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So that could be one of the extra factors that we're looking for. People want/expect more, which has caused people to have to pay more. But I'm doubtful that it is going to account for a lot of the cost of living issue in Portugal.

I'd still like the GP to connect the dots for me on his "it's all demographics" argument. It sounds like are argument you hear on Reddit.

I'm struggling to follow your arguments.

"Boomers don't like immigrants/workers, therefore life is getting really expensive" doesn't really sound like good reasoning.

If the population is shrinking, demographics doesn't explain it by itself. Housing should be getting cheaper if there are less people competing for it. There must be another factor here.

Yeah, I think almost everyone recognises the decisions were more about politics, than sending people to the moon. It's a real shame, as blatent waste just gives space detractors very valid arguments to reduce NASA's budget.

Yes, human spaceflight is expensive, but SLS takes it to the next level. You have to admit that SLS has been a bit of a boondoggle, and is looking increasingly irrelevant.

Given falcon 9 has been launching crew dragon for a numbe of years, and Starship is the selected lander, and falcon heavy exists for heavy lift, why continue with the SLS?

I for one will enjoy watching the launch, and am excited by humans travelling to space, but would have like to see NASAs stop shovelling good money after bad.

Curious to know the relative costs of HVAC vs battery per megawatt/hour offset from peak solar production.

4000 KMs east to west is about 2.4 hours offset geographically. Would it be cheaper to have 2.4 hours of storage closer to the east coast of Australia, with solar farms close to the consumption? Or would building a 4000km HVAC transmission line from the west coast of Australia to the east coast be cheaper? I'd imagine there would be a tipping point where one option is more economical than the other.

Personally, I'd like to see WA's electricity network connected through to SA, and connect SA's through to NSW, but I also like the idea of many independent microgrids for the resilancy they'd offer.

Being hit by a cyclist is no laughing matter, especially if you are a child or elderly. That said, cyclist/pedestrian accidents account for relatively few deaths and injuries compared to other forms of transport.

Earlier this year I threw my son his USB earbuds container. Not a heavy thing. I threw it in a high arc, and on its way down it glanced off the edge of his MacBook screen. It seemed like the lightest of touches, but it must have hit in just the right (or wrong) spot, and the screen ended up with a large crack, and stopped working. I was super surprised how fragile the screen was, especially given how tough iPads and iPhone seem to be. When it happened, I couldn't believe such a light glancing blow could have done it. I was definitely responsible for cracking the screen through my actions, but it did highlight to me that macbooks are not robust at all, not the high quality I had come to expect.

I am interpreting the parent as saying before we can say something is post-human, we have to define (understand) what "human" is. If we cannot agree on what it is to be human, how can anyone be post-human? I.e. you can't define a "noun with modifier" until you define the noun.

> essentially imprisoning foreign residents

This sounds hyperbolic. Can you provide a link to a reputable source that shows foreign nationals being imprisoned?

They had a trial in Queensland. The plan is to allow both for the foreseeable future.

Whilst I am not super keen to have a national identity card, the Australian government has effectively linked all this info together already, with agencies cooperating.

Also, I'm not sure that a referendum held 35 years ago really means very much. In that time the population has grown from 16 million to 26 million, and many of the people who voted in the referendum would no longer be alive.

> After massive sacrifice, the country is now topping the charts in COVID deaths

You sound so out of touch with what the Australian experience has been.

Australia has had 14k deaths from COVID, vs over 1 million for the US. Percapita that is about 1/5 the deaths of the US. We've also had about 1.5 times the reported cases per capita than the US.

The strategy was to lock down until the population was vaccinated. Once that had happened, it was time to open back up again. Of course we were going to see more deaths.

Yes, the lockdowns were frustrated, yes unfortunate situationsboccurred. But going by the US stats, the response of the Australian government probably saved about 180 thousand lives.

Thanks for the link, it looks like an interesting project, and fun engineering challenge.

It would be interesting to see $ spent per tonne of garbage removed from the rivers vs ocean. Like you said, far more economical to focus on the source. Given no project has unlimited funds, why spend resources on the"garbage patch"? I suspect that they still work on the ocean part because:

1. Is better for fundraising;

2. Is a fun engineering challenge;

3. fun to work on big boats;

4. Helps with recruitment;

> remote controlled barge out in the pacific garbage patch

Whilst I like the thought behind idea, these ocean garbage patches aren't easy to clean up with a barge.

> For many people, the idea of a “garbage patch” conjures up images of an island of trash floating on the ocean. In reality, these patches are almost entirely made up of tiny bits of plastic, called microplastics. Microplastics can’t always be seen by the naked eye. Even satellite imagery doesn’t show a giant patch of garbage. The microplastics of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can simply make the water look like a cloudy soup. This soup is intermixed with larger items, such as fishing gear and shoes.

