one good example of this.

This is a company where 88% of employe political contributions went to Democrats. Even if many employees are apolitical, the allegations of fascism are absurd.

So your answer is yes? The companies like GM, Cadillac, etc. they were buildings tanks to defeat the Nazis were themselves fascists, because producing armarments is an inherently fascist endeavor? Even if the military they're equipping is actively fighting against real fascists?

Palantir builds analytics, tools to better use and interpret the data that the government already has. The data collection, the actual surveillance, is done by the government.

Palantir started with analytics because the founders believed the US was making poor use of data, and needed better tools.

Yes, the objections to Palantir are mostly just partisan politics. Efforts to portray Karp or Thiel as especially dangerous usually involves some taking some quote and applying a massive leap in logic.

Like, Thiel says that it's easier to change the world by inventing new technology than through democracy. And people turn around and try quote this to prop up the claim that he wants to abolish democracy.

I'd say they changed the world first and foremost through technology. Their lobbying effort is mostly focused on keeping the government from interfering with their technology efforts.

But back to the main point, quoting someone saying you can change the world though technology instead of democracy and trying to use such a statement as evidence that they want to abolish democracy is nonsense.

Again, where does Karp or Thiel say they want to get rid of democracy? They've said that government is bad at solving a lot of problems, sure. But that's a far, far cry from calling for the abolition of democracy.