pineaux

The article can also be seen as a proto-structuralist argument. If you take this argument a bit further,you could say that trees do not exist. Could you point me out the defining characteristic of a tree? A structuralist would ask. Is it because it is big? But what of bonzais? Or banana trees? Can't we just name trees bushes? Etc. It's an interesting way of looking at things but it will not teach you a lot. It just shows you that definitions are relative, not absolute.

Nah, this is just an apologetic just look at the amount of engineering they put in their Thunderbolt 4 cables: https://www.lumafield.com/article/usb-c-cable-charger-head-t...

Its crazy stuff. You are telling me they cant think of a secure way to use a mechanical, screwed system that is able to cope with the thermal expansion. I find that hard to believe. I believe it is mostly cost and profit incentive, MAYBE safety, but I also doubt that last one.

I am also curious...

My dad was setting up local factories for similar pots in several nations in Africa 20 years ago. They sourced local clay and sawdust and provided plans for clay presses. There was a fund that provided the starting capital and the silver solution. The same fund also provided plans and technical help with the construction of locally built rope-pumps. These technologies were used in tandem to provide relatively easy (drinking) water to remote communities. The most amazing effect was that women from these villages would save a lot of time everyday and used that time for some little side hussling and village life really improved.

This

I was wondering if "earthquake lights" might have something to do with this myth.

Those strange lights that are seen in the sky with strong earthquakes. Believed to be caused by huge electro mechanical forces of large earthquakes.

I was wondering what a Thunderbird had to do with an earthquake and suddenly remembered an earlier post here on HN.

Sound like a plausible explanation to me:

1) there is an unrelated famine.

2) suddenly eerie lighting like flashes are seen in the air above the sea. 3) followed by earthquake tremors. 4) followed by a tsunami. Many canoes are destroyed. A landslide buried a forrest. 5) the tsunami throws whale(s) onto the beach. Solving the famine by delivering a large amount of whale meat.

6) unrelated, the rains come and the animal and agriculture can thrive again.

7) the aforementioned steps are linked together in a logical coherent (be it a fantastical) story.

Or: It has nothing to do with real life events and was just thought-up by a creative storyteller.

I dont think in words at all. That is why -quite often- I know what i want to tell but the correct word just doesnt pop up in my head. I can then explain the concept and other people can help me find the word in question. Even while writing this little response, this happened. You see in the first sentence: I know there is a nice word that could be used instead of "doesn't pop up" it resembles the word "evades"? You know when something just keeps out of your grasp, that word... my mind does a little movie and my "mouthbrain" tries to find the nice words for it. That is how I perceive it to be. I dont know how other people perceive this. I imagine they have little words popping up or something. But I dont understand how that kind of thinking could be used to think and reason. How can relationships between concepts be intuitively understood if one does not have a mental picture?

There are so many cases in which a regulated market shows lower costs, that not seeing it is just not wanting to see because it touches your core belief system instead of using reasoning. Regulation is needed to ensure property rights, contracts law, ward of monopolies, ward of externalisation of costs by companies unto the general population or the environment, to stop lies from being told as much as possible, to destroy rent-seeking behaviors. These are all legitimate reasons for government regulations and make the market better. There is of course a time and place for regulations. There IS such a thing as too much regulations.

You are blinded by your love of the market. "The market" (the unregulated one) is a very unstable and unsatisfying beast. It is precisely because of regulations that western countries and some Asian ones are so succesfull.

Many regulations are needed to keep the "free" market from destroying all the good that it can do. One famous example is monopolists that are created in a free market and then use their power to make the market unfree. Only government regulations destroy these monopolies with anti-trust laws. Then there is pricing in so called free markets that are not in fact free. Such as pricing of infrastructure and services.

To name one perfect example of where government regulations lower the prices of services is in the healthcare industry. In most western countries (not the us tho) healthcare is relatively cheap and also accessible. This is because it is regulated. In the US it is barely regulated and very expensive. Without regulation the market will also destroy the environment. This is a "hidden cost" or an externality. I'm not patiënt enough to write a more coherent and better written response. But if you are at all interested in learning something or allowing yourself to be disproved, I would suggest you start by googling: "succesful regulation" or "examples of market failure".

This is the reason Americans are losing their edge. There is heavy risk aversion. It is a cultural dead-end. Risk needs to be counterbalanced by securities, but risk cannot altogether be avoided. Avoiding risk has a very heavy intended punishment.

The other side of the same coin is also not good, to take too much risk. But all in all, current American culture looks insane from a distance. Especially concerning how kids are reared. Recipe for drug addiction and depressions.