Better to clean things up at the source. It is estimated that 90% of all plastic waste in our oceans come from just 10 rivers in Asia.

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-paci...

https://m.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-fr...

I don't want to be that person, but you speak with such confidence, as if what you're saying is a commonly held definition of a word.

2:1 is definately lopsided, and "overwhelming" is not a precise defined term in regards to numbers, but a 2:1 ratio does not really match what i think when i hear the word overwhelming.

There's a possibility you're experiencing the difference between eau de toilette vs parfum. One is more concentrated than the other.

Also definitely possible things like shrinkflation are at play.

https://www.scotchnaturals.com/beauty-makeup/the-difference-...

SMRs are an opportunity for economies of scale to kick in for nuclear. If you can start building reactors in factories, and interate on designs, then you can see economies of scale kick in.*

That said, I am not super bullish on nuclear, and agree with your position. Solar and wind are just getting too cheap for nuclear to get the investment needed to catch-up. If we see someone crack the code on cheap storage of electiciy, solar and wind will runaway with the prize. Not coincidentally, storage is has vastly more investment of money and brains on looking for ways to scale vs nuclear.

*Safety concerns with nuclear will make iterative design difficult to pull off!

This still has the free rider problem at a nation state level. Let's say China invests 100 billion a year in innovation, and makes it all open. France then comes along and says "I don't need to bother with spending on innovation, I'll just use China's legwork, and spend my billion on out marketing china". China would eventually run out of cash for research.

What if they spent $20m to create the innovation? Who judges when an innovation is appropriate to convert in the manner? What happens to the innovations that aren't deemed worthy of conversion?

But science has a big system of distributing money up front to people to do the work of innovating. There is no such system in place to fund people developing innovative products that require significant up front investment.

Also the "product" of science innovation is the actual innovation and being first to publish. An equivalent freeloader problem would not be someone copying the idea/papers after they are released. It would be spying inside the laboratory, copying the ideas and releasing competing papers before the actual researcher releases their own. If that was happening, I am sure you would object.

Concepts for linear cities have been around for a long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_city

https://www.reddit.com/r/RetroFuturism/comments/uh9mhp/the_l...

Why convert to gas for heating later when you can just store heat itself?*

There was an article/discussion here recently about heat batteries using sand to store heat for months, to use for heating in winter. This tech seems fairly simple to implement at scale.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-07-19/sand-battery-...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32006791

*This is a rhetorical question, I'm sure everyone can easily think of many benefits. But there is elegance in simplicity.

Cool concept! Any efficiency numbers available? I couldn't see any in the linked press release.

Book reviews caused you to cancel your subscription? Why?

To be fair to the store, their privacy policy was likely designed to stop things like abusive spouses/parents tracking down people who they gave permission to use a card.

They should, but but it is not guaranteed. There is also a long way between having more wealth than most, and becoming upper class where you can live "comfortably" entirely off the earnings of your wealth.

My previous comment seemed to have touched a nerve with some people, which strange given that I (IMO) was politely providing commonly accepted definitions of words/terms, with supporting references. I guess people do not like the actual meanings of the words. Or perhaps I sounded like an condescending asshole :shrug:

Whilst I agree with most of what you wrote, you need to adjust your thinking on this bit:

> ... most Comcast users only reach about 1/4 of Comcast's monthly data cap, which corresponds to an average use of 1 Mbps ...

Household internet consumption, on average, varies greatly during the day. Most bandwidth usage is from streaming video, and that is mostly done when people are awake, and for a lot of people only in the evenings.

Your 1% calculation is made with the assumption that usage is constant, and is spread evenly across every minute of the day/month. In reality it is mostly all happening in a six hour period (that's an educated guess). Starlink would have to service this peaky traffic, your numbers are 4x out.

I think you should not be redefining what words mean to make your argument.

Wealthy means to have wealth. Wealth is the abundance of financial assets. Income can become wealth if saved/invested, but it is not wealth.

There are numerous definitions of middle class, with many being "not upper, not lower". Upper class is defined as those that have the most wealth (explicitly not income) and political power.

$People with 380k of income, but without significant assets are not upper class. They would be considered upper middle class.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wealthy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_class

> It’s no surprise that the region that gave birth to agriculture has also refined innovative sustainable agriculture methods for thousands of years. Pigeon towers were one such innovation—and they helped Persian farmers cultivate all kinds of crops on previously arid, thin-soil land.

Didn't ancient Persia originally have much more fertile soil, but unsustainable practices (like the introduction of goats) destroy the soil quality? I guess both can be true, initial poor practices necessitated the introduction of more sustainable techniques.

If it is anything like my kids school, the maintenance would be exactly the same regardless of the OS. The students are instructed to keep everything in their synced drive, and they reimage machines at the drop of a hat.