Yes if you have a reasonable person in front of you. But your children can be very unreasonable and cruel just because they are playing. The "why" questions will just continue until you are exhausted and they will not have done it anyways. Also, "because I say so" is the truth and the reason. "I say so because I want you to do it, and I want you to do it because I say so. " Its a chicken/egg problem

Sure, just throw your certainties in my face like the truth. You name prisons, but you forget that until recently, most children were subjected to physical violence and most of them did not go to prison. But if you read the above correctly you would understand that it is not about breaking at all. On the contrary. It is about proportionality and that is also the hard part. We are physical beings, why should all punishment be executed on the mind? Why is torture of the mind better? Is burden someone up with a significant debt is not seen as torture, but it is. So much so that some people commit suicide.

Grasshopper for rhino is awesome too. It's actually really relevant for this topic. It's the only syste I know that integrates so well into a precise cad design system and also allows you to do complex stuff easily. I love it. Drawing a stellarator precisely is probably not that hard on it... Will see if I can throw something out quickly today.

Very mature way of saying it: "crying"...

Good flame-bait.

Capitalists dont make anything apart from making collectively owned goods and services privately owned.

That is the whole game.

The Gestapo popularized passports. Think about that for a while.

I absolutely LOVE this comment. Thank you for this prose.

Actually, that is not the reason why they should exist. That is the story you are told. But this story has never been true, the propaganda is just a bit more effective these days.

I mean. Look at: Paw Patrol, Miami Vice, Tokyo Vice, the Wire, Criminal Minds, Chicago PD, Southland, Bosch, Law and Order: all of them, law and Order: all of them, CSI: all of them, Luther, The Shield, Reno 911, etc.

I mean this list is just from the top of my head.

We are being indoctrinated in our image of the police. Some rotten apples are shown, but in the end they are always The Good Guys.

Definitely not a non-argument. Its a circumstancial argument, that does not prove a whole lot, but its perfect against a unsubstantiated claim like the one its used against. It doesnt even have to have happened to be a good argument, because the counterparty does not give any facts either. Just a hollow statement. I love the Monty Python sketch on this subject: https://youtu.be/VKHFZBUTA4k

Its not possible anymore in the Netherlands either and its showing. More abuse of drugs and alcohol.

A big portion of people is going to get addicted anyways. The America has a far higher amount of addicts of all drugs and alcohol compared to the Netherlands. That is mostly policy and some cultural aspects.

I think this is bad advice.

This was already a solved problem. Just get the kids use all the stuff away from parents when they are between 14 and 18. Yes it will do a little bit of brain damage, but getting pissdrunk at that age and having your parents nurse you back to normal is a great experience for a kid. I know this from first hand experience, when I was 14 (it was sorta normal in the Netherlands at that time). I was a lot more carefully with any substances afterwards. As for addiction: kids are getting addicted to their phones and games all the time.

On the other hand, it burns almost invisible.

This sounds logical, until you find out that the only viable way (make H2 from electrolysis) is wildly inefficient (75% efficiënt), then compressing/chilling it for transport is only (90%) efficiënt, then converting it to electricity with a fuel cell (max 60% efficiënt), followed by powering an electric motor (95% efficiency).

This adds up to: 0.750.90.6*0.95=38% efficiency.

With an electric battery car. Its about 75-80% efficiënt in the whole chain. That means you need twice as many wind turbines to run the same amount of vehicle miles. The math just doesnt hold up.

So unless we cannot produce enough batteries or cannot make the grid stronger. Which both are possibilities. Hydrogen cars will probably be a dream. At this point it just doesnt make sense.

No, this is definitely not true. A lot of water in the middle ages was exceedingly bad quality. Especially in cities. People also have to remember that there was no running water. So people had to collect water. Because there were no sewage systems, the ground water was dangerous to drink. Although cooking water will kill the pathogens, it does not destroy all the poissons. Also they had the miasma theory of disease, so although many old books spoke of the benefits of cooking water, it was not, in fact, known that tiny things in the water were to be killed to make it safe for consumption. Add to that that fuel in cities was expensive and needed to be transported from afar. Also, getting a mug of beer from a vat is a lot less tedious than fetching water, making a fire and cooking it. So no, you are in fact wrong. Especially for city life, but also for around that.

Do remember that untill Pasteur proved the Germ theory in the mid 19th centurys. Many doctors never washed their hands before a surgery. Many, many women died unnecessarily during child birth because doctors helped with labor and did research on corpses on the same day.

Also, we do not live in a progressive zeitgeist. That is only the narrative. If you look at what is happening instead of what is being said, then not much is progressive or leftist about it. There is some pushing of individualistic identity politics. But these are not used to emancipate a class. They are used to create a new elite, that is "empathic". They are not talking about righting wrongs of poor people.

This is probably not true.for example: People know smoking kills. The tabacco industry even popularized stories about sad COPD patients that were dying in the hospital and still wouldnt quit smoking.

"Its that good!" "It's so nice! Even when you know it kills you, you still dont want to stop! Not to mention! Quiting is hard! Real hard! Dont try to quit. You will only suffer."

That is the narrative that they push.

The human mind is Strange sometimes.

Its context dependant. A dog without hair is arguably more gross...

*mother natures most effective HAIR conditioning